Mr. Mulliner Stories

The Truth About George

Two men were sitting in the bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest as I entered it; and one of them, I gathered from his low, excited voice and wide gestures, was telling the other a story. I could hear nothing but an occasional “Biggest I ever saw in my life!” and “Fully as large as that!” but in such a place it was not difficult to imagine the rest; and when the second man, catching my eye, winked at me with a sort of humorous misery, I smiled sympathetically back at him.

The action had the effect of establishing a bond between us; and when the storyteller finished his tale and left, he came over to my table as if answering a formal invitation.

“Dreadful liars some men are,” he said genially.

“Fishermen,” I suggested, “are traditionally careless of the truth.”

“He wasn’t a fisherman,” said my companion. “That was our local doctor. He was telling me about his latest case of dropsy. Besides”—he tapped me earnestly on the knee—“you must not fall into the popular error about fishermen. Tradition has maligned them. I am a fisherman myself, and I have never told a lie in my life.”

I could well believe it. He was a short, stout, comfortable man of middle age, and the thing that struck me first about him was the extraordinary childlike candour of his eyes. They were large and round and honest. I would have bought oil stock from him without a tremor.

The door leading into the white dusty road opened, and a small man with rimless pince-nez and an anxious expression shot in like a rabbit and had consumed a gin and ginger-beer almost before we knew he was there. Having thus refreshed himself, he stood looking at us, seemingly ill at ease.

“N-n-n-n-n-n—” he said.

We looked at him inquiringly.

“N-n-n-n-n-n-ice d-d-d-d—”

His nerve appeared to fail him, and he vanished as abruptly as he had come.

“I think he was leading up to telling us that it was a nice day,” hazarded my companion.

“It must be very embarrassing,” I said, “for a man with such a painful impediment in his speech to open conversation with strangers.”

“Probably trying to cure himself. Like my nephew George. Have I ever told you about my nephew George?”

I reminded him that we had only just met, and that this was the first time I had learned that he had a nephew George.

“Young George Mulliner. My name is Mulliner. I will tell you about George’s case—in many ways a rather remarkable one.”

My nephew George (said Mr. Mulliner) was as nice a young fellow as you would ever wish to meet, but from childhood up he had been cursed with a terrible stammer. If he had had to earn his living, he would undoubtedly have found this affliction a great handicap, but fortunately his father had left him a comfortable income; and George spent a not unhappy life, residing in the village where he had been born and passing his days in the usual country sports and his evenings in doing crossword puzzles. By the time he was thirty he knew more about Eli, the prophet, Ra, the Sun God, and the bird Emu than anybody else in the county except Susan Blake, the vicar’s daughter, who had also taken up the solving of crossword puzzles and was the first girl in Worcestershire to find out the meaning of “stearine” and “crepuscular.”

It was his association with Miss Blake that first turned George’s thoughts to a serious endeavour to cure himself of his stammer. Naturally, with this hobby in common, the young people saw a great deal of one another: for George was always looking in at the vicarage to ask her if she knew a word of seven letters meaning “appertaining to the profession of plumbing,” and Susan was just as constant a caller at George’s cosy little cottage, being frequently stumped, as girls will be, by words of eight letters signifying “largely used in the manufacture of poppet-valves.” The consequence was that one evening, just after she had helped him out of a tight place with the word “disestablishmentarianism,” the boy suddenly awoke to the truth and realized that she was all the world to him—or, as he put it to himself from force of habit, precious, beloved, darling, much-loved, highly esteemed or valued.

And yet, every time he tried to tell her so, he could get no further than a sibilant gurgle which was no more practical use than a hiccup.

Something obviously had to be done, and George went to London to see a specialist.

“Yes?” said the specialist.

“I-I-I-I-I-I-I—” said George.

“You were saying—?”

“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo—”

“Sing it,” said the specialist.

“S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s—?” said George, puzzled.

The specialist explained. He was a kindly man with moth-eaten whiskers and an eye like a meditative codfish.

“Many people,” he said, “who are unable to articulate clearly in ordinary speech find themselves lucid and bell-like when they burst into song.”

It seemed a good idea to George. He thought for a moment; then threw his head back, shut his eyes, and let it go in a musical baritone.

“I love a lassie, a bonny, bonny lassie,” sang George. “She’s as pure as the lily in the dell.”

“No doubt,” said the specialist, wincing a little.

“She’s as sweet as the heather, the bonny purple heather—Susan, my Worcestershire bluebell.”