THE DREAMER
By JAMES HANLEY
EVERY morning at nine o'clock there was a queue of people waiting outside the library. They were mostly out-of-works, dock labourers, sailors, painters, factory hands, and occasionally a few clerks. But the majority of the men invariably came right from the dock stands. When promptly at nine the big door was opened by the elderly caretaker, the file of men moved into the library. In a few minutes, the reading-room was full. Amongst this crowd was a tall man whose dress was always the same. He wore a hard hat pressed down upon his head, an old raincoat, a faded pair of pin- striped trousers, and much-worn shoes. His name was Whibley. Joshua Whibley. He was about sixty years of age. A few minutes after the crowd entered the room faint whispers would be heard. " Joshua's in harness " they'd whisper one to the other. This remark was occasioned by Mr. Whibley's conduct. To some he appeared to live in the building, and whenever one approached the door, or emerged from it, one heard the same remark passed : " Whibley's in harness."
Mr. Whibley, having entered the reading-room, made straight for the Daily Ledger, whose pages he turned hurriedly, until his eyes rested on the racing page. He would pull a pencil and paper from his pocket and make some notes. This done he made way for others. He then retired to the long table and sat down. Nobody dared to sit there. It was recognized as only Joshua's place. Having seated himself he allowed his eyes to wander up and down the room, occasionally smiling as he beheld the excited groups of men trying to get a paper to themselves. Mr. Whibley was an easily satisfied man. He would lower his eyes and glance along the table, covered with magazines and books. Having made himself comfortable he fell to studying the men around him.
He noticed that the same gentlemen sat on his right
and left. The air was full of whisperings, a sort of inces- sant hum filled the room. Having taken a survey of the occupants of the table, Mr. Whibley raised his eyes and looked towards the library counter. He could see the Ted-haired young lady passing to and fro, hear books being placed on shelves. Sometimes the young lady would stand for a moment and subject the big reading room to a sweep- ing glance from her large grey eyes, eyes that Joshua imagined were resting especially upon his person. Once he was bold enough to return her glance, which made her laugh, turn on her heel and disappear behind the shelves.
The gentleman on his right he knew well. He was a very old man dressed in a sailor's reefer jacket and bell- bottomed trousers. In this library the regular habitues charted some special place at the long table, at the end of which stood two wire magazine holders. Not only did Joshua study their persons, he also studied their habits, and these latter so well that he could tell by looking at a man the moment he entered the room what kind of magazine he would pick from the holder. The old man on his right always read the American magazines, not the literary matter, but only -the advertisements therein, helped by a piece of camera lens when the print was small, as he had no spectacles. The person on his left was a middle-aged man dressed in dull black, whose large bald- head seemed to rest on the book he was so studiously reading. Joshua was greatly interested in this man, who had once been a chemist. Now he was nothing.
Having finished his study of the old man and the chemist, Mr. Whibley sat erect, his expression became tense, and, as though drawn by a magnet, he rose stiffly from his seat and walked across to the counter. He would stand there for a moment until the red-haired girl approached, when he immediately lowered his eyes. and busied himself writing out a chit. Under books required he wrote in his large, bold handwriting, " THE TALE4 OF BANDELLO," and signed it JOSHUA WHIBLEY, LABOURER. He then handed this to the girl and waited. His eyes swept the floor ; his whole body appeared to tremble whilst he waited for the girl to return. At last she would arrive at the counter with the book. It was large and very heavy. She always_ banged it down on the desk, as though from sheer.disgust, not from a knowledge of its contents, but from the mere fact that such a dull, uninteresting person like Mr. Whibley, should make her go below stairs for a heavy book.
Then their eyes -would meet. With his expression still tense, he reached out for the book. Thanking her, he walked back to the table. He sat down, drew a deep breath, and laid his heavy band on the book. At that very moment all eyes were turned towards Joshua.. Under this human battery Mr. Whibley fumbled clumsily with the stout brass clasp of the book. Then the murmurs would commence anew. " Joshua's in harness." This whispering rising on the wave of so many breaths always made Mr. Whibley lower his head and open' his book at Once. Having released the clasp and opened the large book, the whispering ceased, for Joshua no longer heard it. Like the room itself, like the huddled groups of men, like the red-haired young lady, the whisperings had vanished. By that magic release of the brass clasp Joshua had precipitated himself into a quite different world.
His eyes rested upon the title-page. THE T kLES OF BANDELLO. WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATION'S. He stared at this for some time, then began a casual, almost indifferent turning of its pages, a sort of preliminary survey, a bird's-eye view of the new world over which his spirit now hovered ; a kind of mental whetting of the palate, a preparation for the feast, a dimly conscious awareness of security, of being alone, imperiously alone; free from all contacts, -from all reality; free from those bodies, their various coloured clothes, their breathings. More, Mr. Joshua Whibley had closed down a door in his own mind, shutting out the Mr. Whibley of the past, all the experiences and conditions that had patterned him, so that now, his eyes ransacking the large pages of Bandello, he was immune from Mr. Whibley who was, and all his consequences, secure in his dream-world, from all actuality, from the amorphous mass that made up the world.
Here was a dream world that slowly came to life under the passionate intensity of his gaze. A veritable ravish- ment of the spirit and the senses, escaped from the mesh of all reality. Footsteps passed and repassed, books shut with a snap, the wire rack grated upon the table, a clock struck. Outside a car back-fired. The sub-librarian called sharply to an assistant. But Joshua heard nothing. He had passed out of the world on a tempestuous wave, a wave of delirious and delicious expectation, and now was fast. and bound and alone. The creatures from Mr. Bandello's dream world looked out at Joshua. So he wandered in-spirit through this magic world that became flesh and blood beneath the rapture of his gaze. His eyes rested on a naked creature, and his face assumed a trance:like expression. Whispers floated about the room.
Old lecher ! " " Old beast " But Joshua's spirit had passed into those living pages. So he would sit for hours with this book, until the cold hand of reality drew him from his dream. This cold hand was none other than the caretaker's, telling him it was time to go. Joshua, so rudely a wakened from his dream, would. assume an almost horrified expression. To him, the caretaker's carefully waxed moustaches looked like the horns of the devil.
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