I HAVE lately received a visit from an old acquaintance who floated in my direction on such a sea of trouble that I have been in low spirits ever since. Moreover, as it was a family affair, I could not interfere in any way, and the knowledge of my own impotence has only increased my depression. My only hope of keeping my thoughts from what is, after all, no business of mine lies in passing on the tale—if such a mournful recital of family dissensions can be called a tale—and thus making others share the burden.

I cannot remember, for the moment, when and where I first met old Tom Cribcrack, my late visitor, but we have been acquainted for a good many years. He must be past fifty now (how the time goes on!), but being a fine upstanding fellow, closely shaved and with his bristly hair always cropped short, he looks considerably younger. His father, a dear old man—I met him once—was in the coining business in its best days, but such a sedentary occupation did not suit young Cribcrack, and he was soon apprenticed to a successful burglar. In his own way, Tom was an enthusiastic, clever lad, and it was not long before he became an expert craftsman himself. He decided to devote his life to the profession, and though, like other men, he has had his bad times, he has been on the whole a very successful practitioner, respected by all workers in the same field. He has had a good connection, mostly among the upper middle-class, and has always preferred a rather slow but steady run of business to a few brilliant coups; he has kept away from the showy work, and has never had the slightest desire for publicity, which is probably the reason why his name is not so well known to the general public as that of many an inferior craftsman. ‘No fancy work for Tom Cribcrack,’ he has said more than once in my hearing. ‘Punctuality, neat workmanship, despatch—that’s the motto for a man what wants to get on in my line.’ In short, he was a good specimen of the modest self-made Englishman, and is still, to this day, though now subdued in spirit by a great disappointment, as you shall learn.

It was not until Cribcrack was thirty or so and had got on to his feet that he did what most sensible men do sooner or later—he took a wife. This was a Miss Judy Graggins, eldest daughter of ‘Basher’ Graggins, of Cod’s Alley, a well-known character in his day. The result of this happy union was a family of several daughters but only one son, greatly to the disappointment of both parents. Looking back, as Cribcrack pointed out the other day, one cannot help noticing how small things have often an important bearing on the future; for whereas there had been no difficulty about the girls’ names, when it came to naming the boy there was for a time some difference between the doting parents. The father wished to give the boy a plain, sturdy sort of name, Jem or Bill, such as all the Cribcracks had borne; but, greatly to his surprise, his wife, for no apparent reason, but from sheer feminine perversity, would have none of these, and insisted on the child being called Ernest, a name unknown to the Cribcrack family and one which the father himself regarded with the greatest contempt. In the end, the mother’s whim prevailed, and the boy was known henceforth as Ernest Cribcrack.

As might be expected, the advent of a son made a great difference to my old acquaintance, who, like many other fathers, began to see a fresh purpose in life. His enthusiasm for his professional work was unabated, but his son came to share with it the first place in his thoughts, and it was not long before his one aim was to bring together these two all-absorbing, beloved things, his son and his work. Morning after morning, after the nightly duties were at end, Cribcrack would sit smoking by the fire, watching the sturdy infant at play and dreaming of the time when he could teach the boy all he knew of the ancient craft, and they could go out to work together. Then some day they would be known as Cribcrack and Son to other members of the profession, and in many a tavern some old hand would remark: ‘That was a fine piece of work young Cribcrack pulled off the other night. Just like his father, he is....’

For a time all went well. It was not long before Ernest, a sturdy little boy, would hear of no other calling for his manhood but his father’s profession. On his seventh or eighth birthday he was given the boy’s burglary outfit, and he would play for hours on end with the little jemmy and other implements, under the direction of his delighted parent. At times the boy would seem to prefer piracy or even engine-driving, but Tom knew that these were only the vagaries of childhood; the boy would soon see the course before him. Like most fathers, however, Cribcrack never opened out his heart to young Ernest, or Ern’, as he was known to the family. He cherished his dream in secret, and waited for the appointed time to speak, so that the lad might choose for himself. But again, like most fathers, he never doubted that when the moment did come the boy would choose the right course. As time went on, however, Ernest became rather a puzzle. For example, contrary to his father’s expectations, he did not show any particular aversion to ordinary schooling; indeed, he seemed to become fond of it as he grew older. In this, as in some other things, his father, a little uneasy, humoured him, so that at the time when he should have begun his real apprenticeship he was still spending his time with copy-books and geography primers. After all, Tom reflected, the boy was a Cribcrack, and would know where his duty lay.

But when the time came for the father to speak, the great blow fell. Ernest steadfastly refused to follow his father’s profession, and swept aside the career that Tom had marked out for him. Now vehement, now sulky, sometimes tearful, at other times derisive—the boy would be neither persuaded nor bullied into changing his mind. It was not that he loathed the burglar’s ancient craft, but while the father had been dreaming his dreams so, too, he had had his own vision—he would be a clerk, and nothing else would do for him. On his way to school he had seen clerks in their stiff white collars and shiny blue suits, crowding out of their offices at the dinner hour; he had caught glimpses of them as they bent over their ledgers beneath the shaded electric lights; his boy’s heart had been thrilled, and he too had had his dream. It was useless to argue that the Cribcracks had never descended to office stools; that the glamour would soon fade and leave him face to face with cold reality. Ernest had decided that he was meant to be a clerk, and a clerk he would be, however difficult and dangerous the road he must travel.

What more need be said. Cribcrack entreated, reproached, threatened, but all in vain. His great dream was shattered, and, cursing the fateful name of Ernest, he bundled the lad out of his house, and shortly afterwards came, a broken man, to see me. Ernest, I believe, is now in the office of the Origen Orange-Ale Company, and though he occasionally pilfers a few stamps, there is little of the fine old Cribcrack spirit about him.