A Friend In Need
For thirty years now I have been studying my fellowmen. I do not know
very much about them, and yet I suppose it by the face that for the most
part we judge the persons we meet. We draw our conclusions from the shape
of the jaw , the look in the eyes, the contour of the month. I wonder if we
are more often fight than wrong . I shrug my shoulders when people tell me
that their first impression of a person are always right. For my own part I
find that the longer I know people the more they puzzle me; my oldest
friends are just those of whom I can say that I don’t know anything about
them.
These reflections have occurred to me because I read in this morning’s
paper that Edward Hyde Burton had died at Kobe. He was a merchant and he
had been in business in Japan for many years. I knew him very little , but
he interested me because once he gave me a great surprise. Unless I heard
the story from own lips should never have believed that he was capable of
such an action. It was the more startling because both his appearance and
his manner suggested a very different man.
He was a tiny little fellow , not much more than five feet four in
height , and very slender, with white hair , a red face much wrinkled, and
blue eyes. I suppose he was about sixty when I knew him . He was always
neatly dressed , in accordance with his age and station
Though his office were in Kobe Burton often came down to Yokohama. It
happened that on one occasion I had to spend o few days there , waiting for
a ship, and I was introduced to him at the British club. We played bridge
together. He did not talk to be much, but what he said was sensible. He had
a quiet dryhumour. He seemed to be popular at the club and afterwards ,
when he had gone they described him as one of the best.
It happened that we were both staying at the Grand Hotel and next day
he asked me too dine with him. I met his wife , fat elderly and smiling ,
and his two daughters . I think the chief that struck me about Burton was
his kindliness. There was something very pleasing in his mild blue eyes.
His voice was gentle; you could not imagine that he could raise it in
anger. He liked his game of cards and his cocktail, he could tell with
point a good story , and in his youth he had been something of an athlete.
He was a rich man and he had made every penny himself. I suppose one
thing that made you like him was that he was so small and frail; you wanted
to protect him. You felt that he could not bear to hurt a fly.
One afternoon I was sitting in the lounge of the Grand Hotel.
Burton came into the lounge and caught sight of me. He seated himself
in the chair next to mine.
“What do you say to a little drink?”
he clapped his hands for a boy and ordered two gin fizzes. As the boy
brought them a man passed along the street outside and seeing me waved his
hand.
“ Do you know Turner?” said Burton as I nodded a greeting.
“I’ve met him at the club , I’m told he’s a remittance man.”
“Yes , I believe he is . we have a good many here.”
“He plays bridge well.”
“ They generally do. There was a fellow here last year , who was the
best bridge player I ever met. I suppose you never came across him in
London. Lenny Burton he called himself. I believe he’d belonged to the
name.”
“ No, I don’t believe I remember the mane.”
“ he was quite a remarkable player . He seemed to have an instinct
about the cards. It was uncanny. I used to play with him a lot. He was in
Kobe for some time.”
Burton sipped his din fizz.
(After S. Maugham)
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