THE DRAPER'S ADVENTURE.
MR. C. W. McFARLANE, who during his examination in the Court of Bankruptcy on Friday week, told one of the most delightfully romantic narratives of adventure which we have read for a long time, is, or was, a draper. Destiny, we are inclined to think, arranged expressly that he should be a draper in order that his narrative of gun-running in Tripoli should have the proper zest and savour of contrast. When Cowper wanted to bring adventure to the normally unadventurous he made John Gilpin a draper. He might have made him a tailor from the point of view of horseman- ship ; but he decided quite rightly that he should be a linen- draper bold. Mr. H. G. Wells had the same true perception when, in his inimitable story, " The Wheels of Chance," he made Mr. Hoopdriver a draper's assistant. If Mr. Hoopdriver had not been a draper we should have felt a less tender indulgence towards his reckless mendacities about his big- game shooting when he was trying to make an impression on Miss Milton.
Owing to ill-health and domestic troubles Mr. McFarlane sold his drapery business in the Isle of Wight in November 1911 for £900, out of which he settled with creditors to the amount of £250, leaving creditors for £613 unpaid. We lose sight of him till January of the present year, when he appears in a public-house in the Strand. There he met three men "who told him that they were members of a syndicate formed to land guns and ammunition for the Turks at Tripoli." On the following day be returned by arrangement with a £500 Bank of England note and met the same three men. So far the narrative has a strong family likeness to the narratives familiar in police courts, which end in the successful accomplishment of the confidence trick. But we are disap- pointed, or rather gratified, by the original turn of Mr. McFarlane's story. The three men did not offer to prove the completeness of their good faith in general and their confidence in Mr. McFarlane in particular (for these gentlemen one meets in public-houses are wonderful readers of character, and recognize at sight an honest man who may be trusted) by inviting him to walk away for a few minutes in posses- sion of fifty pounds of their money. Nor did they ask Mr. McFarlane to prove a similar confidence in their honesty by allowing them a little later on to go to the end of the street with fifty pounds of his money, while be awaited their return in the public-house. On the contrary, although they relieved him of fifty pounds out of his £500 Bank of England note they gave him a handsome return for his money. They made him an active member of a syndicate for running guns through to the Turks in Tripoli, with the expectation of sharing in the profits and the chance of being killed thrown in. Including Mr. McFarlane there were six members of the syndicate. The leader, a Mr. Wilson, who was the first to see what a valuable member of the syndicate Mr. McFarlane would be, was described as a retired Army officer.
One would like to know which public-house it was that through the casual commerce of the bar brought the realities of gun-running in Tripoli to the cognizance of Mr. McFarlane. Stevenson's wayward fancy was tickled by peopling London with figures who belonged to the Arabian Nights. The courage of poor Mr. Malthus failed him when the lot of the Suicide Club fell upon him ; but the occasion and the man truly came together when Mr. McFarlane heard of the gun-running syndicate. He was now justified of the drapery business. He jumped at the offer of running the blockade in the syndicate's ship, and arranged to sail from Wapping within a few days. It is said that public-houses in the Strand keep their peculiar clienteles more strictly than others in London. There are actors' houses, for instance, and a bookmakers' house, and a bagmen's house. But which is the expeditionary house, or house of militant foreign trade P The necessity of lunching, an office near the Strand, and a natural taste for pirates combine to make the desire to place this house of entertainment irresistible.
In due course, as arranged, the ship sailed from Wapping with Mr. McFarlane and the five other members of the syndicate on board. All this was highly original. The man who flees abroad from commercial embarrassment at home, whether brought about by misfortune or by the untimely intervention of the police, is generally impelled by a different motive. Perhaps, like Mr. Hoopdriver, he desires to make an impression on a woman. Certainly a woman is generally in the case, as happened to M. Galley, the French bank clerk who stole thousands of pounds and bought a yacht and sailed across the Atlantic with the lady who had in- spired the adventure. But there is, of course, no comparison between the escapades of swindlers and the frank adventure of Mr. McFarlane. Enough to say that " the feminine interest," as the critics of novels say, was as rigidly ex- cluded from the affairs of the syndicate as from a novel of adventure by Stevenson. Original, too, was the idea of the syndicate in making known to a stranger plans that were real plans. It is possible to pick up many unreal secrets and confidences from unknown people in London, but not this sort of thing. The writer recollects being told of a curious experience which befell a friend of his once in an encounter with one of those curious people who will endure any sub- sequent humiliation from exposure so long as they can enjoy the pleasure of a passing triumph through pretending to be what they are not. The young man who related the incident fell into conversation one evening with a stranger at a small table in a crowded restaurant. The stranger, with embarrassing frankness, imposed many confidences on the young man ; informed him that he was immensely rich; insisted on order- ing and paying for wine; and finally ended up by saying that he had taken a fancy to his companion, who had only to say what he wanted most in the world for it to be put at his disposal if money could procure it. The young man, dis- liking to put himself under any obligation to a stranger as much as he disliked to appear rudely to reject an offer so handsomely made, compromised by saying that he should like above all things some more of the excellent wine they had been drinking. A twinge of surprise, discomfiture, and pain passed across the face of the stranger, and some circuitous excuses brought the matter to an end without any more wine being ordered. This inexplicable person was prepared to promise Eldorado for the next day, but to pay for another bottle of wine on the spot happened to be beyond his pro- gramme and his purse.
But to return to Wapping. It is true that the ship Esmeralda' in which the syndicate sailed is not known to the Port of London authorities, but Mr. McFarlane, as he said, may have confused the name. Victor Hugo gibbeted his Esmeralda, but we shall not gibbet Mr. McFarlane's.
We can see the syndicate passing the time during the voyage. They played at banker, brag—we should probably have spoilt the whole thing by calling it poker—and nap. At these games of skill Mr. McFarlane lost £215. He also advanced a further £135 for the syndicate. We confess that we wish this last deal had not happened. It seems less original than what went before—more like the familiar deals related in police courts. On the other hand, we must not forget that Mr.
McFarlane said nothing about paying for the expenses of the voyage—there was a crew of twenty-four men, and the first £50 would not have gone very far for that purpose. At all events the syndicate, by giving Mr. McFarlane a share in the expectations of profits (of which his share in the trading at banker, brag, and nap was an earnest), followed the ancient custom of some of the merchants of London of allowing their needy friends and dependents to venture something in a trading expedition. It was thus that Dick Whittington ventured his cat in a trading ship going to the Barbary coast. If Whittington had been a draper he would, of course, have gone himself in the ship, but as he was only a mercer he stayed at home waiting ignobly for the profits from the sale of the cat.
The reason why Mr. McFarlane's share in the syndicate
brought him no profits was given in the latter part of his narrative "After a trip of about eleven days they reached the African coast some 125 miles west of Tripoli. They landed the guns and ammunition by means of boats, and travelled with them, under the guidance of natives, for about 100 miles inland until they reached a Turkish fort, where the officer in command gave Wilson a draft on the Turkish Government for the value of the consign- ment. All six members of the syndicate took part in the war. Wilson and another were killed, and the draft, which was in Wilson's possession, was never recovered. He did not know what became of the other three members of the syndicate, and had never seen or heard of them since. He did not know any of their names, except Wilson's, and so far as he knew his name was unknown to them. Ho himself fell ill with sunstroke and rheumatic fever, and was nursed by the Turks for two weeks He was then taken down to the coast by Arabs, who pnt him into a sailing vessel, which landed him at Valetta. Thence he took ship for Southampton, which he reached on March 18th with £140 of his money left."
Mr. McFarlane made only one mistake in his examination. He said that when he agreed to Mr. Wilson's plan in the
public-house in the Strand he was "not in full possession of his senses." This was a weakness in him. Why, he entered then upon the time of his life! That is the sober fact. We do not suppose that Mr. Cook or Sir Henry Lunn could have given him better value for his money. And thousands of persons who have read his statement have enjoyed his adven- tures too. That, we may say, is worth paying something for, since all consolation is useful in bankruptcy. In the experi- ences of Mr. McFarlane we feel that human nature is at last creeping up to the intense realities of melodrama. Like Mr. Hoopdriver, the latest draper to bring credit to his trade will
perhaps return from his romance to his drapery, but with a difference—with wonderful memories and still more wonderful ambitions.
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