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TAKEN FROM: FLAX-GOLDEN TALES
UNIT
ELEVEN: Critical and Creative Thinking
Mr. Know-All
W. Somerset Maugham (England, 1874-1965)
I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war1 had
just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was
heavy. Accommodation was very hard to
get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself
and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank.
It suggested closed portholes2 and
the night air rigidly excluded. It was
bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San
Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my
fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.
When I went on board
I found Mr. Kelada’s luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too
many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I
observed that he was a patron of the excellent
Monsieur Coty;3 for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hairwash and his brilliantine.4 Mr. Kelada’s brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would
have been all the better for a scrub. I
did not at all like Mr. Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to
play patience.5 I
had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in
thinking my name was so and so.
“I am Mr.
Kelada,” he added, with a smile that showed a
row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
“Oh, yes, we’re sharing a cabin, I think.”
“Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who
you’re going to be put in with. I was
jolly glad when I heard you were English.
I’m all for us English sticking together when we’re abroad, if you
understand what I mean.”
I blinked.
“Are you English?” I
asked, perhaps tactlessly.
“Rather.
You don’t think I look like an American, do you? British
to the backbone, that’s what I am.”
To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of
his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George6 has
many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and
dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid
eyes. His long black hair was sleek and
curly. He spoke with a fluency in which
there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection
of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born
under a bluer sky7 than
is generally seen in England.
“What will you have?” he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone dry. When I am not thirsty
I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an
oriental smile at me.
“Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have
only to say the word.”
From each of his hip pockets he furnished a
flask and laid it on the table before me.
I chose the martini, and calling the steward he
ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.
“A very good cocktail,” I said.
“Well, there are plenty more where that came
from, and if you’ve got any friends on board, you tell them you’ve got a pal
who’s got all the liquor in the world.”
Mr. Kelada was
chatty. He talked of New York and of San
Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures,
and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of
drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from
Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in
dignity. Mr. Kelada was
familiar. I do not wish to put on airs,
but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister
before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such
formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the
cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our
conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.
“The three on the four,” said Mr. Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you
are playing patience than to be told where to put the
card you have turned up before you have a chance to look for yourself.
“It’s coming out, it’s coming out,” he
cried. “The ten on the
knave.”
With rage and hatred in my heart
I finished.
Then he seized the pack.
“Do you like card tricks?”
“No, I hate card tricks,” I answered.
“Well, I’ll just show you this one.”
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at the table.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said, “I’ve already
taken a seat for you. I thought that as
we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same table.”
I did not like Mr. Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate
three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck
without his joining me. It was
impossible to snub8 him. It
never occurred to him that he was not wanted.
He was certain that you were as glad to see him
as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the
door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome
visitor. He was a good mixer, and in
three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps,9 conducted the auctions, collected money for
prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best
hated man in the ship. We called
him Mr. Know-All, even
to his face. He took it as a
compliment. But it was at mealtimes that
he was most intolerable. For the better
part of an hour then he had us at his mercy.
He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and
argumentative. He knew everything better
than anybody else, and it was an affront to his
overweening10 vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however
unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could
be mistaken never occurred to him.
He was the chap who knew. We sat
at the doctor’s table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the
doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay
who sat there also. He was as dogmatic
as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine’s
cocksureness. The discussions they had
were acrimonious and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service
and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle
West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made
clothes. He was on his way back to
resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife
who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a
very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular
Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how
to wear her clothes. She achieved an
effect of quiet distinction. I should
not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality
that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. It shone
in her like a flower on a coat.
One evening at dinner
the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of
talk about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the
doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon
be perfect. Mr. Kelada, as was his
habit, rushed the new topic. He told us
all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about
them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the
Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle
of a heated argument. I had seen
Mr. Kelada
vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and
vehement as now. At last
something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted.
“Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I’m going to Japan just to look into this Japanese
pearl business. I’m in the trade and
there’s not a man in it who won’t tell you that what I say about pearls
goes. I know all the best pearls in the
world, and what I don’t know about pearls isn’t worth knowing.”
Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all
his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to
Japan on some commercial errand. He
looked around the table triumphantly.
“They’ll never be able to get a cultured pearl
that an expert like me can’t tell with half an eye.” He
pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay
wore. “You take my word for it,
Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you’re wearing
will never be worth a cent less than it is now.”
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and
slipped the chain inside her dress.
Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us
all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
“That’s a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay’s, isn’t it?”
“I noticed it at once,” answered Mr. Kelada. “Gee, I said to
myself, those are pearls all right.”
“I didn’t buy it myself, of course. I’d be interested to know how much you think
it cost.”
“Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen
thousand dollars. But if it was bought
on Fifth Avenue I shouldn’t be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand
was paid for it.”
Ramsay smiled grimly.
“You’ll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department
store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.”
Mr. Kelada flushed.
“Rot.
It’s not only real, but it’s as fine a string for its size as I’ve ever
seen.”
“Will you bet on it? I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s imitation.”
“Done.”
“Oh, Elmer, you can’t bet on a certainty,”
said Mrs. Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her
tone was gently deprecating.
“Can’t I?
If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a
fool not to take it.”
“But how can it be proved?” she
continued. “It’s only my word against
Mr. Kelada’s.”
“Let me look at the chain, and if it’s
imitation I’ll tell you quickly enough.
I can afford to lose a hundred dollars,” said Mr. Kelada.
“Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he
wants.”
Mrs. Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
“I can’t undo it,” she said, “Mr. Kelada will just
have to take my word for it.”
I had a sudden suspicion that something
unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
“I’ll undo it.”
He handed the chain to Mr. Kelada. The Levantine took
a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and
swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs. Ramsay’s face. It was so white that she looked as though she
were about to faint. She was staring at
him with wide and terrified eyes. They
held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not
see it.
Mr. Kelada stopped with
his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making
over himself.
“I was mistaken,” he said. “It’s very good imitation, but of course as
soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn’t real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as
much as the damned thing’s worth.”
He took out his pocketbook and from it a hundred dollar note.
He handed it to Ramsay without a word.
“Perhaps that’ll teach you not to be so
cocksure another time, my young friend,” said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr. Kelada’s hands were
trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do,
and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught
out. But Mrs. Ramsay retired to her stateroom with a
headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr. Kelada lay on his
bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there
was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written
in block letters. I handed it to him.
“Who’s this from?” He
opened it. “Oh!”
He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but
a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me
and again he reddened. He tore the
envelope into little bits and gave them to me.
“Do you mind just throwing them out of the
porthole?”
I did as he asked, and then I looked at him
with a smile.
“No one likes being made to look a perfect
damned fool,” he said.
“Were the pearls real?”
“If I had a pretty little wife
I shouldn’t let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe,” said he.
At that moment I did
not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. He reached out for his pocketbook and
carefully put in it the hundred-dollar note.
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