The Fly
Mansfield
.. 

  "Y'are very snug in here," piped old Mr. Woodifield,
and he peered out of the great, green-leather armchair
by his friend the boss's desk as a baby peers out of its pram.
His talk was over; it was time for him to be off. But he did
not want to go. Since he had retired, since his...stroke, the
wife and the girls kept him boxed up in the house every day of
the week except Tuesday. On Tuesday he was dressed and
brushed and allowed to cut back to the City for the day. Though
what he did there the wife and girls couldn't imagine. Made a
nuisance of himself to his friends, they supposed....Well,
perhaps so. All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as the
tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield,
smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss, who
rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he,
and still going strong, still at the helm. It did one good to see
him.
  Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, "It's snug in here,
upon my word!"
  "Yes, it's comfortable enough," agreed the boss, and he


flipped the F_i_n_a_n_c_i_a_l__T_i_m_e_s_ with a paper-knife. As a matter of
fact he was proud of his room; he liked to have it admired,
especially by old Woodifield. It gave him a feeling of deep,
solid satisfaction to be planted there in the midst of it in full view
of that frail old figure in the muffler.
  "I've had it done up lately," he explained, as he had explained
for the past -- how many? -- weeks. "New carpet," and he
pointed to the bright red carpet with a pattern of large white
rings. "New furniture," and he nodded towards the massive
bookcase and the table with legs like twisted treacle. "Electric
heating!" He waved almost
.. 

exultantly towards the five transparent,
pearly sausages glowing so softly in the tilted copper
pan.
  But he did not draw old Woodifield's attention to the
photograph over the table of a grave-looking boy in uniform
standing in one of those spectral photographers' parks with
photographers' storm-clouds behind him. It was not new.
It had been there for over six years.
  "There was something I wanted to tell you," said old
Woodifield, and his eyes grew dim remembering. "Now
what was it? I had it in my mind when I started out
this morning." His hands began to tremble, and patches of
red showed above his beard.
  Poor old chap, he's on his last pins, thought the boss. And,
feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said jokingly,
"I tell you what. I've got a little drop of something here that'll
do you good before you go out into the cold again. It's beautiful
stuff. It wouldn't hurt a child." He took a key off his watch-chain,
unlocked a cupboard below his desk, and drew forth a
dark, squat bottle. "That's the medicine," said he. "And the
man from whom I got it told me on the strict Q.T. it came from
the cellars at Windor Castle."
  Old Woodifield's mouth fell open at the sight. He couldn't
have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a
rabbit.


  "It's whisky, ain't it?" he piped feebly.
  The boss turned the bottle and lovingly showed him the
label. Whisky it was.
  "D'you know," said he, peering up at the boss wonderingly,
"they won't let me touch it at home." And he looked as though
he was going to cry.
  "Ah, that's where we know a bit more than the ladies,"
cried the boss, swooping across for two tumblers that stood
on the table with the water-bottle, and pouring a generous
finger into each. "Drink it down. It'll do you good.
And don't put any water with it. It's sacrilege to tamper
with stuff like this. Ah!" He tossed off his, pulled out his
handkerchief, hastily wiped his moustaches, and cocked an
eye at old Woodifield, who was rolling his in his chaps.
  The old man swallowed, was silent a moment, and then said
faintly, "It's nutty!"
.. 

  But it warmed him; it crept into his chill old brain -- he
remembered.
  "That was it," he said, heaving himself out of his chair. "I
thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last
week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened
to come across your boy's. They're quite near each other,
it seems."
  Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a
quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.
  "The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept,"
piped the old voice. "Beautifully looked after. Couldn't be
better if they were at home. You've not been across, have
yer?"
  "No, no!" For various reasons the boss had not been
across.
  "There's miles of it," quavered old Woodifield, "and it's all
as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice
broad paths." It was plain from his voice how much he liked
a nice broad path.


  The pause came again. Then the old man brightened
wonderfully.
  "D'you know what the hotel made the girls pay for a pot
of jam?" he piped. "Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It was a
little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than a half-crown. And
she hadn't taken more than a spoonful when they charged her
ten francs. Gertrude brought the pot away with her to teach
'em a lesson. Quite right, too; it's trading on our feelings.
They think because we're over there having a look round we're
ready to pay anything. That's what it is." And he turned
towards the door.
  "Quite right, quite right!" cried the boss, though what was
quite right he hadn't the least idea. He came round by his
desk, followed the shuffling footsteps to the door, and saw the
old fellow out. Woodifield was gone.
  For a long moment the boss stayed, staring at nothing, while
the grey-haired office messenger, watching him, dodged in and
out of his cubby-hole like a dog that expects to be taken for a
run. Then: "I'll see nobody for half an hour, Macey," said the
boss. "Understand? Nobody at all."
   "Very good, sir."
  The door shut, the firm heavy steps recrossed the bright
carpet, the fat body plumped down in the spring chair, and
.. 

leaning forward, the boss covered his face with his hands. He
wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep....
  It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield
sprang that remark upon him about the boy's grave. It was
exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy
lying there with Woodifield's girls staring down at him. For
it was strange. Although over six years had passed away, the
boss never thought of the boy except as lying unchanged, unblemished
in his uniform, asleep for ever. "My son!" groaned
the boss. But no tears came yet. In the past, in the first few months
and even years after the boy's death, he had only to say those
words to be overcome by such grief that nothing short of a


violent fit of weeping could relieve him. Time, he had declared
then, he had told everybody, could make no difference. Other
men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not
he. How was it possible? His boy was an only son. Ever
since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business
for him; it had no other meaning if it was not for the boy.
Life itself had come to have no other meaning. How on earth
could he have slaved, denied himself, kept going all those years
without the promise for ever before him of the boy's stepping
into his shoes and carrying on where he left off?
  And that promise had been so near being fulfilled. The boy
had been in the office learning the ropes for a year before the
war. Every morning they had started off together; they had
come back by the same train. And what congratulations he had
received as the boy's father! No wonder; he had taken to it
marvellously. As to his popularity with the staff, every man
jack of them down to old Macey couldn't make enough of the
boy. And he wasn't the least spoilt. No, he was just his
bright natural self, with the right word for everybody, with that
boyish look and his habit of saying, "Simply splendid!"
  But all that was over and done with as though it never had
been. The day had come when Macey had handed him the
telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head.
"Deeply regret to inform you..." And he had left the office
a broken man, with his life in ruins.
  Six years ago, six years....How quickly time passed! It
.. 

might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands
from his face; he was puzzled. Something seemed to be wrong
with him. He wasn't feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided
to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't
a favourite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural.
It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like
that.
  At that moment the boss noticed that a fly had fallen into his
broad inkpot, and was trying feebly but deperately to clamber


out again. Help! help! said those struggling legs. But the
sides of the inkpot were wet and slippery; it fell back again and
began to swim. The boss took up a pen, picked the fly out of
the ink, and shook it on to a piece of blotting-paper. For a
fraction of a second it lay still on the dark patch that oozed
round it. Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling its
small, sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning
the ink from its wings. Over and under, over and under, went
a leg along a wing, as the stone goes over and under the scythe.
Then there was a pause, while the fly, seeming to stand on the
tips of its toes, tried to expand first one wing and then the other.
It succeeded at last, and, sitting down, it began, like a minute
cat, to clean its face. Now one could imagine that the little
front legs rubbed against each other lightly, joyfully. The
horrible danger was over; it had escaped; 1t was ready for
life again.
  But just then the boss had an idea. He plunged his pen back
into the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as
the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot. What
would it make of that? What indeed! The little beggar
seemed absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because
of what would happen next. But then, as if painfully, it dragged
itself forward. The front legs waved, caught hold, and, more
slowly this time, the task began from the beginning.
  He's a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and he felt a
real admiration for the fly's courage. That was the way to
tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die; it was
only a question of...But the fly had again finished its laborious
task, and the boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair
and square on the new-cleaned body yet another dark drop.
What about it this time? A painful moment of suspense
followed. But behold, the front legs were again waving; the
.. 

boss felt a rush of relief. He leaned over the fly and said to it
tenderly, "You artful little b..." And he actually had the
brilliant notion of breathing on it to help the drying process.


All the same, there was something timid and weak about its
efforts now, and the boss decided that this time should be the
last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot.
  It was. The last blot fell on the soaked blotting-paper, and
the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The back legs were
stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen.
  "Come on," said the boss. "Look sharp!" And he stirred
it with his pen -- in vain. Nothing happened or was likely to
happen. The fly was dead.
  The boss lifted the corpse on the end of the paper-knife and
flung it into the waste-paper basket. But such a grinding feeling
of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened.
He started forward and pressed the bell for Macey.
  "Bring me some fresh blotting-paper," he said sternly,"and
look sharp about it." And while the old dog padded away he
fell to wondering what it was he had been thinking about before.
What was it? It was...He took out his handkerchief and
passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not
remember.