From Readers' Digest..

The Best Investment I Ever Made

 

The stranger wanted to tell him a secret.

It wasn't what he expected

 

By A.J. CRONIN

 

On the second day out from New York, while making the round of the promenade deck, I suddenly became aware that one of the other passengers was watching me closely, following me with his gaze every time I passed, his eyes filled with a queer, almost pathetic intensity.

 I have crossed the Atlantic many times. And on this occasion, tired after a prolonged piece of work, I wanted to rest, to avoid the tedium of casual and importunate ship-board contacts. I gave no sign of having noticed the man.

 Yet there was nothing importunate about him. On the contrary, he seemed affected by a troubled, rather touching diffidence. He was in his early 40s, I judged-out of the corner of my eye-rather short in build, with a fair complexion, a good forehead from which his thin hair had begun to recede and clear blue eyes. His dark suit, sober tie and rimless spectacles gave evidence of a serious and reserved disposition.

 At this point the bugle sounded for dinner, and I went below. On the following forenoon, I again observed my fellow voyager watching me earnestly from his deck chair.

 Now a lady was with him, obviously his wife. She was about his age, quiet and restrained, with brown eyes and slightly faded brown hair, dressed in a grey skirt and grey woolen cardigan.

 The situation by this time had begun to intrigue me, and from my steward I discovered that they were Mr and Mrs John S_from a small suburb of London. Yet when another day passed without event, I began to feel certain that Mr S_ would remain too shy to carry out his obvious desire to approach me. However, on our final evening at sea Mrs S_ decided the matter. With a firm pressure on his hand and a whispered word in his ear, she urged her husband towards me as I passed along the deck.

 Here was one investment that had paid no dividends in worldly goods, but which might stand on the profit side in the final reckoning.

 "Excuse me, Doctor. I wonder if I might introduce myself." He spoke almost breathlessly, offering me the visiting card he held in his hand and studying my face to see if the name meant anything to me. Then, as it plainly did not, he went on with the same awkwardness. "If you could spare a few minutes…my wife and I would so like to have a word with you."

 A moment later I was occupying the vacant chair beside them. Haltingly he told me that this had been their first visit to America. It was not entirely a holiday trip. They had been making a tour of the New England states, inspecting many of the summer recreational camps provided for young people there. Afterwards, they had visited settlement houses in New York and other cities to study the methods employed in dealing with youth groups, especially backward, maladjusted and delinquent cases.

 There was in his voice and manner, indeed in his whole personality, a genuine enthusiasm that was disarming. I found myself liking him instinctively. Questioning him further, I learnt that he and his wife had been active for the past 15 years in the field of youth welfare. He was by profession, a solicitor, but in addition to his practice at the courts, found time to act as director of a charitable organization devoted to the care of boys and girls, mostly from city slums, who had fallen under the ban of the law.  

As he spoke with real feeling, I got a vivid picture of the work these two people were doing-how they took derelict adolescents from the juvenile courts and, placing them in a healthy environment, healed them in mind and body, sent them back into the world, trained in a useful handicraft and fit to take their place as worthy members of the community. It was a work of redemption that stirred the heart, and I asked what had directed his life into this channel.

The question had a strange effect upon him; he took a sharp breath and exclaimed, "You still do not remember me?" I shook my head. To the best of my belief, I had never in my life seen him before.

"I've wanted to get in touch with you for many years," he went on, under increasing stress. "But I was never able to bring myself to do so." Then, bending near, he spoke a few words, tensely, in my ear. At that, slowly, the veils parted, my thoughts sped back a quarter of a century, and with a start, I remembered the sole occasion when I had seen this man before.

I was a young doctor at the time and had just set up a practice in a working-class district of London. On a foggy November night, towards one o'clock, I was awakened by a loud banging on the door. In those days of economic necessity any call, even at this un-earthly hour, was a welcome one. Hurriedly, I threw on some clothes and went downstairs. It was a sergeant of police, in dripping helmet and cape, mistily outlined on the doorstep. A suicide case, he told me abruptly, in the lodgings around the corner-I had better come at once.

Outside it was raw and damp, the traffic stilled, the street deserted, quiet as the tomb. We walked the short distance in silence, even our footsteps muffled by the fog, and turned into the narrow entrance of an old building. As we mounted the creaking staircase, my nostrils were stung by the sick-sweet odour of illuminating gas. On the upper storey the agitated landlady showed us to a bare little attic where, stretched on a narrow bed, lay the body of a young man.

Although apparently lifeless, there remained the barest chance that the youth was not quite beyond recall. With the sergeant's help, I began the work of resuscitation. For an entire hour we laboured without success. A further 15 minutes, and despite our most strenuous exertions, it appeared useless. Then, as we were about to give up, completely exhausted, there broke from the patient a shallow, convulsive gasp. It was like a resurrection from the grave, a miracle, this stirring of life under our hands. Half an hour of redoubled efforts and we had the youth sitting up, gazing at us dazedly and, alas, slowly realizing the horror of his situation.

He was a round-cheeked lad, with a simple, countrified air, and the story that he told us as he slowly regained strength in the bleak morning hours was simple, too. His parents were dead. An uncle in the provinces, anxious, no doubt, to be rid of an unwanted responsibility, had found him a position as clerk in a London solicitor's office. He had been in the city only six months. Utterly friendless, he had fallen victim to the loose society of the streets, had made bad companions and, like a young fool, eager to taste pleasure far beyond his means, had begun to bet on horses. Soon he had lost all his small savings, had pledged his belongings and owed the book-maker a disastrous amount. In an effort to recoup, he had taken a sum of money from the office safe for a final gamble that, he was assured, was certain to win. But this last resort had failed. Terrified of the prosecution that must follow, sick at heart, sunk in despair, he had shut himself in his room and turned on the gas.

A long bar of silence throbbed in the little attic when he concluded this halting confession. Then, gruffly, the sergeant asked how much he had stolen. Pitifully, almost, the answer came. Seven pounds ten shillings. Yes, incredible though it seemed, for this paltry sum this poor misguided lad had almost thrown away his life.

Again there came a pause in which, plainly, the same unspoken thought was uppermost in the minds of the three of us who were the sole witnesses of this near tragedy. Almost of one accord, we voiced our desire to give the youth-whose defenseless nature rather than any vicious tendencies had brought him to this extremity-a fresh start.

The sergeant, at considerable risk to his job, resolved to make no report upon the case, so that no court proceedings would result. The landlady offered a month's free board until he should get upon his feet again. While I, making perhaps the least contribution, came forward with seven pounds ten shillings for him to put back in the office safe.

The ship moved on through the still darkness of the night. There was no need of speech. With a tender gesture Mrs S_had taken her husband's hand. And as we sat in silence, hearing the sounding of the sea and the sighing of the breeze, a singular emotion overcame me. I could not but reflect that, against all the bad investments I had made throughout the years-those foolish speculations for material gain, producing only anxiety, disappointment and frustration-here at last was one I need not regret, one that had paid no dividends in worldly goods, yet which might stand, nevertheless on the profit side, in the final reckoning.

This article was first published in our US edition in 1951, even before Reader's Digest arrived in India.

                                                                                                                                                                                       .........................with best compliments from Sri Gopalji