a friend and a bee

Irish Jesuit Province

A Friend and a BeeAuthor(s): John HannonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 39, No. 457 (Jul., 1911), pp. 401-407Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20503044 .

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E 40I 3

A FRIEND AND A BEE

I.

THE FRIENDS.

L HAVE a friend who is an American citizen, a London-born Irish cockney, a professional pugilist, and a philosopher. In the penultimate capacity Patsy Donovan began by

winning a series of fights among the light-weights of the Mile End Road, London, E.-about as E. as E. extends on the Metro politan map-and practically closed his public career by doing the same thing in the more illustrious parts about Chicago,

U.S A., where he had some thoughts of residing permanently, as he might have done, but for thoughtful Mrs. Patsy-and events.

In the fourth of his four roles-as a sociologist, I mean-my friend has arrived with certitude alt a conviction that the ethics of latter-day sparring for stakes leave almost all to be desired, and has therefore deliberately ceased to contend publicly in

what reporters term the 'C fistic arena." From the view-point of that peculiar success which is ac

counted unto righteousness in the Ring, the dark blot on Patsy's career has been his possession of an artistic conscience. Let me indicate briefly the main manifestations of my friend's defect;

" In the /ust place," as he is fond of putting it, in the cheerful Cockney dialect of our Babylonian Irishry, or, to quote another italicized variant, " fust and foremost," there was far " too much lip"> about the business to please him. His difficulties, if not his scruples, in the matter had been overcome by a good-natured London journalist, a Caledoman, who lhked the laid, and wrote h1is rhetorical challenges and other press communications with out fee. Patsy did not care for the rather dazzling stuff to which he found himself committed in type. It was not exactly magni ficent, and it certainly wasn't war. Nevertheless, though florid, not to say rococo, it was sound on facts.

That was in England. In America worse things were waiting. His backers put him up at gladiatorial games in the City of Meat as " Billy Heenan, Grand-Nephew of the famous Benicia Boy."

Young Mrs. Patsy is certainly collaterally descended on her mother's side from a first cousin of the illustrious bruiser who



402 THE IRISH MONTHLY

would have assuredly beaten Tom Sayers, were it not for the circumambient British public of the period-and place. But Patsy could not be brought to admire the commercial value of genealogy and heraldry in the modern or any prize-ring. " Be sides, my name ain't Heenan," was his plaint. " No, nor it ain't Billy, neither. I'm Patrick Joseph Donovan, commonly called Patsy. "

They promoted him from his pseudonymous noviciate, and he won many hght-weight battles, notably a sensational victory over a spare-ribbed and very clever Jew, with a great reputa tion. The long combat was cinematographed, and fortune lay at Patsy's feet.

His backers now desired that he should arrange his victories to suit their betting-books, and appointed a date on which he

must let them have a lucrative defeat. Patsy promptly smacked the face of the corpulent person who first made clear this con dition of fiscal patronage. In return, he received a bullet through the neck from that indignant financier's revolver.

He spent seven weeks in hospital-quite long enough for his naturally annoyed supporters to circulate thoroughly many statements not to his advantage in the sporting and general press of America, Great Britain, and Paris. By command of the pretty and wise Mrs. Patsy, my friend returned to England, in excellent health, but in much disgrace. Most of the latter

was promptly removed by the skilful pen of Patsy's Fleet Street acquaintance, the ready-writing Scotsman.

So Patsy found backers again, and fought again, and won again, and was asked to lose again, and refused again-vivda voce only, and in more patient terms this time, but as unmistak able as ever. And soon afterwards, this unconscionable Andrea del Sarto of the padded cestus determined, of his own motion, to sever his connexion with the spectacular side of professional pugilism, and retired from the Ring, undefeated, unenriched, and not much honoured.

At present my friend and fellow-parishioner earns a good livelihood as an instructor of boxing, up and down the Thames

Valley, during the nine cold months of the twentieth-century British year. In summer, during the fruit season, he follows the avocation of his late father-in-law as a market-gardener's labourer, and this for hygienic as well as economical reasons.

There is no need to plumb here the depths of Patsy's piety, any more than those of his somewhat obvious politics, but it miay comfort some to know that he takes round the offertory-plate at



A FRIEND AND A BEE 403

first Mass every Sunday, and that he is the gentlest and most tactful chucker-out at popular Catholic concerts, entertainments, and meetings any reverend chairman could reasonably require. For Patsy never chucks out. He evicts, thus First he sibilates ever so softly between his teeth in the direction of the offender. Then he whispers, almost plaintively, " Ahtside, Please," and

jerks his head discreetly towards the exit. The usually extra parochial disturber of back-seat peace is informed by his nearest neighbours who Patsy is, and made to feel it no disgrace to yield to such /orce majeure. He withdraws, sometimes on tiptoe, and the speaker (or artiste) on the platform hardly knows there has been an " incident." And the important front rows are un ruffled, and the local reporters are robbed of a headline.

During the tutorial three-quarters of his year my friend is regularly engaged by several of the countless schools and colleges fringing riparian Middlesex and Surrey. He is very happy in these gymnasium experiences. "It's all straight work," he says, with incorrigible integrity. " And," he adds, with due sense of his artistry, " you are treated as a gent, by gents."

He has also a small " private connexion " in our parish and in the next. Among adult pupils seeking individual in struction at their residences in the " noble art " are a few clerical " gents " in Anghcan orders They find half an hour with the lithe little man dancing round them like a panther on the lawn an admirable specific for the digestive disorders incidental to somewhat sedentary lives; while Patsy's amazing skill, though affording them an animated time, never once empurples a bene ficed eye, or taps Established claret.

Once and once only did an earnest and most amiable young parson, quite fresh from Oxford and as " high" as you please, discuss religion with Patrick Joseph Donovan. He meant well, for Patsy looks singularly indevout when at work, and so his pupil sought to improve a rest-interval by asking him if he ever

went to church. What my friend calls " a beautiful argeyment "

ensued, each man keeping his temper and letting the other say his say slowly to the end before rejoining. The subject has not been resumed between them since, though the boxing-lessons lhave continued without interruption. Privately, Patsy claims a measure of dialectic victory, especially in the matter of the Petrine claims. I think he is entitled to it, so far as one may judge from a Proces-verbal. From the latter (freely punctuated

with ' 'e sez " and " I sez ") it is at least clear that the curate was adequately peppered with Catechism and common sense.



404 T'HE IRISH MONTHLY

He was gentleman- enotigh to admit that Patsy's exposition of the tu es Petrus text and its divinely logical consequences was " the way everybody explained the words at one time." " After that," Patsy said, " I didn't like to push him too /ar, d'ye see ? So we let the argeyment drop, an' I called 'Time,' an' we drawed on the gloves again."

II.

THE BEE.

MY friend Patsy's " argeyment " with our " Catholic but not Roman Catholic parJison "-queerest of echoes from the spacious and mendacious " days of great Elizabeth "-reminds me some how that our last British fruit-season was quite an Elizabethan one, if we may credit the commentators on the " Midsummer

Night's DreLiii." 'Flhcy claim that Titania's climatic speech was true to the facts of the year when the play was written, and that Shalcespcai c's genius is proved, by contemporary records, to have stoopc(l to that perennial English topic, the weather

Anid tlhrouighi this distemperature we see The seasons alter hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old Hiem's thin and icy crown, An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,

The childmg autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazerd world, By their increase, now knows not which is which.'

Like the Tudor summer thus referred to, the summer of I9IO was enough to make Londoners exclaim, if not with Shake speare, then with a humble coster-bard still living, " We dunno

where we are." It was raw, cold, and copiously wet; it chiled the late King, and drove him South; and, when he returned early for State reasons, it killed him with pneumonia soon after the dog-days.

There was just one fine week of mocking, torrid sun, which in our particular part of the world enabled the plum-crop-or

most of it-to be saved. Patsy Donovan helped to save it. One forenoon, taking an anteprandial walk through the hedge rows, I encountered him in the later stages of the process. He

was wheeling barrow-loads of gathered and basketed fruit from just within the hedge to " the 'Ouse "-Thames Valley patois for an orchard-grower's homestead. He hailed me through a tangled maze of sweetbriar, and I mounted the bank to greet



A FRIEND AND A BEE 405

lhim. After a word about the weather, I thought he seemed

vaguely annoyed. " You look worried," I said. " Yes," he laughed. " And what d'ye think ? It's all on

aiccount of a blessed little bee. That's right: a little bee on sentry-dooty in the middle alley, the one going straight down from here to the 'Ouse. I've been up-ends with him for half an liour. Well, here goes for another try."

When Patsy moistened his cleanly palms and wheeled his loaded barrow away with an air of stout resolve, I cast round lor an explanation which might explain, and presently found it.

Midway in the long straight path leading on through the

l)lum-rows to the squat Georgian farm-house, I noted a solitary luve, standing on a low wooden stage beneath the curving arm

of a pear-tree. There were several transverse alleys to right

and left, and it struck me that for the men's convenience the luive might have been better located in one of these However, there it was, on a stand which has probably supported bee-hives since the reign of Queen Anne. The home counties-i e., those which are all marginally splashed by the huge blot of London are nothing at all if not conservative.

Patrick J. Donovan, American citizen, British subject, ex champion light-weight, and unbending moralist, trundled his fragrant load to within ten paces of that hive. Then he began to go warily. Suddenly he flinched, reversed himself between the barrow-shafts, and retreated, with singular speed if not

without a certain dignity, until he reached the angle of a con venient side path, down which he disappeared. Nor did I see him again amid the greenery of the orchard till he emerged obliquely, many rods ahead, on to the yellow gravel of the broad yard before the " House," where an unhorsed market-wagon stood ready to be loaded.

Two minutes elapsed. Then Patsy returned at the double,

pushing the uptilted barrow by its hind legs, held breast high " The little bee nearly got his right in that time," he re

marked, reminiscently brushing his left cheek. " He's a hard working and respectable chap too, I make no doubt, but I wish

they'd take him off sentry-dooty. Me having to nip down these

side-alleys makes the double journey six sides of a square in a manner of speaking."

He seized a basket of plums and placed it musingly in position on the barrow. From the selfish view-point of an observer

outside the danger-zone the, situation was not without its



406 THE IRISH MONTHLY

h-umours. The Duke of Wellington feared dogs, Field-Marshal Lord Roberts dreads cats; but the world reveres the idiopathies of its great men. What would it say of a mere retired prize fighter who quailed before a bee ? In the present case it would say wrong, if it spoke rudely. My friend is a brave man, and a good man. But then the world-the worldly world-frequently does say wrong and speak rudely of such, when they have no bank balance to attest their virtue.

"In America and England," observed Patsy, continuing to stack his barrow, " I have had to face some of the wickedest rascals in the world, both inside and outside the Ring and the saloons. Yuss. I was never afraid of 'em, though. I was a bit nervous in the first round with that Jew chap, being dead anxious to win-but that's different. I've never really feared a

man. Now I am afraid of bees. Still, here goes to rush that

,chap on picket-dooty this journey, whatever happens. I'm fair tired of wheeling round the rows."

He set off sturdily, grinning first, and then pursing his thin lips into a tight seam of resolve. This time he was allowed by the winged vedette to advance well within the " hnes " ere a ,challenge came. Perhaps they swere changing guard at the time.

Who knows ? Only Father Eric Wasmann and a very few others among leading entomologists durst venture an opinion. I cannot.

And as for Patsy. . . .

The sun was at meridian, and I peered hard down the alley under half-closed palms. The expected soon occurred. Patsy ducked, and seemed disposed for flight. He kept on doggedly, however. The bee, I take it, made a dash at him, and then

And then the quite wonderful thing took place. Patsy dropped the barrow-handles like a man, distraught, and

proceeded to fight that honey-bee under Queensberry rules ! And

I witnessed the unequal combat.

Oh, the glorious few moments that ensued! All swiftest feats at the punch-ball then paled from my memory for ever. It was like a cinematograph film of a fight with a ghost, whirled

through the instrument at mad velocity. Everything was in the

picture except a view of " the other fellow "-in-fighting, out

fighting, the right, the left, hooks and upper-cuts, and head-work all the time, and every third blow a smashing knock-out I was

glad I had not to meet.

It was splendid. It was too grand to be other than transient. There came a

shrill howl from Patsy, and he scampered back defeated, his



THE ALCHEMIST 407

right hand tucked tightly beneath his armpit. His eyes were screwed with pain when he reached the hedge. And then he laughed till he wept.

" Don't tell anyone, will you ? " he said. "I think I'd have outed him with the gloves on, though, unless he'd called his

mates. But what foolishness I'm talkin', to be sure." I mentioned the matter at home, and somehow it travelled

thence to the bright little London-Irish brunette who is AMrs. Patsy, and also in her husband's accented mode of speech, " quite one of the best, as wife and as mother."

I fancy she has made use of the information. At any rate I have just had, after the lapse of almost a year, a gentle reproof from my friend for giving him away.

Last week, at the close of a gymnastic entertainment for the reduction of the debt on our schools, I said, in seconding a vote of thanks, that the artistic and financial success of the evening's performance was only what was to be expected from its organizer, our friend, Mr. Patrick Donovan, " who " (to quote the remarks ascribed to me in the local bi-weekly) " has never known defeat either during or since his distinguished professional career as light-weight champion. (Applause.)"

In the dressing-room afterwards Patsy grinned at me and -blushed.

"You might have left that last little bit out," he said, fasten ing his collar-button. " I've been defeated a 'undred times

before, during an' after my what's-his-name c'reer. Yuss. Ninety-nine times by a little Irishwoman-an' once by a pore little English bee!

JOHN HANNON.

THE ALCHEMIST

NOR woernor leaden care

* Can weight his spirit long: He turns his sighs to prayer,

He coins his griefs to song !

EDWARD F. GARESCHt, S.J.



a friend and a bee

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