The Gentleman

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My name is Lionel Savage, I am twenty-two years old, I am a poet, and I do not love my wife. I loved her once, not without cause — but I do not anymore. She is a vapid, timid, querulous creature, and I find after six months of married life that my position has become quite intolerable and I am resolved upon killing myself.

Here is how my plight came about.

Once upon a time about a year ago, I was very young and foolish, and Simmons informed me we hadn’t any money left. (Simmons is our butler.)

‘Simmons,’ I had said, ‘I would like to buy a boat so that I can sail the seven seas.’

I hadn’t, I suppose, any real notion of actually sailing the seven seas — I am not an adventurous soul, and would relinquish my comfortable seat by the fire only with reluctance. But it seemed a romantic thing to own a boat in which one could sail the seven seas, should one suddenly discover he had a mind to.

But Simmons (whose hair is grey like a thunderhead) said with some remonstrance, ‘I’m afraid you cannot afford a boat, sir.’

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