A Chestertonian essay type thing
Dec. 21st, 2009 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerIt was a brisk, cool day in autumn, and he and I were walking beside the disused railway line. I forget how and where I had met him; it was one of those meaningless conjunctions which occurs wherever people are alone in strange surroundings. He had a pleasing voice and an affable manner, and I found his company strangely soothing in spite of the disparity between our social and political world-views. The bramble bushes planted along the line had flourished in their desuetude, and we had been feasting on ripe blackberries as we walked along. And then, in the middle of a conversation about something quite unmemorable—the news or some such bagatelle—he said the thing.
“After all,” he said, selecting a particularly fine specimen, “as I always say, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
“Quite right too,” I said. “Five pence please.”
“Pardon?”
“Five pence,” I said, holding out one hand in the time-honoured gesture. “For that blackberry. We’ll consider the last six as free samples.”
“What d’you mean?” he said. “They’re not yours.”
“Nor they are,” I said. “The girl behind the counter in the picture-house is not the owner, but you pay her without a murmur. Think of me as an agent. Five pence please.”
“They’re wild plants,” he protested. “That means they don’t belong to anybody.”
“Wrong,” I said. “They belong to the owner of the land, whoever that is now. If it’s not the railway company or the council or somebody, then it’s probably the Crown, and your refusal to pay might be construed as treason. Come on, five pence.”
He decided at last that I was engaging in some kind of joke, and good-naturedly enough began to rummage in his pockets. “If I’d known they weren’t free I wouldn’t have touched them,” he muttered.
“You did know,” I said. “You said, not five minutes ago, that there was no such thing as a free lunch. And yet here you are lunching on the Queen’s blackberries without a thought of payment, when for all you know the dear old lady’s simply gasping for a nice bramble jelly sandwich. I’ll come and visit you in the Tower.”
“Well, I was speaking metaphorically as well,” he said. “I mean, the price isn’t always money. You pay for the blackberries by getting stuck on the brambles.”
“Only if you’re not careful,” I said. “I haven’t been stuck once. The fact is that that whole ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ business is drivel. There can be, if people will it so, or even if they don’t care enough to stop it. This land here is in a sort of limbo, so nobody wants to take responsibility for it, and in the meantime here it is growing free lunches like anything. A smart operator could make a small profit from it, if he was willing to put in the effort, but nobody is doing so, and here is the refutation of your smug little creed. Because the thing about saying “no such thing” is that there only ever has to be one such thing to blow your credibility right out of the water.”
“Well, maybe what I meant was--” He floundered for a moment. “What I meant was,” he said, rallying, “that there oughtn’t to be such a thing as a free lunch. It may be possible, but it’s not right, not fair. Scrounging, that’s what it is, battening on the rest of us like parasites. People should have to pay their way, get off their backsides and do an honest day’s work if they want to live.” He finally located a five-penny piece in a dusty pocket, and proffered it to me with a grin.
I shook my head sadly. “The price just went up.”
“How much?” he said, still grinning.
“You could never afford it,” I said, and left him there gaping among the bramble bushes.
“After all,” he said, selecting a particularly fine specimen, “as I always say, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
“Quite right too,” I said. “Five pence please.”
“Pardon?”
“Five pence,” I said, holding out one hand in the time-honoured gesture. “For that blackberry. We’ll consider the last six as free samples.”
“What d’you mean?” he said. “They’re not yours.”
“Nor they are,” I said. “The girl behind the counter in the picture-house is not the owner, but you pay her without a murmur. Think of me as an agent. Five pence please.”
“They’re wild plants,” he protested. “That means they don’t belong to anybody.”
“Wrong,” I said. “They belong to the owner of the land, whoever that is now. If it’s not the railway company or the council or somebody, then it’s probably the Crown, and your refusal to pay might be construed as treason. Come on, five pence.”
He decided at last that I was engaging in some kind of joke, and good-naturedly enough began to rummage in his pockets. “If I’d known they weren’t free I wouldn’t have touched them,” he muttered.
“You did know,” I said. “You said, not five minutes ago, that there was no such thing as a free lunch. And yet here you are lunching on the Queen’s blackberries without a thought of payment, when for all you know the dear old lady’s simply gasping for a nice bramble jelly sandwich. I’ll come and visit you in the Tower.”
“Well, I was speaking metaphorically as well,” he said. “I mean, the price isn’t always money. You pay for the blackberries by getting stuck on the brambles.”
“Only if you’re not careful,” I said. “I haven’t been stuck once. The fact is that that whole ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ business is drivel. There can be, if people will it so, or even if they don’t care enough to stop it. This land here is in a sort of limbo, so nobody wants to take responsibility for it, and in the meantime here it is growing free lunches like anything. A smart operator could make a small profit from it, if he was willing to put in the effort, but nobody is doing so, and here is the refutation of your smug little creed. Because the thing about saying “no such thing” is that there only ever has to be one such thing to blow your credibility right out of the water.”
“Well, maybe what I meant was--” He floundered for a moment. “What I meant was,” he said, rallying, “that there oughtn’t to be such a thing as a free lunch. It may be possible, but it’s not right, not fair. Scrounging, that’s what it is, battening on the rest of us like parasites. People should have to pay their way, get off their backsides and do an honest day’s work if they want to live.” He finally located a five-penny piece in a dusty pocket, and proffered it to me with a grin.
I shook my head sadly. “The price just went up.”
“How much?” he said, still grinning.
“You could never afford it,” I said, and left him there gaping among the bramble bushes.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-21 02:04 am (UTC)You paid for your blackberries by picking them. Nice low price, when they're local and in season. Tasty, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-21 07:04 am (UTC)And the other point stands; whose energy paid for the fact that we have lunches, and energy, and bodies, and a world in the first place? As far as anyone knows, as Jarod says, life's a gift.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-21 08:52 am (UTC)Of course, in blatant disregard of the text's actual sense I have to say that for someone on a Weightwatcher diet a free lunch is a lunch that has no points you must count. It is then a pointless lunch.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-21 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 01:37 pm (UTC)