Mr. Know-All
W. Somerset Maugham
I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished
and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard
to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not
hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only
two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested
closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin
for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should
have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or
Brown.
When I went on board I found Mr. Kelada's luggage already below. I did not like the
look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too
big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the
excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hairwash and his
brilliantine.
Mr. Kelada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better
for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr. Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I
called for a pack of cards and began to play patience.
I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in
thinking my name was so and so.
"I am Mr. Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing
teeth, and sat down.
"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."
"Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was
jolly glad when I heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when
we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."
I blinked.
"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone,
that's what I am."
To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my
nose.
King George
has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and
dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long
black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English
and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that
British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky
than is generally seen in England.
"What will you have?" he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship
was bone dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or
lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."
From each of his hip pockets he furnished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I
chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of
glasses.
"A very good cocktail," I said.
"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends
on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."
Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays,
pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of
drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but
feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on
airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before
my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such
formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now,
thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on
with my game.
"The three on the four," said Mr. Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where
to put the card you have turned up before you have a chance to look for yourself.
"It's coming out, it's coming out," he cried. "The ten on the
knave."
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished.
Then he seized the pack.
"Do you like card tricks?"
"No, I hate card tricks," I answered.
"Well, I'll just show you this one."
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at
the table.
"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I've already taken a seat for you. I
thought that as we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same
table."
I did not like Mr. Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I
could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It
never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see
him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and
slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a
welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran
everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at
the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the
fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the
ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was
at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us
at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything
better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should
disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought
you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred
to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly
have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent,
except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and
resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious
and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great
heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of
his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying
visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was
a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humor. The Consular
Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her
clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any
particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in
women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. It shone in her like a flower on a
coat.
One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls.
There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the cultured pearls which the
cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish
the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr.
Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about
pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist
the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the
middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never
so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he
thumped the table and shouted.
"Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I'm going to Japan just to look
into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade and there's not a man in it who won't
tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and
what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."
Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone
what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial
errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.
"They'll never be able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like me can't tell
with half an eye." He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. "You take my
word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than
it is now."
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress.
Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay's, isn't it?"
"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Gee, I said to myself,
those are pearls all right."
"I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think
it cost."
"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought
on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand was paid
for it."
Ramsay smiled grimly.
"You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department
store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars."
Mr. Kelada flushed.
"Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever
seen."
"Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."
"Done."
"Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty," said Mrs. Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
"Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a
fool not to take it."
"But how can it be proved?" she continued. "It's only my word against
Mr. Kelada's."
"Let me look at the chain, and if it's imitation I'll tell you quickly enough. I
can afford to lose a hundred dollars," said Mr. Kelada.
"Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants."
Mrs. Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
"I can't undo it," she said, "Mr. Kelada will just have to take my word
for it."
I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could
think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
"I'll undo it."
He handed the chain to Mr. Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his
pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy
face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs.
Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was
staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear
that I wondered why her husband did not see it.
Mr. Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the
effort he was making over himself.
"I was mistaken," he said. "It's very good imitation, but of course as
soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn't real. I think eighteen dollars is
just about as much as the damned thing's worth."
He took out his pocketbook and from it a hundred dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay
without a word.
"Perhaps that'll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young
friend," said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr. Kelada's hands were trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of
chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs.
Ramsay retired to her stateroom with a headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr. Kelada lay on his bed smoking a
cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the
door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and
saw it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to
him.
"Who's this from?" He opened it. "Oh!"
He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me
and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me.
"Do you mind just throwing them out of the porthole?"
I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.
"No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool," he said.
"Were the pearls real?"
"If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while
I stayed at Kobe," said he.
At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. He reached out for his pocketbook
and carefully put in it the hundred-dollar note.
