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diff --git a/old/tomco10.txt b/old/tomco10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41edae6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tomco10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7709 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tommy and Co., by Jerome K. Jerome +#23 in our series by Jerome K. Jerome + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Tommy and Co. + +by Jerome K. 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Jerome + + + + +STORY THE FIRST--Peter Hope plans his Prospectus + + + +"Come in!" said Peter Hope. + +Peter Hope was tall and thin, clean-shaven but for a pair of side +whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear, with +hair of the kind referred to by sympathetic barbers as "getting a +little thin on the top, sir," but arranged with economy, that +everywhere is poverty's true helpmate. About Mr. Peter Hope's +linen, which was white though somewhat frayed, there was a self- +assertiveness that invariably arrested the attention of even the +most casual observer. Decidedly there was too much of it--its +ostentation aided and abetted by the retiring nature of the cut- +away coat, whose chief aim clearly was to slip off and disappear +behind its owner's back. "I'm a poor old thing," it seemed to say. +"I don't shine--or, rather, I shine too much among these up-to-date +young modes. I only hamper you. You would be much more +comfortable without me." To persuade it to accompany him, its +proprietor had to employ force, keeping fastened the lowest of its +three buttons. At every step, it struggled for its liberty. +Another characteristic of Peter's, linking him to the past, was his +black silk cravat, secured by a couple of gold pins chained +together. Watching him as he now sat writing, his long legs +encased in tightly strapped grey trousering, crossed beneath the +table, the lamplight falling on his fresh-complexioned face, upon +the shapely hand that steadied the half-written sheet, a stranger +might have rubbed his eyes, wondering by what hallucination he thus +found himself in presence seemingly of some young beau belonging to +the early 'forties; but looking closer, would have seen the many +wrinkles. + +"Come in!" repeated Mr. Peter Hope, raising his voice, but not his +eyes. + +The door opened, and a small, white face, out of which gleamed a +pair of bright, black eyes, was thrust sideways into the room. + +"Come in!" repeated Mr. Peter Hope for the third time. "Who is +it?" + +A hand not over clean, grasping a greasy cloth cap, appeared below +the face. + +"Not ready yet," said Mr. Hope. "Sit down and wait." + +The door opened wider, and the whole of the figure slid in and, +closing the door behind it, sat itself down upon the extreme edge +of the chair nearest. + +"Which are you--Central News or Courier?" demanded Mr. Peter Hope, +but without looking up from his work. + +The bright, black eyes, which had just commenced an examination of +the room by a careful scrutiny of the smoke-grimed ceiling, +descended and fixed themselves upon the one clearly defined bald +patch upon his head that, had he been aware of it, would have +troubled Mr. Peter Hope. But the full, red lips beneath the +turned-up nose remained motionless. + +That he had received no answer to his question appeared to have +escaped the attention of Mr. Peter Hope. The thin, white hand +moved steadily to and fro across the paper. Three more sheets were +added to those upon the floor. Then Mr. Peter Hope pushed back his +chair and turned his gaze for the first time upon his visitor. + +To Peter Hope, hack journalist, long familiar with the genus +Printer's Devil, small white faces, tangled hair, dirty hands, and +greasy caps were common objects in the neighbourhood of that buried +rivulet, the Fleet. But this was a new species. Peter Hope sought +his spectacles, found them after some trouble under a heap of +newspapers, adjusted them upon his high, arched nose, leant +forward, and looked long and up and down. + +"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Peter Hope. "What is it?" + +The figure rose to its full height of five foot one and came +forward slowly. + +Over a tight-fitting garibaldi of blue silk, excessively decollete, +it wore what once had been a boy's pepper-and-salt jacket. A +worsted comforter wound round the neck still left a wide expanse of +throat showing above the garibaldi. Below the jacket fell a long, +black skirt, the train of which had been looped up about the waist +and fastened with a cricket-belt. + +"Who are you? What do you want?" asked Mr. Peter Hope. + +For answer, the figure, passing the greasy cap into its other hand, +stooped down and, seizing the front of the long skirt, began to +haul it up. + +"Don't do that!" said Mr. Peter Hope. "I say, you know, you--" + +But by this time the skirt had practically disappeared, leaving to +view a pair of much-patched trousers, diving into the right-hand +pocket of which the dirty hand drew forth a folded paper, which, +having opened and smoothed out, it laid upon the desk. + +Mr. Peter Hope pushed up his spectacles till they rested on his +eyebrows, and read aloud--"'Steak and Kidney Pie, 4d.; Do. (large +size), 6d.; Boiled Mutton--'" + +"That's where I've been for the last two weeks," said the figure,-- +"Hammond's Eating House!" + +The listener noted with surprise that the voice--though it told him +as plainly as if he had risen and drawn aside the red rep curtains, +that outside in Gough Square the yellow fog lay like the ghost of a +dead sea--betrayed no Cockney accent, found no difficulty with its +aitches. + +"You ask for Emma. She'll say a good word for me. She told me +so." + +"But, my good--" Mr. Peter Hope, checking himself, sought again the +assistance of his glasses. The glasses being unable to decide the +point, their owner had to put the question bluntly: + +"Are you a boy or a girl?" + +"I dunno." + +"You don't know!" + +"What's the difference?" + +Mr. Peter Hope stood up, and taking the strange figure by the +shoulders, turned it round slowly twice, apparently under the +impression that the process might afford to him some clue. But it +did not. + +"What is your name?" + +"Tommy." + +"Tommy what?" + +"Anything you like. I dunno. I've had so many of 'em." + +"What do you want? What have you come for?" + +"You're Mr. Hope, ain't you, second floor, 16, Gough Square?" + +"That is my name." + +"You want somebody to do for you?" + +"You mean a housekeeper!" + +"Didn't say anything about housekeeper. Said you wanted somebody +to do for you--cook and clean the place up. Heard 'em talking +about it in the shop this afternoon. Old lady in green bonnet was +asking Mother Hammond if she knew of anyone." + +"Mrs. Postwhistle--yes, I did ask her to look out for someone for +me. Why, do you know of anyone? Have you been sent by anybody?" + +"You don't want anything too 'laborate in the way o' cooking? You +was a simple old chap, so they said; not much trouble." + +"No--no. I don't want much--someone clean and respectable. But +why couldn't she come herself? Who is it?" + +"Well, what's wrong about me?" + +"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Peter Hope. + +"Why won't I do? I can make beds and clean rooms--all that sort o' +thing. As for cooking, I've got a natural aptitude for it. You +ask Emma; she'll tell you. You don't want nothing 'laborate?" + +"Elizabeth," said Mr. Peter Hope, as he crossed and, taking up the +poker, proceeded to stir the fire, "are we awake or asleep?" + +Elizabeth thus appealed to, raised herself on her hind legs and dug +her claws into her master's thigh. Mr. Hope's trousers being thin, +it was the most practical answer she could have given him. + +"Done a lot of looking after other people for their benefit," +continued Tommy. "Don't see why I shouldn't do it for my own." + +"My dear--I do wish I knew whether you were a boy or a girl. Do +you seriously suggest that I should engage you as my housekeeper?" +asked Mr. Peter Hope, now upright with his back to the fire. + +"I'd do for you all right," persisted Tommy. "You give me my grub +and a shake-down and, say, sixpence a week, and I'll grumble less +than most of 'em." + +"Don't be ridiculous," said Mr. Peter Hope. + +"You won't try me?" + +"Of course not; you must be mad." + +"All right. No harm done." The dirty hand reached out towards the +desk, and possessing itself again of Hammond's Bill of Fare, +commenced the operations necessary for bearing it away in safety. + +"Here's a shilling for you," said Mr. Peter Hope. + +"Rather not," said Tommy. "Thanks all the same." + +"Nonsense!" said Mr. Peter Hope. + +"Rather not," repeated Tommy. "Never know where that sort of thing +may lead you to." + +"All right," said Mr. Peter Hope, replacing the coin in his pocket. +"Don't!" + +The figure moved towards the door. + +"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," said Mr. Peter Hope irritably. + +The figure, with its hand upon the door, stood still. + +"Are you going back to Hammond's?" + +"No. I've finished there. Only took me on for a couple o' weeks, +while one of the gals was ill. She came back this morning." + +"Who are your people?" + +Tommy seemed puzzled. "What d'ye mean?" + +"Well, whom do you live with?" + +"Nobody." + +"You've got nobody to look after you--to take care of you?" + +"Take care of me! D'ye think I'm a bloomin' kid?" + +"Then where are you going to now?" + +"Going? Out." + +Peter Hope's irritation was growing. + +"I mean, where are you going to sleep? Got any money for a +lodging?" + +"Yes, I've got some money," answered Tommy. "But I don't think +much o' lodgings. Not a particular nice class as you meet there. +I shall sleep out to-night. 'Tain't raining." + +Elizabeth uttered a piercing cry. + +"Serves you right!" growled Peter savagely. "How can anyone help +treading on you when you will get just between one's legs. Told +you of it a hundred times." + +The truth of the matter was that Peter was becoming very angry with +himself. For no reason whatever, as he told himself, his memory +would persist in wandering to Ilford Cemetery, in a certain +desolate corner of which lay a fragile little woman whose lungs had +been but ill adapted to breathing London fogs; with, on the top of +her, a still smaller and still more fragile mite of humanity that, +in compliment to its only relative worth a penny-piece, had been +christened Thomas--a name common enough in all conscience, as Peter +had reminded himself more than once. In the name of common sense, +what had dead and buried Tommy Hope to do with this affair? The +whole thing was the veriest sentiment, and sentiment was Mr. Peter +Hope's abomination. Had he not penned articles innumerable +pointing out its baneful influence upon the age? Had he not always +condemned it, wherever he had come across it in play or book? Now +and then the suspicion had crossed Peter's mind that, in spite of +all this, he was somewhat of a sentimentalist himself--things had +suggested this to him. The fear had always made him savage. + +"You wait here till I come back," he growled, seizing the +astonished Tommy by the worsted comforter and spinning it into the +centre of the room. "Sit down, and don't you dare to move." And +Peter went out and slammed the door behind him. + +"Bit off his chump, ain't he?" remarked Tommy to Elizabeth, as the +sound of Peter's descending footsteps died away. People had a way +of addressing remarks to Elizabeth. Something in her manner +invited this. + +"Oh, well, it's all in the day's work," commented Tommy cheerfully, +and sat down as bid. + +Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Then Peter returned, accompanied +by a large, restful lady, to whom surprise--one felt it +instinctively--had always been, and always would remain, an unknown +quantity. + +Tommy rose. + +"That's the--the article," explained Peter. + +Mrs. Postwhistle compressed her lips and slightly tossed her head. +It was the attitude of not ill-natured contempt from which she +regarded most human affairs. + +"That's right," said Mrs. Postwhistle; "I remember seeing 'er +there--leastways, it was an 'er right enough then. What 'ave you +done with your clothes?" + +"They weren't mine," explained Tommy. "They were things what Mrs. +Hammond had lent me." + +"Is that your own?" asked Mrs. Postwhistle, indicating the blue +silk garibaldi. + +"Yes." + +"What went with it?" + +"Tights. They were too far gone." + +"What made you give up the tumbling business and go to Mrs. +'Ammond's?" + +"It gave me up. Hurt myself." + +"Who were you with last?" + +"Martini troupe." + +"And before that?" + +"Oh! heaps of 'em." + +"Nobody ever told you whether you was a boy or a girl?" + +"Nobody as I'd care to believe. Some of them called me the one, +some of them the other. It depended upon what was wanted." + +"How old are you?" + +"I dunno." + +Mrs. Postwhistle turned to Peter, who was jingling keys. + +"Well, there's the bed upstairs. It's for you to decide." + +"What I don't want to do," explained Peter, sinking his voice to a +confidential whisper, "is to make a fool of myself." + +"That's always a good rule," agreed Mrs. Postwhistle, "for those to +whom it's possible." + +"Anyhow," said Peter, "one night can't do any harm. To-morrow we +can think what's to be done." + +"To-morrow"had always been Peter's lucky day. At the mere mention +of the magic date his spirits invariably rose. He now turned upon +Tommy a countenance from which all hesitation was banished. + +"Very well, Tommy," said Mr. Peter Hope, "you can sleep here to- +night. Go with Mrs. Postwhistle, and she'll show you your room." + +The black eyes shone. + +"You're going to give me a trial?" + +"We'll talk about all that to-morrow." The black eyes clouded. + +"Look here. I tell you straight, it ain't no good." + +"What do you mean? What isn't any good?" demanded Peter. + +"You'll want to send me to prison." + +"To prison!" + +"Oh, yes. You'll call it a school, I know. You ain't the first +that's tried that on. It won't work." The bright, black eyes were +flashing passionately. "I ain't done any harm. I'm willing to +work. I can keep myself. I always have. What's it got to do with +anybody else?" + +Had the bright, black eyes retained their expression of passionate +defiance, Peter Hope might have retained his common sense. Only +Fate arranged that instead they should suddenly fill with wild +tears. And at sight of them Peter's common sense went out of the +room disgusted, and there was born the history of many things. + +"Don't be silly," said Peter. "You didn't understand. Of course +I'm going to give you a trial. You're going to 'do' for me. I +merely meant that we'd leave the details till to-morrow. Come, +housekeepers don't cry." + +The little wet face looked up. + +"You mean it? Honour bright?" + +"Honour bright. Now go and wash yourself. Then you shall get me +my supper." + +The odd figure, still heaving from its paroxysm of sobs, stood up. + +"And I have my grub, my lodging, and sixpence a week?" + +"Yes, yes; I think that's a fair arrangement," agreed Mr. Peter +Hope, considering. "Don't you, Mrs. Postwhistle?" + +"With a frock--or a suit of trousers--thrown in," suggested Mrs. +Postwhistle. "It's generally done." + +"If it's the custom, certainly," agreed Mr. Peter Hope. "Sixpence +a week and clothes." + +And this time it was Peter that, in company with Elizabeth, sat +waiting the return of Tommy. + +"I rather hope," said Peter, "it's a boy. It was the fogs, you +know. If only I could have afforded to send him away!" + +Elizabeth looked thoughtful. The door opened. + +"Ah! that's better, much better," said Mr. Peter Hope. "'Pon my +word, you look quite respectable." + +By the practical Mrs. Postwhistle a working agreement, benefiting +both parties, had been arrived at with the long-trained skirt; +while an ample shawl arranged with judgment disguised the nakedness +that lay below. Peter, a fastidious gentleman, observed with +satisfaction that the hands, now clean, had been well cared for. + +"Give me that cap," said Peter. He threw it in the glowing fire. +It burned brightly, diffusing strange odours. + +"There's a travelling cap of mine hanging up in the passage. You +can wear that for the present. Take this half-sovereign and get me +some cold meat and beer for supper. You'll find everything else +you want in that sideboard or else in the kitchen. Don't ask me a +hundred questions, and don't make a noise," and Peter went back to +his work. + +"Good idea, that half-sovereign," said Peter. "Shan't be bothered +with 'Master Tommy' any more, don't expect. Starting a nursery at +our time of life. Madness." Peter's pen scratched and spluttered. +Elizabeth kept an eye upon the door. + +"Quarter of an hour," said Peter, looking at his watch. "Told you +so." The article on which Peter was now engaged appeared to be of +a worrying nature. + +"Then why," said Peter, "why did he refuse that shilling? +Artfulness," concluded Peter, "pure artfulness. Elizabeth, old +girl, we've got out of this business cheaply. Good idea, that +half-sovereign." Peter gave vent to a chuckle that had the effect +of alarming Elizabeth. + +But luck evidently was not with Peter that night. + +"Pingle's was sold out," explained Tommy, entering with parcels; +"had to go to Bow's in Farringdon Street." + +"Oh!" said Peter, without looking up. + +Tommy passed through into the little kitchen behind. Peter wrote +on rapidly, making up for lost time. + +"Good!" murmured Peter, smiling to himself, "that's a neat phrase. +That ought to irritate them." + +Now, as he wrote, while with noiseless footsteps Tommy, unseen +behind him, moved to and fro and in and out the little kitchen, +there came to Peter Hope this very curious experience: it felt to +him as if for a long time he had been ill--so ill as not even to +have been aware of it--and that now he was beginning to be himself +again; consciousness of things returning to him. This solidly +furnished, long, oak-panelled room with its air of old-world +dignity and repose--this sober, kindly room in which for more than +half his life he had lived and worked--why had he forgotten it? It +came forward greeting him with an amused smile, as of some old +friend long parted from. The faded photos, in stiff, wooden frames +upon the chimney-piece, among them that of the fragile little woman +with the unadaptable lungs. + +"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Peter Hope, pushing back his chair. +"It's thirty years ago. How time does fly! Why, let me see, I +must be--" + +"D'you like it with a head on it?" demanded Tommy, who had been +waiting patiently for signs. + +Peter shook himself awake and went to his supper. + +A bright idea occurred to Peter in the night. "Of course; why +didn't I think of it before? Settle the question at once." Peter +fell into an easy sleep. + +"Tommy," said Peter, as he sat himself down to breakfast the next +morning. "By-the-by," asked Peter with a puzzled expression, +putting down his cup, "what is this?" + +"Cauffee," informed him Tommy. "You said cauffee." + +"Oh!" replied Peter. "For the future, Tommy, if you don't mind, I +will take tea of a morning." + +"All the same to me," explained the agreeable Tommy, "it's your +breakfast." + +"What I was about to say," continued Peter, "was that you're not +looking very well, Tommy." + +"I'm all right," asserted Tommy; "never nothing the matter with +me." + +"Not that you know of, perhaps; but one can be in a very bad way, +Tommy, without being aware of it. I cannot have anyone about me +that I am not sure is in thoroughly sound health." + +"If you mean you've changed your mind and want to get rid of me--" +began Tommy, with its chin in the air. + +"I don't want any of your uppishness," snapped Peter, who had wound +himself up for the occasion to a degree of assertiveness that +surprised even himself. "If you are a thoroughly strong and +healthy person, as I think you are, I shall be very glad to retain +your services. But upon that point I must be satisfied. It is the +custom," explained Peter. "It is always done in good families. +Run round to this address"--Peter wrote it upon a leaf of his +notebook--"and ask Dr. Smith to come and see me before he begins +his round. You go at once, and don't let us have any argument." + +"That is the way to talk to that young person--clearly," said Peter +to himself, listening to Tommy's footsteps dying down the stairs. + +Hearing the street-door slam, Peter stole into the kitchen and +brewed himself a cup of coffee. + +Dr. Smith, who had commenced life as Herr Schmidt, but who in +consequence of difference of opinion with his Government was now an +Englishman with strong Tory prejudices, had but one sorrow: it was +that strangers would mistake him for a foreigner. He was short and +stout, with bushy eyebrows and a grey moustache, and looked so +fierce that children cried when they saw him, until he patted them +on the head and addressed them as "mein leedle frent" in a voice so +soft and tender that they had to leave off howling just to wonder +where it came from. He and Peter, who was a vehement Radical, had +been cronies for many years, and had each an indulgent contempt for +the other's understanding, tempered by a sincere affection for one +another they would have found it difficult to account for. + +"What tink you is de matter wid de leedle wench?" demanded Dr. +Smith, Peter having opened the case. Peter glanced round the room. +The kitchen door was closed. + +"How do you know it's a wench?" + +The eyes beneath the bushy brows grew rounder. "If id is not a +wench, why dress it--" + +"Haven't dressed it," interrupted Peter. "Just what I'm waiting to +do--so soon as I know." + +And Peter recounted the events of the preceding evening. + +Tears gathered in the doctor's small, round eyes. His absurd +sentimentalism was the quality in his friend that most irritated +Peter. + +"Poor leedle waif!" murmured the soft-hearted old gentleman. "Id +was de good Providence dat guided her--or him, whichever id be." + +"Providence be hanged!" snarled Peter. "What was my Providence +doing--landing me with a gutter-brat to look after?" + +"So like you Radicals," sneered the doctor, "to despise a fellow +human creature just because id may not have been born in burble and +fine linen." + +"I didn't send for you to argue politics," retorted Peter, +controlling his indignation by an effort. "I want you to tell me +whether it's a boy or a girl, so that I may know what to do with +it." + +"What mean you to do wid id?" inquired the doctor. + +"I don't know," confessed Peter. "If it's a boy, as I rather think +it is, maybe I'll be able to find it a place in one of the offices- +-after I've taught it a little civilisation." + +"And if id be a girl?" + +"How can it be a girl when it wears trousers?" demanded Peter. +"Why anticipate difficulties?" + +Peter, alone, paced to and fro the room, his hands behind his back, +his ear on the alert to catch the slightest sound from above. + +"I do hope it is a boy," said Peter, glancing up. + +Peter's eyes rested on the photo of the fragile little woman gazing +down at him from its stiff frame upon the chimney-piece. Thirty +years ago, in this same room, Peter had paced to and fro, his hands +behind his back, his ear alert to catch the slightest sound from +above, had said to himself the same words. + +"It's odd," mused Peter--"very odd indeed." + +The door opened. The stout doctor, preceded at a little distance +by his watch-chain, entered and closed the door behind him. + +"A very healthy child," said the doctor, "as fine a child as any +one could wish to see. A girl." + +The two old gentlemen looked at one another. Elizabeth, possibly +relieved in her mind, began to purr. + +"What am I to do with it?" demanded Peter. + +"A very awkward bosition for you," agreed the sympathetic doctor. + +"I was a fool!" declared Peter. + +"You haf no one here to look after de leedle wench when you are +away," pointed out the thoughtful doctor. + +"And from what I've seen of the imp," added Peter, "it will want +some looking after." + +"I tink--I tink," said the helpful doctor, "I see a way out!" + +"What?" + +The doctor thrust his fierce face forward and tapped knowingly with +his right forefinger the right side of his round nose. "I will +take charge of de leedle wench." + +"You?" + +"To me de case will not present de same difficulties. I haf a +housekeeper." + +"Oh, yes, Mrs. Whateley." + +"She is a goot woman when you know her," explained the doctor. +"She only wants managing." + +"Pooh!" ejaculated Peter. + +"Why do you say dat?" inquired the doctor. + +"You! bringing up a headstrong girl. The idea!" + +"I should be kind, but firm." + +"You don't know her." + +"How long haf you known her?" + +"Anyhow, I'm not a soft-hearted sentimentalist that would just ruin +the child." + +"Girls are not boys," persisted the doctor; "dey want different +treatment." + +"Well, I'm not a brute!" snarled Peter. "Besides, suppose she +turns out rubbish! What do you know about her?" + +"I take my chance," agreed the generous doctor. + +"It wouldn't be fair," retorted honest Peter. + +"Tink it over," said the doctor. "A place is never home widout de +leedle feet. We Englishmen love de home. You are different. You +haf no sentiment." + +"I cannot help feeling," explained Peter, "a sense of duty in this +matter. The child came to me. It is as if this thing had been +laid upon me." + +"If you look upon id dat way, Peter," sighed the doctor. + +"With sentiment," went on Peter, "I have nothing to do; but duty-- +duty is quite another thing." Peter, feeling himself an ancient +Roman, thanked the doctor and shook hands with him. + +Tommy, summoned, appeared. + +"The doctor, Tommy," said Peter, without looking up from his +writing, "gives a very satisfactory account of you. So you can +stop." + +"Told you so," returned Tommy. "Might have saved your money." + +"But we shall have to find you another name." + +"What for?" + +"If you are to be a housekeeper, you must be a girl." + +"Don't like girls." + +"Can't say I think much of them myself, Tommy. We must make the +best of it. To begin with, we must get you proper clothes." + +"Hate skirts. They hamper you." + +"Tommy," said Peter severely, "don't argue." + +"Pointing out facts ain't arguing," argued Tommy. "They do hamper +you. You try 'em." + +The clothes were quickly made, and after a while they came to fit; +but the name proved more difficult of adjustment. A sweet-faced, +laughing lady, known to fame by a title respectable and orthodox, +appears an honoured guest to-day at many a literary gathering. But +the old fellows, pressing round, still call her "Tommy." + +The week's trial came to an end. Peter, whose digestion was +delicate, had had a happy thought. + +"What I propose, Tommy--I mean Jane," said Peter, "is that we +should get in a woman to do just the mere cooking. That will give +you more time to--to attend to other things, Tommy--Jane, I mean." + +"What other things?" chin in the air. + +"The--the keeping of the rooms in order, Tommy. The--the dusting." + +"Don't want twenty-four hours a day to dust four rooms." + +"Then there are messages, Tommy. It would be a great advantage to +me to have someone I could send on a message without feeling I was +interfering with the housework." + +"What are you driving at?" demanded Tommy. "Why, I don't have half +enough to do as it is. I can do all--" + +Peter put his foot down. "When I say a thing, I mean a thing. The +sooner you understand that, the better. How dare you argue with +me! Fiddle-de-dee!" For two pins Peter would have employed an +expletive even stronger, so determined was he feeling. + +Tommy without another word left the room. Peter looked at +Elizabeth and winked. + +Poor Peter! His triumph was short-lived. Five minutes later, +Tommy returned, clad in the long, black skirt, supported by the +cricket belt, the blue garibaldi cut decollete, the pepper-and-salt +jacket, the worsted comforter, the red lips very tightly pressed, +the long lashes over the black eyes moving very rapidly. + +"Tommy" (severely), "what is this tomfoolery?" + +"I understand. I ain't no good to you. Thanks for giving me a +trial. My fault." + +"Tommy" (less severely), "don't be an idiot." + +"Ain't an idiot. 'Twas Emma. Told me I was good at cooking. Said +I'd got an aptitude for it. She meant well." + +"Tommy" (no trace of severity), "sit down. Emma was quite right. +Your cooking is--is promising. As Emma puts it, you have aptitude. +Your--perseverance, your hopefulness proves it." + +"Then why d'ye want to get someone else in to do it?" + +If Peter could have answered truthfully! If Peter could have +replied: + +"My dear, I am a lonely old gentleman. I did not know it until-- +until the other day. Now I cannot forget it again. Wife and child +died many years ago. I was poor, or I might have saved them. That +made me hard. The clock of my life stood still. I hid away the +key. I did not want to think. You crept to me out of the cruel +fog, awakened old dreams. Do not go away any more"--perhaps Tommy, +in spite of her fierce independence, would have consented to be +useful; and thus Peter might have gained his end at less cost of +indigestion. But the penalty for being an anti-sentimentalist is +that you must not talk like this even to yourself. So Peter had to +cast about for other methods. + +"Why shouldn't I keep two servants if I like?" It did seem hard on +the old gentleman. + +"What's the sense of paying two to do the work of one? You would +only be keeping me on out of charity." The black eyes flashed. "I +ain't a beggar." + +"And you really think, Tommy--I should say Jane, you can manage +the--the whole of it? You won't mind being sent on a message, +perhaps in the very middle of your cooking. It was that I was +thinking of, Tommy--some cooks would." + +"You go easy," advised him Tommy, "till I complain of having too +much to do." + +Peter returned to his desk. Elizabeth looked up. It seemed to +Peter that Elizabeth winked. + +The fortnight that followed was a period of trouble to Peter, for +Tommy, her suspicions having been aroused, was sceptical of +"business" demanding that Peter should dine with this man at the +club, lunch with this editor at the Cheshire Cheese. At once the +chin would go up into the air, the black eyes cloud threateningly. +Peter, an unmarried man for thirty years, lacking experience, would +under cross-examination contradict himself, become confused, break +down over essential points. + +"Really," grumbled Peter to himself one evening, sawing at a mutton +chop, "really there's no other word for it--I'm henpecked." + +Peter that day had looked forward to a little dinner at a favourite +restaurant, with his "dear old friend Blenkinsopp, a bit of a +gourmet, Tommy--that means a man who likes what you would call +elaborate cooking!"--forgetful at the moment that he had used up +"Blenkinsopp" three days before for a farewell supper, +"Blenkinsopp" having to set out the next morning for Egypt. Peter +was not facile at invention. Names in particular had always been a +difficulty to him. + +"I like a spirit of independence," continued Peter to himself. +"Wish she hadn't quite so much of it. Wonder where she got it +from." + +The situation was becoming more serious to Peter than he cared to +admit. For day by day, in spite of her tyrannies, Tommy was +growing more and more indispensable to Peter. Tommy was the first +audience that for thirty years had laughed at Peter's jokes; Tommy +was the first public that for thirty years had been convinced that +Peter was the most brilliant journalist in Fleet Street; Tommy was +the first anxiety that for thirty years had rendered it needful +that Peter each night should mount stealthily the creaking stairs, +steal with shaded candle to a bedside. If only Tommy wouldn't "do" +for him! If only she could be persuaded to "do" something else. + +Another happy thought occurred to Peter. + +"Tommy--I mean Jane," said Peter, "I know what I'll do with you." + +"What's the game now?" + +"I'll make a journalist of you." + +"Don't talk rot." + +"It isn't rot. Besides, I won't have you answer me like that. As +a Devil--that means, Tommy, the unseen person in the background +that helps a journalist to do his work--you would be invaluable to +me. It would pay me, Tommy--pay me very handsomely. I should make +money out of you." + +This appeared to be an argument that Tommy understood. Peter, with +secret delight, noticed that the chin retained its normal level. + +"I did help a chap to sell papers, once," remembered Tommy; "he +said I was fly at it." + +"I told you so," exclaimed Peter triumphantly. "The methods are +different, but the instinct required is the same. We will get a +woman in to relieve you of the housework." + +The chin shot up into the air. + +"I could do it in my spare time." + +"You see, Tommy, I should want you to go about with me--to be +always with me." + +"Better try me first. Maybe you're making an error." + +Peter was learning the wisdom of the serpent. + +"Quite right, Tommy. We will first see what you can do. Perhaps, +after all, it may turn out that you are better as a cook." In his +heart Peter doubted this. + +But the seed had fallen upon good ground. It was Tommy herself +that manoeuvred her first essay in journalism. A great man had +come to London--was staying in apartments especially prepared for +him in St. James's Palace. Said every journalist in London to +himself: "If I could obtain an interview with this Big Man, what a +big thing it would be for me!" For a week past, Peter had carried +everywhere about with him a paper headed: "Interview of Our +Special Correspondent with Prince Blank," questions down left-hand +column, very narrow; space for answers right-hand side, very wide. +But the Big Man was experienced. + +"I wonder," said Peter, spreading the neatly folded paper on the +desk before him, "I wonder if there can be any way of getting at +him--any dodge or trick, any piece of low cunning, any plausible +lie that I haven't thought of." + +"Old Man Martin--called himself Martini--was just such another," +commented Tommy. "Come pay time, Saturday afternoon, you just +couldn't get at him--simply wasn't any way. I was a bit too good +for him once, though," remembered Tommy, with a touch of pride in +her voice; "got half a quid out of him that time. It did surprise +him." + +"No," communed Peter to himself aloud, "I don't honestly think +there can be any method, creditable or discreditable, that I +haven't tried." Peter flung the one-sided interview into the +wastepaper-basket, and slipping his notebook into his pocket, +departed to drink tea with a lady novelist, whose great desire, as +stated in a postscript to her invitation, was to avoid publicity, +if possible. + +Tommy, as soon as Peter's back was turned, fished it out again. + +An hour later in the fog around St. James's Palace stood an Imp, +clad in patched trousers and a pepper-and-salt jacket turned up +about the neck, gazing with admiring eyes upon the sentry. + +"Now, then, young seventeen-and-sixpence the soot," said the +sentry, "what do you want?" + +"Makes you a bit anxious, don't it," suggested the Imp, "having a +big pot like him to look after?" + +"Does get a bit on yer mind, if yer thinks about it," agreed the +sentry. + +"How do you find him to talk to, like?" + +"Well," said the sentry, bringing his right leg into action for the +purpose of relieving his left, "ain't 'ad much to do with 'im +myself, not person'ly, as yet. Oh, 'e ain't a bad sort when yer +know 'im." + +"That's his shake-down, ain't it?" asked the Imp, "where the lights +are." + +"That's it," admitted sentry. "You ain't an Anarchist? Tell me if +you are." + +"I'll let you know if I feel it coming on," the Imp assured him. + +Had the sentry been a man of swift and penetrating observation-- +which he wasn't--he might have asked the question in more serious a +tone. For he would have remarked that the Imp's black eyes were +resting lovingly upon a rain-water-pipe, giving to a skilful +climber easy access to the terrace underneath the Prince's windows. + +"I would like to see him," said the Imp. + +"Friend o' yours?" asked the sentry. + +"Well, not exactly," admitted the Imp. "But there, you know, +everybody's talking about him down our street." + +"Well, yer'll 'ave to be quick about it," said the sentry. 'E's +off to-night." + +Tommy's face fell. "I thought it wasn't till Friday morning." + +"Ah!" said the sentry, "that's what the papers say, is it?" The +sentry's voice took unconsciously the accent of those from whom no +secret is hid. "I'll tell yer what yer can do," continued the +sentry, enjoying an unaccustomed sense of importance. The sentry +glanced left, then right. "'E's a slipping off all by 'imself down +to Osborne by the 6.40 from Waterloo. Nobody knows it--'cept, o' +course, just a few of us. That's 'is way all over. 'E just 'ates- +-" + +A footstep sounded down the corridor. The sentry became +statuesque. + +At Waterloo, Tommy inspected the 6.40 train. Only one compartment +indicated possibilities, an extra large one at the end of the coach +next the guard's van. It was labelled "Reserved," and in the place +of the usual fittings was furnished with a table and four easy- +chairs. Having noticed its position, Tommy took a walk up the +platform and disappeared into the fog. + +Twenty minutes later, Prince Blank stepped hurriedly across the +platform, unnoticed save by half a dozen obsequious officials, and +entered the compartment reserved for him. The obsequious officials +bowed. Prince Blank, in military fashion, raised his hand. The +6.40 steamed out slowly. + +Prince Blank, who was a stout gentleman, though he tried to +disguise the fact, seldom found himself alone. When he did, he +generally indulged himself in a little healthy relaxation. With +two hours' run to Southampton before him, free from all possibility +of intrusion, Prince Blank let loose the buttons of his powerfully +built waistcoat, rested his bald head on the top of his chair, +stretched his great legs across another, and closed his terrible, +small eyes. + +For an instant it seemed to Prince Blank that a draught had entered +into the carriage. As, however, the sensation immediately passed +away, he did not trouble to wake up. Then the Prince dreamed that +somebody was in the carriage with him--was sitting opposite to him. +This being an annoying sort of dream, the Prince opened his eyes +for the purpose of dispelling it. There was somebody sitting +opposite to him--a very grimy little person, wiping blood off its +face and hands with a dingy handkerchief. Had the Prince been a +man capable of surprise, he would have been surprised. + +"It's all right," assured him Tommy. "I ain't here to do any harm. +I ain't an Anarchist." + +The Prince, by a muscular effort, retired some four or five inches +and commenced to rebutton his waistcoat. + +"How did you get here?" asked the Prince. + +"'Twas a bigger job than I'd reckoned on," admitted Tommy, seeking +a dry inch in the smeared handkerchief, and finding none. "But +that don't matter," added Tommy cheerfully, "now I'm here." + +"If you do not wish me to hand you over to the police at +Southampton, you had better answer my questions," remarked the +Prince drily. + +Tommy was not afraid of princes, but in the lexicon of her harassed +youth "Police" had always been a word of dread. + +"I wanted to get at you." + +"I gather that." + +"There didn't seem any other way. It's jolly difficult to get at +you. You're so jolly artful." + +"Tell me how you managed it." + +"There's a little bridge for signals just outside Waterloo. I +could see that the train would have to pass under it. So I climbed +up and waited. It being a foggy night, you see, nobody twigged me. +I say, you are Prince Blank, ain't you?" + +"I am Prince Blank." + +"Should have been mad if I'd landed the wrong man." + +"Go on." + +"I knew which was your carriage--leastways, I guessed it; and as it +came along, I did a drop." Tommy spread out her arms and legs to +illustrate the action. "The lamps, you know," explained Tommy, +still dabbing at her face--"one of them caught me." + +"And from the roof?" + +"Oh, well, it was easy after that. There's an iron thing at the +back, and steps. You've only got to walk downstairs and round the +corner, and there you are. Bit of luck your other door not being +locked. I hadn't thought of that. Haven't got such a thing as a +handkerchief about you, have you?" + +The Prince drew one from his sleeve and passed it to her. "You +mean to tell me, boy--" + +"Ain't a boy," explained Tommy. "I'm a girl!" + +She said it sadly. Deeming her new friends such as could be +trusted, Tommy had accepted their statement that she really was a +girl. But for many a long year to come the thought of her lost +manhood tinged her voice with bitterness. + +"A girl!" + +Tommy nodded her head. + +"Umph!" said the Prince; "I have heard a good deal about the +English girl. I was beginning to think it exaggerated. Stand up." + +Tommy obeyed. It was not altogether her way; but with those eyes +beneath their shaggy brows bent upon her, it seemed the simplest +thing to do. + +"So. And now that you are here, what do you want?" + +"To interview you." + +Tommy drew forth her list of questions. + +The shaggy brows contracted. + +"Who put you up to this absurdity? Who was it? Tell me at once." + +"Nobody." + +"Don't lie to me. His name?" + +The terrible, small eyes flashed fire. But Tommy also had a pair +of eyes. Before their blaze of indignation the great man +positively quailed. This type of opponent was new to him. + +"I'm not lying." + +"I beg your pardon," said the Prince. + +And at this point it occurred to the Prince, who being really a +great man, had naturally a sense of humour, that a conference +conducted on these lines between the leading statesman of an Empire +and an impertinent hussy of, say, twelve years old at the outside, +might end by becoming ridiculous. So the Prince took up his chair +and put it down again beside Tommy's, and employing skilfully his +undoubted diplomatic gifts, drew from her bit by bit the whole +story. + +"I'm inclined, Miss Jane," said the Great Man, the story ended, "to +agree with our friend Mr. Hope. I should say your metier was +journalism." + +"And you'll let me interview you?" asked Tommy, showing her white +teeth. + +The Great Man, laying a hand heavier than he guessed on Tommy's +shoulder, rose. "I think you are entitled to it." + +"What's your views?" demanded Tommy, reading, "of the future +political and social relationships--" + +"Perhaps," suggested the Great Man, "it will be simpler if I write +it myself." + +"Well," concurred Tommy; "my spelling is a bit rocky." + +The Great Man drew a chair to the table. + +"You won't miss out anything--will you?" insisted Tommy. + +"I shall endeavour, Miss Jane, to give you no cause for complaint," +gravely he assured her, and sat down to write. + +Not till the train began to slacken speed had the Prince finished. +Then, blotting and refolding the paper, he stood up. + +"I have added some instructions on the back of the last page," +explained the Prince, "to which you will draw Mr. Hope's particular +attention. I would wish you to promise me, Miss Jane, never again +to have recourse to dangerous acrobatic tricks, not even in the +sacred cause of journalism." + +"Of course, if you hadn't been so jolly difficult to get at--" + +"My fault, I know," agreed the Prince. "There is not the least +doubt as to which sex you belong to. Nevertheless, I want you to +promise me. Come," urged the Prince, "I have done a good deal for +you--more than you know." + +"All right," consented Tommy a little sulkily. Tommy hated making +promises, because she always kept them. "I promise." + +"There is your Interview." The first Southampton platform lamp +shone in upon the Prince and Tommy as they stood facing one +another. The Prince, who had acquired the reputation, not +altogether unjustly, of an ill-tempered and savage old gentleman, +did a strange thing: taking the little, blood-smeared face between +his paws, he kissed it. Tommy always remembered the smoky flavour +of the bristly grey moustache. + +"One thing more," said the Prince sternly--"not a word of all this. +Don't open your mouth to speak of it till you are back in Gough +Square." + +"Do you take me for a mug?" answered Tommy. + +They behaved very oddly to Tommy after the Prince had disappeared. +Everybody took a deal of trouble for her, but none of them seemed +to know why they were doing it. They looked at her and went away, +and came again and looked at her. And the more they thought about +it, the more puzzled they became. Some of them asked her +questions, but what Tommy really didn't know, added to what she +didn't mean to tell, was so prodigious that Curiosity itself paled +at contemplation of it. + +They washed and brushed her up and gave her an excellent supper; +and putting her into a first-class compartment labelled "Reserved," +sent her back to Waterloo, and thence in a cab to Gough Square, +where she arrived about midnight, suffering from a sense of self- +importance, traces of which to this day are still discernible. + +Such and thus was the beginning of all things. Tommy, having +talked for half an hour at the rate of two hundred words a minute, +had suddenly dropped her head upon the table, had been aroused with +difficulty and persuaded to go to bed. Peter, in the deep easy- +chair before the fire, sat long into the night. Elizabeth, liking +quiet company, purred softly. Out of the shadows crept to Peter +Hope an old forgotten dream--the dream of a wonderful new Journal, +price one penny weekly, of which the Editor should come to be one +Thomas Hope, son of Peter Hope, its honoured Founder and +Originator: a powerful Journal that should supply a long-felt +want, popular, but at the same time elevating--a pleasure to the +public, a profit to its owners. "Do you not remember me?" +whispered the Dream. "We had long talks together. The morning and +the noonday pass. The evening still is ours. The twilight also +brings its promise." + +Elizabeth stopped purring and looked up surprised. Peter was +laughing to himself. + + + +STORY THE SECOND--William Clodd appoints himself Managing Director + + + +Mrs. Postwhistle sat on a Windsor-chair in the centre of Rolls +Court. Mrs. Postwhistle, who, in the days of her Hebehood, had +been likened by admiring frequenters of the old Mitre in Chancery +Lane to the ladies, somewhat emaciated, that an English artist, +since become famous, was then commencing to popularise, had +developed with the passing years, yet still retained a face of +placid youthfulness. The two facts, taken in conjunction, had +resulted in an asset to her income not to be despised. The +wanderer through Rolls Court this summer's afternoon, presuming him +to be familiar with current journalism, would have retired haunted +by the sense that the restful-looking lady on the Windsor-chair was +someone that he ought to know. Glancing through almost any +illustrated paper of the period, the problem would have been solved +for him. A photograph of Mrs. Postwhistle, taken quite recently, +he would have encountered with this legend: "BEFORE use of +Professor Hardtop's certain cure for corpulency." Beside it a +photograph of Mrs. Postwhistle, then Arabella Higgins, taken twenty +years ago, the legend slightly varied: "AFTER use," etc. The face +was the same, the figure--there was no denying it--had undergone +decided alteration. + +Mrs. Postwhistle had reached with her chair the centre of Rolls +Court in course of following the sun. The little shop, over the +lintel of which ran: "Timothy Postwhistle, Grocer and Provision +Merchant," she had left behind her in the shadow. Old inhabitants +of St. Dunstan-in-the-West retained recollection of a gentlemanly +figure, always in a very gorgeous waistcoat, with Dundreary +whiskers, to be seen occasionally there behind the counter. All +customers it would refer, with the air of a Lord High Chamberlain +introducing debutantes, to Mrs. Postwhistle, evidently regarding +itself purely as ornamental. For the last ten years, however, no +one had noticed it there, and Mrs. Postwhistle had a facility +amounting almost to genius for ignoring or misunderstanding +questions it was not to her taste to answer. Most things were +suspected, nothing known. St. Dunstan-in-the-West had turned to +other problems. + +"If I wasn't wanting to see 'im," remarked to herself Mrs. +Postwhistle, who was knitting with one eye upon the shop, "'e'd a +been 'ere 'fore I'd 'ad time to clear the dinner things away; +certain to 'ave been. It's a strange world." + +Mrs. Postwhistle was desirous for the arrival of a gentleman not +usually awaited with impatience by the ladies of Rolls Court--to +wit, one William Clodd, rent-collector, whose day for St. Dunstan- +in-the-West was Tuesday. + +"At last," said Mrs. Postwhistle, though without hope that Mr. +Clodd, who had just appeared at the other end of the court, could +possibly hear her. "Was beginning to be afraid as you'd tumbled +over yerself in your 'urry and 'urt yerself." + +Mr. Clodd, perceiving Mrs. Postwhistle, decided to abandon method +and take No. 7 first. + +Mr. Clodd was a short, thick-set, bullet-headed young man, with +ways that were bustling, and eyes that, though kind, suggested +trickiness. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Clodd admiringly, as he pocketed the six half-crowns +that the lady handed up to him. "If only they were all like you, +Mrs. Postwhistle!" + +"Wouldn't be no need of chaps like you to worry 'em," pointed out +Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"It's an irony of fate, my being a rent-collector, when you come to +think of it," remarked Mr. Clodd, writing out the receipt. "If I +had my way, I'd put an end to landlordism, root and branch. Curse +of the country." + +"Just the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," returned the +lady--"that lodger o' mine." + +"Ah! don't pay, don't he? You just hand him over to me. I'll soon +have it out of him." + +"It's not that," explained Mrs. Postwhistle. "If a Saturday +morning 'appened to come round as 'e didn't pay up without me +asking, I should know I'd made a mistake--that it must be Friday. +If I don't 'appen to be in at 'alf-past ten, 'e puts it in an +envelope and leaves it on the table." + +"Wonder if his mother has got any more like him?" mused Mr. Clodd. +"Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want +to say about him, then? Merely to brag about him?" + +"I wanted to ask you," continued Mrs. Postwhistle, "'ow I could get +rid of 'im. It was rather a curious agreement." + +"Why do you want to get rid of him? Too noisy?" + +"Noisy! Why, the cat makes more noise about the 'ouse than 'e +does. 'E'd make 'is fortune as a burglar." + +"Come home late?" + +"Never known 'im out after the shutters are up." + +"Gives you too much trouble then?" + +"I can't say that of 'im. Never know whether 'e's in the 'ouse or +isn't, without going upstairs and knocking at the door." + +"Here, you tell it your own way," suggested the bewildered Clodd. +"If it was anyone else but you, I should say you didn't know your +own business." + +"'E gets on my nerves," said Mrs. Postwhistle. "You ain't in a +'urry for five minutes?" + +Mr. Clodd was always in a hurry. "But I can forget it talking to +you," added the gallant Mr. Clodd. + +Mrs. Postwhistle led the way into the little parlour. + +"Just the name of it," consented Mr. Clodd. "Cheerfulness combined +with temperance; that's the ideal." + +"I'll tell you what 'appened only last night," commenced Mrs. +Postwhistle, seating herself the opposite side of the loo-table. +"A letter came for 'im by the seven o'clock post. I'd seen 'im go +out two hours before, and though I'd been sitting in the shop the +whole blessed time, I never saw or 'eard 'im pass through. E's +like that. It's like 'aving a ghost for a lodger. I opened 'is +door without knocking and went in. If you'll believe me, 'e was +clinging with 'is arms and legs to the top of the bedstead--it's +one of those old-fashioned, four-post things--'is 'ead touching the +ceiling. 'E 'adn't got too much clothes on, and was cracking nuts +with 'is teeth and eating 'em. 'E threw a 'andful of shells at me, +and making the most awful faces at me, started off gibbering softly +to himself." + +"All play, I suppose? No real vice?" commented the interested Mr. +Clodd. + +"It will go on for a week, that will," continued Mrs. Postwhistle-- +"'e fancying 'imself a monkey. Last week he was a tortoise, and +was crawling about on his stomach with a tea-tray tied on to 'is +back. 'E's as sensible as most men, if that's saying much, the +moment 'e's outside the front door; but in the 'ouse--well, I +suppose the fact is that 'e's a lunatic." + +"Don't seem no hiding anything from you," Mrs. Postwhistle remarked +Mr. Clodd in tones of admiration. "Does he ever get violent?" + +"Don't know what 'e would be like if 'e 'appened to fancy 'imself +something really dangerous," answered Mrs. Postwhistle. "I am a +bit nervous of this new monkey game, I don't mind confessing to +you--the things that they do according to the picture-books. Up to +now, except for imagining 'imself a mole, and taking all his meals +underneath the carpet, it's been mostly birds and cats and 'armless +sort o' things I 'aven't seemed to mind so much." + +"How did you get hold of him?" demanded Mr. Clodd. "Have much +trouble in finding him, or did somebody come and tell you about +him?" + +"Old Gladman, of Chancery Lane, the law stationer, brought 'im 'ere +one evening about two months ago--said 'e was a sort of distant +relative of 'is, a bit soft in the 'ead, but perfectly 'armless-- +wanted to put 'im with someone who wouldn't impose on 'im. Well, +what between 'aving been empty for over five weeks, the poor old +gaby 'imself looking as gentle as a lamb, and the figure being +reasonable, I rather jumped at the idea; and old Gladman, +explaining as 'ow 'e wanted the thing settled and done with, got me +to sign a letter." + +"Kept a copy of it?" asked the business-like Clodd. + +"No. But I can remember what it was. Gladman 'ad it all ready. +So long as the money was paid punctual and 'e didn't make no +disturbance and didn't fall sick, I was to go on boarding and +lodging 'im for seventeen-and-sixpence a week. It didn't strike me +as anything to be objected to at the time; but 'e payin' regular, +as I've explained to you, and be'aving, so far as disturbance is +concerned, more like a Christian martyr than a man, well, it looks +to me as if I'd got to live and die with 'im." + +"Give him rope, and possibly he'll have a week at being a howling +hyaena, or a laughing jackass, or something of that sort that will +lead to a disturbance," thought Mr. Clodd, "in which case, of +course, you would have your remedy." + +"Yes," thought Mrs. Postwhistle, "and possibly also 'e may take it +into what 'e calls is 'ead to be a tiger or a bull, and then +perhaps before 'e's through with it I'll be beyond the reach of +remedies." + +"Leave it to me," said Mr. Clodd, rising and searching for his hat. +"I know old Gladman; I'll have a talk with him." + +"You might get a look at that letter if you can," suggested Mrs. +Postwhistle, "and tell me what you think about it. I don't want to +spend the rest of my days in a lunatic asylum of my own if I can +'elp it." + +"You leave it to me," was Mr. Clodd's parting assurance. + +The July moon had thrown a silver veil over the grimness of Rolls +Court when, five hours later, Mr. Clodd's nailed boots echoed again +upon its uneven pavement; but Mr. Clodd had no eye for moon or +stars or such-like; always he had things more important to think +of. + +"Seen the old 'umbug?" asked Mrs. Postwhistle, who was partial to +the air, leading the way into the parlour. + +"First and foremost commenced," Mr. Clodd, as he laid aside his +hat, "it is quite understood that you really do want to get rid of +him? What's that?" demanded Mr. Clodd, a heavy thud upon the floor +above having caused him to start out of his chair. + +"'E came in an hour after you'd gone," explained Mrs. Postwhistle, +"bringing with him a curtain pole as 'e'd picked up for a shilling +in Clare Market. 'E's rested one end upon the mantelpiece and tied +the other to the back of the easy-chair--'is idea is to twine +'imself round it and go to sleep upon it. Yes, you've got it quite +right without a single blunder. I do want to get rid of 'im" + +"Then," said Mr. Clodd, reseating himself, "it can be done." + +"Thank God for that!" was Mrs. Postwhistle's pious ejaculation. + +"It is just as I thought," continued Mr. Clodd. "The old innocent- +-he's Gladman's brother-in-law, by the way--has got a small +annuity. I couldn't get the actual figure, but I guess it's about +sufficient to pay for his keep and leave old Gladman, who is +running him, a very decent profit. They don't want to send him to +an asylum. They can't say he's a pauper, and to put him into a +private establishment would swallow up, most likely, the whole of +his income. On the other hand, they don't want the bother of +looking after him themselves. I talked pretty straight to the old +man--let him see I understood the business; and--well, to cut a +long story short, I'm willing to take on the job, provided you +really want to have done with it, and Gladman is willing in that +case to let you off your contract." + +Mrs. Postwhistle went to the cupboard to get Mr. Clodd a drink. +Another thud upon the floor above--one suggestive of exceptional +velocity--arrived at the precise moment when Mrs. Postwhistle, the +tumbler level with her eye, was in the act of measuring. + +"I call this making a disturbance," said Mrs. Postwhistle, +regarding the broken fragments. + +"It's only for another night," comforted her Mr. Clodd. "I'll take +him away some time to-morrow. Meanwhile, if I were you, I should +spread a mattress underneath that perch of his before I went to +bed. I should like him handed over to me in reasonable repair." + +"It will deaden the sound a bit, any'ow," agreed Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"Success to temperance," drank Mr. Clodd, and rose to go. + +"I take it you've fixed things up all right for yourself," said +Mrs. Postwhistle; "and nobody can blame you if you 'ave. 'Eaven +bless you, is what I say." + +"We shall get on together," prophesied Mr. Clodd. "I'm fond of +animals." + +Early the next morning a four-wheeled cab drew up at the entrance +to Rolls Court, and in it and upon it went away Clodd and Clodd's +Lunatic (as afterwards he came to be known), together with all the +belongings of Clodd's Lunatic, the curtain-pole included; and there +appeared again behind the fanlight of the little grocer's shop the +intimation: "Lodgings for a Single Man," which caught the eye a +few days later of a weird-looking, lanky, rawboned laddie, whose +language Mrs. Postwhistle found difficulty for a time in +comprehending; and that is why one sometimes meets to-day +worshippers of Kail Yard literature wandering disconsolately about +St. Dunstan-in-the-West, seeking Rolls Court, discomforted because +it is no more. But that is the history of the "Wee Laddie," and +this of the beginnings of William Clodd, now Sir William Clodd, +Bart., M.P., proprietor of a quarter of a hundred newspapers, +magazines, and journals: "Truthful Billy" we called him then. + +No one can say of Clodd that he did not deserve whatever profit his +unlicensed lunatic asylum may have brought him. A kindly man was +William Clodd when indulgence in sentiment did not interfere with +business. + +"There's no harm in him," asserted Mr. Clodd, talking the matter +over with one Mr. Peter Hope, journalist, of Gough Square. "He's +just a bit dotty, same as you or I might get with nothing to do and +all day long to do it in. Kid's play, that's all it is. The best +plan, I find, is to treat it as a game and take a hand in it. Last +week he wanted to be a lion. I could see that was going to be +awkward, he roaring for raw meat and thinking to prowl about the +house at night. Well, I didn't nag him--that's no good. I just +got a gun and shot him. He's a duck now, and I'm trying to keep +him one: sits for an hour beside his bath on three china eggs I've +bought him. Wish some of the sane ones were as little trouble." + +The summer came again. Clodd and his Lunatic, a mild-looking +little old gentleman of somewhat clerical cut, one often met with +arm-in-arm, bustling about the streets and courts that were the +scene of Clodd's rent-collecting labours. Their evident attachment +to one another was curiously displayed; Clodd, the young and red- +haired, treating his white-haired, withered companion with fatherly +indulgence; the other glancing up from time to time into Clodd's +face with a winning expression of infantile affection. + +"We are getting much better," explained Clodd, the pair meeting +Peter Hope one day at the corner of Newcastle Street. "The more we +are out in the open air, and the more we have to do and think +about, the better for us--eh?" + +The mild-looking little old gentleman hanging on Clodd's arm smiled +and nodded. + +"Between ourselves," added Mr. Clodd, sinking his voice, "we are +not half as foolish as folks think we are." + +Peter Hope went his way down the Strand. + +"Clodd's a good sort--a good sort," said Peter Hope, who, having in +his time lived much alone, had fallen into the habit of speaking +his thoughts aloud; "but he's not the man to waste his time. I +wonder." + +With the winter Clodd's Lunatic fell ill. + +Clodd bustled round to Chancery Lane. + +"To tell you the truth," confessed Mr. Gladman, "we never thought +he would live so long as he has." + +"There's the annuity you've got to think of," said Clodd, whom his +admirers of to-day (and they are many, for he must be a millionaire +by this time) are fond of alluding to as "that frank, outspoken +Englishman." "Wouldn't it be worth your while to try what taking +him away from the fogs might do for him?" + +Old Gladman seemed inclined to consider the question, but Mrs. +Gladman, a brisk, cheerful little woman, had made up her mind. + +"We've had what there is to have," said Mrs. Gladman. "He's +seventy-three. What's the sense of risking good money? Be +content." + +No one could say--no one ever did say--that Clodd, under the +circumstances, did not do his best. Perhaps, after all, nothing +could have helped. The little old gentleman, at Clodd's +suggestion, played at being a dormouse and lay very still. If he +grew restless, thereby bringing on his cough, Clodd, as a terrible +black cat, was watching to pounce upon him. Only by keeping very +quiet and artfully pretending to be asleep could he hope to escape +the ruthless Clodd. + +Doctor William Smith (ne Wilhelm Schmidt) shrugged his fat +shoulders. "We can do noding. Dese fogs of ours: id is de one +ting dat enables the foreigner to crow over us. Keep him quiet. +De dormouse--id is a goot idea." + +That evening William Clodd mounted to the second floor of 16, Gough +Square, where dwelt his friend, Peter Hope, and knocked briskly at +the door. + +"Come in," said a decided voice, which was not Peter Hope's. + +Mr. William Clodd's ambition was, and always had been, to be the +owner or part-owner of a paper. To-day, as I have said, he owns a +quarter of a hundred, and is in negotiation, so rumour goes, for +seven more. But twenty years ago "Clodd and Co., Limited," was but +in embryo. And Peter Hope, journalist, had likewise and for many a +long year cherished the ambition to be, before he died, the owner +or part-owner of a paper. Peter Hope to-day owns nothing, except +perhaps the knowledge, if such things be permitted, that whenever +and wherever his name is mentioned, kind thoughts arise unbidden-- +that someone of the party will surely say: "Dear old Peter! What +a good fellow he was!" Which also may be in its way a valuable +possession: who knows? But twenty years ago Peter's horizon was +limited by Fleet Street. + +Peter Hope was forty-seven, so he said, a dreamer and a scholar. +William Clodd was three-and-twenty, a born hustler, very wide +awake. Meeting one day by accident upon an omnibus, when Clodd +lent Peter, who had come out without his purse, threepence to pay +his fare with; drifting into acquaintanceship, each had come to +acquire a liking and respect for the other. The dreamer thought +with wonder of Clodd's shrewd practicability; the cute young man of +business was lost in admiration of what seemed to him his old +friend's marvellous learning. Both had arrived at the conclusion +that a weekly journal with Peter Hope as editor, and William Clodd +as manager, would be bound to be successful. + +"If only we could scrape together a thousand pounds!" had sighed +Peter. + +"The moment we lay our hands upon the coin, we'll start that paper. +Remember, it's a bargain," had answered William Clodd. + +Mr. William Clodd turned the handle and walked in. With the door +still in his hand he paused to look round the room. It was the +first time he had seen it. His meetings hitherto with Peter Hope +had been chance rencontres in street or restaurant. Always had he +been curious to view the sanctuary of so much erudition. + +A large, oak-panelled room, its three high windows, each with a +low, cushioned seat beneath it, giving on to Gough Square. Thirty- +five years before, Peter Hope, then a young dandy with side +whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear; with +wavy, brown hair, giving to his fresh-complexioned face an +appearance almost girlish; in cut-away blue coat, flowered +waistcoat, black silk cravat secured by two gold pins chained +together, and tightly strapped grey trouserings, had, aided and +abetted by a fragile little lady in crinoline and much-flounced +skirt, and bodice somewhat low, with corkscrew curls each movement +of her head set ringing, planned and furnished it in accordance +with the sober canons then in vogue, spending thereupon more than +they should, as is to be expected from the young to whom the future +promises all things. The fine Brussels carpet! A little too +bright, had thought the shaking curls. "The colours will tone +down, miss--ma'am." The shopman knew. Only by the help of the +round island underneath the massive Empire table, by excursions +into untrodden corners, could Peter recollect the rainbow floor his +feet had pressed when he was twenty-one. The noble bookcase, +surmounted by Minerva's bust. Really it was too expensive. But +the nodding curls had been so obstinate. Peter's silly books and +papers must be put away in order; the curls did not intend to +permit any excuse for untidiness. So, too, the handsome, brass- +bound desk; it must be worthy of the beautiful thoughts Peter would +pen upon it. The great sideboard, supported by two such angry- +looking mahogany lions; it must be strong to support the weight of +silver clever Peter would one day purchase to place upon it. The +few oil paintings in their heavy frames. A solidly furnished, +sober apartment; about it that subtle atmosphere of dignity one +finds but in old rooms long undisturbed, where one seems to read +upon the walls: "I, Joy and Sorrow, twain in one, have dwelt +here." One item only there was that seemed out of place among its +grave surroundings--a guitar, hanging from the wall, ornamented +with a ridiculous blue bow, somewhat faded. + +"Mr. William Clodd?" demanded the decided voice. + +Clodd started and closed the door. + +"Guessed it in once," admitted Mr. Clodd. + +"I thought so," said the decided voice. "We got your note this +afternoon. Mr. Hope will be back at eight. Will you kindly hang +up your hat and coat in the hall? You will find a box of cigars on +the mantelpiece. Excuse my being busy. I must finish this, then +I'll talk to you." + +The owner of the decided voice went on writing. Clodd, having done +as he was bid, sat himself in the easy-chair before the fire and +smoked. Of the person behind the desk Mr. Clodd could see but the +head and shoulders. It had black, curly hair, cut short. It's +only garment visible below the white collar and red tie might have +been a boy's jacket designed more like a girl's, or a girl's +designed more like a boy's; partaking of the genius of English +statesmanship, it appeared to be a compromise. Mr. Clodd remarked +the long, drooping lashes over the bright, black eyes. + +"It's a girl," said Mr. Clodd to himself; "rather a pretty girl." + +Mr. Clodd, continuing downward, arrived at the nose. + +"No," said Mr. Clodd to himself, "it's a boy--a cheeky young +beggar, I should say." + +The person at the desk, giving a grunt of satisfaction, gathered +together sheets of manuscript and arranged them; then, resting its +elbows on the desk and taking its head between its hands, regarded +Mr. Clodd. + +"Don't you hurry yourself," said Mr. Clodd; "but when you really +have finished, tell me what you think of me." + +"I beg your pardon," apologised the person at the desk. "I have +got into a habit of staring at people. I know it's rude. I'm +trying to break myself of it." + +"Tell me your name," suggested Mr. Clodd, "and I'll forgive you." + +"Tommy," was the answer--"I mean Jane." + +"Make up your mind," advised Mr. Clodd; "don't let me influence +you. I only want the truth." + +"You see," explained the person at the desk, "everybody calls me +Tommy, because that used to be my name. But now it's Jane." + +"I see," said Mr. Clodd. "And which am I to call you?" + +The person at the desk pondered. "Well, if this scheme you and Mr. +Hope have been talking about really comes to anything, we shall be +a good deal thrown together, you see, and then I expect you'll call +me Tommy--most people do." + +"You've heard about the scheme? Mr. Hope has told you?" + +"Why, of course," replied Tommy. "I'm Mr. Hope's devil." + +For the moment Clodd doubted whether his old friend had not started +a rival establishment to his own. + +"I help him in his work," Tommy relieved his mind by explaining. +"In journalistic circles we call it devilling." + +"I understand," said Mr. Clodd. "And what do you think, Tommy, of +the scheme? I may as well start calling you Tommy, because, +between you and me, I think the idea will come to something." + +Tommy fixed her black eyes upon him. She seemed to be looking him +right through. + +"You are staring again, Tommy," Clodd reminded her. "You'll have +trouble breaking yourself of that habit, I can see." + +"I was trying to make up my mind about you. Everything depends +upon the business man." + +"Glad to hear you say so," replied the self-satisfied Clodd. + +"If you are very clever-- Do you mind coming nearer to the lamp? I +can't quite see you over there." + +Clodd never could understand why he did it--never could understand +why, from first to last, he always did what Tommy wished him to do; +his only consolation being that other folks seemed just as +helpless. He rose and, crossing the long room, stood at attention +before the large desk, nervousness, to which he was somewhat of a +stranger, taking possession of him. + +"You don't LOOK very clever." + +Clodd experienced another new sensation--that of falling in his own +estimation. + +"And yet one can see that you ARE clever." + +The mercury of Clodd's conceit shot upward to a point that in the +case of anyone less physically robust might have been dangerous to +health. + +Clodd held out his hand. "We'll pull it through, Tommy. The +Guv'nor shall find the literature; you and I will make it go. I +like you." + +And Peter Hope, entering at the moment, caught a spark from the +light that shone in the eyes of William Clodd and Tommy, whose +other name was Jane, as, gripping hands, they stood with the desk +between them, laughing they knew not why. And the years fell from +old Peter, and, again a boy, he also laughed he knew not why. He +had sipped from the wine-cup of youth. + +"It's all settled, Guv'nor!" cried Clodd. "Tommy and I have fixed +things up. We'll start with the New Year." + +"You've got the money?" + +"I'm reckoning on it. I don't see very well how I can miss it." + +"Sufficient?" + +"Just about. You get to work." + +"I've saved a little," began Peter. "It ought to have been more, +but somehow it isn't." + +"Perhaps we shall want it," Clodd replied; "perhaps we shan't. You +are supplying the brains." + +The three for a few moments remained silent. + +"I think, Tommy," said Peter, "I think a bottle of the old Madeira- +-" + +"Not to-night," said Clodd; "next time." + +"To drink success," urged Peter. + +"One man's success generally means some other poor devil's +misfortune," answered Clodd. + +"Can't be helped, of course, but don't want to think about it to- +night. Must be getting back to my dormouse. Good night." + +Clodd shook hands and bustled out. + +"I thought as much," mused Peter aloud. + +"What an odd mixture the man is! Kind--no one could have been +kinder to the poor old fellow. Yet all the while-- We are an odd +mixture, Tommy," said Peter Hope, "an odd mixture, we men and +women." Peter was a philosopher. + +The white-whiskered old dormouse soon coughed himself to sleep for +ever. + +"I shall want you and the missis to come to the funeral, Gladman," +said Mr. Clodd, as he swung into the stationer's shop; "and bring +Pincer with you. I'm writing to him." + +"Don't see what good we can do," demurred Gladman. + +"Well, you three are his only relatives; it's only decent you +should be present," urged Clodd. "Besides, there's the will to be +read. You may care to hear it." + +The dry old law stationer opened wide his watery eyes. + +"His will! Why, what had he got to leave? There was nothing but +the annuity." + +"You turn up at the funeral," Clodd told him, "and you'll learn all +about it. Bonner's clerk will be there and will bring it with him. +Everything is going to be done comme il faut, as the French say." + +"I ought to have known of this," began Mr. Gladman. + +"Glad to find you taking so much interest in the old chap," said +Clodd. "Pity he's dead and can't thank you." + +"I warn you," shouted old Gladman, whose voice was rising to a +scream, "he was a helpless imbecile, incapable of acting for +himself! If any undue influence--" + +"See you on Friday," broke in Clodd, who was busy. + +Friday's ceremony was not a sociable affair. Mrs. Gladman spoke +occasionally in a shrill whisper to Mr. Gladman, who replied with +grunts. Both employed the remainder of their time in scowling at +Clodd. Mr. Pincer, a stout, heavy gentleman connected with the +House of Commons, maintained a ministerial reserve. The +undertaker's foreman expressed himself as thankful when it was +over. He criticised it as the humpiest funeral he had ever known; +for a time he had serious thoughts of changing his profession. + +The solicitor's clerk was waiting for the party on its return from +Kensal Green. Clodd again offered hospitality. Mr. Pincer this +time allowed himself a glass of weak whisky-and-water, and sipped +it with an air of doing so without prejudice. The clerk had one a +little stronger, Mrs. Gladman, dispensing with consultation, +declined shrilly for self and partner. Clodd, explaining that he +always followed legal precedent, mixed himself one also and drank +"To our next happy meeting." Then the clerk read. + +It was a short and simple will, dated the previous August. It +appeared that the old gentleman, unknown to his relatives, had died +possessed of shares in a silver mine, once despaired of, now +prospering. Taking them at present value, they would produce a sum +well over two thousand pounds. The old gentleman had bequeathed +five hundred pounds to his brother-in-law, Mr. Gladman; five +hundred pounds to his only other living relative, his first cousin, +Mr. Pincer; the residue to his friend, William Clodd, as a return +for the many kindnesses that gentleman had shown him. + +Mr. Gladman rose, more amused than angry. + +"And you think you are going to pocket that one thousand to twelve +hundred pounds. You really do?" he asked Mr. Clodd, who, with legs +stretched out before him, sat with his hands deep in his trousers +pockets. + +"That's the idea," admitted Mr. Clodd. + +Mr. Gladman laughed, but without much lightening the atmosphere. +"Upon my word, Clodd, you amuse me--you quite amuse me," repeated +Mr. Gladman. + +"You always had a sense of humour," commented Mr. Clodd. + +"You villain! You double-dyed villain!" screamed Mr. Gladman, +suddenly changing his tone. "You think the law is going to allow +you to swindle honest men! You think we are going to sit still for +you to rob us! That will--" Mr. Gladman pointed a lank forefinger +dramatically towards the table. + +"You mean to dispute it?" inquired Mr. Clodd. + +For a moment Mr. Gladman stood aghast at the other's coolness, but +soon found his voice again. + +"Dispute it!" he shrieked. "Do you dispute that you influenced +him?--dictated it to him word for word, made the poor old helpless +idiot sign it, he utterly incapable of even understanding--" + +"Don't chatter so much," interrupted Mr. Clodd. "It's not a pretty +voice, yours. What I asked you was, do you intend to dispute it?" + +"If you will kindly excuse us," struck in Mrs. Gladman, addressing +Mr. Clodd with an air of much politeness, "we shall just have time, +if we go now, to catch our solicitor before he leaves his office." + +Mr. Gladman took up his hat from underneath his chair. + +"One moment," suggested Mr. Clodd. "I did influence him to make +that will. If you don't like it, there's an end of it." + +"Of course," commenced Mr. Gladman in a mollified tone. + +"Sit down," suggested Mr. Clodd. "Let's try another one." Mr. +Clodd turned to the clerk. "The previous one, Mr. Wright, if you +please; the one dated June the 10th." + +An equally short and simple document, it bequeathed three hundred +pounds to Mr. William Clodd in acknowledgment of kindnesses +received, the residue to the Royal Zoological Society of London, +the deceased having been always interested in and fond of animals. +The relatives, "Who have never shown me the slightest affection or +given themselves the slightest trouble concerning me, and who have +already received considerable sums out of my income," being by name +excluded. + +"I may mention," observed Mr. Clodd, no one else appearing inclined +to break the silence, "that in suggesting the Royal Zoological +Society to my poor old friend as a fitting object for his +benevolence, I had in mind a very similar case that occurred five +years ago. A bequest to them was disputed on the grounds that the +testator was of unsound mind. They had to take their case to the +House of Lords before they finally won it." + +"Anyhow," remarked Mr. Gladman, licking his lips, which were dry, +"you won't get anything, Mr. Clodd--no, not even your three-hundred +pounds, clever as you think yourself. My brother-in-law's money +will go to the lawyers." + +Then Mr. Pincer rose and spoke slowly and clearly. "If there must +be a lunatic connected with our family, which I don't see why there +should be, it seems to me to be you, Nathaniel Gladman." + +Mr. Gladman stared back with open mouth. Mr. Pincer went on +impressively. + +"As for my poor old cousin Joe, he had his eccentricities, but that +was all. I for one am prepared to swear that he was of sound mind +in August last and quite capable of making his own will. It seems +to me that the other thing, dated in June, is just waste paper." + +Mr. Pincer having delivered himself, sat down again. Mr. Gladman +showed signs of returning language. + +"Oh! what's the use of quarrelling?" chirped in cheery Mrs. +Gladman. "It's five hundred pounds we never expected. Live and +let live is what I always say." + +"It's the damned artfulness of the thing," said Mr. Gladman, still +very white about the gills. + +"Oh, you have a little something to thaw your face," suggested his +wife. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gladman, on the strength of the five hundred pounds, +went home in a cab. Mr. Pincer stayed behind and made a night of +it with Mr. Clodd and Bonner's clerk, at Clodd's expense. + +The residue worked out at eleven hundred and sixty-nine pounds and +a few shillings. The capital of the new company, "established for +the purpose of carrying on the business of newspaper publishers and +distributors, printers, advertising agents, and any other trade and +enterprise affiliated to the same," was one thousand pounds in one +pound shares, fully paid up; of which William Clodd, Esquire, was +registered proprietor of four hundred and sixty-three; Peter Hope, +M.A., of 16, Gough Square, of also four hundred and sixty-three; +Miss Jane Hope, adopted daughter of said Peter Hope (her real name +nobody, herself included, ever having known), and generally called +Tommy, of three, paid for by herself after a battle royal with +William Clodd; Mrs. Postwhistle, of Rolls Court, of ten, presented +by the promoter; Mr. Pincer, of the House of Commons, also of ten +(still owing for); Dr. Smith (ne Schmidt) of fifty; James Douglas +Alexander Calder McTear (otherwise the "Wee Laddie"), residing then +in Mrs. Postwhistle's first floor front, of one, paid for by poem +published in the first number: "The Song of the Pen." + +Choosing a title for the paper cost much thought. Driven to +despair, they called it Good Humour. + + + +STORY THE THIRD: Grindley Junior drops into the Position of +Publisher + + + +Few are the ways of the West Central district that have changed +less within the last half-century than Nevill's Court, leading from +Great New Street into Fetter Lane. Its north side still consists +of the same quaint row of small low shops that stood there--doing +perhaps a little brisker business--when George the Fourth was King; +its southern side of the same three substantial houses each behind +a strip of garden, pleasant by contrast with surrounding grimness, +built long ago--some say before Queen Anne was dead. + +Out of the largest of these, passing through the garden, then well +cared for, came one sunny Sunday morning, some fifteen years before +the commencement proper of this story, one Solomon Appleyard, +pushing in front of him a perambulator. At the brick wall +surmounted by wooden railings that divides the garden from the +court, Solomon paused, hearing behind him the voice of Mrs. +Appleyard speaking from the doorstep. + +"If I don't see you again until dinner-time, I'll try and get on +without you, understand. Don't think of nothing but your pipe and +forget the child. And be careful of the crossings." + +Mrs. Appleyard retired into the darkness. Solomon, steering the +perambulator carefully, emerged from Nevill's Court without +accident. The quiet streets drew Solomon westward. A vacant seat +beneath the shade overlooking the Long Water in Kensington Gardens +invited to rest. + +"Piper?" suggested a small boy to Solomon. "Sunday Times, +'Server?" + +"My boy," said Mr. Appleyard, speaking slowly, "when you've been +mewed up with newspapers eighteen hours a day for six days a week, +you can do without 'em for a morning. Take 'em away. I want to +forget the smell of 'em." + +Solomon, having assured himself that the party in the perambulator +was still breathing, crossed his legs and lit his pipe. + +"Hezekiah!" + +The exclamation had been wrung from Solomon Appleyard by the +approach of a stout, short man clad in a remarkably ill-fitting +broad-cloth suit. + +"What, Sol, my boy?" + +"It looked like you," said Solomon. "And then I said to myself: +'No; surely it can't be Hezekiah; he'll be at chapel.'" + +"You run about," said Hezekiah, addressing a youth of some four +summers he had been leading by the hand. "Don't you go out of my +sight; and whatever you do, don't you do injury to those new +clothes of yours, or you'll wish you'd never been put into them. +The truth is," continued Hezekiah to his friend, his sole surviving +son and heir being out of earshot, "the morning tempted me. +'Tain't often I get a bit of fresh air." + +"Doing well?" + +"The business," replied Hezekiah, "is going up by leaps and bounds- +-leaps and bounds. But, of course, all that means harder work for +me. It's from six in the morning till twelve o'clock at night." + +"There's nothing I know of," returned Solomon, who was something of +a pessimist, "that's given away free gratis for nothing except +misfortune." + +"Keeping yourself up to the mark ain't too easy," continued +Hezekiah; "and when it comes to other folks! play's all they think +of. Talk religion to them--why, they laugh at you! What the +world's coming to, I don't know. How's the printing business +doing?" + +"The printing business," responded the other, removing his pipe and +speaking somewhat sadly, "the printing business looks like being a +big thing. Capital, of course, is what hampers me--or, rather, the +want of it. But Janet, she's careful; she don't waste much, Janet +don't." + +"Now, with Anne," replied Hezekiah, "it's all the other way-- +pleasure, gaiety, a day at Rosherville or the Crystal Palace-- +anything to waste money." + +"Ah! she was always fond of her bit of fun," remembered Solomon. + +"Fun!" retorted Hezekiah. "I like a bit of fun myself. But not if +you've got to pay for it. Where's the fun in that?" + +"What I ask myself sometimes," said Solomon, looking straight in +front of him, "is what do we do it for?" + +"What do we do what for?" + +"Work like blessed slaves, depriving ourselves of all enjoyments. +What's the sense of it? What--" + +A voice from the perambulator beside him broke the thread of +Solomon Appleyard's discourse. The sole surviving son of Hezekiah +Grindley, seeking distraction and finding none, had crept back +unperceived. A perambulator! A thing his experience told him out +of which excitement in some form or another could generally be +obtained. You worried it and took your chance. Either it howled, +in which case you had to run for your life, followed--and, +unfortunately, overtaken nine times out of ten--by a whirlwind of +vengeance; or it gurgled: in which case the heavens smiled and +halos descended on your head. In either event you escaped the +deadly ennui that is the result of continuous virtue. Master +Grindley, his star having pointed out to him a peacock's feather +lying on the ground, had, with one eye upon his unobservant parent, +removed the complicated coverings sheltering Miss Helvetia +Appleyard from the world, and anticipating by a quarter of a +century the prime enjoyment of British youth, had set to work to +tickle that lady on the nose. Miss Helvetia Appleyard awakened, +did precisely what the tickled British maiden of to-day may be +relied upon to do under corresponding circumstances: she first of +all took swift and comprehensive survey of the male thing behind +the feather. Had he been displeasing in her eyes, she would, one +may rely upon it, have anteceded the behaviour in similar case of +her descendant of to-day--that is to say, have expressed resentment +in no uncertain terms. Master Nathaniel Grindley proving, however, +to her taste, that which might have been considered impertinence +became accepted as a fit and proper form of introduction. Miss +Appleyard smiled graciously--nay, further, intimated desire for +more. + +"That your only one?" asked the paternal Grindley. + +"She's the only one," replied Solomon, speaking in tones less +pessimistic. + +Miss Appleyard had with the help of Grindley junior wriggled +herself into a sitting posture. Grindley junior continued his +attentions, the lady indicating by signs the various points at +which she was most susceptible. + +"Pretty picture they make together, eh?" suggested Hezekiah in a +whisper to his friend. + +"Never saw her take to anyone like that before," returned Solomon, +likewise in a whisper. + +A neighbouring church clock chimed twelve. Solomon Appleyard, +knocking the ashes from his pipe, arose. + +"Don't know any reason myself why we shouldn't see a little more of +one another than we do," suggested Grindley senior, shaking hands. + +"Give us a look-up one Sunday afternoon," suggested Solomon. +"Bring the youngster with you." + +Solomon Appleyard and Hezekiah Grindley had started life within a +few months of one another some five-and-thirty years before. +Likewise within a few hundred yards of one another, Solomon at his +father's bookselling and printing establishment on the east side of +the High Street of a small Yorkshire town; Hezekiah at his father's +grocery shop upon the west side, opposite. Both had married +farmers' daughters. Solomon's natural bent towards gaiety Fate had +corrected by directing his affections to a partner instinct with +Yorkshire shrewdness; and with shrewdness go other qualities that +make for success rather than for happiness. Hezekiah, had +circumstances been equal, might have been his friend's rival for +Janet's capable and saving hand, had not sweet-tempered, laughing +Annie Glossop--directed by Providence to her moral welfare, one +must presume--fallen in love with him. Between Jane's virtues and +Annie's three hundred golden sovereigns Hezekiah had not hesitated +a moment. Golden sovereigns were solid facts; wifely virtues, by a +serious-minded and strong-willed husband, could be instilled--at +all events, light-heartedness suppressed. The two men, Hezekiah +urged by his own ambition, Solomon by his wife's, had arrived in +London within a year of one another: Hezekiah to open a grocer's +shop in Kensington, which those who should have known assured him +was a hopeless neighbourhood. But Hezekiah had the instinct of the +money-maker. Solomon, after looking about him, had fixed upon the +roomy, substantial house in Nevill's Court as a promising +foundation for a printer's business. + +That was ten years ago. The two friends, scorning delights, living +laborious days, had seen but little of one another. Light-hearted +Annie had borne to her dour partner two children who had died. +Nathaniel George, with the luck supposed to wait on number three, +had lived on, and, inheriting fortunately the temperament of his +mother, had brought sunshine into the gloomy rooms above the shop +in High Street, Kensington. Mrs. Grindley, grown weak and fretful, +had rested from her labours. + +Mrs. Appleyard's guardian angel, prudent like his protege, had +waited till Solomon's business was well established before +despatching the stork to Nevill's Court, with a little girl. Later +had sent a boy, who, not finding the close air of St. Dunstan to +his liking, had found his way back again; thus passing out of this +story and all others. And there remained to carry on the legend of +the Grindleys and the Appleyards only Nathaniel George, now aged +five, and Janet Helvetia, quite a beginner, who took lift +seriously. + +There are no such things as facts. Narrow-minded folk--surveyors, +auctioneers, and such like--would have insisted that the garden +between the old Georgian house and Nevill's Court was a strip of +land one hundred and eighteen feet by ninety-two, containing a +laburnum tree, six laurel bushes, and a dwarf deodora. To +Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia it was the land of Thule, "the +furthest boundaries of which no man has reached." On rainy Sunday +afternoons they played in the great, gloomy pressroom, where silent +ogres, standing motionless, stretched out iron arms to seize them +as they ran. Then just when Nathaniel George was eight, and Janet +Helvetia four and a half, Hezekiah launched the celebrated +"Grindley's Sauce." It added a relish to chops and steaks, +transformed cold mutton into a luxury, and swelled the head of +Hezekiah Grindley--which was big enough in all conscience as it +was--and shrivelled up his little hard heart. The Grindleys and +the Appleyards visited no more. As a sensible fellow ought to have +seen for himself, so thought Hezekiah, the Sauce had altered all +things. The possibility of a marriage between their children, +things having remained equal, might have been a pretty fancy; but +the son of the great Grindley, whose name in three-foot letters +faced the world from every hoarding, would have to look higher than +a printer's daughter. Solomon, a sudden and vehement convert to +the principles of mediaeval feudalism, would rather see his only +child, granddaughter of the author of The History of Kettlewell and +other works, dead and buried than married to a grocer's son, even +though he might inherit a fortune made out of poisoning the public +with a mixture of mustard and sour beer. It was many years before +Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia met one another again, and when +they did they had forgotten one another, + + +Hezekiah S. Grindley, a short, stout, and pompous gentleman, sat +under a palm in the gorgeously furnished drawing-room of his big +house at Notting Hill. Mrs. Grindley, a thin, faded woman, the +despair of her dressmaker, sat as near to the fire as its massive +and imposing copper outworks would permit, and shivered. Grindley +junior, a fair-haired, well-shaped youth, with eyes that the other +sex found attractive, leant with his hands in his pockets against a +scrupulously robed statue of Diana, and appeared uncomfortable. + +"I'm making the money--making it hand over fist. All you'll have +to do will be to spend it," Grindley senior was explaining to his +son and heir. + +"I'll do that all right, dad." + +"I'm not so sure of it," was his father's opinion. "You've got to +prove yourself worthy to spend it. Don't you think I shall be +content to have slaved all these years merely to provide a +brainless young idiot with the means of self-indulgence. I leave +my money to somebody worthy of me. Understand, sir?--somebody +worthy of me." + +Mrs. Grindley commenced a sentence; Mr. Grindley turned his small +eyes upon her. The sentence remained unfinished. + +"You were about to say something," her husband reminded her. + +Mrs. Grindley said it was nothing. + +"If it is anything worth hearing--if it is anything that will +assist the discussion, let's have it." Mr. Grindley waited. "If +not, if you yourself do not consider it worth finishing, why have +begun it?" + +Mr. Grindley returned to his son and heir. "You haven't done too +well at school--in fact, your school career has disappointed me." + +"I know I'm not clever," Grindley junior offered as an excuse. + +"Why not? Why aren't you clever?" + +His son and heir was unable to explain. + +"You are my son--why aren't you clever? It's laziness, sir; sheer +laziness!" + +"I'll try and do better at Oxford, sir--honour bright I will!" + +"You had better," advised him his father; "because I warn you, your +whole future depends upon it. You know me. You've got to be a +credit to me, to be worthy of the name of Grindley--or the name, my +boy, is all you'll have." + +Old Grindley meant it, and his son knew that he meant it. The old +Puritan principles and instincts were strong in the old gentleman-- +formed, perhaps, the better part of him. Idleness was an +abomination to him; devotion to pleasure, other than the pleasure +of money-making, a grievous sin in his eyes. Grindley junior fully +intended to do well at Oxford, and might have succeeded. In +accusing himself of lack of cleverness, he did himself an +injustice. He had brains, he had energy, he had character. Our +virtues can be our stumbling-blocks as well as our vices. Young +Grindley had one admirable virtue that needs, above all others, +careful controlling: he was amiability itself. Before the charm +and sweetness of it, Oxford snobbishness went down. The Sauce, +against the earnest counsel of its own advertisement, was +forgotten; the pickles passed by. To escape the natural result of +his popularity would have needed a stronger will than young +Grindley possessed. For a time the true state of affairs was +hidden from the eye of Grindley senior. To "slack" it this term, +with the full determination of "swotting" it the next, is always +easy; the difficulty beginning only with the new term. Possibly +with luck young Grindley might have retrieved his position and +covered up the traces of his folly, but for an unfortunate +accident. Returning to college with some other choice spirits at +two o'clock in the morning, it occurred to young Grindley that +trouble might be saved all round by cutting out a pane of glass +with a diamond ring and entering his rooms, which were on the +ground-floor, by the window. That, in mistake for his own, he +should have selected the bedroom of the College Rector was a +misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the +evening on champagne and finished it on whisky. Young Grindley, +having been warned already twice before, was "sent down." And +then, of course, the whole history of the three wasted years came +out. Old Grindley in his study chair having talked for half an +hour at the top of his voice, chose, partly by reason of physical +necessity, partly by reason of dormant dramatic instinct, to speak +quietly and slowly. + +"I'll give you one chance more, my boy, and one only. I've tried +you as a gentleman--perhaps that was my mistake. Now I'll try you +as a grocer." + +"As a what?" + +"As a grocer, sir--g-r-o-c-e-r--grocer, a man who stands behind a +counter in a white apron and his shirt-sleeves; who sells tea and +sugar and candied peel and such-like things to customers--old +ladies, little girls; who rises at six in the morning, takes down +the shutters, sweeps out the shop, cleans the windows; who has half +an hour for his dinner of corned beef and bread; who puts up the +shutters at ten o'clock at night, tidies up the shop, has his +supper, and goes to bed, feeling his day has not been wasted. I +meant to spare you. I was wrong. You shall go through the mill as +I went through it. If at the end of two years you've done well +with your time, learned something--learned to be a man, at all +events--you can come to me and thank me." + +"I'm afraid, sir," suggested Grindley junior, whose handsome face +during the last few minutes had grown very white, "I might not make +a very satisfactory grocer. You see, sir, I've had no experience." + +"I am glad you have some sense," returned his father drily. "You +are quite right. Even a grocer's business requires learning. It +will cost me a little money; but it will be the last I shall ever +spend upon you. For the first year you will have to be +apprenticed, and I shall allow you something to live on. It shall +be more than I had at your age--we'll say a pound a week. After +that I shall expect you to keep yourself." + +Grindley senior rose. "You need not give me your answer till the +evening. You are of age. I have no control over you unless you +are willing to agree. You can go my way, or you can go your own." + +Young Grindley, who had inherited a good deal of his father's grit, +felt very much inclined to go his own; but, hampered on the other +hand by the sweetness of disposition he had inherited from his +mother, was unable to withstand the argument of that lady's tears, +so that evening accepted old Grindley's terms, asking only as a +favour that the scene of his probation might be in some out-of-the- +way neighbourhood where there would be little chance of his being +met by old friends. + +"I have thought of all that," answered his father. "My object +isn't to humiliate you more than is necessary for your good. The +shop I have already selected, on the assumption that you would +submit, is as quiet and out-of-the-way as you could wish. It is in +a turning off Fetter Lane, where you'll see few other people than +printers and caretakers. You'll lodge with a woman, a Mrs. +Postwhistle, who seems a very sensible person. She'll board you +and lodge you, and every Saturday you'll receive a post-office +order for six shillings, out of which you'll find yourself in +clothes. You can take with you sufficient to last you for the +first six months, but no more. At the end of the year you can +change if you like and go to another shop, or make your own +arrangements with Mrs. Postwhistle. If all is settled, you go +there to-morrow. You go out of this house to-morrow in any event." + +Mrs. Postwhistle was a large, placid lady of philosophic +temperament. Hitherto the little grocer's shop in Rolls Court, +Fetter Lane, had been easy of management by her own unaided +efforts; but the neighbourhood was rapidly changing. Other +grocers' shops were disappearing one by one, making way for huge +blocks of buildings, where hundreds of iron presses, singing day +and night, spread to the earth the song of the Mighty Pen. There +were hours when the little shop could hardly accommodate its crowd +of customers. Mrs. Postwhistle, of a bulk not to be moved quickly, +had, after mature consideration, conquering a natural +disinclination to change, decided to seek assistance. + +Young Grindley, alighting from a four-wheeled cab in Fetter Lane, +marched up the court, followed by a weak-kneed wastrel staggering +under the weight of a small box. In the doorway of the little +shop, young Grindley paused and raised his hat. + +"Mrs. Postwhistle?" + +The lady, from her chair behind the counter, rose slowly. + +"I am Mr. Nathaniel Grindley, the new assistant." + +The weak-kneed wastrel let fall the box with a thud upon the floor. +Mrs. Postwhistle looked her new assistant up and down. + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Postwhistle. "Well, I shouldn't 'ave felt +instinctively it must be you, not if I'd 'ad to pick you out of a +crowd. But if you tell me so, why, I suppose you are. Come in." + +The weak-kneed wastrel, receiving to his astonishment a shilling, +departed. + +Grindley senior had selected wisely. Mrs. Postwhistle's theory was +that although very few people in this world understood their own +business, they understood it better than anyone else could +understand it for them. If handsome, well-educated young +gentlemen, who gave shillings to wastrels, felt they wanted to +become smart and capable grocers' assistants, that was their +affair. Her business was to teach them their work, and, for her +own sake, to see that they did it. A month went by. Mrs. +Postwhistle found her new assistant hard-working, willing, somewhat +clumsy, but with a smile and a laugh that transformed mistakes, for +which another would have been soundly rated, into welcome +variations of the day's monotony. + +"If you were the sort of woman that cared to make your fortune," +said one William Clodd, an old friend of Mrs. Postwhistle's, young +Grindley having descended into the cellar to grind coffee, "I'd +tell you what to do. Take a bun-shop somewhere in the +neighbourhood of a girls' school, and put that assistant of yours +in the window. You'd do a roaring business." + +"There's a mystery about 'im," said Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"Know what it is?" + +"If I knew what it was, I shouldn't be calling it a mystery," +replied Mrs. Postwhistle, who was a stylist in her way. + +"How did you get him? Win him in a raffle?" + +"Jones, the agent, sent 'im to me all in a 'urry. An assistant is +what I really wanted, not an apprentice; but the premium was good, +and the references everything one could desire." + +"Grindley, Grindley," murmured Clodd. "Any relation to the Sauce, +I wonder?" + +"A bit more wholesome, I should say, from the look of him," thought +Mrs. Postwhistle. + +The question of a post office to meet its growing need had long +been under discussion by the neighbourhood. Mrs. Postwhistle was +approached upon the subject. Grindley junior, eager for anything +that might bring variety into his new, cramped existence, undertook +to qualify himself. + +Within two months the arrangements were complete. Grindley junior +divided his time between dispensing groceries and despatching +telegrams and letters, and was grateful for the change. + +Grindley junior's mind was fixed upon the fashioning of a +cornucopia to receive a quarter of a pound of moist. The customer, +an extremely young lady, was seeking to hasten his operations by +tapping incessantly with a penny on the counter. It did not hurry +him; it only worried him. Grindley junior had not acquired +facility in the fashioning of cornucopias--the vertex would +invariably become unrolled at the last moment, allowing the +contents to dribble out on to the floor or counter. Grindley +junior was sweet-tempered as a rule, but when engaged upon the +fashioning of a cornucopia, was irritable. + +"Hurry up, old man!" urged the extremely young lady. "I've got +another appointment in less than half an hour." + +"Oh, damn the thing!" said Grindley junior, as the paper for the +fourth time reverted to its original shape. + +An older lady, standing behind the extremely young lady and holding +a telegram-form in her hand, looked indignant. + +"Temper, temper," remarked the extremely young lady in reproving +tone. + +The fifth time was more successful. The extremely young lady went +out, commenting upon the waste of time always resulting when boys +were employed to do the work of men. The older lady, a haughty +person, handed across her telegram with the request that it should +be sent off at once. + +Grindley junior took his pencil from his pocket and commenced to +count. + +"Digniori, not digniorus," commented Grindley junior, correcting +the word, "datur digniori, dative singular." Grindley junior, +still irritable from the struggle with the cornucopia, spoke +sharply. + +The haughty lady withdrew her eyes from a spot some ten miles +beyond the back of the shop, where hitherto they had been resting, +and fixed them for the first time upon Grindley junior. + +"Thank you," said the haughty lady. + +Grindley junior looked up and immediately, to his annoyance, felt +that he was blushing. Grindley junior blushed easily--it annoyed +him very much. + +The haughty young lady also blushed. She did not often blush; when +she did, she felt angry with herself. + +"A shilling and a penny," demanded Grindley junior. + +The haughty young lady counted out the money and departed. +Grindley junior, peeping from behind a tin of Abernethy biscuits, +noticed that as she passed the window she turned and looked back. +She was a very pretty, haughty lady. Grindley junior rather +admired dark, level brows and finely cut, tremulous lips, +especially when combined with a mass of soft, brown hair, and a +rich olive complexion that flushed and paled as one looked at it. + +"Might send that telegram off if you've nothing else to do, and +there's no particular reason for keeping it back," suggested Mrs. +Postwhistle. + +"It's only just been handed in," explained Grindley junior, +somewhat hurt. + +"You've been looking at it for the last five minutes by the clock," +said Mrs. Postwhistle. + +Grindley junior sat down to the machine. The name and address of +the sender was Helvetia Appleyard, Nevill's Court. + +Three days passed--singularly empty days they appeared to Grindley +junior. On the fourth, Helvetia Appleyard had occasion to despatch +another telegram--this time entirely in English. + +"One-and-fourpence," sighed Grindley junior. + +Miss Appleyard drew forth her purse. The shop was empty. + +"How did you come to know Latin?" inquired Miss Appleyard in quite +a casual tone. + +"I picked up a little at school. It was a phrase I happened to +remember," confessed Grindley junior, wondering why he should be +feeling ashamed of himself. + +"I am always sorry," said Miss Appleyard, "when I see anyone +content with the lower life whose talents might, perhaps, fit him +for the higher." Something about the tone and manner of Miss +Appleyard reminded Grindley junior of his former Rector. Each +seemed to have arrived by different roads at the same philosophical +aloofness from the world, tempered by chastened interest in human +phenomena. "Would you like to try to raise yourself--to improve +yourself--to educate yourself?" + +An unseen little rogue, who was enjoying himself immensely, +whispered to Grindley junior to say nothing but "Yes," he should. + +"Will you let me help you?" asked Miss Appleyard. And the simple +and heartfelt gratitude with which Grindley junior closed upon the +offer proved to Miss Appleyard how true it is that to do good to +others is the highest joy. + +Miss Appleyard had come prepared for possible acceptance. "You had +better begin with this," thought Miss Appleyard. "I have marked +the passages that you should learn by heart. Make a note of +anything you do not understand, and I will explain it to you when-- +when next I happen to be passing." + +Grindley junior took the book--Bell's Introduction to the Study of +the Classics, for Use of Beginners--and held it between both hands. +Its price was ninepence, but Grindley junior appeared to regard it +as a volume of great value. + +"It will be hard work at first," Miss Appleyard warned him; "but +you must persevere. I have taken an interest in you; you must try +not to disappoint me." + +And Miss Appleyard, feeling all the sensations of a Hypatia, +departed, taking light with her and forgetting to pay for the +telegram. Miss Appleyard belonged to the class that young ladies +who pride themselves on being tiresomely ignorant and foolish sneer +at as "blue-stockings"; that is to say, possessing brains, she had +felt the necessity of using them. Solomon Appleyard, widower, a +sensible old gentleman, prospering in the printing business, and +seeing no necessity for a woman regarding herself as nothing but a +doll, a somewhat uninteresting plaything the newness once worn off, +thankfully encouraged her. Miss Appleyard had returned from Girton +wise in many things, but not in knowledge of the world, which +knowledge, too early acquired, does not always make for good in +young man or woman. A serious little virgin, Miss Appleyard's +ambition was to help the human race. What more useful work could +have come to her hand than the raising of this poor but intelligent +young grocer's assistant unto the knowledge and the love of higher +things. That Grindley junior happened to be an exceedingly good- +looking and charming young grocer's assistant had nothing to do +with the matter, so Miss Appleyard would have informed you. In her +own reasoning she was convinced that her interest in him would have +been the same had he been the least attractive of his sex. That +there could be danger in such relationship never occurred to her. + +Miss Appleyard, a convinced Radical, could not conceive the +possibility of a grocer's assistant regarding the daughter of a +well-to-do printer in any other light than that of a graciously +condescending patron. That there could be danger to herself! you +would have been sorry you had suggested the idea. The expression +of lofty scorn would have made you feel yourself contemptible. + +Miss Appleyard's judgment of mankind was justified; no more +promising pupil could have been selected. It was really marvellous +the progress made by Grindley junior, under the tutelage of +Helvetia Appleyard. His earnestness, his enthusiasm, it quite +touched the heart of Helvetia Appleyard. There were many points, +it is true, that puzzled Grindley junior. Each time the list of +them grew longer. But when Helvetia Appleyard explained them, all +became clear. She marvelled herself at her own wisdom, that in a +moment made darkness luminous to this young man; his rapt attention +while she talked, it was most encouraging. The boy must surely be +a genius. To think that but for her intuition he might have +remained wasted in a grocer's shop! To rescue such a gem from +oblivion, to polish it, was surely the duty of a conscientious +Hypatia. Two visits--three visits a week to the little shop in +Rolls Court were quite inadequate, so many passages there were +requiring elucidation. London in early morning became their +classroom: the great, wide, empty, silent streets; the mist- +curtained parks, the silence broken only by the blackbirds' amorous +whistle, the thrushes' invitation to delight; the old gardens, +hidden behind narrow ways. Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia +would rest upon a seat, no living creature within sight, save +perhaps a passing policeman or some dissipated cat. Janet Helvetia +would expound. Nathaniel George, his fine eyes fixed on hers, +seemed never to tire of drinking in her wisdom. + +There were times when Janet Helvetia, to reassure herself as to the +maidenly correctness of her behaviour, had to recall quite forcibly +the fact that she was the daughter of Solomon Appleyard, owner of +the big printing establishment; and he a simple grocer. One day, +raised a little in the social scale, thanks to her, Nathaniel +George would marry someone in his own rank of life. Reflecting +upon the future of Nathaniel George, Janet Helvetia could not +escape a shade of sadness. It was difficult to imagine precisely +the wife she would have chosen for Nathaniel George. She hoped he +would do nothing foolish. Rising young men so often marry wives +that hamper rather than help them. + +One Sunday morning in late autumn, they walked and talked in the +shady garden of Lincoln's Inn. Greek they thought it was they had +been talking; as a matter of fact, a much older language. A young +gardener was watering flowers, and as they passed him he grinned. +It was not an offensive grin, rather a sympathetic grin; but Miss +Appleyard didn't like being grinned at. What was there to grin at? +Her personal appearance? some gaucherie in her dress? Impossible. +No lady in all St. Dunstan was ever more precise. She glanced at +her companion: a clean-looking, well-groomed, well-dressed youth. +Suddenly it occurred to Miss Appleyard that she and Grindley junior +were holding each other's hand. Miss Appleyard was justly +indignant. + +"How dare you!" said Miss Appleyard. "I am exceedingly angry with +you. How dare you!" + +The olive skin was scarlet. There were tears in the hazel eyes. + +"Leave me this minute!" commanded Miss Appleyard. + +Instead of which, Grindley junior seized both her hands. + +"I love you! I adore you! I worship you!" poured forth young +Grindley, forgetful of all Miss Appleyard had ever told him +concerning the folly of tautology. + +"You had no right," said Miss Appleyard. + +"I couldn't help it," pleaded young Grindley. "And that isn't the +worst." + +Miss Appleyard paled visibly. For a grocer's assistant to dare to +fall in love with her, especially after all the trouble she had +taken with him! What could be worse? + +"I'm not a grocer," continued young Grindley, deeply conscious of +crime. "I mean, not a real grocer." + +And Grindley junior then and there made a clean breast of the whole +sad, terrible tale of shameless deceit, practised by the greatest +villain the world had ever produced, upon the noblest and most +beautiful maiden that ever turned grim London town into a fairy +city of enchanted ways. + +Not at first could Miss Appleyard entirely grasp it; not till hours +later, when she sat alone in her own room, where, fortunately for +himself, Grindley junior was not, did the whole force and meaning +of the thing come home to her. It was a large room, taking up half +of the top story of the big Georgian house in Nevill's Court; but +even as it was, Miss Appleyard felt cramped. + +"For a year--for nearly a whole year," said Miss Appleyard, +addressing the bust of William Shakespeare, "have I been slaving my +life out, teaching him elementary Latin and the first five books of +Euclid!" + +As it has been remarked, it was fortunate for Grindley junior he +was out of reach. The bust of William Shakespeare maintained its +irritating aspect of benign philosophy. + +"I suppose I should," mused Miss Appleyard, "if he had told me at +first--as he ought to have told me--of course I should naturally +have had nothing more to do with him. I suppose," mused Miss +Appleyard, "a man in love, if he is really in love, doesn't quite +know what he's doing. I suppose one ought to make allowances. +But, oh! when I think of it--" + +And then Grindley junior's guardian angel must surely have slipped +into the room, for Miss Appleyard, irritated beyond endurance at +the philosophical indifference of the bust of William Shakespeare, +turned away from it, and as she did so, caught sight of herself in +the looking-glass. Miss Appleyard approached the glass a little +nearer. A woman's hair is never quite as it should be. Miss +Appleyard, standing before the glass, began, she knew not why, to +find reasons excusing Grindley junior. After all, was not +forgiveness an excellent thing in woman? None of us are quite +perfect. The guardian angel of Grindley junior seized the +opportunity. + +That evening Solomon Appleyard sat upright in his chair, feeling +confused. So far as he could understand it, a certain young man, a +grocer's assistant, but not a grocer's assistant--but that, of +course, was not his fault, his father being an old brute--had +behaved most abominably; but not, on reflection, as badly as he +might have done, and had acted on the whole very honourably, taking +into consideration the fact that one supposed he could hardly help +it. Helvetia was, of course, very indignant with him, but on the +other hand, did not quite see what else she could have done, she +being not at all sure whether she really cared for him or whether +she didn't; that everything had been quite proper and would not +have happened if she had known it; that everything was her fault, +except most things, which weren't; but that of the two she blamed +herself entirely, seeing that she could not have guessed anything +of the kind. And did he, Solomon Appleyard, think that she ought +to be very angry and never marry anybody else, or was she justified +in overlooking it and engaging herself to the only man she felt she +could ever love? + +"You mustn't think, Dad, that I meant to deceive you. I should +have told you at the beginning--you know I would--if it hadn't all +happened so suddenly." + +"Let me see," said Solomon Appleyard, "did you tell me his name, or +didn't you?" + +"Nathaniel," said Miss Appleyard. "Didn't I mention it?" + +"Don't happen to know his surname, do you," inquired her father. + +"Grindley," explained Miss Appleyard--"the son of Grindley, the +Sauce man." + +Miss Appleyard experienced one of the surprises of her life. Never +before to her recollection had her father thwarted a single wish of +her life. A widower for the last twelve years, his chief delight +had been to humour her. His voice, as he passionately swore that +never with his consent should his daughter marry the son of +Hezekiah Grindley, sounded strange to her. Pleadings, even tears, +for the first time in her life proved fruitless. + +Here was a pretty kettle of fish! That Grindley junior should defy +his own parent, risk possibly the loss of his inheritance, had +seemed to both a not improper proceeding. When Nathaniel George +had said with fine enthusiasm: "Let him keep his money if he will; +I'll make my own way; there isn't enough money in the world to pay +for losing you!" Janet Helvetia, though she had expressed +disapproval of such unfilial attitude, had in secret sympathised. +But for her to disregard the wishes of her own doting father was +not to be thought of. What was to be done? + +Perhaps one Peter Hope, residing in Gough Square hard by, might +help young folks in sore dilemma with wise counsel. Peter Hope, +editor and part proprietor of Good Humour, one penny weekly, was +much esteemed by Solomon Appleyard, printer and publisher of +aforesaid paper. + +"A good fellow, old Hope," Solomon would often impress upon his +managing clerk. "Don't worry him more than you can help; things +will improve. We can trust him." + +Peter Hope sat at his desk, facing Miss Appleyard. Grindley junior +sat on the cushioned seat beneath the middle window. Good Humour's +sub-editor stood before the fire, her hands behind her back. + +The case appeared to Peter Hope to be one of exceeding difficulty. + +"Of course," explained Miss Appleyard, "I shall never marry without +my father's consent." + +Peter Hope thought the resolution most proper. + +"On the other hand," continued Miss Appleyard, "nothing shall +induce me to marry a man I do not love." Miss Appleyard thought +the probabilities were that she would end by becoming a female +missionary. + +Peter Hope's experience had led him to the conclusion that young +people sometimes changed their mind. + +The opinion of the House, clearly though silently expressed, was +that Peter Hope's experience, as regarded this particular case, +counted for nothing. + +"I shall go straight to the Governor," explained Grindley junior, +"and tell him that I consider myself engaged for life to Miss +Appleyard. I know what will happen--I know the sort of idea he has +got into his head. He will disown me, and I shall go off to +Africa." + +Peter Hope was unable to see how Grindley junior's disappearance +into the wilds of Africa was going to assist the matter under +discussion. + +Grindley junior's view was that the wilds of Africa would afford a +fitting background to the passing away of a blighted existence. + +Peter Hope had a suspicion that Grindley junior had for the moment +parted company with that sweet reasonableness that otherwise, so +Peter Hope felt sure, was Grindley junior's guiding star. + +"I mean it, sir," reasserted Grindley junior. "I am--" Grindley +junior was about to add "well educated"; but divining that +education was a topic not pleasing at the moment to the ears of +Helvetia Appleyard, had tact enough to substitute "not a fool. I +can earn my own living; and I should like to get away." + +"It seems to me--" said the sub-editor. + +"Now, Tommy--I mean Jane," warned her Peter Hope. He always called +her Jane in company, unless he was excited. "I know what you are +going to say. I won't have it." + +"I was only going to say--" urged the sub-editor in tone of one +suffering injustice. + +"I quite know what you were going to say," retorted Peter hotly. +"I can see it by your chin. You are going to take their part--and +suggest their acting undutifully towards their parents." + +"I wasn't," returned the sub-editor. "I was only--" + +"You were," persisted Peter. "I ought not to have allowed you to +be present. I might have known you would interfere." + +"--going to say we are in want of some help in the office. You +know we are. And that if Mr. Grindley would be content with a +small salary--" + +"Small salary be hanged!" snarled Peter. + +"--there would be no need for his going to Africa." + +"And how would that help us?" demanded Peter. "Even if the boy +were so--so headstrong, so unfilial as to defy his father, who has +worked for him all these years, how would that remove the obstacle +of Mr. Appleyard's refusal?" + +"Why, don't you see--" explained the sub-editor. + +"No, I don't," snapped Peter. + +"If, on his declaring to his father that nothing will ever induce +him to marry any other woman but Miss Appleyard, his father disowns +him, as he thinks it likely--" + +"A dead cert!" was Grindley junior's conviction. + +"Very well; he is no longer old Grindley's son, and what possible +objection can Mr. Appleyard have to him then?" + +Peter Hope arose and expounded at length and in suitable language +the folly and uselessness of the scheme. + +But what chance had ever the wisdom of Age against the enthusiasm +of Youth, reaching for its object. Poor Peter, expostulating, was +swept into the conspiracy. Grindley junior the next morning stood +before his father in the private office in High Holborn. + +"I am sorry, sir," said Grindley junior, "if I have proved a +disappointment to you." + +"Damn your sympathy!" said Grindley senior. "Keep it till you are +asked for it." + +"I hope we part friends, sir," said Grindley junior, holding out +his hand. + +"Why do you irate me?" asked Grindley senior. "I have thought of +nothing but you these five-and-twenty years." + +"I don't, sir," answered Grindley junior. "I can't say I love you. +It did not seem to me you--you wanted it. But I like you, sir, and +I respect you. And--and I'm sorry to have to hurt you, sir." + +"And you are determined to give up all your prospects, all the +money, for the sake of this--this girl?" + +"It doesn't seem like giving up anything, sir," replied Grindley +junior, simply. + +"It isn't so much as I thought it was going to be," said the old +man, after a pause. "Perhaps it is for the best. I might have +been more obstinate if things had been going all right. The Lord +has chastened me." + +"Isn't the business doing well, Dad?" asked the young man, with +sorrow in his voice. + +"What's it got to do with you?" snapped his father. "You've cut +yourself adrift from it. You leave me now I am going down." + +Grindley junior, not knowing what to say, put his arms round the +little old man. + +And in this way Tommy's brilliant scheme fell through and came to +naught. Instead, old Grindley visited once again the big house in +Nevill's Court, and remained long closeted with old Solomon in the +office on the second floor. It was late in the evening when +Solomon opened the door and called upstairs to Janet Helvetia to +come down. + +"I used to know you long ago," said Hezekiah Grindley, rising. +"You were quite a little girl then." + +Later, the troublesome Sauce disappeared entirely, cut out by newer +flavours. Grindley junior studied the printing business. It +almost seemed as if old Appleyard had been waiting but for this. +Some six months later they found him dead in his counting-house. +Grindley junior became the printer and publisher of Good Humour. + + + +STORY THE FOURTH: Miss Ramsbotham gives her Services + + + +To regard Miss Ramsbotham as a marriageable quantity would have +occurred to few men. Endowed by Nature with every feminine quality +calculated to inspire liking, she had, on the other hand, been +disinherited of every attribute calculated to excite passion. An +ugly woman has for some men an attraction; the proof is ever +present to our eyes. Miss Ramsbotham was plain but pleasant +looking. Large, healthy in mind and body, capable, self-reliant, +and cheerful, blessed with a happy disposition together with a keen +sense of humour, there was about her absolutely nothing for +tenderness to lay hold of. An ideal wife, she was an impossible +sweetheart. Every man was her friend. The suggestion that any man +could be her lover she herself would have greeted with a clear, +ringing laugh. + +Not that she held love in despite; for such folly she was possessed +of far too much sound sense. "To have somebody in love with you-- +somebody strong and good," so she would confess to her few close +intimates, a dreamy expression clouding for an instant her broad, +sunny face, "why, it must be just lovely!" For Miss Ramsbotham was +prone to American phraseology, and had even been at some pains, +during a six months' journey through the States (whither she had +been commissioned by a conscientious trade journal seeking reliable +information concerning the condition of female textile workers) to +acquire a slight but decided American accent. It was her one +affectation, but assumed, as one might feel certain, for a +practical and legitimate object. + +"You can have no conception," she would explain, laughing, "what a +help I find it. 'I'm 'Muriken' is the 'Civis Romanus sum' of the +modern woman's world. It opens every door to us. If I ring the +bell and say, 'Oh, if you please, I have come to interview Mr. So- +and-So for such-and-such a paper,' the footman looks through me at +the opposite side of the street, and tells me to wait in the hall +while he inquires if Mr. So-and-So will see me or not. But if I +say, 'That's my keerd, young man. You tell your master Miss +Ramsbotham is waiting for him in the showroom, and will take it +real kind if he'll just bustle himself,' the poor fellow walks +backwards till he stumbles against the bottom stair, and my +gentleman comes down with profuse apologies for having kept me +waiting three minutes and a half. + +"'And to be in love with someone," she would continue, "someone +great that one could look up to and honour and worship--someone +that would fill one's whole life, make it beautiful, make every day +worth living, I think that would be better still. To work merely +for one's self, to think merely for one's self, it is so much less +interesting." + +Then, at some such point of the argument, Miss Ramsbotham would +jump up from her chair and shake herself indignantly. + +"Why, what nonsense I'm talking," she would tell herself, and her +listeners. "I make a very fair income, have a host of friends, and +enjoy every hour of my life. I should like to have been pretty or +handsome, of course; but no one can have all the good things of +this world, and I have my brains. At one time, perhaps, yes; but +now--no, honestly I would not change myself." + +Miss Ramsbotham was sorry that no man had ever fallen in love with +her, but that she could understand. + +"It is quite clear to me." So she had once unburdened herself to +her bosom friend. "Man for the purposes of the race has been given +two kinds of love, between which, according to his opportunities +and temperament, he is free to choose: he can fall down upon his +knees and adore physical beauty (for Nature ignores entirely our +mental side), or he can take delight in circling with his +protecting arm the weak and helpless. Now, I make no appeal to +either instinct. I possess neither the charm nor beauty to +attract--" + +"Beauty," reminded her the bosom friend, consolingly, "dwells in +the beholder's eye." + +"My dear," cheerfully replied Miss Ramsbotham, "it would have to be +an eye of the range and capacity Sam Weller frankly owned up to not +possessing--a patent double-million magnifying, capable of seeing +through a deal board and round the corner sort of eye--to detect +any beauty in me. And I am much too big and sensible for any man +not a fool ever to think of wanting to take care of me. + +"I believe," remembered Miss Ramsbotham, "if it does not sound like +idle boasting, I might have had a husband, of a kind, if Fate had +not compelled me to save his life. I met him one year at Huyst, a +small, quiet watering-place on the Dutch coast. He would walk +always half a step behind me, regarding me out of the corner of his +eye quite approvingly at times. He was a widower--a good little +man, devoted to his three charming children. They took an immense +fancy to me, and I really think I could have got on with him. I am +very adaptable, as you know. But it was not to be. He got out of +his depth one morning, and unfortunately there was no one within +distance but myself who could swim. I knew what the result would +be. You remember Labiche's comedy, Les Voyage de Monsieur +Perrichon? Of course, every man hates having had his life saved, +after it is over; and you can imagine how he must hate having it +saved by a woman. But what was I to do? In either case he would +be lost to me, whether I let him drown or whether I rescued him. +So, as it really made no difference, I rescued him. He was very +grateful, and left the next morning. + +"It is my destiny. No man has ever fallen in love with me, and no +man ever will. I used to worry myself about it when I was younger. +As a child I hugged to my bosom for years an observation I had +overheard an aunt of mine whisper to my mother one afternoon as +they sat knitting and talking, not thinking I was listening. 'You +never can tell,' murmured my aunt, keeping her eyes carefully fixed +upon her needles; 'children change so. I have known the plainest +girls grow up into quite beautiful women. I should not worry about +it if I were you--not yet awhile.' My mother was not at all a bad- +looking woman, and my father was decidedly handsome; so there +seemed no reason why I should not hope. I pictured myself the ugly +duckling of Andersen's fairy-tale, and every morning on waking I +would run straight to my glass and try to persuade myself that the +feathers of the swan were beginning at last to show themselves." +Miss Ramsbotham laughed, a genuine laugh of amusement, for of self- +pity not a trace was now remaining to her. + +"Later I plucked hope again," continued Miss Ramsbotham her +confession, "from the reading of a certain school of fiction more +popular twenty years ago than now. In these romances the heroine +was never what you would call beautiful, unless in common with the +hero you happened to possess exceptional powers of observation. +But she was better than that, she was good. I do not regard as +time wasted the hours I spent studying this quaint literature. It +helped me, I am sure, to form habits that have since been of +service to me. I made a point, when any young man visitor happened +to be staying with us, of rising exceptionally early in the +morning, so that I always appeared at the breakfast-table fresh, +cheerful, and carefully dressed, with, when possible, a dew- +besprinkled flower in my hair to prove that I had already been out +in the garden. The effort, as far as the young man visitor was +concerned, was always thrown away; as a general rule, he came down +late himself, and generally too drowsy to notice anything much. +But it was excellent practice for me. I wake now at seven o'clock +as a matter of course, whatever time I go to bed. I made my own +dresses and most of our cakes, and took care to let everybody know +it. Though I say it who should not, I play and sing rather well. +I certainly was never a fool. I had no little brothers and sisters +to whom to be exceptionally devoted, but I had my cousins about the +house as much as possible, and damaged their characters, if +anything, by over-indulgence. My dear, it never caught even a +curate! I am not one of those women to run down men; I think them +delightful creatures, and in a general way I find them very +intelligent. But where their hearts are concerned it is the girl +with the frizzy hair, who wants two people to help her over the +stile, that is their idea of an angel. No man could fall in love +with me; he couldn't if he tried. That I can understand; but"-- +Miss Ramsbotham sunk her voice to a more confidential tone--"what I +cannot understand is that I have never fallen in love with any man, +because I like them all." + +"You have given the explanation yourself," suggested the bosom +friend--one Susan Fossett, the "Aunt Emma" of The Ladies' Journal, +a nice woman, but talkative. "You are too sensible." + +Miss Ramsbotham shook her head, "I should just love to fall in +love. When I think about it, I feel quite ashamed of myself for +not having done so." + +Whether it was this idea, namely, that it was her duty, or whether +it was that passion came to her, unsought, somewhat late in life, +and therefore all the stronger, she herself would perhaps have been +unable to declare. Certain only it is that at over thirty years of +age this clever, sensible, clear-seeing woman fell to sighing and +blushing, starting and stammering at the sounding of a name, as +though for all the world she had been a love-sick girl in her +teens. + +Susan Fossett, her bosom friend, brought the strange tidings to +Bohemia one foggy November afternoon, her opportunity being a tea- +party given by Peter Hope to commemorate the birthday of his +adopted daughter and sub-editor, Jane Helen, commonly called Tommy. +The actual date of Tommy's birthday was known only to the gods; but +out of the London mist to wifeless, childless Peter she had come +the evening of a certain November the eighteenth, and therefore by +Peter and his friends November the eighteenth had been marked upon +the calendar as a day on which they should rejoice together. + +"It is bound to leak out sooner or later," Susan Fossett was +convinced, "so I may as well tell you: that gaby Mary Ramsbotham +has got herself engaged." + +"Nonsense!" was Peter Hope's involuntary ejaculation. + +"Precisely what I mean to tell her the very next time I see her," +added Susan. + +"Who to?" demanded Tommy. + +"You mean 'to whom.' The preeposition governs the objective case," +corrected her James Douglas McTear, commonly called "The Wee +Laddie," who himself wrote English better than he spoke it. + +"I meant 'to whom,'" explained Tommy. + +"Ye didna say it," persisted the Wee Laddie. + +"I don't know to whom," replied Miss Ramsbotham's bosom friend, +sipping tea and breathing indignation. "To something idiotic and +incongruous that will make her life a misery to her." + +Somerville, the briefless, held that in the absence of all data +such conclusion was unjustifiable. + +"If it had been to anything sensible," was Miss Fossett's opinion, +"she would not have kept me in the dark about it, to spring it upon +me like a bombshell. I've never had so much as a hint from her +until I received this absurd scrawl an hour ago." + +Miss Fossett produced from her bag a letter written in pencil. + +"There can be no harm in your hearing it," was Miss Fossett's +excuse; "it will give you an idea of the state of the poor thing's +mind." + +The tea-drinkers left their cups and gathered round her. "Dear +Susan," read Miss Fossett, "I shall not be able to be with you to- +morrow. Please get me out of it nicely. I can't remember at the +moment what it is. You'll be surprised to hear that I'm ENGAGED-- +to be married, I mean, I can hardly REALISE it. I hardly seem to +know where I am. Have just made up my mind to run down to +Yorkshire and see grandmamma. I must do SOMETHING. I must TALK to +SOMEBODY and--forgive me, dear--but you ARE so sensible, and just +now--well I don't FEEL sensible. Will tell you all about it when I +see you--next week, perhaps. You must TRY to like him. He is SO +handsome and REALLY clever--in his own way. Don't scold me. I +never thought it possible that ANYONE could be so happy. It's +quite a different sort of happiness to ANY other sort of happiness. +I don't know how to describe it. Please ask Burcot to let me off +the antequarian congress. I feel I should do it badly. I am so +thankful he has NO relatives--in England. I should have been so +TERRIBLY nervous. Twelve hours ago I could not have DREAMT of it, +and now I walk on tiptoe for fear of waking up. Did I leave my +chinchilla at your rooms? Don't be angry with me. I should have +told you if I had known. In haste. Yours, Mary." + +"It's dated from Marylebone Road, and yesterday afternoon she did +leave her chinchilla in my rooms, which makes me think it really +must be from Mary Ramsbotham. Otherwise I should have my doubts," +added Miss Fossett, as she folded up the letter and replaced it in +her bag. + +"Id is love!" was the explanation of Dr. William Smith, his round, +red face illuminated with poetic ecstasy. "Love has gone to her-- +has dransformed her once again into the leedle maid." + +"Love," retorted Susan Fossett, "doesn't transform an intelligent, +educated woman into a person who writes a letter all in jerks, +underlines every other word, spells antiquarian with an 'e,' and +Burcott's name, whom she has known for the last eight years, with +only one 't.' The woman has gone stark, staring mad!" + +"We must wait until we have seen him," was Peter's judicious view. +"I should be so glad to think that the dear lady was happy." + +"So should I," added Miss Fossett drily. + +"One of the most sensible women I have ever met," commented William +Clodd. "Lucky man, whoever he is. Half wish I'd thought of it +myself." + +"I am not saying that he isn't," retorted Miss Fossett. "It isn't +him I'm worrying about." + +"I preesume you mean 'he,'" suggested the Wee Laddie. "The verb +'to be'--" + +"For goodness' sake," suggested Miss Fossett to Tommy, "give that +man something to eat or drink. That's the worst of people who take +up grammar late in life. Like all converts, they become +fanatical." + +"She's a ripping good sort, is Mary Ramsbotham," exclaimed Grindley +junior, printer and publisher of Good Humour. "The marvel to me is +that no man hitherto has ever had the sense to want her." + +"Oh, you men!" cried Miss Fossett. "A pretty face and an empty +head is all you want." + +"Must they always go together?" laughed Mrs. Grindley junior, nee +Helvetia Appleyard. + +"Exceptions prove the rule," grunted Miss Fossett. + +"What a happy saying that is," smiled Mrs. Grindley junior. "I +wonder sometimes how conversation was ever carried on before it was +invented." + +"De man who would fall in love wid our dear frent Mary," thought +Dr. Smith, "he must be quite egsceptional." + +"You needn't talk about her as if she was a monster--I mean were," +corrected herself Miss Fossett, with a hasty glance towards the Wee +Laddie. "There isn't a man I know that's worthy of her." + +"I mean," explained the doctor, "dat he must be a man of character- +-of brain. Id is de noble man dat is attracted by de noble woman." + +"By the chorus-girl more often," suggested Miss Fossett. + +"We must hope for the best," counselled Peter. "I cannot believe +that a clever, capable woman like Mary Ramsbotham would make a fool +of herself." + +"From what I have seen," replied Miss Fossett, "it's just the +clever people--as regards this particular matter--who do make fools +of themselves." + +Unfortunately Miss Fossett's judgment proved to be correct. On +being introduced a fortnight later to Miss Ramsbotham's fiance, the +impulse of Bohemia was to exclaim, "Great Scott! Whatever in the +name of--" Then on catching sight of Miss Ramsbotham's +transfigured face and trembling hands Bohemia recollected itself in +time to murmur instead: "Delighted, I'm sure!" and to offer +mechanical congratulations. Reginald Peters was a pretty but +remarkably foolish-looking lad of about two-and-twenty, with curly +hair and receding chin; but to Miss Ramsbotham evidently a +promising Apollo. Her first meeting with him had taken place at +one of the many political debating societies then in fashion, +attendance at which Miss Ramsbotham found useful for purposes of +journalistic "copy." Miss Ramsbotham, hitherto a Radical of +pronounced views, he had succeeded under three months in converting +into a strong supporter of the Gentlemanly Party. His feeble +political platitudes, which a little while before she would have +seized upon merrily to ridicule, she now sat drinking in, her plain +face suffused with admiration. Away from him and in connection +with those subjects--somewhat numerous--about which he knew little +and cared less, she retained her sense and humour; but in his +presence she remained comparatively speechless, gazing up into his +somewhat watery eyes with the grateful expression of one learning +wisdom from a master. + +Her absurd adoration--irritating beyond measure to her friends, and +which even to her lover, had he possessed a grain of sense, would +have appeared ridiculous--to Master Peters was evidently a +gratification. Of selfish, exacting nature, he must have found the +services of this brilliant woman of the world of much practical +advantage. Knowing all the most interesting people in London, it +was her pride and pleasure to introduce him everywhere. Her +friends put up with him for her sake; to please her made him +welcome, did their best to like him, and disguised their failure. +The free entry to a places of amusement saved his limited purse. +Her influence, he had instinct enough to perceive, could not fail +to be of use to him in his profession: that of a barrister. She +praised him to prominent solicitors, took him to tea with judges' +wives, interested examiners on his behalf. In return he overlooked +her many disadvantages, and did not fail to let her know it. Miss +Ramsbotham's gratitude was boundless. + +"I do so wish I were younger and better looking," she sighed to the +bosom friend. "For myself, I don't mind; I have got used to it. +But it is so hard on Reggie. He feels it, I know he does, though +he never openly complains." + +"He would be a cad if he did," answered Susan Fossett, who having +tried conscientiously for a month to tolerate the fellow, had in +the end declared her inability even to do more than avoid open +expression of cordial dislike. "Added to which I don't quite see +of what use it would be. You never told him you were young and +pretty, did you?" + +"I told him, my dear," replied Miss Ramsbotham, "the actual truth. +I don't want to take any credit for doing so; it seemed the best +course. You see, unfortunately, I look my age. With most men it +would have made a difference. You have no idea how good he is. He +assured me he had engaged himself to me with his eyes open, and +that there was no need to dwell upon unpleasant topics. It is so +wonderful to me that he should care for me--he who could have half +the women in London at his feet." + +"Yes, he's the type that would attract them, I daresay," agreed +Susan Fossett. "But are you quite sure that he does?--care for +you, I mean." + +"My dear," returned Miss Ramsbotham, "you remember Rochefoucauld's +definition. 'One loves, the other consents to be loved.' If he +will only let me do that I shall be content. It is more than I had +any right to expect." + +"Oh, you are a fool," told her bluntly her bosom friend. + +"I know I am," admitted Miss Ramsbotham; "but I had no idea that +being a fool was so delightful." + +Bohemia grew day by day more indignant and amazed. Young Peters +was not even a gentleman. All the little offices of courtship he +left to her. It was she who helped him on with his coat, and +afterwards adjusted her own cloak; she who carried the parcel, she +who followed into and out of the restaurant. Only when he thought +anyone was watching would he make any attempt to behave to her with +even ordinary courtesy. He bullied her, contradicted her in +public, ignored her openly. Bohemia fumed with impotent rage, yet +was bound to confess that so far as Miss Ramsbotham herself was +concerned he had done more to make her happy than had ever all +Bohemia put together. A tender light took up its dwelling in her +eyes, which for the first time it was noticed were singularly deep +and expressive. The blood, of which she possessed if anything too +much, now came and went, so that her cheeks, in place of their +insistent red, took on a varied pink and white. Life had entered +her thick dark hair, giving to it shade and shadow. + +The woman began to grow younger. She put on flesh. Sex, hitherto +dormant, began to show itself; femininities peeped out. New tones, +suggesting possibilities, crept into her voice. Bohemia +congratulated itself that the affair, after all, might turn out +well. + +Then Master Peters spoiled everything by showing a better side to +his nature, and, careless of all worldly considerations, falling in +love himself, honestly, with a girl at the bun shop. He did the +best thing under the circumstances that he could have done: told +Miss Ramsbotham the plain truth, and left the decision in her +hands. + +Miss Ramsbotham acted as anyone who knew her would have foretold. +Possibly, in the silence of her delightful little four-roomed flat +over the tailor's shop in Marylebone Road, her sober, worthy maid +dismissed for a holiday, she may have shed some tears; but, if so, +no trace of them was allowed to mar the peace of mind of Mr. +Peters. She merely thanked him for being frank with her, and by a +little present pain saving them both a future of disaster. It was +quite understandable; she knew he had never really been in love +with her. She had thought him the type of man that never does fall +in love, as the word is generally understood--Miss Ramsbotham did +not add, with anyone except himself--and had that been the case, +and he content merely to be loved, they might have been happy +together. As it was--well, it was fortunate he had found out the +truth before it was too late. Now, would he take her advice? + +Mr. Peters was genuinely grateful, as well he might be, and would +consent to any suggestion that Miss Ramsbotham might make; felt he +had behaved shabbily, was very much ashamed of himself, would be +guided in all things by Miss Ramsbotham, whom he should always +regard as the truest of friends, and so on. + +Miss Ramsbotham's suggestion was this: Mr. Peters, no more robust +of body than of mind, had been speaking for some time past of +travel. Having nothing to do now but to wait for briefs, why not +take this opportunity of visiting his only well-to-do relative, a +Canadian farmer. Meanwhile, let Miss Peggy leave the bun shop and +take up her residence in Miss Ramsbotham's flat. Let there be no +engagement--merely an understanding. The girl was pretty, +charming, good, Miss Ramsbotham felt sure; but--well, a little +education, a little training in manners and behaviour would not be +amiss, would it? If, on returning at the end of six months or a +year, Mr. Peters was still of the same mind, and Peggy also +wishful, the affair would be easier, would it not? + +There followed further expressions of eternal gratitude. Miss +Ramsbotham swept all such aside. It would be pleasant to have a +bright young girl to live with her; teaching, moulding such an one +would be a pleasant occupation. + +And thus it came to pass that Mr. Reginald Peters disappeared for a +while from Bohemia, to the regret of but few, and there entered +into it one Peggy Nutcombe, as pretty a child as ever gladdened the +eye of man. She had wavy, flaxen hair, a complexion that might +have been manufactured from the essence of wild roses, the nose +that Tennyson bestows upon his miller's daughter, and a mouth +worthy of the Lowther Arcade in its days of glory. Add to this the +quick grace of a kitten, with the appealing helplessness of a baby +in its first short frock, and you will be able to forgive Mr. +Reginald Peters his faithlessness. Bohemia looked from one to the +other--from the fairy to the woman--and ceased to blame. That the +fairy was as stupid as a camel, as selfish as a pig, and as lazy as +a nigger Bohemia did not know; nor--so long as her figure and +complexion remained what it was--would its judgment have been +influenced, even if it had. I speak of the Bohemian male. + +But that is just what her figure and complexion did not do. Mr. +Reginald Peters, finding his uncle old, feeble, and inclined to be +fond, deemed it to his advantage to stay longer than he had +intended. Twelve months went by. Miss Peggy was losing her +kittenish grace, was becoming lumpy. A couple of pimples--one near +the right-hand corner of her rosebud mouth, and another on the +left-hand side of her tip-tilted nose--marred her baby face. At +the end of another six months the men called her plump, and the +women fat. Her walk was degenerating into a waddle; stairs caused +her to grunt. She took to breathing with her mouth, and Bohemia +noticed that her teeth were small, badly coloured, and uneven. The +pimples grew in size and number. The cream and white of her +complexion was merging into a general yellow. A certain greasiness +of skin was manifesting itself. Babyish ways in connection with a +woman who must have weighed about eleven stone struck Bohemia as +incongruous. Her manners, judged alone, had improved. But they +had not improved her. They did not belong to her; they did not fit +her. They sat on her as Sunday broadcloth on a yokel. She had +learned to employ her "h's" correctly, and to speak good grammar. +This gave to her conversation a painfully artificial air. The +little learning she had absorbed was sufficient to bestow upon her +an angry consciousness of her own invincible ignorance. + +Meanwhile, Miss Ramsbotham had continued upon her course of +rejuvenation. At twenty-nine she had looked thirty-five; at +thirty-two she looked not a day older than five-and-twenty. +Bohemia felt that should she retrograde further at the same rate +she would soon have to shorten her frocks and let down her hair. A +nervous excitability had taken possession of her that was playing +strange freaks not only with her body, but with her mind. What it +gave to the one it seemed to take from the other. Old friends, +accustomed to enjoy with her the luxury of plain speech, wondered +in vain what they had done to offend her. Her desire was now +towards new friends, new faces. Her sense of humour appeared to be +departing from her; it became unsafe to jest with her. On the +other hand, she showed herself greedy for admiration and flattery. +Her former chums stepped back astonished to watch brainless young +fops making their way with her by complimenting her upon her +blouse, or whispering to her some trite nonsense about her +eyelashes. From her work she took a good percentage of her brain +power to bestow it on her clothes. Of course, she was successful. +Her dresses suited her, showed her to the best advantage. +Beautiful she could never be, and had sense enough to know it; but +a charming, distinguished-looking woman she had already become. +Also, she was on the high road to becoming a vain, egotistical, +commonplace woman. + +It was during the process of this, her metamorphosis, that Peter +Hope one evening received a note from her announcing her intention +of visiting him the next morning at the editorial office of Good +Humour. She added in a postscript that she would prefer the +interview to be private. + +Punctually to the time appointed Miss Ramsbotham arrived. Miss +Ramsbotham, contrary to her custom, opened conversation with the +weather. Miss Ramsbotham was of opinion that there was every +possibility of rain. Peter Hope's experience was that there was +always possibility of rain. + +"How is the Paper doing?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham. + +The Paper--for a paper not yet two years old--was doing well. "We +expect very shortly--very shortly indeed," explained Peter Hope, +"to turn the corner." + +"Ah! that 'corner,'" sympathised Miss Ramsbotham. + +"I confess," smiled Peter Hope, "it doesn't seem to be exactly a +right-angled corner. One reaches it as one thinks. But it takes +some getting round--what I should describe as a cornery corner." + +"What you want," thought Miss Ramsbotham, "are one or two popular +features." + +"Popular features," agreed Peter guardedly, scenting temptation, +"are not to be despised, provided one steers clear of the vulgar +and the commonplace." + +"A Ladies' Page!" suggested Miss Ramsbotham--"a page that should +make the woman buy it. The women, believe me, are going to be of +more and more importance to the weekly press." + +"But why should she want a special page to herself?" demanded Peter +Hope. "Why should not the paper as a whole appeal to her?" + +"It doesn't," was all Miss Ramsbotham could offer in explanation. + +"We give her literature and the drama, poetry, fiction, the higher +politics, the--" + +"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Ramsbotham, who of late, among +other failings new to her, had developed a tendency towards +impatience; "but she gets all that in half a dozen other papers. I +have thought it out." Miss Ramsbotham leaned further across the +editorial desk and sunk her voice unconsciously to a confidential +whisper. "Tell her the coming fashions. Discuss the question +whether hat or bonnet makes you look the younger. Tell her whether +red hair or black is to be the new colour, what size waist is being +worn by the best people. Oh, come!" laughed Miss Ramsbotham in +answer to Peter's shocked expression; "one cannot reform the world +and human nature all at once. You must appeal to people's folly in +order to get them to listen to your wisdom. Make your paper a +success first. You can make it a power afterwards." + +"But," argued Peter, "there are already such papers--papers devoted +to--to that sort of thing, and to nothing else." + +"At sixpence!" replied the practical Miss Ramsbotham. "I am +thinking of the lower middle-class woman who has twenty pounds a +year to spend on dress, and who takes twelve hours a day to think +about it, poor creature. My dear friend, there is a fortune in it. +Think of the advertisements." + +Poor Peter groaned--old Peter, the dreamer of dreams. But for +thought of Tommy! one day to be left alone to battle with a stony- +eyed, deaf world, Peter most assuredly would have risen in his +wrath, would have said to his distinguished-looking temptress, "Get +thee behind me, Miss Ramsbotham. My journalistic instinct whispers +to me that your scheme, judged by the mammon of unrighteousness, is +good. It is a new departure. Ten years hence half the London +journals will have adopted it. There is money in it. But what of +that? Shall I for mere dross sell my editorial soul, turn the +temple of the Mighty Pen into a den of--of milliners! Good +morning, Miss Ramsbotham. I grieve for you. I grieve for you as +for a fellow-worker once inspired by devotion to a noble calling, +who has fallen from her high estate. Good morning, madam." + +So Peter thought as he sat tattooing with his finger-tips upon the +desk; but only said - + +"It would have to be well done." + +"Everything would depend upon how it was done," agreed Miss +Ramsbotham. "Badly done, the idea would be wasted. You would be +merely giving it away to some other paper." + +"Do you know of anyone?" queried Peter. + +"I was thinking of myself," answered Miss Ramsbotham. + +"I am sorry," said Peter Hope. + +"Why?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham. "Don't you think I could do it?" + +"I think," said Peter, "no one could do it better. I am sorry you +should wish to do it--that is all." + +"I want to do it," replied Miss Ramsbotham, a note of doggedness in +her voice. + +"How much do you propose to charge me?" Peter smiled. + +"Nothing." + +"My dear lady--" + +"I could not in conscience," explained Miss Ramsbotham, "take +payment from both sides. I am going to make a good deal out of it. +I am going to make out of it at least three hundred a year, and +they will be glad to pay it." + +"Who will?" + +"The dressmakers. I shall be one of the most stylish women in +London," laughed Miss Ramsbotham. + +"You used to be a sensible woman," Peter reminded her. + +"I want to live." + +"Can't you manage to do it without--without being a fool, my dear." + +"No," answered Miss Ramsbotham, "a woman can't. I've tried it." + +"Very well," agreed Peter, "be it so." + +Peter had risen. He laid his shapely, white old hand upon the +woman's shoulder. "Tell me when you want to give it up. I shall +be glad." + +Thus it was arranged. Good Humour gained circulation and--of more +importance yet--advertisements; and Miss Ramsbotham, as she had +predicted, the reputation of being one of the best-dressed women in +London. Her reason for desiring such reputation Peter Hope had +shrewdly guessed. Two months later his suspicions were confirmed. +Mr. Reginald Peters, his uncle being dead, was on his way back to +England. + +His return was awaited with impatience only by the occupants of the +little flat in the Marylebone Road; and between these two the +difference of symptom was marked. Mistress Peggy, too stupid to +comprehend the change that had been taking place in her, looked +forward to her lover's arrival with delight. Mr. Reginald Peters, +independently of his profession, was in consequence of his uncle's +death a man of means. Miss Ramsbotham's tutelage, which had always +been distasteful to her, would now be at an end. She would be a +"lady" in the true sense of the word--according to Miss Peggy's +definition, a woman with nothing to do but eat and drink, and +nothing to think of but dress. Miss Ramsbotham, on the other hand, +who might have anticipated the home-coming of her quondam admirer +with hope, exhibited a strange condition of alarmed misery, which +increased from day to day as the date drew nearer. + +The meeting--whether by design or accident was never known--took +place at an evening party given by the proprietors of a new +journal. The circumstance was certainly unfortunate for poor +Peggy, whom Bohemia began to pity. Mr. Peters, knowing both women +would be there and so on the look-out, saw in the distance among +the crowd of notabilities a superbly millinered, tall, graceful +woman, whose face recalled sensations he could not for the moment +place. Chiefly noticeable about her were her exquisite neck and +arms, and the air of perfect breeding with which she moved, talking +and laughing, through the distinguished, fashionable throng. +Beside her strutted, nervously aggressive, a vulgar, fat, pimply, +shapeless young woman, attracting universal attention by the +incongruity of her presence in the room. On being greeted by the +graceful lady of the neck and arms, the conviction forced itself +upon him that this could be no other than the once Miss Ramsbotham, +plain of face and indifferent of dress, whose very appearance he +had almost forgotten. On being greeted gushingly as "Reggie" by +the sallow-complexioned, over-dressed young woman he bowed with +evident astonishment, and apologised for a memory that, so he +assured the lady, had always been to him a source of despair. + +Of course, he thanked his stars--and Miss Ramsbotham--that the +engagement had never been formal. So far as Mr. Peters was +concerned, there was an end to Mistress Peggy's dream of an +existence of everlasting breakfasts in bed. Leaving the Ramsbotham +flat, she returned to the maternal roof, and there a course of hard +work and plain living tended greatly to improve her figure and +complexion; so that in course of time, the gods smiling again upon +her, she married a foreman printer, and passes out of this story. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Reginald Peters--older, and the possessor, perhaps, +of more sense--looked at Miss Ramsbotham with new eyes, and now not +tolerated but desired her. Bohemia waited to assist at the happy +termination of a pretty and somewhat novel romance. Miss +Ramsbotham had shown no sign of being attracted elsewhere. +Flattery, compliment, she continued to welcome; but merely, so it +seemed, as favourable criticism. Suitors more fit and proper were +now not lacking, for Miss Ramsbotham, though a woman less desirable +when won, came readily to the thought of wooing. But to all such +she turned a laughing face. + +"I like her for it," declared Susan Fossett; "and he has improved-- +there was room for it--though I wish it could have been some other. +There was Jack Herring--it would have been so much more suitable. +Or even Joe, in spite of his size. But it's her wedding, not ours; +and she will never care for anyone else." + +And Bohemia bought its presents, and had them ready, but never gave +them. A few months later Mr. Reginald Peters returned to Canada, a +bachelor. Miss Ramsbotham expressed her desire for another private +interview with Peter Hope. + +"I may as well keep on the Letter to Clorinda," thought Miss +Ramsbotham. "I have got into the knack of it. But I will get you +to pay me for it in the ordinary way." + +"I would rather have done so from the beginning," explained Peter. + +"I know. I could not in conscience, as I told you, take from both +sides. For the future--well, they have said nothing; but I expect +they are beginning to get tired of it." + +"And you!" questioned Peter. + +"Yes. I am tired of it myself," laughed Miss Ramsbotham. "Life +isn't long enough to be a well-dressed woman." + +"You have done with all that?" + +"I hope so," answered Miss Ramsbotham. + +"And don't want to talk any more about it?" suggested Peter. + +"Not just at present. I should find it so difficult to explain." + +By others, less sympathetic than old Peter, vigorous attempts were +made to solve the mystery. Miss Ramsbotham took enjoyment in +cleverly evading these tormentors. Thwarted at every point, the +gossips turned to other themes. Miss Ramsbotham found interest +once again in the higher branches of her calling; became again, by +slow degrees, the sensible, frank, 'good sort' that Bohemia had +known, liked, respected--everything but loved. + +Years later, to Susan Fossett, the case was made clear; and through +Susan Fossett, a nice enough woman but talkative, those few still +interested learned the explanation. + +"Love," said Miss Ramsbotham to the bosom friend, "is not regulated +by reason. As you say, there were many men I might have married +with much more hope of happiness. But I never cared for any other +man. He was not intellectual, was egotistical, possibly enough +selfish. The man should always be older than the woman; he was +younger, and he was a weak character. Yet I loved him." + +"I am glad you didn't marry him," said the bosom friend. + +"So am I," agreed Miss Ramsbotham. + +"If you can't trust me," had said the bosom friend at this point, +"don't." + +"I meant to do right," said Miss Ramsbotham, "upon my word of +honour I did, in the beginning." + +"I don't understand," said the bosom friend. + +"If she had been my own child," continued Miss Ramsbotham, "I could +not have done more--in the beginning. I tried to teach her, to put +some sense into her. Lord! the hours I wasted on that little +idiot! I marvel at my own patience. She was nothing but an +animal. An animal! she had only an animal's vices. To eat and +drink and sleep was her idea of happiness; her one ambition male +admiration, and she hadn't character enough to put sufficient curb +upon her stomach to retain it. I reasoned with her, I pleaded with +her, I bullied her. Had I persisted I might have succeeded by +sheer physical and mental strength in restraining her from ruining +herself. I was winning. I had made her frightened of me. Had I +gone on, I might have won. By dragging her out of bed in the +morning, by insisting upon her taking exercise, by regulating every +particle of food and drink she put into her mouth, I kept the +little beast in good condition for nearly three months. Then, I +had to go away into the country for a few days; she swore she would +obey my instructions. When I came back I found she had been in bed +most of the time, and had been living chiefly on chocolate and +cakes. She was curled up asleep in an easy-chair, snoring with her +mouth wide open, when I opened the door. And at sight of that +picture the devil came to me and tempted me. Why should I waste my +time, wear myself out in mind and body, that the man I loved should +marry a pig because it looked like an angel? 'Six months' +wallowing according to its own desires would reveal it in its true +shape. So from that day I left it to itself. No, worse than that- +-I don't want to spare myself--I encouraged her. I let her have a +fire in her bedroom, and half her meals in bed. I let her have +chocolate with tablespoonfuls of cream floating on the top: she +loved it. She was never really happy except when eating. I let +her order her own meals. I took a fiendish delight watching the +dainty limbs turning to shapeless fat, the pink-and-white +complexion growing blotchy. It is flesh that man loves; brain and +mind and heart and soul! he never thinks of them. This little +pink-and-white sow could have cut me out with Solomon himself. Why +should such creatures have the world arranged for them, and we not +be allowed to use our brains in our own defence? But for my +looking-glass I might have resisted the temptation, but I always +had something of the man in me: the sport of the thing appealed to +me. I suppose it was the nervous excitement under which I was +living that was changing me. All my sap was going into my body. +Given sufficient time, I might meet her with her own weapons, +animal against animal. Well, you know the result: I won. There +was no doubt about his being in love with me. His eyes would +follow me round the room, feasting on me. I had become a fine +animal. Men desired me, Do you know why I refused him? He was in +every way a better man than the silly boy I had fallen in love +with; but he came back with a couple of false teeth: I saw the +gold setting one day when he opened his mouth to laugh. I don't +say for a moment, my dear, there is no such thing as love--love +pure, ennobling, worthy of men and women, its roots in the heart +and nowhere else. But that love I had missed; and the other! I +saw it in its true light. I had fallen in love with him because he +was a pretty, curly-headed boy. He had fallen in love with Peggy +when she was pink-and-white and slim. I shall always see the look +that came into his eyes when she spoke to him at the hotel, the +look of disgust and loathing. The girl was the same; it was only +her body that had grown older. I could see his eyes fixed upon my +arms and neck. I had got to grow old in time, brown skinned, and +wrinkled. I thought of him, growing bald, fat--" + +"If you had fallen in love with the right man," had said Susan +Fossett, "those ideas would not have come to you." + +"I know," said Miss Ramsbotham. "He will have to like me thin and +in these clothes, just because I am nice, and good company, and +helpful. That is the man I am waiting for." + +He never came along. A charming, bright-eyed, white-haired lady +occupies alone a little flat in the Marylebone Road, looks in +occasionally at the Writers' Club. She is still Miss Ramsbotham. + +Bald-headed gentlemen feel young again talking to her: she is so +sympathetic, so big-minded, so understanding. Then, hearing the +clock strike, tear themselves from her with a sigh, and return +home--some of them--to stupid shrewish wives. + + + +STORY THE FIFTH: Joey Loveredge agrees--on certain terms--to join +the Company + + + +The most popular member of the Autolycus Club was undoubtedly +Joseph Loveredge. Small, chubby, clean-shaven, his somewhat +longish, soft, brown hair parted in the middle, strangers fell into +the error of assuming him to be younger than he really was. It is +on record that a leading lady novelist--accepting her at her own +estimate--irritated by his polite but firm refusal to allow her +entrance into his own editorial office without appointment, had +once boxed his ears, under the impression that he was his own +office-boy. Guests to the Autolycus Club, on being introduced to +him, would give to him kind messages to take home to his father, +with whom they remembered having been at school together. This +sort of thing might have annoyed anyone with less sense of humour. +Joseph Loveredge would tell such stories himself, keenly enjoying +the jest--was even suspected of inventing some of the more +improbable. Another fact tending to the popularity of Joseph +Loveredge among all classes, over and above his amiability, his +wit, his genuine kindliness, and his never-failing fund of good +stories, was that by care and inclination he had succeeded in +remaining a bachelor. Many had been the attempts to capture him; +nor with the passing of the years had interest in the sport shown +any sign of diminution. Well over the frailties and distempers so +dangerous to youth, of staid and sober habits, with an ever- +increasing capital invested in sound securities, together with an +ever-increasing income from his pen, with a tastefully furnished +house overlooking Regent's Park, an excellent and devoted cook and +house-keeper, and relatives mostly settled in the Colonies, Joseph +Loveredge, though inexperienced girls might pass him by with a +contemptuous sniff, was recognised by ladies of maturer judgment as +a prize not too often dangled before the eyes of spinsterhood. Old +foxes--so we are assured by kind-hearted country gentlemen-- rather +enjoy than otherwise a day with the hounds. However that may be, +certain it is that Joseph Loveredge, confident of himself, one +presumes, showed no particular disinclination to the chase. +Perhaps on the whole he preferred the society of his own sex, with +whom he could laugh and jest with more freedom, to whom he could +tell his stories as they came to him without the trouble of having +to turn them over first in his own mind; but, on the other hand, +Joey made no attempt to avoid female company whenever it came his +way; and then no cavalier could render himself more agreeable, more +unobtrusively attentive. Younger men stood by, in envious +admiration of the ease with which in five minutes he would +establish himself on terms of cosy friendship with the brilliant +beauty before whose gracious coldness they had stood shivering for +months; the daring with which he would tuck under his arm, so to +speak, the prettiest girl in the room, smooth down as if by magic +her hundred prickles, and tease her out of her overwhelming sense +of her own self-importance. The secret of his success was, +probably, that he was not afraid of them. Desiring nothing from +them beyond companionableness, a reasonable amount of appreciation +for his jokes--which without being exceptionally stupid they would +have found it difficult to withhold--with just sufficient +information and intelligence to make conversation interesting, +there was nothing about him by which they could lay hold of him. +Of course, that rendered them particularly anxious to lay hold of +him. Joseph's lady friends might, roughly speaking, be divided +into two groups: the unmarried, who wanted to marry him to +themselves; and the married, who wanted to marry him to somebody +else. It would be a social disaster, the latter had agreed among +themselves, if Joseph Loveredge should never wed. + +"He would make such an excellent husband for poor Bridget." + +"Or Gladys. I wonder how old Gladys really is?" + +"Such a nice, kind little man." + +"And when one thinks of the sort of men that ARE married, it does +seem such a pity!" + +"I wonder why he never has married, because he's just the sort of +man you'd think WOULD have married." + +"I wonder if he ever was in love." + +"Oh, my dear, you don't mean to tell me that a man has reached the +age of forty without ever being in love!" + +The ladies would sigh. + +"I do hope if ever he does marry, it will be somebody nice. Men +are so easily deceived." + +"I shouldn't be surprised myself a bit if something came of it with +Bridget. She's a dear girl, Bridget--so genuine." + +"Well, I think myself, dear, if it's anyone, it's Gladys. I should +be so glad to see poor dear Gladys settled." + +The unmarried kept their thoughts more to themselves. Each one, +upon reflection, saw ground for thinking that Joseph Loveredge had +given proof of feeling preference for herself. The irritating +thing was that, on further reflection, it was equally clear that +Joseph Loveredge had shown signs of preferring most of the others. + +Meanwhile Joseph Loveredge went undisturbed upon his way. At eight +o'clock in the morning Joseph's housekeeper entered the room with a +cup of tea and a dry biscuit. At eight-fifteen Joseph Loveredge +arose and performed complicated exercises on an indiarubber pulley, +warranted, if persevered in, to bestow grace upon the figure and +elasticity upon the limbs. Joseph Loveredge persevered steadily, +and had done so for years, and was himself contented with the +result, which, seeing it concerned nobody else, was all that could +be desired. At half-past eight on Mondays, Wednesdays, and +Fridays, Joseph Loveredge breakfasted on one cup of tea, brewed by +himself; one egg, boiled by himself; and two pieces of toast, the +first one spread with marmalade, the second with butter. On +Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays Joseph Loveredge discarded eggs +and ate a rasher of bacon. On Sundays Joseph Loveredge had both +eggs and bacon, but then allowed himself half an hour longer for +reading the paper. At nine-thirty Joseph Loveredge left the house +for the office of the old-established journal of which he was the +incorruptible and honoured City editor. At one-forty-five, having +left his office at one-thirty, Joseph Loveredge entered the +Autolycus Club and sat down to lunch. Everything else in Joseph's +life was arranged with similar preciseness, so far as was possible +with the duties of a City editor. Monday evening Joseph spent with +musical friends at Brixton. Friday was Joseph's theatre night. On +Tuesdays and Thursdays he was open to receive invitations out to +dinner; on Wednesdays and Saturdays he invited four friends to dine +with him at Regent's Park. On Sundays, whatever the season, Joseph +Loveredge took an excursion into the country. He had his regular +hours for reading, his regular hours for thinking. Whether in +Fleet Street, or the Tyrol, on the Thames, or in the Vatican, you +might recognise him from afar by his grey frock-coat, his patent- +leather boots, his brown felt hat, his lavender tie. The man was a +born bachelor. When the news of his engagement crept through the +smoky portals of the Autolycus Club nobody believed it. + +"Impossible!" asserted Jack Herring. "I've known Joey's life for +fifteen years. Every five minutes is arranged for. He could never +have found the time to do it." + +"He doesn't like women, not in that way; I've heard him say so," +explained Alexander the Poet. "His opinion is that women are the +artists of Society--delightful as entertainers, but troublesome to +live with." + +"I call to mind," said the Wee Laddie, "a story he told me in this +verra room, barely three months agone: Some half a dozen of them +were gong home together from the Devonshire. They had had a joyous +evening, and one of them--Joey did not notice which--suggested +their dropping in at his place just for a final whisky. They were +laughing and talking in the dining-room, when their hostess +suddenly appeared upon the scene in a costume--so Joey described +it--the charm of which was its variety. She was a nice-looking +woman, Joey said, but talked too much; and when the first lull +occurred, Joey turned to the man sitting nighest to him, and who +looked bored, and suggested in a whisper that it was about time +they went. + +"'Perhaps you had better go,' assented the bored-looking man. +'Wish I could come with you; but, you see, I live here.'" + +"I don't believe it," said Somerville the Briefless. "He's been +cracking his jokes, and some silly woman has taken him seriously." + +But the rumour grew into report, developed detail, lost all charm, +expanded into plain recital of fact. Joey had not been seen within +the Club for more than a week--in itself a deadly confirmation. +The question became: Who was she--what was she like? + +"It's none of our set, or we should have heard something from her +side before now," argued acutely Somerville the Briefless. + +"Some beastly kid who will invite us to dances and forget the +supper," feared Johnny Bulstrode, commonly called the Babe. "Old +men always fall in love with young girls." + +"Forty," explained severely Peter Hope, editor and part proprietor +of Good Humour, "is not old." + +"Well, it isn't young," persisted Johnny. + +"Good thing for you, Johnny, if it is a girl," thought Jack +Herring. "Somebody for you to play with. I often feel sorry for +you, having nobody but grown-up people to talk to." + +"They do get a bit stodgy after a certain age," agreed the Babe. + +"I am hoping," said Peter, "it will be some sensible, pleasant +woman, a little over thirty. He is a dear fellow, Loveredge; and +forty is a very good age for a man to marry." + +"Well, if I'm not married before I'm forty--" said the Babe. + +"Oh, don't you fret," Jack Herring interrupted him--"a pretty boy +like you! We will give a ball next season, and bring you out, if +you're good--get you off our hands in no time." + +It was August. Joey went away for his holiday without again +entering the Club. The lady's name was Henrietta Elizabeth Doone. +It was said by the Morning Post that she was connected with the +Doones of Gloucestershire. + +Doones of Gloucestershire--Doones of Gloucestershire mused Miss +Ramsbotham, Society journalist, who wrote the weekly Letter to +Clorinda, discussing the matter with Peter Hope in the editorial +office of Good Humour. "Knew a Doon who kept a big second-hand +store in Euston Road and called himself an auctioneer. He bought a +small place in Gloucestershire and added an 'e' to his name. +Wonder if it's the same?" + +"I had a cat called Elizabeth once," said Peter Hope. + +"I don't see what that's got to do with it." + +"No, of course not," agreed Peter. "But I was rather fond of it. +It was a quaint sort of animal, considered as a cat--would never +speak to another cat, and hated being out after ten o'clock at +night." + +"What happened to it?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham. + +"Fell off a roof," sighed Peter Hope. "Wasn't used to them." + +The marriage took place abroad, at the English Church at Montreux. +Mr. and Mrs. Loveredge returned at the end of September. The +Autolycus Club subscribed to send a present of a punch-bowl, left +cards, and waited with curiosity to see the bride. But no +invitation arrived. Nor for a month was Joey himself seen within +the Club. Then, one foggy afternoon, waking after a doze, with a +cold cigar in his mouth, Jack Herring noticed he was not the only +occupant of the smoking-room. In a far corner, near a window, sat +Joseph Loveredge reading a magazine. Jack Herring rubbed his eyes, +then rose and crossed the room. + +"I thought at first," explained Jack Herring, recounting the +incident later in the evening, "that I must be dreaming. There he +sat, drinking his five o'clock whisky-and-soda, the same Joey +Loveredge I had known for fifteen years; yet not the same. Not a +feature altered, not a hair on his head changed, yet the whole face +was different; the same body, the same clothes, but another man. +We talked for half an hour; he remembered everything that Joey +Loveredge had known. I couldn't understand it. Then, as the clock +struck, and he rose, saying he must be home at half-past five, the +explanation suddenly occurred to me: JOEY LOVEREDGE WAS DEAD; THIS +WAS A MARRIED MAN." + +"We don't want your feeble efforts at psychological romance," told +him Somerville the Briefless. "We want to know what you talked +about. Dead or married, the man who can drink whisky-and-soda must +be held responsible for his actions. What's the little beggar mean +by cutting us all in this way? Did he ask after any of us? Did he +leave any message for any of us? Did he invite any of us to come +an see him?" + +"Yes, he did ask after nearly everybody; I was coming to that. But +he didn't leave any message. I didn't gather that he was pining +for old relationships with any of us." + +"Well, I shall go round to the office to-morrow morning," said +Somerville the Briefless, "and force my way in if necessary. This +is getting mysterious." + +But Somerville returned only to puzzle the Autolycus Club still +further. Joey had talked about the weather, the state of political +parties, had received with unfeigned interest all gossip concerning +his old friends; but about himself, his wife, nothing had been +gleaned. Mrs. Loveredge was well; Mrs. Loveredge's relations were +also well. But at present Mrs. Loveredge was not receiving. + +Members of the Autolycus Club with time upon their hands took up +the business of private detectives. Mrs. Loveredge turned out to +be a handsome, well-dressed lady of about thirty, as Peter Hope had +desired. At eleven in the morning, Mrs. Loveredge shopped in the +neighbourhood of the Hampstead Road. In the afternoon, Mrs. +Loveredge, in a hired carriage, would slowly promenade the Park, +looking, it was noticed, with intense interest at the occupants of +other carriages as they passed, but evidently having no +acquaintances among them. The carriage, as a general rule, would +call at Joey's office at five, and Mr. and Mrs. Loveredge would +drive home. Jack Herring, as the oldest friend, urged by the other +members, took the bull by the horns and called boldly. On neither +occasion was Mrs. Loveredge at home. + +"I'm damned if I go again!" said Jack. "She was in the second +time, I know. I watched her into the house. Confound the stuck-up +pair of them!" + +Bewilderment gave place to indignation. Now and again Joey would +creep, a mental shadow of his former self, into the Club where once +every member would have risen with a smile to greet him. They gave +him curt answers and turned away from him. Peter Hope one +afternoon found him there alone, standing with his hands in his +pockets looking out of window. Peter was fifty, so he said, maybe +a little older; men of forty were to him mere boys. So Peter, who +hated mysteries, stepped forward with a determined air and clapped +Joey on the shoulder. + +"I want to know, Joey," said Peter, "I want to know whether I am to +go on liking you, or whether I've got to think poorly of you. Out +with it." + +Joey turned to him a face so full of misery that Peter's heart was +touched. "You can't tell how wretched it makes me," said Joey. "I +didn't know it was possible to feel so uncomfortable as I have felt +during these last three months." + +"It's the wife, I suppose?" suggested Peter. + +"She's a dear girl. She only has one fault." + +"It's a pretty big one," returned Peter. "I should try and break +her of it if I were you." + +"Break her of it!" cried the little man. "You might as well advise +me to break a brick wall with my head. I had no idea what they +were like. I never dreamt it." + +"But what is her objection to us? We are clean, we are fairly +intelligent--" + +"My dear Peter, do you think I haven't said all that, and a hundred +things more? A woman! she gets an idea into her head, and every +argument against it hammers it in further. She has gained her +notion of what she calls Bohemia from the comic journals. It's our +own fault, we have done it ourselves. There's no persuading her +that it's a libel." + +"Won't she see a few of us--judge for herself? There's Porson--why +Porson might have been a bishop. Or Somerville--Somerville's +Oxford accent is wasted here. It has no chance." + +"It isn't only that," explained Joey; "she has ambitions, social +ambitions. She thinks that if we begin with the wrong set, we'll +never get into the right. We have three friends at present, and, +so far as I can see, are never likely to have any more. My dear +boy, you'd never believe there could exist such bores. There's a +man and his wife named Holyoake. They dine with us on Thursdays, +and we dine with them on Tuesdays. Their only title to existence +consists in their having a cousin in the House of Lords; they claim +no other right themselves. He is a widower, getting on for eighty. +Apparently he's the only relative they have, and when he dies, they +talk of retiring into the country. There's a fellow named Cutler, +who visited once at Marlborough House in connection with a charity. +You'd think to listen to him that he had designs upon the throne. +The most tiresome of them all is a noisy woman who, as far as I can +make out, hasn't any name at all. 'Miss Montgomery' is on her +cards, but that is only what she calls herself. Who she really is! +It would shake the foundations of European society if known. We +sit and talk about the aristocracy; we don't seem to know anybody +else. I tried on one occasion a little sarcasm as a corrective-- +recounted conversations between myself and the Prince of Wales, in +which I invariably addressed him as 'Teddy.' It sounds tall, I +know, but those people took it in. I was too astonished to +undeceive them at the time, the consequence is I am a sort of +little god to them. They come round me and ask for more. What am +I to do? I am helpless among them. I've never had anything to do +before with the really first-prize idiot; the usual type, of +course, one knows, but these, if you haven't met them, are +inconceivable. I try insulting them; they don't even know I am +insulting them. Short of dragging them out of their chairs and +kicking them round the room, I don't see how to make them +understand it." + +"And Mrs. Loveredge?" asked the sympathetic Peter, "is she--" + +"Between ourselves," said Joey, sinking his voice to a needless +whisper, seeing he and Peter were the sole occupants of the +smoking-room--"I couldn't, of course, say it to a younger man--but +between ourselves, my wife is a charming woman. You don't know +her." + +"Doesn't seem much chance of my ever doing so," laughed Peter. + +"So graceful, so dignified, so--so queenly," continued the little +man, with rising enthusiasm. "She has only one fault--she has no +sense of humour." + +To Peter, as it has been said, men of forty were mere boys. + +"My dear fellow, whatever could have induced you--" + +"I know--I know all that," interrupted the mere boy. "Nature +arranges it on purpose. Tall and solemn prigs marry little women +with turned-up noses. Cheerful little fellows like myself--we +marry serious, stately women. If it were otherwise, the human race +would be split up into species." + +"Of course, if you were actuated by a sense of public duty--" + +"Don't be a fool, Peter Hope," returned the little man. "I'm in +love with my wife just as she is, and always shall be. I know the +woman with a sense of humour, and of the two I prefer the one +without. The Juno type is my ideal. I must take the rough with +the smooth. One can't have a jolly, chirpy Juno, and wouldn't care +for her if one could." + +"Then are you going to give up all your old friends?" + +"Don't suggest it," pleaded the little man. "You don't know how +miserable it makes me--the mere idea. Tell them to be patient. +The secret of dealing with women, I have found, is to do nothing +rashly." The clock struck five. "I must go now," said Joey. +"Don't misjudge her, Peter, and don't let the others. She's a dear +girl. You'll like her, all of you, when you know her. A dear +girl! She only has that one fault." + +Joey went out. + +Peter did his best that evening to explain the true position of +affairs without imputing snobbery to Mrs. Loveredge. It was a +difficult task, and Peter cannot be said to have accomplished it +successfully. Anger and indignation against Joey gave place to +pity. The members of the Autolycus Club also experienced a little +irritation on their own account. + +"What does the woman take us for?" demanded Somerville the +Briefless. "Doesn't she know that we lunch with real actors and +actresses, that once a year we are invited to dine at the Mansion +House?" + +"Has she never heard of the aristocracy of genius?" demanded +Alexander the Poet. + +"The explanation may be that possibly she has seen it," feared the +Wee Laddie. + +"One of us ought to waylay the woman," argued the Babe--"insist +upon her talking to him for ten minutes. I've half a mind to do it +myself." + +Jack Herring said nothing--seemed thoughtful. + +The next morning Jack Herring, still thoughtful, called at the +editorial offices of Good Humour, in Crane Court, and borrowed Miss +Ramsbotham's Debrett. Three days later Jack Herring informed the +Club casually that he had dined the night before with Mr. and Mrs. +Loveredge. The Club gave Jack Herring politely to understand that +they regarded him as a liar, and proceeded to demand particulars. + +"If I wasn't there," explained Jack Herring, with unanswerable +logic, "how can I tell you anything about it?" + +This annoyed the Club, whose curiosity had been whetted. Three +members, acting in the interests of the whole, solemnly undertook +to believe whatever he might tell them. But Jack Herring's +feelings had been wounded. + +"When gentlemen cast a doubt upon another gentleman's veracity--" + +"We didn't cast a doubt," explained Somerville the Briefless. "We +merely said that we personally did not believe you. We didn't say +we couldn't believe you; it is a case for individual effort. If +you give us particulars bearing the impress of reality, supported +by details that do not unduly contradict each other, we are +prepared to put aside our natural suspicions and face the +possibility of your statement being correct." + +"It was foolish of me," said Jack Herring. "I thought perhaps it +would amuse you to hear what sort of a woman Mrs. Loveredge was +like--some description of Mrs. Loveredge's uncle. Miss Montgomery, +friend of Mrs. Loveredge, is certainly one of the most remarkable +women I have ever met. Of course, that isn't her real name. But, +as I have said, it was foolish of me. These people--you will never +meet them, you will never see them; of what interest can they be to +you?" + +"They had forgotten to draw down the blinds, and he climbed up a +lamp-post and looked through the window," was the solution of the +problem put forward by the Wee Laddie. + +"I'm dining there again on Saturday," volunteered Jack Herring. +"If any of you will promise not to make a disturbance, you can hang +about on the Park side, underneath the shadow of the fence, and +watch me go in. My hansom will draw up at the door within a few +minutes of eight." + +The Babe and the Poet agreed to undertake the test. + +"You won't mind our hanging round a little while, in case you're +thrown out again?" asked the Babe. + +"Not in the least, so far as I am concerned," replied Jack Herring. +"Don't leave it too late and make your mother anxious." + +"It's true enough," the Babe recounted afterwards. "The door was +opened by a manservant and he went straight in. We walked up and +down for half an hour, and unless they put him out the back way, +he's telling the truth." + +"Did you hear him give his name?" asked Somerville, who was +stroking his moustache. + +"No, we were too far off," explained the Babe. "But--I'll swear it +was Jack--there couldn't be any mistake about that." + +"Perhaps not," agreed Somerville the Briefless. + +Somerville the Briefless called at the offices of Good Humour, in +Crane Court, the following morning, and he also borrowed Miss +Ramsbotham's Debrett. + +"What's the meaning of it?" demanded the sub-editor. + +"Meaning of what?" + +"This sudden interest of all you fellows in the British Peerage." + +"All of us?" + +"Well, Herring was here last week, poring over that book for half +an hour, with the Morning Post spread out before him. Now you're +doing the same thing." + +"Ah! Jack Herring, was he? I thought as much. Don't talk about +it, Tommy. I'll tell you later on." + +On the following Monday, the Briefless one announced to the Club +that he had received an invitation to dine at the Loveredges' on +the following Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Briefless one entered the +Club with a slow and stately step. Halting opposite old Goslin the +porter, who had emerged from his box with the idea of discussing +the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, Somerville, removing his hat +with a sweep of the arm, held it out in silence. Old Goslin, much +astonished, took it mechanically, whereupon the Briefless one, +shaking himself free from his Inverness cape, flung it lightly +after the hat, and strolled on, not noticing that old Goslin, +unaccustomed to coats lightly and elegantly thrown at him, dropping +the hat, had caught it on his head, and had been, in the language +of the prompt-book, "left struggling." The Briefless one, entering +the smoking-room, lifted a chair and let it fall again with a +crash, and sitting down upon it, crossed his legs and rang the +bell. + +"Ye're doing it verra weel," remarked approvingly the Wee Laddie. +"Ye're just fitted for it by nature." + +"Fitted for what?" demanded the Briefless one, waking up apparently +from a dream. + +"For an Adelphi guest at eighteenpence the night," assured him the +Wee Laddie. "Ye're just splendid at it." + +The Briefless one, muttering that the worst of mixing with +journalists was that if you did not watch yourself, you fell into +their ways, drank his whisky in silence. Later, the Babe swore on +a copy of Sell's Advertising Guide that, crossing the Park, he had +seen the Briefless one leaning over the railings of Rotten Row, +clad in a pair of new kid gloves, swinging a silver-headed cane. + +One morning towards the end of the week, Joseph Loveredge, looking +twenty years younger than when Peter had last seen him, dropped in +at the editorial office of Good Humour and demanded of Peter Hope +how he felt and what he thought of the present price of Emma Mines. + +Peter Hope's fear was that the gambling fever was spreading to all +classes of society. + +"I want you to dine with us on Sunday," said Joseph Loveredge. +"Jack Herring will be there. You might bring Tommy with you." + +Peter Hope gulped down his astonishment and said he should be +delighted; he thought that Tommy also was disengaged. "Mrs. +Loveredge out of town, I presume?" questioned Peter Hope. + +"On the contrary," replied Joseph Loveredge, "I want you to meet +her." + +Joseph Loveredge removed a pile of books from one chair and placed +them carefully upon another, after which he went and stood before +the fire. + +"Don't if you don't like," said Joseph Loveredge; "but if you don't +mind, you might call yourself, just for the evening--say, the Duke +of Warrington." + +"Say the what?" demanded Peter Hope. + +"The Duke of Warrington," repeated Joey. "We are rather short of +dukes. Tommy can be the Lady Adelaide, your daughter." + +"Don't be an ass!" said Peter Hope. + +"I'm not an ass," assured him Joseph Loveredge. "He is wintering +in Egypt. You have run back for a week to attend to business. +There is no Lady Adelaide, so that's quite simple." + +"But what in the name of--" began Peter Hope. + +"Don't you see what I'm driving at?" persisted Joey. "It was +Jack's idea at the beginning. I was frightened myself at first, +but it is working to perfection. She sees you, and sees that you +are a gentleman. When the truth comes out--as, of course, it must +later on--the laugh will be against her." + +"You think--you think that'll comfort her?" suggested Peter Hope. + +"It's the only way, and it is really wonderfully simple. We never +mention the aristocracy now--it would be like talking shop. We +just enjoy ourselves. You, by the way, I met in connection with +the movement for rational dress. You are a bit of a crank, fond of +frequenting Bohemian circles." + +"I am risking something, I know," continued Joey; "but it's worth +it. I couldn't have existed much longer. We go slowly, and are +very careful. Jack is Lord Mount-Primrose, who has taken up with +anti-vaccination and who never goes out into Society. Somerville +is Sir Francis Baldwin, the great authority on centipedes. The Wee +Laddie is coming next week as Lord Garrick, who married that +dancing-girl, Prissy Something, and started a furniture shop in +Bond Street. I had some difficulty at first. She wanted to send +out paragraphs, but I explained that was only done by vulgar +persons--that when the nobility came to you as friends, it was +considered bad taste. She is a dear girl, as I have always told +you, with only one fault. A woman easier to deceive one could not +wish for. I don't myself see why the truth ever need come out-- +provided we keep our heads." + +"Seems to me you've lost them already," commented Peter; "you're +overdoing it." + +"The more of us the better," explained Joey; "we help each other. +Besides, I particularly want you in it. There's a sort of superior +Pickwickian atmosphere surrounding you that disarms suspicion." + +"You leave me out of it," growled Peter. + +"See here," laughed Joey; "you come as the Duke of Warrington, and +bring Tommy with you, and I'll write your City article." + +"For how long?" snapped Peter. Incorruptible City editors are not +easily picked up. + +"Oh, well, for as long as you like." + +"On that understanding," agreed Peter, "I'm willing to make a fool +of myself in your company." + +"You'll soon get used to it," Joey told him; "eight o'clock, then, +on Sunday; plain evening dress. If you like to wear a bit of red +ribbon in your buttonhole, why, do so. You can get it at Evans', +in Covent Garden." + +"And Tommy is the Lady--" + +"Adelaide. Let her have a taste for literature, then she needn't +wear gloves. I know she hates them." Joey turned to go. + +"Am I married?" asked Peter. + +Joey paused. "I should avoid all reference to your matrimonial +affairs if I were you," was Joey's advice. "You didn't come out of +that business too well." + +"Oh! as bad as that, was I? You don't think Mrs. Loveredge will +object to me?" + +"I have asked her that. She's a dear, broad-minded girl. I've +promised not to leave you alone with Miss Montgomery, and Willis +has had instructions not to let you mix your drinks." + +"I'd have liked to have been someone a trifle more respectable," +grumbled Peter. + +"We rather wanted a duke," explained Joey, "and he was the only one +that fitted in all round." + +The dinner a was a complete success. Tommy, entering into the +spirit of the thing, bought a new pair of open-work stockings and +assumed a languid drawl. Peter, who was growing forgetful, +introduced her as the Lady Alexandra; it did not seem to matter, +both beginning with an A. She greeted Lord Mount-Primrose as +"Billy," and asked affectionately after his mother. Joey told his +raciest stories. The Duke of Warrington called everybody by their +Christian names, and seemed well acquainted with Bohemian society-- +a more amiable nobleman it would have been impossible to discover. +The lady whose real name was not Miss Montgomery sat in speechless +admiration. The hostess was the personification of gracious +devotion. + +Other little dinners, equally successful, followed. Joey's +acquaintanceship appeared to be confined exclusively to the higher +circles of the British aristocracy--with one exception: that of a +German baron, a short, stout gentleman, who talked English well, +but with an accent, and who, when he desired to be impressive, laid +his right forefinger on the right side of his nose and thrust his +whole face forward. Mrs. Loveredge wondered why her husband had +not introduced them sooner, but was too blissful to be suspicious. +The Autolycus Club was gradually changing its tone. Friends could +no longer recognise one another by the voice. Every corner had its +solitary student practising high-class intonation. Members dropped +into the habit of addressing one another as "dear chappie," and, +discarding pipes, took to cheap cigars. Many of the older habitues +resigned. + +All might have gone well to the end of time if only Mrs. Loveredge +had left all social arrangements in the hands of her husband--had +not sought to aid his efforts. To a certain political garden- +party, one day in the height of the season, were invited Joseph +Loveredge and Mrs. Joseph Loveredge, his wife. Mr. Joseph +Loveredge at the last moment found himself unable to attend. Mrs. +Joseph Loveredge went alone, met there various members of the +British aristocracy. Mrs. Joseph Loveredge, accustomed to +friendship with the aristocracy, felt at her ease and was natural +and agreeable. The wife of an eminent peer talked to her and liked +her. It occurred to Mrs. Joseph Loveredge that this lady might be +induced to visit her house in Regent's Park, there to mingle with +those of her own class. + +"Lord Mount-Primrose, the Duke of Warrington, and a few others will +be dining with us on Sunday next," suggested Mrs. Loveredge. "Will +not you do us the honour of coming? We are, of course, only simple +folk ourselves, but somehow people seem to like us." + +The wife of the eminent peer looked at Mrs. Loveredge, looked round +the grounds, looked at Mrs. Loveredge again, and said she would +like to come. Mrs. Joseph Loveredge intended at first to tell her +husband of her success, but a little devil entering into her head +and whispering to her that it would be amusing, she resolved to +keep it as a surprise, to be sprung upon him at eight o'clock on +Sunday. The surprise proved all she could have hoped for. + +The Duke of Warrington, having journalistic matters to discuss with +Joseph Loveredge, arrived at half-past seven, wearing on his shirt- +front a silver star, purchased in Eagle Street the day before for +eight-and-six. There accompanied him the Lady Alexandra, wearing +the identical ruby necklace that every night for the past six +months, and twice on Saturdays, "John Strongheart" had been falsely +accused of stealing. Lord Garrick, having picked up his wife (Miss +Ramsbotham) outside the Mother Redcap, arrived with her on foot at +a quarter to eight. Lord Mount-Primrose, together with Sir Francis +Baldwin, dashed up in a hansom at seven-fifty. His Lordship, +having lost the toss, paid the fare. The Hon. Harry Sykes +(commonly called "the Babe") was ushered in five minutes later. +The noble company assembled in the drawing-room chatted blithely +while waiting for dinner to be announced. The Duke of Warrington +was telling an anecdote about a cat, which nobody appeared to +believe. Lord Mount-Primrose desired to know whether by any chance +it might be the same animal that every night at half-past nine had +been in the habit of climbing up his Grace's railings and knocking +at his Grace's door. The Honourable Harry was saying that, +speaking of cats, he once had a sort of terrier--when the door was +thrown open and Willis announced the Lady Mary Sutton. + +Mr. Joseph Loveredge, who was sitting near the fire, rose up. Lord +Mount-Primrose, who was standing near the piano, sat down. The +Lady Mary Sutton paused in the doorway. Mrs. Loveredge crossed the +room to greet her. + +"Let me introduce you to my husband," said Mrs. Loveredge. "Joey, +my dear, the Lady Mary Sutton. I met the Lady Mary at the +O'Meyers' the other day, and she was good enough to accept my +invitation. I forgot to tell you." + +Mr. Loveredge said he was delighted; after which, although as a +rule a chatty man, he seemed to have nothing else to say. And a +silence fell. + +Somerville the Briefless--till then. That evening has always been +reckoned the starting-point of his career. Up till then nobody +thought he had much in him--walked up and held out his hand. + +"You don't remember me, Lady Mary," said the Briefless one. "I met +you some years ago; we had a most interesting conversation--Sir +Francis Baldwin." + +The Lady Mary stood for a moment trying apparently to recollect. +She was a handsome, fresh-complexioned woman of about forty, with +frank, agreeable eyes. The Lady Mary glanced at Lord Garrick, who +was talking rapidly to Lord Mount-Primrose, who was not listening, +and who could not have understood even if he had been, Lord +Garrick, without being aware of it, having dropped into broad +Scotch. From him the Lady Mary glanced at her hostess, and from +her hostess to her host. + +The Lady Mary took the hand held out to her. "Of course," said the +Lady Mary; "how stupid of me! It was the day of my own wedding, +too. You really must forgive me. We talked of quite a lot of +things. I remember now." + +Mrs. Loveredge, who prided herself upon maintaining old-fashioned +courtesies, proceeded to introduce the Lady Mary to her fellow- +guests, a little surprised that her ladyship appeared to know so +few of them. Her ladyship's greeting of the Duke of Warrington was +accompanied, it was remarked, by a somewhat curious smile. To the +Duke of Warrington's daughter alone did the Lady Mary address +remark. + +"My dear," said the Lady Mary, "how you have grown since last we +met!" + +The announcement of dinner, as everybody felt, came none too soon. + +It was not a merry feast. Joey told but one story; he told it +three times, and twice left out the point. Lord Mount-Primrose +took sifted sugar with pate de foie gras and ate it with a spoon. +Lord Garrick, talking a mixture of Scotch and English, urged his +wife to give up housekeeping and take a flat in Gower Street, +which, as he pointed out, was central. She could have her meals +sent in to her and so avoid all trouble. The Lady Alexandra's +behaviour appeared to Mrs. Loveredge not altogether well-bred. An +eccentric young noblewoman Mrs. Loveredge had always found her, but +wished on this occasion that she had been a little less eccentric. +Every few minutes the Lady Alexandra buried her face in her +serviette, and shook and rocked, emitting stifled sounds, +apparently those of acute physical pain. Mrs. Loveredge hoped she +was not feeling ill, but the Lady Alexandra appeared incapable of +coherent reply. Twice during the meal the Duke of Warrington rose +from the table and began wandering round the room; on each +occasion, asked what he wanted, had replied meekly that he was +merely looking for his snuff-box, and had sat down again. The only +person who seemed to enjoy the dinner was the Lady Mary Sutton. + +The ladies retired upstairs into the drawing-room. Mrs. Loveredge, +breaking a long silence, remarked it as unusual that no sound of +merriment reached them from the dining-room. The explanation was +that the entire male portion of the party, on being left to +themselves, had immediately and in a body crept on tiptoe into +Joey's study, which, fortunately, happened to be on the ground +floor. Joey, unlocking the bookcase, had taken out his Debrett, +but appeared incapable of understanding it. Sir Francis Baldwin +had taken it from his unresisting hands; the remaining aristocracy +huddled themselves into a corner and waited in silence. + +"I think I've got it all clearly," announced Sir Francis Baldwin, +after five minutes, which to the others had been an hour. "Yes, I +don't think I'm making any mistake. She's the daughter of the Duke +of Truro, married in '53 the Duke of Warrington, at St. Peter's, +Eaton Square; gave birth in '55 to a daughter, the Lady Grace +Alexandra Warberton Sutton, which makes the child just thirteen. +In '63 divorced the Duke of Warrington. Lord Mount-Primrose, so +far as I can make out, must be her second cousin. I appear to have +married her in '66 at Hastings. It doesn't seem to me that we +could have got together a homelier little party to meet her even if +we had wanted to." + +Nobody spoke; nobody had anything particularly worth saying. The +door opened, and the Lady Alexandra (otherwise Tommy) entered the +room. + +"Isn't it time," suggested the Lady Alexandra, "that some of you +came upstairs?" + +"I was thinking myself," explained Joey, the host, with a grim +smile, "it was about time that I went out and drowned myself. The +canal is handy." + +"Put it off till to-morrow," Tommy advised him. "I have asked her +ladyship to give me a lift home, and she has promised to do so. +She is evidently a woman with a sense of humour. Wait till after I +have had a talk with her." + +Six men, whispering at the same time, were prepared with advice; +but Tommy was not taking advice. + +"Come upstairs, all of you," insisted Tommy, "and make yourselves +agreeable. She's going in a quarter of an hour." + +Six silent men, the host leading, the two husbands bringing up the +rear, ascended the stairs, each with the sensation of being twice +his usual weight. Six silent men entered the drawing-room and sat +down on chairs. Six silent men tried to think of something +interesting to say. + +Miss Ramsbotham--it was that or hysterics, as she afterwards +explained--stifling a sob, opened the piano. But the only thing +she could remember was "Champagne Charlie is my Name," a song then +popular in the halls. Five men, when she had finished, begged her +to go on. Miss Ramsbotham, speaking in a shrill falsetto, +explained it was the only tune she knew. Four of them begged her +to play it again. Miss Ramsbotham played it a second time with +involuntary variations. + +The Lady Mary's carriage was announced by the imperturbable Willis. +The party, with the exception of the Lady Mary and the hostess, +suppressed with difficulty an inclination to burst into a cheer. +The Lady Mary thanked Mrs. Loveredge for a most interesting +evening, and beckoned Tommy to accompany her. With her +disappearance, a wild hilarity, uncanny in its suddenness, took +possession of the remaining guests. + +A few days later, the Lady Mary's carriage again drew up before the +little house in Regent's Park. Mrs. Loveredge, fortunately, was at +home. The carriage remained waiting for quite a long time. Mrs. +Loveredge, after it was gone, locked herself in her own room. The +under-housemaid reported to the kitchen that, passing the door, she +had detected sounds indicative of strong emotion. + +Through what ordeal Joseph Loveredge passed was never known. For a +few weeks the Autolycus Club missed him. Then gradually, as aided +by Time they have a habit of doing, things righted themselves. +Joseph Loveredge received his old friends; his friends received +Joseph Loveredge. Mrs. Loveredge, as a hostess, came to have only +one failing--a marked coldness of demeanour towards all people with +titles, whenever introduced to her. + + + +STORY THE SIXTH: "The Babe" applies for Shares + + + +People said of the new journal, Good Humour--people of taste and +judgment, that it was the brightest, the cleverest, the most +literary penny weekly that ever had been offered to the public. +This made Peter Hope, editor and part-proprietor, very happy. +William Clodd, business manager, and also part-proprietor, it left +less elated. + +"Must be careful," said William Clodd, "that we don't make it too +clever. Happy medium, that's the ideal." + +People said--people of taste and judgment, that Good Humour was +more worthy of support than all the other penny weeklies put +together. People of taste and judgment even went so far, some of +them, as to buy it. Peter Hope, looking forward, saw fame and +fortune coming to him. + +William Clodd, looking round about him, said - + +"Doesn't it occur to you, Guv'nor, that we're getting this thing +just a trifle too high class?" + +"What makes you think that?" demanded Peter Hope. + +"Our circulation, for one thing," explained Clodd. "The returns +for last month--" + +"I'd rather you didn't mention them, if you don't mind," +interrupted Peter Hope; "somehow, hearing the actual figures always +depresses me." + +"Can't say I feel inspired by them myself," admitted Clodd. + +"It will come," said Peter Hope, "it will come in time. We must +educate the public up to our level." + +"If there is one thing, so far as I have noticed," said William +Clodd, "that the public are inclined to pay less for than another, +it is for being educated." + +"What are we to do?" asked Peter Hope. + +"What you want," answered William Clodd, "is an office-boy." + +"How will our having an office-boy increase our circulation?" +demanded Peter Hope. "Besides, it was agreed that we could do +without one for the first year. Why suggest more expense?" + +"I don't mean an ordinary office-boy," explained Clodd. "I mean +the sort of boy that I rode with in the train going down to +Stratford yesterday." + +"What was there remarkable about him?" + +"Nothing. He was reading the current number of the Penny Novelist. +Over two hundred thousand people buy it. He is one of them. He +told me so. When he had done with it, he drew from his pocket a +copy of the Halfpenny Joker--they guarantee a circulation of +seventy thousand. He sat and chuckled over it until we got to +Bow." + +"But--" + +"You wait a minute. I'm coming to the explanation. That boy +represents the reading public. I talked to him. The papers he +likes best are the papers that have the largest sales. He never +made a single mistake. The others--those of them he had seen--he +dismissed as 'rot.' What he likes is what the great mass of the +journal-buying public likes. Please him--I took his name and +address, and he is willing to come to us for eight shillings a +week--and you please the people that buy. Not the people that +glance through a paper when it is lying on the smoking-room table, +and tell you it is damned good, but the people that plank down +their penny. That's the sort we want." + +Peter Hope, able editor, with ideals, was shocked--indignant. +William Clodd, business man, without ideals, talked figures. + +"There's the advertiser to be thought of," persisted Clodd. "I +don't pretend to be a George Washington, but what's the use of +telling lies that sound like lies, even to one's self while one's +telling them? Give me a genuine sale of twenty thousand, and I'll +undertake, without committing myself, to convey an impression of +forty. But when the actual figures are under eight thousand--well, +it hampers you, if you happen to have a conscience. + +"Give them every week a dozen columns of good, sound literature," +continued Clodd insinuatingly, "but wrap it up in twenty-four +columns of jam. It's the only way they'll take it, and you will be +doing them good--educating them without their knowing it. All +powder and no jam! Well, they don't open their mouths, that's +all." + +Clodd was a man who knew how to get his way. Flipp--spelled +Philip--Tweetel arrived in due course of time at 23, Crane Court, +ostensibly to take up the position of Good Humour's office-boy; in +reality, and without his being aware of it, to act as its literary +taster. Stories in which Flipp became absorbed were accepted. +Peter groaned, but contented himself with correcting only their +grosser grammatical blunders; the experiment should be tried in all +good faith. Humour at which Flipp laughed was printed. Peter +tried to ease his conscience by increasing his subscription to the +fund for destitute compositors, but only partially succeeded. +Poetry that brought a tear to the eye of Flipp was given leaded +type. People of taste and judgment said Good Humour had +disappointed them. Its circulation, slowly but steadily, +increased. + +"See!" cried the delighted Clodd; "told you so!" + +"It's sad to think--" began Peter. + +"Always is," interrupted Clodd cheerfully. "Moral--don't think too +much." + +"Tell you what we'll do," added Clodd. "We'll make a fortune out +of this paper. Then when we can afford to lose a little money, +we'll launch a paper that shall appeal only to the intellectual +portion of the public. Meanwhile--" + +A squat black bottle with a label attached, standing on the desk, +arrested Clodd's attention. + +"When did this come?" asked Clodd. + +"About an hour ago," Peter told him. + +"Any order with it?" + +"I think so." Peter searched for and found a letter addressed to +"William Clodd, Esq., Advertising Manager, Good Humour." Clodd +tore it open, hastily devoured it. + +"Not closed up yet, are you?" + +"No, not till eight o'clock." + +"Good! I want you to write me a par. Do it now, then you won't +forget it. For the 'Walnuts and Wine' column." + +Peter sat down, headed a sheet of paper: 'For W. and W. Col.' + +"What is it?" questioned Peter--"something to drink?" + +"It's a sort of port," explained Clodd, "that doesn't get into your +head." + +"You consider that an advantage?" queried Peter. + +"Of course. You can drink more of it." + +Peter continued to write: 'Possesses all the qualities of an old +vintage port, without those deleterious properties--' "I haven't +tasted it, Clodd," hinted Peter. + +"That's all right--I have." + +"And was it good?" + +"Splendid stuff. Say it's 'delicious and invigorating.' They'll +be sure to quote that." + +Peter wrote on: 'Personally I have found it delicious and--' Peter +left off writing. "I really think, Clodd, I ought to taste it. +You see, I am personally recommending it." + +"Finish that par. Let me have it to take round to the printers. +Then put the bottle in your pocket. Take it home and make a night +of it." + +Clodd appeared to be in a mighty hurry. Now, this made Peter only +the more suspicious. The bottle was close to his hand. Clodd +tried to intercept him, but was not quick enough. + +"You're not used to temperance drinks," urged Clodd. "Your palate +is not accustomed to them." + +"I can tell whether it's 'delicious' or not, surely?" pleaded +Peter, who had pulled out the cork. + +"It's a quarter-page advertisement for thirteen weeks. Put it down +and don't be a fool!" urged Clodd. + +"I'm going to put it down," laughed Peter, who was fond of his +joke. Peter poured out half a tumblerful, and drank--some of it. + +"Like it?" demanded Clodd, with a savage grin. + +"You are sure--you are sure it was the right bottle?" gasped Peter. + +"Bottle's all right," Clodd assured him. "Try some more. Judge it +fairly." + +Peter ventured on another sip. "You don't think they would be +satisfied if I recommended it as a medicine?" insinuated Peter-- +"something to have about the house in case of accidental +poisoning?" + +"Better go round and suggest the idea to them yourself. I've done +with it." Clodd took up his hat. + +"I'm sorry--I'm very sorry," sighed Peter. "But I couldn't +conscientiously--" + +Clodd put down his hat again with a bang. "Oh! confound that +conscience of yours! Don't it ever think of your creditors? +What's the use of my working out my lungs for you, when all you do +is to hamper me at every step?" + +"Wouldn't it be better policy," urged Peter, "to go for the better +class of advertiser, who doesn't ask you for this sort of thing?" + +"Go for him!" snorted Clodd. "Do you think I don't go for him? +They are just sheep. Get one, you get the lot. Until you've got +the one, the others won't listen to you." + +"That's true," mused Peter. "I spoke to Wilkinson, of Kingsley's, +myself. He advised me to try and get Landor's. He thought that if +I could get an advertisement out of Landor, he might persuade his +people to give us theirs." + +"And if you had gone to Landor, he would have promised you theirs +provided you got Kingsley's." + +"They will come," thought hopeful Peter. "We are going up +steadily. They will come with a rush." + +"They had better come soon," thought Clodd. "The only things +coming with a rush just now are bills." + +"Those articles of young McTear's attracted a good deal of +attention," expounded Peter. "He has promised to write me another +series." + +"Jowett is the one to get hold of," mused Clodd. "Jowett, all the +others follow like a flock of geese waddling after the old gander. +If only we could get hold of Jowett, the rest would be easy." + +Jowett was the proprietor of the famous Marble Soap. Jowett spent +on advertising every year a quarter of a million, it was said. +Jowett was the stay and prop of periodical literature. New papers +that secured the Marble Soap advertisement lived and prospered; the +new paper to which it was denied languished and died. Jowett, and +how to get hold of him; Jowett, and how to get round him, formed +the chief topic of discussion at the council-board of most new +papers, Good Humour amongst the number. + +"I have heard," said Miss Ramsbotham, who wrote the Letter to +Clorinda that filled each week the last two pages of Good Humour, +and that told Clorinda, who lived secluded in the country, the +daily history of the highest class society, among whom Miss +Ramsbotham appeared to live and have her being; who they were, and +what they wore, the wise and otherwise things they did--"I have +heard," said Miss Ramsbotham one morning, Jowett being as usual the +subject under debate, "that the old man is susceptible to female +influence." + +"What I have always thought," said Clodd. "A lady advertising- +agent might do well. At all events, they couldn't kick her out." + +"They might in the end," thought Peter. "Female door-porters would +become a profession for muscular ladies if ever the idea took +root." + +"The first one would get a good start, anyhow," thought Clodd. + +The sub-editor had pricked up her ears. Once upon a time, long +ago, the sub-editor had succeeded, when all other London +journalists had failed, in securing an interview with a certain +great statesman. The sub-editor had never forgotten this--nor +allowed anyone else to forget it, + +"I believe I could get it for you," said the sub-editor. + +The editor and the business-manager both spoke together. They +spoke with decision and with emphasis. + +"Why not?" said the sub-editor. "When nobody else could get at +him, it was I who interviewed Prince--" + +"We've heard all about that," interrupted the business-manager. +"If I had been your father at the time, you would never have done +it." + +"How could I have stopped her?" retorted Peter Hope. "She never +said a word to me." + +"You could have kept an eye on her." + +"Kept an eye on her! When you've got a girl of your own, you'll +know more about them." + +"When I have," asserted Clodd, "I'll manage her." + +"We know all about bachelor's children," sneered Peter Hope, the +editor. + +"You leave it to me. I'll have it for you before the end of the +week," crowed the sub-editor. + +"If you do get it," returned Clodd, "I shall throw it out, that's +all." + +"You said yourself a lady advertising-agent would be a good idea," +the sub-editor reminded him. + +"So she might be," returned Clodd; "but she isn't going to be you." + +"Why not?" + +"Because she isn't, that's why." + +"But if--" + +"See you at the printer's at twelve," said Clodd to Peter, and went +out suddenly. + +"Well, I think he's an idiot," said the sub-editor. + +"I do not often," said the editor, "but on this point I agree with +him. Cadging for advertisements isn't a woman's work." + +"But what is the difference between--" + +"All the difference in the world," thought the editor. + +"You don't know what I was going to say," returned his sub. + +"I know the drift of it," asserted the editor. + +"But you let me--" + +"I know I do--a good deal too much. I'm going to turn over a new +leaf." + +"All I propose to do --" + +"Whatever it is, you're not going to do it," declared the chief. +"Shall be back at half-past twelve, if anybody comes." + +"It seems to me--" But Peter was gone. + +"Just like them all," wailed the sub-editor. "They can't argue; +when you explain things to them, they go out. It does make me so +mad!" + +Miss Ramsbotham laughed. "You are a downtrodden little girl, +Tommy." + + "As if I couldn't take care of myself!" Tommy's chin was high up +in the air. + +"Cheer up," suggested Miss Ramsbotham. "Nobody ever tells me not +to do anything. I would change with you if I could." + +"I'd have walked into that office and have had that advertisement +out of old Jowett in five minutes, I know I would," bragged Tommy. +"I can always get on with old men." + +"Only with the old ones?" queried Miss Ramsbotham. + +The door opened. "Anybody in?" asked the face of Johnny Bulstrode, +appearing in the jar. + +"Can't you see they are?" snapped Tommy. + +"Figure of speech," explained Johnny Bulstrode, commonly called +"the Babe," entering and closing the door behind him. + +"What do you want?" demanded the sub-editor. + +"Nothing in particular," replied the Babe. + +"Wrong time of the day to come for it, half-past eleven in the +morning," explained the sub-editor. + +"What's the matter with you?" asked the Babe. + +"Feeling very cross," confessed the sub-editor. + +The childlike face of the Babe expressed sympathetic inquiry. + +"We are very indignant," explained Miss Ramsbotham, "because we are +not allowed to rush off to Cannon Street and coax an advertisement +out of old Jowett, the soap man. We feel sure that if we only put +on our best hat, he couldn't possibly refuse us." + +"No coaxing required," thought the sub-editor. "Once get in to see +the old fellow and put the actual figures before him, he would +clamour to come in." + +"Won't he see Clodd?" asked the Babe. + +"Won't see anybody on behalf of anything new just at present, +apparently," answered Miss Ramsbotham. "It was my fault. I was +foolish enough to repeat that I had heard he was susceptible to +female charm. They say it was Mrs. Sarkitt that got the +advertisement for The Lamp out of him. But, of course, it may not +be true." + +"Wish I was a soap man and had got advertisements to give away," +sighed the Babe. + +"Wish you were," agreed the sub-editor. + +"You should have them all, Tommy." + +"My name," corrected him the sub-editor, "is Miss Hope." + +"I beg your pardon," said the Babe. "I don't know how it is, but +one gets into the way of calling you Tommy." + +"I will thank you," said the sub-editor, "to get out of it." + +"I am sorry," said the Babe. + +"Don't let it occur again," said the sub-editor. + +The Babe stood first on one leg and then on the other, but nothing +seemed to come of it. "Well," said the Babe, "I just looked in, +that's all. Nothing I can do for you?" + +"Nothing," thanked him the sub-editor. + +"Good morning," said the Babe. + +"Good morning," said the sub-editor. + +The childlike face of the Babe wore a chastened expression as it +slowly descended the stairs. Most of the members of the Autolycus +Club looked in about once a day to see if they could do anything +for Tommy. Some of them had luck. Only the day before, Porson--a +heavy, most uninteresting man--had been sent down all the way to +Plaistow to inquire after the wounded hand of a machine-boy. Young +Alexander, whose poetry some people could not even understand, had +been commissioned to search London for a second-hand edition of +Maitland's Architecture. Since a fortnight nearly now, when he had +been sent out to drive away an organ that would not go, Johnny had +been given nothing. + +Johnny turned the corner into Fleet Street feeling bitter with his +lot. A boy carrying a parcel stumbled against him. + +"Beg yer pardon--" the small boy looked up into Johnny's face, +"miss," added the small boy, dodging the blow and disappearing into +the crowd. + +The Babe, by reason of his childlike face, was accustomed to +insults of this character, but to-day it especially irritated him. +Why at twenty-two could he not grow even a moustache? Why was he +only five feet five and a half? Why had Fate cursed him with a +pink-and-white complexion, so that the members of his own club had +nicknamed him "the Babe," while street-boys as they passed pleaded +with him for a kiss? Why was his very voice, a flute-like alto, +more suitable-- Suddenly an idea sprang to life within his brain. +The idea grew. Passing a barber's shop, Johnny went in. + +"'Air cut, sir?" remarked the barber, fitting a sheet round +Johnny's neck. + +"No, shave," corrected Johnny. + +"Beg pardon," said the barber, substituting a towel for the sheet. +"Do you shave up, sir?" later demanded the barber. + +"Yes," answered Johnny. + +"Pleasant weather we are having," said the barber. + +"Very," assented Johnny. + +From the barber's, Johnny went to Stinchcombe's, the costumier's, +in Drury Lane. + +"I am playing in a burlesque," explained the Babe. "I want you to +rig me out completely as a modern girl." + +"Peeth o' luck!" said the shopman. "Goth the very bundle for you. +Juth come in." + +"I shall want everything," explained the Babe, "from the boots to +the hat; stays, petticoats--the whole bag of tricks." + +"Regular troutheau there," said the shopman, emptying out the +canvas bag upon the counter. "Thry 'em on." + +The Babe contented himself with trying on the costume and the +boots. + +"Juth made for you!" said the shopman. + +A little loose about the chest, suggested the Babe. + +"Thath's all right," said the shopman. "Couple o' thmall towelths, +all thath's wanted." + +"You don't think it too showy?" queried the Babe. + +"Thowy? Sthylish, thath's all." + +"You are sure everything's here?" + +"Everythinkth there. 'Thept the bit o' meat inthide," assured him +the shopman. + +The Babe left a deposit, and gave his name and address. The +shopman promised the things should be sent round within an hour. +The Babe, who had entered into the spirit of the thing, bought a +pair of gloves and a small reticule, and made his way to Bow +Street. + +"I want a woman's light brown wig," said the Babe to Mr. Cox, the +perruquier. + +Mr. Cox tried on two. The deceptive appearance of the second Mr. +Cox pronounced as perfect. + +"Looks more natural on you than your own hair, blessed if it +doesn't!" said Mr. Cox. + +The wig also was promised within the hour. The spirit of +completeness descended upon the Babe. On his way back to his +lodgings in Great Queen Street, he purchased a ladylike umbrella +and a veil. + +Now, a quarter of an hour after Johnny Bulstrode had made his exit +by the door of Mr. Stinchcombe's shop, one, Harry Bennett, actor +and member of the Autolycus Club, pushed it open and entered. The +shop was empty. Harry Bennett hammered with his stick and waited. +A piled-up bundle of clothes lay upon the counter; a sheet of +paper, with a name and address scrawled across it, rested on the +bundle. Harry Bennett, given to idle curiosity, approached and +read the same. Harry Bennett, with his stick, poked the bundle, +scattering its items over the counter. + +"Donth do thath!" said the shopman, coming up. "Juth been putting +'em together." + +"What the devil," said Harry Bennett, "is Johnny Bulstrode going to +do with that rig-out?" + +"How thoud I know?" answered the shopman. "Private theathricals, I +suppoth. Friend o' yourth?" + +"Yes," replied Harry Bennett. "By Jove! he ought to make a good +girl. Should like to see it!" + +"Well arthk him for a ticket. Donth make 'em dirty," suggested the +shopman. + +"I must," said Harry Bennett, and talked about his own affairs. + +The rig-out and the wig did not arrive at Johnny's lodgings within +the hour as promised, but arrived there within three hours, which +was as much as Johnny had expected. It took Johnny nearly an hour +to dress, but at last he stood before the plate-glass panel of the +wardrobe transformed. Johnny had reason to be pleased with the +result. A tall, handsome girl looked back at him out of the glass- +-a little showily dressed, perhaps, but decidedly chic. + +"Wonder if I ought to have a cloak," mused Johnny, as a ray of +sunshine, streaming through the window, fell upon the image in the +glass. "Well, anyhow, I haven't," thought Johnny, as the sunlight +died away again, "so it's no good thinking about it." + +Johnny seized his reticule and his umbrella and opened cautiously +the door. Outside all was silent. Johnny stealthily descended; in +the passage paused again. Voices sounded from the basement. +Feeling like an escaped burglar, Johnny slipped the latch of the +big door and peeped out. A policeman, pasting, turned and looked +at him. Johnny hastily drew back and closed the door again. +Somebody was ascending from the kitchen. Johnny, caught between +two terrors, nearer to the front door than to the stairs, having no +time, chose the street. It seemed to Johnny that the street was +making for him. A woman came hurriedly towards him. What was she +going to say to him? What should he answer her? To his surprise +she passed him, hardly noticing him. Wondering what miracle had +saved him, he took a few steps forward. A couple of young clerks +coming up from behind turned to look at him, but on encountering +his answering stare of angry alarm, appeared confused and went +their way. It began to dawn upon him that mankind was less +discerning than he had feared. Gaining courage as he proceeded, he +reached Holborn. Here the larger crowd swept around him +indifferent. + +"I beg your pardon," said Johnny, coming into collision with a +stout gentleman. + +"My fault," replied the stout gentleman, as, smiling, he picked up +his damaged hat. + +"I beg your pardon," repeated Johnny again two minutes later, +colliding with a tall young lady. + +"Should advise you to take something for that squint of yours," +remarked the tall young lady with severity. + +"What's the matter with me?" thought Johnny. "Seems to be a sort +of mist--" The explanation flashed across him. "Of course," said +Johnny to himself, "it's this confounded veil!" + +Johnny decided to walk to the Marble Soap offices. "I'll be more +used to the hang of things by the time I get there if I walk," +thought Johnny. "Hope the old beggar's in." + +In Newgate Street, Johnny paused and pressed his hands against his +chest. "Funny sort of pain I've got," thought Johnny. "Wonder if +I should shock them if I went in somewhere for a drop of brandy?" + +"It don't get any better," reflected Johnny, with some alarm, on +reaching the corner of Cheapside. "Hope I'm not going to be ill. +Whatever--" The explanation came to him. "Of course, it's these +damned stays! No wonder girls are short-tempered, at times." + +At the offices of the Marble Soap, Johnny was treated with marked +courtesy. Mr. Jowett was out, was not expected back till five +o'clock. Would the lady wait, or would she call again? The lady +decided, now she was there, to wait. Would the lady take the easy- +chair? Would the lady have the window open or would she have it +shut? Had the lady seen The Times? + +"Or the Ha'penny Joker?" suggested a junior clerk, who thereupon +was promptly sent back to his work. + +Many of the senior clerks had occasion to pass through the waiting- +room. Two of the senior clerks held views about the weather which +they appeared wishful to express at length. Johnny began to enjoy +himself. This thing was going to be good fun. By the time the +slamming of doors and the hurrying of feet announced the advent of +the chief, Johnny was looking forward to his interview. + +It was briefer and less satisfactory than he had anticipated. Mr. +Jowett was very busy--did not as a rule see anybody in the +afternoon; but of course, a lady-- Would Miss--" + +"Montgomery." + +"Would Miss Montgomery inform Mr. Jowett what it was he might have +the pleasure of doing for her?" + +Miss Montgomery explained. + +Mr. Jowett seemed half angry, half amused. + +"Really," said Mr. Jowett, "this is hardly playing the game. +Against our fellow-men we can protect ourselves, but if the ladies +are going to attack us--really it isn't fair." + +Miss Montgomery pleaded. + +"I'll think it over," was all that Mr. Jowett could be made to +promise. "Look me up again." + +"When?" asked Miss Montgomery. + +"What's to-day?--Thursday. Say Monday." Mr. Jowett rang the bell. +"Take my advice," said the old gentleman, laying a fatherly hand on +Johnny's shoulder, "leave business to us men. You are a handsome +girl. You can do better for yourself than this." + +A clerk entered, Johnny rose. + +"On Monday next, then," Johnny reminded him. + +"At four o'clock," agreed Mr. Jowett. "Good afternoon." + +Johnny went out feeling disappointed, and yet, as he told himself, +he hadn't done so badly. Anyhow, there was nothing for it but to +wait till Monday. Now he would go home, change his clothes, and +get some dinner. He hailed a hansom. + +"Number twenty-eight--no. Stop at the Queen's Street corner of +Lincoln's Inn Fields," Johnny directed the man. + +"Quite right, miss," commented the cabman pleasantly. "Corner's +best--saves all talk." + +"What do you mean?" demanded Johnny. + +"No offence, miss," answered the man. "We was all young once." + +Johnny climbed in. At the corner of Queen Street and Lincoln's Inn +Fields, Johnny got out. Johnny, who had been pondering other +matters, put his hand instinctively to where, speaking generally, +his pocket should have been; then recollected himself. + +"Let me see, did I think to bring any money out with me, or did I +not?" mused Johnny, as he stood upon the kerb. + +"Look in the ridicule, miss," suggested the cabman. + +Johnny looked. It was empty. + +"Perhaps I put it in my pocket," thought Johnny. + +The cabman hitched his reins to the whip-socket and leant back. + +"It's somewhere about here, I know, I saw it," Johnny told himself. +"Sorry to keep you waiting," Johnny added aloud to the cabman. + +"Don't you worry about that, miss," replied the cabman civilly; "we +are used to it. A shilling a quarter of an hour is what we +charge." + +"Of all the damned silly tricks!" muttered Johnny to himself. + +Two small boys and a girl carrying a baby paused, interested. + +"Go away," told them the cabman. "You'll have troubles of your own +one day." + +The urchins moved a few steps further, then halted again and were +joined by a slatternly woman and another boy. + +"Got it!" cried Johnny, unable to suppress his delight as his hand +slipped through a fold. The lady with the baby, without precisely +knowing why, set up a shrill cheer. Johnny's delight died away; it +wasn't the pocket-hole. Short of taking the skirt off and turning +it inside out, it didn't seem to Johnny that he ever would find +that pocket. + +Then in that moment of despair he came across it accidentally. It +was as empty as the reticule! + +"I am sorry," said Johnny to the cabman, "but I appear to have come +out without my purse." + +The cabman said he had heard that tale before, and was making +preparations to descend. The crowd, now numbering eleven, looked +hopeful. It occurred to Johnny later that he might have offered +his umbrella to the cabman; at least it would have fetched the +eighteenpence. One thinks of these things afterwards. The only +idea that occurred to him at the moment was that of getting home. + +"'Ere, 'old my 'orse a minute, one of yer," shouted the cabman. + +Half a dozen willing hands seized the dozing steed and roused it +into madness. + +"Hi! stop 'er!" roared the cabman. + +"She's down!" shouted the excited crowd. + +"Tripped over 'er skirt," explained the slatternly woman. "They do +'amper you." + +" No, she's not. She's up again!" vociferated a delighted plumber, +with a sounding slap on his own leg. "Gor blimy, if she ain't a +good 'un!" + +Fortunately the Square was tolerably clear and Johnny a good +runner. Holding now his skirt and petticoat high in his left hand, +Johnny moved across the Square at the rate of fifteen miles an +hour. A butcher's boy sprang in front of him with arms held out to +stop him. The thing that for the next three months annoyed that +butcher boy most was hearing shouted out after him "Yah! who was +knocked down and run over by a lidy?" By the time Johnny reached +the Strand, via Clement's Inn, the hue and cry was far behind. +Johnny dropped his skirts and assumed a more girlish pace. Through +Bow Street and Long Acre he reached Great Queen Street in safety. +Upon his own doorstep he began to laugh. His afternoon's +experience had been amusing; still, on the whole, he wasn't sorry +it was over. One can have too much even of the best of jokes. +Johnny rang the bell. + +The door opened. Johnny would have walked in had not a big, raw- +boned woman barred his progress. + +"What do you want?" demanded the raw-boned woman. + +"Want to come in," explained Johnny. + +"What do you want to come in for?" + +This appeared to Johnny a foolish question. On reflection he saw +the sense of it. This raw-boned woman was not Mrs. Pegg, his +landlady. Some friend of hers, he supposed. + +"It's all right," said Johnny, "I live here. Left my latchkey at +home, that's all." + +"There's no females lodging here," declared the raw-boned lady. +"And what's more, there's going to be none." + +All this was very vexing. Johnny, in his joy at reaching his own +doorstep, had not foreseen these complications. Now it would be +necessary to explain things. He only hoped the story would not get +round to the fellows at the club. + +"Ask Mrs. Pegg to step up for a minute," requested Johnny. + +"Not at 'ome," explained the raw-boned lady. + +"Not--not at home?" + +"Gone to Romford, if you wish to know, to see her mother." + +"Gone to Romford?" + +"I said Romford, didn't I?" retorted the raw-boned lady, tartly. + +"What--what time do you expect her in?" + +"Sunday evening, six o'clock," replied the raw-boned lady. + +Johnny looked at the raw-boned lady, imagined himself telling the +raw-boned lady the simple, unvarnished truth, and the raw-boned +lady's utter disbelief of every word of it. An inspiration came to +his aid. + +"I am Mr. Bulstrode's sister," said Johnny meekly; "he's expecting +me." + +"Thought you said you lived here?" reminded him the raw-boned lady. + +"I meant that he lived here," replied poor Johnny still more +meekly. "He has the second floor, you know." + +"I know," replied the raw-boned lady. "Not in just at present." + +"Not in?" + +"Went out at three o'clock." + +"I'll go up to his room and wait for him," said Johnny. + +"No, you won't," said the raw-boned lady. + +For an instant it occurred to Johnny to make a dash for it, but the +raw-boned lady looked both formidable and determined. There would +be a big disturbance--perhaps the police called in. Johnny had +often wanted to see his name in print: in connection with this +affair he somehow felt he didn't. + +"Do let me in," Johnny pleaded; "I have nowhere else to go." + +"You have a walk and cool yourself," suggested the raw-boned lady. +"Don't expect he will be long." + +"But, you see--" + +The raw-boned lady slammed the door. + +Outside a restaurant in Wellington Street, from which proceeded +savoury odours, Johnny paused and tried to think. + +"What the devil did I do with that umbrella? I had it--no, I +didn't. Must have dropped it, I suppose, when that silly ass tried +to stop me. By Jove! I am having luck!" + +Outside another restaurant in the Strand Johnny paused again. "How +am I to live till Sunday night? Where am I to sleep? If I +telegraph home--damn it! how can I telegraph? I haven't got a +penny. This is funny," said Johnny, unconsciously speaking aloud; +"upon my word, this is funny! Oh! you go to--." + +Johnny hurled this last at the head of an overgrown errand-boy +whose intention had been to offer sympathy. + +"Well, I never!" commented a passing flower-girl. "Calls 'erself a +lidy, I suppose." + +"Nowadays," observed the stud and button merchant at the corner of +Exeter Street, "they make 'em out of anything." + +Drawn by a notion that was forming in his mind, Johnny turned his +steps up Bedford Street. "Why not?" mused Johnny. "Nobody else +seems to have a suspicion. Why should they? I'll never hear the +last of it if they find me out. But why should they find me out? +Well, something's got to be done." + +Johnny walked on quickly. At the door of the Autolycus Club he was +undecided for a moment, then took his courage in both hands and +plunged through the swing doors. + +"Is Mr. Herring--Mr. Jack Herring--here?" + +"Find him in the smoking-room, Mr. Bulstrode," answered old Goslin, +who was reading the evening paper. + +"Oh, would you mind asking him to step out a moment?" + +Old Goslin looked up, took off his spectacles, rubbed them, put +them on again. + +"Please say Miss Bulstrode--Mr. Bulstrode's sister." + +Old Goslin found Jack Herring the centre of an earnest argument on +Hamlet--was he really mad? + +"A lady to see you, Mr. Herring," announced old Goslin. + +"A what?" + +"Miss Bulstrode--Mr. Bulstrode's sister. She's waiting in the +hall." + +"Never knew he had a sister," said Jack Herring, rising. + +"Wait a minute," said Harry Bennett. "Shut that door. Don't go." +This to old Goslin, who closed the door and returned. "Lady in a +heliotrope dress with a lace collar, three flounces on the skirt?" + +"That's right, Mr. Bennett," agreed old Goslin. + +"It's the Babe himself!" asserted Harry Bennett. + +The question of Hamlet's madness was forgotten. + +"Was in at Stinchcombe's this morning," explained Harry Bennett; +"saw the clothes on the counter addressed to him. That's the +identical frock. This is just a 'try on'--thinks he's going to +have a lark with us." + +The Autolycus Club looked round at itself. + +"I can see verra promising possibilities in this, provided the +thing is properly managed," said the Wee Laddie, after a pause. + +"So can I," agreed Jack Herring. "Keep where you are, all of you. +'Twould be a pity to fool it," + +The Autolycus Club waited. Jack Herring re-entered the room. + +"One of the saddest stories I have ever heard in all my life," +explained Jack Herring in a whisper. "Poor girl left Derbyshire +this morning to come and see her brother; found him out--hasn't +been seen at his lodgings since three o'clock; fears something may +have happened to him. Landlady gone to Romford to see her mother; +strange woman in charge, won't let her in to wait for him." + +"How sad it is when trouble overtakes the innocent and helpless!" +murmured Somerville the Briefless. + +"That's not the worst of it," continued Jack. "The dear girl has +been robbed of everything she possesses, even of her umbrella, and +hasn't got a sou; hasn't had any dinner, and doesn't know where to +sleep." + +"Sounds a bit elaborate," thought Porson. + +"I think I can understand it," said the Briefless one. "What has +happened is this. He's dressed up thinking to have a bit of fun +with us, and has come out, forgetting to put any money or his +latchkey in his pocket. His landlady may have gone to Romford or +may not. In any case, he would have to knock at the door and enter +into explanations. What does he suggest--the loan of a sovereign?" + +"The loan of two," replied Jack Herring. + +"To buy himself a suit of clothes. Don't you do it, Jack. +Providence has imposed this upon us. Our duty is to show him the +folly of indulging in senseless escapades." + +"I think we might give him a dinner," thought the stout and +sympathetic Porson. + +"What I propose to do," grinned Jack, "is to take him round to Mrs. +Postwhistle's. She's under a sort of obligation to me. It was I +who got her the post office. We'll leave him there for a night, +with instructions to Mrs. P. to keep a motherly eye on him. To- +morrow he shall have his 'bit of fun,' and I guess he'll be the +first to get tired of the joke." + +It looked a promising plot. Seven members of the Autolycus Club +gallantly undertook to accompany "Miss Bulstrode" to her lodgings. +Jack Herring excited jealousy by securing the privilege of carrying +her reticule. "Miss Bulstrode" was given to understand that +anything any of the seven could do for her, each and every would be +delighted to do, if only for the sake of her brother, one of the +dearest boys that ever breathed--a bit of an ass, though that, of +course, he could not help. "Miss Bulstrode" was not as grateful as +perhaps she should have been. Her idea still was that if one of +them would lend her a couple of sovereigns, the rest need not worry +themselves further. This, purely in her own interests, they +declined to do. She had suffered one extensive robbery that day +already, as Jack reminded her. London was a city of danger to the +young and inexperienced. Far better that they should watch over +her and provide for her simple wants. Painful as it was to refuse +a lady, a beloved companion's sister's welfare was yet dearer to +them. "Miss Bulstrode's" only desire was not to waste their time. +Jack Herring's opinion was that there existed no true Englishman +who would grudge time spent upon succouring a beautiful maiden in +distress. + +Arrived at the little grocer's shop in Rolls Court, Jack Herring +drew Mrs. Postwhistle aside. + +"She's the sister of a very dear friend of ours," explained Jack +Herring. + +"A fine-looking girl," commented Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"I shall be round again in the morning. Don't let her out of your +sight, and, above all, don't lend her any money," directed Jack +Herring. + +"I understand," replied Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"Miss Bulstrode" having despatched an excellent supper of cold +mutton and bottled beer, leant back in her chair and crossed her +legs. + +"I have often wondered," remarked Miss Bulstrode, her eyes fixed +upon the ceiling, "what a cigarette would taste like." + +"Taste nasty, I should say, the first time," thought Mrs. +Postwhistle, who was knitting. + +"Some girls, so I have heard," remarked Miss Bulstrode, "smoke +cigarettes." + +"Not nice girls," thought Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"One of the nicest girls I ever knew," remarked Miss Bulstrode, +"always smoked a cigarette after supper. Said it soothed her +nerves." + +"Wouldn't 'ave thought so if I'd 'ad charge of 'er," said Mrs. +Postwhistle. + +"I think," said Miss Bulstrode, who seemed restless, "I think I +shall go for a little walk before turning in." + +"Perhaps it would do us good," agreed Mrs. Postwhistle, laying down +her knitting. + +"Don't you trouble to come," urged the thoughtful Miss Bulstrode. +"You look tired." + +"Not at all," replied Mrs. Postwhistle. "Feel I should like it." + +In some respects Mrs. Postwhistle proved an admirable companion. +She asked no questions, and only spoke when spoken to, which, +during that walk, was not often. At the end of half an hour, Miss +Bulstrode pleaded a headache and thought she would return home and +go to bed. Mrs. Postwhistle thought it a reasonable idea. + +"Well, it's better than tramping the streets," muttered Johnny, as +the bedroom door was closed behind him, "and that's all one can say +for it. Must get hold of a smoke to-morrow, if I have to rob the +till. What's that?" Johnny stole across on, tiptoe. "Confound +it!" said Johnny, "if she hasn't locked the door!" + +Johnny sat down upon the bed and took stock of his position. "It +doesn't seem to me," thought Johnny, "that I'm ever going to get +out of this mess." Johnny, still muttering, unfastened his stays. +"Thank God, that's off!" ejaculated Johnny piously, as he watched +his form slowly expanding. "Suppose I'll be used to them before +I've finished with them." + +Johnny had a night of dreams. + +For the whole of next day, which was Friday, Johnny remained "Miss +Bulstrode," hoping against hope to find an opportunity to escape +from his predicament without confession. The entire Autolycus Club +appeared to have fallen in love with him. + +"Thought I was a bit of a fool myself," mused Johnny, "where a +petticoat was concerned. Don't believe these blithering idiots +have ever seen a girl before." + +They came in ones, they came in little parties, and tendered him +devotion. Even Mrs. Postwhistle, accustomed to regard human +phenomena without comment, remarked upon it. + +"When you are all tired of it," said Mrs. Postwhistle to Jack +Herring, "let me know." + +"The moment we find her brother," explained Jack Herring, "of +course we shall take her to him." + +"Nothing like looking in the right place for a thing when you've +finished looking in the others," observed Mrs. Postwhistle. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Jack. + +"Just what I say," answered Mrs. Postwhistle. + +Jack Herring looked at Mrs. Postwhistle. But Mrs. Postwhistle's +face was not of the expressive order. + +"Post office still going strong?" asked Jack Herring. + +"The post office 'as been a great 'elp to me," admitted Mrs. +Postwhistle; "and I'm not forgetting that I owe it to you." + +"Don't mention it," murmured Jack Herring. + +They brought her presents--nothing very expensive, more as tokens +of regard: dainty packets of sweets, nosegays of simple flowers, +bottles of scent. To Somerville "Miss Bulstrode" hinted that if he +really did desire to please her, and wasn't merely talking through +his hat--Miss Bulstrode apologised for the slang, which, she +feared, she must have picked up from her brother--he might give her +a box of Messani's cigarettes, size No. 2. The suggestion pained +him. Somerville the Briefless was perhaps old-fashioned. Miss +Bulstrode cut him short by agreeing that he was, and seemed +disinclined for further conversation. + +They took her to Madame Tussaud's. They took her up the Monument. +They took her to the Tower of London. In the evening they took her +to the Polytechnic to see Pepper's Ghost. They made a merry party +wherever they went. + +"Seem to be enjoying themselves!" remarked other sightseers, +surprised and envious. + +"Girl seems to be a bit out of it," remarked others, more +observant. + +"Sulky-looking bit o' goods, I call her," remarked some of the +ladies. + +The fortitude with which Miss Bulstrode bore the mysterious +disappearance of her brother excited admiration. + +"Hadn't we better telegraph to your people in Derbyshire?" +suggested Jack Herring. + +"Don't do it," vehemently protested the thoughtful Miss Bulstrode; +"it might alarm them. The best plan is for you to lend me a couple +of sovereigns and let me return home quietly." + +"You might be robbed again," feared Jack Herring. "I'll go down +with you." + +"Perhaps he'll turn up to-morrow," thought Miss Bulstrode. "Expect +he's gone on a visit." + +"He ought not to have done it," thought Jack Herring, "knowing you +were coming." + +"Oh! he's like that," explained Miss Bulstrode. + +"If I had a young and beautiful sister--" said Jack Herring. + +"Oh! let's talk of something else," suggested Miss Bulstrode. "You +make me tired." + +With Jack Herring, in particular, Johnny was beginning to lose +patience. That "Miss Bulstrode's" charms had evidently struck Jack +Herring all of a heap, as the saying is, had in the beginning +amused Master Johnny. Indeed--as in the seclusion of his +bedchamber over the little grocer's shop he told himself with +bitter self-reproach--he had undoubtedly encouraged the man. From +admiration Jack had rapidly passed to infatuation, from infatuation +to apparent imbecility. Had Johnny's mind been less intent upon +his own troubles, he might have been suspicious. As it was, and +after all that had happened, nothing now could astonish Johnny. +"Thank Heaven," murmured Johnny, as he blew out the light, "this +Mrs. Postwhistle appears to be a reliable woman." + +Now, about the same time that Johnny's head was falling thus upon +his pillow, the Autolycus Club sat discussing plans for their next +day's entertainment. + +"I think," said Jack Herring, "the Crystal Palace in the morning +when it's nice and quiet." + +"To be followed by Greenwich Hospital in the afternoon," suggested +Somerville. + +"Winding up with the Moore and Burgess Minstrels in the evening," +thought Porson. + +"Hardly the place for the young person," feared Jack Herring. +"Some of the jokes--" + +"Mr. Brandram gives a reading of Julius Caesar at St. George's +Hall," the Wee Laddie informed them for their guidance. + +"Hallo!" said Alexander the Poet, entering at the moment. "What +are you all talking about?" + +"We were discussing where to take Miss Bulstrode to-morrow +evening," informed him Jack Herring. + +"Miss Bulstrode," repeated the Poet in a tone of some surprise. +"Do you mean Johnny Bulstrode's sister?" + +"That's the lady," answered Jack. "But how do you come to know +about her? Thought you were in Yorkshire." + +"Came up yesterday," explained the Poet. "Travelled up with her." + +"Travelled up with her?" + +"From Matlock Bath. What's the matter with you all?" demanded the +Poet. "You all of you look--" + +"Sit down," said the Briefless one to the Poet. "Let's talk this +matter over quietly." + +Alexander the Poet, mystified, sat down. + +"You say you travelled up to London yesterday with Miss Bulstrode. +You are sure it was Miss Bulstrode?" + +"Sure!" retorted the Poet. "Why, I've known her ever since she was +a baby." + +"About what time did you reach London?" + +"Three-thirty." + +"And what became of her? Where did she say she was going?" + +"I never asked her. The last I saw of her she was getting into a +cab. I had an appointment myself, and was--I say, what's the +matter with Herring?" + +Herring had risen and was walking about with his head between his +hands. + +"Never mind him. Miss Bulstrode is a lady of about--how old?" + +"Eighteen--no, nineteen last birthday." + +"A tall, handsome sort of girl?" + +"Yes. I say, has anything happened to her?" + +"Nothing has happened to her," assured him + +Somerville. "SHE'S all right. Been having rather a good time, on +the whole." + +The Poet was relieved to hear it. + +"I asked her an hour ago," said Jack Herring, who was still holding +his head between his hands as if to make sure it was there, "if she +thought she could ever learn to love me. Would you say that could +be construed into an offer of marriage?" + +The remainder of the Club was unanimously of opinion that, +practically speaking, it was a proposal. + +"I don't see it," argued Jack Herring. "It was merely in the +nature of a remark." + +The Club was of opinion that such quibbling was unworthy of a +gentleman. + +It appeared to be a case for prompt action. Jack Herring sat down +and then and there began a letter to Miss Bulstrode, care of Mrs. +Postwhistle. + +"But what I don't understand--" said Alexander the Poet. + +"Oh! take him away somewhere and tell him, someone," moaned Jack +Herring. "How can I think with all this chatter going on?" + +"But why did Bennett--" whispered Porson. + +"Where is Bennett?" demanded half a dozen fierce voices. + +Harry Bennett had not been seen all day. + +Jack's letter was delivered to "Miss Bulstrode" the next morning at +breakfast-time. Having perused it, Miss Bulstrode rose and +requested of Mrs. Postwhistle the loan of half a crown. + +"Mr. Herring's particular instructions were," explained Mrs. +Postwhistle, "that, above all things, I was not to lend you any +money." + +"When you have read that," replied Miss Bulstrode, handing her the +letter, "perhaps you will agree with me that Herring is--an ass." + +Mrs. Postwhistle read the letter and produced the half-crown. + +"Better get a shave with part of it," suggested Mrs. Postwhistle. +"That is, if you are going to play the fool much longer." + +"Miss Bulstrode" opened his eyes. Mrs. Postwhistle went on with +her breakfast. + +"Don't tell them," said Johnny; "not just for a little while, at +all events." + +"Nothing to do with me," replied Mrs. Postwhistle. + +Twenty minutes later, the real Miss Bulstrode, on a visit to her +aunt in Kensington, was surprised at receiving, enclosed in an +envelope, the following hastily scrawled note:- + +"Want to speak to you at once--ALONE. Don't yell when you see me. +It's all right. Can explain in two ticks.--Your loving brother, +JOHNNY." + +It took longer than two ticks; but at last the Babe came to an end +of it. + +"When you have done laughing," said the Babe. + +"But you look so ridiculous," said his sister. + +"THEY didn't think so," retorted the Babe. "I took them in all +right. Guess you've never had as much attention, all in one day." + +"Are you sure you took them in?" queried his sister. + +"If you will come to the Club at eight o'clock this evening," said +the Babe, "I'll prove it to you. Perhaps I'll take you on to a +theatre afterwards--if you're good." + +The Babe himself walked into the Autolycus Club a few minutes +before eight and encountered an atmosphere of restraint. + +"Thought you were lost," remarked Somerville coldly. + +"Called away suddenly--very important business," explained the +Babe. "Awfully much obliged to all you fellows for all you have +been doing for my sister. She's just been telling me." + +"Don't mention it," said two or three. + +"Awfully good of you, I'm sure," persisted the Babe. "Don't know +what she would have done without you." + +A mere nothing, the Club assured him. The blushing modesty of the +Autolycus Club at hearing of their own good deeds was touching. +Left to themselves, they would have talked of quite other things. +As a matter of fact, they tried to. + +"Never heard her speak so enthusiastically of anyone as she does of +you, Jack," said the Babe, turning to Jack Herring. + +"Of course, you know, dear boy," explained Jack Herring, "anything +I could do for a sister of yours--" + +"I know, dear boy," replied the Babe; "I always felt it." + +"Say no more about it," urged Jack Herring. + +"She couldn't quite make out that letter of yours this morning," +continued the Babe, ignoring Jack's request. "She's afraid you +think her ungrateful." + +"It seemed to me, on reflection," explained Jack Herring, "that on +one or two little matters she may have misunderstood me. As I +wrote her, there are days when I don't seem altogether to quite +know what I'm doing." + +"Rather awkward," thought the Babe. + +"It is," agreed Jack Herring. "Yesterday was one of them." + +"She tells me you were most kind to her," the Babe reassured him. +"She thought at first it was a little uncivil, your refusing to +lend her any money. But as I put it to her --" + +"It was silly of me," interrupted Jack. "I see that now. I went +round this morning meaning to make it all right. But she was gone, +and Mrs. Postwhistle seemed to think I had better leave things as +they were. I blame myself exceedingly." + +"My dear boy, don't blame yourself for anything. You acted nobly," +the Babe told him. "She's coming here to call for me this evening +on purpose to thank you." + +"I'd rather not," said Jack Herring. + +"Nonsense," said the Babe. + +"You must excuse me," insisted Jack Herring. "I don't mean it +rudely, but really I'd rather not see her." + +"But here she is," said the Babe, taking at that moment the card +from old Goslin's hand. "She will think it so strange." + +"I'd really rather not," repeated poor Jack. + +"It seems discourteous," suggested Somerville. + +"You go," suggested Jack. + +"She doesn't want to see me," explained Somerville. + +"Yes she does," corrected him the Babe. + +"I'd forgotten, she wants to see you both." + +"If I go," said Jack, "I shall tell her the plain truth." + +"Do you know," said Somerville, "I'm thinking that will be the +shortest way." + +Miss Bulstrode was seated in the hall. Jack Herring and Somerville +both thought her present quieter style of dress suited her much +better. + +"Here he is," announced the Babe, in triumph. "Here's Jack Herring +and here's Somerville. Do you know, I could hardly persuade them +to come out and see you. Dear old Jack, he always was so shy." + +Miss Bulstrode rose. She said she could never thank them +sufficiently for all their goodness to her. Miss Bulstrode seemed +quite overcome. Her voice trembled with emotion. + +"Before we go further, Miss Bulstrode," said Jack Herring, "it will +be best to tell you that all along we thought you were your +brother, dressed up as a girl." + +"Oh!" said the Babe, "so that's the explanation, is it? If I had +only known--" Then the Babe stopped, and wished he hadn't spoken. + +Somerville seized him by the shoulders and, with a sudden jerk, +stood him beside his sister under the gas-jet. + +"You little brute!" said Somerville. "It was you all along." And +the Babe, seeing the game was up, and glad that the joke had not +been entirely on one side, confessed. + +Jack Herring and Somerville the Briefless went that night with +Johnny and his sister to the theatre--and on other nights. Miss +Bulstrode thought Jack Herring very nice, and told her brother so. +But she thought Somerville the Briefless even nicer, and later, +under cross-examination, when Somerville was no longer briefless, +told Somerville so himself. + +But that has nothing to do with this particular story, the end of +which is that Miss Bulstrode kept the appointment made for Monday +afternoon between "Miss Montgomery" and Mr. Jowett, and secured +thereby the Marble Soap advertisement for the back page of Good +Humour for six months, at twenty-five pounds a week. + + + +STORY THE SEVENTH: Dick Danvers presents his Petition + + + +William Clodd, mopping his brow, laid down the screwdriver, and +stepping back, regarded the result of his labours with evident +satisfaction. + +"It looks like a bookcase," said William Clodd. "You might sit in +the room for half an hour and never know it wasn't a bookcase." + +What William Clodd had accomplished was this: he had had prepared, +after his own design, what appeared to be four shelves laden with +works suggestive of thought and erudition. As a matter of fact, it +was not a bookcase, but merely a flat board, the books merely the +backs of volumes that had long since found their way into the +paper-mill. This artful deception William Clodd had screwed upon a +cottage piano standing in the corner of the editorial office of +Good Humour. Half a dozen real volumes piled upon the top of the +piano completed the illusion. As William Clodd had proudly +remarked, a casual visitor might easily have been deceived. + +"If you had to sit in the room while she was practising mixed +scales, you'd be quickly undeceived," said the editor of Good +Humour, one Peter Hope. He spoke bitterly. + +"You are not always in," explained Clodd. "There must be hours +when she is here alone, with nothing else to do. Besides, you will +get used to it after a while." + +"You, I notice, don't try to get used to it," snarled Peter Hope. +"You always go out the moment she commences." + +"A friend of mine," continued William Clodd, "worked in an office +over a piano-shop for seven years, and when the shop closed, it +nearly ruined his business; couldn't settle down to work for want +of it." + +"Why doesn't he come here?" asked Peter Hope. "The floor above is +vacant." + +"Can't," explained William Clodd. "He's dead." + +"I can quite believe it," commented Peter Hope. + +"It was a shop where people came and practised, paying sixpence an +hour, and he had got to like it--said it made a cheerful background +to his thoughts. Wonderful what you can get accustomed to." + +"What's the good of it?" demanded Peter Hope. + +"What's the good of it!" retorted William Clodd indignantly. +"Every girl ought to know how to play the piano. A nice thing if +when her lover asks her to play something to him--" + +"I wonder you don't start a matrimonial agency," sneered Peter +Hope. "Love and marriage--you think of nothing else." + +"When you are bringing up a young girl--" argued Clodd. + +"But you're not," interrupted Peter; "that's just what I'm trying +to get out of your head. It is I who am bringing her up. And +between ourselves, I wish you wouldn't interfere so much." + +"You are not fit to bring up a girl." + +"I've brought her up for seven years without your help. She's my +adopted daughter, not yours. I do wish people would learn to mind +their own business." + +"You've done very well --" + +"Thank you," said Peter Hope sarcastically. "It's very kind of +you. Perhaps when you've time, you'll write me out a testimonial." + +"--up till now," concluded the imperturbable Clodd. "A girl of +eighteen wants to know something else besides mathematics and the +classics. You don't understand them." + +"I do understand them," asserted Peter Hope. "What do you know +about them? You're not a father." + +"You've done your best," admitted William Clodd in a tone of +patronage that irritated Peter greatly; "but you're a dreamer; you +don't know the world. The time is coming when the girl will have +to think of a husband." + +"There's no need for her to think of a husband, not for years," +retorted Peter Hope. "And even when she does, is strumming on the +piano going to help her?" + +"I tink--I tink," said Dr. Smith, who had hitherto remained a +silent listener, "our young frent Clodd is right. You haf never +quite got over your idea dat she was going to be a boy. You haf +taught her de tings a boy should know." + +"You cut her hair," added Clodd. + +"I don't," snapped Peter. + +"You let her have it cut--it's the same thing. At eighteen she +knows more about the ancient Greeks and Romans than she does about +her own frocks." + +"De young girl," argued the doctor, "what is she? De flower dat +makes bright for us de garden of life, de gurgling brook dat +murmurs by de dusty highway, de cheerful fire--" + +"She can't be all of them," snapped Peter, who was a stickler for +style. "Do keep to one simile at a time." + +"Now you listen to plain sense," said William Clodd. "You want--we +all want--the girl to be a success all round." + +"I want her--" Peter Hope was rummaging among the litter on the +desk. It certainly was not there. Peter pulled out a drawer-two +drawers. "I wish," said Peter Hope, "I wish sometimes she wasn't +quite so clever." + +The old doctor rummaged among dusty files of papers in a corner. +Clodd found it on the mantelpiece concealed beneath the hollow foot +of a big brass candlestick, and handed it to Peter. + +Peter had one vice--the taking in increasing quantities of snuff, +which was harmful for him, as he himself admitted. Tommy, +sympathetic to most masculine frailties, was severe, however, upon +this one. + +"You spill it upon your shirt and on your coat," had argued Tommy. +"I like to see you always neat. Besides, it isn't a nice habit. I +do wish, dad, you'd give it up." + +"I must," Peter had agreed. "I'll break myself of it. But not all +at once--it would be a wrench; by degrees, Tommy, by degrees." + +So a compromise had been compounded. Tommy was to hide the snuff- +box. It was to be somewhere in the room and to be accessible, but +that was all. Peter, when self-control had reached the breaking- +point, might try and find it. Occasionally, luck helping Peter, he +would find it early in the day, when he would earn his own bitter +self-reproaches by indulging in quite an orgie. But more often +Tommy's artfulness was such that he would be compelled, by want of +time, to abandon the search. Tommy always knew when he had failed +by the air of indignant resignation with which he would greet her +on her return. Then perhaps towards evening, Peter, looking up, +would see the box open before his nose, above it, a pair of +reproving black eyes, their severity counterbalanced by a pair of +full red lips trying not to smile. And Peter, knowing that only +one pinch would be permitted, would dip deeply. + +"I want her," said Peter Hope, feeling with his snuff-box in his +hand more confidence in his own judgment, "to be a sensible, clever +woman, capable of earning her own living and of being independent; +not a mere helpless doll, crying for some man to come and take care +of her." + +"A woman's business," asserted Clodd, "is to be taken care of." + +"Some women, perhaps," admitted Peter; "but Tommy, you know very +well, is not going to be the ordinary type of woman. She has +brains; she will make her way in the world." + +"It doesn't depend upon brains," said Clodd. "She hasn't got the +elbows." + +"The elbows?" + +"They are not sharp enough. The last 'bus home on a wet night +tells you whether a woman is capable of pushing her own way in the +world. Tommy's the sort to get left on the kerb." + +"She's the sort," retorted Peter, "to make a name for herself and +to be able to afford a cab. Don't you bully me!" Peter sniffed +self-assertiveness from between his thumb and finger. + +"Yes, I shall," Clodd told him, "on this particular point. The +poor girl's got no mother." + +Fortunately for the general harmony the door opened at the moment +to admit the subject of discussion. + +"Got that Daisy Blossom advertisement out of old Blatchley," +announced Tommy, waving triumphantly a piece of paper over her +head. + +"No!" exclaimed Peter. "How did you manage it?" + +"Asked him for it," was Tommy's explanation. + +"Very odd," mused Peter; "asked the old idiot for it myself only +last week. He refused it point-blank." + +Clodd snorted reproof. "You know I don't like your doing that sort +of thing. It isn't proper for a young girl--" + +"It's all right," assured him Tommy; "he's bald!" + +"That makes no difference," was Clodd's opinion. + +"Yes it does," was Tommy's. "I like them bald." + +Tommy took Peter's head between her hands and kissed it, and in +doing so noticed the tell-tale specks of snuff. + +"Just a pinch, my dear," explained Peter, "the merest pinch." + +Tommy took up the snuff-box from the desk. "I'll show you where +I'm going to put it this time." She put it in her pocket. Peter's +face fell. + +"What do you think of it?" said Clodd. He led her to the corner. +"Good idea, ain't it?" + +"Why, where's the piano?" demanded Tommy. + +Clodd turned in delighted triumph to the others. + +"Humbug!" growled Peter. + +"It isn't humbug," cried Clodd indignantly. "She thought it was a +bookcase--anybody would. You'll be able to sit there and practise +by the hour," explained Clodd to Tommy. "When you hear anybody +coming up the stairs, you can leave off." + +"How can she hear anything when she--" A bright idea occurred to +Peter. "Don't you think, Clodd, as a practical man," suggested +Peter insinuatingly, adopting the Socratic method, "that if we got +her one of those dummy pianos--you know what I mean; it's just like +an ordinary piano, only you don't hear it?" + +Clodd shook his head. "No good at all. Can't tell the effect she +is producing." + +"Quite so. Then, on the other hand, Clodd, don't you think that +hearing the effect they are producing may sometimes discourage the +beginner?" + +Clodd's opinion was that such discouragement was a thing to be +battled with. + +Tommy, who had seated herself, commenced a scale in contrary +motion. + +"Well, I'm going across to the printer's now," explained Clodd, +taking up his hat. "Got an appointment with young Grindley at +three. You stick to it. A spare half-hour now and then that you +never miss does wonders. You've got it in you." With these +encouraging remarks to Tommy, Clodd disappeared. + +"Easy for him," muttered Peter bitterly. "Always does have an +appointment outside the moment she begins." + +Tommy appeared to be throwing her very soul into the performance. +Passers-by in Crane Court paused, regarded the first-floor windows +of the publishing and editorial offices of Good Humour with +troubled looks, then hurried on. + +"She has--remarkably firm douch!" shouted the doctor into Peter's +ear. "Will see you--evening. Someting--say to you." + +The fat little doctor took his hat and departed. Tommy, ceasing +suddenly, came over and seated herself on the arm of Peter's chair. + +"Feeling grumpy?" asked Tommy. + +"It isn't," explained Peter, "that I mind the noise. I'd put up +with that if I could see the good of it." + +"It's going to help me to get a husband, dad. Seems to me an odd +way of doing it; but Billy says so, and Billy knows all about +everything." + +"I can't understand you, a sensible girl, listening to such +nonsense," said Peter. "It's that that troubles me." + +"Dad, where are your wits?" demanded Tommy. "Isn't Billy acting +like a brick? Why, he could go into Fleet Street to half a dozen +other papers and make five hundred a year as advertising-agent--you +know he could. But he doesn't. He sticks to us. If my making +myself ridiculous with that tin pot they persuaded him was a piano +is going to please him, isn't it common sense and sound business, +to say nothing of good nature and gratitude, for me to do it? Dad, +I've got a surprise for him. Listen." And Tommy, springing from +the arm of Peter's chair, returned to the piano. + +"What was it?" questioned Tommy, having finished. "Could you +recognise it?" + +"I think," said Peter, "it sounded like-- It wasn't 'Home, Sweet +Home,' was it?" + +Tommy clapped her hands. "Yes, it was. You'll end by liking it +yourself, dad. We'll have musical 'At Homes.'" + +"Tommy, have I brought you up properly, do you think?" + +"No dad, you haven't. You have let me have my own way too much. +You know the proverb: 'Good mothers make bad daughters.' Clodd's +right; you've spoilt me, dad. Do you remember, dad, when I first +came to you, seven years ago, a ragged little brat out of the +streets, that didn't know itself whether 'twas a boy or a girl? Do +you know what I thought to myself the moment I set eyes on you? +'Here's a soft old juggins; I'll be all right if I can get in +here!' It makes you smart, knocking about in the gutters and being +knocked about; you read faces quickly." + +"Do you remember your cooking, Tommy? You 'had an aptitude for +it,' according to your own idea." + +Tommy laughed. "I wonder how you stood it." + +"You were so obstinate. You came to me as 'cook and housekeeper,' +and as cook and housekeeper, and as nothing else, would you remain. +If I suggested any change, up would go your chin into the air. I +dared not even dine out too often, you were such a little tyrant. +The only thing you were always ready to do, if I wasn't satisfied, +was to march out of the house and leave me. Wherever did you get +that savage independence of yours?" + +"I don't know. I think it must have been from a woman--perhaps she +was my mother; I don't know--who used to sit up in the bed and +cough, all night it seemed to me. People would come to see us-- +ladies in fine clothes, and gentlemen with oily hair. I think they +wanted to help us. Many of them had kind voices. But always a +hard look would come into her face, and she would tell them what +even then I knew to be untrue--it was one of the first things I can +recollect--that we had everything we wanted, that we needed no help +from anyone. They would go away, shrugging their shoulders. I +grew up with the feeling that seemed to have been burnt into my +brain, that to take from anybody anything you had not earned was +shameful. I don't think I could do it even now, not even from you. +I am useful to you, dad--I do help you?" + +There had crept a terror into Tommy's voice. Peter felt the little +hands upon his arm trembling. + +"Help me? Why, you work like a nigger--like a nigger is supposed +to work, but doesn't. No one--whatever we paid him--would do half +as much. I don't want to make your head more swollen than it is, +young woman, but you have talent; I am not sure it is not genius." +Peter felt the little hands tighten upon his arm. + +"I do want this paper to be a success; that is why I strum upon the +piano to please Clodd. Is it humbug?" + +"I am afraid it is; but humbug is the sweet oil that helps this +whirling world of ours to spin round smoothly. Too much of it +cloys: we drop it very gently." + +"But you are sure it is only humbug, Tommy?" It was Peter's voice +into which fear had entered now. "It is not that you think he +understands you better than I do--would do more for you?" + +"You want me to tell you all I think of you, and that isn't good +for you, dad--not too often. It would be you who would have +swelled head then." + +"I am jealous, Tommy, jealous of everyone that comes near you. +Life is a tragedy for us old folks. We know there must come a day +when you will leave the nest, leave us voiceless, ridiculous, +flitting among bare branches. You will understand later, when you +have children of your own. This foolish talk about a husband! It +is worse for a man than it is for the woman. The mother lives +again in her child: the man is robbed of all." + +"Dad, do you know how old I am?--that you are talking terrible +nonsense?" + +"He will come, little girl." + +"Yes," answered Tommy, "I suppose he will; but not for a long +while--oh, not for a very long while. Don't. It frightens me." + +"You? Why should it frighten you?" + +"The pain. It makes me feel a coward. I want it to come; I want +to taste life, to drain the whole cup, to understand, to feel. But +that is the boy in me. I am more than half a boy, I always have +been. But the woman in me: it shrinks from the ordeal." + +"You talk, Tommy, as if love were something terrible." + +"There are all things in it; I feel it, dad. It is life in a +single draught. It frightens me." + +The child was standing with her face hidden behind her hands. Old +Peter, always very bad at lying, stood silent, not knowing what +consolation to concoct. The shadow passed, and Tommy's laughing +eyes looked out again. + +"Haven't you anything to do, dad--outside, I mean?" + +"You want to get rid of me?" + +"Well, I've nothing else to occupy me till the proofs come in. I'm +going to practise, hard." + +"I think I'll turn over my article on the Embankment," said Peter. + +"There's one thing you all of you ought to be grateful to me for," +laughed Tommy, as she seated herself at the piano. "I do induce +you all to take more fresh air than otherwise you would." + +Tommy, left alone, set herself to her task with the energy and +thoroughness that were characteristic of her. Struggling with +complicated scales, Tommy bent her eyes closer and closer over the +pages of Czerny's Exercises. Glancing up to turn a page, Tommy, to +her surprise, met the eyes of a stranger. They were brown eyes, +their expression sympathetic. Below them, looking golden with the +sunlight falling on it, was a moustache and beard cut short in +Vandyke fashion, not altogether hiding a pleasant mouth, about the +corners of which lurked a smile. + +"I beg your pardon," said the stranger. "I knocked three times. +Perhaps you did not hear me?" + +"No, I didn't," confessed Tommy, closing the book of Czerny's +Exercises, and rising with chin at an angle that, to anyone +acquainted with the chart of Tommy's temperament, might have +suggested the advisability of seeking shelter. + +"This is the editorial office of Good Humour, is it not?" inquired +the stranger. + +"It is." + +"Is the editor in?" + +"The editor is out." + +"The sub-editor?" suggested the stranger. + +"I am the sub-editor." + +The stranger raised his eyebrows. Tommy, on the contrary, lowered +hers. + +"Would you mind glancing through that?" The stranger drew from his +pocket a folded manuscript. "It will not take you a moment. I +ought, of course, to have sent it through the post; but I am so +tired of sending things through the post." + +The stranger's manner was compounded of dignified impudence +combined with pathetic humility. His eyes both challenged and +pleaded. Tommy held out her hand for the paper and retired with it +behind the protection of the big editorial desk that, flanked on +one side by a screen and on the other by a formidable revolving +bookcase, stretched fortress-like across the narrow room. The +stranger remained standing. + +"Yes. It's pretty," criticised the sub-editor. "Worth printing, +perhaps, not worth paying for." + +"Not merely a--a nominal sum, sufficient to distinguish it from the +work of the amateur?" + +Tommy pursed her lips. "Poetry is quite a drug in the market. We +can get as much as we want of it for nothing." + +"Say half a crown," suggested the stranger. + +Tommy shot a swift glance across the desk, and for the first time +saw the whole of him. He was clad in a threadbare, long, brown +ulster--long, that is, it would have been upon an ordinary man, but +the stranger happening to be remarkably tall, it appeared on him +ridiculously short, reaching only to his knees. Round his neck and +tucked into his waistcoat, thus completely hiding the shirt and +collar he may have been wearing or may not, was carefully arranged +a blue silk muffler. His hands, which were bare, looked blue and +cold. Yet the black frock-coat and waistcoat and French grey +trousers bore the unmistakable cut of a first-class tailor and +fitted him to perfection. His hat, which he had rested on the +desk, shone resplendent, and the handle of his silk umbrella was an +eagle's head in gold, with two small rubies for the eyes. + +"You can leave it if you like," consented Tommy. "I'll speak to +the editor about it when he returns." + +"You won't forget it?" urged the stranger. + +"No," answered Tommy. "I shall not forget it." + +Her black eyes were fixed upon the stranger without her being aware +of it. She had dropped unconsciously into her "stocktaking" +attitude. + +"Thank you very much," said the stranger. "I will call again to- +morrow." + +The stranger, moving backward to the door, went out. + +Tommy sat with her face between her hands. Czerny's Exercises lay +neglected. + +"Anybody called?" asked Peter Hope. + +"No," answered Tommy. "Oh, just a man. Left this--not bad." + +"The old story," mused Peter, as he unfolded the manuscript. "We +all of us begin with poetry. Then we take to prose romances; +poetry doesn't pay. Finally, we write articles: 'How to be Happy +though Married,' 'What shall we do with our Daughters?' It is life +summarised. What is it all about?" + +"Oh, the usual sort of thing," explained Tommy. "He wants half a +crown for it." + +"Poor devil! Let him have it." + +"That's not business," growled Tommy. + +"Nobody will ever know," said Peter. "We'll enter it as +'telegrams.'" + +The stranger called early the next day, pocketed his half-crown, +and left another manuscript--an essay. Also he left behind him his +gold-handled umbrella, taking away with him instead an old alpaca +thing Clodd kept in reserve for exceptionally dirty weather. Peter +pronounced the essay usable. + +"He has a style," said Peter; "he writes with distinction. Make an +appointment for me with him." + +Clodd, on missing his umbrella, was indignant. + +"What's the good of this thing to me?" commented Clodd. "Sort of +thing for a dude in a pantomime! The fellow must be a blithering +ass!" + +Tommy gave to the stranger messages from both when next he called. +He appeared more grieved than surprised concerning the umbrellas. + +"You don't think Mr. Clodd would like to keep this umbrella in +exchange for his own?" he suggested. + +"Hardly his style," explained Tommy. + +"It's very peculiar," said the stranger, with a smile. "I have +been trying to get rid of this umbrella for the last three weeks. +Once upon a time, when I preferred to keep my own umbrella, people +used to take it by mistake, leaving all kinds of shabby things +behind them in exchange. Now, when I'd really like to get quit of +it, nobody will have it." + +"Why do you want to get rid of it?" asked Tommy. "It looks a very +good umbrella." + +"You don't know how it hampers me," said the stranger. "I have to +live up to it. It requires a certain amount of resolution to enter +a cheap restaurant accompanied by that umbrella. When I do, the +waiters draw my attention to the most expensive dishes and +recommend me special brands of their so-called champagne. They +seem quite surprised if I only want a chop and a glass of beer. I +haven't always got the courage to disappoint them. It is really +becoming quite a curse to me. If I use it to stop a 'bus, three or +four hansoms dash up and quarrel over me. I can't do anything I +want to do. I want to live simply and inexpensively: it will not +let me." + +Tommy laughed. "Can't you lose it?" + +The stranger laughed also. "Lose it! You have no idea how honest +people are. I hadn't myself. The whole world has gone up in my +estimation within the last few weeks. People run after me for +quite long distances and force it into my hand--people on rainy +days who haven't got umbrellas of their own. It is the same with +this hat." The stranger sighed as he took it up. "I am always +trying to get OFF with something reasonably shabby in exchange for +it. I am always found out and stopped." + +"Why don't you pawn them?" suggested the practicable Tommy. + +The stranger regarded her with admiration. + +"Do you know, I never thought of that," said the stranger. "Of +course. What a good idea! Thank you so much." + +The stranger departed, evidently much relieved. + +"Silly fellow," mused Tommy. "They won't give him a quarter of the +value, and he will say: 'Thank you so much,' and be quite +contented." It worried Tommy a good deal that day, the thought of +that stranger's helplessness. + +The stranger's name was Richard Danvers. He lived the other side +of Holborn, in Featherstone Buildings, but much of his time came to +be spent in the offices of Good Humour. + +Peter liked him. "Full of promise," was Peter's opinion. "His +criticism of that article of mine on 'The Education of Woman' +showed both sense and feeling. A scholar and a thinker." + +Flipp, the office-boy (spelt Philip), liked him; and Flipp's +attitude, in general, was censorial. "He's all right," pronounced +Flipp; "nothing stuck-up about him. He's got plenty of sense, +lying hidden away." + +Miss Ramsbotham liked him. "The men--the men we think about at +all," explained Miss Ramsbotham--"may be divided into two classes: +the men we ought to like, but don't; and the men there is no +particular reason for our liking, but that we do. Personally I +could get very fond of your friend Dick. There is nothing whatever +attractive about him except himself." + +Even Tommy liked him in her way, though at times she was severe +with him. + +"If you mean a big street," grumbled Tommy, who was going over +proofs, "why not say a big street? Why must you always call it a +'main artery'?" + +"I am sorry," apologised Danvers. "It is not my own idea. You +told me to study the higher-class journals." + +"I didn't tell you to select and follow all their faults. Here it +is again. Your crowd is always a 'hydra-headed monster'; your tea +'the cup that cheers but not inebriates.'" + +"I am afraid I am a deal of trouble to you," suggested the staff. + +"I am afraid you are," agreed the sub-editor. + +"Don't give me up," pleaded the staff. "I misunderstood you, that +is all. I will write English for the future." + +"Shall be glad if you will," growled the sub-editor. + +Dick Danvers rose. "I am so anxious not to get what you call 'the +sack' from here." + +The sub-editor, mollified, thought the staff need be under no +apprehension, provided it showed itself teachable. + +"I have been rather a worthless fellow, Miss Hope," confessed Dick +Danvers. "I was beginning to despair of myself till I came across +you and your father. The atmosphere here--I don't mean the +material atmosphere of Crane Court--is so invigorating: its +simplicity, its sincerity. I used to have ideals. I tried to +stifle them. There is a set that sneers at all that sort of thing. +Now I see that they are good. You will help me?" + +Every woman is a mother. Tommy felt for the moment that she wanted +to take this big boy on her knee and talk to him for his good. He +was only an overgrown lad. But so exceedingly overgrown! Tommy +had to content herself with holding out her hand. Dick Danvers +grasped it tightly. + +Clodd was the only one who did not approve of him. + +"How did you get hold of him?" asked Clodd one afternoon, he and +Peter alone in the office. + +"He came. He came in the usual way," explained Peter. + +"What do you know about him?" + +"Nothing. What is there to know? One doesn't ask for a character +with a journalist." + +"No, I suppose that wouldn't work. Found out anything about him +since?" + +"Nothing against him. Why so suspicious of everybody?" + +"Because you are just a woolly lamb and want a dog to look after +you. Who is he? On a first night he gives away his stall and +sneaks into the pit. When you send him to a picture-gallery, he +dodges the private view and goes on the first shilling day. If an +invitation comes to a public dinner, he asks me to go and eat it +for him and tell him what it's all about. That doesn't suggest the +frank and honest journalist, does it?" + +"It is unusual, it certainly is unusual," Peter was bound to admit. + +"I distrust the man," said Clodd. "He's not our class. What is he +doing here?" + +"I will ask him, Clodd; I will ask him straight out." + +"And believe whatever he tells you." + +"No, I shan't." + +"Then what's the good of asking him?" + +"Well, what am I to do?" demanded the bewildered Peter. + +"Get rid of him," suggested Clodd. + +"Get rid of him?" + +"Get him away! Don't have him in and out of the office all day +long-looking at her with those collie-dog eyes of his, arguing art +and poetry with her in that cushat-dove voice of his. Get him +clean away--if it isn't too late already." + +"Nonsense," said Peter, who had turned white, however. "She's not +that sort of girl." + +"Not that sort of girl!" Clodd had no patience with Peter Hope, +and told him so. "Why are there never inkstains on her fingers +now? There used to be. Why does she always keep a lemon in her +drawer? When did she last have her hair cut? I'll tell you if you +care to know--the week before he came, five months ago. She used +to have it cut once a fortnight: said it tickled her neck. Why +does she jump on people when they call her Tommy and tell them that +her name is Jane? It never used to be Jane. Maybe when you're a +bit older you'll begin to notice things for yourself." + +Clodd jammed his hat on his head and flung himself down the stairs. + +Peter, slipping out a minute later, bought himself an ounce of +snuff. + +"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Peter as he helped himself to his thirteenth +pinch. "Don't believe it. I'll sound her. I shan't say a word-- +I'll just sound her." + +Peter stood with his back to the fire. Tommy sat at her desk, +correcting proofs of a fanciful story: The Man Without a Past. + +"I shall miss him," said Peter; "I know I shall." + +"Miss whom?" demanded Tommy. + +"Danvers," sighed Peter. "It always happens so. You get friendly +with a man; then he goes away--abroad, back to America, Lord knows +where. You never see him again." + +Tommy looked up. There was trouble in her face. + +"How do you spell 'harassed'?" questioned Tommy! "two r's or one." + +"One r," Peter informed her, "two s's." + +"I thought so." The trouble passed from Tommy's face. + +"You don't ask when he's going, you don't ask where he's going," +complained Peter. "You don't seem to be interested in the least." + +"I was going to ask, so soon as I had finished correcting this +sheet," explained Tommy. "What reason does he give?" + +Peter had crossed over and was standing where he could see her face +illumined by the lamplight. + +"It doesn't upset you--the thought of his going away, of your never +seeing him again?" + +"Why should it?" Tommy answered his searching gaze with a slightly +puzzled look. "Of course, I'm sorry. He was becoming useful. But +we couldn't expect him to stop with us always, could we?" + +Peter, rubbing his hands, broke into a chuckle. "I told him 'twas +all fiddlesticks. Clodd, he would have it you were growing to care +for the fellow." + +"For Dick Danvers?" Tommy laughed. "Whatever put that into his +head?" + +"Oh, well, there were one or two little things that we had +noticed." + +"We?" + +"I mean that Clodd had noticed." + +I'm glad it was Clodd that noticed them, not you, dad, thought +Tommy to herself. They'd have been pretty obvious if you had +noticed them. + +"It naturally made me anxious," confessed Peter. "You see, we know +absolutely nothing of the fellow." + +"Absolutely nothing," agreed Tommy. + +"He may be a man of the highest integrity. Personally, I think he +is. I like him. On the other hand, he may be a thorough-paced +scoundrel. I don't believe for a moment that he is, but he may be. +Impossible to say." + +"Quite impossible," agreed Tommy. + +"Considered merely as a journalist, it doesn't matter. He writes +well. He has brains. There's an end of it." + +"He is very painstaking," agreed Tommy. + +"Personally," added Peter, "I like the fellow." Tommy had returned +to her work. + +Of what use was Peter in a crisis of this kind? Peter couldn't +scold. Peter couldn't bully. The only person to talk to Tommy as +Tommy knew she needed to be talked to was one Jane, a young woman +of dignity with sense of the proprieties. + +"I do hope that at least you are feeling ashamed of yourself," +remarked Jane to Tommy that same night, as the twain sat together +in their little bedroom. + +"Done nothing to be ashamed of," growled Tommy. + +"Making a fool of yourself openly, for everybody to notice." + +"Clodd ain't everybody. He's got eyes at the back of his head. +Sees things before they happen." + +"Where's your woman's pride: falling in love with a man who has +never spoken to you, except in terms of the most ordinary +courtesy." + +"I'm not in love with him." + +"A man about whom you know absolutely nothing." + +"Not in love with him." + +"Where does he come from? Who is he?" + +"I don't know, don't care; nothing to do with me." + +"Just because of his soft eyes, and his wheedling voice, and that +half-caressing, half-devotional manner of his. Do you imagine he +keeps it specially for you? I gave you credit for more sense." + +"I'm not in love with him, I tell you. He's down on his luck, and +I'm sorry for him, that's all." + +"And if he is, whose fault was it, do you think?" + +"It doesn't matter. We are none of us saints. He's trying to pull +himself together, and I respect him for it. It's our duty to be +charitable and kind to one another in this world!" + +"Oh, well, I'll tell you how you can be kind to him: by pointing +out to him that he is wasting his time. With his talents, now that +he knows his business, he could be on the staff of some big paper, +earning a good income. Put it nicely to him, but be firm. Insist +on his going. That will be showing true kindness to him--and to +yourself, too, I'm thinking, my dear." + +And Tommy understood and appreciated the sound good sense +underlying Jane's advice, and the very next day but one, seizing +the first opportunity, acted upon it; and all would have gone as +contemplated if only Dick Danvers had sat still and listened, as it +had been arranged in Tommy's programme that he should. + +"But I don't want to go," said Dick. + +"But you ought to want to go. Staying here with us you are doing +yourself no good." + +He rose and came to where she stood with one foot upon the fender, +looking down into the fire. His doing this disconcerted her. So +long as he remained seated at the other end of the room, she was +the sub-editor, counselling the staff for its own good. Now that +she could not raise her eyes without encountering his, she felt +painfully conscious of being nothing more important than a little +woman who was trembling. + +"It is doing me all the good in the world," he told her, "being +near to you." + +"Oh, please do sit down again," she urged him. "I can talk to you +so much better when you're sitting down." + +But he would not do anything he should have done that day. Instead +he took her hands in his, and would not let them go; and the reason +and the will went out of her, leaving her helpless. + +"Let me be with you always," he pleaded. "It means the difference +between light and darkness to me. You have done so much for me. +Will you not finish your work? Will you not trust me? It is no +hot passion that can pass away, my love for you. It springs from +all that is best in me--from the part of me that is wholesome and +joyous and strong, the part of me that belongs to you." + +Releasing her, he turned away. + +"The other part of me--the blackguard--it is dead, dear,--dead and +buried. I did not know I was a blackguard, I thought myself a fine +fellow, till one day it came home to me. Suddenly I saw myself as +I really was. And the sight of the thing frightened me and I ran +away from it. I said to myself I would begin life afresh, in a new +country, free of every tie that could bind me to the past. It +would mean poverty--privation, maybe, in the beginning. What of +that? The struggle would brace me. It would be good sport. Ah, +well, you can guess the result: the awakening to the cold facts, +the reaction of feeling. In what way was I worse than other men? +Who was I, to play the prig in a world where others were laughing +and dining? I had tramped your city till my boots were worn into +holes. I had but to abandon my quixotic ideals--return to where +shame lay waiting for me, to be welcomed with the fatted calf. It +would have ended so had I not chanced to pass by your door that +afternoon and hear you strumming on the piano." + +So Billy was right, after all, thought Tommy to herself, the piano +does help. + +"It was so incongruous--a piano in Crane Court--I looked to see +where the noise came from. I read the name of the paper on the +doorpost. 'It will be my last chance,' I said to myself. 'This +shall decide it.'" + +He came back to her. She had not moved. "I am not afraid to tell +you all this. You are so big-hearted, so human; you will +understand, you can forgive. It is all past. Loving you tells a +man that he has done with evil. Will you not trust me?" + +She put her hands in his. "I am trusting you," she said, "with all +my life. Don't make a muddle of it, dear, if you can help it." + +It was an odd wooing, as Tommy laughingly told herself when she +came to think it over in her room that night. But that is how it +shaped itself. + +What troubled her most was that he had not been quite frank with +Peter, so that Peter had to defend her against herself. + +"I attacked you so suddenly," explained Peter, "you had not time to +think. You acted from instinct. A woman seeks to hide her love +even from herself." + +"I expect, after all, I am more of a girl than a boy," feared +Tommy: "I seem to have so many womanish failings." + +Peter took himself into quite places and trained himself to face +the fact that another would be more to her than he had ever been, +and Clodd went about his work like a bear with a sore head; but +they neither of them need have troubled themselves so much. The +marriage did not take place till nearly fifteen years had passed +away, and much water had to flow beneath old London Bridge before +that day. + +The past is not easily got rid of. A tale was once written of a +woman who killed her babe and buried it in a lonely wood, and later +stole back in the night and saw there, white in the moonlight, a +child's hand calling through the earth, and buried it again and yet +again; but always that white baby hand called upwards through the +earth, trample it down as she would. Tommy read the story one +evening in an old miscellany, and sat long before the dead fire, +the book open on her lap, and shivered; for now she knew the fear +that had been haunting her. + +Tommy lived expecting her. She came one night when Tommy was +alone, working late in the office. Tommy knew her the moment she +entered the door, a handsome woman, with snake-like, rustling +skirts. She closed the door behind her, and drawing forward a +chair, seated herself the other side of the desk, and the two +looked long and anxiously at one another. + +"They told me I should find you here alone," said the woman. "It +is better, is it not?" + +"Yes," said Tommy, "it is better." + +"Tell me," said the woman, "are you very much in love with him?" + +"Why should I tell you?" + +"Because, if not--if you have merely accepted him thinking him a +good catch--which he isn't, my dear; hasn't a penny to bless +himself with, and never will if he marries you--why, then the +matter is soon settled. They tell me you are a business-like young +lady, and I am prepared to make a business-like proposition." + +There was no answer. The woman shrugged her shoulders. + +"If, on the other hand, you are that absurd creature, a young girl +in love--why, then, I suppose we shall have to fight for him." + +"It would be more sporting, would it not?" suggested Tommy. + +"Let me explain before you decide," continued the woman. "Dick +Danvers left me six months ago, and has kept from me ever since, +because he loved me." + +"It sounds a curious reason." + +"I was a married woman when Dick Danvers and I first met. Since he +left me--for my sake and his own--I have received information of my +husband's death." + +"And does Dick--does he know?" asked the girl. + +"Not yet. I have only lately learnt the news myself." + +"Then if it is as you say, when he knows he will go back to you." + +"There are difficulties in the way." + +"What difficulties?" + +"My dear, this. To try and forget me, he has been making love to +you. Men do these things. I merely ask you to convince yourself +of the truth. Go away for six months--disappear entirely. Leave +him free--uninfluenced. If he loves you--if it be not merely a +sense of honour that binds him--you will find him here on your +return. If not--if in the interval I have succeeded in running off +with him, well, is not the two or three thousand pounds I am +prepared to put into this paper of yours a fair price for such a +lover?" + +Tommy rose with a laugh of genuine amusement. She could never +altogether put aside her sense of humour, let Fate come with what +terrifying face it would. + +"You may have him for nothing--if he is that man," the girl told +her; "he shall be free to choose between us." + +"You mean you will release him from his engagement?" + +"That is what I mean." + +"Why not take my offer? You know the money is needed. It will +save your father years of anxiety and struggle. Go away--travel, +for a couple of months, if you're afraid of the six. Write him +that you must be alone, to think things over." + +The girl turned upon her. + +"And leave you a free field to lie and trick?" + +The woman, too, had risen. "Do you think he really cares for you? +At the moment you interest him. At nineteen every woman is a +mystery. When the mood is past--and do you know how long a man's +mood lasts, you poor chit? Till he has caught what he is running +after, and has tasted it--then he will think not of what he has +won, but of what he has lost: of the society from which he has cut +himself adrift; of all the old pleasures and pursuits he can no +longer enjoy; of the luxuries--necessities to a man of his stamp-- +that marriage with you has deprived him of. Then your face will be +a perpetual reminder to him of what he has paid for it, and he will +curse it every time he sees it." + +"You don't know him," the girl cried. "You know just a part of +him--the part you would know. All the rest of him is a good man, +that would rather his self-respect than all the luxuries you +mention--you included." + +"It seems to resolve itself into what manner of man he is," laughed +the woman. + +The girl looked at her watch. "He will be here shortly; he shall +tell us himself." + +"How do you mean?" + +"That here, between the two of us, he shall decide--this very +night." She showed her white face to the woman. "Do you think I +could live through a second day like to this?" + +"The scene would be ridiculous." + +"There will be none here to enjoy the humour of it." + +"He will not understand." + +"Oh, yes, he will," the girl laughed. "Come, you have all the +advantages; you are rich, you are clever; you belong to his class. +If he elects to stop with me, it will be because he is my man-- +mine. Are you afraid?" + +The woman shivered. She wrapped her fur cloak about her closer and +sat down again, and Tommy returned to her proofs. It was press- +night, and there was much to be done. + +He came a little later, though how long the time may have seemed to +the two women one cannot say. They heard his footstep on the +stair. The woman rose and went forward, so that when he opened the +door she was the first he saw. But he made no sign. Possibly he +had been schooling himself for this moment, knowing that sooner or +later it must come. The woman held out her hand to him with a +smile. + +"I have not the honour," he said. + +The smile died from her face. "I do not understand," she said. + +"I have not the honour," he repeated. "I do not know you." + +The girl was leaning with her back against the desk in a somewhat +mannish attitude. He stood between them. It will always remain +Life's chief comic success: the man between two women. The +situation has amused the world for so many years. Yet, somehow, he +contrived to maintain a certain dignity. + +"Maybe," he continued, "you are confounding me with a Dick Danvers +who lived in New York up to a few months ago. I knew him well--a +worthless scamp you had done better never to have met." + +"You bear a wonderful resemblance to him," laughed the woman. + +"The poor fool is dead," he answered. "And he left for you, my +dear lady, this dying message: that, from the bottom of his soul, +he was sorry for the wrong he had done you. He asked you to +forgive him--and forget him." + +"The year appears to be opening unfortunately for me," said the +woman. "First my lover, then my husband." + +He had nerved himself to fight the living. This was a blow from +the dead. The man had been his friend. + +"Dead?" + +"He was killed, it appears, in that last expedition in July," +answered the woman. "I received the news from the Foreign Office +only a fortnight ago." + +An ugly look came into his eyes--the look of a cornered creature +fighting for its life. "Why have you followed me here? Why do I +find you here alone with her? What have you told her?" + +The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Only the truth." + +"All the truth?" he demanded--"all? Ah! be just. Tell her it was +not all my fault. Tell her all the truth." + +"What would you have me tell her? That I played Potiphar's wife to +your Joseph?" + +"Ah, no! The truth--only the truth. That you and I were a pair of +idle fools with the devil dancing round us. That we played a +fool's game, and that it is over." + +"Is it over? Dick, is it over?" She flung her arms towards him; +but he threw her from him almost brutally. "The man is dead, I +tell you. His folly and his sin lie dead with him. I have nothing +to do with you, nor you with me." + +"Dick!" she whispered. "Dick, cannot you understand? I must speak +with you alone." + +But they did not understand, neither the man nor the child. + +"Dick, are you really dead?" she cried. "Have you no pity for me? +Do you think that I have followed you here to grovel at your feet +for mere whim? Am I acting like a woman sane and sound? Don't you +see that I am mad, and why I am mad? Must I tell you before her? +Dick--" She staggered towards him, and the fine cloak slipped from +her shoulders; and then it was that Tommy changed from a child into +a woman, and raised the other woman from the ground with crooning +words of encouragement such as mothers use, and led her to the +inner room. "Do not go," she said, turning to Dick; "I shall be +back in a few minutes." + +He crossed to one of the windows against which beat the City's +roar, and it seemed to him as the throb of passing footsteps +beating down through the darkness to where he lay in his grave. + +She re-entered, closing the door softly behind her. "It is true?" +she asked. + +"It can be. I had not thought of it." + +They spoke in low, matter-of-fact tones, as people do who have +grown weary of their own emotions. + +"When did he go away--her husband?" + +"About--it is February now, is it not? About eighteen months ago." + +"And died just eight months ago. Rather conveniently, poor +fellow." + +"Yes, I'm glad he is dead--poor Lawrence." + +"What is the shortest time in which a marriage can be arranged?" + +"I do not know," he answered listlessly. "I do not intend to marry +her." + +"You would leave her to bear it alone?" + +"It is not as if she were a poor woman. You can do anything with +money." + +"It will not mend reputation. Her position in society is +everything to that class of woman." + +"My marrying her now," he pointed out, "would not save her." + +"Practically speaking it would," the girl pleaded. "The world does +not go out of its way to find out things it does not want to know. +Marry her as quietly as possible and travel for a year or two." + +"Why should I? Ah! it is easy enough to call a man a coward for +defending himself against a woman. What is he to do when he is +fighting for his life? Men do not sin with good women." + +"There is the child to be considered," she urged--"your child. You +see, dear, we all do wrong sometimes. We must not let others +suffer for our fault more--more than we can help." + +He turned to her for the first time. "And you?" + +"I? Oh, I shall cry for a little while, but later on I shall +laugh, as often. Life is not all love. I have my work." + +He knew her well by this time. And also it came to him that it +would be a finer thing to be worthy of her than even to possess +her. + +So he did her bidding and went out with the other woman. Tommy was +glad it was press-night. She would not be able to think for hours +to come, and then, perhaps, she would be feeling too tired. Work +can be very kind. + +Were this an artistic story, here, of course, one would write +"Finis." But in the workaday world one never knows the ending till +it comes. Had it been otherwise, I doubt I could have found +courage to tell you this story of Tommy. It is not all true--at +least, I do not suppose so. One drifts unconsciously a little way +into dream-land when one sits oneself down to recall the happenings +of long ago; while Fancy, with a sly wink, whispers ever and again +to Memory: "Let me tell this incident--picture that scene: I can +make it so much more interesting than you would." But Tommy--how +can I put it without saying too much: there is someone I think of +when I speak of her? To remember only her dear wounds, and not the +healing of them, would have been a task too painful. I love to +dwell on their next meeting. Flipp, passing him on the steps, did +not know him, the tall, sunburnt gentleman with the sweet, grave- +faced little girl. + +"Seen that face somewhere before," mused Flipp, as at the corner of +Bedford Street he climbed into a hansom, "seen it somewhere on a +thinner man." + +For Dick Danvers, that he did not recognise Flipp, there was more +excuse. A very old young man had Flipp become at thirty. Flipp no +longer enjoyed popular journalism. He produced it. + +The gold-bound doorkeeper feared the mighty Clodd would be unable +to see so insignificant an atom as an unappointed stranger, but +would let the card of Mr. Richard Danvers plead for itself. To the +gold-bound keeper's surprise came down the message that Mr. Danvers +was to be at once shown up. + +"I thought, somehow, you would come to me first," said the portly +Clodd, advancing with out-stretched hand. "And this is--?" + +"My little girl, Honor. We have been travelling for the last few +months." + +Clodd took the grave, small face between his big, rough hands: + +"Yes. She is like you. But looks as if she were going to have +more sense. Forgive me, I knew your father my dear," laughed +Clodd; "when he was younger." + +They lit their cigars and talked. + +"Well, not exactly dead; we amalgamated it," winked Clodd in answer +to Danvers' inquiry. "It was just a trifle TOO high-class. +Besides, the old gentleman was not getting younger. It hurt him a +little at first. But then came Tommy's great success, and that has +reconciled him to all things. Do they know you are in England?" + +"No," explained Danvers; "we arrived only last night." + +Clodd called directions down the speaking-tube. + +"You will find hardly any change in her. One still has to keep +one's eye upon her chin. She has not even lost her old habit of +taking stock of people. You remember." Clodd laughed. + +They talked a little longer, till there came a whistle, and Clodd +put his ear to the tube. + +"I have to see her on business," said Clodd, rising; "you may as +well come with me. They are still in the old place, Gough Square." + +Tommy was out, but Peter was expecting her every minute. + +Peter did not know Dick, but would not admit it. Forgetfulness was +a sign of age, and Peter still felt young. + +"I know your face quite well," said Peter; "can't put a name to it, +that's all." + +Clodd whispered it to him, together with information bringing +history up to date. And then light fell upon the old lined face. +He came towards Dick, meaning to take him by both hands, but, +perhaps because he had become somewhat feeble, he seemed glad when +the younger man put his arms around him and held him for a moment. +It was un-English, and both of them felt a little ashamed of +themselves afterwards. + +"What we want," said Clodd, addressing Peter, "we three--you, I, +and Miss Danvers--is tea and cakes, with cream in them; and I know +a shop where they sell them. We will call back for your father in +half an hour." Clodd explained to Miss Danvers; "he has to talk +over a matter of business with Miss Hope." + +"I know," answered the grave-faced little person. She drew Dick's +face down to hers and kissed it. And then the three went out +together, leaving Dick standing by the window. + +"Couldn't we hide somewhere till she comes?" suggested Miss +Danvers. "I want to see her." + +So they waited in the open doorway of a near printing-house till +Tommy drove up. Both Peter and Clodd watched the child's face with +some anxiety. She nodded gravely to herself three times, then +slipped her hand into Peter's. + +Tommy opened the door with her latchkey and passed in. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tommy and Co., by Jerome K. Jerome + diff --git a/old/tomco10.zip b/old/tomco10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eba97ba --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tomco10.zip |