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diff --git a/7230-h/7230-h.htm b/7230-h/7230-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89f41bc --- /dev/null +++ b/7230-h/7230-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10121 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Not George Washington, by P. G. 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G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Not George Washington<br/> + An Autobiographical Novel</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: P. G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 29, 2003 [eBook #7230]<br /> +[Most recently updated: March 3, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON ***</div> + +<h1>NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON</h1> + +<h3>An Autobiographical Novel</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">By P. G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook</h2> + +<h4>1907</h4> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2H_PART"><b>PART ONE</b> <i><b>Miss Margaret Goodwin’s Narrative</b></i></a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER 1 JAMES ARRIVES</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER 2 JAMES SETS OUT</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER 3 A HARMLESS DECEPTION</a><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2H_PART2"><b>PART TWO</b> <b>James Orlebar Cloyster’s Narrative</b></a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER 1 THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER 2 I EVACUATE BOHEMIA</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER 3 THE ORB</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER 4 JULIAN EVERSLEIGH</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER 5 THE COLUMN</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER 6 NEW YEAR’S EVE</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER 7 I MEET MR. THOMAS BLAKE</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER 8 I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER 9 JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER 10 TOM BLAKE AGAIN</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER 11 JULIAN’S IDEA</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER 12 THE FIRST GHOST</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER 13 THE SECOND GHOST</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER 14 THE THIRD GHOST</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER 15 EVA EVERSLEIGH</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER 16 I TELL JULIAN</a><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2H_4_0022"><b>Sidney Price’s Narrative</b></a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER 17 A GHOSTLY GATHERING</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER 18 ONE IN THE EYE</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER 19 IN THE SOUP</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER 20 NORAH WINS HOME</a><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2H_4_0027"><b>Julian Eversleigh’s Narrative</b></a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER 21 THE TRANSPOSITION OF SENTIMENT</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0025">CHAPTER 22 A CHAT WITH JAMES</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0026">CHAPTER 23 IN A HANSOM</a><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2H_4_0031"><b>Narrative Resumed</b></a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0027">CHAPTER 24 A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0028">CHAPTER 25 BRIGGS TO THE RESCUE</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> +<a href="#link2HCH0029">CHAPTER 26 MY TRIUMPH</a> +</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_PART"></a> +PART ONE<br/> +<i>Miss Margaret Goodwin’s Narrative</i></h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a> +CHAPTER 1<br/> +JAMES ARRIVES</h2> + +<p> +I am Margaret Goodwin. A week from today I shall be Mrs. James Orlebar +Cloyster. +</p> + +<p> +It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other’s +acquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July in the +middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty yards from the shore. +</p> + +<p> +Fermain Bay is in Guernsey. My home had been with my mother for many years at +St. Martin’s in that island. There we two lived our uneventful lives until fate +brought one whom, when first I set my eyes on him, I knew I loved. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to write that down. But what does it matter? It +is for no one’s reading but my own. James, my <i>fiancé</i>, is <i>not</i> +peeping slyly over my shoulder as I write. On the contrary, my door is locked, +and James is, I believe, in the smoking-room of his hotel at St. Peter’s Port. +</p> + +<p> +At that time it had become my habit to begin my day by rising before breakfast +and taking a swim in Fermain Bay, which lies across the road in front of our +cottage. The practice—I have since abandoned it—was good for the complexion, +and generally healthy. I had kept it up, moreover, because I had somehow +cherished an unreasonable but persistent presentiment that some day Somebody +(James, as it turned out) would cross the pathway of my maiden existence. I +told myself that I must be ready for him. It would never do for him to arrive, +and find no one to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +On the 28th of July I started off as usual. I wore a short tweed skirt, brown +stockings—my ankles were, and are, good—a calico blouse, and a red +tam-o’-shanter. Ponto barked at my heels. In one hand I carried my blue twill +bathing-gown. In the other a miniature alpenstock. The sun had risen +sufficiently to scatter the slight mist of the summer morning, and a few +flecked clouds were edged with a slender frame of red gold. +</p> + +<p> +Leisurely, and with my presentiment strong upon me, I descended the steep +cliffside to the cave on the left of the bay, where, guarded by the faithful +Ponto, I was accustomed to disrobe; and soon afterwards I came out, my dark +hair over my shoulders and blue twill over a portion of the rest of me, to +climb out to the point of the projecting rocks, so that I might dive gracefully +and safely into the still blue water. +</p> + +<p> +I was a good swimmer. I reached the ridge on the opposite side of the bay +without fatigue, not changing from a powerful breast-stroke. I then sat for a +while at the water’s edge to rest and to drink in the thrilling glory of what +my heart persisted in telling me was the morning of my life. +</p> + +<p> +And then I saw Him. +</p> + +<p> +Not distinctly, for he was rowing a dinghy in my direction, and consequently +had his back to me. +</p> + +<p> +In the stress of my emotions and an aggravation of modesty, I dived again. With +an intensity like that of a captured conger I yearned to be hidden by the +water. I could watch him as I swam, for, strictly speaking, he was in my way, +though a little farther out to sea than I intended to go. As I drew near, I +noticed that he wore an odd garment like a dressing-gown. He had stopped +rowing. +</p> + +<p> +I turned upon my back for a moment’s rest, and, as I did so, heard a cry. I +resumed my former attitude, and brushed the salt water from my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The dinghy was wobbling unsteadily. The dressing-gown was in the bows; and he, +my sea-god, was in the water. Only for a second I saw him. Then he sank. +</p> + +<p> +How I blessed the muscular development of my arms. +</p> + +<p> +I reached him as he came to the surface. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s twice,” he remarked contemplatively, as I seized him by the shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Be brave,” I said excitedly; “I can save you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be most awfully obliged,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do exactly as I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he remonstrated, “you’re not going to drag me along by the roots of my +hair, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +The natural timidity of man is, I find, attractive. +</p> + +<p> +I helped him to the boat, and he climbed in. I trod water, clinging with one +hand to the stern. +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me,” he said, bending down. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Not, really?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, but I think I will stay where I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you may get cramp. By the way—I’m really frightfully obliged to you for +saving my life—I mean, a perfect stranger—I’m afraid it’s quite spoiled your +dip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” I said politely. “Did you get cramp?” +</p> + +<p> +“A twinge. It was awfully kind of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Then there was a rather awkward silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your first visit to Guernsey?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I arrived yesterday. It’s a delightful place. Do you live here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that white cottage you can just see through the trees.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I couldn’t give you a tow anywhere?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; thank you very much. I will swim back.” +</p> + +<p> +Another constrained silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ever in London, Miss——?” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodwin. Oh, yes; we generally go over in the winter, Mr.——” +</p> + +<p> +“Cloyster. Really? How jolly. Do you go to the theatre much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. We saw nearly everything last time we were over.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a third silence. I saw a remark about the weather trembling on his +lip, and, as I was beginning to feel the chill of the water a little, I +determined to put a temporary end to the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will be swimming back now,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite sure I can’t give you a tow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite, thanks. Perhaps you would care to come to breakfast with us, Mr. +Cloyster? I know my mother would be glad to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very kind of you. I should be delighted. Shall we meet on the beach?” +</p> + +<p> +I swam off to my cave to dress. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was a success, for my mother was a philosopher. She said very little, +but what she did say was magnificent. In her youth she had moved in literary +circles, and now found her daily pleasure in the works of Schopenhauer, Kant, +and other Germans. Her lightest reading was <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, and +occasionally she would drop into Ibsen and Maeterlinck, the asparagus of her +philosophic banquet. Her chosen mode of thought, far from leaving her inhuman +or intolerant, gave her a social distinction which I had inherited from her. I +could, if I had wished it, have attended with success the tea-drinkings, the +tennis-playings, and the éclair-and-lemonade dances to which I was frequently +invited. But I always refused. Nature was my hostess. Nature, which provided me +with balmy zephyrs that were more comforting than buttered toast; which set the +race of the waves to the ridges of Fermain, where arose no shrill, heated voice +crying, “Love—forty”; which decked foliage in more splendid sheen than anything +the local costumier could achieve, and whose poplars swayed more rhythmically +than the dancers of the Assembly Rooms. +</p> + +<p> +The constraint which had been upon us during our former conversation vanished +at breakfast. We were both hungry, and we had a common topic. We related our +story of the sea in alternate sentences. We ate and we talked, turn and turn +about. My mother listened. To her the affair, compared with the tremendous +subjects to which she was accustomed to direct her mind, was broad farce. James +took it with an air of restrained amusement. I, seriously. +</p> + +<p> +Tentatively, I diverged from this subject towards other and wider fields. +Impressions of Guernsey, which drew from him his address, at the St. Peter’s +Port Hotel. The horrors of the sea passage from Weymouth, which extorted a +comment on the limitations of England. England. London. Kensington. South +Kensington. The Gunton-Cresswells? Yes, yes! Extraordinary. Curious +coincidence. Excursus on smallness of world. Queer old gentleman, Mr. +Gunton-Cresswell. He is, indeed. Quite one of the old school. Oh, quite. Still +wears that beaver hat? Does he really? Yes. Ha, ha! Yes. +</p> + +<p> +Here the humanising influence of the Teutonic school of philosophic analysis +was demonstrated by my mother’s action. Mr. Cloyster, she said, must reconcile +himself to exchanging his comfortable rooms at the St. Peter’s Port—(“I +particularly dislike half-filled hotel life, Mrs. Goodwin”)—for the shelter of +our cottage. He accepted. He was then “warned” that I was chef at the cottage. +Mother gave him “a chance to change his mind.” Something was said about my +saving life and destroying digestion. He went to collect his things in an +ecstasy of merriment. +</p> + +<p> +At this point I committed an indiscretion which can only be excused by the +magnitude of the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +My mother had retired to her favourite bow-window where, by a <i>tour de +force</i> on the part of the carpenter, a system of low, adjustable bookcases +had been craftily constructed in such a way that when she sat in her +window-seat they jutted in a semicircle towards her hand. +</p> + +<p> +James, whom I had escorted down the garden path, had left me at the little +wooden gate and had gone swinging down the road. I, shielded from outside +observation (if any) by a line of lilacs, gazed rapturously at his retreating +form. The sun was high in the sky now. It was a perfect summer’s day. Birds +were singing. Their notes blended with the gentle murmur of the sea on the +beach below. Every fibre of my body was thrilling with the magic of the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +Through the kindly branches of the lilac I watched him, and then, as though in +obedience to the primaeval call of that July sunshine, I stood on tiptoe, and +blew him a kiss. +</p> + +<p> +I realised in an instant what I had done. Fool that I had been. The bow-window! +</p> + +<p> +I was rigid with discomfiture. My mother’s eyes were on the book she held. And +yet a faint smile seemed to hover round her lips. I walked in silence to where +she sat at the open window. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up. Her smile was more pronounced. +</p> + +<p> +“Margie,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“The hedonism of Voltaire is the indictment of an honest bore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +She then resumed her book. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a> +CHAPTER 2<br/> +JAMES SETS OUT</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Miss Margaret Goodwin’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Those August days! Have there been any like them before? I realise with +difficulty that the future holds in store for me others as golden. +</p> + +<p> +The island was crammed with trippers. They streamed in by every boat. But James +and I were infinitely alone. I loved him from the first, from the moment when +he had rowed out of the unknown into my life, clad in a dressing-gown. I like +to think that he loved me from that moment, too. But, if he did, the knowledge +that he did came to him only after a certain delay. It was my privilege to +watch this knowledge steal gradually but surely upon him. +</p> + +<p> +We were always together; and as the days passed by he spoke freely of himself +and his affairs, obeying unconsciously the rudder of my tactful +inquisitiveness. By the end of the first week I knew as much about him as he +did himself. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that a guardian—an impersonal sort of business man with a small but +impossible family—was the most commanding figure in his private life. As for +his finances, five-and-forty sovereigns, the remnant of a larger sum which had +paid for his education at Cambridge, stood between him and the necessity of +offering for hire a sketchy acquaintance with general literature and a third +class in the classical tripos. +</p> + +<p> +He had come to Guernsey to learn by personal observation what chances tomato +growing held out to a young man in a hurry to get rich. +</p> + +<p> +“Tomato growing?” I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense of bathos, +“People <i>have</i> made it pay. Of course, they work very hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“M’yes,” said James without much enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“But I fancy,” I added, “the life is not at all unpleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point embarrassment seemed to engulf James. He blushed, swallowed once +or twice in a somewhat convulsive manner, and stammered. +</p> + +<p> +Then he made his confession guiltily. +</p> + +<p> +I was not to suppose that his aims ceased with the attainment of a tomato-farm. +The nurture of a wholesome vegetable occupied neither the whole of his +ambitions nor even the greater part of them. To write—the agony with which he +throatily confessed it!—to be swept into the maelstrom of literary journalism, +to be <i>en rapport</i> with the unslumbering forces of Fleet Street—those were +the real objectives of James Orlebar Cloyster. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, I mean,” he said, “I suppose it would be a bit of a struggle at +first, if you see what I mean. What I mean to say is, rejected manuscripts, and +so on. But still, after a bit, once get a footing, you know—I should like to +have a dash at it. I mean, I think I could do something, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you could,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, lots of men have, don’t you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s plenty of room at the top,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed struck with this remark. It encouraged him. +</p> + +<p> +He had had his opportunity of talking thus of himself during our long rambles +out of doors. They were a series of excursions which he was accustomed to +describe as hunting expeditions for the stocking of our larder. +</p> + +<p> +Thus James would announce at breakfast that prawns were the day’s quarry, and +the foreshore round Cobo Bay the hunting-ground. And to Cobo, accordingly, we +would set out. This prawn-yielding area extends along the coast on the other +side of St. Peter’s Port, where two halts had to be made, one at Madame +Garnier’s, the confectioners, the other at the library, to get fiction, which I +never read. Then came a journey on the top of the antediluvian horse-tram, a +sort of <i>diligence</i> on rails; and then a whole summer’s afternoon among +the prawns. Cobo is an expanse of shingle, dotted with seaweed and rocks; and +Guernsey is a place where one can take off one’s shoes and stockings on the +slightest pretext. We waded hither and thither with the warm brine lapping +unchecked over our bare legs. We did not use our nets very industriously, it is +true; but our tongues were seldom still. The slow walk home was a thing to be +looked forward to. Ah! those memorable homecomings in the quiet solemnity of +that hour, when a weary sun stoops, one can fancy with a sigh of pleasure, to +sink into the bosom of the sea! +</p> + +<p> +Prawn-hunting was agreeably varied by fish-snaring, mussel-stalking, and +mushroom-trapping—sports which James, in his capacity of Head Forester, +included in his venery. +</p> + +<p> +For mushroom-trapping an early start had to be made—usually between six and +seven. The chase took us inland, until, after walking through the fragrant, +earthy lanes, we turned aside into dewy meadows, where each blade of grass +sparkled with a gem of purest water. Again the necessity of going barefoot. +Breakfast was late on these mornings, my mother whiling away the hours of +waiting with a volume of Diogenes Laertius in the bow-window. She would +generally open the meal with the remark that Anaximander held the primary cause +of all things to be the Infinite, or that it was a favourite expression of +Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing a man could spend. When +breakfast was announced, one of the covers concealed the mushrooms, which, +under my superintendence, James had done his best to devil. A quiet day +followed, devoted to sedentary recreation after the labours of the run. +</p> + +<p> +The period which I have tried to sketch above may be called the period of +good-fellowship. Whatever else love does for a woman, it makes her an actress. +So we were merely excellent friends till James’s eyes were opened. When that +happened, he abruptly discarded good-fellowship. I, on the other hand, played +it the more vigorously. The situation was mine. +</p> + +<p> +Our day’s run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office of Head +Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was with us—triumphant, and no +longer to be skirted round by me; fresh, electric, glorious in James. +</p> + +<p> +We talked—we must have talked. We moved. Our limbs performed their ordinary, +daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that second period. When, by the +strongest effort of will, I can let my mind stand by those perfect moments, I +seem to hear our voices, low and measured. And there are silences, fond in +themselves and yet more fondly interrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. +What we really said, what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do +not know. We were together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. +It is not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not that the +scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It is because the dream +is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blur recurs because the blur was +there. A love vast as ours is penalised, as it were, by this blur, which is the +hall-mark of infinity. +</p> + +<p> +In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245 Gerrard to +137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegrating blur. +</p> + +<p> +A third period succeeded. I may call it the affectionately practical period. +Instantly the blur vanishes. We were at our proper distance from the essence of +things, and though infinity is something one yearns for passionately, one’s +normal condition has its meed of comfort. I remember once hearing a man in a +Government office say that the pleasantest moment of his annual holiday was +when his train rolled back into Paddington Station. And he was a man, too, of a +naturally lazy disposition. +</p> + +<p> +It was about the middle of this third period, during a mushroom-trapping +ramble, that the idea occurred to us, first to me, then—after reflection—to +James, that mother ought to be informed how matters stood between us. +</p> + +<p> +We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her. +</p> + +<p> +She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of <i>The Deipnosophists</i> +of Athenaeus. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning,” she said, looking at her watch. “It is a little past our usual +breakfast time, Margie, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“We have been looking for mushrooms, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every investigation, says Athenaeus, which is guided by principles of Nature +fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach. Have you found any +mushrooms?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaps, Mrs. Goodwin,” said James. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” I said, “we want to tell you something.” +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, Mrs. Goodwin——” +</p> + +<p> +“We are engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +My mother liked James. +</p> + +<p> +“Margie,” she once said to me, “there is good in Mr. Cloyster. He is not for +ever offering to pass me things.” Time had not caused her to modify this +opinion. She received our news calmly, and inquired into James’s means and +prospects. James had forty pounds and some odd silver. I had nothing. +</p> + +<p> +The key-note of my mother’s contribution to our conference was, “Wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are both young,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She then kissed me, smiled contemplatively at James, and resumed her book. +</p> + +<p> +When we were alone, “My darling,” said James, “we must wait. Tomorrow I catch +the boat for Weymouth. I shall go straight to London. My first manuscript shall +be in an editor’s hands on Wednesday morning. I will go, but I will come back.” +</p> + +<p> +I put my arms round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“My love,” I said, “I trust you. Go. Always remember that I know you will +succeed.” +</p> + +<p> +I kissed him. +</p> + +<p> +“And when you have succeeded, come back.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a> +CHAPTER 3<br/> +A HARMLESS DECEPTION</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Miss Margaret Goodwin’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +They say that everyone is capable of one novel. And, in my opinion, most people +could write one play. +</p> + +<p> +Whether I wrote mine in an inspiration of despair, I cannot say. I wrote it. +</p> + +<p> +Three years had passed, and James was still haggling with those who buy men’s +brains. His earnings were enough just to keep his head above water, but not +enough to make us two one. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, because everything is clear and easy for us now, I am gradually losing +a proper appreciation of his struggle. That should never be. He did not win. +But he did not lose; which means nearly as much. For it is almost less +difficult to win than not to lose, so my mother has told me, in modern +journalistic London. And I know that he would have won. The fact that he +continued the fight as he did was in itself a pledge of ultimate victory. What +he went through while trying with his pen to make a living for himself and me I +learned from his letters. +</p> + +<p> +“London,” he wrote, “is not paved with gold; but in literary fields there are +nuggets to be had by the lightest scratching. And those nuggets are plays. A +successful play gives you money and a name automatically. What the ordinary +writer makes in a year the successful dramatist receives, without labour, in a +fortnight.” He went on to deplore his total lack of dramatic intuition. “Some +men,” he said, “have some of the qualifications while falling short of the +others. They have a sense of situation without the necessary tricks of +technique. Or they sacrifice plot to atmosphere, or atmosphere to plot. I, +worse luck, have not one single qualification. The nursing of a climax, the +tremendous omissions in the dialogue, the knack of stage characterisation—all +these things are, in some inexplicable way, outside me.” +</p> + +<p> +It was this letter that set me thinking. Ever since James had left the island, +I had been chafing at the helplessness of my position. While he toiled in +London, what was I doing? Nothing. I suppose I helped him in a way. The thought +of me would be with him always, spurring him on to work, that the time of our +separation might be less. But it was not enough. I wanted to be <i>doing</i> +something.... And it was during these restless weeks that I wrote my play. +</p> + +<p> +I think nothing will ever erase from my mind the moment when the central idea +of <i>The Girl who Waited</i> came to me. It was a boisterous October evening. +The wind had been rising all day. Now the branches of the lilac were dancing in +the rush of the storm, and far out in the bay one could see the white crests of +the waves gleaming through the growing darkness. We had just finished tea. The +lamp was lit in our little drawing-room, and on the sofa, so placed that the +light fell over her left shoulder in the manner recommended by oculists, sat my +mother with Schopenhauer’s <i>Art of Literature</i>. Ponto slept on the rug. +</p> + +<p> +Something in the unruffled peace of the scene tore at my nerves. I have seldom +felt so restless. It may have been the storm that made me so. I think myself +that it was James’s letter. The boat had been late that morning, owing to the +weather, and I had not received the letter till after lunch. I listened to the +howl of the wind, and longed to be out in it. +</p> + +<p> +My mother looked at me over her book. +</p> + +<p> +“You are restless, Margie,” she said. “There is a volume of Marcus Aurelius on +the table beside you, if you care to read.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you, mother,” I said. “I think I shall go for a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wrap up well, my dear,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +She then resumed her book. +</p> + +<p> +I went out of our little garden, and stood on the cliff. The wind flew at me +like some wild thing. Spray stung my face. I was filled with a wild +exhilaration. +</p> + +<p> +And then the idea came to me. The simplest, most dramatic idea. Quaint, +whimsical, with just that suggestion of pathos blended with it which makes the +fortunes of a play. The central idea, to be brief, of <i>The Girl who +Waited</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Of my Maenad tramp along the cliff-top with my brain afire, and my return, +draggled and dripping, an hour late for dinner; of my writing and re-writing, +of my tears and black depression, of the pens I wore out and the quires of +paper I spoiled, and finally of the ecstasy of the day when the piece began to +move and the characters to live, I need not speak. Anyone who has ever written +will know the sensations. James must have gone through a hundred times what I +went through once. At last, at long last, the play was finished. +</p> + +<p> +For two days I gloated alone over the great pile of manuscript. +</p> + +<p> +Then I went to my mother. +</p> + +<p> +My diffidence was exquisite. It was all I could do to tell her the nature of my +request, when I spoke to her after lunch. At last she understood that I had +written a play, and wished to read it to her. She took me to the bow-window +with gentle solicitude, and waited for me to proceed. +</p> + +<p> +At first she encouraged me, for I faltered over my opening words. But as I +warmed to my work, and as my embarrassment left me, she no longer spoke. Her +eyes were fixed intently upon the blue space beyond the lilac. +</p> + +<p> +I read on and on, till at length my voice trailed over the last line, rose +gallantly at the last fence, the single word <i>Curtain</i>, and abruptly +broke. The strain had been too much for me. +</p> + +<p> +Tenderly my mother drew me to the sofa; and quietly, with closed eyelids, I lay +there until, in the soft cool of the evening, I asked for her verdict. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing, as she did instantly, that it would be more dangerous to deny my +request than to accede to it, she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“That there is an absence, my dear Margie, of any relationship with life, that +not a single character is in any degree human, that passion and virtue and vice +and real feeling are wanting—this surprises me more than I can tell you. I had +expected to listen to a natural, ordinary, unactable episode arranged more or +less in steichomuthics. There is no work so scholarly and engaging as the +amateur’s. But in your play I am amazed to find the touch of the professional +and experienced playwright. Yes, my dear, you have proved that you happen to +possess the quality—one that is most difficult to acquire—of surrounding a +situation which is improbable enough to be convincing with that absurdly +mechanical conversation which the theatre-going public demands. As your mother, +I am disappointed. I had hoped for originality. As your literary well-wisher, I +stifle my maternal feelings and congratulate you unreservedly.” +</p> + +<p> +I thanked my mother effusively. I think I cried a little. +</p> + +<p> +She said affectionately that the hour had been one of great interest to her, +and she added that she would be glad to be consulted with regard to the steps I +contemplated taking in my literary future. +</p> + +<p> +She then resumed her book. +</p> + +<p> +I went to my room and re-read the last letter I had had from James. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>The Barrel Club,<br/> +Covent Garden,<br/> +London.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +MY DARLING MARGIE,—I am writing this line simply and solely for the selfish +pleasure I gain from the act of writing to you. I know everything will come +right some time or other, but at present I am suffering from a bad attack of +the blues. I am like a general who has planned out a brilliant attack, and +realises that he must fail for want of sufficient troops to carry a position, +on the taking of which the whole success of the assault depends. Briefly, my +position is like this. My name is pretty well known in a small sort of way +among editors and the like as that of a man who can turn out fairly good stuff. +Besides this, I have many influential friends. You see where this brings me? I +am in the middle of my attacking movement, and I have not been beaten back; but +the key to the enemy’s position is still uncaptured. You know what this key is +from my other letters. It’s the stage. Ah, Margie, one acting play! Only one! +It would mean everything. Apart from the actual triumph and the direct profits, +it would bring so much with it. The enemy’s flank would be turned, and the rest +of the battle would become a mere rout. I should have an accepted position in +the literary world which would convert all the other avenues to wealth on which +I have my eye instantly into royal roads. Obstacles would vanish. The fact that +I was a successful playwright would make the acceptance of the sort of work I +am doing now inevitable, and I should get paid ten times as well for it. And it +would mean—well, you know what it would mean, don’t you? Darling Margie, tell +me again that I have your love, that the waiting is not too hard, that you +believe in me. Dearest, it will come right in the end. Nothing can prevent +that. Love and the will of a man have always beaten Time and Fate. Write to me, +dear. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Ever your devoted<br/> +James.</i> +</p> + +<p> +How utterly free from thought of self! His magnificent loyalty forgot the +dreadful tension of his own great battle, and pictured only the tedium of +waiting which it was my part to endure. +</p> + +<p> +I finished my letter to James very late that night. It was a very long and +explanatory letter, and it enclosed my play. +</p> + +<p> +The main point I aimed at was not to damp his spirits. He would, I knew well, +see that the play was suitable for staging. He would, in short, see that I, an +inexperienced girl, had done what he, a trained professional writer, had failed +to do. Lest, therefore, his pique should kill admiration and pleasure when he +received my work, I wrote as one begging a favour. “Here,” I said, “we have the +means to achieve all we want. Do not—oh, do not—criticise. I have written down +the words. But the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you. But for +you I should never have begun it. Take my play, James; take it as your own. For +yours it is. Put your name to it, and produce it, if you love me, under your +own signature. If this hurts your pride, I will word my request differently. +You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. You know the +right men to go to. To approach them on behalf of a stranger’s work is far less +likely to lead to success. I have assumed, you will see, that the play is +certain to be produced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own. +Claim the authorship, and all will be well.” +</p> + +<p> +Much more I wrote to James in the same strain; and my reward came next day in +the shape of a telegram: “Accept thankfully.—Cloyster.” +</p> + +<p> +Of the play and its reception by the public there is no need to speak. The +criticisms were all favourable. +</p> + +<p> +Neither the praise of the critics nor the applause of the public aroused any +trace of jealousy in James. Their unanimous note of praise has been a source of +pride to him. He is proud—ah, joy!—that I am to be his wife. +</p> + +<p> +I have blotted the last page of this commonplace love-story of mine. +</p> + +<p> +The moon has come out from behind a cloud, and the whole bay is one vast sheet +of silver. I could sit here at my bedroom window and look at it all night. But +then I should be sure to oversleep myself and be late for breakfast. I shall +read what I have written once more, and then I shall go to bed. +</p> + +<p> +I think I shall wear my white muslin tomorrow. +</p> + +<p> +<i>(End of Miss Margaret Goodwin’s narrative.)</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_PART2"></a> +PART TWO<br/> +James Orlebar Cloyster’s Narrative</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a> +CHAPTER 1<br/> +THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA</h2> + +<p> +It is curious to reflect that my marriage (which takes place today week) +destroys once and for all my life’s ambition. I have never won through to the +goal I longed for, and now I never shall. +</p> + +<p> +Ever since I can remember I have yearned to be known as a Bohemian. That was my +ambition. I have ceased to struggle now. Married Bohemians live in Oakley +Street, King’s Road, Chelsea. We are to rent a house in Halkett Place. +</p> + +<p> +Three years have passed since the excellent, but unsteady, steamship +<i>Ibex</i> brought me from Guernsey to Southampton. It was a sleepy, hot, and +sticky wreck that answered to the name of James Orlebar Cloyster that morning; +but I had my first youth and forty pounds, so that soap and water, followed by +coffee and an omelette, soon restored me. +</p> + +<p> +The journey to Waterloo gave me opportunity for tobacco and reflection. +</p> + +<p> +What chiefly exercised me, I remember, was the problem whether it was possible +to be a Bohemian, and at the same time to be in love. Bohemia I looked on as a +region where one became inevitably entangled with women of unquestionable +charm, but doubtful morality. There were supper parties.... Festive gatherings +in the old studio.... Babette.... Lucille.... The artists’ ball.... Were these +things possible for a man with an honest, earnest, whole-hearted affection? +</p> + +<p> +The problem engaged me tensely till my ticket was collected at Vauxhall. Just +there the solution came. I would be a Bohemian, but a misogynist. People would +say, “Dear old Jimmy Cloyster. How he hates women!” It would add to my +character a pleasant touch of dignity and reserve which would rather accentuate +my otherwise irresponsible way of living. +</p> + +<p> +Little did the good Bohemians of the metropolis know how keen a recruit the +boat train was bringing to them. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +As a <i>pied-à-terre</i> I selected a cheap and dingy hotel in York Street, and +from this base I determined to locate my proper sphere. +</p> + +<p> +Chelsea was the first place that occurred to me. There was St. John’s Wood, of +course, but that was such a long way off. Chelsea was comparatively near to the +heart of things, and I had heard that one might find there artistic people +whose hand-to-mouth, Saturnalian existence was redolent of that exquisite +gaiety which so attracted my own casual temperament. +</p> + +<p> +Sallying out next morning into the brilliant sunshine and the dusty rattle of +York Street, I felt a sense of elation at the thought that the time for action +had come. I was in London. London! The home of the fragrant motor-omnibus and +the night-blooming Hooligan. London, the battlefield of the literary aspirant +since Caxton invented the printing press. It seemed to me, as I walked firmly +across Westminster Bridge, that Margie gazed at me with the lovelight in her +eyes, and that a species of amorous telepathy from Guernsey was girding me for +the fight. +</p> + +<p> +Manresa Road I had once heard mentioned as being the heart of Bohemian Chelsea. +To Manresa Road, accordingly, I went, by way of St. James’s Park, Buckingham +Palace Road, and Lower Sloane Street. Thence to Sloane Square. Here I paused, +for I knew that I had reached the last outpost of respectable, inartistic +London. +</p> + +<p> +“How sudden,” I soliloquised, “is the change. Here I am in Sloane Square, +regular, business-like, and unimaginative; while, a few hundred yards away, +King’s Road leads me into the very midst of genius, starvation, and possibly +Free Love.” +</p> + +<p> +Sloane Square, indeed, gave me the impression, not so much of a suburb as of +the suburban portion of a great London railway terminus. It was positively +pretty. People were shopping with comparative leisure, omnibus horses were +being rubbed down and watered on the west side of the Square, out of the way of +the main stream of traffic. A postman, clearing the letter-box at the office, +stopped his work momentarily to read the contents of a postcard. For the moment +I understood Caesar’s feelings on the brink of the Rubicon, and the emotions of +Cortes “when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific.” I was on the threshold +of great events. Behind me was orthodox London; before me the unknown. +</p> + +<p> +It was distinctly a Caesarian glance, full of deliberate revolt, that I +bestowed upon the street called Sloane; that clean, orderly thoroughfare which +leads to Knightsbridge, and thence either to the respectabilities of Kensington +or the plush of Piccadilly. +</p> + +<p> +Setting my hat at a wild angle, I stepped with a touch of <i>abandon</i> along +the King’s Road to meet the charming, impoverished artists whom our country +refuses to recognise. +</p> + +<p> +My first glimpse of the Manresa Road was, I confess, a complete disappointment. +Never was Bohemianism more handicapped by its setting than that of Chelsea, if +the Manresa Road was to be taken as a criterion. Along the uninviting +uniformity of this street no trace of unorthodoxy was to be seen. There came no +merry, roystering laughter from attic windows. No talented figures of idle +geniuses fetched pints of beer from the public-house at the corner. No one +dressed in an ancient ulster and a battered straw hat and puffing enormous +clouds of blue smoke from a treasured clay pipe gazed philosophically into +space from a doorway. In point of fact, save for a most conventional +butcher-boy, I was alone in the street. +</p> + +<p> +Then the explanation flashed upon me. I had been seen approaching. The word had +been passed round. A stranger! The clique resents intrusion. It lies hid. These +gay fellows see me all the time, and are secretly amused. But they do not know +with whom they have to deal. I have come to join them, and join them I will. I +am not easily beaten. I will outlast them. The joke shall be eventually against +them, at some eccentric supper. I shall chaff them about how they tried to +elude me, and failed. +</p> + +<p> +The hours passed. Still no Bohemians. I began to grow hungry. I sprang on to a +passing ’bus. It took me to Victoria. I lunched at the Shakespeare Hotel, +smoked a pipe, and went out into the sunlight again. It had occurred to me that +night was perhaps the best time for trapping my shy quarry. Possibly the revels +did not begin in Manresa Road till darkness had fallen. I spent the afternoon +and evening in the Park, dined at Lyons’ Popular Café (it must be remembered +that I was not yet a Bohemian, and consequently owed no deference to the +traditions of the order); and returned at nine o’clock to the Manresa Road. +Once more I drew blank. A barrel-organ played cake-walk airs in the middle of +the road, but it played to an invisible audience. No bearded men danced +can-cans around it, shouting merry jests to one another. Solitude reigned. +</p> + +<p> +I wait. The duel continues. What grim determination, what perseverance can +these Bohemians put into a mad jest! I find myself thinking how much better it +would be were they to apply to their Art the same earnestness and fixity of +purpose which they squander on a practical joke. +</p> + +<p> +Evening fell. Blinds began to be drawn down. Lamps were lit behind them, one by +one. Despair was gnawing at my heart, but still I waited. +</p> + +<p> +Then, just as I was about to retire defeated, I was arrested by the appearance +of a house numbered 93A. +</p> + +<p> +At the first-floor window sat a man. He was writing. I could see his profile, +his long untidy hair. I understood in a moment. This was no ordinary writer. He +was one of those Bohemians whose wit had been exercised upon me so +successfully. He was a literary man, and though he enjoyed the sport as much as +any of the others he was under the absolute necessity of writing his copy up to +time. Unobserved by his gay comrades, he had slipped away to his work. They +were still watching me; but he, probably owing to a contract with some journal, +was obliged to give up his share in their merriment and toil with his pen. +</p> + +<p> +His pen fascinated me. I leaned against the railings of the house opposite, +enthralled. Ever and anon he seemed to be consulting one or other of the books +of reference piled up on each side of him. Doubtless he was preparing a +scholarly column for a daily paper. Presently a printer’s devil would arrive, +clamouring for his “copy.” I knew exactly the sort of thing that happened. I +had read about it in novels. +</p> + +<p> +How unerring is instinct, if properly cultivated. Hardly had the clocks struck +twelve when the emissaries—there were two of them, which showed the importance +of their errand—walked briskly to No. 93A, and knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +The writer heard the knock. He rose hurriedly, and began to collect his papers. +Meanwhile, the knocking had been answered from within by the shooting of bolts, +noises that were followed by the apparition of a female head. +</p> + +<p> +A few brief questions and the emissaries entered. A pause. +</p> + +<p> +The litterateur is warning the menials that their charge is sacred; that the +sheets he has produced are impossible to replace. High words. Abrupt re-opening +of the front door. Struggling humanity projected on to the pavement. Three +persons—my scribe in the middle, an emissary on either side—stagger strangely +past me. The scribe enters the purple night only under the stony compulsion of +the emissaries. +</p> + +<p> +What does this mean? +</p> + +<p> +I have it. The emissaries have become over-anxious. They dare not face the +responsibility of conveying the priceless copy to Fleet Street. They have +completely lost their nerve. They insist upon the author accompanying them to +see with his own eyes that all is well. They do not wish Posterity to hand +their names down to eternal infamy as “the men who lost Blank’s manuscript.” +</p> + +<p> +So, greatly against his will, he is dragged off. +</p> + +<p> +My vigil is rewarded. No. 93A harbours a Bohemian. Let it be inhabited also by +me. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped across, and rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +The answer was a piercing scream. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, ha!” I said to myself complacently, “there are more Bohemians than one, +then, in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +The female head again appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Not another? Oh, sir, say there ain’t another wanted,” said the head in a +passionate Cockney accent. +</p> + +<p> +“That is precisely what there is,” I replied. “I want——” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“For something moderate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s a comfort in a wiy. Which of ’em is it you want? The first-floor +back?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt the first-floor back would do quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +My words had a curious effect. She scrutinised me suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho!” she said, with a sniff; “you don’t seem to care much which it is you +get.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” I said, “not particularly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look ’ere,” she exclaimed, “you jest ’op it. See? I don’t want none of your +’arf-larks here, and, what’s more, I won’t ’ave ’em. I don’t believe you’re a +copper at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not. Far from it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what d’yer mean coming ’ere saying you want my first-floor back?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do. Or any other room, if that is occupied.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow! <i>Room</i>? Why didn’t yer siy so? You’ll pawdon me, sir, if I’ve said +anything ’asty-like. I thought—but my mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. Can you let me have a room? I notice that the gentleman whom I +have just seen——” +</p> + +<p> +She cut me short. I was about to explain that I was a Bohemian, too. +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s gorn for a stroll, sir. I expec’ him back every moment. ’E’s forgot ’is +latchkey. Thet’s why I’m sitting up for ’im. Mrs. Driver my name is, sir. +That’s my name, and well known in the neighbour’ood.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Driver spoke earnestly, but breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not contemplate asking you, Mrs. Driver, to give me the apartments +already engaged by the literary gentleman——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” she interpolated, “that’s wot ’e wos, I mean is. A literary gent.” +</p> + +<p> +“But have you not another room vacant?” +</p> + +<p> +“The second-floor back, sir. Very comfortable, nice room, sir. Shady in the +morning, and gets the setting sun.” +</p> + +<p> +Had the meteorological conditions been adverse to the point of malignancy, I +should have closed with her terms. Simple agreements were ratified then and +there by the light of a candle in the passage, and I left the house, promising +to “come in” in the course of the following afternoon. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a> +CHAPTER 2<br/> +I EVACUATE BOHEMIA</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloister’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +The three weeks which I spent at No. 93A mark an epoch in my life. It was +during that period that I came nearest to realising my ambition to be a +Bohemian; and at the end of the third week, for reasons which I shall state, I +deserted Bohemia, firmly and with no longing, lingering glance behind, and +settled down to the prosaic task of grubbing earnestly for money. +</p> + +<p> +The second-floor back had a cupboard of a bedroom leading out of it. Even I, +desirous as I was of seeing romance in everything, could not call my lodgings +anything but dingy, dark, and commonplace. They were just like a million other +of London’s mean lodgings. The window looked out over a sea of backyards, +bounded by tall, depressing houses, and intersected by clothes-lines. A cats’ +club (social, musical, and pugilistic) used to meet on the wall to the right of +my window. One or two dissipated trees gave the finishing touch of gloom to the +scene. Nor was the interior of the room more cheerful. The furniture had been +put in during the reign of George III, and last dusted in that of William and +Mary. A black horse-hair sofa ran along one wall. There was a deal table, a +chair, and a rickety bookcase. It was a room for a realist to write in; and my +style, such as it was, was bright and optimistic. +</p> + +<p> +Once in, I set about the task of ornamenting my abode with much vigour. I had +my own ideas of mural decoration. I papered the walls with editorial rejection +forms, of which I was beginning to have a representative collection. Properly +arranged, these look very striking. There is a good deal of variety about them. +The ones I liked best were those which I received, at the rate of three a week, +bearing a very pleasing picture, in green, of the publishing offices at the top +of the sheet of note-paper. Scattered about in sufficient quantities, these +lend an air of distinction to a room. <i>Pearson’s Magazine</i> also supplies a +taking line in rejection forms. <i>Punch</i>’s I never cared for very much. +Neat, I grant you; but, to my mind, too cold. I like a touch of colour in a +rejection form. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to these, I purchased from the grocer at the corner a collection of +pictorial advertisements. What I had really wanted was the theatrical poster, +printed and signed by well-known artists. But the grocer didn’t keep them, and +I was impatient to create my proper atmosphere. My next step was to buy a +corncob pipe and a quantity of rank, jet-black tobacco. I hated both, and kept +them more as ornaments than for use. +</p> + +<p> +Then, having hacked my table about with a knife and battered it with a poker +till it might have been the table of a shaggy and unrecognised genius, I +settled down to work. +</p> + +<p> +I was not a brilliant success. I had that “little knowledge” which is held to +be such a dangerous thing. I had not plunged into the literary profession +without learning a few facts about it. I had read nearly every journalistic +novel and “Hints on Writing for the Papers” book that had ever been published. +In theory I knew all that there was to be known about writing. Now, all my +authorities were very strong on one point. “Write,” they said, very loud and +clear, “not what <i>you</i> like, but what editors like.” I smiled to myself +when I started. I felt that I had stolen a march on my rivals. “All round me,” +I said to myself, “are young authors bombarding editors with essays on +Lucretius, translations of Martial, and disquisitions on Ionic comedy. I know +too much for that. I work on a different plan.” “Study the papers, and see what +they want,” said my authorities. I studied the papers. Some wanted one thing, +apparently, others another. There was one group of three papers whose needs +seemed to coincide, and I could see an article rejected by one paper being +taken by another. This offered me a number of chances instead of one. I could +back my MSS. to win or for a place. I began a serious siege of these three +papers. +</p> + +<p> +By the end of the second week I had had “Curious Freaks of Eccentric +Testators,” “Singular Scenes in Court,” “Actors Who Have Died on the Stage,” +“Curious Scenes in Church,” and seven others rejected by all three. Somehow +this sort of writing is not so easy as it looks. A man who was on the staff of +a weekly once told me that he had had two thousand of these articles printed +since he started—poor devil. He had the knack. I could never get it. I sent up +fifty-three in all in the first year of my literary life, and only two stuck. I +got fifteen shillings from one periodical for “Men Who Have Missed Their Own +Weddings,” and, later, a guinea from the same for “Single Day Marriages.” That +paper has a penchant for the love-interest. Yet when I sent it my “Duchesses +Who Have Married Dustmen,” it came back by the early post next day. That was to +me the worst part of those grey days. I had my victories, but they were always +followed by a series of defeats. I would have a manuscript accepted by an +editor. “Hullo,” I would say, “here’s the man at last, the +Editor-Who-Believes-In-Me. Let the thing go on.” I would send him off another +manuscript. He would take it. Victory, by Jove! Then—<i>wonk</i>! Back would +come my third effort with the curtest of refusals. I always imagined editors in +those days to be pettish, whimsical men who amused themselves by taking up a +beginner, and then, wearying of the sport, dropped him back into the slime from +which they had picked him. +</p> + +<p> +In the intervals of articles I wrote short stories, again for the same three +papers. As before, I studied these papers carefully to see what they wanted; +then worked out a mechanical plot, invariably with a quarrel in the first part, +an accident, and a rescue in the middle, and a reconciliation at the end—told +it in a style that makes me hot all over when I think of it, and sent it up, +enclosing a stamped addressed envelope in case of rejection. A very useful +precaution, as it always turned out. +</p> + +<p> +It was the little knowledge to which I have referred above which kept my walls +so thickly covered with rejection forms. I was in precisely the same condition +as a man who has been taught the rudiments of boxing. I knew just enough to +hamper me, and not enough to do me any good. If I had simply blundered straight +at my work and written just what occurred to me in my own style, I should have +done much better. I have a sense of humour. I deliberately stifled it. For it I +substituted a grisly kind of playfulness. My hero called my heroine “little +woman,” and the concluding passage where he kissed her was written in a sly, +roguish vein, for which I suppose I shall have to atone in the next world. Only +the editor of the <i>Colney Hatch Argus</i> could have accepted work like mine. +Yet I toiled on. +</p> + +<p> +It was about the middle of my third week at No. 93A that I definitely decided +to throw over my authorities, and work by the light of my own intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly all my authorities had been very severe on the practice of +verse-writing. It was, they asserted, what all young beginners tried to do, and +it was the one thing editors would never look at. In the first ardour of my +revolt I determined to do a set of verses. +</p> + +<p> +It happened that the weather had been very bad for the last few days. After a +month and a half of sunshine the rain had suddenly begun to fall. I took this +as my topic. It was raining at the time. I wrote a satirical poem, full of +quaint rhymes. +</p> + +<p> +I had always had rather a turn for serious verse. It struck me that the rain +might be treated poetically as well as satirically. That night I sent off two +sets of verses to a daily and an evening paper. Next day both were in print, +with my initials to them. +</p> + +<p> +I began to see light. +</p> + +<p> +“Verse is the thing,” I said. “I will reorganise my campaign. First the +skirmishers, then the real attack. I will peg along with verses till somebody +begins to take my stories and articles.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt easier in my mind than I had felt for some time. A story came back by +the nine o’clock post from a monthly magazine (to which I had sent it from mere +bravado), but the thing did not depress me. I got out my glue-pot and began to +fasten the rejection form to the wall, whistling a lively air as I did so. +</p> + +<p> +While I was engaged in this occupation there was a testy rap at the door, and +Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with the rejection form with a +severe frown. After a preliminary sniff she embarked upon a rapid lecture on +what she called my irregular and untidy habits. I had turned her second-floor +back, she declared, into a pig-stye. +</p> + +<p> +“Sech a litter,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I protested, “this is a Bohemian house, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +She appeared so shocked—indeed, so infuriated, that I dared not give her time +to answer. +</p> + +<p> +“The gentleman below, he’s not very tidy,” I added diplomatically. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot gent below?” said Mrs. Driver. +</p> + +<p> +I reminded her of the night of my arrival. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’<i>im</i>,” she said, shaken. “Well, ’e’s not come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Driver,” I said sternly, “you said he’d gone out for a stroll. I refuse +to believe that any man would stroll for three weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I did say it,” was the defiant reply. “I said it so as you shouldn’t be put +off coming. You looked a steady young feller, and I wanted a let. Wish I’d told +you the truth, if it ’ad a-stopped you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“’E was a wrong ’un, ’e wos. Writing begging letters to parties as was a bit +soft, that wos ’<i>is</i> little gime. But ’e wos a bit too clever one day, and +the coppers got ’im. Now you know!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Driver paused after this outburst, and allowed her eye to wander slowly +and ominously round my walls. +</p> + +<p> +I was deeply moved. My one link with Bohemia had turned out a fraud. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Driver’s voice roused me from my meditations. +</p> + +<p> +“I must arst you to be good enough, if <i>you</i> please, kindly to remove +those there bits of paper.” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed to the rejection forms. +</p> + +<p> +I hesitated. I felt that it was a thing that ought to be broken gently. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, Mrs. Driver,” I said, “and no one can regret it more deeply than +I do—the fact is, they’re stuck on with glue.” +</p> + +<p> +Two minutes later I had received my marching orders, and the room was still +echoing with the slam of the door as it closed behind the indignant form of my +landlady. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a> +CHAPTER 3<br/> +THE ORB</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +The problem of lodgings in London is an easy one to a man with an adequate +supply of money in his pocket. The only difficulty is to select the most +suitable, to single out from the eager crowd the ideal landlady. +</p> + +<p> +Evicted from No. 93A, it seemed to me that I had better abandon Bohemia; +postpone my connection with that land of lotus-eaters for the moment, while I +provided myself with the means of paying rent and buying dinners. Farther down +the King’s Road there were comfortable rooms to be had for a moderate sum per +week. They were prosaic, but inexpensive. I chose Walpole Street. A fairly +large bed-sitting room was vacant at No. 23. I took it, and settled down +seriously to make my writing pay. +</p> + +<p> +There were advantages in Walpole Street which Manresa Road had lacked. For one +thing, there was more air, and it smelt less than the Manresa Road air. Walpole +Street is bounded by Burton Court, where the Household Brigade plays cricket, +and the breezes from the river come to it without much interruption. There was +also more quiet. No. 23 is the last house in the street, and, even when I sat +with my window open, the noise of traffic from the King’s Road was faint and +rather pleasant. It was an excellent spot for a man who meant to work. Except +for a certain difficulty in getting my landlady and her daughters out of the +room when they came to clear away my meals and talk about the better days they +had seen, and a few imbroglios with the eight cats which infested the house, it +was the best spot, I think, that I could have chosen. +</p> + +<p> +Living a life ruled by the strictest economy, I gradually forged ahead. Verse, +light and serious, continued my long suit. I generally managed to place two of +each brand a week; and that meant two guineas, sometimes more. One particularly +pleasing thing about this verse-writing was that there was no delay, as there +was with my prose. I would write a set of verses for a daily paper after tea, +walk to Fleet Street with them at half-past six, thus getting a little +exercise; leave them at the office; and I would see them in print in the next +morning’s issue. Payment was equally prompt. The rule was, Send in your bill +before five on Wednesday, and call for payment on Friday at seven. Thus I had +always enough money to keep me going during the week. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to verses, I kept turning out a great quantity of prose, fiction, +and otherwise, but without much success. The visits of the postmen were the big +events of the day at that time. Before I had been in Walpole Street a week I +could tell by ear the difference between a rejected manuscript and an ordinary +letter. There is a certain solid <i>plop</i> about the fall of the former which +not even a long envelope full of proofs can imitate successfully. +</p> + +<p> +I worked extraordinarily hard at that time. All day, sometimes. The thought of +Margie waiting in Guernsey kept me writing when I should have done better to +have taken a rest. My earnings were small in proportion to my labour. The +guineas I made, except from verse, were like the ounce of gold to the ton of +ore. I no longer papered the walls with rejection forms; but this was from +choice, not from necessity. I had plenty of material, had I cared to use it. +</p> + +<p> +I made a little money, of course. My takings for the first month amounted to #9 +10s. I notched double figures in the next with #ll 1s. 6d. Then I dropped to #7 +0s. 6d. It was not starvation, but it was still more unlike matrimony. +</p> + +<p> +But at the end of the sixth month there happened to me what, looking back, I +consider to be the greatest piece of good fortune of my life. I received a +literary introduction. Some authorities scoff at literary introductions. They +say that editors read everything, whether they know the author or not. So they +do; and, if the work is not good, a letter to the editor from a man who once +met his cousin at a garden-party is not likely to induce him to print it. There +is no journalistic “ring” in the sense in which the word is generally used; but +there are undoubtedly a certain number of men who know the ropes, and can act +as pilots in a strange sea; and an introduction brings one into touch with +them. There is a world of difference between contributing blindly work which +seems suitable to the style of a paper and sending in matter designed to +attract the editor personally. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Macrae, whose pupil I had been at Cambridge, was the author of my letter of +introduction. At St. Gabriel’s, Mr. Macrae had been a man for whom I +entertained awe and respect. Likes and dislikes in connection with one’s tutor +seemed outside the question. Only a chance episode had shown me that my tutor +was a mortal with a mortal’s limitations. We were bicycling together one day +along the Trumpington Road, when a form appeared, coming to meet us. My tutor’s +speech grew more and more halting as the form came nearer. At last he stopped +talking altogether, and wobbled in his saddle. The man bowed to him, and, as if +he had won through some fiery ordeal, he shot ahead like a gay professional +rider. When I drew level with him, he said, “That, Mr. Cloyster, is my tailor.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Macrae was typical of the University don who is Scotch. He had married the +senior historian of Newnham. He lived (and still lives) by proxy. His +publishers order his existence. His honeymoon had been placed at the disposal +of these gentlemen, and they had allotted to that period an edition of +Aristotle’s Ethics. Aristotle, accordingly, received the most scholarly +attention from the recently united couple somewhere on the slopes of Mount +Parnassus. All the reviews were satisfactory. +</p> + +<p> +In my third year at St. Gabriel’s it was popularly supposed that Master +Pericles Aeschylus, Mr. Macrae’s infant son, was turned to correct my Latin +prose, though my Iambics were withheld from him at the request of the family +doctor. +</p> + +<p> +The letter which Pericles Aeschylus’s father had addressed to me was one of the +pleasantest surprises I have ever had. It ran as follows: +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>St. Gabriel’s College,<br/> +Cambridge.</i> +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +MY DEAR CLOYSTER,—The divergence of our duties and pleasures during your +residence here caused us to see but little of each other. Would it had been +otherwise! And too often our intercourse had—on my side—a distinctly +professional flavour. Your attitude towards your religious obligations was, I +fear, something to seek. Indeed, the line, “<i>Pastor deorum cultor et +infrequens</i>,” might have been directly inspired by your views on the keeping +of Chapels. On the other hand, your contributions to our musical festivities +had the true Aristophanes <i>panache</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I hear you are devoting yourself to literature, and I beg that you will avail +yourself of the enclosed note, which is addressed to a personal friend of mine. +</p> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +Believe me,<br/> +<i>Your well-wisher,<br/> +David Ossian Macrae.</i> +</p> + +<p> +The enclosure bore this inscription: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +CHARLES FERMIN, ESQ.,<br/> +Offices of the <i>Orb</i>,<br/> +Strand,<br/> +London. +</p> + +<p> +I had received the letter at breakfast. I took a cab, and drove straight to the +<i>Orb</i>. +</p> + +<p> +A painted hand, marked “Editorial,” indicated a flight of stairs. At the top of +these I was confronted by a glass door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, +sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a +telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two +advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a +Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with a paroxysm +of suppressed hysteria. +</p> + +<p> +My letter was taken down a mysterious stone passage. After some waiting the +messenger returned with the request that I would come back at eleven, as Mr. +Fermin would be very busy till then. +</p> + +<p> +I went out into the Strand, and sought a neighbouring hostelry. It was +essential that I should be brilliant at the coming interview, if only +spirituously brilliant; and I wished to remove a sensation of stomachic +emptiness, such as I had been wont to feel at school when approaching the +headmaster’s study. +</p> + +<p> +At eleven I returned, and asked again for Mr. Fermin; and presently he +appeared—a tall, thin man, who gave one the impression of being in a hurry. I +knew him by reputation as a famous quarter-miler. He had been president of the +O.U.A.C. some years back. He looked as if at any moment he might dash off in +any direction at quarter-mile pace. +</p> + +<p> +We shook hands, and I tried to look intelligent. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to have to keep you waiting,” he said, as we walked to his club; “but we +are always rather busy between ten and eleven, putting the column through. +Gresham and I do ‘On Your Way,’ you know. The last copy has to be down by +half-past ten.” +</p> + +<p> +We arrived at the Club, and sat in a corner of the lower smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Macrae says that you are going in for writing. Of course, I’ll do anything I +can, but it isn’t easy to help a man. As it happens, though, I can put you in +the way of something, if it’s your style of work. Do you ever do verse?” +</p> + +<p> +I felt like a batsman who sees a slow full-toss sailing through the air. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the only thing I can get taken,” I said. “I’ve had quite a lot in the +<i>Chronicle</i> and occasional bits in other papers.” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed relieved. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right, then,” he said. “You know ‘On Your Way.’ Perhaps you’d +care to come in and do that for a bit? It’s only holiday work, but it’ll last +five weeks. And if you do it all right I can get you the whole of the holiday +work on the column. That comes to a good lot in the year. We’re always taking +odd days off. Can you come up at a moment’s notice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Easily,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, you see, if you did that you would drop into the next vacancy on the +column. There’s no saying when one may occur. It’s like the General Election. +It may happen tomorrow, or not for years. Still, you’d be on the spot in case.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully good of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I was rather in difficulties about getting a +holiday man. I’m off to Scotland the day after tomorrow, and I had to find a +sub. Well, then, will you come in on Monday?” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve had no experience of newspaper work, have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all the work at the <i>Orb’s</i> done between nine and eleven. You must +be there at nine sharp. Literally sharp, I mean. Not half-past. And you’d +better do some stuff overnight for the first week or so. You’ll find working in +the office difficult till you get used to it. Of course, though, you’ll always +have Gresham there, so there’s no need to get worried. He can fill the column +himself, if he’s pushed. Four or five really good paragraphs a day and an +occasional set of verses are all he’ll want from you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see.” +</p> + +<p> +“On Monday, then. Nine sharp. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +I walked home along Piccadilly with almost a cake-walk stride. At last I was in +the inner circle. +</p> + +<p> +An <i>Orb</i> cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He was one of +<i>Us</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a> +CHAPTER 4<br/> +JULIAN EVERSLEIGH</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +I determined to celebrate the occasion by dining out, going to a theatre, and +having supper afterwards, none of which things were ordinarily within my means. +I had not been to a theatre since I had arrived in town; and, except on +Saturday nights, I always cooked my own dinner, a process which was cheap, and +which appealed to the passion for Bohemianism which I had not wholly cast out +of me. +</p> + +<p> +The morning paper informed me that there were eleven musical comedies, three +Shakespeare plays, a blank verse drama, and two comedies (“last weeks”) for me +to choose from. I bought a stall at the Briggs Theatre. Stanley Briggs, who +afterwards came to bulk large in my small world, was playing there in a musical +comedy which had had even more than the customary musical-comedy success. +</p> + +<p> +London by night had always had an immense fascination for me. Coming out of the +restaurant after supper, I felt no inclination to return to my lodgings, and +end the greatest night of my life tamely with a book and a pipe. Here was I, a +young man, fortified by an excellent supper, in the heart of Stevenson’s +London. Why should I have no New Arabian Night adventure? I would stroll about +for half an hour, and give London a chance of living up to its reputation. +</p> + +<p> +I walked slowly along Piccadilly, and turned up Rupert Street. A magic name. +Prince Florizel of Bohemia had ended his days there in his tobacconist’s divan. +Mr. Gilbert’s Policeman Forth had been discovered there by the men of London at +the end of his long wanderings through Soho. Probably, if the truth were known, +Rudolf Rassendyl had spent part of his time there. It could not be that Rupert +Street would send me empty away. +</p> + +<p> +My confidence was not abused. Turning into Rupert Court, a dark and suggestive +passage some short distance up the street on the right, I found a curious +little comedy being played. +</p> + +<p> +A door gave on to the deserted passageway, and on each side of it stood a +man—the lurcher type of man that is bred of London streets. The door opened +inwards. Another man stepped out. The hands of one of the lurchers flew to the +newcomer’s mouth. The hands of the other lurcher flew to the newcomer’s +pockets. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment I advanced. +</p> + +<p> +The lurchers vanished noiselessly and instantaneously. +</p> + +<p> +Their victim held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, won’t you?” he said, smiling sleepily at me. +</p> + +<p> +I followed him in, murmuring something about “caught in the act.” +</p> + +<p> +He repeated the phrase as we went upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Caught in the act.’ Yes, they are ingenious creatures. Let me introduce +myself. My name is Julian Eversleigh. Sit down, won’t you? Excuse me for a +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +He crossed to a writing-table. +</p> + +<p> +Julian Eversleigh inhabited a single room of irregular shape. It was small, and +situated immediately under the roof. One side had a window which overlooked +Rupert Court. The view from it was, however, restricted, because the window was +inset, so that the walls projecting on either side prevented one seeing more +than a yard or two of the court. +</p> + +<p> +The room contained a hammock, a large tin bath, propped up against the wall, a +big wardrobe, a couple of bookcases, a deal writing-table—at which the +proprietor was now sitting with a pen in his mouth, gazing at the ceiling—and a +divan-like formation of rugs and cube sugar boxes. +</p> + +<p> +The owner of this mixed lot of furniture wore a very faded blue serge suit, the +trousers baggy at the knees and the coat threadbare at the elbows. He had the +odd expression which green eyes combined with red hair give a man. +</p> + +<p> +“Caught in the act,” he was murmuring. “Caught in the act.” +</p> + +<p> +The phrase seemed to fascinate him. +</p> + +<p> +I had established myself on the divan, and was puffing at a cigar, which I had +bought by way of setting the coping-stone on my night’s extravagance, before he +got up from his writing. +</p> + +<p> +“Those fellows,” he said, producing a bottle of whisky and a syphon from one of +the lower drawers of the wardrobe, “did me a double service. They introduced me +to you—say when—and they gave me——” +</p> + +<p> +“When.” +</p> + +<p> +“—an idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how did it happen?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite simple,” he answered. “You see, my friends, when they call on me late at +night, can’t get in by knocking at the front door. It is a shop-door, and is +locked early. Vancott, my landlord, is a baker, and, as he has to be up making +muffins somewhere about five in the morning—we all have our troubles—he does +not stop up late. So people who want me go into the court, and see whether my +lamp is burning by the window. If it is, they stand below and shout, ‘Julian,’ +till I open the door into the court. That’s what happened tonight. I heard my +name called, went down, and walked into the arms of the enterprising gentlemen +whom you chanced to notice. They must have been very hungry, for even if they +had carried the job through they could not have expected to make their +fortunes. In point of fact, they would have cleared one-and-threepence. But +when you’re hungry you can see no further than the pit of your stomach. Do you +know, I almost sympathise with the poor brutes. People sometimes say to me, +‘What are you?’ I have often half a mind to reply, ‘I have been hungry.’ My +stars, be hungry once, and you’re educated, if you don’t die of it, for a +lifetime.” +</p> + +<p> +This sort of talk from a stranger might have been the prelude to an appeal for +financial assistance. +</p> + +<p> +He dissipated that half-born thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be uneasy,” he said; “you have not been lured up here by the ruse of a +clever borrower. I can do a bit of touching when in the mood, mind you, but +you’re safe. You are here because I see that you are a pleasant fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” he continued, “I am not hungry at present. In fact, I shall never be +hungry again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re lucky,” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“I am. I am the fortunate possessor of the knack of writing advertisements.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed,” I said, feeling awkward, for I saw that I ought to be impressed. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” he said, laughing outright. “You’re not impressed in the least, really. +But I’ll ask you to consider what advertisements mean. First, they are the +life-essence of every newspaper, every periodical, and every book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every book?” +</p> + +<p> +“Practically, yes. Most books contain some latent support of a fashion in +clothes or food or drink, or of some pleasant spot or phase of benevolence or +vice, all of which form the interest of one or other of the sections of +society, which sections require publicity at all costs for their respective +interests.” +</p> + +<p> +I was about to probe searchingly into so optimistic a view of modern +authorship, but he stalled me off by proceeding rapidly with his discourse. +</p> + +<p> +“Apart, however, from the less obvious modes of advertising, you’ll agree that +this is the age of all ages for the man who can write puffs. ‘Good wine needs +no bush’ has become a trade paradox, ‘Judge by appearances,’ a commercial +platitude. The man who is ambitious and industrious turns his trick of writing +into purely literary channels, and becomes a novelist. The man who is not +ambitious and not industrious, and who does not relish the prospect of becoming +a loafer in Strand wine-shops, writes advertisements. The gold-bearing area is +always growing. It’s a Tom Tiddler’s ground. It is simply a question of picking +up the gold and silver. The industrious man picks up as much as he wants. +Personally, I am easily content. An occasional nugget satisfies me. Here’s +tonight’s nugget, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +I took the paper he handed to me. It bore the words: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +CAUGHT IN THE ACT +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +CAUGHT IN THE ACT of drinking Skeffington’s Sloe Gin, a man will always present +a happy and smiling appearance. Skeffington’s Sloe Gin adds a crowning pleasure +to prosperity, and is a consolation in adversity. Of all Grocers. +</p> + +<p> +“Skeffington’s,” he said, “pay me well. I’m worth money to them, and they know +it. At present they are giving me a retainer to keep my work exclusively for +them. The stuff they have put on the market is neither better nor worse than +the average sloe gin. But my advertisements have given it a tremendous vogue. +It is the only brand that grocers stock. Since I made the firm issue a weekly +paper called <i>Skeffington’s Poultry Farmer</i>, free to all country +customers, the consumption of sloe gin has been enormous among agriculturists. +My idea, too, of supplying suburban buyers gratis with a small drawing-book, +skeleton illustrations, and four coloured chalks, has made the drink popular +with children. You must have seen the poster I designed. There’s a reduced copy +behind you. The father of a family is unwrapping a bottle of Skeffington’s Sloe +Gin. His little ones crowd round him, laughing and clapping their hands. The +man’s wife is seen peeping roguishly in through the door. Beneath is the +popular catch-phrase, “Ain’t mother going to ’ave none?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a genius,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly that,” he said. “At least, I have no infinite capacity for taking +pains. I am one of Nature’s slackers. Despite my talent for drawing up +advertisements, I am often in great straits owing to my natural inertia and a +passionate love of sleep. I sleep on the slightest provocation or excuse. I +will back myself to sleep against anyone in the world, no age, weight, or +colour barred. You, I should say, are of a different temperament. More +energetic. The Get On or Get Out sort of thing. The Young Hustler.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather,” I replied briskly, “I am in love.” +</p> + +<p> +“So am I,” said Julian Eversleigh. “Hopelessly, however. Give us a match.” +</p> + +<p> +After that we confirmed our friendship by smoking a number of pipes together. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a> +CHAPTER 5<br/> +THE COLUMN</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +After the first week “On Your Way,” on the <i>Orb</i>, offered hardly any +difficulty. The source of material was the morning papers, which were placed in +a pile on our table at nine o’clock. The halfpenny papers were our principal +support. Gresham and I each took one, and picked it clean. We attended first to +the Subject of the Day. This was generally good for two or three paragraphs of +verbal fooling. There was a sort of tradition that the first half-dozen +paragraphs should be topical. The rest might be topical or not, as occasion +served. +</p> + +<p> +The column usually opened with a one-line pun—Gresham’s invention. +</p> + +<p> +Gresham was a man of unparalleled energy and ingenuity. He had created several +of the typical characters who appeared from time to time in “On Your Way,” as, +for instance, Mrs. Jenkinson, our Mrs. Malaprop, and Jones junior, our “howler” +manufacturing schoolboy. He was also a stout apostle of a mode of expression +which he called “funny language.” Thus, instead of writing boldly: “There is a +rumour that——,” I was taught to say, “It has got about that——.” This sounds +funnier in print, so Gresham said. I could never see it myself. +</p> + +<p> +Gresham had a way of seizing on any bizarre incident reported in the morning +papers, enfolding it in “funny language,” adding a pun, and thus making it his +own. He had a cunning mastery of periphrasis, and a telling command of adverbs. +</p> + +<p> +Here is an illustration. An account was given one morning by the Central news +of the breaking into of a house at Johnsonville (Mich.) by a negro, who had +stolen a quantity of greenbacks. The thief, escaping across some fields, was +attacked by a cow, which, after severely injuring the negro, ate the +greenbacks. +</p> + +<p> +Gresham’s unacknowledged version of the episode ran as follows: +</p> + +<p> +“The sleepy god had got the stranglehold on John Denville when Caesar Bones, a +coloured gentleman, entered John’s house at Johnsonville (Mich.) about +midnight. Did the nocturnal caller disturb his slumbering host? No. Caesar +Bones has the finer feelings. But as he was noiselessly retiring, what did he +see? Why, a pile of greenbacks which John had thoughtlessly put away in a +fire-proof safe.” +</p> + +<p> +To prevent the story being cut out by the editor, who revised all the proofs of +the column, with the words “too long” scribbled against it, Gresham continued +his tale in another paragraph. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Dis am berry insecure,’ murmured the visitor to himself, transplanting the +notes in a neighbourly way into his pocket. Mark the sequel. The noble Caesar +met, on his homeward path, an irritable cudster. The encounter was brief. +Caesar went weak in the second round, and took the count in the third. Elated +by her triumph, and hungry from her exertions, the horned quadruped nosed the +wad of paper money and daringly devoured it. Caesar has told the court that if +he is convicted of felony, he will arraign the owner of the ostrich-like bovine +on a charge of receiving stolen goods. The owner merely ejaculates ‘Black +male!’” +</p> + +<p> +On his day Gresham could write the column and have a hundred lines over by ten +o’clock. I, too, found plenty of copy as a rule, though I continued my practice +of doing a few paragraphs overnight. But every now and then fearful days would +come, when the papers were empty of material for our purposes, and when two out +of every half-dozen paragraphs which we did succeed in hammering out were +returned deleted on the editor’s proof. +</p> + +<p> +The tension at these times used to be acute. The head printer would send up a +relay of small and grubby boys to remind us that “On Your Way” was fifty lines +short. At ten o’clock he would come in person, and be plaintive. +</p> + +<p> +Gresham, the old hand, applied to such occasions desperate remedies. He would +manufacture out of even the most pointless item of news two paragraphs by +adding to his first the words, “This reminds us of Mr. Punch’s famous story.” +He would then go through the bound volumes of <i>Punch</i>—we had about a dozen +in the room—with lightning speed until he chanced upon a more or less +appropriate tag. +</p> + +<p> +Those were mornings when verses would be padded out from three stanzas to five, +Gresham turning them out under fifteen minutes. He had a wonderful facility for +verse. +</p> + +<p> +As a last expedient one fell back upon a standing column, a moth-eaten +collection of alleged jests which had been set up years ago to meet the worst +emergencies. It was, however, considered a confession of weakness and a +degradation to use this column. +</p> + +<p> +We had also in our drawer a book of American witticisms, published in New York. +To cut one out, preface it with “A good American story comes to hand,” and pin +it on a slip was a pleasing variation of the usual mode of constructing a +paragraph. Gresham and I each had our favourite method. Personally, I had +always a partiality for dealing with “buffers.” “The brakes refused to act, and +the train struck the buffers at the end of the platform” invariably suggested +that if elderly gentlemen would abstain from loitering on railway platforms, +they would not get hurt in this way. +</p> + +<p> +Gresham had a similar liking for “turns.” “The performance at the Frivoli Music +Hall was in full swing when the scenery was noticed to be on fire. The audience +got a turn. An extra turn.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian Eversleigh, to whom I told my experiences on the <i>Orb</i>, said he +admired the spirit with which I entered into my duties. He said, moreover, that +I had a future before me, not only as a journalist, but as a writer. +</p> + +<p> +Nor, indeed, could I help seeing for myself that I was getting on. I was making +a fair income now, and had every prospect of making a much better one. My +market was not restricted. Verses, articles, and fiction from my pen were being +accepted with moderate regularity by many of the minor periodicals. My scope +was growing distinctly wider. I found, too, that my work seemed to meet with a +good deal more success when I sent it in from the <i>Orb</i>, with a letter to +the editor on <i>Orb</i> notepaper. +</p> + +<p> +Altogether, my five weeks on the <i>Orb</i> were invaluable to me. I ought to +have paid rather than have taken payment for working on the column. By the time +Fermin came back from Scotland to turn me out, I was a professional. I had +learned the art of writing against time. I had learned to ignore noise, which, +for a writer in London, is the most valuable quality of all. Every day at the +<i>Orb</i> I had had to turn out my stuff with the hum of the Strand traffic in +my ears, varied by an occasional barrel-organ, the whistling of popular songs +by the printers, whose window faced ours, and the clatter of a typewriter in +the next room. Often I had to turn out a paragraph or a verse while listening +and making appropriate replies to some other member of the staff, who had +wandered into our room to pass the time of day or read out a bit of his own +stuff which had happened to please him particularly. All this gave me a power +of concentration, without which writing is difficult in this city of noises. +</p> + +<p> +The friendship I formed with Gresham too, besides being pleasant, was of +infinite service to me. He knew all about the game. I followed his advice, and +prospered. His encouragement was as valuable as his advice. He was my pilot, +and saw me, at great trouble to himself, through the dangerous waters. +</p> + +<p> +I foresaw that the future held out positive hope that my marriage with Margaret +would become possible. And yet—— +</p> + +<p> +Pausing in the midst of my castle-building, I suffered a sense of revulsion. I +had been brought up to believe that the only adjective that could be coupled +with the noun “journalism” was “precarious.” Was I not, as Gresham would have +said, solving an addition sum in infantile poultry before their mother, the +feathered denizen of the farmyard, had lured them from their shell? Was I not +mistaking a flash in the pan for a genuine success? +</p> + +<p> +These thoughts numbed my fingers in the act of writing to Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +Instead, therefore, of the jubilant letter I had intended to send her, I wrote +one of quite a different tone. I mentioned the arduous nature of my work. I +referred to the struggle in which I was engaged. I indicated cleverly that I +was a man of extraordinary courage battling with fate. I implied that I made +just enough to live on. +</p> + +<p> +It would have been cruel to arouse expectations which might never be fulfilled. +In this letter, accordingly, and in subsequent letters, I rather went to the +opposite extreme. Out of pure regard for Margaret, I painted my case +unnecessarily black. Considerations of a similar nature prompted me to keep on +my lodging in Walpole Street. I had two rooms instead of one, but they were +furnished severely and with nothing but the barest necessaries. +</p> + +<p> +I told myself through it all that I loved Margaret as dearly as ever. Yet there +were moments, and they seemed to come more frequently as the days went on, when +I found myself wondering. Did I really want to give up all this? The +untidiness, the scratch meals, the nights with Julian? And, when I was honest, +I answered, No. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow Margaret seemed out of place in this new world of mine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a> +CHAPTER 6<br/> +NEW YEAR’S EVE</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +The morning of New Year’s Eve was a memorable one for me. My first novel was +accepted. Not an ambitious volume. It was rather short, and the plot was not +obtrusive. The sporting gentlemen who accepted it, however—Messrs. Prodder and +Way—seemed pleased with it; though, when I suggested a sum in cash in advance +of royalties, they displayed a most embarrassing coyness—and also, as events +turned out, good sense. +</p> + +<p> +I carried the good news to Julian, whom I found, as usual, asleep in his +hammock. I had fallen into the habit of calling on him after my <i>Orb</i> +work. He was generally sleepy when I arrived, at half-past eleven, and while we +talked I used to make his breakfast act as a sort of early lunch for myself. He +said that the people of the house had begun by trying to make the arrival of +his breakfast coincide with the completion of his toilet; that this had proved +so irksome that they had struck; and that finally it had been agreed on both +sides that the meal should be put in his room at eleven o’clock, whether he was +dressed or not. He said that he often saw his breakfast come in, and would +drowsily determine to consume it hot. But he had never had the energy to do so. +Once, indeed, he had mistaken the time, and had confidently expected that the +morning of a hot breakfast had come at last. He was dressed by nine, and had +sat for two hours gloating over the prospect of steaming coffee and frizzling +bacon. On that particular morning, however, there had been some domestic +tragedy—the firing of a chimney or the illness of a cook—and at eleven o’clock, +not breakfast, but an apology for its absence had been brought to him. This +embittered Julian. He gave up the unequal contest, and he has frequently +confessed to me that cold breakfast is an acquired, yet not unpleasant, taste. +</p> + +<p> +He woke up when I came in, and, after hearing my news and congratulating me, +began to open the letters that lay on the table at his side. +</p> + +<p> +One of the envelopes had Skeffington’s trade mark stamped upon it, and +contained a bank-note and a sheet closely type-written on both sides. +</p> + +<p> +“Half a second, Jimmy,” said he, and began to read. +</p> + +<p> +I poured myself out a cup of cold coffee, and, avoiding the bacon and eggs, +which lay embalmed in frozen grease, began to lunch off bread and marmalade. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do it,” he burst out when he had finished. “It’s a sweat—a fearful sweat, +but—— +</p> + +<p> +“Skeffington’s have written urging me to undertake a rather original +advertising scheme. They’re very pressing, and they’ve enclosed a tenner in +advance. They want me to do them a tragedy in four acts. I sent them the +scenario last week. I sketched out a skeleton plot in which the hero is +addicted to a strictly moderate use of Skeffington’s Sloe Gin. His wife adopts +every conceivable measure to wean him from this harmless, even praiseworthy +indulgence. At the end of the second act she thinks she has cured him. He has +promised to gratify what he regards as merely a capricious whim on her part. ‘I +will give—yes, I will give it up, darling!’ ‘George! George!’ She falls on his +neck. Over her shoulder he winks at the audience, who realise that there is +more to come. Curtain. In Act 3 the husband is seen sitting alone in his study. +His wife has gone to a party. The man searches in a cupboard for something to +read. Instead of a novel, however, he lights on a bottle of Skeffington’s Sloe +Gin. Instantly the old overwhelming craving returns. He hesitates. What does it +matter? She will never know. He gulps down glass after glass. He sinks into an +intoxicated stupor. His wife enters. Curtain again. Act 4. The draught of +nectar tasted in the former act after a period of enforced abstinence has +produced a deadly reaction. The husband, who previously improved his health, +his temper, and his intellect by a strictly moderate use of Skeffington’s Sloe +Gin, has now become a ghastly dipsomaniac. His wife, realising too late the +awful effect of her idiotic antagonism to Skeffington’s, experiences the +keenest pangs of despair. She drinks laudanum, and the tragedy is complete.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine,” I said, finishing the coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“In a deferential postscript,” said Julian, “Skeffington’s suggest an +alternative ending, that the wife should drink, not laudanum, but Sloe Gin, and +grow, under its benign influence, resigned to the fate she has brought on her +husband and herself. Resignation gives way to hope. She devotes her life to the +care of the inebriate man, and, by way of pathetic retribution, she lives +precisely long enough to nurse him back to sanity. Which finale do you prefer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yours!” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Julian, considerably gratified. “So do I. It’s terser, more +dramatic, and altogether a better advertisement. Skeffington’s make jolly good +sloe gin, but they can’t arouse pity and terror. Yes, I’ll do it; but first let +me spend the tenner.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m taking a holiday, too, today,” I said. “How can we amuse ourselves?” +</p> + +<p> +Julian had opened the last of his letters. He held up two cards. +</p> + +<p> +“Tickets for Covent Garden Ball tonight,” he said. “Why not come? It’s sure to +be a good one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to,” I said. “Thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian dropped from his hammock, and began to get his bath ready. +</p> + +<p> +We arranged to dine early at the Maison Suisse in Rupert Street—<i>table +d’hôte</i> one franc, plus twopence for mad’moiselle—and go on to the gallery +of a first night. I was to dress for Covent Garden at Julian’s after the +theatre, because white waistcoats and the franc <i>table d’hôte</i> didn’t go +well together. +</p> + +<p> +When I dined out, I usually went to the Maison Suisse. I shall never have the +chance of going again, even if, as a married man, I were allowed to do so, for +it has been pulled down to make room for the Hicks Theatre in Shaftesbury +Avenue. When I did not dine there, I attended a quaint survival of last +century’s coffee-houses in Glasshouse Street: Tall, pew-like boxes, wooden +tables without table-cloths, panelled walls; an excellent menu of chops, +steaks, fried eggs, sausages, and other British products. Once the resort of +bucks and Macaronis, Ford’s coffee-house I found frequented by a strange +assortment of individuals, some of whom resembled bookmakers’ touts, others +clerks of an inexplicably rustic type. Who these people really were I never +discovered. +</p> + +<p> +“I generally have supper at Pepolo’s,” said Julian, as we left the theatre, +“before a Covent Garden Ball. Shall we go on there?” +</p> + +<p> +There are two entrances to Pepolo’s restaurant, one leading to the ground +floor, the other to the brasserie in the basement. I liked to spend an hour or +so there occasionally, smoking and watching the crowd. Every sixth visit on an +average I would happen upon somebody interesting among the ordinary throng of +medical students and third-rate clerks—watery-eyed old fellows who remembered +Cremorne, a mahogany derelict who had spent his youth on the sea when liners +were sailing-ships, and the apprentices, terrorised by bullying mates and the +rollers of the Bay, lay howling in the scuppers and prayed to be thrown +overboard. He told me of one voyage on which the Malay cook went mad, and, +escaping into the ratlines, shot down a dozen of the crew before he himself was +sniped. +</p> + +<p> +The supper tables are separated from the brasserie by a line of stucco arches, +and as it was now a quarter to twelve the place was full. At a first glance it +seemed that there were no empty supper tables. Presently, however, we saw one, +laid for four, at which only one man was sitting. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Julian, “there’s Malim. Let’s go and see if we can push into his +table. Well, Malim, how are you? Do you know Cloyster?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Malim had a lofty expression. I should have put him down as a scholarly +recluse. His first words upset this view somewhat. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming to Covent Garden?” he said, genially. “I am. So is Kit. She’ll be down +soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good,” said Julian; “may Jimmy and I have supper at your table?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do,” said Malim. “Plenty of room. We’d better order our food and not wait for +her.” +</p> + +<p> +We took our places, and looked round us. The hum of conversation was +persistent. It rose above the clatter of the supper tables and the sudden +bursts of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +It was now five minutes to twelve. All at once those nearest the door sprang to +their feet. A girl in scarlet and black had come in. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there’s Kit at last,” said Malim. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re cheering her,” said Julian. +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, the tentative murmur of a cheer was caught up by everyone. Men +leaped upon chairs and tables. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, hullo, hullo!” said Kit, reaching us. “Kiddie, when they do that it +makes me feel shy.” +</p> + +<p> +She was laughing like a child. She leaned across the table, put her arms round +Malim’s neck, and kissed him. She glanced at us. +</p> + +<p> +Malim smiled quietly, but said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +She kissed Julian, and she kissed me. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we’re all friends,” she said, sitting down. +</p> + +<p> +“Better know each other’s names,” said Malim. “Kit, this is Mr. Cloyster. Mr. +Cloyster, may I introduce you to my wife?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a> +CHAPTER 7<br/> +I MEET MR. THOMAS BLAKE</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Someone had told me that, the glory of Covent Garden Ball had departed. It may +be so. Yet the floor, with its strange conglomeration of music-hall artists, +callow university men, shady horse-dealers, and raucous military infants, had +an atmosphere of more than meretricious gaiety. The close of an old year and +the birth of a new one touch the toughest. +</p> + +<p> +The band was working away with a strident brassiness which filled the room with +noise. The women’s dresses were a shriek of colour. The vulgarity of the scene +was so immense as to be almost admirable. It was certainly interesting. +</p> + +<p> +Watching his opportunity, Julian presently drew me aside into the smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Malim,” he said, “has paid you a great compliment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really,” I said, rather surprised, for Julian’s acquaintance had done nothing +more, to my knowledge, than give me a cigar and a whiskey-and-soda. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s introduced you to his wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good of him, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand. You see Kit for what she is: a pretty, good-natured +creature bred in the gutter. But Malim—well, he’s in the Foreign Office and is +secretary to Sir George Grant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what in Heaven’s name,” I cried, “induced him to marry——” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Jimmy,” said Julian, adroitly avoiding the arm of an exuberant lady +impersonating Winter, and making fair practice with her detachable icicles, “it +was Kit or no one. Just consider Malim’s position, which was that of thousands +of other men of his type. They are the cleverest men of their schools; they are +the intellectual stars of their Varsities. I was at Oxford with Malim. He was a +sort of tin god. Double-first and all that. Just like all the rest of them. +They get what is looked upon as a splendid appointment under Government. They +come to London, hire comfortable chambers or a flat, go off to their office in +the morning, leave it in the evening, and are given a salary which increases by +regular gradations from an initial two hundred a year. Say that a man begins +this kind of work at twenty-four. What are his matrimonial prospects? His +office work occupies his entire attention (the idea that Government clerks +don’t work is a fiction preserved merely for the writers of burlesque) from the +moment he wakes in the morning until dinner. His leisure extends, roughly +speaking, from eight-thirty until twelve. The man whom I am discussing, and of +whom Malim is a type, is, as I have already proved, intellectual. He has, +therefore, ambitions. The more intellectual he is the more he loathes the +stupid routine of his daily task. Thus his leisure is his most valuable +possession. There are books he wants to read—those which he liked in the days +previous to his slavery—and new ones which he sees published every day. There +are plays he wants to see performed. And there are subjects on which he would +like to write—would give his left hand to write, if the loss of that limb +wouldn’t disqualify him for his post. Where is his social chance? It surely +exists only in the utter abandonment of his personal projects. And to go out +when one is tied to the clock is a poor sort of game. But suppose he +<i>does</i> seek the society of what friends he can muster in London. Is he +made much of, fussed over? Not a bit of it. Brainless subalterns, ridiculous +midshipmen, have, in the eyes of the girl whom he has come to see, a reputation +that he can never win. They’re in the Service; they’re so dashing; they’re so +charmingly extravagant; they’re so tremendous in face of an emergency that +their conversational limitations of “Yes” and “No” are hailed as brilliant +flights of genius. Their inane anecdotes, their pointless observations are +positively courted. It is they who retire to the conservatory with the divine +Violet, whose face is like the Venus of Milo’s, whose hair (one hears) reaches +to her knees, whose eyes are like blue saucers, and whose complexion is a pink +poem. It is Jane, the stumpy, the flat-footed—Jane, who wears glasses and has +all the virtues which are supposed to go with indigestion: big hands and an +enormous waist—Jane, I repeat, who is told off to talk to a man like Malim. If, +on the other hand, he and his fellows refuse to put on evening clothes and be +bored to death of an evening, who can blame them? If they deliberately find +enough satisfaction for their needs in the company of a circle of men friends +and the casual pleasures of the town, selfishness is the last epithet with +which their behaviour can be charged. Unselfishness has been their curse. No +sane person would, of his own accord, become the automaton that a Government +office requires. Pressure on the part of relations, of parents, has been +brought to bear on them. The steady employment, the graduated income, the +pension—that fatal pension—has been danced by their fathers and their mothers +and their Uncle Johns before their eyes. Appeals have been made to them on +filial, not to say religious, grounds. Threats would have availed nothing; but +appeals—downright tearful appeals from mamma, husky, hand-gripping appeals from +papa—that is what has made escape impossible. A huge act of unselfishness has +been compelled; a lifetime of reactionary egotism is inevitable and legitimate. +I was wrong when I said Malim was typical. He has to the good an ingenuity +which assists naturally in the solution of the problem of self and +circumstance. A year or two ago chance brought him in contact with Kit. They +struck up a friendship. He became an habitué at the Fried Fish Shop in +Tottenham Court Road. Whenever we questioned his taste he said that a physician +recommended fish as a tonic for the brain. But it was not his brain that took +Malim to the fried fish shop. It was his heart. He loved Kit, and presently he +married her. One would have said this was an impossible step. Misery for +Malim’s people, his friends, himself, and afterwards for Kit. But Nature has +endowed both Malim and Kit with extraordinary commonsense. He kept to his flat; +she kept to her job in the fried fish shop. Only, instead of living in, she was +able to retire after her day’s work to a little house which he hired for her in +the Hampstead Road. Her work, for which she is eminently fitted, keeps her out +of mischief. His flat gives the impression to his family and the head of his +department that he is still a bachelor. Thus, all goes well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve often read in the police reports,” I said, “of persons who lead double +lives, and I’m much interested in——” +</p> + +<p> +Malim and Kit bore down upon us. We rose. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the march past,” observed the former. “Come upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kiddie,” said Kit, “give me your arm.” +</p> + +<p> +At half-past four we were in Wellington Street. It was a fine, mild morning, +and in the queer light of the false dawn we betook ourselves to the Old Hummums +for breakfast. Other couples had done the same. The steps of the Hummums facing +the market harboured already a waiting crowd. The doors were to be opened at +five. We also found places on the stone steps. The market was alive with +porters, who hailed our appearance with every profession of delight. Early +hours would seem to lend a certain acidity to their badinage. By-and-by a more +personal note crept into their facetious comments. Two guardsmen on the top +step suddenly displayed, in return, a very creditable gift of repartee. Covent +Garden market was delighted. It felt the stern joy which warriors feel with +foemen worthy of their steel. It suspended its juggling feats with vegetable +baskets, and devoted itself exclusively to the task of silencing our guns. +Porters, costers, and the riff-raff of the streets crowded in a semicircle +around us. Just then it was borne in on us how small our number was. A solid +phalanx of the toughest customers in London faced us. Behind this semicircle a +line of carts had been drawn up. Unseen enemies from behind this laager now +began to amuse themselves by bombarding us with the product of the market +garden. Tomatoes, cauliflowers, and potatoes came hurtling into our midst. I +saw Julian consulting his watch. “Five minutes more,” he said. I had noticed +some minutes back that the ardour of the attack seemed to centre round one man +in particular—a short, very burly man in a costume that seemed somehow vaguely +nautical. His face wore the expression of one cheerfully conscious of being +well on the road to intoxication. He was the ringleader. It was he who threw +the largest cabbage, the most <i>passé</i> tomato. I don’t suppose he had ever +enjoyed himself so much in his life. He was standing now on a cart full of +potatoes, and firing them in with tremendous force. +</p> + +<p> +Kit saw him too. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s that blackguard Tom!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +She had been told to sit down behind Malim for safety. Before anyone could stop +her, or had guessed her intention, she had pushed her way through us and +stepped out into the road. +</p> + +<p> +It was so unexpected that there was an involuntary lull in the proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom!” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed an accusing finger at the man, who gaped beerily. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, who pinched farver’s best trousers, and popped them?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a roar of laughter. A moment before, and Tom had been the pet of the +market, the energetic leader, the champion potato-slinger. Now he was a thing +of derision. His friends took up the question. Keen anxiety was expressed on +all sides as to the fate of father’s trousers. He was requested to be a man and +speak up. +</p> + +<p> +The uproar died away as it was seen that Kit had not yet finished. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheese it, some of yer,” shouted a voice. “The lady wants to orsk him somefin’ +else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” said Kit, “who was sent with tuppence to buy postage-stamps and spent it +on beer?” +</p> + +<p> +The question was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast +and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to +stammer. +</p> + +<p> +“Just you stop it, Tom,” shouted Kit triumphantly. “Just you stop it, d’you +’ear, you stop it.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned towards us on the steps, and, taking us all into her confidence, +added: “’E’s a nice thing to ’ave for a bruvver, anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she rejoined Malim, amid peals of laughter from both armies. It was a +Homeric incident. +</p> + +<p> +Only a half-hearted attempt was made to renew the attack. And when the door of +the Hummums at last opened, Malim observed to Julian and me, as we squashed our +way in, that if a man’s wife’s relations were always as opportune as Kit’s, the +greatest objection to them would be removed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a> +CHAPTER 8<br/> +I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +I saw a great deal of Malim after that. He and Julian became my two chief +mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man of delicate literary +skill, a genuine lover of books, a severe critic of modern fiction. Our tastes +were in the main identical, though it was always a blow to me that he could see +nothing humorous in Mr. George Ade, whose Fables I knew nearly by heart. The +more robust type of humour left him cold. +</p> + +<p> +In all other respects we agreed. +</p> + +<p> +There is a never-failing fascination in a man with a secret. It gave me a +pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes, to watch Malim, sitting in his +armchair, the essence of everything that was conventional and respectable, with +Eton and Oxford written all over him, and to think that he was married all the +while to an employee in a Tottenham Court Road fried-fish shop. +</p> + +<p> +Kit never appeared in the flat: but Malim went nearly every evening to the +little villa. Sometimes he took Julian and myself, more often myself alone, +Julian being ever disinclined to move far from his hammock. The more I saw of +Kit the more thoroughly I realized how eminently fitted she was to be Malim’s +wife. It was a union of opposites. Except for the type of fiction provided by +“penny libraries of powerful stories.” Kit had probably not read more than half +a dozen books in her life. Grimm’s fairy stories she recollected dimly, and she +betrayed a surprising acquaintance with at least three of Ouida’s novels. I +fancy that Malim appeared to her as a sort of combination of fairy prince and +Ouida guardsman. He exhibited the Oxford manner at times rather noticeably. Kit +loved it. +</p> + +<p> +Till I saw them together I had thought Kit’s accent and her incessant mangling +of the King’s English would have jarred upon Malim. But I soon found that I was +wrong. He did not appear to notice. +</p> + +<p> +I learned from Kit, in the course of my first visit to the villa, some further +particulars respecting her brother Tom, the potato-thrower of Covent Garden +Market. Mr. Thomas Blake, it seemed, was the proprietor and skipper of a barge. +A pleasant enough fellow when sober, but too much given to what Kit described +as “his drop.” He had apparently left home under something of a cloud, though +whether this had anything to do with “father’s trousers” I never knew. Kit said +she had not seen him for some years, though each had known the other’s address. +It seemed that the Blake family were not great correspondents. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever met John Hatton?” asked Malim one night after dinner at his +flat. +</p> + +<p> +“John Hatton?” I answered. “No. Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“A parson. A very good fellow. You ought to know him. He’s a man with a number +of widely different interests. We were at Trinity together. He jumps from one +thing to another, but he’s frightfully keen about whatever he does. Someone was +saying that he was running a boys’ club in the thickest part of Lambeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“There might be copy in it,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Or ideas for advertisements for Julian,” said Malim. “Anyway, I’ll introduce +you to him. Have you ever been in the Barrel?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the Barrel?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Barrel is a club. It gets the name from the fact that it’s the only club +in England that allows, and indeed urges, its members to sit on a barrel. John +Hatton is sometimes to be found there. Come round to it tomorrow night.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” I replied. “Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A hundred and fifty-three, York Street, Covent Garden. First floor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I said. “I’ll meet you there at twelve o’clock. I can’t come +sooner because I’ve got a story to write.” +</p> + +<p> +Twelve had just struck when I walked up York Street looking for No. 153. +</p> + +<p> +The house was brilliantly lighted on the first floor. The street door opened on +to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano and a singing voice +reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight of a waiter loaded with +glasses. I called to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Cloyster, sir? Yessir. I’ll find out whether Mr. Malim can see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Malim came out to me. “Hatton’s not here,” he said, “but come in. There’s a +smoking concert going on.” +</p> + +<p> +He took me into the room, the windows of which I had seen from the street. +</p> + +<p> +There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song was finished, +and there was a movement among the audience. “It’s the interval,” said Malim. +</p> + +<p> +Men surged out of the packed front room into the passage, and then into a sort +of bar parlour. Malim and I also made our way there. “That’s the fetish of the +club,” said Malim, pointing to a barrel standing on end; “and I’ll introduce +you to the man who is sitting on it. He’s little Michael, the musical critic. +They once put on an operetta of his at the Court. It ran about two nights, but +he reckons all the events of the world from the date of its production.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Cloyster—Mr. Michael.” +</p> + +<p> +The musician hopped down from the barrel and shook hands. He was a dapper +little person, and had a trick of punctuating every sentence with a snigger. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheer-o,” he said genially. “Is this your first visit?” +</p> + +<p> +I said it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Then sit on the barrel. We are the only club in London who can offer you the +privilege.” Accordingly I sat on the barrel, and through a murmur of applause I +could hear Michael telling someone that he’d first seen that barrel five years +before his operetta came out at the Court. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a venerable figure strode with dignity into the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Maundrell,” said Malim to me. “The last of the old Bohemians. An old actor. +Always wears the steeple hat and a long coat with skirts.” +</p> + +<p> +The survivor of the days of Kean uttered a bellow for whisky-and-water. “That +barrel,” he said, “reminds me of Buckstone’s days at the Haymarket. After the +performance we used to meet at the Café de l’Europe, a few yards from the +theatre. Our secret society sat there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the society called, Mr. Maundrell?” asked a new member with unusual +intrepidity. +</p> + +<p> +“Its name,” replied the white-headed actor simply, “I shall not divulge. It was +not, however, altogether unconnected with the Pink Men of the Blue Mountains. +We used to sit, we who were initiated, in a circle. We met to discuss the +business of the society. Oh, we were the observed of all observers, I can +assure you. Our society was extensive. It had its offshoots in foreign lands. +Well, we at these meetings used to sit round a barrel—a great big barrel, which +had a hole in the top. The barrel was not merely an ornament, for through the +hole in the top we threw any scraps and odds and ends we did not want. Bits of +tobacco, bread, marrow bones, the dregs of our glasses—anything and everything +went into the barrel. And so it happened, as the barrel became fuller and +fuller, strange animals made their appearance—animals of peculiar shape and +form crawled out of the barrel and would attempt to escape across the floor. +But we were on their tracks. We saw them. We headed them off with our sticks, +and we chased them back again to the place where they had been born and bred. +We poked them in, sir, with our sticks.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Maundrell emitted a placid chuckle at this reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +“A good many members of this club,” whispered Malim to me, “would have gone +back into that barrel.” +</p> + +<p> +A bell sounded. “That’s for the second part to begin,” said Malim. +</p> + +<p> +We herded back along the passage. A voice cried, “Be seated, please, +gentlemen.” +</p> + +<p> +At the far end of the room was a table for the chairman and the committee, and +to the left stood a piano. Everyone had now sat down except the chairman, who +was apparently not in the room. There was a pause. Then a man from the audience +whooped sharply and clambered over the table and into the place of the +chairman. He tapped twice with the mallet. “Get out of that chair,” yelled +various voices. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen,” said the man in the chair. A howl of execration went up, and +simultaneously the door was flung open. A double file of white-robed Druids +came, chanting, into the room. +</p> + +<p> +The Druids carried in with them a small portable tree which they proceeded to +set upright. The chant now became extremely topical. Each Druid sang a verse in +turn, while his fellow Druids danced a stately measure round the tree. As the +verse was being sung, an imitation granite altar was hastily erected. +</p> + +<p> +The man in the chair, who had so far smoked a cigarette in silence, now tapped +again with his mallet. “Gentlemen,” he observed. +</p> + +<p> +The Druids ended their song abruptly, and made a dash at the occupant of the +chair. The audience stood up. “A victim for our ancient rites!” screamed the +Druids, falling upon the man and dragging him towards the property altar. +</p> + +<p> +The victim showed every sign of objection to early English rites; but he was +dislodged, and after being dragged, struggling, across the table, subsided +quickly on the floor. The mob surged about and around him. He was hidden from +view. His position, however, could be located by a series of piercing shrieks. +</p> + +<p> +The door again opened. Mr. Maundrell, the real chairman of the evening, stood +on the threshold. “Chair!” was now the word that arose on every side, and at +this signal the Druids disappeared at a trot past the long-bearded, impassive +Mr. Maundrell. Their victim followed them, but before he did so he picked up +his trousers which were lying on the carpet. +</p> + +<p> +All the time this scene had been going on, I fancied I recognised the man in +the chair. In a flash I remembered. It was Dawkins who had coached First +Trinity, and whom I, as a visitor once at the crew’s training dinner, had last +seen going through the ancient and honourable process of de-bagging at the +hands of his light-hearted boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” said Malim. “Godfrey Lane’s going to sing a patriotic song. They +<i>will</i> let him do it. We’ll go down to the Temple and find John Hatton.” +</p> + +<p> +We left the Barrel at about one o’clock. It was a typical London late autumn +night. Quiet with the peace of a humming top; warm with the heat generated from +mellow asphalt and resinous wood-paving. +</p> + +<p> +We turned from Bedford Street eastwards along the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +Between one and two the Strand is as empty as it ever is. It is given over to +lurchers and policemen. Fleet Street reproduces for this one hour the Sahara. +</p> + +<p> +“When I knock at the Temple gate late at night,” said Malim, “and am admitted +by the night porter, I always feel a pleasantly archaic touch.” +</p> + +<p> +I agreed with him. The process seemed a quaint admixture of an Oxford or +Cambridge college, Gottingen, and a feudal keep. And after the gate had been +closed behind one, it was difficult to realise that within a few yards of an +academic system of lawns and buildings full of living traditions and +associations which wainscoting and winding stairs engender, lay the modern +world, its American invaders, its new humour, its women’s clubs, its long +firms, its musical comedies, its Park Lane, and its Strand with the hub of the +universe projecting from the roadway at Charing Cross, plain for Englishmen to +gloat over and for foreigners to envy. +</p> + +<p> +Sixty-two Harcourt Buildings is emblazoned with many names, including that of +the Rev. John Hatton. The oak was not sported, and our rap at the inner door +was immediately answered by a shout of “Come in!” As we opened it we heard a +peculiar whirring sound. “Road skates,” said Hatton, gracefully circling the +table and then coming to a standstill. I was introduced. “I’m very glad to see +you both,” he said. “The two other men I share these rooms with have gone away, +so I’m killing time by training for my road-skate tour abroad. It’s trying for +one’s ankles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you go downstairs on them?” said Malim. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” he replied, “I’ll do so now. And when we’re down, I’ll have a +little practice in the open.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon he skated to the landing, scrambled down the stairs, sped up Middle +Temple Lane, and called the porter to let us out into Fleet Street. He struck +me as a man who differed in some respects from the popular conception of a +curate. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll race you to Ludgate Circus and back,” said the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re too fast,” said Malim; “it must be a handicap.” +</p> + +<p> +“We might do it level in a cab,” said I, for I saw a hansom crawling towards +us. +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said the Rev. John Hatton. “Done, for half-a-crown!” +</p> + +<p> +I climbed into the hansom, and Malim, about to follow me, found that a +constable, to whom the soil of the City had given spontaneous birth, was +standing at his shoulder. “Wot’s the game?” inquired the officer, with tender +solicitude. +</p> + +<p> +“A fine night, Perkins,” remarked Hatton. +</p> + +<p> +“A fine morning, beggin’ your pardon, sir,” said the policeman facetiously. He +seemed to be an acquaintance of the skater. +</p> + +<p> +“Reliability trials,” continued Hatton. “Be good enough to start us, Perkins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir,” said Perkins. +</p> + +<p> +“Drive to Ludgate Circus and back, and beat the gentleman on the skates,” said +Malim to our driver, who was taking the race as though he assisted at such +events in the course of his daily duty. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi shall say, ‘Are you ready? Horf!’” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have Perkins applying to the Jockey Club for Ernest Willoughby’s +job,” whispered Malim. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ready? Horf!” +</p> + +<p> +Hatton was first off the mark. He raced down the incline to the Circus at a +tremendous speed. He was just in sight as he swung laboriously round and headed +for home. But meeting him on our outward journey, we noticed that the upward +slope was distressing him. “Shall we do it?” we asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir,” said our driver. And now we, too, were on the up grade. We went up +the hill at a gallop: were equal with Hatton at Fetter Lane, and reached the +Temple Gate yards to the good. +</p> + +<p> +The ancient driver of a four-wheeler had been the witness of the finish. +</p> + +<p> +He gazed with displeasure upon us. +</p> + +<p> +“This ’ere’s a nice use ter put Fleet Street to, I don’t think,” he said +coldly. +</p> + +<p> +This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malim his +half-crown, and had invited me to visit him, we departed. +</p> + +<p> +“Queer chap, Hatton,” said Malim as we walked up the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +I was to discover at no distant date that he was distinctly a many-sided man. I +have met a good many clergymen in my time, but I have never come across one +quite like the Rev. John Hatton. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a> +CHAPTER 9<br/> +JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +A difficulty in the life of a literary man in London is the question of getting +systematic exercise. At school and college I had been accustomed to play games +every day, and now I felt the change acutely. +</p> + +<p> +It was through this that I first became really intimate with John Hatton, and +incidentally with Sidney Price, of the Moon Assurance Company. I happened to +mention my trouble one night in Hatton’s rooms. I had been there frequently +since my first visit. +</p> + +<p> +“None of my waistcoats fit,” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” said Hatton, “I’ll give you exercise and to spare; that is to +say, if you can box.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a champion,” I said; “but I’m fond of it. I shouldn’t mind taking up +boxing again. There’s nothing like it for exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right, James,” he replied; “and exercise, as I often tell my boys, is +essential.” +</p> + +<p> +“What boys?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“My club boys,” said Hatton. “They belong to the most dingy quarter of the +whole of London—South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They are not so +interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is a stratum or two +above hooliganism. Frightful weeds. They lack the robust animalism of the class +below them, and they lack the intelligence of the class above them. The fellows +at my club are mostly hard-working mechanics and under-paid office boys. They +have nothing approaching a sense of humour or the instinct of sport.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not very encouraging,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor picturesque,” said Hatton; “and that is why they’ve been so neglected. +There is romance in an out-and-out hooligan. It interests people to reform him. +But to the outsider my boys are dull. I don’t find them so. But then I know +them. Boxing lessons are just what they want. In fact, I was telling Sidney +Price, an insurance clerk who lives in Lambeth and helps me at the club, only +yesterday how much I wished we could teach them to use the gloves.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like,” I said. “It ought to keep me in +form.” +</p> + +<p> +I found that it did. I ceased to be aware of my liver. That winter I was able +to work to good purpose, and the result was that I arrived. It dawned upon me +at last that the “precarious” idea was played out. One could see too plainly +the white sheet and phosphorus. +</p> + +<p> +And I was happy. Happier, perhaps, than I had ever hoped to be. Happier, in a +sense, than I can hope to be again. I had congenial work, and, what is more, I +had congenial friends. +</p> + +<p> +What friends they were! +</p> + +<p> +Julian—I seem to see him now sprawling in his hammock, sucking his pipe, +planning an advertisement, or propounding some whimsical theory of life; and in +his eyes he bears the pain of one whose love and life are spoilt. Julian—no +longer my friend. +</p> + +<p> +Kit and Malim—what evenings are suggested by those names. +</p> + +<p> +Evenings alone with Malim at his flat in Vernon Place. An unimpeachable dinner, +a hand at picquet, midnight talk with the blue smoke wreathing round our heads. +</p> + +<p> +Well, Malim and I are unlikely to meet again in Vernon Place. Nor shall we +foregather at the little house in the Hampstead Road, the house which Kit +enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past had not been +unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the piano from ear, and +sing the songs of the street with a charming cockney twang. But there was +nothing of the stage about her now. She was born for domesticity and, as the +wife of Malim, she wished to forget all that had gone before. She even +hesitated to give us her wonderful imitations of the customers at the fried +fish shop, because in her heart she did not think such impersonations +altogether suitable for a respectable married woman. +</p> + +<p> +It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that I shall pay +few more visits there. +</p> + +<p> +I have mentioned at this point the love of my old friends who made my first +years in London a period of happiness, since it was in this month of April that +I had a momentous conversation with Julian about Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +He had come to Walpole Street to use my typewriter, and seemed amazed to find +that I was still living in much the same style as I had always done. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see,” he said. “How long is it since I was here last?” +</p> + +<p> +“You came some time before Christmas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes,” he said reminiscently. “I was doing a lot of travelling just then.” +And he added, thoughtfully, “What a curious fellow you are, Jimmy. Here are you +making——” He glanced at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, say a thousand a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Fifteen hundred a year, and you live in precisely the same shoddy +surroundings as you did when your manuscripts were responsible for an extra +size in waste-paper baskets. I was surprised to hear that you were still in +Walpole Street. I supposed that, at any rate, you had taken the whole house.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes raked the little sitting-room from the sham marble mantelpiece to the +bamboo cabinet. I surveyed it, too, and suddenly it did seem unnecessarily +wretched and depressing. +</p> + +<p> +Julian looked at me curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some mystery here,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be an ass, Julian,” I replied weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good denying it,” he retorted; “there’s some mystery. You’re a +materialist. You don’t live like this from choice. If you were to follow your +own inclinations, you’d do things in the best style you could run to. You’d be +in Jermyn Street; you’d have your man, a cottage in Surrey; you’d entertain, go +out a good deal. You’d certainly give up these dingy quarters. My friendship +for you deplores a mammoth skeleton in your cupboard, James. My study of +advertising tells me that this paltry existence of yours does not adequately +push your name before the public. You’re losing money, you’re——” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, Julian,” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Cherchez</i>,” he continued, “<i>cherchez</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Confound you, stop! I tell you——” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he said laughing. “I mustn’t force your confidence; but I can’t help +feeling it’s odd——” +</p> + +<p> +“When I came to London,” I said, firmly, “I was most desperately in love. I was +to make a fortune, incidentally my name, marry, and live happily ever after. +There seemed last year nothing complex about that programme. It seemed almost +too simple. I even, like a fool, thought to add an extra touch of piquancy to +it by endeavouring to be a Bohemian. I then discovered that what I was +attempting was not so simple as I had imagined. To begin with, Bohemians +diffuse their brains in every direction except that where bread-and-butter +comes from. I found, too, that unless one earns bread-and-butter, one has to +sprint very fast to the workhouse door to prevent oneself starving before one +gets there; so I dropped Bohemia and I dropped many other pleasant fictions as +well. I took to examining pavements, saw how hard they were, had a look at the +gutters, and saw how broad they were. I noticed the accumulation of dirt on the +house fronts, the actual proportions of industrial buildings. I observed +closely the price of food, clothes, and roofs.” +</p> + +<p> +“You became a realist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I read a good deal of Gissing about then, and it scared me. I pitied +myself. And after that came pity for the girl I loved. I swore that I would +never let her come to my side in the ring where the monster Poverty and I were +fighting. If you’ve been there you’ve been in hell. And if you come out with +your soul alive you can’t tell other people what it felt like. They couldn’t +understand.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian nodded. “I understand, you know,” he said gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you’ve been there,” I said. “Well, you’ve seen that my little turn-up +with the monster was short and sharp. It wasn’t one of the old-fashioned, +forty-round, most-of-a-lifetime, feint-for-an-opening, in-and-out affairs. Our +pace was too fast for that. We went at it both hands, fighting all the time. I +was going for the knock-out in the first round. Not your method, Julian.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Julian; “it’s not my method. I treat the monster rather as a wild +animal than as a hooligan; and hearing that wild animals won’t do more than +sniff at you if you lie perfectly still, I adopted that ruse towards him to +save myself the trouble of a conflict. But the effect of lying perfectly still +was that I used to fall asleep; and that works satisfactorily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Julian,” I said, “I detect a touch of envy in your voice. You try to keep it +out, but you can’t. Wait a bit, though. I haven’t finished. +</p> + +<p> +“As you know, I had the monster down in less than no time. I said to myself, +‘I’ve won. I’ll write to Margaret, and tell her so!’ Do you know I had actually +begun to write the letter when another thought struck me. One that started me +sweating and shaking. ‘The monster,’ I said again to myself, ‘the monster is +devilish cunning. Perhaps he’s only shamming! It looks as if he were beaten. +Suppose it’s only a feint to get me off my guard. Suppose he just wants me to +take my eyes off him so that he may get at me again as soon as I’ve begun to +look for a comfortable chair and a mantelpiece to rest my feet on!’ I told +myself that I wouldn’t risk bringing Margaret over. I didn’t dare chance her +being with me if ever I had to go back into the ring. So I kept jumping and +stamping on the monster. The referee had given me the fight and had gone away; +and, with no one to stop me, I kicked the life out of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you didn’t,” interrupted Julian. “Excuse me, I’m sure you didn’t. I often +wake up and hear him prowling about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but there’s a separate monster set apart for each of us. It’s Fate who +arranges the programme, and, by stress of business, Fate postpones many +contests so late that before they can take place the man has died. Those who +die before their fight comes on are called rich men. To return, however, to my +own monster: I was at last convinced that he was dead a thousand times——” +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you had this conviction?” asked Julian. +</p> + +<p> +“The absolute certainty that my monster has ceased to exist came to me this +morning whilst I brushed my hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Julian; “and now, I suppose, you really will write to Miss +Margaret——” He paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodwin?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Miss Margaret Goodwin,” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Julian,” I said irritably; “it’s no use your repeating every +observation I make as though you were Massa Johnson on Margate Sands.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +I was silent for a moment. Then I confessed. +</p> + +<p> +“Julian,” I said, “I can’t write to her. You need neither say that I’m a +blackguard nor that you’re sorry for us both. At this present moment I’ve no +more affection for Margaret than I have for this chair. When precisely I left +off caring for her I don’t know. Why I ever thought I loved her I don’t know, +either. But ever since I came to London all the love I did have for her has +been ebbing away every day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had you met many people before you met her?” asked Julian slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“No one that counted. Not a woman that counted, that’s to say. I am shy with +women. I can talk to them in a sort of way, but I never seem able to get +intimate. Margaret was different. She saved my life, and we spent the summer in +Guernsey together.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you seriously expected not to fall in love?” Julian laughed “My dear +Jimmy, you ought to write a psychological novel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly. But, in the meantime, what am I to do?” +</p> + +<p> +Julian stood up. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s in love with you, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood looking at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, can’t you speak?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. “One’s got one’s own right and one’s +own wrong,” he grumbled, lighting his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He would not look at me. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re thinking,” I went on, “what a cad I am not to have written that +letter.” I sat down resting my head on my hands. After all—love and +liberty—they’re both very sweet. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m thinking,” said Julian, watching the smoke from his pipe abstractedly, +“that you will probably write tonight; and I think I know how you’re feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Julian,” I said, “must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go. But must it be +tonight?” +</p> + +<p> +Julian hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said; “but you’ve made up your mind, so why put off the inevitable?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” I exclaimed; “oh, I really can’t. I must have my freedom a little +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must give it up some day. It’ll be all the harder when you’ve got to face +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind that. A little more freedom, just a little; and then I’ll tell +her to come to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He smoked in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” I said, “this little more freedom that I ask is a small thing +compared with the sacrifice I have promised to make?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t let her know it’s a sacrifice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. She shall think that I love her as I used to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you ought to do that,” he said softly. “Poor devil,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I too selfish?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He got up to go. “No,” he said. “To my mind, you’re entitled to a breathing +space before you give up all that you love best. But there’s a risk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of her finding out by some other means than yourself and before your letter +comes, that the letter should have been written earlier. Do you sign all your +stuff with your own name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, she’s bound to see how you’re getting on. She’ll see your name in +the magazines, in newspapers and in books. She’ll know you don’t write for +nothing, and she’ll make calculations.” +</p> + +<p> +I was staggered. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean—?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it will occur to her before long that your statement of your income +doesn’t square with the rest of the evidence; and she’ll wonder why you pose as +a pauper when you’re really raking in the money with both hands. She’ll think +it over, and then she’ll see it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” I said, dully. “Well, you’ve taken my last holiday from me. I’ll write +to her tonight, telling her the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t, necessarily. Wait a week or two. You may quite possibly hit on +some way out of the difficulty. I’m bound to say, though, I can’t see one +myself at the moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor can I,” I said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0013"></a> +CHAPTER 10<br/> +TOM BLAKE AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Hatton’s Club boys took kindly to my course of instruction. For a couple of +months, indeed, it seemed that another golden age of the noble art was +approaching, and that the rejuvenation of boxing would occur, beginning at +Carnation Hall, Lambeth. +</p> + +<p> +Then the thing collapsed like a punctured tyre. +</p> + +<p> +At first, of course, they fought a little shy. But when I had them up in line, +and had shown them what a large proportion of an eight-ounce glove is padding, +they grew more at ease. To be asked suddenly to fight three rounds with one of +your friends before an audience, also of your friends, is embarrassing. One +feels hot and uncomfortable. Hatton’s boys jibbed nervously. As a preliminary +measure, therefore, I drilled them in a class at foot-work and the left lead. +They found the exercise exhilarating. If this was the idea, they seemed to say, +let the thing go on. Then I showed them how to be highly scientific with a +punch ball. Finally, I sparred lightly with them myself. +</p> + +<p> +In the rough they were impossible boxers. After their initial distrust had +evaporated under my gentle handling of them, they forgot all I had taught them +about position and guards. They bored in, heads down and arms going like +semicircular pistons. Once or twice I had to stop them. They were easily +steadied. They hastened to adopt a certain snakiness of attack instead of the +frontal method which had left them so exposed. They began to cultivate a kind +of negative style. They were tremendously impressed by the superiority of +science over strength. +</p> + +<p> +I am not sure that I did not harp rather too much on the scientific note. +Perhaps if I had referred to it less, the ultimate disaster would not have been +quite so appalling. On the other hand, I had not the slightest suspicion that +they would so exaggerate my meaning when I was remarking on the worth of +science, how it “tells,” and how it causes the meagre stripling to play fast +and loose with huge, brawny ruffians—no cowards, mark you—and hairy as to their +chests. +</p> + +<p> +But the weeds at Hatton’s Club were fascinated by my homilies on science. The +simplicity of the thing appealed to them irresistibly. They caught at the +expression, “Science,” and regarded it as the “Hey Presto!” of a friendly +conjurer who could so arrange matters for them that powerful opponents would +fall flat, involuntarily, at the sight of their technically correct attitude. +</p> + +<p> +I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, “Look here, +science is no practical use to you unless you’ve got low-bridged, snub noses, +protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of a vacuum-cleaner, stomach +muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legs of mutton, and biceps like +transatlantic cables”—had I said that, they would have voted boxing a fraud, +and gone away to quarrel over a game of backgammon, which was precisely what I +wished to avoid. +</p> + +<p> +So I let them go on with their tapping and feinting and side-slipping. +</p> + +<p> +To make it worse they overheard Sidney Price trying to pay me a compliment. +Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself to Hatton and had proved +himself to be of real service in many ways. He was an honest man, but he could +not box. He came down to the hall one night after I had given four or five +lessons, to watch the boys spar. Of course, to the uninitiated eye it did seem +as though they were neat in their work. The sight was very different from the +absurd exhibition which Price had seen on the night I started with them. He +might easily have said, if he was determined to compliment me, that they had +“improved,” “progressed,” or something equally adequate and innocuous. But no. +The man must needs be effusive, positively gushing. He came to me in +transports. “Wonderful!” he said. “Wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wonderful?” I said, a shade irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“Their style,” he said loudly, so that they could all hear, “their style. It’s +their style that astonishes me.” +</p> + +<p> +I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done. +</p> + +<p> +Style ran through Hatton’s Club boys like an epidemic. Carnation Hall fairly +buzzed with style. An apology for a blow which landed on your chest with the +delicacy of an Agag among butterflies was extolled to the skies because it was +a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with +a random swing on the mark, there was a pained shudder. Not only Walter +Greenway, but the whole club explained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, +an awful violation of style, practically a crime. By the time they had finished +explaining, Alf was dazed; and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a +view to his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in such +half-hearted fashion that Walter had time to step stylishly aside and show Alf +how futile it is to be unscientific. +</p> + +<p> +To the club this episode was decently buried in an unremembered past. To me, +however, it was significant, though I did not imagine it would ever have the +tremendous sequel which was brought about by the coming of Thomas Blake. +</p> + +<p> +Fate never planned a coup so successfully. The psychology of Blake’s arrival +was perfect. The boxers of Carnation Hall had worked themselves into a mental +condition which I knew was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. Their conceit and +their imagination transformed the hall into a kind of improved National +Sporting Club. They went about with an air of subdued but tremendous +athleticism. They affected a sort of self-conscious nonchalance. They adopted +an odiously patronising attitude towards the once popular game of backgammon. I +daresay that picture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of +blood and iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect of a +table full of important military dispatches. Well, the club boys, to a boy, +posed as generals of blood and iron when they condescended to play backgammon. +They did it, but they let you see that they did not regard it as one of the +serious things of life. +</p> + +<p> +Also, knowing that each other’s hitting was so scientific as to be harmless, +they would sometimes deliberately put their eye in front of their opponent’s +stylish left, in the hope that the blow would raise a bruise. It hardly ever +did. But occasionally——! Oh, then you should have seen the +hero-with-the-quiet-smile look on their faces as they lounged ostentatiously +about the place. In a word, they were above themselves. They sighed for fresh +worlds to conquer. And Thomas Blake supplied the long-felt want. +</p> + +<p> +Personally, I did not see his actual arrival. I only saw his handiwork after he +had been a visitor awhile within the hall. But, to avoid unnecessary verbiage +and to avail myself of the privilege of an author, I will set down, from the +evidence of witnesses, the main points of the episode as though I myself had +been present at his entrance. +</p> + +<p> +He did not strike them, I am informed, as a particularly big man. He was a +shade under average height. His shoulders seemed to them not so much broad as +“humpy.” He rolled straight in from the street on a wet Saturday night at ten +minutes to nine, asking for “free tea.” +</p> + +<p> +I should mention that on certain Fridays Hatton gave a free meal to his +parishioners on the understanding that it was rigidly connected with a Short +Address. The preceding Friday had been such an occasion. The placards +announcing the tea were still clinging to the outer railings of the hall. +</p> + +<p> +When I said that Blake asked for free tea, I should have said, shouted for free +tea. He cast one decisive glance at Hatton’s placards, and rolled up. He shot +into the gate, up the steps, down the passage, and through the door leading +into the big corrugated-iron hall which I used for my lessons. And all the time +he kept shouting for free tea. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall the members of my class were collected. Some were changing their +clothes; others, already changed, were tapping the punch-ball. They knew that I +always came punctually at nine o’clock, and they liked to be ready for me. +Amongst those present was Sidney Price. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Blake brought up short, hiccuping, in the midst of them. “Gimme that +free tea!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Sidney Price, whose moral fortitude has never been impeached, was the first to +handle the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“My good man,” he said, “I am sorry to say you have made a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“A mistake!” said Thomas, quickly taking him up. “A mistake! Oh! What oh! My +errer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so,” said Price, diplomatically; “an error.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Blake sat down on the floor, fumbled for a short pipe, and said, “Seems +ter me I’m sick of errers. Sick of ’em! Made a bloomer this mornin’—this way.” +Here he took into his confidence the group which had gathered uncertainly round +him. “My wife’s brother, ’im wot’s a postman, owes me arf a bloomin’ thick ’un. +’E’s a hard-working bloke, and ter save ’im trouble I came down ’ere from +Brentford, where my boat lies, to catch ’im on ’is rounds. Lot of catchin’ ’e +wanted, too—I <i>don’t</i> think. Tracked ’im by the knocks at last. And then, +wot d’yer think ’e said? Didn’t know nothing about no ruddy ’arf thick ’un, and +would I kindly cease to impede a public servant in the discharge of ’is dooty. +Otherwise—the perlice. That, mind you, was my own brother-in-law. Oh, he’s a +nice man, I <i>don’t</i> think!” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Blake nodded his head as one who, though pained by the hollowness of +life, is resigned to it, and proceeded to doze. +</p> + +<p> +The crowd gazed at him and murmured. +</p> + +<p> +Sidney Price, however, stepped forward with authority. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better be going,” he said; and he gently jogged the recumbent boatman’s +elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me be! I want my tea,” was the muttered and lyrical reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Hook it!” said Price. +</p> + +<p> +“Without my tea?” asked Blake, opening his eyes wide. +</p> + +<p> +“It was yesterday,” explained Price, brusquely. “There isn’t any free tea +tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +The effect was magical. A very sinister expression came over the face of the +prostrate one, and he slowly clambered to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho!” he said, disengaging himself from his coat. “Ho. There ain’t no free tea +ternight, ain’t there? Bills stuck on them railings in errer, I suppose. +Another bloomin’ errer. Seems to me I’m sick of errers. Wot I says is, ‘Come +on, all of yer.’ I’m Tom Blake, I am. You can arst them down at Brentford. Kind +old Tom Blake, wot wouldn’t hurt a fly; and I says, ‘Come on, all of yer,’ and +I’ll knock yer insides through yer backbones.” +</p> + +<p> +Sidney Price spoke again. His words were honeyed, but ineffectual. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m honest old Tom, I am,” boomed Thomas Blake, “and I’m ready for the lot of +yer: you and yer free tea and yer errers.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point Alf Joblin detached himself from the hovering crowd and said to +Price: “He must be cowed. I’ll knock sense into the drunken brute.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Price, “he’s got to go; but you won’t hurt him, Alf, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Alf, “I won’t hurt him. I’ll just make him look a fool. This is +where science comes in.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m honest old Tom,” droned the boatman. +</p> + +<p> +“If you <i>will</i> have it,” said Alf, with fine aposiopesis. +</p> + +<p> +He squared up to him. +</p> + +<p> +Now Alf Joblin, like the other pugilists of my class, habitually refrained from +delivering any sort of attack until he was well assured that he had seen an +orthodox opening. A large part of every round between Hatton’s boys was devoted +to stealthy circular movements, signifying nothing. But Thomas Blake had not +had the advantage of scientific tuition. He came banging in with a sweeping +right. Alf stopped him with his left. Again Blake swung his right, and again he +took Alf’s stopping blow without a blink. Then he went straight in, right and +left in quick succession. The force of the right was broken by Alf’s guard, but +the left got home on the mark; and Alf Joblin’s wind left him suddenly. He sat +down on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +To say that this tragedy in less than five seconds produced dismay among the +onlookers would be incorrect. They were not dismayed. They were amused. They +thought that Alf had laid himself open to chaff. Whether he had slipped or lost +his head they did not know. But as for thinking that Alf with all his +scientific knowledge was not more than a match for this ignorant, intoxicated +boatman, such a reflection never entered their heads. What is more, each +separate member of the audience was convinced that he individually was the +proper person to illustrate the efficacy of style versus untutored savagery. +</p> + +<p> +As soon, therefore, as Alf Joblin went writhing to the floor, and Thomas +Blake’s voice was raised afresh in a universal challenge, Walter Greenway +stepped briskly forward. +</p> + +<p> +And as soon as Walter’s guard had been smashed down by a most unconventional +attack, and Walter himself had been knocked senseless by a swing on the side of +the jaw, Bill Shale leaped gaily forth to take his place. +</p> + +<p> +And so it happened that, when I entered the building at nine, it was as though +a devastating tornado had swept down every club boy, sparing only Sidney Price, +who was preparing miserably to meet his fate. +</p> + +<p> +To me, standing in the doorway, the situation was plain at the first glance. +Only by a big effort could I prevent myself laughing outright. It was +impossible to check a grin. Thomas Blake saw me. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” I said; “what’s all this?” +</p> + +<p> +He stared at me. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ullo!” he said, “another of ’em, is it? I’m honest old Tom Blake, <i>I</i> +am, and wot I say is——” +</p> + +<p> +“Why honest, Mr. Blake?” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Call me a liar, then!” said he. “Go on. You do it. Call it me, then, and let’s +see.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to shuffle towards me. +</p> + +<p> +“Who pinched his father’s trousers, and popped them?” I inquired genially. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped and blinked. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” he said weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“And who,” I continued, “when sent with twopence to buy postage-stamps, +squandered it on beer?” +</p> + +<p> +His jaw dropped, as it had dropped in Covent Garden. It must be very unpleasant +to have one’s past continually rising up to confront one. +</p> + +<p> +“Look ’ere!” he said, a conciliatory note in his voice, “you and me’s pals, +mister, ain’t we? Say we’re pals. Of course we are. You and me don’t want no +fuss. Of course we don’t. Then look here: this is ’ow it is. You come along +with me and ’ave a drop.” +</p> + +<p> +It did not seem likely that my class would require any instruction in boxing +that evening in addition to that which Mr. Blake had given them, so I went with +him. +</p> + +<p> +Over the moisture, as he facetiously described it, he grew friendliness itself. +He did not ask after Kit, but gave his opinion of her gratuitously. According +to him, she was unkind to her relations. “Crool ’arsh,” he said. A girl, in +fact, who made no allowances for a man, and was over-prone to Sauce and the +Nasty Snack. +</p> + +<p> +We parted the best of friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Any time you’re on the Cut,” he said, gripping my hand with painful fervour, +“you look out for Tom Blake, mister. Tom Blake of the <i>Ashlade</i> and +<i>Lechton</i>. No ceremony. Jest drop in on me and the missis. Goo’ night.” +</p> + +<p> +At the moment of writing Tom Blake is rapidly acquiring an assured position in +the heart of the British poetry-loving public. This incident in his career +should interest his numerous admirers. The world knows little of its greatest +men. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0014"></a> +CHAPTER 11<br/> +JULIAN’S IDEA</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +I had been relating, on the morning after the Blake affair, the stirring +episode of the previous night to Julian. He agreed with me that it was curious +that our potato-thrower of Covent Garden market should have crossed my path +again. But I noticed that, though he listened intently enough, he lay flat on +his back in his hammock, not looking at me, but blinking at the ceiling; and +when I had finished he turned his face towards the wall—which was unusual, +since I generally lunched on his breakfast, as I was doing then, to the +accompaniment of quite a flow of languid abuse. +</p> + +<p> +I was in particularly high spirits that morning, for I fancied that I had found +a way out of my difficulty about Margaret. That subject being uppermost in my +mind, I guessed at once what Julian’s trouble was. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’d like to know, Julian,” I said, “whether I’d written to +Guernsey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve told her to come?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but I’m able to take my respite without wounding her. That’s as good as +writing, isn’t it? We agreed on that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that was the idea. If you could find a way of keeping her from knowing +how well you were getting on with your writing, you were to take it. What’s +your idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve hit on a very simple way out of the difficulty,” I said. “It came to me +only this morning. All I need do is to sign my stuff with a pseudonym.” +</p> + +<p> +“You only thought of that this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear chap, I thought of it as soon as you told me of the fix you were in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might have suggested it.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian slid to the floor, drained the almost empty teapot, rescued the last +kidney, and began his breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“I would have suggested it,” he said, “if the idea had been worth anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! What’s wrong with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear man, it’s too risky. It’s not as though you kept to one form of +literary work. You’re so confoundedly versatile. Let’s suppose you did sign +your work with a <i>nom de plume</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, George Chandos.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. George Chandos. Well, how long would it be, do you think, before +paragraphs appeared, announcing to the public, not only of England but of the +Channel Islands, that George Chandos was really Jimmy Cloyster?” +</p> + +<p> +“What rot!” I said. “Why the deuce should they want to write paragraphs about +me? I’m not a celebrity. You’re talking through your hat, Julian.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian lit his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” he said. “Count the number of people who must necessarily be in +the secret from the beginning. There are your publishers, Prodder and Way. Then +there are the editors of the magazine which publishes your Society dialogue +bilge, and of all the newspapers, other than the <i>Orb</i>, in which your +serious verse appears. My dear Jimmy, the news that you and George Chandos were +the same man would go up and down Fleet Street and into the Barrel like +wildfire. And after that the paragraphs.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw the truth of his reasoning before he had finished speaking. Once more my +spirits fell to the point where they had been before I hit upon what I thought +was such a bright scheme. +</p> + +<p> +Julian’s pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again, and spoke +through the smoke: +</p> + +<p> +“The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandos are a +single individual.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should the editors know that? Why shouldn’t I simply send in my stuff, +typed, by post, and never appear myself at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Jimmy, you know as well as I do that that wouldn’t work. It would do +all right for a bit. Then one morning: ‘Dear Mr. Chandos,—I should be glad if +you could make it convenient to call here some time between Tuesday and +Thursday.—Yours faithfully. Editor of Something-or-other.’ Sooner or later a +man who writes at all regularly for the papers is bound to meet the editors of +them. A successful author can’t conduct all his business through the post. Of +course, if you chucked London and went to live in the country——” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t,” I said. “I simply couldn’t do it. London’s got into my bones.” +</p> + +<p> +“It does,” said Julian. +</p> + +<p> +“I like the country, but I couldn’t live there. Besides, I don’t believe I +could write there—not for long. All my ideas would go.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Just so,” he said. “Then exit George Chandos.” +</p> + +<p> +“My scheme is worthless, you think, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“As you state it, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean——?” I prompted quickly, clutching at something in his tone which +seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirely hopeless. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you and George +Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to provide George with +separate flesh and blood of his own, there’s no reason——” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! you’ve hit it. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen. Here is my rough draft of what I think might be a sound, working +system. How many divisions does your work fall into, not counting the +<i>Orb</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +I reflected. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course, I do a certain amount of odd work, but lately I’ve rather +narrowed it down, and concentrated my output. It seemed to me a better plan +than sowing stuff indiscriminately through all the papers in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how many stunts have you got? There’s your serious verse—one. And your +Society stuff—two. Any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Novels and short stories.” +</p> + +<p> +“Class them together—three. Any more? +</p> + +<p> +“No; that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then. What you must do is to look about you, and pick carefully +three men on whom you can rely. Divide your signed stuff between these three +men. They will receive your copy, sign it with their own names, and see that it +gets to wherever you want to send it. As far as the editorial world is +concerned, and as far as the public is concerned, they will become actually the +authors of the manuscripts which you have prepared for them to sign. They will +forward you the cheques when they arrive, and keep accounts to which you will +have access. I suppose you will have to pay them a commission on a scale to be +fixed by mutual arrangement. As regards your unsigned work, there is nothing to +prevent your doing that yourself—‘On Your Way,’ I mean, whenever there’s any +holiday work going: general articles, and light verse. I say, though, half a +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve thought of a difficulty. The editors who have been taking your stuff +hitherto may have a respect for the name of James Orlebar Cloyster which they +may not extend to the name of John Smith or George Chandos, or whoever it is. I +mean, it’s quite likely the withdrawal of the name will lead to the rejection +of the manuscript.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; that’s all right,” I said. “It’s the stuff they want, not the name. I +don’t say that names don’t matter. They do. But only if they’re big names. +Kipling might get a story rejected if he sent it in under a false name, which +they’d have taken otherwise just because he was Kipling. What they want from me +is the goods. I can shove any label on them I like. The editor will read my +ghosts’ stuff, see it’s what he wants, and put it in. He may say, ‘It’s rather +like Cloyster’s style,’ but he’ll certainly add, ‘Anyhow, it’s what I want.’ +You can scratch that difficulty, Julian. Any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not. Of course, there’s the objection that you’ll lose any celebrity +you might have got. No one’ll say, ‘Oh, Mr. Cloyster, I enjoyed your last book +so much!’” +</p> + +<p> +“And no one’ll say, ‘Oh, do you <i>write</i>, Mr. Cloyster? How interesting! +What have you written? You must send me a copy.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. In any case, it’s celebrity against the respite, obscurity +against Miss Goodwin. While the system is in operation you will be free but +inglorious. You choose freedom? All right, then. Pass the matches.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0015"></a> +CHAPTER 12<br/> +THE FIRST GHOST</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Such was the suggestion Julian made; and I praised its ingenuity, little +thinking how bitterly I should come to curse it in the future. +</p> + +<p> +I was immediately all anxiety to set the scheme working. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you be one of my three middlemen, Julian?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks!” he said; “it’s very good of you, but I daren’t encroach further on my +hours of leisure. Skeffington’s Sloe Gin has already become an incubus.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not move him from this decision. +</p> + +<p> +It is not everybody who, in a moment of emergency, can put his hand on three +men of his acquaintance capable of carrying through a more or less delicate +business for him. Certainly I found a difficulty in making my selection. I ran +over the list of my friends in my mind. Then I was compelled to take pencil and +paper, and settle down seriously to what I now saw would be a task of some +difficulty. After half an hour I read through my list, and could not help +smiling. I had indeed a mixed lot of acquaintances. First came Julian and +Malim, the two pillars of my world. I scratched them out. Julian had been asked +and had refused; and, as for Malim, I shrank from exposing my absurd +compositions to his critical eye. A man who could deal so trenchantly over a +pipe and a whisky-and-soda with Established Reputations would hardly take +kindly to seeing my work in print under his name. I wished it had been possible +to secure him, but I did not disguise it from myself that it was not. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the list was made up of members of the Barrel Club (impossible +because of their inherent tendency to break out into personal paragraphs); +writers like Fermin and Gresham, above me on the literary ladder, and +consequently unapproachable in a matter of this kind; certain college friends, +who had vanished into space, as men do on coming down from the ’Varsity, +leaving no address; John Hatton, Sidney Price, and Tom Blake. +</p> + +<p> +There were only three men in that list to whom I felt I could take my +suggestion. Hatton was one, Price was another, and Blake was the third. Hatton +should have my fiction, Price my Society stuff, Blake my serious verse. +</p> + +<p> +That evening I went off to the Temple to sound Hatton on the subject of signing +my third book. The wretched sale of my first two had acted as something of a +check to my enthusiasm for novel-writing. I had paused to take stock of my +position. My first two novels had, I found on re-reading them, too much of the +’Varsity tone in them to be popular. That is the mistake a man falls into +through being at Cambridge or Oxford. He fancies unconsciously that the world +is peopled with undergraduates. He forgets that what appeals to an +undergraduate public may be Greek to the outside reader and, unfortunately, not +compulsory Greek. The reviewers had dealt kindly with my two books (“this +pleasant little squib,” “full of quiet humour,” “should amuse all who remember +their undergraduate days”); but the great heart of the public had remained +untouched, as had the great purse of the public. I had determined to adopt a +different style. And now my third book was ready. It was called, <i>When It Was +Lurid</i>, with the sub-title, <i>A Tale of God and Allah</i>. There was a +piquant admixture of love, religion, and Eastern scenery which seemed to point +to a record number of editions. +</p> + +<p> +I took the type-script of this book with me to the Temple. +</p> + +<p> +Hatton was in. I flung <i>When It Was Lurid</i> on the table, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this?” inquired Hatton, fingering the brown-paper parcel. “If it’s the +corpse of a murdered editor, I think it’s only fair to let you know that I have +a prejudice against having my rooms used as a cemetery. Go and throw him into +the river.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s anything but a corpse. It’s the most lively bit of writing ever done. +There’s enough fire in that book to singe your tablecloth.” +</p> + +<p> +“You aren’t going to read it to me out loud?” he said anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I got to read it when you’re gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless you wish to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why, if I may ask, do you carry about a parcel which, I should say, +weighs anything between one and two tons, simply to use it as a temporary table +ornament? Is it the Sandow System?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said; “it’s like this.” +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly it dawned on me that it was not going to be particularly easy to +explain to Hatton just what it was that I wanted him to do. +</p> + +<p> +I made the thing clear at last, suppressing, of course, my reasons for the +move. When he had grasped my meaning, he looked at me rather curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t it strike you,” he said, “that what you propose is slightly +dishonourable?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that I have come deliberately to insult you, Hatton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our conversation seems to be getting difficult, unless you grant that honour +is not one immovable, intangible landmark, fixed for humanity, but that it is a +commodity we all carry with us in varying forms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Personally, I believe that, as a help to identification, honour-impressions +would be as useful as fingerprints.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good! You agree with me. Now, you may have a different view; but, in my +opinion, if I were to pose as the writer of your books, and gained credit for a +literary skill——” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t get credit for literary skill out of the sort of books I want you to +put your name to. They’re potboilers. You needn’t worry about Fame. You’ll be a +martyr, not a hero.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may be right. You wrote the book. But, in any case, I should be more of a +charlatan than I care about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t do it?” I said. “I’m sorry. It would have been a great convenience +to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the other hand,” continued Hatton, ignoring my remark, “there are arguments +in favour of such a scheme as you suggest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stout fellow!” I said encouragingly. +</p> + +<p> +“To examine the matter in its—er—financial—to suppose for a moment—briefly, +what do I get out of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten per cent.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked thoughtful. +</p> + +<p> +“The end shall justify the means,” he said. “The money you pay me can do +something to help the awful, the continual poverty of Lambeth. Yes, James +Cloyster, I will sign whatever you send me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good for you,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“And I shall come better out of the transaction than you.” +</p> + +<p> +No one would credit the way that man—a clergyman, too—haggled over terms. He +ended by squeezing fifteen per cent out of me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0016"></a> +CHAPTER 13<br/> +THE SECOND GHOST</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +The reasons which had led me to select Sidney Price as the sponsor of my +Society dialogues will be immediately apparent to those who have read them. +They were just the sort of things you would expect an insurance clerk to write. +The humour was thin, the satire as cheap as the papers in which they appeared, +and the vulgarity in exactly the right quantity for a public that ate it by the +pound and asked for more. Every thing pointed to Sidney Price as the man. +</p> + +<p> +It was my intention to allow each of my three ghosts to imagine that he was +alone in the business; so I did not get Price’s address from Hatton, who might +have wondered why I wanted it, and had suspicions. I applied to the doorkeeper +at Carnation Hall; and on the following evening I rang the front-door bell of +The Hollyhocks, Belmont Park Road, Brixton. +</p> + +<p> +Whilst I was waiting on the step, I was able to get a view through the slats of +the Venetian blind of the front ground-floor sitting-room. I could scarcely +restrain a cry of pure aesthetic delight at what I saw within. Price was +sitting on a horse-hair sofa with an arm round the waist of a rather +good-looking girl. Her eyes were fixed on his. It was Edwin and Angelina in +real life. +</p> + +<p> +Up till then I had suffered much discomfort from the illustrated record of +their adventures in the comic papers. “Is there really,” I had often asked +myself, “a body of men so gifted that they can construct the impossible details +of the lives of nonexistent types purely from imagination? If such creative +genius as theirs is unrecognized and ignored, what hope of recognition is there +for one’s own work?” The thought had frequently saddened me; but here at last +they were—Edwin and Angelina in the flesh! +</p> + +<p> +I took the gallant Sidney for a fifteen-minute stroll up and down the length of +the Belmont Park Road. Poor Angelina! He came, as he expressed it, “like a +bird.” Give him a sec. to slip on a pair of boots, he said, and he would be +with me in two ticks. +</p> + +<p> +He was so busy getting his hat and stick from the stand in the passage that he +quite forgot to tell the lady that he was going out, and, as we left, I saw her +with the tail of my eye sitting stolidly on the sofa, still wearing patiently +the expression of her comic-paper portraits. +</p> + +<p> +The task of explaining was easier than it had been with Hatton. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to drag you out, Price,” I said, as we went down the steps. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it, Mr. Cloyster,” he said. “Norah won’t mind a bit of a sit by +herself. Looked in to have a chat, or is there anything I can do?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like this,” I said. “You know I write a good deal?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it has occurred to me that, if I go on turning out quantities of stuff +under my own name, there’s a danger of the public getting tired of me.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’m with you there, mind you,” he said. “‘Can’t have too much of a good +thing,’ some chaps say. I say, ‘Yes, you can.’ Stands to reason a chap can’t go +on writing and writing without making a bloomer every now and then. What he +wants is to take his time over it. Look at all the real swells—’Erbert Spencer, +Marie Corelli, and what not—you don’t find them pushing it out every day of the +year. They wait a bit and have a look round, and then they start again when +they’re ready. Stands to reason that’s the only way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” I said; “but the difficulty, if you live by writing, is that you +must turn out a good deal, or you don’t make enough to live on. I’ve got to go +on getting stuff published, but I don’t want people to be always seeing my name +about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean, adopt a <i>nom de ploom</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the sort of idea; but I’m going to vary it a little.” +</p> + +<p> +And I explained my plan. +</p> + +<p> +“But why me?” he asked, when he had understood the scheme. “What made you think +of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, my dear fellow,” I said, “this writing is a game where +personality counts to an enormous extent. The man who signs my Society +dialogues will probably come into personal contact with the editors of the +papers in which they appear. He will be asked to call at their offices. So you +see I must have a man who looks as if he had written the stuff.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” he said complacently. “Dressy sort of chap. Chap who looks as if he +knew a thing or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I couldn’t get Alf Joblin, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +We laughed together at the notion. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor old Alf!” said Sidney Price. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you probably know a good deal about Society?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rath<i>er</i>” said Sidney. “They’re a hot lot. My <i>word</i>! Saw <i>The +Walls of Jericho</i> three times. Gives it ’em pretty straight, that does. +<i>Visits of Elizabeth</i>, too. Chase me! Used to think some of us chaps in +the ‘Moon’ were a bit O.T., but we aren’t in it—not in the same street. Chaps, +I mean, who’d call a girl behind the bar by her Christian name as soon as look +at you. One chap I knew used to give the girl at the cash-desk of the ‘Mecca’ +he went to bottles of scent. Bottles of it—regular! ‘Here you are, Tottie,’ he +used to say, ‘here’s another little donation from yours truly.’ Kissed her +once. Slap in front of everybody. Saw him do it. But, bless you, they’d think +nothing of that in the Smart Set. Ever read ‘God’s Good Man’? There’s a book! +My stars! Lets you see what goes on. Scorchers they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then?” +</p> + +<p> +He said I could. He was an intelligent young man, and he gave me to understand +that all would be well. He would carry the job through on the strict Q.T. He +closely willingly with my offer of ten per cent, thus affording a striking +contrast to the grasping Hatton. He assured me he had found literary chaps not +half bad. Had occasionally had an idea of writing a bit himself. +</p> + +<p> +We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placing my +“Dialogues of Mayfair” and my “London and Country House Tales” in really +competent and appreciative hands. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0017"></a> +CHAPTER 14<br/> +THE THIRD GHOST</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +There only remained now my serious verse, of which I turned out an enormous +quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notably the <i>St. +Stephen’s Gazette</i>. Already I was beginning to oust from their positions on +that excellent journal the old crusted poetesses who had supplied it from its +foundation with verse. The prices they paid on the <i>St. Stephen’s</i> were in +excellent taste. In the musical world, too, I was making way rapidly. Lyrics of +the tea-and-muffin type streamed from my pen. “Sleep whilst I Sing, Love,” had +brought me in an astonishing amount of money, in spite of the music-pirates. It +was on the barrel-organs. Adults hummed it. Infants crooned it in their cots. +Comic men at music-halls opened their turns by remarking soothingly to the +conductor of the orchestra, “I’m going to sing now, so you go to sleep, love.” +In a word, while the boom lasted, it was a little gold-mine to me. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Blake was as obviously the man for me here as Sidney Price had been in +the case of my Society dialogues. The public would find something infinitely +piquant in the thought that its most sentimental ditties were given to it by +the horny-handed steerer of a canal barge. He would be greeted as the modern +Burns. People would ask him how he thought of his poems, and he would say, +“Oo-er!” and they would hail him as delightfully original. In the case of +Thomas Blake I saw my earnings going up with a bound. His personality would be +a noble advertisement. +</p> + +<p> +He was aboard the <i>Ashlade</i> or <i>Lechton</i> on the Cut, so I was +informed by Kit. Which information was not luminous to me. Further inquiries, +however, led me to the bridge at Brentford, whence starts that almost unknown +system of inland navigation which extends to Manchester and Birmingham. +</p> + +<p> +Here I accosted at a venture a ruminative bargee. “Tom Blake?” he repeated, +reflectively. “Oh! ’e’s been off this three hours on a trip to Braunston. He’ll +tie up tonight at the Shovel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the Shovel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Past Cowley, the Shovel is.” This was spoken in a tired drawl which was +evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, he slouched +away, waving me in an abstracted manner to the towpath. +</p> + +<p> +I took the hint. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. Judging by the pace +of the barges I had seen, I should catch Blake easily before nightfall. I set +out briskly. An hour’s walking brought me to Hanwell, and I was glad to see a +regular chain of locks which must have considerably delayed the <i>Ashlade</i> +and <i>Lechton</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon wore on. I went steadily forward, making inquiries as to Thomas’s +whereabouts from the boats which met me, and always hearing that he was still +ahead. +</p> + +<p> +Footsore and hungry, I overtook him at Cowley. The two boats were in the lock. +Thomas and a lady, presumably his wife, were ashore. On the <i>Ashlade</i>’s +raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-looking boys were respectively +at the <i>Ashlade</i>’s and <i>Lechton</i>’s tillers. The lady was attending to +the horse. +</p> + +<p> +The water in the lock rose gradually to a higher level. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold them tillers straight!” yelled Thomas. At which point I saluted him. He +was a little blank at first, but when I reminded him of our last meeting his +face lit up at once. “Why, you’re the mister wot——” +</p> + +<p> +“Nuppie!” came in a shrill scream from the lady with the horse. “Nuppie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Ada!” answered the boy on the <i>Ashlade</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Liz ain’t tied to the can. D’you want ’er to be drownded? Didn’t I tell you to +be sure and tie her up tight?” +</p> + +<p> +“So I did, Ada. She’s untied herself again. Yes, she ’as. ’Asn’t she, Albert?” +</p> + +<p> +This appeal for corroboration was directed to the other small boy on the +<i>Lechton</i>. It failed signally. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you did not tie Liz to the chimney. You know you never, Nuppie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till we get out of this lock!” said Nuppie, earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers violently +against the southern sluice gates. +</p> + +<p> +“If them boys,” said Tom Blake in an overwrought voice, “lets them tillers go +round, it’s all up with my pair o’ boats. Lemme do it, you——” The rest of the +sentence was mercifully lost in the thump with which Thomas’s feet bounded on +the <i>Ashlade</i>’s cabin-top. He made Liz fast to the circular foot of iron +chimney projecting from the boards; then, jumping back to the land, he said, +more in sorrow than in anger: “Lazy little brats! an’ they’ve ’<i>ad</i> their +tea, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Clear of the locks, I walked with Thomas and his ancient horse, trying to +explain what I wanted done. But it was not until we had tied up for the night, +had had beer at the Shovel, and (Nuppie and Albert being safely asleep in the +second cabin) had met at supper that my instructions had been fully grasped. +Thomas himself was inclined to be diffident, and had it not been for Ada would, +I think, have let my offer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me +of the cottage they had at Fenny Stratford, which they used as headquarters +whilst waiting for a cargo. +</p> + +<p> +“That can be used as a permanent address,” I said. “All you have to do is to +write your name at the end of each typewritten sheet, enclose it in the stamped +envelope which I will send you, and send it by post. When the cheques come, +sign them on the back and forward them to me. For every ten pounds you forward +me, I’ll give you one for yourself. In any difficulty, simply write to +me—here’s my own address—and I’ll see you through it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t go to prison for it, can we, mister?” asked Ada suddenly, after a +pause. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said; “there’s nothing dishonest in what I propose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she didn’t so much mean that,” said Thomas, thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +They gave me a shakedown for the night in the cargo. +</p> + +<p> +Just before turning in, I said casually, “If anyone except me cashed the +cheques by mistake, he’d go to prison quick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mister,” came back Thomas’s voice, again a shade thoughtfully modulated. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0018"></a> +CHAPTER 15<br/> +EVA EVERSLEIGH</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication of assured +freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked on air. This was my +state of mind when I determined to pay a visit to the Gunton-Cresswells. I had +known them in my college days, but since I had been engaged in literature I had +sedulously avoided them because I remembered that Margaret had once told me +they were her friends. +</p> + +<p> +But now there was no need for me to fear them on that account, and thinking +that the solid comfort of their house in Kensington would be far from +disagreeable, thither, one afternoon in spring, I made my way. It is wonderful +how friendly Convention is to Art when Art does not appear to want to borrow +money. +</p> + +<p> +No. 5, Kensington Lane, W., is the stronghold of British respectability. It is +more respectable than the most respectable suburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is +that of a mother to a daughter who has gone on the stage and made a success. +Kensington Lane is almost tolerant of Mayfair. But not quite. It admits the +success, but shakes its head. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell took an early opportunity of drawing me aside, and began +gently to pump me. After I had responded with sufficient docility to her leads, +she reiterated her delight at seeing me again. I had concluded my replies with +the words, “I am a struggling journalist, Mrs. Cresswell.” I accompanied the +phrase with a half-smile which she took to mean—as I intended she should—that I +was amusing myself by dabbling in literature, backed by a small, but adequate, +private income. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come, James,” she said, smiling approvingly, “you know you will make a +quite too dreadfully clever success. How dare you try to deceive me like that? +A struggling journalist, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +But I knew she liked that “struggling journalist” immensely. She would couple +me and my own epithet together before her friends. She would enjoy +unconsciously an imperceptible, but exquisite, sensation of patronage by having +me at her house. Even if she discussed me with Margaret I was safe. For +Margaret would give an altogether different interpretation of the smile with +which I described myself as struggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued +by her as “brave”; for it must not be forgotten that as suddenly as my name had +achieved a little publicity, just so suddenly had it utterly disappeared. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Towards the end of May, it happened that Julian dropped into my rooms about +three o’clock, and found me gazing critically at a top-hat. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen you,” he remarked, “rather often in that get-up lately.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i>, perhaps, losing its first gloss,” I answered, inspecting my hat +closely. I cared not a bit for Julian’s sneers; for the smell of the flesh-pots +of Kensington had laid hold of my soul, and I was resolved to make the most of +the respite which my system gave me. +</p> + +<p> +“What salon is to have the honour today?” he asked, spreading himself on my +sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to the Gunton-Cresswells,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +Julian slowly sat up. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” he said conversationally. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been asked to meet their niece, a Miss Eversleigh, whom they’ve invited +to stop with them. Funny, by the way, that her name should be the same as +yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not particularly,” said Julian shortly; “she’s my cousin. My cousin Eva.” +</p> + +<p> +This was startling. There was a pause. Presently Julian said, “Do you know, +Jimmy, that if I were not the philosopher I am, I’d curse this awful indolence +of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw it in a flash, and went up to him holding out my hand in sympathy. +“Thanks,” he said, gripping it; “but don’t speak of it. I couldn’t endure that, +even from you, James. It’s too hard for talking. If it was only myself whose +life I’d spoilt—if it was only myself——” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off. And then, “Hers too. She’s true as steel.” +</p> + +<p> +I had heard no more bitter cry than that. +</p> + +<p> +I began to busy myself amongst some manuscripts to give Julian time to compose +himself. And so an hour passed. At a quarter past four I got up to go out. +Julian lay recumbent. It seemed terrible to leave him brooding alone over his +misery. +</p> + +<p> +A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Eva Eversleigh and I became firm friends. Of her person I need +simply say that it was the most beautiful that Nature ever created. Pressed as +to details, I should add that she was <i>petite</i>, dark, had brown hair, very +big blue eyes, a <i>retroussé</i> nose, and a rather wide mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Julian had said she was “true as steel.” Therefore, I felt no diffidence in +manoeuvring myself into her society on every conceivable occasion. Sometimes +she spoke to me of Julian, whom I admitted I knew, and, with feminine courage, +she hid her hopeless, all-devouring affection for her cousin under the cloak of +ingenuous levity. She laughed nearly every time his name was mentioned. +</p> + +<p> +About this time the Gunton-Cresswells gave a dance. +</p> + +<p> +I looked forward to it with almost painful pleasure. I had not been to a dance +since my last May-week at Cambridge. Also No. 5, Kensington Lane had completely +usurped the position I had previously assigned to Paradise. To waltz with +Julian’s cousin—that was the ambition which now dwarfed my former hankering for +the fame of authorship or a habitation in Bohemia. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Goodwin once said that happiness consists in anticipating an impossible +future. Be that as it may, I certainly thought my sensations were pleasant +enough when at length my hansom pulled up jerkily beside the red-carpeted steps +of No. 5, Kensington Lane. As I paid the fare, I could hear the murmur from +within of a waltz tune—and I kept repeating to myself that Eva had promised me +the privilege of taking her in to supper, and had given me the last two waltzes +and the first two extras. +</p> + +<p> +I went to pay my <i>devoirs</i> to my hostess. She was supinely gamesome. “Ah,” +she said, showing her excellent teeth, “Genius attendant at the revels of +Terpsichore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where Beauty, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell,” I responded, cutting it, as though +mutton, thick, “teaches e’en the humblest visitor the reigning Muse’s art.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may have this one, if you like,” said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell simply. +</p> + +<p> +Supper came at last, and, with supper, Eva. +</p> + +<p> +I must now write it down that she was not a type of English beauty. She was +not, I mean, queenly, impassive, never-anything-but-her-cool-calm-self. +Tonight, for instance, her eyes were as I had never seen them. There danced in +them the merriest glitter, which was more than a mere glorification of the +ordinary merry glitter—which scores of girls possess at every ball. To begin +with, there was a diabolical abandon in Eva’s glitter, which raised it +instantly above the common herd’s. And behind it all was that very misty mist. +I don’t know whether all men have seen that mist; but I am sure that no man has +seen it more than once; and, from what I’ve seen of the average man, I doubt if +most of them have ever seen it at all. Well, there it was for me to see in Eva +Eversleigh’s eyes that night at supper. It made me think of things unspeakable. +I felt a rush of classic aestheticism: Arcadia, Helen of Troy, the happy +valleys of the early Greeks. Supper: I believe I gave her oyster <i>pâtés</i>. +But I was far away. Deep, deep, deep in Eva’s eyes I saw a craft sighting, +’neath a cloudless azure sky, the dark blue Symplegades; heard in my ears the +jargon, loud and near me, of the sailors; and faintly o’er the distance of the +dead-calm sea rose intermittently the sound of brine-foam at the clashing +rocks.... +</p> + +<p> +As we sat there <i>tête-à-tête</i>, she smiled across the table at me with such +perfect friendliness, it seemed as though a magic barrier separated our two +selves from all the chattering, rustling crowd around us. When she spoke, a +little quiver of feeling blended adorably with the low, sweet tones of her +voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, but with just that charming hint of +intimacy which men friends have who may have known one another from birth, and +may know one another for a lifetime, but never become bores, never change. Only +when it comes between a woman and a man, it is incomparably finer. It is the +talk, of course, of lovers who have not realised they are in love. +</p> + +<p> +“The two last waltzes,” I murmured, when parting with her. She nodded. I roamed +the Gunton-Cresswells’s rooms awaiting them. +</p> + +<p> +She danced those two last waltzes with strangers. +</p> + +<p> +The thing was utterly beyond me at the time. Looking back, I am still amazed to +what lengths deliberate coquetry can go. +</p> + +<p> +She actually took pains to elude me, and gave those waltzes to strangers. +</p> + +<p> +From being comfortably rocked in the dark blue waters of a Grecian sea, I was +suddenly transported to the realities of the ballroom. My theoretical love for +Eva was now a substantial truth. I was in an agony of desire, in a frenzy of +jealousy. I wanted to hurl the two strangers to opposite corners of the +ballroom, but civilisation forbade it. +</p> + +<p> +I was now in an altogether indescribable state of nerves and suspense. Had she +definitely and for some unfathomable reason decided to cut me? The first extra +drew languorously to a close, couples swept from the room to the grounds, the +gallery or the conservatory. I tried to steady my whirling head with a +cigarette and a whisky-and-soda in the smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +The orchestra, like a train starting tentatively on a long run, launched itself +mildly into the preliminary bars of <i>Tout Passe</i>. I sought the ballroom +blinded by my feelings. Pulling myself together with an effort, I saw her +standing alone. It struck me for the first time that she was clothed in cream. +Her skin gleamed shining white. She stood erect, her arms by her sides. Behind +her was a huge, black velvet <i>portière</i> of many folds, supported by two +dull brazen columns. +</p> + +<p> +As I advanced towards her, two or three men bowed and spoke to her. She smiled +and dismissed them, and, still smiling pleasantly, her glance traversed the +crowd and rested upon me. I was drawing now quite near. Her eyes met mine; nor +did she avert them, and stooping a little to address her, I heard her sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re tired,” I said, forgetting my two last dances, forgetting everything +but that I loved her. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I am,” she said, taking my arm. We turned in silence to the +<i>portière</i> and found ourselves in the hall. The doors were opened. Some +servants were there. At the bottom of the steps I chanced to see a yellow +light. +</p> + +<p> +“Find out if that cab’s engaged,” I said to a footman. +</p> + +<p> +“The cool air——” I said to Eva. +</p> + +<p> +“The cab is not engaged, sir,” said the footman, returning. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Eva, in answer to my glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Drive to the corner of Sloane Street, by way of the Park,” I told the driver. +</p> + +<p> +I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her. Could it +help remembrance now that we two sped alone through empty streets, her warm, +palpitating body touching mine? +</p> + +<p> +Julian, his friendship for me, his love for Eva; Margaret and her love for me; +my own honour—these things were blotted from my brain. +</p> + +<p> +“Eva!” I murmured; and I took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Eva.” +</p> + +<p> +Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling,” she whispered, very low. And, the road being deserted, I drew her +face to mine and kissed her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0019"></a> +CHAPTER 16<br/> +I TELL JULIAN</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Is any man really honourable? I wonder. Hundreds, thousands go triumphantly +through life with that reputation. But how far is this due to absence of +temptation? Life, which is like cricket in so many ways, resembles the game in +this also. A batsman makes a century, and, having made it, is bowled by a ball +which he is utterly unable to play. What if that ball had come at the beginning +of his innings instead of at the end of it? Men go through life without a stain +on their honour. I wonder if it simply means that they had the luck not to have +the good ball bowled to them early in their innings. To take my own case. I had +always considered myself a man of honour. I had a code that was rigid compared +with that of a large number of men. In theory I should never have swerved from +it. I was fully prepared to carry out my promise and marry Margaret, at the +expense of my happiness—until I met Eva. I would have done anything to avoid +injuring Julian, my friend, until I met Eva. Eva was my temptation, and I fell. +Nothing in the world mattered, so that she was mine. I ought to have had a +revulsion of feeling as I walked back to my rooms in Walpole Street. The dance +was over. The music had ceased. The dawn was chill. And at a point midway +between Kensington Lane and the Brompton Oratory I had proposed to Eversleigh’s +cousin, his Eva, “true as steel,” and had been accepted. +</p> + +<p> +Yet I had no remorse. I did not even try to justify my behaviour to Julian or +to Margaret, or—for she must suffer, too—to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, who, I knew +well, was socially ambitious for her niece. +</p> + +<p> +To all these things I was indifferent. I repeated softly to myself, “We love +each other.” +</p> + +<p> +From this state of coma, however, I was aroused by the appearance of my +window-blind. I saw, in fact, that my room was illuminated. Remembering that I +had been careful to put out my lamp before I left, I feared, as I opened the +hall door, a troublesome encounter with a mad housebreaker. Mad, for no room +such as mine could attract a burglar who has even the slightest pretensions to +sanity. +</p> + +<p> +It was not a burglar. It was Julian Eversleigh, and he was lying asleep on my +sofa. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing peculiar in this. I roused him. +</p> + +<p> +“Julian,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, sitting up; “I’ve some news for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“So have I,” said I. For I had resolved to tell him what I had done. +</p> + +<p> +“Hear mine first. It’s urgent. Miss Margaret Goodwin has been here.” +</p> + +<p> +My heart seemed to leap. +</p> + +<p> +“Today?” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I had called to see you, and was waiting a little while on the chance of +your coming in when I happened to look out of the window. A girl was coming +down the street, looking at the numbers of the houses. She stopped here. +Intuition told me she was Miss Goodwin. While she was ringing the bell I did +all I could to increase the shabby squalor of your room. She was shown in here, +and I introduced myself as your friend. We chatted. I drew an agonising picture +of your struggle for existence. You were brave, talented, and unsuccessful. +Though you went often hungry, you had a plucky smile upon your lips. It was a +meritorious bit of work. Miss Goodwin cried a good deal. She is charming. I was +so sorry for her that I laid it on all the thicker.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nearing Guernsey. She’s gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone!” I said. “Without seeing me! I don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand how she loves you, James.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she’s gone. Gone without a word.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone because she loved you so. She had intended to stay with the +Gunton-Cresswells. She knows them, it seems. They didn’t know she was coming. +She didn’t know herself until this morning. She happened to be walking on the +quay at St. Peter’s Port. The outward-bound boat was on the point of starting +for England. A wave of affection swept over Miss Goodwin. She felt she must see +you. Scribbling a note, which she despatched to her mother, she went aboard. +She came straight here. Then, when I had finished with her, when I had lied +consistently about you for an hour, she told me she must return. ‘I must not +see James,’ she said. ‘You have torn my heart. I should break down.’ And she +said, speaking, I think, half to herself, ‘Your courage is so noble, so +different from mine. And I must not impose a needless strain upon it. You shall +not see me weep for you.’ And then she went away.” +</p> + +<p> +Julian’s voice broke. He was genuinely affected by his own recital. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I saw that I had bludgeon work to do. It is childish to grumble at +the part Fate forces one to play. Sympathetic or otherwise, one can only enact +one’s <i>rôle</i> to the utmost of one’s ability. Mine was now essentially +unsympathetic, but I was determined that it should be adequately played. +</p> + +<p> +I went to the fireplace and poked the fire into a blaze. Then, throwing my hat +on the table and lighting a cigarette, I regarded Julian cynically. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a nice sort of person, aren’t you?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” asked Julian, startled, as I had meant that he should be, +by the question. +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you just a little transparent, my dear Julian?” +</p> + +<p> +He stared blankly. +</p> + +<p> +I took up a position in front of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Disloyalty,” I said tolerantly, “where a woman is concerned, is in the eyes of +some people almost a negative virtue.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +I was sorry for him all the time. In a curiously impersonal way I could realise +the depths to which I was sinking in putting this insult upon him. But my +better feelings were gagged and bound that night. The one thought uppermost in +my mind was that I must tell Julian of Eva, and that by his story of Margaret +he had given me an opening for making my confession with the minimum of +discomfort to myself. +</p> + +<p> +It was pitiful to see the first shaft of my insinuation slowly sink into him. I +could see by the look in his eyes that he had grasped my meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“Jimmy,” he gasped, “you can’t think—are you joking?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not surprised at your asking that question,” I replied pleasantly. “You +know how tolerant I am. But I’m not joking. Not that I blame you, my dear +fellow. Margaret is, or used to be, very good-looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be in earnest,” he said, in a dazed way. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” I said; “I have a certain amount of intuition. You spend an +hour here alone with Margaret. She is young, and very pretty. You are placed +immediately on terms of intimacy by the fact that you have, in myself, a +subject of mutual interest. That breaks the ice. You are at cross-purposes, but +your main sympathies are identical. Also, you have a strong objective sympathy +for Margaret. I think we may presuppose that this second sympathy is stronger +than the first. It pivots on a woman, not on a man. And on a woman who is +present, not on a man who is absent. You see my meaning? At any rate, the solid +fact remains that she stayed an hour with you, whom she had met for the first +time today, and did not feel equal to meeting me, whom she has loved for two +years. If you want me to explain myself further, I have no objection to doing +so. I mean that you made love to her.” +</p> + +<p> +I watched him narrowly to see how he would take it. The dazed expression +deepened on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“You are apparently sane,” he said, very wearily. “You seem to be sober.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am both,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use for me,” he began, evidently collecting his thoughts with a strong +effort, “to say your charge is preposterous. I don’t suppose mere denial would +convince you. I can only say, instead, that the charge is too wild to be +replied to except in one way, which is this. Employ for a moment your own +standard of right and wrong. I know your love story, and you know mine. Miss +Eversleigh, my cousin, is to me what Miss Goodwin is to you—true as steel. My +loyalty and my friendship for you are the same as your loyalty and your +friendship for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I have spent an hour with Miss Goodwin, you have spent more than an +hour with my cousin. What right have you to suspect me more than I have to +suspect you? Judge me by your own standard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” I said, “and I find myself still suspecting you.” +</p> + +<p> +He stared. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you will when you have heard the piece of news which I mentioned +earlier in our conversation that I had for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“I proposed to your cousin at the Gunton-Cresswells’s dance tonight, and she +accepted me.” +</p> + +<p> +The news had a surprising effect on Julian. First he blinked. Then he craned +his head forward in the manner of a deaf man listening with difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +Then he left the room without a word. +</p> + +<p> +He had not been gone two minutes when there were three short, sharp taps at my +window. +</p> + +<p> +Julian returned? Impossible. Yet who else could have called on me at that hour? +</p> + +<p> +I went to the front door, and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +On the steps stood the Rev. John Hatton. Beside him Sidney Price. And, lurking +in the background, Tom Blake of the <i>Ashlade</i> and <i>Lechton</i>. +</p> + +<p> +<i>(End of James Orlebar Cloister’s narrative.)</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0022"></a> +Sidney Price’s Narrative</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0020"></a> +CHAPTER 17<br/> +A GHOSTLY GATHERING</h2> + +<p> +Norah Perkins is a peach, and I don’t care who knows it; but, all the same, +there’s no need to tell her every little detail of a man’s past life. Not that +I’ve been a Don What’s-his-name. Far from it. Costs a bit too much, that game. +You simply can’t do it on sixty quid a year, paid monthly, and that’s all there +is about it. Not but what I don’t often think of going it a bit when things are +slack at the office and my pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. +It’s the loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once, +when Tommy Milner hasn’t been there to talk to, I tell you I’ve half a mind to +take out some girl or other to tea at the “Cabin.” I have, straight. +</p> + +<p> +Yet somehow when the assist. cash. comes round with the wicker tray on the 1st, +and gives you the envelope (“Mr. Price”) and you take out the five +sovereigns—well, somehow, there’s such a lot of other things which you don’t +want to buy but have just got to. Tommy Milner said the other day, and I quite +agree with him, “When I took my clean handkerchief out last fortnight,” he +said, “I couldn’t help totting up what a lot I spend on trifles.” That’s it. +There you’ve got it in a nutshell. Washing, bootlaces, bus-tickets—trifles, in +fact: that’s where the coin goes. Only the other morning I bust my braces. I +was late already, and pinning them together all but lost me the 9:16, only it +was a bit behind time. It struck me then as I ran to the station that the +average person would never count braces an expense. Trifles—that’s what it is. +</p> + +<p> +No; I may have smoked a cig. too much and been so chippy next day that I had to +go out and get a cup of tea at the A.B.C.; or I may now and again have gone up +West of an evening for a bit of a look round; but beyond that I’ve never been +really what you’d call vicious. Very likely it’s been my friendship for Mr. +Hatton that’s curbed me breaking out as I’ve sometimes imagined myself doing +when I’ve been alone in the New Business Room. Though I must say, in common +honesty to myself, that there’s always been the fear of getting the sack from +the “Moon.” The “Moon” isn’t like some other insurance companies I could +mention which’ll take anyone. Your refs. must be A1, or you don’t stand an +earthly. Simply not an earthly. Besides, the “Moon” isn’t an Insurance Company +at all: it’s an <i>As</i>surance Company. Of course, now I’ve chucked the +“Moon” (“shot the moon,” as Tommy Milner, who’s the office comic, put it) and +taken to Literature I could do pretty well what I liked, if it weren’t for +Norah. +</p> + +<p> +Which brings me back to what I was saying just now—that I’m not sure whether I +shall tell her the Past. I may and I may not. I’ll have to think it over. +Anyway, I’m going to write it down first and see how it looks. If it’s all +right it can go into my autobiography. If it isn’t, then I shall lie low about +it. That’s the posish. +</p> + +<p> +It all started from my friendship with Mr. Hatton—the Rev. Mr. Hatton. If it +hadn’t have been for that man I should still be working out rates of percentage +for the “Moon” and listening to Tommy Milner’s so-called witticisms. Of course, +I’ve cut him now. A literary man, a man who supplies the <i>Strawberry Leaf</i> +with two columns of Social Interludes at a salary I’m not going to mention in +case Norah gets to hear of it and wants to lash out, a man whose Society novels +are competed for by every publisher in London and New York—well, can a man in +that position be expected to keep up with an impudent little ledger-lugger like +Tommy Milner? It can’t be done. +</p> + +<p> +I first met the Reverend on the top of Box Hill one Saturday afternoon. Bike +had punctured, and the Reverend gave me the loan of his cyclists’ repairing +outfit. We had our tea together. Watercress, bread-and-butter, and two sorts of +jam—one bob per head. He issued an invite to his diggings in the Temple. Cocoa +and cigs. of an evening. Regular pally, him and me was. Then he got into the +way of taking me down to a Boys’ Club that he had started. Terrors they were, +so to put it. Fair out-and-out terrors. But they all thought a lot of the +Reverend, and so did I. Consequently it was all right. The next link in the +chain was a chap called Cloyster. James Orlebar Cloyster. The Reverend brought +him down to teach boxing. For my own part, I don’t fancy anything in the way of +brutality. The club, so I thought, had got on very nicely with more +intellectual pursuits: draughts, chess, bagatelle, and what-not. But the Rev. +wanted boxing, and boxing it had to be. Not that it would have done for him or +me to have mixed ourselves up in it. He had his congregation to consider, and I +am often on duty at the downstairs counter before the very heart of the public. +A black eye or a missing tooth wouldn’t have done at all for either of us, +being, as we were, in a sense, officials. But Cloyster never seemed to realise +this. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Cloyster was not my idea of a +gentleman. He had no tact. +</p> + +<p> +The next link was a confirmed dipsomaniac. A terrible phrase. Unavoidable, +though. A very evil man is Tom Blake. Yet out of evil cometh good, and it was +Tom Blake, who, indirectly, stopped the boxing lessons. The club boys never +wore the gloves after drunken Blake’s visit. +</p> + +<p> +I shall never—no, positively never forget that night in June when matters came +to a head in Shaftesbury Avenue. Oh, I say, it was a bit hot—very warm. +</p> + +<p> +Each successive phase is limned indelibly—that’s the sort of literary style +I’ve got, if wanted—on the tablets of my memory. +</p> + +<p> +I’d been up West, and who should I run across in Oxford Street but my old +friend, Charlie Cookson. Very good company is Charlie Cookson. See him at a +shilling hop at the Holborn: he’s pretty much all there all the time. +Well-known follower—of course, purely as an amateur—of the late Dan Leno, king +of comedians; good penetrating voice; writes his own in-between bits—you know +what I mean: the funny observations on mothers-in-law, motors, and marriage, +marked “Spoken” in the song-books. Fellows often tell him he’d make a mint of +money in the halls, and there’s a rumour flying round among us who knew him in +the “Moon” that he was seen coming out of a Bedford Street Variety Agency the +other day. +</p> + +<p> +Well, I met Charlie at something after ten. Directly he spotted me he was at +his antics, standing stock still on the pavement in a crouching attitude, and +grasping his umbrella like a tomahawk. His humour’s always high-class, but he’s +the sort of fellow who doesn’t care a blow what he does. Chronic in that +respect, absolutely. The passers-by couldn’t think what he was up to. +“Whoop-whoop-whoop!” that’s what he said. He did, straight. Only <i>yelled</i> +it. I thought it was going a bit too far in a public place. So, to show him, I +just said “Good evening, Cookson; how are you this evening?” With all his +entertaining ways he’s sometimes slow at taking a hint. No tact, if you see +what I mean. +</p> + +<p> +In this case, for instance, he answered at the top of his voice: “Bolly Golly, +yah!” and pretended to scalp me with his umbrella. I immediately ducked, and +somehow knocked my bowler against his elbow. He caught it as it was falling off +my head. Then he said, “Indian brave give little pale face chief his hat.” This +was really too much, and I felt relieved when a policeman told us to move on. +Charlie said: “Come and have two penn’orth of something.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, we stayed chatting over our drinks (in fact, I was well into my second +lemon and dash) at the Stockwood Hotel until nearly eleven. At five to, Charlie +said good-bye, because he was living in, and I walked out into the Charing +Cross Road, meaning to turn down Shaftesbury Avenue so as to get a breath of +fresh air. Outside the Oxford there was a bit of a crowd. I asked a man +standing outside a tobacconist’s what the trouble was. “Says he won’t go away +without kissing the girl that sang ‘Empire Boys,’” was the reply. “Bin shiftin’ +it, ’e ’as, not ’arf!” Sure enough, from the midst of the crowd came: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Yew are ther boys of the Empire,<br/> + Steady an’ brave an’ trew.<br/> +Yew are the wuns<br/> + She calls ’er sons<br/> +An’ I luv yew. +</p> + +<p> +I had gone, out of curiosity, to the outskirts of the crowd, and before I knew +what had happened I found myself close to the centre of it. A large man in +dirty corduroys stood with his back to me. His shape seemed strangely familiar. +Still singing, and swaying to horrible angles all over the shop, he slowly +pivoted round. In a moment I recognised the bleary features of Tom Blake. At +the same time he recognised me. He stretched out a long arm and seized me by +the shoulder. “Oh,” he sobbed, “I thought I ’ad no friend in the wide world +except ’er; but now I’ve got yew it’s orlright. Yus, yus, it’s orlright.” A +murmur, almost a cheer it was, circulated among the crowd. But a policeman +stepped up to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then,” said the policeman, “wot’s all this about?” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Yew are the wuns<br/> +She calls ’er sons— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +shouted Blake. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, that’s yer little game, is it?” said the policeman. “Move on, d’yer hear? +Pop off.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said Blake. “I’ll never do it again. I promise faithful never to do +it again. I’ve found a fren’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know this covey?” asked the policeman. +</p> + +<p> +“Deny it, if yer dare,” said Blake. “Jus’ you deny it, that’s orl, an’ I’ll +tell the parson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Slightly, constable,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’d better take ’im off if you don’t want ’im locked up.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Im want me locked up? We’re bosum fren’s, ain’t we, old dear?” said Blake, +linking his arm in mine and dragging me away with him. Behind us, the policeman +was shunting the spectators. Oh, it was excessively displeasing to any man of +culture, I can assure you. +</p> + +<p> +How we got along Shaftesbury I don’t know. It’s a subject I do not care to +think about. +</p> + +<p> +By leaning heavily on my shoulder and using me, so to speak, as ballast, +drunken Blake just managed to make progress, I cannot say unostentatiously, but +at any rate not so noticeably as to be taken into custody. +</p> + +<p> +I didn’t know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn’t know when we were +going to stop. +</p> + +<p> +In this frightful manner of progression we had actually gained sight of +Piccadilly Circus when all of a sudden a voice hissed in my ear: “Sidney Price, +I am disappointed in you.” Hissed, mind you. I tell you, I jumped. Thought I’d +bitten my tongue off at first. +</p> + +<p> +If drunken Blake hadn’t been clutching me so tight you could have knocked me +down with a feather: bowled me over clean. It startled Blake a goodish bit, +too. All along the Avenue he’d been making just a quiet sort of snivelling +noise. Crikey, if he didn’t speak up quite perky. “O, my fren’,” he says. “So +drunk and yet so young.” Meaning me, if you please. +</p> + +<p> +It was too thick. +</p> + +<p> +“You blighter,” I says. “You <i>blooming</i> blighter. You talk to me like +that. Let go of my arm and see me knock you down.” +</p> + +<p> +I must have been a bit excited, you see, to say that. Then I looked round to +see who the other individual was. You’ll hardly credit me when I tell you it +was the Reverend. But it was. Honest truth, it was the Rev. John Hatton and no +error. His face fairly frightened me. Simply blazing: red: fair scarlet. He +kept by the side of us and let me have it all he could. “I thought you knew +better, Price,” that’s what he said. “I thought you knew better. Here are you, +a friend of mine, a member of the Club, a man I’ve trusted, going about the +streets of London in a bestial state of disgusting intoxication. That’s enough +in itself. But you’ve done worse than that. You’ve lured poor Blake into +intemperance. Yes, with all your advantages of education and up-bringing, you +deliberately set to work to put temptation in the way of poor, weak, +hard-working Blake. Drunkenness is Blake’s besetting sin, and you——” +</p> + +<p> +Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as Punch at being called +hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow dare yer!” he burst out. “I ain’t never tasted a drop o’ beer in my +natural. Born an’ bred teetotal, that’s wot I was, and don’t yew forget it, +neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blake,” said the Reverend, “that’s not the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call me a drunkard, do yer?” replied Blake. “Go on. Say it again. Say I’m a +blarsted liar, won’t yer? Orlright, then I shall run away.” +</p> + +<p> +And with that he wrenched himself away from me and set off towards the Circus. +He was trying to run, but his advance took the form of semi-circular sweeps all +over the pavement. He had circled off so unexpectedly that he had gained some +fifty yards before we realised what was happening. “We must stop him,” said the +Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +“As I’m intoxicated,” I said, coldly (being a bit fed up with things), “I +should recommend you stopping him, Mr. Hatton.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve done you an injustice,” said the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +“You have,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +Blake was now nearing a policeman. “Stop him!” we both shouted, starting to run +forward. +</p> + +<p> +The policeman brought Blake to a standstill. +</p> + +<p> +“Friend of yours?” said the constable when we got up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to look after him better,” said the constable. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really, I like that!” said the Reverend; but he caught my eye and began +laughing. “Our best plan,” he said, “is to get a four-wheeler and go down to +the Temple. There’s some supper there. What do you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m on,” I said, and to the Temple we accordingly journeyed. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Blake was sleepy and immobile. We spread him without hindrance on a sofa, +where he snored peacefully whilst the Reverend brought eggs and a slab of bacon +out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He also brought a frying-pan, and a bowl of +fat. +</p> + +<p> +“Is your cooking anything extra good?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Mr. Hatton,” I answered, rather stiff; “I’ve never cooked anything in my +life.” I may not be in a very high position in the “Moon,” but I’ve never +descended to menial’s work yet. +</p> + +<p> +For about five minutes after that the Reverend was too busy to speak. Then he +said, without turning his head away from the hissing pan, “I wish you’d do me a +favour, Price.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Look in the cupboard and see whether there are any knives, forks, plates, and +a loaf and a bit of butter, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked, and, sure enough, they were there. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they’re all here,” I called to him. +</p> + +<p> +“And is there a tray?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, there’s a tray.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, it’s a funny thing that my laundress,” he shouted back, “can’t bring in +breakfast things for more than one on that particular tray. She’s always +complaining it’s too small, and says I ought to buy a bigger one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” I exclaimed, “she’s quite wrong about that. You watch what I can +carry in one load.” And I packed the tray with everything he had mentioned. +</p> + +<p> +“What price that?” I said, putting the whole boiling on the sitting-room table. +</p> + +<p> +The Reverend began to roar with laughter. “It’s ridiculous,” he chuckled. “I +shall tell her it’s ridiculous. She ought to be ashamed of herself.” +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after we had supper, previously having aroused Blake. +</p> + +<p> +The drunken fellow seemed completely restored by his repose. He ate more than +his share of the eggs and bacon, and drank five cups of tea. Then he stretched +himself, lit a clay pipe, and offered us his tobacco box, from which the +Reverend filled his briar. I remained true to my packet of “Queen of the +Harem.” I shall think twice before chucking up cig. smoking as long as “Queen +of the Harem” don’t go above tuppence-half-penny per ten. +</p> + +<p> +We were sitting there smoking in front of the fire—it was a shade parky for the +time of year—and not talking a great deal, when the Reverend said to Blake, +“Things are looking up on the canal, aren’t they, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Blake; “things ain’t lookin’ up on the canal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Got a little house property,” said the Reverend, “to spend when you feel like +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the other; “I ain’t got no ’ouse property to spend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah.” said the Reverend, cheesing it, and sucking his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“Dessay yer think I’m free with the rhino?” said Blake after a while. +</p> + +<p> +“I was only wondering,” said the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +Blake stared first at the Reverend and then at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever remember a party of the name of Cloyster, Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster?” he +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” we both said. +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s a good man,” said Blake. +</p> + +<p> +“Been giving you money?” asked the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s put me into the way of earning it. It’s the sorfest job ever I struck. ’E +told me not to say nothin’, and I said as ’ow I wouldn’t. But it ain’t fair to +Mr. Cloyster, not keeping of it dark ain’t. Yew don’t know what a noble ’eart +that man’s got, an’ if you weren’t fren’ of ’is I couldn’t have told you. But +as you are fren’s of ’is, as we’re all fren’s of ’is, I’ll take it on myself to +tell you wot that noble-natured man is giving me money for. Blowed if ’e shall +’ide his bloomin’ light under a blanky bushel any longer.” And then he +explained that for putting his name to a sheet or two of paper, and addressing +a few envelopes, he was getting more money than he knew what to do with. “Mind +you,” he said, “I play it fair. I only take wot he says I’m to take. The rest +goes to ’im. My old missus sees to all that part of it ’cos she’s quicker at +figures nor wot I am.” +</p> + +<p> +While he was speaking, I could hardly contain myself. The Reverend was +listening so carefully to every word that I kept myself from interrupting; but +when he’d got it off his chest, I clutched the Reverend’s arm, and said, +“What’s it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say,” said he, knitting his brows. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he straight?” I said, all on the jump. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Hope so.’ You don’t think there’s a doubt of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not. But surely it’s very unselfish of you to be so concerned over +Blake’s business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blake’s business be jiggered,” I said. “It’s my business, too. I’m doing for +Mister James Orlebar Cloyster exactly what Blake’s doing. And I’m making money. +You don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, I’m just beginning to understand. You see, I’m doing for Mr. +James Orlebar Cloyster exactly the same service as you and Blake. And I’m +getting money from him, too.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0021"></a> +CHAPTER 18<br/> +ONE IN THE EYE</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Sidney Price’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Serpose I oughtn’t ter ’ave let on, that’s it, ain’t it?” from Tom Blake. +</p> + +<p> +“Seemed to me that if one of the three gave the show away to the other two, the +compact made by each of the other two came to an end automatically,” from +myself. +</p> + +<p> +“The reason I have broken my promise of secrecy is this: that I’m determined we +three shall make a united demand for a higher rate of payment. You, of course, +have your own uses for the money, I need mine for those humanitarian objects +for which my whole life is lived,” from the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot ’o,” said Blake. “More coin. Wot ’o. Might ’ave thought o’ that before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m with you, sir,” said I. “We’re entitled to a higher rate, I’ll make a memo +to that effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said the Reverend. “We can do better than that. We three should have +a personal interview with Cloyster and tell him our decision.” +</p> + +<p> +“When?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Now. At once. We are here together, and I see no reason to prevent our +arranging the matter within the hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he’ll be asleep,” I objected. +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t be asleep much longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yus, roust ’im outer bed. That’s wot I say. Wot ’o for more coin.” +</p> + +<p> +It was now half-past two in the morning. I’d missed the 12:15 back to Brixton +slap bang pop hours ago, so I thought I might just as well make a night of it. +We jumped into our overcoats and hats, and hurried to Fleet Street. We walked +towards the Strand until we found a four-wheeler. We then drove to No. 23, +Walpole Street. +</p> + +<p> +The clocks struck three as the Reverend paid the cab. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said he. “Why, there’s a light in Cloyster’s sitting-room. He can’t +have gone to bed yet. His late hours save us a great deal of trouble.” And he +went up the two or three steps which led to the front door. +</p> + +<p> +A glance at Tom Blake showed me that the barge-driver was alarmed. He looked +solemn and did not speak. I felt funny, too. Like when I first handed round the +collection-plate in our parish church. Sort of empty feeling. +</p> + +<p> +But the Reverend was all there, spry and business-like. +</p> + +<p> +He leaned over the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on the ground +floor window with his walking-stick. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the lighted blind appeared the shadow of a man’s figure. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s he!” “It’s him!” came respectively and simultaneously from the Reverend +and myself. +</p> + +<p> +After a bit of waiting the latch clicked and the door opened. The door was +opened by Mr. Cloyster himself. He was in evening dress and hysterics. I +thought I had heard a rummy sound from the other side of the door. Couldn’t +account for it at the time. Must have been him laughing. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight of us he tried to pull himself together. He half succeeded after a +bit, and asked us to come in. +</p> + +<p> +To say his room was plainly furnished doesn’t express it. The apartment was +like a prison cell. I’ve never been in gaol, of course. But I read “Convict 99” +when it ran in a serial. The fire was out, the chairs were hard, and the whole +thing was uncomfortable. Never struck such a shoddy place in my natural, ever +since I called on a man I know slightly who was in “The Hand of Blood” +travelling company No. 3 B. +</p> + +<p> +“Delighted to see you, I’m sure,” said Mr. Cloyster. “In fact, I was just going +to sit down and write to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really,” said the Reverend. “Well, we’ve come of our own accord, and we’ve +come to talk business.” Then turning to Blake and me he added, “May I state our +case?” +</p> + +<p> +“Most certainly, sir,” I answered. And Blake gave a nod. +</p> + +<p> +“Briefly, then,” said the Reverend, “our mission is this: that we three want +our contracts revised.” +</p> + +<p> +“What contracts?” said Mr. Cloyster. +</p> + +<p> +“Our contracts connected with your manuscripts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since when have the several matters of business which I arranged privately +with each of you become public?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tonight. It was quite unavoidable. We met by chance. We are not to blame. Tom +Blake was——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he looks as if he had been.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our amended offer is half profits.” +</p> + +<p> +“More coin,” murmured Blake huskily. “Wot ’o!” +</p> + +<p> +“I regret that you’ve had your journey for nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“You refuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Cloyster, I had expected you to take this attitude; but surely it’s +childish of you. You are bound to accede. Why not do so at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bound to accede? I don’t follow you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, bound. The present system which you are working is one you cannot afford +to destroy. That is clear, because, had it not been so, you would never have +initiated it. I do not know for what reason you were forced to employ this +system, but I do know that powerful circumstances must have compelled you to do +so. You are entirely in our hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said just now I was delighted to see you, and that I had intended to ask you +to come to me. One by one, of course; for I had no idea that the promise of +secrecy which you gave me had been broken.” +</p> + +<p> +The Reverend shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know why I wanted to see you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“To tell you that I had decided to abandon my system. To notify you that you +would, in future, receive no more of my work.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’ll go home to bed,” said the Reverend. +</p> + +<p> +Blake and myself followed him out. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cloyster thanked us all warmly for the excellent way in which we had helped +him. He said that he was now engaged to be married, and had to save every +penny. “Otherwise, I should have tried to meet you in this affair of the +half-profits.” He added that we had omitted to congratulate him on his +engagement. +</p> + +<p> +His words came faintly to our ears as we tramped down Walpole Street; nor did +we, as far as I can remember, give back any direct reply. +</p> + +<p> +Tell you what it was just like. Reminded me of it even at the time: that +picture of Napoleon coming back from Moscow. The Reverend was Napoleon, and we +were the generals; and if there were three humpier men walking the streets of +London at that moment I should have liked to have seen them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0022"></a> +CHAPTER 19<br/> +IN THE SOUP</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Sidney Price’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +They give you a small bonus at the “Moon” if you get through a quarter without +being late, which just shows the sort of scale on which the “Moon” does things. +Cookson, down at the Oxford Street Emporium, gets fined regular when he’s late. +Shilling the first hour and twopence every five minutes after. I’ve known +gentlemen in banks, railway companies, dry goods, and woollen offices, the +Indian trade, jute, tea—every manner of shop—but they all say the same thing, +“We are ruled by fear.” It’s fear that drags them out of bed in the morning; +it’s fear that makes them bolt, or even miss, their sausages; it’s fear that +makes them run to catch their train. But the “Moon’s” method is of a different +standard. The “Moon” does not intimidate; no, it entwines itself round, it +insinuates itself into, the hearts of its employees. It suggests, in fact, that +we should not be late by offering us this small bonus. No insurance office and, +up to the time of writing, no other assurance office has been able to boast as +much. The same cause is at the bottom of the “Moon’s” high reputation, both +inside and outside. It does things in a big way. It’s spacious. +</p> + +<p> +The “Moon’s” timing system is great, too. Great in its simplicity. The +regulation says you’ve got to be in the office by ten o’clock. Suppose you +arrive with ten minutes to spare. You go into the outer office (there’s only +one entrance—the big one in Threadneedle Street) and find on the right-hand +side of the circular counter a ledger. The ledger is open: there is +blotting-paper and a quill pen beside it. Everyone’s name is written in +alphabetical order on the one side of the ledger and on the other side there is +a blank page ruled down the middle with a red line. Having made your appearance +at ten to ten, you put your initials in a line with your name on the page +opposite and to the left of the division. If, on the other hand, you’ve missed +your train, and don’t turn up till ten minutes <i>past</i> ten, you’ve got to +initial your name on the other side of the red line. In the space on the right +of the line, a thick black dash has been drawn by Leach, the cashier. He does +this on the last stroke of ten. It makes the page look neat, he says. Which is +quite right and proper. I see his point of view entirely. The ledger must look +decent in an office like the “Moon.” Tommy Milner agrees with me. He says that +not only does it look better, but it prevents unfortunate mistakes on the part +of those who come in late. They might forget and initial the wrong side. +</p> + +<p> +After ten the book goes into Mr. Leach’s private partition, and you’ve got to +go in there to sign. +</p> + +<p> +It was there when I came into the office on the morning after we’d been to talk +business with Mr. Cloyster. It had been there about an hour and a half. +</p> + +<p> +“Lost your bonus, Price, my boy,” said genial Mr. Leach. And the General +Manager, Mr. Fennell, who had stepped out of his own room close by, heard him +say it. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not imagine that Mr. Price is greatly perturbed on that account. He will, +no doubt, shortly be forsaking us for literature. What Commerce loses, Art +gains,” said the G.M. +</p> + +<p> +He may have meant to be funny, or he may not. Some of those standing near took +him one way, others the other. Some gravely bowed their heads, others burst +into guffaws. The G.M. often puzzled his staff in that way. All were anxious to +do the right thing by him, but he made it so difficult to tell what the right +thing was. +</p> + +<p> +But, as I went down the basement stairs to change my coat in the clerks’ +locker-room, I understood from the G.M.’s words how humiliating my position +was. +</p> + +<p> +I had always been a booky sort of person. At home it had been a standing joke +that, when a boy, I would sooner spend a penny on <i>Tit-Bits</i> than +liquorice. And it was true. Not that I disliked liquorice. I liked +<i>Tit-Bits</i> better, though. So the thing had gone on. I advanced from +<i>Deadwood Dick</i> to Hall Caine and Guy Boothby; and since I had joined the +“Moon” I had actually gone a buster and bought <i>Omar Khayyam</i> in the +Golden Treasury series. Added to which, I had recently composed a little lyric +for a singer at the “Moon’s” annual smoking concert. The lines were topical and +were descriptive of our Complete Compensation Policy. Tommy Milner was the +vocalist. He sang my composition to a hymn tune. The refrain went: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Come and buy a C.C.Pee-ee!<br/> +If you want immunitee-ee<br/> +From the accidents which come<br/> +Please plank down your premium.<br/> +Life is diff’rent, you’ll agree<br/> +<i>Repeat</i> When you’ve got a C.C.P. +</p> + +<p> +The Throne Room of the Holborn fairly rocked with applause. +</p> + +<p> +Well, it was shortly afterwards that I had received a visit from Mr. +Cloyster—the visit which ended in my agreeing to sign whatever manuscripts he +sent me, and forward him all cheques for a consideration of ten per cent. +Softest job ever a man had. Easy money. Kudos—I had almost too much of it. +Which takes me back to the G.M.’s remark about my leaving the office. Since +he’s bought that big house at Regent’s Park he’s done a lot of entertaining at +the restaurants. His name’s always cropping up in the “Here and There” column, +and naturally he’s a subscriber to the <i>Strawberry Leaf</i>. The G.M. has +everything of the best and plenty of it. (You don’t see the G.M. with memo. +forms tucked round his cuffs: he wears a clean shirt every morning of his life. +All tip-top people have their little eccentricities.) And the <i>Strawberry +Leaf</i>, the smartest, goeyest, personalest weekly, is never missing from his +drawing-room what-not. Every week it’s there, regular as clockwork. That’s what +started my literary reputation among the fellows at the “Moon.” Mr. Cloyster +was contributing a series of short dialogues to the <i>Strawberry +Leaf</i>—called, “In Town.” These, on publication, bore my own signature. As a +matter of fact, I happened to see the G.M. showing the first of the series to +Mr. Leach in his private room. I’ve kept it by me, and I don’t wonder the news +created a bit of a furore. This was it:—— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +IN TOWN<br/> +BY SIDNEY PRICE +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +No. I.—THE SECRECY OF THE BALLET +</p> + +<p> +(You are standing under the shelter of the Criterion’s awning. It is 12.30 of a +summer’s morning. It is pouring in torrents. A quick and sudden rain storm. It +won’t last long, and it doesn’t mean any harm. But what’s sport to it is death +to you. You were touring the Circus in a new hat. Brand new. Couldn’t spot your +tame cabby. Hadn’t a token. Spied the Cri’s awning. Dashed at it. But it leaks. +Not so much as the sky though. Just enough, however, to do your hat no good. +You mention this to Friendly Creature with umbrella, and hint that you would +like to share that weapon.) +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Can’t give you all, boysie. Mine’s new, too. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. <i>(in your charming way)</i>. Well, of course. You wouldn’t be a woman if +you hadn’t a new hat. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Do women always have new hats? +</p> + +<p> +YOU. <i>(edging under the umbrella)</i>. Women have new hats. New women have +hats. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Don’t call me a woman, ducky; I’m a lady. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. I must be careful. If I don’t flatter you, you’ll take your umbrella away. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE <i>(changing subject)</i>. There’s Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. Where? +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Coming towards us in that landaulette. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. Looks fit, doesn’t she? +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Her! She’s a blooming rotter. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. Not so loud. She’ll hear you. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE <i>(raising her voice)</i>. Good job. I want her to. +<i>Stumer</i>! +</p> + +<p> +YOU. S-s-s-sh! What <i>are</i> you saying? Matilda’s a duchess now. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. I know. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. But you mustn’t say “Stumer” to a duchess unless—— +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Well? +</p> + +<p> +YOU. Unless you’re a duchess yourself? +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. I am. At least I was. Only I chucked it. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. But you said you were a lady. +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. So I am. An extra lady—front row, second O.P. +</p> + +<p> +YOU. How rude of me. Of course you were a duchess. I know you perfectly. Gorell +Barnes said—— +</p> + +<p> +FRIENDLY CREATURE. Drop it. What’s the good of the secrecy of the ballet if +people are going to remember every single thing about you? +</p> + +<p> +(At this point the rain stops. By an adroit flanking movement you get away +without having to buy her a lunch.) +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Everyone congratulated me. “Always knew he had it in him,” “Found his +vocation,” “A distinctly clever head,” “Reaping in the shekels”—that was the +worst part. The “Moon,” to a man, was bent on finding out “how much Sidney +Price makes out of his bits in the papers.” Some dropped hints—the G.M., Leach, +and the men at the counter. Others, like Tommy Milner, asked slap out. You may +be sure I didn’t tell them a fixed sum. But it was hopeless to say I was +getting the small sum which my ten per cent. commission worked out at. On the +other hand, I dared not pretend I was being paid at the usual rates. I should +have gone broke in twenty-four hours. You have no idea how constantly I was +given the opportunity of lending five shillings to important members of the +“Moon” staff. It struck me then—and I have found out for certain since—that +there is a popular anxiety to borrow from a man who earns money by writing. The +earnings of a successful writer are, to the common intelligence, something he +ought not really to have. And anyone, in default of abstracting his income, may +fall back upon taking up his time. +</p> + +<p> +It did, no doubt, appear that I was coining the ready. Besides the +<i>Strawberry Leaf</i>, <i>Features</i>, and <i>The Key of the Street</i> were +printing my signed contributions in weekly series. <i>The Mayfair</i>, too, had +announced on its placards, “A Story in Dialogue, by Sidney Price.” +</p> + +<p> +This, then, was my position on the morning when I was late at the “Moon” and +lost my bonus. +</p> + +<p> +Whilst I went up in the lift to the New Business Room, and whilst I was +entering the names and addresses of inquirers in the Proposal Book, I was +trying to gather courage to meet what was in store. +</p> + +<p> +For the future held this: that my name would disappear from the papers as +suddenly as it had arrived there. People would want to know why I had given up +writing. “Written himself out,” “No staying power,” “As short-lived as a Barnum +monstrosity”: these would be the remarks which would herald ridicule and +possibly pity. +</p> + +<p> +And I should be in just the same beastly fix at the “Hollyhocks” as I was at +the “Moon.” What would my people say? What would Norah say? +</p> + +<p> +There was another reason, too, why a stoppage of the ten per cent. cheques +would be a whack in the eye. You see, I had been doing myself well on +them—uncommonly well. I had ordered, as a present to my parents, new furniture +for the drawing-room. I had pressed my father to have a small greenhouse put up +at my expense. He had always wanted one, but had never been able to run to it. +And I had taken Norah about a good deal. Our weekly visit to a matinée (upper +circle and ices), followed by tea at the Cabin or Lyons’ Popular, had become an +institution. We had gone occasionally to a ball at the Town Hall. +</p> + +<p> +What would Norah say when all this ended abruptly without any explanation? +</p> + +<p> +There was no getting away from it. Sidney Price was in the soup. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0023"></a> +CHAPTER 20<br/> +NORAH WINS HOME</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Sidney Price’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +My signed work had run out. For two weeks nothing had been printed over my +signature. So far no comment had been raised. But it was only a question of +days. But then one afternoon it all came right. It was like this. +</p> + +<p> +I was sitting eating my lunch at Eliza’s in Birchin Lane. Twenty minutes was +the official allowance for the meal, and I took my twenty minutes at two +o’clock. The <i>St. Stephen’s Gazette</i> was lying near me. I picked it up. +Anything to distract my thoughts from the trouble to come. That was how I felt. +Reading mechanically the front page, I saw a poem, and started violently. This +was the poem:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A CRY +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hands at the tiller to steer:<br/> + A star in the murky sky:<br/> +Water and waste of mere:<br/> + Whither and why?<br/> +<br/> +Sting of absorbent night:<br/> + Journey of weal or woe:<br/> +And overhead the light:<br/> + We go—we go?<br/> +<br/> +Darkness a mortal’s part,<br/> + Mortals of whom we are:<br/> +Come to a mortal’s heart,<br/> + Immortal star. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Thos. Blake.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>June 6th.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Rummy, very rummy,” I exclaimed. The poem was dated yesterday. Had Mr. +Cloyster, then, continued to work his system with Thomas Blake to the exclusion +of the Reverend and myself? +</p> + +<p> +Still worrying over the thing, I turned over the pages of the paper until I +chanced to see the following paragraph: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +LITERARY GOSSIP +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Few will be surprised to learn that the Rev. John Hatton intends to publish +another novel in the immediate future. Mr. Hatton’s first book, <i>When It Was +Lurid</i>, created little less than a furore. The work on which he is now +engaged, which will bear the title of <i>The Browns of Brixton</i>, is a tender +sketch of English domesticity. This new vein of Mr. Hatton’s will, doubtless, +be distinguished by the naturalness of dialogue and sanity of characterisation +of his first novel. Messrs. Prodder and Way are to publish it in the autumn. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s running the Reverend again, is he?” said I to myself. “And I’m the only +one left out. It’s a bit thick.” +</p> + +<p> +That night I wrote to Blake and to the Reverend asking whether they had been +taken on afresh, and if so, couldn’t I get a look in, as things were pretty +serious. +</p> + +<p> +The Reverend’s reply arrived first: +</p> + +<p class="right"> +THE TEMPLE,<br/> +<i>June 7th.</i> +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +<i>Dear Price</i>,— +</p> + +<p> +As you have seen, I am hard at work at my new novel. The leisure of a novelist +is so scanty that I know you’ll forgive my writing only a line. I am in no way +associated with James Orlebar Cloyster, nor do I wish to be. Rather I would +forget his very existence. +</p> + +<p> +You are aware of the interests which I have at heart: social reform, the +education of the submerged, the physical needs of the young—there is no +necessity for me to enumerate my ideals further. To get quick returns from +philanthropy, to put remedial organisation into speedy working order wants +capital. Cloyster’s system was one way of obtaining some of it, but when that +failed I had to look out for another. I’m glad I helped in the system, for it +made me realise how large an income a novelist can obtain. I’m glad it failed +because its failure suggested that I should try to get for myself those vast +sums which I had been getting for the selfish purse of an already wealthy man. +Unconsciously, he has played into my hands. I read his books before I signed +them, and I find that I have thoroughly absorbed those tricks of his, of style +and construction, which opened the public’s coffers to him. <i>The Browns of +Brixton</i> will eclipse anything that Cloyster has previously done, for this +reason, that it will out-Cloyster Cloyster. It is Cloyster with improvements. +</p> + +<p> +In thus abducting his novel-reading public I shall feel no compunction. His +serious verse and his society dialogues bring him in so much that he cannot be +in danger of financial embarrassment. +</p> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Yours sincerely, John Hatton</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Now this letter set my brain buzzing like the engine of a stationary Vanguard. +I, too, had been in the habit of reading Mr. Cloyster’s dialogues before I +signed and sent them off. I had often thought to myself, also, that they +couldn’t take much writing, that it was all a knack; and the more I read of +them the more transparent the knack appeared to me to be. Just for a lark, I +sat down that very evening and had a go at one. Taking the Park for my scene, I +made two or three theatrical celebrities whose names I had seen in the +newspapers talk about a horse race. At least, one talked about a horse race, +and the others thought she was gassing about a new musical comedy, the name of +the play being the same as the name of the horse, “The Oriental Belle.” A very +amusing muddle, with lots of <i>doubles entendres</i>, and heaps of adverbial +explanation in small print. Such as: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Miss Adeline Genie<br/> +(with the faint, incipient blush which<br/> +Mrs. Adair uses to test her Rouge Imperial). +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +That sort of thing. +</p> + +<p> +I had it typed, and I said, “Price, my boy, there’s more Mr. Cloyster in this +than ever Mr. Cloyster could have put into it.” And the editor of the +<i>Strawberry Leaf</i> printed it next issue as a matter of course. I say, “as +a matter of course” with intention, because the fellows at the “Moon” took it +as a matter of course, too. You see, when it first appeared, I left the copy +about the desk in the New Business Room, hoping Tommy Milner or some of them +would rush up and congratulate me. But they didn’t. They simply said, “Don’t +litter the place up, old man. Keep your papers, if you <i>must</i> bring ’em +here, in your locker downstairs.” One of them <i>did</i> say, I fancy, +something about its “not being quite up to my usual.” They didn’t know it was +my maiden effort at original composition, and I couldn’t tell them. It was +galling, you’ll admit. +</p> + +<p> +However, I quickly forgot my own troubles in wondering what Mr. Cloyster was +doing. No editor, I foresaw, would accept his society stuff as long as mine was +in the market. They wouldn’t pay for Cloyster whilst they were offered the +refusal of super-Cloyster. Wasn’t likely. You must understand I wasn’t +over-easy in my conscience about the affair. I had, in a manner of speaking, +pinched Mr. Cloyster’s job. But then, I argued to myself, he was earning quite +as much as was good for any one man by his serious verse. +</p> + +<p> +And at that very minute our slavey, little Ethelbertina, knocked at my bedroom +door and gave me a postcard. It was addressed to me in thick, straggly writing, +and was so covered with thumb-marks that a Bertillon expert would have gone +straight off his nut at the sight of it. “My usbend,” began the postcard, “as +received yourn. E as no truk wif the other man E is a pots imself an e can do a +job of potry as orfen as e ’as a mine to your obegent servent Ada Blake. P.S. +me an is ole ant do is writin up for im.” +</p> + +<p> +So then I saw how that “Cry” thing in the <i>St. Stephen’s</i> had come there. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +You heard me give my opinion about telling Norah my past life. Well, you’ll +agree with me now that there’s practically nothing to tell her. +</p> + +<p> +There <i>is</i>, of course, little Miss Richards, the waitress in the +smoking-room of the Piccadilly Cabin. Her, I mean, with the fuzzy golden hair +done low. You’ve often exchanged “Good evening” with her, I’m sure. Her hair’s +done low: she used to make rather a point of telling me that. Why, I don’t +know, especially as it was always tidy and well off her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +And then there was the haughty lady who sold programmes in the Haymarket +Amphitheatre—but she’s got the sack, so Cookson informs me. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore, as I shall tell Norah plainly that I disapprove of the Cabin, the +past can hatch no egg of discord in the shape of the Cast-Off Glove. +</p> + +<p> +The only thing that I can think of as needing suppression is the part I played +in Mr. Cloyster’s system. +</p> + +<p> +There’s no doubt that the Reverend, Blake and I have, between us, put a fairly +considerable spoke in Mr. Cloyster’s literary wheel. But what am I to do? To +begin with, it’s no use my telling Norah about the affair, because it would do +her no good, and might tend possibly to lessen her valuation of my +capabilities. At present, my dialogues dazzle her; and once your <i>fiancée</i> +is dazzled the basis of matrimonial happiness is assured. Again, looking at it +from Mr. Cloyster’s point of view, what good would it be to him if I were to +stop writing? Both the editor and the public have realised by now that his work +is only second-rate. He can never hope to get a tenth of his original prices, +even if his work is accepted, which it won’t be; for directly I leave his +market clear, someone else will collar it slap off. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, I’ve no right to stop my dialogues. My duty to Norah is greater than +my duty to Mr. Cloyster. Unless I continue to be paid by literature I shall not +be able to marry Norah until three years next quarter. The “Moon” has passed a +rule about it, and an official who marries on an income not larger than eighty +pounds per annum is liable to dismissal without notice. +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s mother wouldn’t let her wait three years, and though fellows have been +known to have had a couple of kids at the time of their official marriage, I +personally couldn’t stand the wear and tear of that hole-and-corner business. +It couldn’t be done. +</p> + +<p> +<i>(End of Sidney Price’s narrative</i>.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0027"></a> +Julian Eversleigh’s Narrative</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0024"></a> +CHAPTER 21<br/> +THE TRANSPOSITION OF SENTIMENT</h2> + +<p> +It is all very, very queer. I do not understand it at all. It makes me sleepy +to think about it. +</p> + +<p> +A month ago I hated Eva. Tomorrow I marry her by special licence. +</p> + +<p> +Now, what <i>about</i> this? +</p> + +<p> +My brain is not working properly. I am becoming jerky. +</p> + +<p> +I tried to work the thing out algebraically. I wrote it down as an equation, +thus:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +HATRED, denoted by x + Eva.<br/> +REVERSE OF HATRED, “ “ y + Eva<br/> +ONE MONTH “ “ z. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +From which we get:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +x + Eva = (y + Eva)z. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And if anybody can tell me what that means (if it means anything—which I doubt) +I shall be grateful. As I said before, my brain is not working properly. +</p> + +<p> +There is no doubt that my temperament has changed, and in a very short space of +time. A month ago I was soured, cynical, I didn’t brush my hair, and I slept +too much. I talked a good deal about Life. Now I am blithe and optimistic. I +use pomade, part in the middle, and sleep eight hours and no more. I have not +made an epigram for days. It is all very queer. +</p> + +<p> +I took a new attitude towards life at about a quarter to three on the morning +after the Gunton-Cresswells’s dance. I had waited for James in his rooms. He +had been to the dance. +</p> + +<p> +Examine me for a moment as I wait there. +</p> + +<p> +I had been James’ friend for more than two years and a half. I had watched his +career from the start. I knew him before he had located exactly the short cut +to Fortune. Our friendship embraced the whole period of his sudden, +extraordinary success. +</p> + +<p> +Had not envy by that time been dead in me, it might have been pain to me to +watch him accomplish unswervingly with his effortless genius the things I had +once dreamt I, too, would laboriously achieve. +</p> + +<p> +But I grudged him nothing. Rather, I had pleasure in those triumphs of my +friend. +</p> + +<p> +There was no confidence we had withheld from one another. +</p> + +<p> +When he told me of his relations with Margaret Goodwin he had counted on my +sympathy as naturally as he had requested and received my advice. +</p> + +<p> +To no living soul, save James, would I have confessed my own tragedy—my +hopeless love for Eva. +</p> + +<p> +It is inconceivable that I should have misjudged a man so utterly as I +misjudged James. +</p> + +<p> +That is the latent factor at the root of my problem. The innate rottenness, the +cardiac villainy of James Orlebar Cloyster. +</p> + +<p> +In a measure it was my own hand that laid the train which eventually blew +James’ hidden smoulder of fire into the blazing beacon of wickedness, in which +my friend’s Satanic soul is visible in all its lurid nakedness. +</p> + +<p> +I remember well that evening, mild with the prelude of spring, when I evolved +for James’ benefit the System. It was a device which was to preserve my +friend’s liberty and, at the same time, to preserve my friend’s honour. How +perfect in its irony! +</p> + +<p> +Margaret Goodwin, mark you, was not to know he could afford to marry her, and +my system was an instrument to hide from her the truth. +</p> + +<p> +He employed that system. It gave him the holiday he asked for. He went into +Society. +</p> + +<p> +Among his acquaintances were the Gunton-Cresswells, and at their house he met +Eva. Whether his determination to treat Eva as he had treated Margaret came to +him instantly, or by degrees I do not know. Inwardly he may have had his scheme +matured in embryo, but outwardly he was still the accomplished hypocrite. He +was the soul of honour—outwardly. He was the essence of sympathetic tact as far +as his specious exterior went. Then came the 27th of May. On that date the +first of James Orlebar Cloyster’s masks was removed. +</p> + +<p> +I had breakfasted earlier than usual, so that by the time I had walked from +Rupert Court to Walpole Street it was not yet four o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +James was out. I thought I would wait for him. I stood at his window. Then I +saw Margaret Goodwin. What features! What a complexion! “And James,” I +murmured, “is actually giving this the miss in baulk!” I discovered, at that +instant, that I did not know James. He was a fool. +</p> + +<p> +In a few hours I was to discover he was a villain, too. +</p> + +<p> +She came in and I introduced myself to her. I almost forget what pretext I +manufactured, but I remember I persuaded her to go back to Guernsey that very +day. I think I said that James was spending Friday till Monday in the country, +and had left no address. I was determined that they should not meet. She was +far too good for a man who obviously did not appreciate her in the least. +</p> + +<p> +We had a very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt to touch on +James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded in diverting our +conversation into less uninteresting topics. +</p> + +<p> +She talked of Guernsey, I of London. I said I felt I had known her all my life. +She said that one had, undeniably, one’s affinities. +</p> + +<p> +I said, “Might I think of her as ‘Margaret’?” +</p> + +<p> +She said it was rather unconventional, but that she could not control my +thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +I said, “There you are wrong—Margaret.” +</p> + +<p> +She said, “Oh, what are you saying, Mr. Eversleigh?” +</p> + +<p> +I said I was thinking out loud. +</p> + +<p> +On the doorstep she said, “Well, yes—Julian—you may write to me—sometimes. But +I won’t promise to answer.” +</p> + +<p> +Angel! +</p> + +<p> +The next thing that awakened me was the coming of James. +</p> + +<p> +After I had given him a suitable version of Margaret’s visit, he told me he was +engaged to Eva. That was an astounding thing; but what was more astounding was +that James had somehow got wind of the real spirit of my interview with +Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +I have called James Orlebar Cloyster a fool; I have called him a villain. I +will never cease to call him a genius. For by some marvellous capacity for +introspection, by some incredible projection of his own mind into other +people’s matters, he was able to tax me to my face with an attempt to win his +former <i>fiancée’s</i> affections. I tried to choke him off. I used every +ounce of bluff I possessed. In vain. I left Walpole Street in a state +approaching mental revolution. +</p> + +<p> +My exact feelings towards James were too intricate to be defined in a single +word. Not so my feelings towards Eva. “Hate” supplied the lacuna in her case. +</p> + +<p> +Thus the month began. +</p> + +<p> +The next point of importance is my interview with Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell. She +had known all along how matters stood in regard to Eva and myself. She had not +been hostile to me on that account. She had only pointed out that as I could do +nothing towards supporting Eva I had better keep away when my cousin was in +London. That was many years ago. Since then we had seldom met. Latterly, not at +all. Invitations still arrived from her, but her afternoon parties clashed with +my after-breakfast pipe, and as for her evening receptions—well, by the time I +had pieced together the various component parts of my dress clothes, I found +myself ready for bed. That is to say, more ready for bed than I usually am. +</p> + +<p> +I went to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in a very bitter mood. I was bent on trouble. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come to congratulate Eva,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid of this,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“The announcement was the more pleasant,” I went on, “because James has been a +bosom friend of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you are going to be extremely disagreeable about your cousin’s +engagement,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” I answered her. “Very disagreeable. I intend to shadow the young +couple, to be constantly meeting them, calling attention to them. James will +most likely have to try to assault me. That may mean a black eye for dear +James. It will certainly mean the police court. Their engagement will be, in +short, a succession of hideous <i>contretemps</i>, a series of laughable +scenes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Julian,” said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, “hitherto you have acted manfully toward +Eva. You have been brave. Have you no regard for Eva?” +</p> + +<p> +“None,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor for Mr. Cloyster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a scrap.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why are you behaving in this appallingly selfish way?” +</p> + +<p> +This was a facer. I couldn’t quite explain to her how things really were, so I +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Never you mind. Selfish or not, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, I’m out for trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +That night I had a letter from her. She said that in order to avoid all +unpleasantness, Eva’s engagement would be of the briefest nature possible. That +the marriage was fixed for the twelfth of next month; that the wedding would be +a very quiet one; and that until the day of the wedding Eva would not be in +London. +</p> + +<p> +It amused me to find how thoroughly I had terrified Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell. How +excellently I must have acted, for, of course, I had not meant a word I had +said to that good lady. +</p> + +<p> +In the days preceding the twelfth of June I confess I rather softened to James. +The <i>entente cordiale</i> was established between us. He told me how +irresistible Eva had been that night; mentioned how completely she had carried +him away. Had she not carried me away in precisely the same manner once upon a +time? +</p> + +<p> +He swore he loved her as dearly as—(I can’t call to mind the simile he +employed, though it was masterly and impressive.) I even hinted that the +threats I had used in the presence of Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell were not serious. +He thanked me, but said I had frightened her to such good purpose that the date +would now have to stand. “You will not be surprised to hear,” he added, “that I +have called in all my work. I shall want every penny I make. The expenses of an +engaged man are hair-raising. I send her a lot of flowers every morning—you’ve +no conception how much a few orchids cost. Then, whenever I go to see her I +take her some little present—a gold-mounted umbrella, a bicycle lamp, or a +patent scent-bottle. I’m indebted to you, Julian, positively indebted to you +for cutting short our engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +I now go on to point two: the morning of the twelfth of June. +</p> + +<p> +Hurried footsteps on my staircase. A loud tapping at my door. The church clock +chiming twelve. The agitated, weeping figure of Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell +approaching my hammock. A telegram thrust into my hand. Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell’s +hysterical exclamation, “You infamous monster—you—you are at the bottom of +this.” +</p> + +<p> +All very disconcerting. All, fortunately, very unusual. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes were leaden with slumber, but I forced myself to decipher the following +message, which had been telegraphed to West Kensington Lane: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Wedding must be postponed.—CLOYSTER. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had no hand in this,” I cried; “but,” I added enthusiastically, “it +serves Eva jolly well right.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0025"></a> +CHAPTER 22<br/> +A CHAT WITH JAMES</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Julian Eversleigh’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell seemed somehow to drift away after that. Apparently I +went to sleep again, and she didn’t wait. +</p> + +<p> +When I woke, it was getting on for two o’clock. I breakfasted, with that +magnificent telegram propped up against the teapot; had a bath, dressed, and +shortly before five was well on my way to Walpole Street. +</p> + +<p> +The more I thought over the thing, the more it puzzled me. Why had James done +this? Why should he wish to treat Eva in this manner? I was delighted that he +had done so, but why had he? A very unexpected person, James. +</p> + +<p> +James was lying back in his shabby old armchair, smoking a pipe. There was tea +on the table. The room seemed more dishevelled than ever. It would have been +difficult to say which presented the sorrier spectacle, the room or its owner. +</p> + +<p> +He looked up as I came in, and nodded listlessly. I poured myself out a cup of +tea, and took a muffin. Both were cold and clammy. I went to the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” asked James. +</p> + +<p> +“Only going to ring for some more tea,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, don’t do that. I’ll go down and ask for it. You don’t mind using my cup, +do you?” +</p> + +<p> +He went out of the room, and reappeared with a jug of hot water. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” he explained, “if Mrs. Blankley brings in another cup she’ll charge +for two teas instead of one.” +</p> + +<p> +“It didn’t occur to me,” I said. “Sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds mean,” mumbled James. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” I said. “You’re quite right not to plunge into reckless +extravagance.” +</p> + +<p> +James blushed slightly—a feat of which I was surprised to see that he was +capable. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is——” he began. +</p> + +<p> +I interrupted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind about that,” I said. “What I want to know is—what’s the meaning of +this?” And I shoved the bilious-hued telegraph form under his nose, just as +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell had shoved it under mine. +</p> + +<p> +“It means that I’m done,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll explain. I have postponed my marriage for the same reason that I refused +you a clean cup—because I cannot afford luxuries.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may be my dulness; but, still, I don’t follow you. What exactly are you +driving at?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m done for. I’m on the rocks. I’m a pauper.” +</p> + +<p> +“A what?” +</p> + +<p> +“A pauper.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. The man was splendid. There was no other word for it. +</p> + +<p> +“And shall I tell you something else that you are?” I said. “You are a low, +sneaking liar. You are playing it low down on Eva.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed this time. It irritated me unspeakably. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t try to work off the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me,” I said, +“because it won’t do. You’re a blackguard, and you know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I’m done for. I’ve barely a penny in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rot!” I said. “Don’t try that on me. You’ve let Eva down plop, and I’m jolly +glad; but all the same you’re a skunk. Nothing can alter that. Why don’t you +marry the girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” he said. “It would be too dishonourable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dishonourable?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I haven’t got enough money. I couldn’t ask her to share my poverty with +me. I love her too dearly.” +</p> + +<p> +I was nearly sick. The beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft-music voice as if +he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. The stained-glass expression +on his face made me feel homicidal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, drop it,” I said. “Poverty! Good Lord! Isn’t two thousand a year enough to +start on?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I haven’t got two thousand a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t pretend to give the figures to a shilling.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand. All I have to live on is my holiday work at the +<i>Orb</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; and I’m doing some lyrics for Briggs for the second edition of <i>The +Belle of Wells</i>. That’ll keep me going for a bit, but it’s absolutely out of +the question to think of marrying anyone. If I can keep my own head above water +till the next vacancy occurs at the <i>Orb</i> I shall be lucky.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not, though I dare say I shall be soon, if this sort of thing goes on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you you are mad. Otherwise you’d have called in your work, and saved +yourself having to pay those commissions to Hatton and the others. As it is, I +believe they’ve somehow done you out of your cheques, and the shock of it has +affected your brain.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Julian, it’s a good suggestion, that about calling in my work. But it +comes a little late. I called it in weeks ago.” +</p> + +<p> +My irritation increased. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the use of lying like that?” I said angrily. “You don’t seem to credit +me with any sense at all. Do you think I never read the papers and magazines? +You can’t have called in your work. The stuff’s still being printed over the +signatures of Sidney Price, Tom Blake, and the Rev. John Hatton.” +</p> + +<p> +I caught sight of a <i>Strawberry Leaf</i> lying on the floor beside his chair. +I picked it up. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you are,” I said. “Page 324. Short story. ‘Lady Mary’s Mistake,’ by +Sidney Price. How about that?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it, Julian,” he said dismally; “that’s just it. Those three devils have +pinched my job. They’ve learned the trick of the thing through reading my +stuff, and now they’re turning it out for themselves. They’ve cut me out. My +market’s gone. The editors and publishers won’t look at me. I have had eleven +printed rejection forms this week. One editor wrote and said that he did not +want John-Hatton-and-water. That’s why I sent the wire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see those rejection forms.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t. They’re burnt. They got on my nerves, and I burnt them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” I said, “they’re burnt, are they?” +</p> + +<p> +He got up, and began to pace the room. +</p> + +<p> +“But I shan’t give up, Julian,” he cried, with a sickening return of the +melodrama hero manner; “I shan’t give up. I shall still persevere. The fight +will be terrible. Often I shall feel on the point of despair. Yet I shall win +through. I feel it, Julian. I have the grit in me to do it. And meanwhile”—he +lowered his voice, and seemed surprised that the orchestra did not strike up +the slow music—“meanwhile, I shall ask Eva to wait.” +</p> + +<p> +To wait! The colossal, the Napoleonic impudence of the man! I have known men +who seemed literally to exude gall, but never one so overflowing with it as +James Orlebar Cloyster. As I looked at him standing there and uttering that +great speech, I admired him. I ceased to wonder at his success in life. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do it,” I said regretfully. “I simply cannot begin to say what I think +of you. The English language isn’t equal to it. I cannot, off-hand, coin a new +phraseology to meet the situation. All I can say is that you are unique.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely unique. Though I had hoped you would have known me better than to +believe that I would swallow the ludicrous yarn you’ve prepared. Don’t you ever +stop and ask yourself on these occasions if it’s good enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe me!” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear James!” I protested. “Believe you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I swear it’s all true. Every word of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to forget that I’ve been behind the scenes. I’m not simply an +ordinary member of the audience. I know how the illusion is produced. I’ve seen +the strings pulled. Why, dash it, <i>I</i> showed you how to pull them. I never +came across a finer example of seething the kid in its mother’s milk. I put you +up to the system, and you turn round and try to take me in with it. Yes, you’re +a wonder, James.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you think——!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be an ass, James. Of course I do. You’ve had the brazen audacity to +attempt to work off on Eva the game you played on Margaret. But you’ve made a +mistake. You’ve forgotten to count me.” +</p> + +<p> +I paused, and ate a muffin. James watched me with fascinated eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You,” I resumed, “ethically, I despise. Eva, personally, I detest. It seems, +therefore, that I may expect to extract a certain amount of amusement from the +situation. The fun will be inaugurated by your telling Eva that she may have to +wait five years. You will state, also, the amount of your present income.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I decline?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you do if I declined?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should call upon Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell and give her a quarter of an hour’s +entertainment by telling her of the System, and explaining to her, in detail, +the exact method of its working and the reason why you set it going. Having +amused Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in this manner, I should make similar revelations +to Eva. It would not be pleasant for you subsequently, I suppose, but we all +have our troubles. That would be yours.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“As if they’d believe it,” he said, weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think they would.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’d laugh at you. They’d think you were mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not when I produced John Hatton, Sidney Price, and Tom Blake in a solid +phalanx, and asked them to corroborate me.” +</p> + +<p> +“They wouldn’t do it,” he said, snatching at a straw. “They wouldn’t give +themselves away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hatton might hesitate to, but Tom Blake would do it like a shot.” +</p> + +<p> +As I did not know Tom Blake, a moment’s reflection might have told James that +this was bluff. But I had gathered a certain knowledge of the bargee’s +character from James’s conversation, and I knew that he was a drunken, +indiscreet sort of person who might be expected to reveal everything in +circumstances such as I had described; so I risked the shot, and it went home. +James’s opposition collapsed. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall then,” administering the <i>coup de grâce</i>, “arrange a meeting +between the Gunton-Cresswells and old Mrs. Goodwin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said James, “but don’t bother. On second thoughts I will tell Eva +about my income and the five years’ wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” I said; “it’s very good of you. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +And I retired, chuckling, to Rupert Street. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0026"></a> +CHAPTER 23<br/> +IN A HANSOM</h2> + +<p> +<i>(Julian Eversleigh’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +I spent a pleasant week in my hammock awaiting developments. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the week came a letter from Eva. She wrote:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>My Dear Julian</i>,—You haven’t been to see us for ages. Is Kensington Lane +beyond the pale? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Your affectionate cousin</i>,<br/> +<i>Eva.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“You vixen,” I thought. “Yes; I’ll come and see you fast enough. It will give +me the greatest pleasure to see you crushed and humiliated.” +</p> + +<p> +I collected my evening clothes from a man of the name of Attenborough, whom I +employ to take care of them when they are not likely to be wanted; found a +white shirt, which looked presentable after a little pruning of the cuffs with +a razor; and drove to the Gunton-Cresswells’s in time for dinner. +</p> + +<p> +There was a certain atmosphere of unrest about the house. I attributed this at +first to the effects of the James Orlebar Cloyster bomb-shell, but discovered +that it was in reality due to the fact that Eva was going out to a fancy-dress +ball that night. +</p> + +<p> +She was having dinner sent up to her room, they told me, and would be down +presently. There was a good deal of flitting about going on. Maids on +mysterious errands shot up and down stairs. Old Mr. Gunton-Cresswell, looking +rather wry, was taking cover in his study when I arrived. Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell +was in the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +Before Eva came down I got a word alone with her. “I’ve had a nice, +straight-forward letter from James,” she said, “and he has done all he can to +put things straight with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“That telegram, he tells me, was the outcome of a sudden panic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems that he made some most ghastly mistake about his finances. What +exactly happened I can’t quite understand, but the gist of it is, he thought he +was quite well off, whereas, really, his income is infinitesimal.” +</p> + +<p> +“How odd!” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds odd; in fact, I could scarcely believe it until I got his letter of +explanation. I’ll show it to you. Here it is.” +</p> + +<p> +I read James Orlebar Cloyster’s letter with care. It was not particularly long, +but I wish I had a copy of it; for it is the finest work in an imaginative vein +that has ever been penned. +</p> + +<p> +“Masterly!” I exclaimed involuntarily. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it?” she echoed. “Enables one to grasp thoroughly how the mistake +managed to occur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has Eva seen it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I notice he mentions five years as being about the period——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; it’s rather a long engagement, but, of course, she’ll wait, she loves him +so.” +</p> + +<p> +Eva now entered the room. When I caught sight of her I remembered I had +pictured her crushed and humiliated. I had expected to gloat over a certain +dewiness of her eyes, a patient drooping of her lips. I will say plainly there +was nothing of that kind about Eva tonight. +</p> + +<p> +She had decided to go to the ball as Peter Pan. +</p> + +<p> +The costume had rather scandalised old Mr. Gunton-Cresswell, a venerable Tory +who rarely spoke except to grumble. Even Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, who had lately +been elected to the newly-formed <i>Les Serfs d’Avenir</i>, was inclined to +deprecate it. +</p> + +<p> +But I was sure Eva had chosen the better part. The dress suited her to +perfection. Her legs are the legs of a boy. +</p> + +<p> +As I looked at her with concentrated hatred, I realised I had never seen a +human soul so radiant, so brimming with <i>espièglerie</i>, so altogether to be +desired. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Julian, is it you. This <i>is</i> good of you!” +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that the past was to be waived. I took my cue. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, Eva,” I said; “it suits you admirably.” +</p> + +<p> +Events at this point move quickly. +</p> + +<p> +Another card of invitation is produced. Would I care to use it, and take Eva to +the ball? +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m not in fancy dress.” +</p> + +<p> +Overruled. Fancy dress not an essential. Crowds of men there in ordinary +evening clothes. +</p> + +<p> +So we drove off. +</p> + +<p> +We hardly exchanged a syllable. No one has much to say just before a dance. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at Eva out of the corner of my eye, trying to discover just what it +was in her that attracted men. I knew her charm, though I flattered myself that +I was proof against it. I wanted to analyse it. +</p> + +<p> +Her photograph is on the table before me as I write. I look at it critically. +She is not what I should describe as exactly a type of English beauty. You know +the sort of beauty I mean? Queenly, statuesque, a daughter of the gods, +divinely fair. Her charm is not in her features. It is in her expression. +</p> + +<p> +Tonight, for instance, as we drove to the ball, there sparkled in her eyes a +light such as I had never seen in them before. Every girl is animated at a +ball, but this was more than mere animation. There was a latent devilry about +her; and behind the sparkle and the glitter a film, a mist, as it were, which +lent almost a pathos to her appearance. The effect it had on me was to make me +tend to forget that I hated her. +</p> + +<p> +We arrive. I mutter something about having the pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Eva says I can have the last two waltzes. +</p> + +<p> +Here comes a hiatus. I am told that I was seen dancing, was observed to eat an +excellent supper, and was noticed in the smoking-room with a cigarette in my +mouth. +</p> + +<p> +At last the first of my two waltzes. The Eton Boating Song—one of my +favourites. I threaded my way through the room in search of her. She was in +neither of the doorways. I cast my eyes about the room. Her costume was so +distinctive that I could hardly fail to see her. +</p> + +<p> +I did see her. +</p> + +<p> +She was dancing my waltz with another man. +</p> + +<p> +The thing seemed to numb my faculties. I stood in the doorway, gaping. I +couldn’t understand it. The illogical nature of my position did not strike me. +It did not occur to me that as I hated the girl so much, it was much the best +thing that could happen that I should see as little of her as possible. My +hatred was entirely concentrated on the bounder who had stolen my dance. He was +a small, pink-faced little beast, and it maddened me to see that he danced +better than I could ever have done. +</p> + +<p> +As they whirled past me she smiled at him. +</p> + +<p> +I rushed to the smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +Whether she gave my other waltz to the same man, or whether she chose some +other partner, or sat alone waiting for me, I do not know. When I returned to +the ballroom the last waltz was over, and the orchestra was beginning softly to +play the first extra. It was <i>“Tout Passe,”</i> an air that has always had +the power to thrill me. +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a bound. Standing in the doorway just in front of me was Eva. +</p> + +<p> +I drew back. +</p> + +<p> +Two or three men came up, and asked her for the dance. She sent them away, and +my heart leaped as they went. +</p> + +<p> +She was standing with her back towards me. Now she turned. Our eyes met. We +stood for a moment looking at one another. +</p> + +<p> +Then I heard her give a little sigh; and instantly I forgot everything—my +hatred, my two lost dances, the pink-faced blighter—everything. Everything but +that I loved her. +</p> + +<p> +“Tired, Eva?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I am,” she replied. “Yes, I am, Julian.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me this one,” I whispered. “We’ll sit it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. It’s so hot in here. We’ll go and sit it out in a hansom, shall we? +I’ll get my cloak.” +</p> + +<p> +I waited, numbed by her absence. Her cloak was pale pink. We walked out +together into the starry night. A few yards off stood a hansom. “Drive to the +corner of Sloane Street,” I said to the man, “by way of the Park.” +</p> + +<p> +The night was very still. +</p> + +<p> +I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her. Could I +remember now? Now, as we drove together through the empty streets alone, her +warm, palpitating body touching mine. +</p> + +<p> +James, and his awful predicament, which would last till Eva gave him up; Eva’s +callous treatment of my former love for her; my own newly-acquired affection +for Margaret; my self-respect—these things had become suddenly of no account. +</p> + +<p> +“Eva,” I murmured; and I took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Eva....” +</p> + +<p> +Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. “My +darling,” she whispered, very low. +</p> + +<p> +The road was deserted. We were alone. +</p> + +<p> +I drew her face to mine and kissed her. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +My love for her grows daily. +</p> + +<p> +Old Gunton-Cresswell has introduced me to a big firm of linoleum manufacturers. +I am taking over their huge system of advertising next week. My salary will be +enormous. It almost frightens me. Old Mr. Cresswell tells me that he had had +the job in his mind for me for some time, and had, indeed, mentioned to his +wife and Eva at lunch that day that he intended to write to me about it. I am +more grateful to him than I can ever make him understand. Eva, I know, cares +nothing for money—she told me so—but it is a comfort to feel that I can keep +her almost in luxury. +</p> + +<p> +I have given up my rooms in Rupert Street. +</p> + +<p> +I sleep in a bed. +</p> + +<p> +I do Sandow exercises. +</p> + +<p> +I am always down to breakfast at eight-thirty sharp. +</p> + +<p> +I smoke less. +</p> + +<p> +I am the happiest man on earth. +</p> + +<p> +<i>(End of Julian Eversleigh’s narrative.)</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0031"></a> +Narrative Resumed</h2> + +<p> +by James Orlebar Cloyster +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0027"></a> +CHAPTER 24<br/> +A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS</h2> + +<p> +O perfidy of woman! O feminine inconstancy! That is the only allusion I shall +permit to escape me on the subject of Eva Eversleigh’s engagement to that +scoundrel Julian. +</p> + +<p> +I had the news by telegraph, and the heavens darkened above me, whilst the +solid earth rocked below. +</p> + +<p> +I had been trapped into dishonour, and even the bait had been withheld from me. +</p> + +<p> +But it was not the loss of Eva that troubled me most. It should have outweighed +all my other misfortunes and made them seem of no account, but it did not. Man +is essentially a materialist. The prospect of an empty stomach is more serious +to him than a broken heart. A broken heart is the luxury of the well-to-do. +What troubled me more than all other things at this juncture was the thought +that I was face to face with starvation, and that only the grimmest of fights +could enable me to avoid it. I quaked at the prospect. The early struggles of +the writer to keep his head above water form an experience which does not bear +repetition. The hopeless feeling of chipping a little niche for oneself out of +the solid rock with a nib is a nightmare even in times of prosperity. I +remembered the grey days of my literary apprenticeship, and I shivered at the +thought that I must go through them again. +</p> + +<p> +I examined my position dispassionately over a cup of coffee at Groom’s, in +Fleet Street. Groom’s was a recognised <i>Orb rendezvous</i>. When I was doing +“On Your Way,” one or two of us used to go down Fleet Street for coffee after +the morning’s work with the regularity of machines. It formed a recognised +break in the day. +</p> + +<p> +I thought things over. How did I stand? Holiday work at the <i>Orb</i> would +begin very shortly, so that I should get a good start in my race. Fermin would +be going away in a few weeks, then Gresham, and after that Fane, the man who +did the “People and Things” column. With luck I ought to get a clear fifteen +weeks of regular work. It would just save me. In fifteen weeks I ought to have +got going again. The difficulty was that I had dropped out. Editors had +forgotten my work. John Hatton they knew, and Sidney Price they knew; but who +was James Orlebar Cloyster? There would be much creaking of joints and wobbling +of wheels before my triumphal car could gather speed again. But, with a regular +salary coming in week by week from the <i>Orb</i>, I could endure this. I +became almost cheerful. It is an exhilarating sensation having one’s back +against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was Briggs, the actor. The very thought of him was a tonic. A born +fighter, with the energy of six men, he was an ideal model for me. If I could +work with a sixth of his dash and pluck, I should be safe. He was giving me +work. He might give me more. The new edition of the <i>Belle of Wells</i> was +due in another fortnight. My lyrics would be used, and I should get paid for +them. Add this to my <i>Orb</i> salary, and I should be a man of substance. +</p> + +<p> +I glared over my coffee-cup at an imaginary John Hatton. +</p> + +<p> +“You thought you’d done me, did you?” I said to him. “By Gad! I’ll have the +laugh of you all yet.” +</p> + +<p> +I was shaking my fist at him when the door opened. I hurriedly tilted back my +chair, and looked out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Cloyster.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked round. It was Fermin. Just the man I wanted to see. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed depressed. Even embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s the column?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right,” he said awkwardly. “I wanted to see you about that. I was +going to write to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” I said, “of course. About the holiday work. When are you off?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking of starting next week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. Sorry to lose you, of course, but——” +</p> + +<p> +He shuffled his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re doing pretty well now at the game, aren’t you, Cloyster?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was not to my interests to cry myself down, so I said that I was doing quite +decently. He seemed relieved. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re making quite a good income, I suppose? I mean, no difficulty about +placing your stuff?” +</p> + +<p> +“Editors squeal for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because, otherwise what I wanted to say to you might have been something of a +blow. But it won’t affect you much if you’re doing plenty of work elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +A cold hand seemed laid upon my heart. My mind leaped to what he meant. +Something had gone wrong with the <i>Orb</i> holiday work, my sheet-anchor. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember writing a par about Stickney, the butter-scotch man, you know, +ragging him when he got his peerage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +It was one of the best paragraphs I had ever done. A two-line thing, full of +point and sting. I had been editing “On Your Way” that day, Fermin being on a +holiday and Gresham ill; and I had put the paragraph conspicuously at the top +of the column. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Fermin, “I’m afraid there was rather trouble about it. Hamilton +came into our room yesterday, and asked if I should be seeing you. I said I +thought I should. ‘Well, tell him,’ said Hamilton, ‘that that paragraph of his +about Stickney has only cost us five hundred pounds. That’s all.’ And he went +out again. Apparently Stickney was on the point of advertising largely with the +<i>Orb</i>, and had backed out in a huff. Today, I went to see him about my +holiday, and he wanted to know who was coming in to do my work. I mentioned +you, and he absolutely refused to have you in. I’m awfully sorry about it.” +</p> + +<p> +I was silent. The shock was too great. Instead of drifting easily into my +struggle on a comfortable weekly salary, I should have to start the +tooth-and-nail fighting at once. I wanted to get away somewhere by myself, and +grapple with the position. +</p> + +<p> +I said good-bye to Fermin, retaining sufficient presence of mind to treat the +thing lightly, and walked swiftly along the restless Strand, marvelling at what +I had suffered at the hands of Fortune. The deceiver of Margaret, deceived by +Eva, a pauper! I covered the distance between Groom’s and Walpole Street in +sombre meditation. +</p> + +<p> +In a sort of dull panic I sat down immediately on my arrival, and tried to +work. I told myself that I must turn out something, that it would be madness to +waste a moment. +</p> + +<p> +I sat and chewed my pen from two o’clock till five, but not a page of printable +stuff could I turn out. Looking back at myself at that moment, I am not +surprised that my ideas did not flow. It would have been a wonderful triumph of +strength of mind if I had been able to write after all that had happened. Dr. +Johnson has laid it down that a man can write at any time, if he sets himself +to it earnestly; but mine were exceptional circumstances. My life’s happiness +and my means for supporting life at all, happy or otherwise, had been swept +away in a single morning; and I found myself utterly unable to pen a coherent +sentence. +</p> + +<p> +At five o’clock I gave up the struggle, and rang for tea. +</p> + +<p> +While I was having tea there was a ring at the bell, and my landlady brought in +a large parcel. +</p> + +<p> +I recognised the writing on the label. The hand was Margaret’s. I wondered in +an impersonal sort of way what Margaret could be sending to me. From the feel +of it the contents were paper. +</p> + +<p> +It amuses me now to think that it was a good half-hour before I took the +trouble to cut the string. Fortune and happiness were waiting for me in that +parcel, and I would not bother to open it. I sat in my chair, smoking and +thinking, and occasionally cast a gloomy eye at the parcel. But I did not open +it. Then my pipe went out, and I found that I had no matches in my pocket. +There were some at the farther end of the mantelpiece. I had to get up to reach +them, and, once up, I found myself filled with a sufficient amount of energy to +take a knife from the table and cut the string. +</p> + +<p> +Languidly I undid the brown paper. The contents were a pile of typewritten +pages and a letter. +</p> + +<p> +It was the letter over which my glassy eyes travelled first. +</p> + +<p> +“My own dear, brave, old darling James,” it began, and its purport was that she +had written a play, and wished me to put my name to it and hawk it round: to +pass off as my work her own amateurish effort at playwriting. Ludicrous. And so +immoral, too. I had always imagined that Margaret had a perfectly flawless +sense of honesty. Yet here she was asking me deliberately to impose on the +credulity of some poor, trusting theatrical manager. The dreadful +disillusionment of it shocked me. +</p> + +<p> +Most men would have salved their wounded susceptibilities by putting a match to +the manuscript without further thought or investigation. +</p> + +<p> +But I have ever been haunted by a somewhat over-strict conscience, and I sat +down there and then to read the stupid stuff. +</p> + +<p> +At seven o’clock I was still reading. +</p> + +<p> +My dinner was brought in. I bolted it with Margaret’s play propped up against +the potato dish. +</p> + +<p> +I read on and on. I could not leave it. Incredible as it would appear from +anyone but me, I solemnly assure you that the typewritten nonsense I read that +evening was nothing else than <i>The Girl who Waited</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0028"></a> +CHAPTER 25<br/> +BRIGGS TO THE RESCUE</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +I finished the last page, and I laid down the typescript reverently. The thing +amazed me. Unable as I was to turn out a good acting play of my own, I was, +nevertheless, sufficiently gifted with an appreciation of the dramatic to be +able to recognise such a play when I saw it. There were situations in +Margaret’s comedy which would grip a London audience, and force laughter and +tears from it.... Well, the public side of that idiotic play is history. +Everyone knows how many nights it ran, and the Press from time to time tells +its readers what were the profits from it that accrued to the author. +</p> + +<p> +I turned to Margaret’s letter and re-read the last page. She put the thing very +well, very sensibly. As I read, my scruples began to vanish. After all, was it +so very immoral, this little deception that she proposed? +</p> + +<p> +“I have written down the words,” she said; “but the conception is yours. The +play was inspired by you. But for you I should never have begun it.” Well, if +she put it like that—— +</p> + +<p> +“You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. You know the +right men to go to. To approach them on behalf of a stranger’s work is far less +likely to lead to success.” +</p> + +<p> +(True, true.) +</p> + +<p> +“I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to be produced. But +that will only be so if you adopt it as your own,” +</p> + +<p> +(There was sense in this.) +</p> + +<p> +“Claim the authorship, and all will be well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +I packed up the play in its brown paper, and rushed from the house. At the +post-office, at the bottom of the King’s Road, I stopped to send a telegram. It +consisted of the words, “Accept thankfully.—Cloyster.” +</p> + +<p> +Then I took a cab from the rank at Sloane Square, and told the man to drive to +the stage-door of the Briggs Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. +</p> + +<p> +The cab-rank in Sloane Square is really a Home for Superannuated Horses. It is +a sort of equine Athenaeum. No horse is ever seen there till it has passed well +into the sere and yellow. A Sloane Square cab-horse may be distinguished by the +dignity of its movements. It is happiest when walking. +</p> + +<p> +The animal which had the privilege of making history by conveying me and <i>The +Girl who Waited</i> to the Briggs Theatre was asthmatic, and, I think, +sickening for the botts. I had plenty of time to cool my brain and think out a +plan of campaign. +</p> + +<p> +Stanley Briggs, whom I proposed to try first, was the one man I should have +liked to see in the part of James, the hero of the piece. The part might have +been written round him. +</p> + +<p> +There was the objection, of course, that <i>The Girl who Waited</i> was not a +musical comedy, but I knew he would consider a straight play, and put it on if +it suited him. I was confident that <i>The Girl who Waited</i> would be just +what he wanted. +</p> + +<p> +The problem was how to get him to himself for a sufficient space of time. When +a man is doing the work of half a dozen he is likely to get on in the world, +but he has, as a rule, little leisure for conversation. +</p> + +<p> +My octogenarian came to a standstill at last at the stage-door, and seemed +relieved at having won safely through a strenuous bit of work. +</p> + +<p> +I went through in search of my man. +</p> + +<p> +His dressing-room was the first place I drew. I knew that he was not due on the +stage for another ten minutes. Mr. Richard Belsey, his valet, was tidying up +the room as I entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Briggs anywhere about, Richard?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Down on the side, sir, I think. There’s a new song in tonight for Mrs. Briggs, +and he’s gone to listen how it goes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which side, do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“O.P., sir, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +I went downstairs and through the folding-doors into the wings. The O.P. corner +was packed—standing room only—and the overflow reached nearly to the doors. The +Black Hole of Calcutta was roomy compared with the wings on the night of a new +song. Everybody who had the least excuse for being out of his or her +dressing-room at that moment was peering through odd chinks in the scenery. +Chorus-girls, show-girls, chorus-men, principals, children, scene-shifters, and +other theatrical fauna waited in a solid mass for the arrival of the music-cue. +</p> + +<p> +The atmosphere behind the scenes has always had the effect of making me feel as +if my boots were number fourteens and my hands, if anything, larger. Directly I +have passed the swing-doors I shuffle like one oppressed with a guilty +conscience. Outside I may have been composed, even jaunty. Inside I am hangdog. +Beads of perspiration form on my brow. My collar tightens. My boots begin to +squeak. I smile vacuously. +</p> + +<p> +I shuffled, smiling vacuously and clutching the type-script of <i>The Girl who +Waited</i>, to the O.P. corner. I caught the eye of a tall lady in salmon-pink, +and said “Good evening” huskily—my voice is always husky behind the scenes: +elsewhere it is like some beautiful bell. A piercing whisper of “Sh-h-h-!” came +from somewhere close at hand. This sort of thing does not help bright and +sparkling conversation. I sh-h-hed, and passed on. +</p> + +<p> +At the back of the O.P. corner Timothy Prince, the comedian, was filling in the +time before the next entrance by waltzing with one of the stage-carpenters. He +suspended the operation to greet me. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, dear heart,” he said, “how goes it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seen Briggs anywhere?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Round on the prompt side, I think. He was here a second ago, but he dashed +off.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the music-cue was given, and a considerable section of the +multitude passed on to the stage. +</p> + +<p> +Locomotion being rendered easier, I hurried round to the prompt side. +</p> + +<p> +But when I arrived there were no signs of the missing man. +</p> + +<p> +“Seen Mr. Briggs anywhere?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Here a moment ago,” said one of the carpenters. “He went out after Miss +Lewin’s song began. I think he’s gone round the other side.” +</p> + +<p> +I dashed round to the O.P. corner again. He had just left. +</p> + +<p> +Taking up the trail, I went to his dressing-room once more. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re just too late, sir,” said Richard; “he was here a moment ago.” +</p> + +<p> +I decided to wait. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if he’ll be back soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s probably downstairs. His call is in another two minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +I went downstairs, and waited on the prompt side. Sir Boyle Roche’s bird was +sedentary compared with this elusive man. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, dear old boy,” he said. “Welcome to Elsmore. Come and see me before you +go, will you? I’ve got an idea for a song.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” I said, as he flitted past, “can I——” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me later on.” +</p> + +<p> +And he sprang on to the stage. +</p> + +<p> +By the time I had worked my way, at the end of the performance, through the +crowd of visitors who were waiting to see him in his dressing-room, I found +that he had just three minutes in which to get to the Savoy to keep an urgent +appointment. He explained that he was just dashing off. “I shall be at the +theatre all tomorrow morning, though,” he said. “Come round about twelve, will +you?” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +There was a rehearsal at half-past eleven next morning. When I got to the +theatre I found him on the stage. He was superintending the chorus, talking to +one man about a song and to two others about motors, and dictating letters to +his secretary. Taking advantage of this spell of comparative idleness, I +advanced (l.c.) with the typescript. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, old boy,” he said, “just a minute! Sit down, won’t you? Have a cigar.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat down on the Act One sofa, and he resumed his conversations. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, laddie,” he said, “what you want in a song like this is tune. It’s no +good doing stuff that your wife and family and your aunts say is better than +Wagner. They don’t want that sort of thing here—Dears, we simply can’t get on +if you won’t do what you’re told. Begin going off while you’re singing the last +line of the refrain, not after you’ve finished. All back. I’ve told you a +hundred times. Do try and get it right—I simply daren’t look at a motor bill. +These fellers at the garage cram it on—I mean, what can you <i>do</i>? You’re +up against it—Miss Hinckel, I’ve got seventy-five letters I want you to take +down. Ready? ‘Mrs. Robert Boodle, Sandringham, Mafeking Road, Balham. Dear +Madam: Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he fears that he has no part to offer +to your son. He is glad that he made such a success at his school theatricals.’ +‘James Winterbotham, Pleasant Cottage, Rhodesia Terrace, Stockwell. Dear Sir: +Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he remembers meeting your wife’s cousin at +the public dinner you mention, but that he fears he has no part at present to +offer to your daughter.’ ‘Arnold H. Bodgett, Wistaria Lodge....’” +</p> + +<p> +My attention wandered. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of a quarter of an hour he was ready for me. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d have a shot at it, old boy,” he said, as he finished sketching +out the idea for the lyric, “and let me have it as soon as you can. I want it +to go in at the beginning of the second act. Hullo, what’s that you’re +nursing?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a play. I was wondering if you would mind glancing at it if you have +time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. There’s a part in it that would just suit you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it? Musical comedy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Ordinary comedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t mind putting on a comedy soon. I must have a look at it. Come and +have a bit of lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +One of the firemen came up, carrying a card. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, what’s this? Oh, confound the feller! He’s always coming here. Look +here: tell him that I’m just gone out to lunch, but can see him at three. Come +along, old boy.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to read the play over the coffee and cigars. +</p> + +<p> +He read it straight through, as I had done. +</p> + +<p> +“What rot!” he said, as he turned the last page. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “But won’t it go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go?” he shouted, with such energy that several lunchers spun round in their +chairs, and a Rand magnate, who was eating peas at the next table, started and +cut his mouth. “Go? It’s the limit! This is just the sort of thing to get right +at them. It’ll hit them where they live. What made you think of that drivel at +the end of Act Two?” +</p> + +<p> +“Genius, I suppose. What do you think of James as a part for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Top hole. Good Lord, I haven’t congratulated you! Consider it done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +We drained our liqueur glasses to <i>The Girl who Waited</i> and to ourselves. +</p> + +<p> +Briggs, after a lifetime spent in doing three things at once, is not a man who +lets a great deal of grass grow under his feet. Before I left him that night +the “ideal cast” of the play had been jotted down, and much of the actual cast +settled. Rehearsals were in full swing within a week, and the play was produced +within ten days of the demise of its predecessor. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the satisfactory sum which I received in advance of royalties was +sufficient to remove any regrets as to the loss of the <i>Orb</i> holiday work. +With <i>The Girl who Waited</i> in active rehearsal, “On Your Way” lost in +importance. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0029"></a> +CHAPTER 26<br/> +MY TRIUMPH</h2> + +<p> +<i>(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)</i> +</p> + +<p> +On the morning of the day for which the production had been fixed, it dawned +upon me that I had to meet Mrs. Goodwin and Margaret at Waterloo. All through +the busy days of rehearsal, even on those awful days when everything went wrong +and actresses, breaking down, sobbed in the wings and refused to be comforted, +I had dimly recognised the fact that when I met Margaret I should have to be +honest with her. Plans for evasion had been half-matured by my inventive +faculties, only to be discarded, unpolished, on account of the insistent claims +of the endless rehearsals. To have concocted a story with which to persuade +Margaret that I stood to lose money if the play succeeded would have been a +clear day’s work. And I had no clear days. +</p> + +<p> +But this was not all. There was another reason. Somehow my sentiments with +regard to her were changing again. It was as if I were awaking from some dream. +I felt as if my eyes had been blindfolded to prevent me seeing Margaret as she +really was, and that now the bandage had been removed. As the day of production +drew nearer, and the play began to take shape, I caught myself sincerely +admiring the girl who could hit off, first shot, the exact shade of drivel +which the London stage required. What culture, what excessive brain-power she +must have. How absurdly <i>naïve</i>, how impossibly melodramatic, how +maudlinly sentimental, how improbable—in fact, how altogether womanly she must +have grown. +</p> + +<p> +Womanly! That did it. I felt that she was womanly. And it came about that it +was my Margaret of the Cobo shrimping journeys that I was prepared to welcome +as I drove that morning to Waterloo Station. +</p> + +<p> +And so, when the train rolled in, and the Goodwins alighted, and Margaret +kissed me, by an extraordinarily lucky chance I found that I loved her more +dearly than ever. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +That <i>première</i> is still fresh in my memory. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Goodwin, Margaret, and myself occupied the stage box, and in various parts +of the house I could see the familiar faces of those whom I had invited as my +guests. +</p> + +<p> +I felt it was the supreme event of my life. It was <i>the</i> moment. And +surely I should have spoilt it all unless my old-time friends had been sitting +near me. +</p> + +<p> +Eva and Julian were with Mr. and Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in the box opposite us. +To the Barrel Club I had sent the first row of the dress circle. It was +expensive, but worth it. Hatton and Sidney Price were in the stalls. Tom Blake +had preferred a free pass to the gallery. Kit and Malim were at the back of the +upper circle (this was, Malim told me, Kit’s own choice). +</p> + +<p> +One by one the members of the orchestra took their places for the overture, and +it was to the appropriate strains of “Land of Hope and Glory” that the curtain +rose on the first act of my play. +</p> + +<p> +The first act, I should mention (though it is no doubt superfluous to do so) is +bright and suggestive, but ends on a clear, firm note of pathos. That is why, +as soon as the lights went up, I levelled my glasses at the eyes of the +critics. Certainly in two cases, and, I think, in a third, I caught the glint +of tear-drops. One critic was blowing his nose, another sobbed like a child, +and I had a hurried vision of a third staggering out to the foyer with his hand +to his eyes. Margaret was removing her own tears with a handkerchief. Mrs. +Goodwin’s unmoved face may have hidden a lacerated soul, but she did not betray +herself. Hers may have been the thoughts that lie too deep for tears. At any +rate, she did not weep. Instead, she drew from her reticule the fragmentary +writings of an early Portuguese author. These she perused during the present +and succeeding <i>entr’actes</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Pressing Margaret’s hand, I walked round to the Gunton-Cresswells’s box to see +what effect the act had had on them. One glance at their faces was enough. They +were long and hard. “This is a real compliment,” I said to myself, for the +whole party cut me dead. I withdrew, delighted. They had come, of course, to +assist at my failure. I had often observed to Julian how curiously lacking I +was in dramatic instinct, and Julian had predicted to Eva and her aunt and +uncle a glorious fiasco. They were furious at their hopes being so egregiously +disappointed. Had they dreamt of a success they would have declined to be +present. Indeed, half-way through Act Two, I saw them creeping away into the +night. +</p> + +<p> +The Barrel Club I discovered in the bar. As I approached, I heard Michael +declare that “there’d not been such an act produced since his show was put on +at——” He was interrupted by old Maundrell asserting that “the business arranged +for valet reminded him of a story about Leopold Lewis.” +</p> + +<p> +They, too, added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctly frigid. +</p> + +<p> +Ascending to the gallery I found another compliment awaiting me. Tom Blake was +fast asleep. The quality of Blake’s intellect was in inverse ratio to that of +Mrs. Goodwin. Neither of them appreciated the stuff that suited so well the +tastes of the million; and it was consequently quite consistent that while Mrs. +Goodwin dozed in spirit Tom Blake should snore in reality. +</p> + +<p> +With Hatton and Price I did not come into contact. I noticed, however, that +they wore an expression of relief at the enthusiastic reception my play had +received. +</p> + +<p> +But an encounter with Kit and Malim was altogether charming. They had had some +slight quarrel on the way to the theatre, and had found a means of +reconciliation in their mutual emotion at the pathos of the first act’s finale. +They were now sitting hand in hand telling each other how sorry they were. They +congratulated me warmly. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +A couple of hours more, and the curtain had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +The roar, the frenzied scene, the picture of a vast audience, half-mad with +excitement—how it all comes back to me. +</p> + +<p> +And now, as I sit in this quiet smoking-room of a St. Peter’s Port hotel, I +hear again the shout of “Author!” I see myself again stepping forward from the +wings. That short appearance of mine, that brief speech behind the footlights +fixed my future.... +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“James Orlebar Cloyster, the plutocratic playwright, to Margaret, only daughter +of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LL.D.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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