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diff --git a/old/7ntgw10.txt b/old/7ntgw10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bd3d5f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7ntgw10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7129 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Not George Washington, by P. G. Wodehouse +#23 in our series by P. G. Wodehouse + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Not George Washington + An Autobiographical Novel + +Author: P. G. Wodehouse + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7230] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON +An Autobiographical Novel + + +by P. G. Wodehouse +and Herbert Westbrook + +1907 + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART ONE + +_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_ + +1. James Arrives +2. James Sets Out +3. A Harmless Deception + + +PART TWO + +_James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative_ + +1. The Invasion of Bohemia +2. I Evacuate Bohemia +3. The _Orb_ +4. Julian Eversleigh +5. The Column +6. New Year's Eve +7. I Meet Mr. Thomas Blake +8. I Meet the Rev. John Hatton +9. Julian Learns My Secret +10. Tom Blake Again +11. Julian's Idea +12. The First Ghost +13. The Second Ghost +14. The Third Ghost +15. Eva Eversleigh +16. I Tell Julian + + +_Sidney Price's Narrative_ + +17. A Ghostly Gathering +18. One in the Eye +19. In the Soup +20. Norah Wins Home + + +_Julian Eversleigh's Narrative_ + +21. The Transposition of Sentiment +22. A Chat with James +23. In a Hansom + + +_Narrative Resumed by James Orlebar Cloyster_ + +24. A Rift in the Clouds +25. Briggs to the Rescue +26. My Triumph + + + + + +PART ONE + + +_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_ + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +JAMES ARRIVES + + +I am Margaret Goodwin. A week from today I shall be Mrs. James Orlebar +Cloyster. + +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. + +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. + +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 _fiance_, +is _not_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And then I saw Him. + +Not distinctly, for he was rowing a dinghy in my direction, and +consequently had his back to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +How I blessed the muscular development of my arms. + +I reached him as he came to the surface. + +"That's twice," he remarked contemplatively, as I seized him by the +shoulders. + +"Be brave," I said excitedly; "I can save you." + +"I should be most awfully obliged," he said. + +"Do exactly as I tell you." + +"I say," he remonstrated, "you're not going to drag me along by the +roots of my hair, are you?" + +The natural timidity of man is, I find, attractive. + +I helped him to the boat, and he climbed in. I trod water, clinging +with one hand to the stern. + +"Allow me," he said, bending down. + +"No, thank you," I replied. + +"Not, really?" + +"Thank you very much, but I think I will stay where I am." + +"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." + +"Not at all," I said politely. "Did you get cramp?" + +"A twinge. It was awfully kind of you." + +"Not at all." + +Then there was a rather awkward silence. + +"Is this your first visit to Guernsey?" I asked. + +"Yes; I arrived yesterday. It's a delightful place. Do you live here?" + +"Yes; that white cottage you can just see through the trees." + +"I suppose I couldn't give you a tow anywhere?" + +"No; thank you very much. I will swim back." + +Another constrained silence. + +"Are you ever in London, Miss----?" + +"Goodwin. Oh, yes; we generally go over in the winter, Mr.----" + +"Cloyster. Really? How jolly. Do you go to the theatre much?" + +"Oh, yes. We saw nearly everything last time we were over." + +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. + +"I think I will be swimming back now," I said. + +"You're quite sure I can't give you a tow?" + +"Quite, thanks. Perhaps you would care to come to breakfast with us, +Mr. Cloyster? I know my mother would be glad to see you." + +"It is very kind of you. I should be delighted. Shall we meet on the +beach?" + +I swam off to my cave to dress. + +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 _Sartor Resartus_, 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 eclair-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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +At this point I committed an indiscretion which can only be excused by +the magnitude of the occasion. + +My mother had retired to her favourite bow-window where, by a _tour +de force_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +I realised in an instant what I had done. Fool that I had been. The +bow-window! + +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. + +She looked up. Her smile was more pronounced. + +"Margie," she said. + +"Yes, mother?" + +"The hedonism of Voltaire is the indictment of an honest bore." + +"Yes, mother." + +She then resumed her book. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +JAMES SETS OUT +_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomato growing?" I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense of +bathos, "People _have_ made it pay. Of course, they work very +hard." + +"M'yes," said James without much enthusiasm. + +"But I fancy," I added, "the life is not at all unpleasant." + +At this point embarrassment seemed to engulf James. He blushed, +swallowed once or twice in a somewhat convulsive manner, and stammered. + +Then he made his confession guiltily. + +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 _en rapport_ with the +unslumbering forces of Fleet Street--those were the real objectives of +James Orlebar Cloyster. + +"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." + +"Of course you could," I said. + +"I mean, lots of men have, don't you know." + +"There's plenty of room at the top," I said. + +He seemed struck with this remark. It encouraged him. + +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. + +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 _diligence_ +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245 +Gerrard to 137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegrating +blur. + +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. + +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. + +We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her. + +She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of _The +Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus. + +"Good morning," she said, looking at her watch. "It is a little past +our usual breakfast time, Margie, I think?" + +"We have been looking for mushrooms, mother." + +"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?" + +"Heaps, Mrs. Goodwin," said James. + +"Mother," I said, "we want to tell you something." + +"The fact is, Mrs. Goodwin----" + +"We are engaged." + +My mother liked James. + +"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. + +The key-note of my mother's contribution to our conference was, "Wait." + +"You are both young," she said. + +She then kissed me, smiled contemplatively at James, and resumed her +book. + +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." + +I put my arms round his neck. + +"My love," I said, "I trust you. Go. Always remember that I know you +will succeed." + +I kissed him. + +"And when you have succeeded, come back." + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +A HARMLESS DECEPTION +_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_ + + +They say that everyone is capable of one novel. And, in my opinion, +most people could write one play. + +Whether I wrote mine in an inspiration of despair, I cannot say. I +wrote it. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 _doing_ something.... And it was during +these restless weeks that I wrote my play. + +I think nothing will ever erase from my mind the moment when the +central idea of _The Girl who Waited_ 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 _Art of Literature_. +Ponto slept on the rug. + +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. + +My mother looked at me over her book. + +"You are restless, Margie," she said. "There is a volume of Marcus +Aurelius on the table beside you, if you care to read." + +"No, thank you, mother," I said. "I think I shall go for a walk." + +"Wrap up well, my dear," she replied. + +She then resumed her book. + +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. + +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 _The +Girl who Waited_. + +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. + +For two days I gloated alone over the great pile of manuscript. + +Then I went to my mother. + +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. + +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. + +I read on and on, till at length my voice trailed over the last line, +rose gallantly at the last fence, the single word _Curtain_, and +abruptly broke. The strain had been too much for me. + +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. + +Seeing, as she did instantly, that it would be more dangerous to deny +my request than to accede to it, she spoke. + +"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." + +I thanked my mother effusively. I think I cried a little. + +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. + +She then resumed her book. + +I went to my room and re-read the last letter I had had from James. + + _The Barrel Club, + Covent Garden, + London._ + + 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. + + _Ever your devoted + James._ + +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. + +I finished my letter to James very late that night. It was a very long +and explanatory letter, and it enclosed my play. + +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." + +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." + +Of the play and its reception by the public there is no need to speak. +The criticisms were all favourable. + +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. + +I have blotted the last page of this commonplace love-story of mine. + +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. + +I think I shall wear my white muslin tomorrow. + +_(End of Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative.)_ + + + + + +PART TWO + + +James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA + + +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. + +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. + +Three years have passed since the excellent, but unsteady, steamship +_Ibex_ 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. + +The journey to Waterloo gave me opportunity for tobacco and reflection. + +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? + +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. + +Little did the good Bohemians of the metropolis know how keen a recruit +the boat train was bringing to them. + + * * * * * + +As a _pied-a-terre_ I selected a cheap and dingy hotel in York +Street, and from this base I determined to locate my proper sphere. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Setting my hat at a wild angle, I stepped with a touch of +_abandon_ along the King's Road to meet the charming, impoverished +artists whom our country refuses to recognise. + +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. + +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. + +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 Cafe (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. + +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. + +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. + +Then, just as I was about to retire defeated, I was arrested by the +appearance of a house numbered 93A. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A few brief questions and the emissaries entered. A pause. + +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. + +What does this mean? + +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." + +So, greatly against his will, he is dragged off. + +My vigil is rewarded. No. 93A harbours a Bohemian. Let it be inhabited +also by me. + +I stepped across, and rang the bell. + +The answer was a piercing scream. + +"Ah, ha!" I said to myself complacently, "there are more Bohemians than +one, then, in this house." + +The female head again appeared. + +"Not another? Oh, sir, say there ain't another wanted," said the head +in a passionate Cockney accent. + +"That is precisely what there is," I replied. "I want----" + +"What for?" + +"For something moderate." + +"Well, that's a comfort in a wiy. Which of 'em is it you want? The +first-floor back?" + +"I have no doubt the first-floor back would do quite well." + +My words had a curious effect. She scrutinised me suspiciously. + +"Ho!" she said, with a sniff; "you don't seem to care much which it is +you get." + +"I don't," I said, "not particularly." + +"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." + +"I'm not. Far from it." + +"Then what d'yer mean coming 'ere saying you want my first-floor back?" + +"But I do. Or any other room, if that is occupied." + +"'Ow! _Room_? Why didn't yer siy so? You'll pawdon me, sir, if +I've said anything 'asty-like. I thought--but my mistake." + +"Not at all. Can you let me have a room? I notice that the gentleman +whom I have just seen----" + +She cut me short. I was about to explain that I was a Bohemian, too. + +"'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." + +Mrs. Driver spoke earnestly, but breathlessly. + +"I do not contemplate asking you, Mrs. Driver, to give me the +apartments already engaged by the literary gentleman----" + +"Yes, sir," she interpolated, "that's wot 'e wos, I mean is. A literary +gent." + +"But have you not another room vacant?" + +"The second-floor back, sir. Very comfortable, nice room, sir. Shady in +the morning, and gets the setting sun." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +I EVACUATE BOHEMIA +_(James Orlebar Cloister's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. _Pearson's Magazine_ also +supplies a taking line in rejection forms. _Punch_'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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _you_ +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. + +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--_wonk_! 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. + +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. + +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 _Colney Hatch Argus_ could have +accepted work like mine. Yet I toiled on. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I began to see light. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Sech a litter," she said. + +"But," I protested, "this is a Bohemian house, is it not?" + +She appeared so shocked--indeed, so infuriated, that I dared not give +her time to answer. + +"The gentleman below, he's not very tidy," I added diplomatically. + +"Wot gent below?" said Mrs. Driver. + +I reminded her of the night of my arrival. + +"Oh, '_im_," she said, shaken. "Well, 'e's not come back." + +"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." + +"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." + +"What is the truth?" + +"'E was a wrong 'un, 'e wos. Writing begging letters to parties as was +a bit soft, that wos '_is_ little gime. But 'e wos a bit too +clever one day, and the coppers got 'im. Now you know!" + +Mrs. Driver paused after this outburst, and allowed her eye to wander +slowly and ominously round my walls. + +I was deeply moved. My one link with Bohemia had turned out a fraud. + +Mrs. Driver's voice roused me from my meditations. + +"I must arst you to be good enough, if _you_ please, kindly to +remove those there bits of paper." + +She pointed to the rejection forms. + +I hesitated. I felt that it was a thing that ought to be broken gently. + +"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." + +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. + + + + +Chapter 3 + +THE ORB +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_plop_ about the fall of the former which not even a long envelope +full of proofs can imitate successfully. + +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. + +I made a little money, of course. My takings for the first month +amounted to L9 10s. I notched double figures in the next with Lll 1s. +6d. Then I dropped to L7 0s. 6d. It was not starvation, but it was +still more unlike matrimony. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + + _St. Gabriel's College, + Cambridge._ + + 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, "_Pastor deorum cultor et infrequens_," + 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 _panache_. + + 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. + + Believe me, + _Your well-wisher, + David Ossian Macrae._ + +The enclosure bore this inscription: + + CHARLES FERMIN, ESQ., + Offices of the _Orb_, + Strand, + London. + +I had received the letter at breakfast. I took a cab, and drove +straight to the _Orb_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +We shook hands, and I tried to look intelligent. + +"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." + +We arrived at the Club, and sat in a corner of the lower smoking-room. + +"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?" + +I felt like a batsman who sees a slow full-toss sailing through the +air. + +"It's the only thing I can get taken," I said. "I've had quite a lot in +the _Chronicle_ and occasional bits in other papers." + +He seemed relieved. + +"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?" + +"Easily," I said. + +"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." + +"It's awfully good of you." + +"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?" + +"All right." + +"You've had no experience of newspaper work, have you?" + +"No." + +"Well, all the work at the _Orb's_ 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." + +"I see." + +"On Monday, then. Nine sharp. Good-bye." + +I walked home along Piccadilly with almost a cake-walk stride. At last +I was in the inner circle. + +An _Orb_ cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He was +one of _Us_. + + + + +Chapter 4 + +JULIAN EVERSLEIGH +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +At that moment I advanced. + +The lurchers vanished noiselessly and instantaneously. + +Their victim held out his hand. + +"Come in, won't you?" he said, smiling sleepily at me. + +I followed him in, murmuring something about "caught in the act." + +He repeated the phrase as we went upstairs. + +"'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." + +He crossed to a writing-table. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Caught in the act," he was murmuring. "Caught in the act." + +The phrase seemed to fascinate him. + +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. + +"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----" + +"When." + +"--an idea." + +"But how did it happen?" I asked. + +"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." + +This sort of talk from a stranger might have been the prelude to an +appeal for financial assistance. + +He dissipated that half-born thought. + +"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." + +"Thank you," I said. + +"Besides," he continued, "I am not hungry at present. In fact, I shall +never be hungry again." + +"You're lucky," I remarked. + +"I am. I am the fortunate possessor of the knack of writing +advertisements." + +"Indeed," I said, feeling awkward, for I saw that I ought to be +impressed. + +"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." + +"Every book?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +I took the paper he handed to me. It bore the words: + + CAUGHT IN THE ACT + + 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. + +"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 _Skeffington's +Poultry Farmer_, 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?" + +"You're a genius," I cried. + +"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." + +"Rather," I replied briskly, "I am in love." + +"So am I," said Julian Eversleigh. "Hopelessly, however. Give us a +match." + +After that we confirmed our friendship by smoking a number of pipes +together. + + + + +Chapter 5 + +THE COLUMN +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +After the first week "On Your Way," on the _Orb_, 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. + +The column usually opened with a one-line pun--Gresham's invention. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Gresham's unacknowledged version of the episode ran as follows: + +"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." + +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. + +"'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!'" + +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. + +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. + +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 _Punch_--we had about a dozen in the room--with lightning speed +until he chanced upon a more or less appropriate tag. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +Julian Eversleigh, to whom I told my experiences on the _Orb_, +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. + +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 _Orb_, with a letter to the editor on _Orb_ notepaper. + +Altogether, my five weeks on the _Orb_ 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 _Orb_ 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. + +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. + +I foresaw that the future held out positive hope that my marriage with +Margaret would become possible. And yet---- + +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? + +These thoughts numbed my fingers in the act of writing to Margaret. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Somehow Margaret seemed out of place in this new world of mine. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +NEW YEAR'S EVE +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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 +_Orb_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Half a second, Jimmy," said he, and began to read. + +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. + +"I'll do it," he burst out when he had finished. "It's a sweat--a +fearful sweat, but---- + +"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." + +"Fine," I said, finishing the coffee. + +"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?" + +"Yours!" I said. + +"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." + +"I'm taking a holiday, too, today," I said. "How can we amuse +ourselves?" + +Julian had opened the last of his letters. He held up two cards. + +"Tickets for Covent Garden Ball tonight," he said. "Why not come? It's +sure to be a good one." + +"I should like to," I said. "Thanks." + +Julian dropped from his hammock, and began to get his bath ready. + +We arranged to dine early at the Maison Suisse in Rupert Street-- +_table d'hote_ 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 +_table d'hote_ didn't go well together. + +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. + +"I generally have supper at Pepolo's," said Julian, as we left the +theatre, "before a Covent Garden Ball. Shall we go on there?" + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +Mr. Malim had a lofty expression. I should have put him down as a +scholarly recluse. His first words upset this view somewhat. + +"Coming to Covent Garden?" he said, genially. "I am. So is Kit. She'll +be down soon." + +"Good," said Julian; "may Jimmy and I have supper at your table?" + +"Do," said Malim. "Plenty of room. We'd better order our food and not +wait for her." + +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. + +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. + +"Ah, there's Kit at last," said Malim. + +"They're cheering her," said Julian. + +As he spoke, the tentative murmur of a cheer was caught up by everyone. +Men leaped upon chairs and tables. + +"Hullo, hullo, hullo!" said Kit, reaching us. "Kiddie, when they do +that it makes me feel shy." + +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. + +Malim smiled quietly, but said nothing. + +She kissed Julian, and she kissed me. + +"Now we're all friends," she said, sitting down. + +"Better know each other's names," said Malim. "Kit, this is Mr. +Cloyster. Mr. Cloyster, may I introduce you to my wife?" + + + + +Chapter 7 + +I MEET MR. THOMAS BLAKE +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +Watching his opportunity, Julian presently drew me aside into the +smoking-room. + +"Malim," he said, "has paid you a great compliment." + +"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. + +"He's introduced you to his wife." + +"Very good of him, I'm sure." + +"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." + +"Then what in Heaven's name," I cried, "induced him to marry----" + +"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 _does_ +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 habitue 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." + +"I've often read in the police reports," I said, "of persons who lead +double lives, and I'm much interested in----" + +Malim and Kit bore down upon us. We rose. + +"It's the march past," observed the former. "Come upstairs." + +"Kiddie," said Kit, "give me your arm." + +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 _passe_ 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. + +Kit saw him too. + +"Why, there's that blackguard Tom!" she cried. + +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. + +It was so unexpected that there was an involuntary lull in the +proceedings. + +"Tom!" + +She pointed an accusing finger at the man, who gaped beerily. + +"Tom, who pinched farver's best trousers, and popped them?" + +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. + +The uproar died away as it was seen that Kit had not yet finished. + +"Cheese it, some of yer," shouted a voice. "The lady wants to orsk him +somefin' else." + +"Tom," said Kit, "who was sent with tuppence to buy postage-stamps and +spent it on beer?" + +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. + +"Just you stop it, Tom," shouted Kit triumphantly. "Just you stop it, +d'you 'ear, you stop it." + +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." + +Then she rejoined Malim, amid peals of laughter from both armies. It +was a Homeric incident. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +In all other respects we agreed. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Have you ever met John Hatton?" asked Malim one night after dinner at +his flat. + +"John Hatton?" I answered. "No. Who is he?" + +"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." + +"There might be copy in it," I said. + +"Or ideas for advertisements for Julian," said Malim. "Anyway, I'll +introduce you to him. Have you ever been in the Barrel?" + +"What's the Barrel?" + +"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." + +"All right," I replied. "Where is it?" + +"A hundred and fifty-three, York Street, Covent Garden. First floor." + +"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." + +Twelve had just struck when I walked up York Street looking for No. +153. + +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. + +"Mr. Cloyster, sir? Yessir. I'll find out whether Mr. Malim can see +you, sir." + +Malim came out to me. "Hatton's not here," he said, "but come in. +There's a smoking concert going on." + +He took me into the room, the windows of which I had seen from the +street. + +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. + +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." + +"Mr. Cloyster--Mr. Michael." + +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. + +"Cheer-o," he said genially. "Is this your first visit?" + +I said it was. + +"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. + +At that moment a venerable figure strode with dignity into the bar. + +"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." + +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 Cafe de +l'Europe, a few yards from the theatre. Our secret society sat there." + +"What was the society called, Mr. Maundrell?" asked a new member with +unusual intrepidity. + +"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." + +Mr. Maundrell emitted a placid chuckle at this reminiscence. + +"A good many members of this club," whispered Malim to me, "would have +gone back into that barrel." + +A bell sounded. "That's for the second part to begin," said Malim. + +We herded back along the passage. A voice cried, "Be seated, please, +gentlemen." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +The man in the chair, who had so far smoked a cigarette in silence, now +tapped again with his mallet. "Gentlemen," he observed. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Come on," said Malim. "Godfrey Lane's going to sing a patriotic song. +They _will_ let him do it. We'll go down to the Temple and find +John Hatton." + +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. + +We turned from Bedford Street eastwards along the Strand. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"Could you go downstairs on them?" said Malim. + +"Certainly," he replied, "I'll do so now. And when we're down, I'll +have a little practice in the open." + +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. + +"I'll race you to Ludgate Circus and back," said the clergyman. + +"You're too fast," said Malim; "it must be a handicap." + +"We might do it level in a cab," said I, for I saw a hansom crawling +towards us. + +"Done," said the Rev. John Hatton. "Done, for half-a-crown!" + +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. + +"A fine night, Perkins," remarked Hatton. + +"A fine morning, beggin' your pardon, sir," said the policeman +facetiously. He seemed to be an acquaintance of the skater. + +"Reliability trials," continued Hatton. "Be good enough to start us, +Perkins." + +"Very good, sir," said Perkins. + +"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. + +"Hi shall say, 'Are you ready? Horf!'" + +"We shall have Perkins applying to the Jockey Club for Ernest +Willoughby's job," whispered Malim. + +"Are you ready? Horf!" + +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. + +"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. + +The ancient driver of a four-wheeler had been the witness of the +finish. + +He gazed with displeasure upon us. + +"This 'ere's a nice use ter put Fleet Street to, I don't think," he +said coldly. + +This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malim +his half-crown, and had invited me to visit him, we departed. + +"Queer chap, Hatton," said Malim as we walked up the Strand. + +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. + + + + +Chapter 9 + +JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +"None of my waistcoats fit," I remarked. + +"My dear fellow," said Hatton, "I'll give you exercise and to spare; +that is to say, if you can box." + +"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." + +"Quite right, James," he replied; "and exercise, as I often tell my +boys, is essential." + +"What boys?" I asked. + +"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." + +"Not very encouraging," I said. + +"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." + +"I'll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like," I said. "It ought to keep +me in form." + +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. + +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. + +What friends they were! + +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. + +Kit and Malim--what evenings are suggested by those names. + +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. + +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. + +It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that I +shall pay few more visits there. + +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. + +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. + +"Let me see," he said. "How long is it since I was here last?" + +"You came some time before Christmas." + +"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. + +"Oh, say a thousand a year." + +"--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." + +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. + +Julian looked at me curiously. + +"There's some mystery here," he said. + +"Don't be an ass, Julian," I replied weakly. + +"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----" + +"Stop, Julian," I exclaimed. + +"_Cherchez_," he continued, "_cherchez_----" + +"Stop! Confound you, stop! I tell you----" + +"Come," he said laughing. "I mustn't force your confidence; but I can't +help feeling it's odd----" + +"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." + +"You became a realist." + +"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." + +Julian nodded. "I understand, you know," he said gravely. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"No, you didn't," interrupted Julian. "Excuse me, I'm sure you didn't. +I often wake up and hear him prowling about." + +"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----" + +"How long have you had this conviction?" asked Julian. + +"The absolute certainty that my monster has ceased to exist came to me +this morning whilst I brushed my hair." + +"Ah," said Julian; "and now, I suppose, you really will write to Miss +Margaret----" He paused. + +"Goodwin?" + +"To Miss Margaret Goodwin," he repeated. + +"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." + +"What's the matter?" + +I was silent for a moment. Then I confessed. + +"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." + +"Had you met many people before you met her?" asked Julian slowly. + +"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." + +"And you seriously expected not to fall in love?" Julian laughed "My +dear Jimmy, you ought to write a psychological novel." + +"Possibly. But, in the meantime, what am I to do?" + +Julian stood up. + +"She's in love with you, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +He stood looking at me. + +"Well, can't you speak?" I said. + +He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. "One's got one's own right and +one's own wrong," he grumbled, lighting his pipe. + +"I know what you're thinking," I said. + +He would not look at me. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Julian," I said, "must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go. But +must it be tonight?" + +Julian hesitated. + +"No," he said; "but you've made up your mind, so why put off the +inevitable?" + +"I can't," I exclaimed; "oh, I really can't. I must have my freedom a +little longer." + +"You must give it up some day. It'll be all the harder when you've got +to face it." + +"I don't mind that. A little more freedom, just a little; and then I'll +tell her to come to me." + +He smoked in silence. + +"Surely," I said, "this little more freedom that I ask is a small thing +compared with the sacrifice I have promised to make?" + +"You won't let her know it's a sacrifice?" + +"Of course not. She shall think that I love her as I used to." + +"Yes, you ought to do that," he said softly. "Poor devil," he added. + +"Am I too selfish?" I asked. + +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." + +"Of what?" + +"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?" + +"Yes." + +"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." + +I was staggered. + +"You mean--?" I said. + +"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." + +"I see," I said, dully. "Well, you've taken my last holiday from me. +I'll write to her tonight, telling her the truth." + +"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." + +"Nor can I," I said. + + + + +Chapter 10 + +TOM BLAKE AGAIN +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +Then the thing collapsed like a punctured tyre. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +So I let them go on with their tapping and feinting and side-slipping. + +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!" + +"What's wonderful?" I said, a shade irritably. + +"Their style," he said loudly, so that they could all hear, "their +style. It's their style that astonishes me." + +I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Thomas Blake brought up short, hiccuping, in the midst of them. "Gimme +that free tea!" he said. + +Sidney Price, whose moral fortitude has never been impeached, was the +first to handle the situation. + +"My good man," he said, "I am sorry to say you have made a mistake." + +"A mistake!" said Thomas, quickly taking him up. "A mistake! Oh! What +oh! My errer?" + +"Quite so," said Price, diplomatically; "an error." + +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 +_don't_ 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 _don't_ think!" + +Thomas Blake nodded his head as one who, though pained by the +hollowness of life, is resigned to it, and proceeded to doze. + +The crowd gazed at him and murmured. + +Sidney Price, however, stepped forward with authority. + +"You'd better be going," he said; and he gently jogged the recumbent +boatman's elbow. + +"Leave me be! I want my tea," was the muttered and lyrical reply. + +"Hook it!" said Price. + +"Without my tea?" asked Blake, opening his eyes wide. + +"It was yesterday," explained Price, brusquely. "There isn't any free +tea tonight." + +The effect was magical. A very sinister expression came over the face +of the prostrate one, and he slowly clambered to his feet. + +"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." + +Sidney Price spoke again. His words were honeyed, but ineffectual. + +"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." + +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." + +"Well," said Price, "he's got to go; but you won't hurt him, Alf, will +you?" + +"No," said Alf, "I won't hurt him. I'll just make him look a fool. This +is where science comes in." + +"I'm honest old Tom," droned the boatman. + +"If you _will_ have it," said Alf, with fine aposiopesis. + +He squared up to him. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hullo!" I said; "what's all this?" + +He stared at me. + +"'Ullo!" he said, "another of 'em, is it? I'm honest old Tom Blake, +_I_ am, and wot I say is----" + +"Why honest, Mr. Blake?" I interrupted. + +"Call me a liar, then!" said he. "Go on. You do it. Call it me, then, +and let's see." + +He began to shuffle towards me. + +"Who pinched his father's trousers, and popped them?" I inquired +genially. + +He stopped and blinked. + +"Eh?" he said weakly. + +"And who," I continued, "when sent with twopence to buy postage-stamps, +squandered it on beer?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +We parted the best of friends. + +"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 +_Ashlade_ and _Lechton_. No ceremony. Jest drop in on me and +the missis. Goo' night." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +JULIAN'S IDEA +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +"I think you'd like to know, Julian," I said, "whether I'd written to +Guernsey." + +"Well?" + +"It's all right," I said. + +"You've told her to come?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"You only thought of that this morning?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +"My dear chap, I thought of it as soon as you told me of the fix you +were in." + +"You might have suggested it." + +Julian slid to the floor, drained the almost empty teapot, rescued the +last kidney, and began his breakfast. + +"I would have suggested it," he said, "if the idea had been worth +anything." + +"What! What's wrong with it?" + +"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 _nom de plume_." + +"Say, George Chandos." + +"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?" + +"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." + +Julian lit his pipe. + +"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 +_Orb_, 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." + +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. + +Julian's pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again, and +spoke through the smoke: + +"The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandos +are a single individual." + +"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?" + +"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----" + +"I couldn't," I said. "I simply couldn't do it. London's got into my +bones." + +"It does," said Julian. + +"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." + +Julian nodded. + +"Just so," he said. "Then exit George Chandos." + +"My scheme is worthless, you think, then?" + +"As you state it, yes." + +"You mean----?" I prompted quickly, clutching at something in his tone +which seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirely +hopeless. + +"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----" + +"By Jove! you've hit it. Go on." + +"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 _Orb_?" + +I reflected. + +"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." + +"Well, how many stunts have you got? There's your serious verse--one. +And your Society stuff--two. Any more?" + +"Novels and short stories." + +"Class them together--three. Any more? + +"No; that's all." + +"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." + +"Why, what?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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!'" + +"And no one'll say, 'Oh, do you _write_, Mr. Cloyster? How +interesting! What have you written? You must send me a copy.'" + +"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." + + + + +Chapter 12 + +THE FIRST GHOST +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +Such was the suggestion Julian made; and I praised its ingenuity, +little thinking how bitterly I should come to curse it in the future. + +I was immediately all anxiety to set the scheme working. + +"Will you be one of my three middlemen, Julian?" I asked. + +He shook his head. + +"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." + +I could not move him from this decision. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _When It Was Lurid_, with the sub-title, _A Tale +of God and Allah_. There was a piquant admixture of love, religion, +and Eastern scenery which seemed to point to a record number of +editions. + +I took the type-script of this book with me to the Temple. + +Hatton was in. I flung _When It Was Lurid_ on the table, and sat +down. + +"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." + +"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." + +"You aren't going to read it to me out loud?" he said anxiously. + +"No." + +"Have I got to read it when you're gone?" + +"Not unless you wish to." + +"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?" + +"No," I said; "it's like this." + +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. + +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. + +"Doesn't it strike you," he said, "that what you propose is slightly +dishonourable?" + +"You mean that I have come deliberately to insult you, Hatton?" + +"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." + +"Personally, I believe that, as a help to identification, +honour-impressions would be as useful as fingerprints." + +"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----" + +I laughed. + +"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." + +"You may be right. You wrote the book. But, in any case, I should be +more of a charlatan than I care about." + +"You won't do it?" I said. "I'm sorry. It would have been a great +convenience to me." + +"On the other hand," continued Hatton, ignoring my remark, "there are +arguments in favour of such a scheme as you suggest." + +"Stout fellow!" I said encouragingly. + +"To examine the matter in its--er--financial--to suppose for a +moment--briefly, what do I get out of it?" + +"Ten per cent." + +He looked thoughtful. + +"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." + +"Good for you," I said. + +"And I shall come better out of the transaction than you." + +No one would credit the way that man--a clergyman, too--haggled over +terms. He ended by squeezing fifteen per cent out of me. + + + + +Chapter 13 + +THE SECOND GHOST +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +The task of explaining was easier than it had been with Hatton. + +"Sorry to drag you out, Price," I said, as we went down the steps. + +"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?" + +"It's like this," I said. "You know I write a good deal?" + +"Yes." + +"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." + +He nodded. + +"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." + +"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." + +"You mean, adopt a _nom de ploom_?" + +"That's the sort of idea; but I'm going to vary it a little." + +And I explained my plan. + +"But why me?" he asked, when he had understood the scheme. "What made +you think of me?" + +"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." + +"I see," he said complacently. "Dressy sort of chap. Chap who looks as +if he knew a thing or two." + +"Yes. I couldn't get Alf Joblin, for instance." + +We laughed together at the notion. + +"Poor old Alf!" said Sidney Price. + +"Now you probably know a good deal about Society?" + +"Rath_er_" said Sidney. "They're a hot lot. My _word_! Saw +_The Walls of Jericho_ three times. Gives it 'em pretty straight, +that does. _Visits of Elizabeth_, 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." + +"That's just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then?" + +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. + +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. + + + + +Chapter 14 + +THE THIRD GHOST +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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 _St. Stephen's Gazette_. 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 _St. Stephen's_ 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. + +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. + +He was aboard the _Ashlade_ or _Lechton_ 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. + +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." + +"Where's the Shovel?" + +"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. + +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 _Ashlade_ and _Lechton_. + +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. + +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 +_Ashlade_'s raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-looking +boys were respectively at the _Ashlade_'s and _Lechton_'s tillers. +The lady was attending to the horse. + +The water in the lock rose gradually to a higher level. + +"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----" + +"Nuppie!" came in a shrill scream from the lady with the horse. +"Nuppie!" + +"Yes, Ada!" answered the boy on the _Ashlade_. + +"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?" + +"So I did, Ada. She's untied herself again. Yes, she 'as. 'Asn't she, +Albert?" + +This appeal for corroboration was directed to the other small boy on +the _Lechton_. It failed signally. + +"No, you did not tie Liz to the chimney. You know you never, Nuppie." + +"Wait till we get out of this lock!" said Nuppie, earnestly. + +The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers +violently against the southern sluice gates. + +"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 _Ashlade_'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 '_ad_ their tea, too." + +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. + +"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." + +"We can't go to prison for it, can we, mister?" asked Ada suddenly, +after a pause. + +"No," I said; "there's nothing dishonest in what I propose." + +"Oh, she didn't so much mean that," said Thomas, thoughtfully. + +They gave me a shakedown for the night in the cargo. + +Just before turning in, I said casually, "If anyone except me cashed +the cheques by mistake, he'd go to prison quick." + +"Yes, mister," came back Thomas's voice, again a shade thoughtfully +modulated. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +EVA EVERSLEIGH +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +"I've seen you," he remarked, "rather often in that get-up lately." + +"It _is_, 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. + +"What salon is to have the honour today?" he asked, spreading himself +on my sofa. + +"I'm going to the Gunton-Cresswells," I replied. + +Julian slowly sat up. + +"Ah?" he said conversationally. + +"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." + +"Not particularly," said Julian shortly; "she's my cousin. My cousin +Eva." + +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." + +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----" + +He broke off. And then, "Hers too. She's true as steel." + +I had heard no more bitter cry than that. + +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. + +A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep. + + * * * * * + +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 _petite_, +dark, had brown hair, very big blue eyes, a _retrousse_ nose, +and a rather wide mouth. + +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. + +About this time the Gunton-Cresswells gave a dance. + +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. + +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. + +I went to pay my _devoirs_ to my hostess. She was supinely +gamesome. "Ah," she said, showing her excellent teeth, "Genius +attendant at the revels of Terpsichore." + +"Where Beauty, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell," I responded, cutting it, as +though mutton, thick, "teaches e'en the humblest visitor the reigning +Muse's art." + +"You may have this one, if you like," said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell +simply. + +Supper came at last, and, with supper, Eva. + +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 _pates_. 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.... + +As we sat there _tete-a-tete_, 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. + +"The two last waltzes," I murmured, when parting with her. She nodded. +I roamed the Gunton-Cresswells's rooms awaiting them. + +She danced those two last waltzes with strangers. + +The thing was utterly beyond me at the time. Looking back, I am still +amazed to what lengths deliberate coquetry can go. + +She actually took pains to elude me, and gave those waltzes to +strangers. + +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. + +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. + +The orchestra, like a train starting tentatively on a long run, +launched itself mildly into the preliminary bars of _Tout Passe_. +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 +_portiere_ of many folds, supported by two dull brazen columns. + +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. + +"You're tired," I said, forgetting my two last dances, forgetting +everything but that I loved her. + +"Perhaps I am," she said, taking my arm. We turned in silence to the +_portiere_ 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. + +"Find out if that cab's engaged," I said to a footman. + +"The cool air----" I said to Eva. + +"The cab is not engaged, sir," said the footman, returning. + +"Yes," said Eva, in answer to my glance. + +"Drive to the corner of Sloane Street, by way of the Park," I told the +driver. + +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? + +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. + +"Eva!" I murmured; and I took her hand. + +"Eva." + +Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. + +"My darling," she whispered, very low. And, the road being deserted, I +drew her face to mine and kissed her. + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +I TELL JULIAN +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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. + +To all these things I was indifferent. I repeated softly to myself, "We +love each other." + +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. + +It was not a burglar. It was Julian Eversleigh, and he was lying asleep +on my sofa. + +There was nothing peculiar in this. I roused him. + +"Julian," I said. + +"I'm glad you're back," he said, sitting up; "I've some news for you." + +"So have I," said I. For I had resolved to tell him what I had done. + +"Hear mine first. It's urgent. Miss Margaret Goodwin has been here." + +My heart seemed to leap. + +"Today?" I cried. + +"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." + +"Where is she now?" + +"Nearing Guernsey. She's gone." + +"Gone!" I said. "Without seeing me! I don't understand." + +"You don't understand how she loves you, James." + +"But she's gone. Gone without a word." + +"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." + +Julian's voice broke. He was genuinely affected by his own recital. + +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 _role_ to the utmost of one's ability. +Mine was now essentially unsympathetic, but I was determined that it +should be adequately played. + +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. + +"You're a nice sort of person, aren't you?" I said. + +"What do you mean?" asked Julian, startled, as I had meant that he +should be, by the question. + +I laughed. + +"Aren't you just a little transparent, my dear Julian?" + +He stared blankly. + +I took up a position in front of the fire. + +"Disloyalty," I said tolerantly, "where a woman is concerned, is in the +eyes of some people almost a negative virtue." + +"I don't know what on earth you're talking about." + +"Don't you?" + +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. + +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. + +"Jimmy," he gasped, "you can't think--are you joking?" + +"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." + +"You seem to be in earnest," he said, in a dazed way. + +"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." + +I watched him narrowly to see how he would take it. The dazed +expression deepened on his face. + +"You are apparently sane," he said, very wearily. "You seem to be +sober." + +"I am both," I said. + +There was a pause. + +"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." + +"Well?" + +"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." + +"I do," I said, "and I find myself still suspecting you." + +He stared. + +"I don't understand you." + +"Perhaps you will when you have heard the piece of news which I +mentioned earlier in our conversation that I had for you." + +"Well?" + +"I proposed to your cousin at the Gunton-Cresswells's dance tonight, +and she accepted me." + +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. + +Then he left the room without a word. + +He had not been gone two minutes when there were three short, sharp +taps at my window. + +Julian returned? Impossible. Yet who else could +have called on me at that hour? + +I went to the front door, and opened it. + +On the steps stood the Rev. John Hatton. Beside him Sidney Price. And, +lurking in the background, Tom Blake of the _Ashlade_ and +_Lechton_. + +_(End of James Orlebar Cloister's narrative.)_ + + + + + +Sidney Price's Narrative + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +A GHOSTLY GATHERING + + +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. + +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. + +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 _As_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. + +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. + +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 _Strawberry Leaf_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Each successive phase is limned indelibly--that's the sort of literary +style I've got, if wanted--on the tablets of my memory. + +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. + +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 _yelled_ 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. + +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." + +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: + + Yew are ther boys of the Empire, + Steady an' brave an' trew. + Yew are the wuns + She calls 'er sons + An' I luv yew. + +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. + +"Now then," said the policeman, "wot's all this about?" + + Yew are the wuns + She calls 'er sons---- + +shouted Blake. + +"Ho, that's yer little game, is it?" said the policeman. "Move on, +d'yer hear? Pop off." + +"I will," said Blake. "I'll never do it again. I promise faithful never +to do it again. I've found a fren'." + +"Do you know this covey?" asked the policeman. + +"Deny it, if yer dare," said Blake. "Jus' you deny it, that's orl, an' +I'll tell the parson." + +"Slightly, constable," I said. "I mean, I've seen him before." + +"Then you'd better take 'im off if you don't want 'im locked up." + +"'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. + +How we got along Shaftesbury I don't know. It's a subject I do not care +to think about. + +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. + +I didn't know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn't know when +we were going to stop. + +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. + +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. + +It was too thick. + +"You blighter," I says. "You _blooming_ blighter. You talk to me +like that. Let go of my arm and see me knock you down." + +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----" + +Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as Punch at being +called hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar. + +"'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." + +"Blake," said the Reverend, "that's not the truth." + +"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." + +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. + +"As I'm intoxicated," I said, coldly (being a bit fed up with things), +"I should recommend you stopping him, Mr. Hatton." + +"I've done you an injustice," said the Reverend. + +"You have," said I. + +Blake was now nearing a policeman. "Stop him!" we both shouted, +starting to run forward. + +The policeman brought Blake to a standstill. + +"Friend of yours?" said the constable when we got up to him. + +"Yes," said the Reverend. + +"You ought to look after him better," said the constable. + +"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?" + +"I'm on," I said, and to the Temple we accordingly journeyed. + +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. + +"Is your cooking anything extra good?" he asked. + +"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. + +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." + +"Certainly," I said. + +"Look in the cupboard and see whether there are any knives, forks, +plates, and a loaf and a bit of butter, will you?" + +I looked, and, sure enough, they were there. + +"Yes, they're all here," I called to him. + +"And is there a tray?" + +"Yes, there's a tray." + +"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." + +"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. + +"What price that?" I said, putting the whole boiling on the +sitting-room table. + +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." + +Shortly after we had supper, previously having aroused Blake. + +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. + +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?" + +"No," said Blake; "things ain't lookin' up on the canal." + +"Got a little house property," said the Reverend, "to spend when you +feel like it?" + +"No," said the other; "I ain't got no 'ouse property to spend." + +"Ah." said the Reverend, cheesing it, and sucking his pipe. + +"Dessay yer think I'm free with the rhino?" said Blake after a while. + +"I was only wondering," said the Reverend. + +Blake stared first at the Reverend and then at me. + +"Ever remember a party of the name of Cloyster, Mr. James Orlebar +Cloyster?" he inquired. + +"Yes," we both said. + +"'E's a good man," said Blake. + +"Been giving you money?" asked the Reverend. + +"'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." + +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?" + +"Can't say," said he, knitting his brows. + +"Is he straight?" I said, all on the jump. + +"I hope so." + +"'Hope so.' You don't think there's a doubt of it?" + +"I suppose not. But surely it's very unselfish of you to be so +concerned over Blake's business." + +"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." + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +ONE IN THE EYE +_(Sidney Price's narrative continued)_ + + +"Serpose I oughtn't ter 'ave let on, that's it, ain't it?" from Tom +Blake. + +"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. + +"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. + +"Wot 'o," said Blake. "More coin. Wot 'o. Might 'ave thought o' that +before." + +"I'm with you, sir," said I. "We're entitled to a higher rate, I'll +make a memo to that effect." + +"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." + +"When?" I asked. + +"Now. At once. We are here together, and I see no reason to prevent our +arranging the matter within the hour." + +"But he'll be asleep," I objected. + +"He won't be asleep much longer." + +"Yus, roust 'im outer bed. That's wot I say. Wot 'o for more coin." + +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. + +The clocks struck three as the Reverend paid the cab. + +"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. + +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. + +But the Reverend was all there, spry and business-like. + +He leaned over the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on the +ground floor window with his walking-stick. + +Behind the lighted blind appeared the shadow of a man's figure. + +"It's he!" "It's him!" came respectively and simultaneously from the +Reverend and myself. + +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. + +At the sight of us he tried to pull himself together. He half succeeded +after a bit, and asked us to come in. + +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. + +"Delighted to see you, I'm sure," said Mr. Cloyster. "In fact, I was +just going to sit down and write to you." + +"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?" + +"Most certainly, sir," I answered. And Blake gave a nod. + +"Briefly, then," said the Reverend, "our mission is this: that we three +want our contracts revised." + +"What contracts?" said Mr. Cloyster. + +"Our contracts connected with your manuscripts." + +"Since when have the several matters of business which I arranged +privately with each of you become public?" + +"Tonight. It was quite unavoidable. We met by chance. We are not to +blame. Tom Blake was----" + +"Yes, he looks as if he had been." + +"Our amended offer is half profits." + +"More coin," murmured Blake huskily. "Wot 'o!" + +"I regret that you've had your journey for nothing." + +"You refuse?" + +"Absolutely." + +"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?" + +"Bound to accede? I don't follow you." + +"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." + +"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." + +The Reverend shrugged his shoulders. + +"Do you know why I wanted to see you?" + +"No." + +"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." + +There was a dead silence. + +"I think I'll go home to bed," said the Reverend. + +Blake and myself followed him out. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +Chapter 19 + +IN THE SOUP +_(Sidney Price's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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 _past_ 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. + +After ten the book goes into Mr. Leach's private partition, and you've +got to go in there to sign. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_Tit-Bits_ than liquorice. And it was true. Not that I disliked +liquorice. I liked _Tit-Bits_ better, though. So the thing had +gone on. I advanced from _Deadwood Dick_ to Hall Caine and Guy +Boothby; and since I had joined the "Moon" I had actually gone a buster +and bought _Omar Khayyam_ 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: + + Come and buy a C.C.Pee-ee! + If you want immunitee-ee + From the accidents which come + Please plank down your premium. + Life is diff'rent, you'll agree + _Repeat_ When you've got a C.C.P. + +The Throne Room of the Holborn fairly rocked with applause. + +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 _Strawberry Leaf_. 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 +_Strawberry Leaf_, 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 _Strawberry Leaf_--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:---- + + IN TOWN + BY SIDNEY PRICE + + No. I.--THE SECRECY OF THE BALLET + + (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.) + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Can't give you all, boysie. Mine's new, too. + + YOU. _(in your charming way)_. Well, of course. You wouldn't + be a woman if you hadn't a new hat. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Do women always have new hats? + + YOU. _(edging under the umbrella)_. Women have new hats. + New women have hats. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Don't call me a woman, ducky; I'm a lady. + + YOU. I must be careful. If I don't flatter you, you'll take your + umbrella away. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE _(changing subject)_. There's Matilda. + + YOU. Where? + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Coming towards us in that landaulette. + + YOU. Looks fit, doesn't she? + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Her! She's a blooming rotter. + + YOU. Not so loud. She'll hear you. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE _(raising her voice)_. Good job. I want her + to. _Stumer_! + + YOU. S-s-s-sh! What _are_ you saying? Matilda's a duchess now. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. I know. + + YOU. But you mustn't say "Stumer" to a duchess unless---- + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. Well? + + YOU. Unless you're a duchess yourself? + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. I am. At least I was. Only I chucked it. + + YOU. But you said you were a lady. + + FRIENDLY CREATURE. So I am. An extra lady--front row, second O.P. + + YOU. How rude of me. Of course you were a duchess. I know you + perfectly. Gorell Barnes said---- + + 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? + + (At this point the rain stops. By an adroit flanking movement + you get away without having to buy her a lunch.) + +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. + +It did, no doubt, appear that I was coining the ready. Besides the +_Strawberry Leaf_, _Features_, and _The Key of the Street_ were +printing my signed contributions in weekly series. _The Mayfair_, too, +had announced on its placards, "A Story in Dialogue, by Sidney Price." + +This, then, was my position on the morning when I was late at the +"Moon" and lost my bonus. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 matinee (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. + +What would Norah say when all this ended abruptly without any +explanation? + +There was no getting away from it. Sidney Price was in the soup. + + + + +Chapter 20 + +NORAH WINS HOME +_(Sidney Price's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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 _St. Stephen's Gazette_ 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:-- + + A CRY + + Hands at the tiller to steer: + A star in the murky sky: + Water and waste of mere: + Whither and why? + + Sting of absorbent night: + Journey of weal or woe: + And overhead the light: + We go--we go? + + Darkness a mortal's part, + Mortals of whom we are: + Come to a mortal's heart, + Immortal star. + + _Thos. Blake._ + _June 6th._ + +"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? + +Still worrying over the thing, I turned over the pages of the paper +until I chanced to see the following paragraph: + + LITERARY GOSSIP + + 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, _When It Was Lurid_, created little less than + a furore. The work on which he is now engaged, which will bear + the title of _The Browns of Brixton_, 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. + +"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." + +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. + +The Reverend's reply arrived first: + + THE TEMPLE, + _June 7th._ + + _Dear Price_,-- + + 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. + + 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. _The + Browns of Brixton_ will eclipse anything that Cloyster has + previously done, for this reason, that it will out-Cloyster + Cloyster. It is Cloyster with improvements. + + 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. + + _Yours sincerely, John Hatton_. + +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 _doubles entendres_, and heaps +of adverbial explanation in small print. Such as: + + Miss Adeline Genee + (with the faint, incipient blush which + Mrs. Adair uses to test her Rouge Imperial). + +That sort of thing. + +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 _Strawberry Leaf_ 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 _must_ bring 'em here, +in your locker downstairs." One of them _did_ 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. + +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. + +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." + +So then I saw how that "Cry" thing in the _St. Stephen's_ had come +there. + + * * * * * + +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. + +There _is_, 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. + +And then there was the haughty lady who sold programmes in the +Haymarket Amphitheatre--but she's got the sack, so Cookson informs me. + +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. + +The only thing that I can think of as needing suppression is the part I +played in Mr. Cloyster's system. + +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 _fiancee_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +_(End of Sidney Price's narrative_.) + + + + + +Julian Eversleigh's Narrative + + + + +Chapter 21 + +THE TRANSPOSITION OF SENTIMENT + + +It is all very, very queer. I do not understand it at all. It makes me +sleepy to think about it. + +A month ago I hated Eva. Tomorrow I marry her by special licence. + +Now, what _about_ this? + +My brain is not working properly. I am becoming jerky. + +I tried to work the thing out algebraically. I wrote it down as an +equation, thus:-- + + HATRED, denoted by x + Eva. + REVERSE OF HATRED, " " y + Eva + ONE MONTH " " z. + +From which we get:-- + + x + Eva = (y + Eva)z. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Examine me for a moment as I wait there. + +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. + +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. + +But I grudged him nothing. Rather, I had pleasure in those triumphs of +my friend. + +There was no confidence we had withheld from one another. + +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. + +To no living soul, save James, would I have confessed my own +tragedy--my hopeless love for Eva. + +It is inconceivable that I should have misjudged a man so utterly as I +misjudged James. + +That is the latent factor at the root of my problem. The innate +rottenness, the cardiac villainy of James Orlebar Cloyster. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +He employed that system. It gave him the holiday he asked for. He went +into Society. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +In a few hours I was to discover he was a villain, too. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I said, "Might I think of her as 'Margaret'?" + +She said it was rather unconventional, but that she could not control +my thoughts. + +I said, "There you are wrong--Margaret." + +She said, "Oh, what are you saying, Mr. Eversleigh?" + +I said I was thinking out loud. + +On the doorstep she said, "Well, yes--Julian--you may write to +me--sometimes. But I won't promise to answer." + +Angel! + +The next thing that awakened me was the coming of James. + +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. + +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 _fiancee's_ 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. + +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. + +Thus the month began. + +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. + +I went to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in a very bitter mood. I was bent on +trouble. + +"I've come to congratulate Eva," I said. + +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell sighed. + +"I was afraid of this," she said. + +"The announcement was the more pleasant," I went on, "because James has +been a bosom friend of mine." + +"I'm afraid you are going to be extremely disagreeable about your +cousin's engagement," she said. + +"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 _contretemps_, +a series of laughable scenes." + +"Julian," said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, "hitherto you have acted manfully +toward Eva. You have been brave. Have you no regard for Eva?" + +"None," I said. + +"Nor for Mr. Cloyster?" + +"Not a scrap." + +"But why are you behaving in this appallingly selfish way?" + +This was a facer. I couldn't quite explain to her how things really +were, so I said: + +"Never you mind. Selfish or not, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, I'm out for +trouble." + +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. + +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. + +In the days preceding the twelfth of June I confess I rather softened +to James. The _entente cordiale_ 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? + +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 he +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." + +I now go on to point two: the morning of the twelfth of June. + +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." + +All very disconcerting. All, fortunately, very unusual. + +My eyes were leaden with slumber, but I forced myself to decipher the +following message, which had been telegraphed to West Kensington Lane: + + Wedding must be postponed.--CLOYSTER. + +"I've had no hand in this," I cried; "but," I added enthusiastically, +"it serves Eva jolly well right." + + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +A CHAT WITH JAMES +_(Julian Eversleigh's narrative continued)_ + + +Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell seemed somehow to drift away after that. +Apparently I went to sleep again, and she didn't wait. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"What are you doing?" asked James. + +"Only going to ring for some more tea," I said. + +"No, don't do that. I'll go down and ask for it. You don't mind using +my cup, do you?" + +He went out of the room, and reappeared with a jug of hot water. + +"You see," he explained, "if Mrs. Blankley brings in another cup she'll +charge for two teas instead of one." + +"It didn't occur to me," I said. "Sorry." + +"It sounds mean," mumbled James. + +"Not at all," I said. "You're quite right not to plunge into reckless +extravagance." + +James blushed slightly--a feat of which I was surprised to see that he +was capable. + +"The fact is----" he began. + +I interrupted him. + +"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. + +"It means that I'm done," he said. + +"I don't understand." + +"I'll explain. I have postponed my marriage for the same reason that I +refused you a clean cup--because I cannot afford luxuries." + +"It may be my dulness; but, still, I don't follow you. What exactly are +you driving at?" + +"I'm done for. I'm on the rocks. I'm a pauper." + +"A what?" + +"A pauper." + +I laughed. The man was splendid. There was no other word for it. + +"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." + +He laughed this time. It irritated me unspeakably. + +"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." + +"I tell you I'm done for. I've barely a penny in the world." + +"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?" + +"I can't," he said. "It would be too dishonourable." + +"Dishonourable?" + +"Yes. I haven't got enough money. I couldn't ask her to share my +poverty with me. I love her too dearly." + +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. + +"Oh, drop it," I said. "Poverty! Good Lord! Isn't two thousand a year +enough to start on?" + +"But I haven't got two thousand a year." + +"Oh, I don't pretend to give the figures to a shilling." + +"You don't understand. All I have to live on is my holiday work at the +_Orb_." + +"What!" + +"Oh, yes; and I'm doing some lyrics for Briggs for the second edition +of _The Belle of Wells_. 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 +_Orb_ I shall be lucky." + +"You're mad." + +"I'm not, though I dare say I shall be soon, if this sort of thing goes +on." + +"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." + +"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." + +My irritation increased. + +"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." + +I caught sight of a _Strawberry Leaf_ lying on the floor beside +his chair. I picked it up. + +"Here you are," I said. "Page 324. Short story. 'Lady Mary's Mistake,' +by Sidney Price. How about that?" + +"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." + +"Let's see those rejection forms." + +"You can't. They're burnt. They got on my nerves, and I burnt them." + +"Oh," I said, "they're burnt, are they?" + +He got up, and began to pace the room. + +"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." + +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. + +I shook my head. + +"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." + +"What do you mean?" + +"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?" + +"You don't believe me!" + +"My dear James!" I protested. "Believe you!" + +"I swear it's all true. Every word of it." + +"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_ 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." + +"You don't mean to say you think----!" + +"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." + +I paused, and ate a muffin. James watched me with fascinated eyes. + +"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." + +"Suppose I decline?" + +"You won't." + +"You think not?" + +"I am sure." + +"What would you do if I declined?" + +"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." + +He hesitated. + +"As if they'd believe it," he said, weakly. + +"I think they would." + +"They'd laugh at you. They'd think you were mad." + +"Not when I produced John Hatton, Sidney Price, and Tom Blake in a +solid phalanx, and asked them to corroborate me." + +"They wouldn't do it," he said, snatching at a straw. "They wouldn't +give themselves away." + +"Hatton might hesitate to, but Tom Blake would do it like a shot." + +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. + +"I shall then," administering the _coup de grace_, "arrange a +meeting between the Gunton-Cresswells and old Mrs. Goodwin." + +"Thank you," said James, "but don't bother. On second thoughts I will +tell Eva about my income and the five years' wait." + +"Thanks," I said; "it's very good of you. Good-bye." + +And I retired, chuckling, to Rupert Street. + + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +IN A HANSOM +_(Julian Eversleigh's narrative continued)_ + + +I spent a pleasant week in my hammock awaiting developments. + +At the end of the week came a letter from Eva. She wrote:-- + + _My Dear Julian_,--You haven't been to see us for + ages. Is Kensington Lane beyond the pale? + _Your affectionate cousin_, + _Eva._ + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"Ah!" said I. + +"That telegram, he tells me, was the outcome of a sudden panic." + +"Dear me!" I said. + +"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." + +"How odd!" I remarked. + +"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." + +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. + +"Masterly!" I exclaimed involuntarily. + +"Yes, isn't it?" she echoed. "Enables one to grasp thoroughly how the +mistake managed to occur." + +"Has Eva seen it?" + +"Yes." + +"I notice he mentions five years as being about the period----" + +"Yes; it's rather a long engagement, but, of course, she'll wait, she +loves him so." + +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. + +She had decided to go to the ball as Peter Pan. + +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 _Les Serfs +d'Avenir_, was inclined to deprecate it. + +But I was sure Eva had chosen the better part. The dress suited her to +perfection. Her legs are the legs of a boy. + +As I looked at her with +concentrated hatred, I realised I had never seen a human soul so +radiant, so brimming with _espieglerie_, so altogether to be +desired. + +"Why, Julian, is it you. This _is_ good of you!" + +It was evident that the past was to be waived. I took my cue. + +"Thanks, Eva," I said; "it suits you admirably." + +Events at this point move quickly. + +Another card of invitation is produced. Would I care to use it, and +take Eva to the ball? + +"But I'm not in fancy dress." + +Overruled. Fancy dress not an essential. Crowds of men there in +ordinary evening clothes. + +So we drove off. + +We hardly exchanged a syllable. No one has much to say just before a +dance. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +We arrive. I mutter something about having the pleasure. + +Eva says I can have the last two waltzes. + +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. + +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. + +I did see her. + +She was dancing my waltz with another man. + +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. + +As they whirled past me she smiled at him. + +I rushed to the smoking-room. + +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 _"Tout Passe,"_ +an air that has always had the power to thrill me. + +My heart gave a bound. Standing in the doorway just in front of me was +Eva. + +I drew back. + +Two or three men came up, and asked her for the dance. She sent them +away, and my heart leaped as they went. + +She was standing with her back towards me. Now she turned. Our eyes +met. We stood for a moment looking at one another. + +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. + +"Tired, Eva?" I said. + +"Perhaps I am," she replied. "Yes, I am, Julian." + +"Give me this one," I whispered. "We'll sit it out." + +"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." + +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." + +The night was very still. + +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. + +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. + +"Eva," I murmured; and I took her hand. + +"Eva...." + +Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. +"My darling," she whispered, very low. + +The road was deserted. We were alone. + +I drew her face to mine and kissed her. + + * * * * * + +My love for her grows daily. + +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. + +I have given up my rooms in Rupert Street. + +I sleep in a bed. + +I do Sandow exercises. + +I am always down to breakfast at eight-thirty sharp. + +I smoke less. + +I am the happiest man on earth. + +_(End of Julian Eversleigh's narrative.)_ + + + + + +Narrative Resumed +by James Orlebar Cloyster + + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS + + +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. + +I had the news by telegraph, and the heavens darkened above me, whilst +the solid earth rocked below. + +I had been trapped into dishonour, and even the bait had been withheld +from me. + +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. + +I examined my position dispassionately over a cup of coffee at Groom's, +in Fleet Street. Groom's was a recognised _Orb rendezvous_. 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. + +I thought things over. How did I stand? Holiday work at the _Orb_ +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 _Orb_, I could endure this. I +became almost cheerful. It is an exhilarating sensation having one's +back against the wall. + +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 _Belle of Wells_ was due in another fortnight. My lyrics would +be used, and I should get paid for them. Add this to my _Orb_ +salary, and I should be a man of substance. + +I glared over my coffee-cup at an imaginary John Hatton. + +"You thought you'd done me, did you?" I said to him. "By Gad! I'll have +the laugh of you all yet." + +I was shaking my fist at him when the door opened. I hurriedly tilted +back my chair, and looked out of the window. + +"Hullo, Cloyster." + +I looked round. It was Fermin. Just the man I wanted to see. + +He seemed depressed. Even embarrassed. + +"How's the column?" I asked. + +"Oh, all right," he said awkwardly. "I wanted to see you about that. I +was going to write to you." + +"Oh, yes," I said, "of course. About the holiday work. When are you +off?" + +"I was thinking of starting next week." + +"Good. Sorry to lose you, of course, but----" + +He shuffled his feet. + +"You're doing pretty well now at the game, aren't you, Cloyster?" he +said. + +It was not to my interests to cry myself down, so I said that I was +doing quite decently. He seemed relieved. + +"You're making quite a good income, I suppose? I mean, no difficulty +about placing your stuff?" + +"Editors squeal for it." + +"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." + +A cold hand seemed laid upon my heart. My mind leaped to what he +meant. Something had gone wrong with the _Orb_ holiday work, my +sheet-anchor. + +"Do you remember writing a par about Stickney, the butter-scotch man, +you know, ragging him when he got his peerage?" + +"Yes." + +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. + +"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 _Orb_, 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +At five o'clock I gave up the struggle, and rang for tea. + +While I was having tea there was a ring at the bell, and my landlady +brought in a large parcel. + +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. + +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. + +Languidly I undid the brown paper. The contents were a pile of +typewritten pages and a letter. + +It was the letter over which my glassy eyes travelled first. + +"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. + +Most men would have salved their wounded susceptibilities by putting a +match to the manuscript without further thought or investigation. + +But I have ever been haunted by a somewhat over-strict conscience, and +I sat down there and then to read the stupid stuff. + +At seven o'clock I was still reading. + +My dinner was brought in. I bolted it with Margaret's play propped up +against the potato dish. + +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 _The Girl who Waited_. + + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +BRIGGS TO THE RESCUE +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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? + +"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---- + +"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." + +(True, true.) + +"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," + +(There was sense in this.) + +"Claim the authorship, and all will be well." + +"I will," I said. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +The animal which had the privilege of making history by conveying me +and _The Girl who Waited_ 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. + +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. + +There was the objection, of course, that _The Girl who Waited_ 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 _The Girl who +Waited_ would be just what he wanted. + +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. + +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. + +I went through in search of my man. + +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. + +"Mr. Briggs anywhere about, Richard?" I asked. + +"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." + +"Which side, do you know?" + +"O.P., sir, I think." + +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. + +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. + +I shuffled, smiling vacuously and clutching the type-script of _The +Girl who Waited_, 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. + +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. + +"Hullo, dear heart," he said, "how goes it?" + +"Seen Briggs anywhere?" I asked. + +"Round on the prompt side, I think. He was here a second ago, but he +dashed off." + +At this moment the music-cue was given, and a considerable section of +the multitude passed on to the stage. + +Locomotion being rendered easier, I hurried round to the prompt side. + +But when I arrived there were no signs of the missing man. + +"Seen Mr. Briggs anywhere?" I asked. + +"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." + +I dashed round to the O.P. corner again. He had just left. + +Taking up the trail, I went to his dressing-room once more. + +"You're just too late, sir," said Richard; "he was here a moment ago." + +I decided to wait. + +"I wonder it he'll be back soon." + +"He's probably downstairs. His call is in another two minutes." + +I went downstairs, and waited on the prompt side. Sir Boyle Roche's +bird was sedentary compared with this elusive man. + +Presently he appeared. + +"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." + +"I say," I said, as he flitted past, "can I----" + +"Tell me later on." + +And he sprang on to the stage. + +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?" + + * * * * * + +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. + +"Hullo, old boy," he said, "just a minute! Sit down, won't you? Have a +cigar." + +I sat down on the Act One sofa, and he resumed his conversations. + +"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 _do_? 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....'" + +My attention wandered. + +At the end of a quarter of an hour he was ready for me. + +"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?" + +"It's a play. I was wondering if you would mind glancing at it if you +have time?" + +"Yours?" + +"Yes. There's a part in it that would just suit you." + +"What is it? Musical comedy?" + +"No. Ordinary comedy." + +"I shouldn't mind putting on a comedy soon. I must have a look at it. +Come and have a bit of lunch." + +One of the firemen came up, carrying a card. + +"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." + +He began to read the play over the coffee and cigars. + +He read it straight through, as I had done. + +"What rot!" he said, as he turned the last page. + +"Isn't it!" I exclaimed enthusiastically. "But won't it go?" + +"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?" + +"Genius, I suppose. What do you think of James as a part for you?" + +"Top hole. Good Lord, I haven't congratulated you! Consider it done." + +"Thanks." + +We drained our liqueur glasses to _The Girl who Waited_ and to +ourselves. + +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. + +Meanwhile, the satisfactory sum which I received in advance of +royalties was sufficient to remove any regrets as to the loss of +the _Orb_ holiday work. With _The Girl who Waited_ in active +rehearsal, "On Your Way" lost in importance. + + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +MY TRIUMPH +_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_ + + +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. + +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 _naive_, how impossibly melodramatic, how maudlinly +sentimental, how improbable--in fact, how altogether womanly she must +have grown. + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +That _premiere_ is still fresh in my memory. + +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. + +I felt it was the supreme event of my life. It was _the_ moment. +And surely I should have spoilt it all unless my old-time friends had +been sitting near me. + +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). + +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. + +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 _entr'actes_. + +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. + +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." + +They, too, added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctly +frigid. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +A couple of hours more, and the curtain had fallen. + +The roar, the frenzied scene, the picture of a vast audience, half-mad +with excitement--how it all comes back to me. + +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.... + + * * * * * + +"James Orlebar Cloyster, the plutocratic playwright, to Margaret, only +daughter of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LL.D." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Not George Washington, by P. G. 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