NOT GEORGE WASHINGTONAn Autobiographical Novel

by P. G. Wodehouseand Herbert Westbrook

1907

CONTENTS

PART ONE

_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_

1. James Arrives2. James Sets Out3. A Harmless Deception

PART TWO

_James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative_

1. The Invasion of Bohemia2. I Evacuate Bohemia3. The _Orb_4. Julian Eversleigh5. The Column6. New Year's Eve7. I Meet Mr. Thomas Blake8. I Meet the Rev. John Hatton9. Julian Learns My Secret10. Tom Blake Again11. Julian's Idea12. The First Ghost13. The Second Ghost14. The Third Ghost15. Eva Eversleigh16. I Tell Julian

_Sidney Price's Narrative_

17. A Ghostly Gathering18. One in the Eye19. In the Soup20. Norah Wins Home

_Julian Eversleigh's Narrative_

21. The Transposition of Sentiment22. A Chat with James23. In a Hansom

_Narrative Resumed by James Orlebar Cloyster_

24. A Rift in the Clouds25. Briggs to the Rescue26. 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 OrlebarCloyster. 

It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other'sacquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July inthe middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty yards from the shore. 

Fermain Bay is in Guernsey. My home had been with my mother for manyyears at St. Martin's in that island. There we two lived our uneventfullives until fate brought one whom, when first I set my eyes on him, Iknew I loved. 

Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to write that down. But what does itmatter? It is for no one's reading but my own. James, my _fiancé_, is _not_ peeping slyly over my shoulder as I write. On thecontrary, my door is locked, and James is, I believe, in thesmoking-room of his hotel at St. Peter's Port. 

At that time it had become my habit to begin my day by rising beforebreakfast and taking a swim in Fermain Bay, which lies across the roadin front of our cottage. The practice--I have since abandoned it--wasgood for the complexion, and generally healthy. I had kept it up, moreover, because I had somehow cherished an unreasonable butpersistent presentiment that some day Somebody (James, as it turnedout) would cross the pathway of my maiden existence. I told myself thatI must be ready for him. It would never do for him to arrive, and findno 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 ared tam-o'-shanter. Ponto barked at my heels. In one hand I carried myblue twill bathing-gown. In the other a miniature alpenstock. The sunhad risen sufficiently to scatter the slight mist of the summermorning, and a few flecked clouds were edged with a slender frame ofred gold. 

Leisurely, and with my presentiment strong upon me, I descended thesteep cliffside to the cave on the left of the bay, where, guarded bythe faithful Ponto, I was accustomed to disrobe; and soon afterwards Icame out, my dark hair over my shoulders and blue twill over a portionof 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 thebay without fatigue, not changing from a powerful breast-stroke. I thensat for a while at the water's edge to rest and to drink in thethrilling glory of what my heart persisted in telling me was themorning of my life. 

And then I saw Him. 

Not distinctly, for he was rowing a dinghy in my direction, andconsequently had his back to me. 

In the stress of my emotions and an aggravation of modesty, I divedagain. With an intensity like that of a captured conger I yearned to behidden by the water. I could watch him as I swam, for, strictlyspeaking, he was in my way, though a little farther out to sea thanI intended to go. As I drew near, I noticed that he wore an odd garmentlike a dressing-gown. He had stopped rowing. 

I turned upon my back for a moment's rest, and, as I did so, heard acry. I resumed my former attitude, and brushed the salt water from myeyes. 

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. Thenhe 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 theshoulders. 

"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 theroots 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, clingingwith 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 toyou for saving my life--I mean, a perfect stranger--I'm afraid it'squite 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 tremblingon his lip, and, as I was beginning to feel the chill of the water alittle, 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 thebeach?"

I swam off to my cave to dress. 

Breakfast was a success, for my mother was a philosopher. She said verylittle, but what she did say was magnificent. In her youth she hadmoved in literary circles, and now found her daily pleasure in theworks of Schopenhauer, Kant, and other Germans. Her lightest readingwas _Sartor Resartus_, and occasionally she would drop into Ibsenand Maeterlinck, the asparagus of her philosophic banquet. Her chosenmode of thought, far from leaving her inhuman or intolerant, gave her asocial distinction which I had inherited from her. I could, if I hadwished it, have attended with success the tea-drinkings, thetennis-playings, and the éclair-and-lemonade dances to which I wasfrequently invited. But I always refused. Nature was my hostess. Nature, which provided me with balmy zephyrs that were more comfortingthan buttered toast; which set the race of the waves to the ridges ofFermain, where arose no shrill, heated voice crying, "Love--forty";which decked foliage in more splendid sheen than anything the localcostumier could achieve, and whose poplars swayed more rhythmicallythan the dancers of the Assembly Rooms. 

The constraint which had been upon us during our former conversationvanished 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 wetalked, turn and turn about. My mother listened. To her the affair, compared with the tremendous subjects to which she was accustomed todirect her mind, was broad farce. James took it with an air ofrestrained amusement. I, seriously. 

Tentatively, I diverged from this subject towards other and widerfields. Impressions of Guernsey, which drew from him his address, atthe St. Peter's Port Hotel. The horrors of the sea passage fromWeymouth, 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 ofworld. Queer old gentleman, Mr. Gunton-Cresswell. He is, indeed. Quiteone of the old school. Oh, quite. Still wears that beaver hat? Does hereally? Yes. Ha, ha! Yes. 

Here the humanising influence of the Teutonic school of philosophicanalysis was demonstrated by my mother's action. Mr. Cloyster, shesaid, must reconcile himself to exchanging his comfortable rooms at theSt. 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 tochange his mind. " Something was said about my saving life anddestroying digestion. He went to collect his things in an ecstasy ofmerriment. 

At this point I committed an indiscretion which can only be excused bythe magnitude of the occasion. 

My mother had retired to her favourite bow-window where, by a _tourde force_ on the part of the carpenter, a system of low, adjustablebookcases had been craftily constructed in such a way that when she satin her window-seat they jutted in a semicircle towards her hand. 

James, whom I had escorted down the garden path, had left me at thelittle wooden gate and had gone swinging down the road. I, shieldedfrom outside observation (if any) by a line of lilacs, gazedrapturously at his retreating form. The sun was high in the sky now. Itwas a perfect summer's day. Birds were singing. Their notes blendedwith the gentle murmur of the sea on the beach below. Every fibre of mybody was thrilling with the magic of the morning. 

Through the kindly branches of the lilac I watched him, and then, asthough in obedience to the primaeval call of that July sunshine, Istood on tiptoe, and blew him a kiss. 

I realised in an instant what I had done. Fool that I had been. Thebow-window!

I was rigid with discomfiture. My mother's eyes were on the book sheheld. And yet a faint smile seemed to hover round her lips. I walked insilence 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 withdifficulty 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, fromthe moment when he had rowed out of the unknown into my life, clad in adressing-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 acertain delay. It was my privilege to watch this knowledge stealgradually but surely upon him. 

We were always together; and as the days passed by he spoke freely ofhimself and his affairs, obeying unconsciously the rudder of my tactfulinquisitiveness. By the end of the first week I knew as much about himas he did himself. 

It seemed that a guardian--an impersonal sort of business man with asmall but impossible family--was the most commanding figure in hisprivate life. As for his finances, five-and-forty sovereigns, theremnant of a larger sum which had paid for his education at Cambridge, stood between him and the necessity of offering for hire a sketchyacquaintance with general literature and a third class in the classicaltripos. 

He had come to Guernsey to learn by personal observation what chancestomato growing held out to a young man in a hurry to get rich. 

"Tomato growing?" I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense ofbathos, "People _have_ made it pay. Of course, they work veryhard. "

"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 atomato-farm. The nurture of a wholesome vegetable occupied neither thewhole of his ambitions nor even the greater part of them. To write--theagony with which he throatily confessed it!--to be swept into themaelstrom of literary journalism, to be _en rapport_ with theunslumbering forces of Fleet Street--those were the real objectives ofJames Orlebar Cloyster. 

"Of course, I mean, " he said, "I suppose it would be a bit of astruggle 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 afooting, you know--I should like to have a dash at it. I mean, I thinkI 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 longrambles out of doors. They were a series of excursions which he wasaccustomed to describe as hunting expeditions for the stocking of ourlarder. 

Thus James would announce at breakfast that prawns were the day'squarry, and the foreshore round Cobo Bay the hunting-ground. And toCobo, accordingly, we would set out. This prawn-yielding area extendsalong the coast on the other side of St. Peter's Port, where two haltshad to be made, one at Madame Garnier's, the confectioners, the otherat the library, to get fiction, which I never read. Then came a journeyon the top of the antediluvian horse-tram, a sort of _diligence_on rails; and then a whole summer's afternoon among the prawns. Cobo isan expanse of shingle, dotted with seaweed and rocks; and Guernsey is aplace where one can take off one's shoes and stockings on the slightestpretext. We waded hither and thither with the warm brine lappingunchecked over our bare legs. We did not use our nets veryindustriously, it is true; but our tongues were seldom still. The slowwalk home was a thing to be looked forward to. Ah! those memorablehomecomings in the quiet solemnity of that hour, when a weary sunstoops, one can fancy with a sigh of pleasure, to sink into the bosomof the sea!

Prawn-hunting was agreeably varied by fish-snaring, mussel-stalking, and mushroom-trapping--sports which James, in his capacity of HeadForester, included in his venery. 

For mushroom-trapping an early start had to be made--usually betweensix and seven. The chase took us inland, until, after walking throughthe fragrant, earthy lanes, we turned aside into dewy meadows, whereeach blade of grass sparkled with a gem of purest water. Again thenecessity of going barefoot. Breakfast was late on these mornings, mymother whiling away the hours of waiting with a volume of DiogenesLaertius in the bow-window. She would generally open the meal with theremark that Anaximander held the primary cause of all things to be theInfinite, or that it was a favourite expression of Theophrastus thattime was the most valuable thing a man could spend. When breakfast wasannounced, one of the covers concealed the mushrooms, which, under mysuperintendence, James had done his best to devil. A quiet dayfollowed, devoted to sedentary recreation after the labours of the run. 

The period which I have tried to sketch above may be called the periodof good-fellowship. Whatever else love does for a woman, it makes heran actress. So we were merely excellent friends till James's eyes wereopened. When that happened, he abruptly discarded good-fellowship. I, on the other hand, played it the more vigorously. The situation wasmine. 

Our day's run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office ofHead Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was withus--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 theirordinary, daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that secondperiod. When, by the strongest effort of will, I can let my mind standby those perfect moments, I seem to hear our voices, low and measured. And there are silences, fond in themselves and yet more fondlyinterrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. What we really said, what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do not know. Wewere together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. Itis not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not thatthe scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It isbecause the dream is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blurrecurs because the blur was there. A love vast as ours is penalised, asit were, by this blur, which is the hall-mark of infinity. 

In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245Gerrard to 137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegratingblur. 

A third period succeeded. I may call it the affectionately practicalperiod. Instantly the blur vanishes. We were at our proper distancefrom the essence of things, and though infinity is something one yearnsfor passionately, one's normal condition has its meed of comfort. Iremember once hearing a man in a Government office say that thepleasantest moment of his annual holiday was when his train rolled backinto Paddington Station. And he was a man, too, of a naturally lazydisposition. 

It was about the middle of this third period, during amushroom-trapping ramble, that the idea occurred to us, first to me, then--after reflection--to James, that mother ought to be informed howmatters stood between us. 

We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her. 

She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of _TheDeipnosophists_ of Athenaeus. 

"Good morning, " she said, looking at her watch. "It is a little pastour usual breakfast time, Margie, I think?"

"We have been looking for mushrooms, mother. "

"Every investigation, says Athenaeus, which is guided by principles ofNature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach. Haveyou 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 isnot for ever offering to pass me things. " Time had not caused her tomodify this opinion. She received our news calmly, and inquired intoJames's means and prospects. James had forty pounds and some oddsilver. 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 herbook. 

When we were alone, "My darling, " said James, "we must wait. Tomorrow Icatch the boat for Weymouth. I shall go straight to London. My firstmanuscript shall be in an editor's hands on Wednesday morning. I willgo, 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 youwill 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. Iwrote it. 

Three years had passed, and James was still haggling with those who buymen's brains. His earnings were enough just to keep his head abovewater, but not enough to make us two one. 

Perhaps, because everything is clear and easy for us now, I amgradually losing a proper appreciation of his struggle. That shouldnever be. He did not win. But he did not lose; which means nearly asmuch. For it is almost less difficult to win than not to lose, so mymother has told me, in modern journalistic London. And I know that hewould have won. The fact that he continued the fight as he did was initself a pledge of ultimate victory. What he went through while tryingwith his pen to make a living for himself and me I learned from hisletters. 

"London, " he wrote, "is not paved with gold; but in literary fieldsthere are nuggets to be had by the lightest scratching. And thosenuggets are plays. A successful play gives you money and a nameautomatically. What the ordinary writer makes in a year the successfuldramatist receives, without labour, in a fortnight. " He went on todeplore 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 oftechnique. Or they sacrifice plot to atmosphere, or atmosphere to plot. I, worse luck, have not one single qualification. The nursing of aclimax, the tremendous omissions in the dialogue, the knack of stagecharacterisation--all these things are, in some inexplicable way, outside me. "

It was this letter that set me thinking. Ever since James had left theisland, I had been chafing at the helplessness of my position. While hetoiled in London, what was I doing? Nothing. I suppose I helped him ina way. The thought of me would be with him always, spurring him on towork, that the time of our separation might be less. But it was notenough. I wanted to be _doing_ something.... And it was duringthese restless weeks that I wrote my play. 

I think nothing will ever erase from my mind the moment when thecentral idea of _The Girl who Waited_ came to me. It was aboisterous October evening. The wind had been rising all day. Now thebranches of the lilac were dancing in the rush of the storm, and farout in the bay one could see the white crests of the waves gleamingthrough the growing darkness. We had just finished tea. The lamp waslit in our little drawing-room, and on the sofa, so placed that thelight fell over her left shoulder in the manner recommended byoculists, 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 haveseldom felt so restless. It may have been the storm that made me so. Ithink myself that it was James's letter. The boat had been late thatmorning, owing to the weather, and I had not received the letter tillafter lunch. I listened to the howl of the wind, and longed to be outin it. 

My mother looked at me over her book. 

"You are restless, Margie, " she said. "There is a volume of MarcusAurelius 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 flewat me like some wild thing. Spray stung my face. I was filled with awild exhilaration. 

And then the idea came to me. The simplest, most dramatic idea. Quaint, whimsical, with just that suggestion of pathos blended with it whichmakes the fortunes of a play. The central idea, to be brief, of _TheGirl who Waited_. 

Of my Maenad tramp along the cliff-top with my brain afire, and myreturn, draggled and dripping, an hour late for dinner; of my writingand re-writing, of my tears and black depression, of the pens I woreout and the quires of paper I spoiled, and finally of the ecstasy ofthe day when the piece began to move and the characters to live, I neednot speak. Anyone who has ever written will know the sensations. Jamesmust have gone through a hundred times what I went through once. Atlast, 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 thenature of my request, when I spoke to her after lunch. At last sheunderstood that I had written a play, and wished to read it to her. Shetook me to the bow-window with gentle solicitude, and waited for me toproceed. 

At first she encouraged me, for I faltered over my opening words. Butas I warmed to my work, and as my embarrassment left me, she no longerspoke. Her eyes were fixed intently upon the blue space beyond thelilac. 

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_, andabruptly broke. The strain had been too much for me. 

Tenderly my mother drew me to the sofa; and quietly, with closedeyelids, I lay there until, in the soft cool of the evening, I askedfor her verdict. 

Seeing, as she did instantly, that it would be more dangerous to denymy request than to accede to it, she spoke. 

"That there is an absence, my dear Margie, of any relationship withlife, that not a single character is in any degree human, that passionand virtue and vice and real feeling are wanting--this surprises memore 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 inyour play I am amazed to find the touch of the professional andexperienced playwright. Yes, my dear, you have proved that you happento possess the quality--one that is most difficult to acquire--ofsurrounding a situation which is improbable enough to be convincingwith that absurdly mechanical conversation which the theatre-goingpublic demands. As your mother, I am disappointed. I had hoped fororiginality. As your literary well-wisher, I stifle my maternalfeelings 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 toher, and she added that she would be glad to be consulted with regardto 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 forgotthe dreadful tension of his own great battle, and pictured only thetedium of waiting which it was my part to endure. 

I finished my letter to James very late that night. It was a very longand explanatory letter, and it enclosed my play. 

The main point I aimed at was not to damp his spirits. He would, I knewwell, see that the play was suitable for staging. He would, in short, see that I, an inexperienced girl, had done what he, a trainedprofessional writer, had failed to do. Lest, therefore, his piqueshould kill admiration and pleasure when he received my work, I wroteas one begging a favour. "Here, " I said, "we have the means to achieveall we want. Do not--oh, do not--criticise. I have written down thewords. But the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you. Butfor you I should never have begun it. Take my play, James; take it asyour own. For yours it is. Put your name to it, and produce it, if youlove me, under your own signature. If this hurts your pride, I willword my request differently. You alone are able to manage the businessside of the production. You know the right men to go to. To approachthem on behalf of a stranger's work is far less likely to lead tosuccess. I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to beproduced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own. Claimthe authorship, and all will be well. "

Much more I wrote to James in the same strain; and my reward came nextday 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 publicaroused any trace of jealousy in James. Their unanimous note of praisehas been a source of pride to him. He is proud--ah, joy!--that I am tobe 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 onevast sheet of silver. I could sit here at my bedroom window and look atit all night. But then I should be sure to oversleep myself and be latefor breakfast. I shall read what I have written once more, and then Ishall 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 todayweek) destroys once and for all my life's ambition. I have never wonthrough 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 Bohemianslive in Oakley Street, King's Road, Chelsea. We are to rent a house inHalkett 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 OrlebarCloyster that morning; but I had my first youth and forty pounds, sothat soap and water, followed by coffee and an omelette, soon restoredme. 

The journey to Waterloo gave me opportunity for tobacco and reflection. 

What chiefly exercised me, I remember, was the problem whether it waspossible to be a Bohemian, and at the same time to be in love. BohemiaI looked on as a region where one became inevitably entangled withwomen of unquestionable charm, but doubtful morality. There were supperparties.... Festive gatherings in the old studio.... Babette.... Lucille.... The artists' ball.... Were these things possible for aman with an honest, earnest, whole-hearted affection?

The problem engaged me tensely till my ticket was collected atVauxhall. Just there the solution came. I would be a Bohemian, but amisogynist. People would say, "Dear old Jimmy Cloyster. How he hateswomen!" It would add to my character a pleasant touch of dignity andreserve which would rather accentuate my otherwise irresponsible way ofliving. 

Little did the good Bohemians of the metropolis know how keen a recruitthe boat train was bringing to them. 

 * * * * *

As a _pied-à-terre_ I selected a cheap and dingy hotel in YorkStreet, and from this base I determined to locate my proper sphere. 

Chelsea was the first place that occurred to me. There was St. John'sWood, of course, but that was such a long way off. Chelsea wascomparatively near to the heart of things, and I had heard that onemight find there artistic people whose hand-to-mouth, Saturnalianexistence was redolent of that exquisite gaiety which so attracted myown casual temperament. 

Sallying out next morning into the brilliant sunshine and the dustyrattle of York Street, I felt a sense of elation at the thought thatthe time for action had come. I was in London. London! The home of thefragrant motor-omnibus and the night-blooming Hooligan. London, thebattlefield of the literary aspirant since Caxton invented the printingpress. It seemed to me, as I walked firmly across Westminster Bridge, that Margie gazed at me with the lovelight in her eyes, and that aspecies of amorous telepathy from Guernsey was girding me for thefight. 

Manresa Road I had once heard mentioned as being the heart of BohemianChelsea. To Manresa Road, accordingly, I went, by way of St. James'sPark, Buckingham Palace Road, and Lower Sloane Street. Thence to SloaneSquare. Here I paused, for I knew that I had reached the last outpostof respectable, inartistic London. 

"How sudden, " I soliloquised, "is the change. Here I am in SloaneSquare, regular, business-like, and unimaginative; while, a few hundredyards 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 suburbas of the suburban portion of a great London railway terminus. It waspositively pretty. People were shopping with comparative leisure, omnibus horses were being rubbed down and watered on the west side ofthe Square, out of the way of the main stream of traffic. A postman, clearing the letter-box at the office, stopped his work momentarily toread the contents of a postcard. For the moment I understood Caesar'sfeelings on the brink of the Rubicon, and the emotions of Cortes "whenwith eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific. " I was on the threshold ofgreat events. Behind me was orthodox London; before me the unknown. 

It was distinctly a Caesarian glance, full of deliberate revolt, that Ibestowed upon the street called Sloane; that clean, orderlythoroughfare which leads to Knightsbridge, and thence either to therespectabilities 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, impoverishedartists whom our country refuses to recognise. 

My first glimpse of the Manresa Road was, I confess, a completedisappointment. Never was Bohemianism more handicapped by its settingthan that of Chelsea, if the Manresa Road was to be taken as acriterion. Along the uninviting uniformity of this street no trace ofunorthodoxy was to be seen. There came no merry, roystering laughterfrom attic windows. No talented figures of idle geniuses fetched pintsof beer from the public-house at the corner. No one dressed in anancient ulster and a battered straw hat and puffing enormous clouds ofblue smoke from a treasured clay pipe gazed philosophically into spacefrom a doorway. In point of fact, save for a most conventionalbutcher-boy, I was alone in the street. 

Then the explanation flashed upon me. I had been seen approaching. Theword had been passed round. A stranger! The clique resents intrusion. It lies hid. These gay fellows see me all the time, and are secretlyamused. But they do not know with whom they have to deal. I have cometo join them, and join them I will. I am not easily beaten. I willoutlast them. The joke shall be eventually against them, at someeccentric 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 sprangon to a passing 'bus. It took me to Victoria. I lunched at theShakespeare Hotel, smoked a pipe, and went out into the sunlight again. It had occurred to me that night was perhaps the best time for trappingmy shy quarry. Possibly the revels did not begin in Manresa Road tilldarkness had fallen. I spent the afternoon and evening in the Park, dined at Lyons' Popular Café (it must be remembered that I was not yeta Bohemian, and consequently owed no deference to the traditions of theorder); and returned at nine o'clock to the Manresa Road. Once more Idrew blank. A barrel-organ played cake-walk airs in the middle of theroad, but it played to an invisible audience. No bearded men dancedcan-cans around it, shouting merry jests to one another. Solitudereigned. 

I wait. The duel continues. What grim determination, what perseverancecan these Bohemians put into a mad jest! I find myself thinking howmuch better it would be were they to apply to their Art the sameearnestness and fixity of purpose which they squander on a practicaljoke. 

Evening fell. Blinds began to be drawn down. Lamps were lit behindthem, 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 theappearance of a house numbered 93A. 

At the first-floor window sat a man. He was writing. I could see hisprofile, his long untidy hair. I understood in a moment. This was noordinary writer. He was one of those Bohemians whose wit had beenexercised upon me so successfully. He was a literary man, and though heenjoyed the sport as much as any of the others he was under theabsolute necessity of writing his copy up to time. Unobserved by hisgay comrades, he had slipped away to his work. They were still watchingme; but he, probably owing to a contract with some journal, was obligedto give up his share in their merriment and toil with his pen. 

His pen fascinated me. I leaned against the railings of the houseopposite, enthralled. Ever and anon he seemed to be consulting one orother of the books of reference piled up on each side of him. Doubtlesshe was preparing a scholarly column for a daily paper. Presently aprinter's devil would arrive, clamouring for his "copy. " I knew exactlythe sort of thing that happened. I had read about it in novels. 

How unerring is instinct, if properly cultivated. Hardly had the clocksstruck twelve when the emissaries--there were two of them, which showedthe importance of their errand--walked briskly to No. 93A, and knockedat the door. 

The writer heard the knock. He rose hurriedly, and began to collect hispapers. Meanwhile, the knocking had been answered from within by theshooting of bolts, noises that were followed by the apparition of afemale 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 onto the pavement. Three persons--my scribe in the middle, an emissary oneither side--stagger strangely past me. The scribe enters the purplenight only under the stony compulsion of the emissaries. 

What does this mean?

I have it. The emissaries have become over-anxious. They dare not facethe responsibility of conveying the priceless copy to Fleet Street. They have completely lost their nerve. They insist upon the authoraccompanying them to see with his own eyes that all is well. They donot wish Posterity to hand their names down to eternal infamy as "themen 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 inhabitedalso 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 thanone, then, in this house. "

The female head again appeared. 

"Not another? Oh, sir, say there ain't another wanted, " said the headin 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? Thefirst-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 isyou get. "

"I don't, " I said, "not particularly. "

"Look 'ere, " she exclaimed, "you jest 'op it. See? I don't want none ofyour 'arf-larks here, and, what's more, I won't 'ave 'em. I don'tbelieve 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, ifI've said anything 'asty-like. I thought--but my mistake. "

"Not at all. Can you let me have a room? I notice that the gentlemanwhom 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'sforgot 'is latchkey. Thet's why I'm sitting up for 'im. Mrs. Driver myname 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 theapartments already engaged by the literary gentleman----"

"Yes, sir, " she interpolated, "that's wot 'e wos, I mean is. A literarygent. "

"But have you not another room vacant?"

"The second-floor back, sir. Very comfortable, nice room, sir. Shady inthe morning, and gets the setting sun. "

Had the meteorological conditions been adverse to the point ofmalignancy, I should have closed with her terms. Simple agreements wereratified then and there by the light of a candle in the passage, and Ileft the house, promising to "come in" in the course of the followingafternoon. 

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. Itwas during that period that I came nearest to realising my ambition tobe a Bohemian; and at the end of the third week, for reasons which Ishall state, I deserted Bohemia, firmly and with no longing, lingeringglance behind, and settled down to the prosaic task of grubbingearnestly 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 notcall my lodgings anything but dingy, dark, and commonplace. They werejust like a million other of London's mean lodgings. The window lookedout over a sea of backyards, bounded by tall, depressing houses, andintersected by clothes-lines. A cats' club (social, musical, andpugilistic) used to meet on the wall to the right of my window. One ortwo dissipated trees gave the finishing touch of gloom to the scene. Nor was the interior of the room more cheerful. The furniture had beenput in during the reign of George III, and last dusted in that ofWilliam and Mary. A black horse-hair sofa ran along one wall. There wasa deal table, a chair, and a rickety bookcase. It was a room for arealist to write in; and my style, such as it was, was bright andoptimistic. 

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 witheditorial rejection forms, of which I was beginning to have arepresentative collection. Properly arranged, these look very striking. There is a good deal of variety about them. The ones I liked best werethose which I received, at the rate of three a week, bearing a verypleasing picture, in green, of the publishing offices at the top of thesheet of note-paper. Scattered about in sufficient quantities, theselend an air of distinction to a room. _Pearson's Magazine_ alsosupplies a taking line in rejection forms. _Punch_'s I never caredfor very much. Neat, I grant you; but, to my mind, too cold. I like atouch of colour in a rejection form. 

In addition to these, I purchased from the grocer at the corner acollection of pictorial advertisements. What I had really wanted wasthe theatrical poster, printed and signed by well-known artists. Butthe grocer didn't keep them, and I was impatient to create my properatmosphere. My next step was to buy a corncob pipe and a quantity ofrank, jet-black tobacco. I hated both, and kept them more as ornamentsthan for use. 

Then, having hacked my table about with a knife and battered it with apoker till it might have been the table of a shaggy and unrecognisedgenius, I settled down to work. 

I was not a brilliant success. I had that "little knowledge" which isheld to be such a dangerous thing. I had not plunged into the literaryprofession without learning a few facts about it. I had read nearlyevery journalistic novel and "Hints on Writing for the Papers" bookthat had ever been published. In theory I knew all that there was to beknown about writing. Now, all my authorities were very strong on onepoint. "Write, " they said, very loud and clear, "not what _you_like, but what editors like. " I smiled to myself when I started. I feltthat I had stolen a march on my rivals. "All round me, " I said tomyself, "are young authors bombarding editors with essays on Lucretius, translations of Martial, and disquisitions on Ionic comedy. I know toomuch for that. I work on a different plan. " "Study the papers, and seewhat they want, " said my authorities. I studied the papers. Some wantedone thing, apparently, others another. There was one group of threepapers whose needs seemed to coincide, and I could see an articlerejected by one paper being taken by another. This offered me a numberof 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 EccentricTestators, " "Singular Scenes in Court, " "Actors Who Have Died on theStage, " "Curious Scenes in Church, " and seven others rejected by allthree. Somehow this sort of writing is not so easy as it looks. A manwho was on the staff of a weekly once told me that he had had twothousand of these articles printed since he started--poor devil. He hadthe knack. I could never get it. I sent up fifty-three in all in thefirst year of my literary life, and only two stuck. I got fifteenshillings from one periodical for "Men Who Have Missed Their OwnWeddings, " and, later, a guinea from the same for "Single DayMarriages. " That paper has a penchant for the love-interest. Yet when Isent it my "Duchesses Who Have Married Dustmen, " it came back by theearly 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 ofdefeats. I would have a manuscript accepted by an editor. "Hullo, " Iwould say, "here's the man at last, the Editor-Who-Believes-In-Me. Letthe thing go on. " I would send him off another manuscript. He wouldtake it. Victory, by Jove! Then--_wonk_! Back would come my thirdeffort with the curtest of refusals. I always imagined editors in thosedays to be pettish, whimsical men who amused themselves by taking up abeginner, and then, wearying of the sport, dropped him back into theslime from which they had picked him. 

In the intervals of articles I wrote short stories, again for the samethree papers. As before, I studied these papers carefully to see whatthey wanted; then worked out a mechanical plot, invariably with aquarrel in the first part, an accident, and a rescue in the middle, anda reconciliation at the end--told it in a style that makes me hot allover when I think of it, and sent it up, enclosing a stamped addressedenvelope in case of rejection. A very useful precaution, as it alwaysturned out. 

It was the little knowledge to which I have referred above which keptmy walls so thickly covered with rejection forms. I was in preciselythe same condition as a man who has been taught the rudiments ofboxing. I knew just enough to hamper me, and not enough to do me anygood. If I had simply blundered straight at my work and written justwhat occurred to me in my own style, I should have done much better. Ihave a sense of humour. I deliberately stifled it. For it I substituteda 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 nextworld. Only the editor of the _Colney Hatch Argus_ could haveaccepted work like mine. Yet I toiled on. 

It was about the middle of my third week at No. 93A that I definitelydecided to throw over my authorities, and work by the light of my ownintelligence. 

Nearly all my authorities had been very severe on the practice ofverse-writing. It was, they asserted, what all young beginners tried todo, and it was the one thing editors would never look at. In the firstardour 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 tofall. I took this as my topic. It was raining at the time. I wrote asatirical poem, full of quaint rhymes. 

I had always had rather a turn for serious verse. It struck me that therain might be treated poetically as well as satirically. That night Isent off two sets of verses to a daily and an evening paper. Next dayboth 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 theskirmishers, then the real attack. I will peg along with verses tillsomebody begins to take my stories and articles. "

I felt easier in my mind than I had felt for some time. A story cameback by the nine o'clock post from a monthly magazine (to which I hadsent it from mere bravado), but the thing did not depress me. I got outmy 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 thedoor, and Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with therejection form with a severe frown. After a preliminary sniff sheembarked upon a rapid lecture on what she called my irregular anduntidy habits. I had turned her second-floor back, she declared, into apig-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 giveher 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. Irefuse to believe that any man would stroll for three weeks. "

"So I did say it, " was the defiant reply. "I said it so as youshouldn't be put off coming. You looked a steady young feller, and Iwanted 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 wasa bit soft, that wos '_is_ little gime. But 'e wos a bit tooclever one day, and the coppers got 'im. Now you know!"

Mrs. Driver paused after this outburst, and allowed her eye to wanderslowly 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 toremove 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 moredeeply than I do--the fact is, they're stuck on with glue. "

Two minutes later I had received my marching orders, and the room wasstill echoing with the slam of the door as it closed behind theindignant 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 anadequate supply of money in his pocket. The only difficulty is toselect the most suitable, to single out from the eager crowd the ideallandlady. 

Evicted from No. 93A, it seemed to me that I had better abandonBohemia; postpone my connection with that land of lotus-eaters for themoment, while I provided myself with the means of paying rent andbuying dinners. Farther down the King's Road there were comfortablerooms to be had for a moderate sum per week. They were prosaic, butinexpensive. I chose Walpole Street. A fairly large bed-sitting roomwas vacant at No. 23. I took it, and settled down seriously to make mywriting 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 ManresaRoad air. Walpole Street is bounded by Burton Court, where theHousehold Brigade plays cricket, and the breezes from the river come toit without much interruption. There was also more quiet. No. 23 is thelast house in the street, and, even when I sat with my window open, thenoise of traffic from the King's Road was faint and rather pleasant. Itwas an excellent spot for a man who meant to work. Except for a certaindifficulty in getting my landlady and her daughters out of the roomwhen they came to clear away my meals and talk about the better daysthey had seen, and a few imbroglios with the eight cats which infestedthe 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 managedto place two of each brand a week; and that meant two guineas, sometimes more. One particularly pleasing thing about thisverse-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 toFleet Street with them at half-past six, thus getting a littleexercise; leave them at the office; and I would see them in print inthe next morning's issue. Payment was equally prompt. The rule was, Send in your bill before five on Wednesday, and call for payment onFriday at seven. Thus I had always enough money to keep me going duringthe week. 

In addition to verses, I kept turning out a great quantity of prose, fiction, and otherwise, but without much success. The visits of thepostmen were the big events of the day at that time. Before I had beenin Walpole Street a week I could tell by ear the difference between arejected manuscript and an ordinary letter. There is a certain solid_plop_ about the fall of the former which not even a long envelopefull of proofs can imitate successfully. 

I worked extraordinarily hard at that time. All day, sometimes. Thethought of Margie waiting in Guernsey kept me writing when I shouldhave done better to have taken a rest. My earnings were small inproportion to my labour. The guineas I made, except from verse, werelike the ounce of gold to the ton of ore. I no longer papered the wallswith rejection forms; but this was from choice, not from necessity. Ihad plenty of material, had I cared to use it. 

I made a little money, of course. My takings for the first monthamounted to £9 10s. I notched double figures in the next with £ll 1s. 6d. Then I dropped to £7 0s. 6d. It was not starvation, but it wasstill more unlike matrimony. 

But at the end of the sixth month there happened to me what, lookingback, I consider to be the greatest piece of good fortune of my life. Ireceived a literary introduction. Some authorities scoff at literaryintroductions. They say that editors read everything, whether they knowthe author or not. So they do; and, if the work is not good, a letterto the editor from a man who once met his cousin at a garden-party isnot likely to induce him to print it. There is no journalistic "ring"in the sense in which the word is generally used; but there areundoubtedly a certain number of men who know the ropes, and can act aspilots in a strange sea; and an introduction brings one into touch withthem. There is a world of difference between contributing blindly workwhich seems suitable to the style of a paper and sending in matterdesigned to attract the editor personally. 

Mr. Macrae, whose pupil I had been at Cambridge, was the author of myletter of introduction. At St. Gabriel's, Mr. Macrae had been a man forwhom I entertained awe and respect. Likes and dislikes in connectionwith one's tutor seemed outside the question. Only a chance episode hadshown me that my tutor was a mortal with a mortal's limitations. Wewere bicycling together one day along the Trumpington Road, when a formappeared, coming to meet us. My tutor's speech grew more and morehalting 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 wonthrough some fiery ordeal, he shot ahead like a gay professional rider. When I drew level with him, he said, "That, Mr. Cloyster, is mytailor. "

Mr. Macrae was typical of the University don who is Scotch. He hadmarried the senior historian of Newnham. He lived (and still lives) byproxy. His publishers order his existence. His honeymoon had beenplaced at the disposal of these gentlemen, and they had allotted tothat period an edition of Aristotle's Ethics. Aristotle, accordingly, received the most scholarly attention from the recently united couplesomewhere on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. All the reviews weresatisfactory. 

In my third year at St. Gabriel's it was popularly supposed that MasterPericles Aeschylus, Mr. Macrae's infant son, was turned to correct myLatin prose, though my Iambics were withheld from him at the request ofthe family doctor. 

The letter which Pericles Aeschylus's father had addressed to me wasone 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 drovestraight to the _Orb_. 

A painted hand, marked "Editorial, " indicated a flight of stairs. Atthe top of these I was confronted by a glass door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy inthe background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeingme the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attemptat solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at hiscompanion, who was seized on the instant with a paroxysm of suppressedhysteria. 

My letter was taken down a mysterious stone passage. After some waitingthe messenger returned with the request that I would come back ateleven, as Mr. Fermin would be very busy till then. 

I went out into the Strand, and sought a neighbouring hostelry. It wasessential that I should be brilliant at the coming interview, if onlyspirituously brilliant; and I wished to remove a sensation of stomachicemptiness, such as I had been wont to feel at school when approachingthe headmaster's study. 

At eleven I returned, and asked again for Mr. Fermin; and presently heappeared--a tall, thin man, who gave one the impression of being in ahurry. I knew him by reputation as a famous quarter-miler. He had beenpresident of the O. U. A. C. Some years back. He looked as if at anymoment 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 thecolumn through. Gresham and I do 'On Your Way, ' you know. The last copyhas 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 doanything 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. Doyou ever do verse?"

I felt like a batsman who sees a slow full-toss sailing through theair. 

"It's the only thing I can get taken, " I said. "I've had quite a lot inthe _Chronicle_ and occasional bits in other papers. "

He seemed relieved. 

"Oh, that's all right, then, " he said. "You know 'On Your Way. ' Perhapsyou'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 thewhole of the holiday work on the column. That comes to a good lot inthe year. We're always taking odd days off. Can you come up at amoment's notice?"

"Easily, " I said. 

"Then, you see, if you did that you would drop into the next vacancy onthe column. There's no saying when one may occur. It's like the GeneralElection. It may happen tomorrow, or not for years. Still, you'd be onthe spot in case. "

"It's awfully good of you. "

"Not at all. As a matter of fact, I was rather in difficulties aboutgetting a holiday man. I'm off to Scotland the day after tomorrow, andI 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. Nothalf-past. And you'd better do some stuff overnight for the first weekor so. You'll find working in the office difficult till you get used toit. Of course, though, you'll always have Gresham there, so there's noneed 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 ofverses 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 lastI was in the inner circle. 

An _Orb_ cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He wasone of _Us_. 

Chapter 4

JULIAN EVERSLEIGH_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_

I determined to celebrate the occasion by dining out, going to atheatre, and having supper afterwards, none of which things wereordinarily within my means. I had not been to a theatre since I hadarrived in town; and, except on Saturday nights, I always cooked my owndinner, a process which was cheap, and which appealed to the passionfor 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 ("lastweeks") 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 thecustomary musical-comedy success. 

London by night had always had an immense fascination for me. Comingout of the restaurant after supper, I felt no inclination to return tomy lodgings, and end the greatest night of my life tamely with a bookand 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 ArabianNight adventure? I would stroll about for half an hour, and give Londona chance of living up to its reputation. 

I walked slowly along Piccadilly, and turned up Rupert Street. A magicname. Prince Florizel of Bohemia had ended his days there in histobacconist's divan. Mr. Gilbert's Policeman Forth had been discoveredthere by the men of London at the end of his long wanderings throughSoho. Probably, if the truth were known, Rudolf Rassendyl had spentpart of his time there. It could not be that Rupert Street would sendme empty away. 

My confidence was not abused. Turning into Rupert Court, a dark andsuggestive passage some short distance up the street on the right, Ifound a curious little comedy being played. 

A door gave on to the deserted passageway, and on each side of it stooda man--the lurcher type of man that is bred of London streets. The dooropened inwards. Another man stepped out. The hands of one of thelurchers flew to the newcomer's mouth. The hands of the other lurcherflew 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 meintroduce 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 wassmall, and situated immediately under the roof. One side had a windowwhich overlooked Rupert Court. The view from it was, however, restricted, because the window was inset, so that the walls projectingon either side prevented one seeing more than a yard or two of thecourt. 

The room contained a hammock, a large tin bath, propped up against thewall, a big wardrobe, a couple of bookcases, a deal writing-table--atwhich the proprietor was now sitting with a pen in his mouth, gazing atthe 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 sergesuit, the trousers baggy at the knees and the coat threadbare at theelbows. He had the odd expression which green eyes combined with redhair 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'sextravagance, before he got up from his writing. 

"Those fellows, " he said, producing a bottle of whisky and a syphonfrom one of the lower drawers of the wardrobe, "did me a doubleservice. 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 melate at night, can't get in by knocking at the front door. It is ashop-door, and is locked early. Vancott, my landlord, is a baker, and, as he has to be up making muffins somewhere about five in themorning--we all have our troubles--he does not stop up late. So peoplewho want me go into the court, and see whether my lamp is burning bythe window. If it is, they stand below and shout, 'Julian, ' till I openthe door into the court. That's what happened tonight. I heard my namecalled, went down, and walked into the arms of the enterprisinggentlemen whom you chanced to notice. They must have been very hungry, for even if they had carried the job through they could not haveexpected to make their fortunes. In point of fact, they would havecleared one-and-threepence. But when you're hungry you can see nofurther than the pit of your stomach. Do you know, I almost sympathisewith the poor brutes. People sometimes say to me, 'What are you?' Ihave often half a mind to reply, 'I have been hungry. ' My stars, behungry once, and you're educated, if you don't die of it, for alifetime. "

This sort of talk from a stranger might have been the prelude to anappeal for financial assistance. 

He dissipated that half-born thought. 

"Don't be uneasy, " he said; "you have not been lured up here by theruse 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 apleasant fellow. "

"Thank you, " I said. 

"Besides, " he continued, "I am not hungry at present. In fact, I shallnever be hungry again. "

"You're lucky, " I remarked. 

"I am. I am the fortunate possessor of the knack of writingadvertisements. "

"Indeed, " I said, feeling awkward, for I saw that I ought to beimpressed. 

"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, andevery book. "

"Every book?"

"Practically, yes. Most books contain some latent support of a fashionin clothes or food or drink, or of some pleasant spot or phase ofbenevolence or vice, all of which form the interest of one or other ofthe sections of society, which sections require publicity at all costsfor their respective interests. "

I was about to probe searchingly into so optimistic a view of modernauthorship, but he stalled me off by proceeding rapidly with hisdiscourse. 

"Apart, however, from the less obvious modes of advertising, you'llagree 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 byappearances, ' a commercial platitude. The man who is ambitious andindustrious turns his trick of writing into purely literary channels, and becomes a novelist. The man who is not ambitious and notindustrious, and who does not relish the prospect of becoming a loaferin Strand wine-shops, writes advertisements. The gold-bearing area isalways growing. It's a Tom Tiddler's ground. It is simply a question ofpicking up the gold and silver. The industrious man picks up as much ashe wants. Personally, I am easily content. An occasional nuggetsatisfies 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, andthey know it. At present they are giving me a retainer to keep my workexclusively for them. The stuff they have put on the market is neitherbetter nor worse than the average sloe gin. But my advertisements havegiven it a tremendous vogue. It is the only brand that grocers stock. Since I made the firm issue a weekly paper called _Skeffington'sPoultry Farmer_, free to all country customers, the consumption ofsloe gin has been enormous among agriculturists. My idea, too, ofsupplying suburban buyers gratis with a small drawing-book, skeletonillustrations, and four coloured chalks, has made the drink popularwith children. You must have seen the poster I designed. There's areduced copy behind you. The father of a family is unwrapping a bottleof Skeffington's Sloe Gin. His little ones crowd round him, laughingand clapping their hands. The man's wife is seen peeping roguishly inthrough the door. Beneath is the popular catch-phrase, "Ain't mothergoing to 'ave none?"

"You're a genius, " I cried. 

"Hardly that, " he said. "At least, I have no infinite capacity fortaking pains. I am one of Nature's slackers. Despite my talent fordrawing up advertisements, I am often in great straits owing to mynatural inertia and a passionate love of sleep. I sleep on theslightest provocation or excuse. I will back myself to sleep againstanyone in the world, no age, weight, or colour barred. You, I shouldsay, are of a different temperament. More energetic. The Get On or GetOut sort of thing. The Young Hustler. "

"Rather, " I replied briskly, "I am in love. "

"So am I, " said Julian Eversleigh. "Hopelessly, however. Give us amatch. "

After that we confirmed our friendship by smoking a number of pipestogether. 

Chapter 5

THE COLUMN_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_

After the first week "On Your Way, " on the _Orb_, offered hardlyany difficulty. The source of material was the morning papers, whichwere placed in a pile on our table at nine o'clock. The halfpennypapers were our principal support. Gresham and I each took one, andpicked it clean. We attended first to the Subject of the Day. This wasgenerally good for two or three paragraphs of verbal fooling. There wasa sort of tradition that the first half-dozen paragraphs should betopical. 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 createdseveral of the typical characters who appeared from time to time in "OnYour Way, " as, for instance, Mrs. Jenkinson, our Mrs. Malaprop, andJones junior, our "howler" manufacturing schoolboy. He was also a stoutapostle of a mode of expression which he called "funny language. " Thus, instead of writing boldly: "There is a rumour that----, " I was taught tosay, "It has got about that----. " This sounds funnier in print, soGresham said. I could never see it myself. 

Gresham had a way of seizing on any bizarre incident reported in themorning papers, enfolding it in "funny language, " adding a pun, andthus making it his own. He had a cunning mastery of periphrasis, and atelling command of adverbs. 

Here is an illustration. An account was given one morning by theCentral news of the breaking into of a house at Johnsonville (Mich. ) bya negro, who had stolen a quantity of greenbacks. The thief, escapingacross some fields, was attacked by a cow, which, after severelyinjuring 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 CaesarBones, a coloured gentleman, entered John's house at Johnsonville(Mich. ) about midnight. Did the nocturnal caller disturb his slumberinghost? No. Caesar Bones has the finer feelings. But as he wasnoiselessly retiring, what did he see? Why, a pile of greenbacks whichJohn had thoughtlessly put away in a fire-proof safe. "

To prevent the story being cut out by the editor, who revised all theproofs 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 thesequel. The noble Caesar met, on his homeward path, an irritablecudster. The encounter was brief. Caesar went weak in the second round, and took the count in the third. Elated by her triumph, and hungry fromher exertions, the horned quadruped nosed the wad of paper money anddaringly devoured it. Caesar has told the court that if he is convictedof felony, he will arraign the owner of the ostrich-like bovine on acharge of receiving stolen goods. The owner merely ejaculates 'Blackmale!'"

On his day Gresham could write the column and have a hundred lines overby ten o'clock. I, too, found plenty of copy as a rule, though Icontinued my practice of doing a few paragraphs overnight. But everynow and then fearful days would come, when the papers were empty ofmaterial for our purposes, and when two out of every half-dozenparagraphs which we did succeed in hammering out were returned deletedon the editor's proof. 

The tension at these times used to be acute. The head printer wouldsend up a relay of small and grubby boys to remind us that "On YourWay" was fifty lines short. At ten o'clock he would come in person, andbe plaintive. 

Gresham, the old hand, applied to such occasions desperate remedies. Hewould manufacture out of even the most pointless item of news twoparagraphs by adding to his first the words, "This reminds us ofMr. Punch's famous story. " He would then go through the bound volumesof _Punch_--we had about a dozen in the room--with lightning speeduntil he chanced upon a more or less appropriate tag. 

Those were mornings when verses would be padded out from three stanzasto five, Gresham turning them out under fifteen minutes. He had awonderful facility for verse. 

As a last expedient one fell back upon a standing column, a moth-eatencollection of alleged jests which had been set up years ago to meet theworst emergencies. It was, however, considered a confession of weaknessand a degradation to use this column. 

We had also in our drawer a book of American witticisms, published inNew York. To cut one out, preface it with "A good American story comesto hand, " and pin it on a slip was a pleasing variation of the usualmode of constructing a paragraph. Gresham and I each had our favouritemethod. Personally, I had always a partiality for dealing with"buffers. " "The brakes refused to act, and the train struck the buffersat the end of the platform" invariably suggested that if elderlygentlemen would abstain from loitering on railway platforms, they wouldnot get hurt in this way. 

Gresham had a similar liking for "turns. " "The performance at theFrivoli Music Hall was in full swing when the scenery was noticed to beon 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. Hesaid, moreover, that I had a future before me, not only as ajournalist, but as a writer. 

Nor, indeed, could I help seeing for myself that I was getting on. Iwas making a fair income now, and had every prospect of making a muchbetter one. My market was not restricted. Verses, articles, and fictionfrom my pen were being accepted with moderate regularity by many of theminor periodicals. My scope was growing distinctly wider. I found, too, that my work seemed to meet with a good deal more success when I sentit in from the _Orb_, with a letter to the editor on _Orb_ notepaper. 

Altogether, my five weeks on the _Orb_ were invaluable to me. Iought to have paid rather than have taken payment for working on thecolumn. By the time Fermin came back from Scotland to turn me out, Iwas a professional. I had learned the art of writing against time. Ihad learned to ignore noise, which, for a writer in London, is the mostvaluable quality of all. Every day at the _Orb_ I had had to turnout my stuff with the hum of the Strand traffic in my ears, varied byan occasional barrel-organ, the whistling of popular songs by theprinters, whose window faced ours, and the clatter of a typewriter inthe next room. Often I had to turn out a paragraph or a verse whilelistening and making appropriate replies to some other member of thestaff, who had wandered into our room to pass the time of day or readout a bit of his own stuff which had happened to please himparticularly. All this gave me a power of concentration, without whichwriting is difficult in this city of noises. 

The friendship I formed with Gresham too, besides being pleasant, wasof infinite service to me. He knew all about the game. I followed hisadvice, and prospered. His encouragement was as valuable as his advice. He was my pilot, and saw me, at great trouble to himself, through thedangerous waters. 

I foresaw that the future held out positive hope that my marriage withMargaret would become possible. And yet----

Pausing in the midst of my castle-building, I suffered a sense ofrevulsion. I had been brought up to believe that the only adjectivethat could be coupled with the noun "journalism" was "precarious. " WasI not, as Gresham would have said, solving an addition sum in infantilepoultry before their mother, the feathered denizen of the farmyard, hadlured them from their shell? Was I not mistaking a flash in the pan fora 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 natureof my work. I referred to the struggle in which I was engaged. Iindicated cleverly that I was a man of extraordinary courage battlingwith fate. I implied that I made just enough to live on. 

It would have been cruel to arouse expectations which might never befulfilled. In this letter, accordingly, and in subsequent letters, Irather went to the opposite extreme. Out of pure regard for Margaret, Ipainted my case unnecessarily black. Considerations of a similar natureprompted me to keep on my lodging in Walpole Street. I had two roomsinstead of one, but they were furnished severely and with nothing butthe 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 thedays went on, when I found myself wondering. Did I really want to giveup 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 firstnovel was accepted. Not an ambitious volume. It was rather short, andthe plot was not obtrusive. The sporting gentlemen who accepted it, however--Messrs. Prodder and Way--seemed pleased with it; though, whenI suggested a sum in cash in advance of royalties, they displayed amost embarrassing coyness--and also, as events turned out, good sense. 

I carried the good news to Julian, whom I found, as usual, asleep inhis hammock. I had fallen into the habit of calling on him after my_Orb_ work. He was generally sleepy when I arrived, at half-pasteleven, and while we talked I used to make his breakfast act as asort of early lunch for myself. He said that the people of the househad begun by trying to make the arrival of his breakfast coincide withthe completion of his toilet; that this had proved so irksome that theyhad struck; and that finally it had been agreed on both sides that themeal should be put in his room at eleven o'clock, whether he wasdressed or not. He said that he often saw his breakfast come in, andwould drowsily determine to consume it hot. But he had never had theenergy to do so. Once, indeed, he had mistaken the time, and hadconfidently expected that the morning of a hot breakfast had come atlast. He was dressed by nine, and had sat for two hours gloating overthe prospect of steaming coffee and frizzling bacon. On that particularmorning, however, there had been some domestic tragedy--the firing of achimney 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 embitteredJulian. He gave up the unequal contest, and he has frequently confessedto me that cold breakfast is an acquired, yet not unpleasant, taste. 

He woke up when I came in, and, after hearing my news andcongratulating me, began to open the letters that lay on the table athis side. 

One of the envelopes had Skeffington's trade mark stamped upon it, andcontained 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 andeggs, which lay embalmed in frozen grease, began to lunch off bread andmarmalade. 

"I'll do it, " he burst out when he had finished. "It's a sweat--afearful sweat, but----

"Skeffington's have written urging me to undertake a rather originaladvertising scheme. They're very pressing, and they've enclosed atenner in advance. They want me to do them a tragedy in four acts. Isent them the scenario last week. I sketched out a skeleton plot inwhich the hero is addicted to a strictly moderate use of Skeffington'sSloe Gin. His wife adopts every conceivable measure to wean him fromthis harmless, even praiseworthy indulgence. At the end of the secondact she thinks she has cured him. He has promised to gratify what heregards as merely a capricious whim on her part. 'I will give--yes, Iwill give it up, darling!' 'George! George!' She falls on his neck. Over her shoulder he winks at the audience, who realise that there ismore to come. Curtain. In Act 3 the husband is seen sitting alone inhis study. His wife has gone to a party. The man searches in a cupboardfor something to read. Instead of a novel, however, he lights on abottle of Skeffington's Sloe Gin. Instantly the old overwhelmingcraving returns. He hesitates. What does it matter? She will neverknow. He gulps down glass after glass. He sinks into an intoxicatedstupor. His wife enters. Curtain again. Act 4. The draught of nectartasted in the former act after a period of enforced abstinence hasproduced a deadly reaction. The husband, who previously improved hishealth, his temper, and his intellect by a strictly moderate use ofSkeffington's Sloe Gin, has now become a ghastly dipsomaniac. His wife, realising too late the awful effect of her idiotic antagonism toSkeffington's, experiences the keenest pangs of despair. She drinkslaudanum, and the tragedy is complete. "

"Fine, " I said, finishing the coffee. 

"In a deferential postscript, " said Julian, "Skeffington's suggest analternative ending, that the wife should drink, not laudanum, but SloeGin, and grow, under its benign influence, resigned to the fate she hasbrought on her husband and herself. Resignation gives way to hope. Shedevotes her life to the care of the inebriate man, and, by way ofpathetic retribution, she lives precisely long enough to nurse him backto sanity. Which finale do you prefer?"

"Yours!" I said. 

"Thank you, " said Julian, considerably gratified. "So do I. It'sterser, more dramatic, and altogether a better advertisement. Skeffington's make jolly good sloe gin, but they can't arouse pity andterror. Yes, I'll do it; but first let me spend the tenner. "

"I'm taking a holiday, too, today, " I said. "How can we amuseourselves?"

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'ssure 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'hôte_ one franc, plus twopence for mad'moiselle--andgo on to the gallery of a first night. I was to dress for Covent Gardenat Julian's after the theatre, because white waistcoats and the franc_table d'hôte_ didn't go well together. 

When I dined out, I usually went to the Maison Suisse. I shall neverhave the chance of going again, even if, as a married man, I wereallowed to do so, for it has been pulled down to make room for theHicks Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. When I did not dine there, Iattended a quaint survival of last century's coffee-houses inGlasshouse Street: Tall, pew-like boxes, wooden tables withouttable-cloths, panelled walls; an excellent menu of chops, steaks, friedeggs, sausages, and other British products. Once the resort of bucksand Macaronis, Ford's coffee-house I found frequented by a strangeassortment of individuals, some of whom resembled bookmakers' touts, others clerks of an inexplicably rustic type. Who these people reallywere I never discovered. 

"I generally have supper at Pepolo's, " said Julian, as we left thetheatre, "before a Covent Garden Ball. Shall we go on there?"

There are two entrances to Pepolo's restaurant, one leading to theground floor, the other to the brasserie in the basement. I liked tospend an hour or so there occasionally, smoking and watching thecrowd. Every sixth visit on an average I would happen upon somebodyinteresting among the ordinary throng of medical students andthird-rate clerks--watery-eyed old fellows who remembered Cremorne, amahogany derelict who had spent his youth on the sea when liners weresailing-ships, and the apprentices, terrorised by bullying mates andthe rollers of the Bay, lay howling in the scuppers and prayed to bethrown overboard. He told me of one voyage on which the Malay cook wentmad, and, escaping into the ratlines, shot down a dozen of the crewbefore he himself was sniped. 

The supper tables are separated from the brasserie by a line of stuccoarches, and as it was now a quarter to twelve the place was full. At afirst glance it seemed that there were no empty supper tables. Presently, however, we saw one, laid for four, at which only one manwas sitting. 

"Hullo!" said Julian, "there's Malim. Let's go and see if we can pushinto his table. Well, Malim, how are you? Do you know Cloyster?"

Mr. Malim had a lofty expression. I should have put him down as ascholarly recluse. His first words upset this view somewhat. 

"Coming to Covent Garden?" he said, genially. "I am. So is Kit. She'llbe 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 notwait for her. "

We took our places, and looked round us. The hum of conversation waspersistent. It rose above the clatter of the supper tables and thesudden bursts of laughter. 

It was now five minutes to twelve. All at once those nearest the doorsprang 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 dothat it makes me feel shy. "

She was laughing like a child. She leaned across the table, put herarms 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 ofmusic-hall artists, callow university men, shady horse-dealers, andraucous military infants, had an atmosphere of more than meretriciousgaiety. The close of an old year and the birth of a new one touch thetoughest. 

The band was working away with a strident brassiness which filled theroom with noise. The women's dresses were a shriek of colour. Thevulgarity of the scene was so immense as to be almost admirable. It wascertainly interesting. 

Watching his opportunity, Julian presently drew me aside into thesmoking-room. 

"Malim, " he said, "has paid you a great compliment. "

"Really, " I said, rather surprised, for Julian's acquaintance had donenothing more, to my knowledge, than give me a cigar and awhiskey-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 theForeign 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 exuberantlady impersonating Winter, and making fair practice with her detachableicicles, "it was Kit or no one. Just consider Malim's position, whichwas that of thousands of other men of his type. They are the cleverestmen of their schools; they are the intellectual stars of theirVarsities. 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 getwhat is looked upon as a splendid appointment under Government. Theycome to London, hire comfortable chambers or a flat, go off to theiroffice in the morning, leave it in the evening, and are given a salarywhich increases by regular gradations from an initial two hundred ayear. Say that a man begins this kind of work at twenty-four. What arehis matrimonial prospects? His office work occupies his entireattention (the idea that Government clerks don't work is a fictionpreserved merely for the writers of burlesque) from the moment he wakesin the morning until dinner. His leisure extends, roughly speaking, from eight-thirty until twelve. The man whom I am discussing, and ofwhom Malim is a type, is, as I have already proved, intellectual. Hehas, therefore, ambitions. The more intellectual he is the more heloathes the stupid routine of his daily task. Thus his leisure is hismost valuable possession. There are books he wants to read--thosewhich he liked in the days previous to his slavery--and new ones whichhe 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 hisleft hand to write, if the loss of that limb wouldn't disqualify himfor his post. Where is his social chance? It surely exists only in theutter abandonment of his personal projects. And to go out when one istied 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 mademuch of, fussed over? Not a bit of it. Brainless subalterns, ridiculousmidshipmen, have, in the eyes of the girl whom he has come to see, areputation that he can never win. They're in the Service; they're sodashing; they're so charmingly extravagant; they're so tremendous inface 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 whoretire to the conservatory with the divine Violet, whose face is likethe Venus of Milo's, whose hair (one hears) reaches to her knees, whoseeyes are like blue saucers, and whose complexion is a pink poem. It isJane, the stumpy, the flat-footed--Jane, who wears glasses and has allthe virtues which are supposed to go with indigestion: big hands and anenormous waist--Jane, I repeat, who is told off to talk to a man likeMalim. If, on the other hand, he and his fellows refuse to put onevening clothes and be bored to death of an evening, who can blamethem? If they deliberately find enough satisfaction for their needs inthe company of a circle of men friends and the casual pleasures of thetown, selfishness is the last epithet with which their behaviour can becharged. Unselfishness has been their curse. No sane person would, ofhis own accord, become the automaton that a Government office requires. Pressure on the part of relations, of parents, has been brought to bearon them. The steady employment, the graduated income, the pension--thatfatal pension--has been danced by their fathers and their mothers andtheir Uncle Johns before their eyes. Appeals have been made to them onfilial, not to say religious, grounds. Threats would have availednothing; but appeals--downright tearful appeals from mamma, husky, hand-gripping appeals from papa--that is what has made escapeimpossible. A huge act of unselfishness has been compelled; a lifetimeof reactionary egotism is inevitable and legitimate. I was wrong when Isaid Malim was typical. He has to the good an ingenuity which assistsnaturally in the solution of the problem of self and circumstance. Ayear or two ago chance brought him in contact with Kit. They struck upa friendship. He became an habitué at the Fried Fish Shop in TottenhamCourt Road. Whenever we questioned his taste he said that a physicianrecommended fish as a tonic for the brain. But it was not his brainthat 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 animpossible step. Misery for Malim's people, his friends, himself, andafterwards for Kit. But Nature has endowed both Malim and Kit withextraordinary commonsense. He kept to his flat; she kept to her job inthe fried fish shop. Only, instead of living in, she was able to retireafter her day's work to a little house which he hired for her in theHampstead Road. Her work, for which she is eminently fitted, keeps herout of mischief. His flat gives the impression to his family and thehead of his department that he is still a bachelor. Thus, all goeswell. "

"I've often read in the police reports, " I said, "of persons who leaddouble 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, mildmorning, and in the queer light of the false dawn we betook ourselvesto the Old Hummums for breakfast. Other couples had done the same. Thesteps of the Hummums facing the market harboured already a waitingcrowd. The doors were to be opened at five. We also found places on thestone steps. The market was alive with porters, who hailed ourappearance with every profession of delight. Early hours would seem tolend a certain acidity to their badinage. By-and-by a more personalnote crept into their facetious comments. Two guardsmen on the top stepsuddenly displayed, in return, a very creditable gift of repartee. Covent Garden market was delighted. It felt the stern joy whichwarriors feel with foemen worthy of their steel. It suspended itsjuggling feats with vegetable baskets, and devoted itself exclusivelyto the task of silencing our guns. Porters, costers, and the riff-raffof the streets crowded in a semicircle around us. Just then it wasborne in on us how small our number was. A solid phalanx of thetoughest customers in London faced us. Behind this semicircle a line ofcarts had been drawn up. Unseen enemies from behind this laager nowbegan to amuse themselves by bombarding us with the product of themarket garden. Tomatoes, cauliflowers, and potatoes came hurtling intoour midst. I saw Julian consulting his watch. "Five minutes more, " hesaid. I had noticed some minutes back that the ardour of the attackseemed to centre round one man in particular--a short, very burly manin a costume that seemed somehow vaguely nautical. His face wore theexpression of one cheerfully conscious of being well on the road tointoxication. He was the ringleader. It was he who threw the largestcabbage, the most _passé_ tomato. I don't suppose he had everenjoyed himself so much in his life. He was standing now on a cart fullof 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 anyonecould stop her, or had guessed her intention, she had pushed her waythrough us and stepped out into the road. 

It was so unexpected that there was an involuntary lull in theproceedings. 

"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 petof the market, the energetic leader, the champion potato-slinger. Nowhe was a thing of derision. His friends took up the question. Keenanxiety 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 himsomefin' else. "

"Tom, " said Kit, "who was sent with tuppence to buy postage-stamps andspent it on beer?"

The question was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. Apotato, 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 herconfidence, added: "'E's a nice thing to 'ave for a bruvver, anyway. "

Then she rejoined Malim, amid peals of laughter from both armies. Itwas a Homeric incident. 

Only a half-hearted attempt was made to renew the attack. And when thedoor of the Hummums at last opened, Malim observed to Julian and me, aswe squashed our way in, that if a man's wife's relations were always asopportune 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 twochief mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man ofdelicate literary skill, a genuine lover of books, a severe critic ofmodern fiction. Our tastes were in the main identical, though it wasalways a blow to me that he could see nothing humorous in Mr. GeorgeAde, whose Fables I knew nearly by heart. The more robust type ofhumour left him cold. 

In all other respects we agreed. 

There is a never-failing fascination in a man with a secret. It gaveme a pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes, to watch Malim, sitting in his armchair, the essence of everything that wasconventional and respectable, with Eton and Oxford written all overhim, and to think that he was married all the while to an employee in aTottenham Court Road fried-fish shop. 

Kit never appeared in the flat: but Malim went nearly every evening tothe little villa. Sometimes he took Julian and myself, more oftenmyself alone, Julian being ever disinclined to move far from hishammock. The more I saw of Kit the more thoroughly I realized howeminently fitted she was to be Malim's wife. It was a union ofopposites. Except for the type of fiction provided by "penny librariesof powerful stories. " Kit had probably not read more than half a dozenbooks in her life. Grimm's fairy stories she recollected dimly, and shebetrayed a surprising acquaintance with at least three of Ouida'snovels. I fancy that Malim appeared to her as a sort of combination offairy prince and Ouida guardsman. He exhibited the Oxford manner attimes rather noticeably. Kit loved it. 

Till I saw them together I had thought Kit's accent and her incessantmangling of the King's English would have jarred upon Malim. But I soonfound that I was wrong. He did not appear to notice. 

I learned from Kit, in the course of my first visit to the villa, somefurther particulars respecting her brother Tom, the potato-thrower ofCovent Garden Market. Mr. Thomas Blake, it seemed, was the proprietorand skipper of a barge. A pleasant enough fellow when sober, but toomuch given to what Kit described as "his drop. " He had apparently lefthome under something of a cloud, though whether this had anything to dowith "father's trousers" I never knew. Kit said she had not seen himfor some years, though each had known the other's address. It seemedthat the Blake family were not great correspondents. 

"Have you ever met John Hatton?" asked Malim one night after dinner athis 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 anumber of widely different interests. We were at Trinity together. Hejumps from one thing to another, but he's frightfully keen aboutwhatever he does. Someone was saying that he was running a boys' clubin the thickest part of Lambeth. "

"There might be copy in it, " I said. 

"Or ideas for advertisements for Julian, " said Malim. "Anyway, I'llintroduce 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 theonly club in England that allows, and indeed urges, its members to siton a barrel. John Hatton is sometimes to be found there. Come round toit 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'tcome 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 dooropened on to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano anda singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight ofa waiter loaded with glasses. I called to him. 

"Mr. Cloyster, sir? Yessir. I'll find out whether Mr. Malim can seeyou, 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 thestreet. 

There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song wasfinished, and there was a movement among the audience. "It's theinterval, " said Malim. 

Men surged out of the packed front room into the passage, and then intoa sort of bar parlour. Malim and I also made our way there. "That's thefetish 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 littleMichael, the musical critic. They once put on an operetta of his at theCourt. It ran about two nights, but he reckons all the events of theworld from the date of its production. "

"Mr. Cloyster--Mr. Michael. "

The musician hopped down from the barrel and shook hands. He was adapper little person, and had a trick of punctuating every sentencewith 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 offeryou the privilege. " Accordingly I sat on the barrel, and through amurmur of applause I could hear Michael telling someone that he'd firstseen 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 oldactor. 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 theHaymarket. After the performance we used to meet at the Café del'Europe, a few yards from the theatre. Our secret society sat there. "

"What was the society called, Mr. Maundrell?" asked a new member withunusual intrepidity. 

"Its name, " replied the white-headed actor simply, "I shall notdivulge. It was not, however, altogether unconnected with the Pink Menof the Blue Mountains. We used to sit, we who were initiated, in acircle. We met to discuss the business of the society. Oh, we were theobserved of all observers, I can assure you. Our society was extensive. It had its offshoots in foreign lands. Well, we at these meetings usedto 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 topwe threw any scraps and odds and ends we did not want. Bits of tobacco, bread, marrow bones, the dregs of our glasses--anything and everythingwent into the barrel. And so it happened, as the barrel became fullerand fuller, strange animals made their appearance--animals of peculiarshape and form crawled out of the barrel and would attempt to escapeacross the floor. But we were on their tracks. We saw them. We headedthem off with our sticks, and we chased them back again to the placewhere they had been born and bred. We poked them in, sir, with oursticks. "

Mr. Maundrell emitted a placid chuckle at this reminiscence. 

"A good many members of this club, " whispered Malim to me, "would havegone 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 thecommittee, and to the left stood a piano. Everyone had now sat downexcept the chairman, who was apparently not in the room. There was apause. Then a man from the audience whooped sharply and clambered overthe table and into the place of the chairman. He tapped twice with themallet. "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 ofwhite-robed Druids came, chanting, into the room. 

The Druids carried in with them a small portable tree which theyproceeded to set upright. The chant now became extremely topical. EachDruid sang a verse in turn, while his fellow Druids danced a statelymeasure round the tree. As the verse was being sung, an imitationgranite altar was hastily erected. 

The man in the chair, who had so far smoked a cigarette in silence, nowtapped again with his mallet. "Gentlemen, " he observed. 

The Druids ended their song abruptly, and made a dash at the occupantof the chair. The audience stood up. "A victim for our ancient rites!"screamed the Druids, falling upon the man and dragging him towards theproperty altar. 

The victim showed every sign of objection to early English rites; buthe was dislodged, and after being dragged, struggling, across thetable, subsided quickly on the floor. The mob surged about and aroundhim. He was hidden from view. His position, however, could be locatedby 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 everyside, and at this signal the Druids disappeared at a trot past thelong-bearded, impassive Mr. Maundrell. Their victim followed them, butbefore he did so he picked up his trousers which were lying on thecarpet. 

All the time this scene had been going on, I fancied I recognised theman in the chair. In a flash I remembered. It was Dawkins who hadcoached First Trinity, and whom I, as a visitor once at the crew'straining dinner, had last seen going through the ancient and honourableprocess 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 findJohn Hatton. "

We left the Barrel at about one o'clock. It was a typical London lateautumn night. Quiet with the peace of a humming top; warm with the heatgenerated 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 givenover to lurchers and policemen. Fleet Street reproduces for this onehour the Sahara. 

"When I knock at the Temple gate late at night, " said Malim, "and amadmitted by the night porter, I always feel a pleasantly archaictouch. "

I agreed with him. The process seemed a quaint admixture of an Oxfordor Cambridge college, Gottingen, and a feudal keep. And after the gatehad been closed behind one, it was difficult to realise that within afew yards of an academic system of lawns and buildings full of livingtraditions and associations which wainscoting and winding stairsengender, 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 roadwayat Charing Cross, plain for Englishmen to gloat over and for foreignersto envy. 

Sixty-two Harcourt Buildings is emblazoned with many names, includingthat of the Rev. John Hatton. The oak was not sported, and our rap atthe inner door was immediately answered by a shout of "Come in!" As weopened it we heard a peculiar whirring sound. "Road skates, " saidHatton, gracefully circling the table and then coming to a standstill. I was introduced. "I'm very glad to see you both, " he said. "The twoother men I share these rooms with have gone away, so I'm killing timeby training for my road-skate tour abroad. It's trying for one'sankles. "

"Could you go downstairs on them?" said Malim. 

"Certainly, " he replied, "I'll do so now. And when we're down, I'llhave a little practice in the open. "

Whereupon he skated to the landing, scrambled down the stairs, sped upMiddle Temple Lane, and called the porter to let us out into FleetStreet. He struck me as a man who differed in some respects from thepopular 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 crawlingtowards 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 aconstable, 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 policemanfacetiously. 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 theskates, " said Malim to our driver, who was taking the race as though heassisted 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 ErnestWilloughby's job, " whispered Malim. 

"Are you ready? Horf!"

Hatton was first off the mark. He raced down the incline to the Circusat a tremendous speed. He was just in sight as he swung laboriouslyround and headed for home. But meeting him on our outward journey, wenoticed that the upward slope was distressing him. "Shall we do it?" weasked. 

"Yessir, " said our driver. And now we, too, were on the up grade. Wewent 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 thefinish. 

He gazed with displeasure upon us. 

"This 'ere's a nice use ter put Fleet Street to, I don't think, " hesaid coldly. 

This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malimhis 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 amany-sided man. I have met a good many clergymen in my time, but I havenever 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 ofgetting systematic exercise. At school and college I had beenaccustomed to play games every day, and now I felt the change acutely. 

It was through this that I first became really intimate with JohnHatton, and incidentally with Sidney Price, of the Moon AssuranceCompany. 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 mindtaking up boxing again. There's nothing like it for exercise. "

"Quite right, James, " he replied; "and exercise, as I often tell myboys, is essential. "

"What boys?" I asked. 

"My club boys, " said Hatton. "They belong to the most dingy quarter ofthe whole of London--South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They arenot so interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is astratum or two above hooliganism. Frightful weeds. They lack the robustanimalism of the class below them, and they lack the intelligence ofthe class above them. The fellows at my club are mostly hard-workingmechanics and under-paid office boys. They have nothing approaching asense of humour or the instinct of sport. "

"Not very encouraging, " I said. 

"Nor picturesque, " said Hatton; "and that is why they've been soneglected. There is romance in an out-and-out hooligan. It interestspeople to reform him. But to the outsider my boys are dull. I don'tfind them so. But then I know them. Boxing lessons are just what theywant. In fact, I was telling Sidney Price, an insurance clerk who livesin Lambeth and helps me at the club, only yesterday how much I wishedwe could teach them to use the gloves. "

"I'll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like, " I said. "It ought to keepme in form. "

I found that it did. I ceased to be aware of my liver. That winter Iwas able to work to good purpose, and the result was that I arrived. Itdawned upon me at last that the "precarious" idea was played out. Onecould 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 hispipe, planning an advertisement, or propounding some whimsical theoryof life; and in his eyes he bears the pain of one whose love and lifeare 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 unimpeachabledinner, a hand at picquet, midnight talk with the blue smoke wreathinground our heads. 

Well, Malim and I are unlikely to meet again in Vernon Place. Nor shallwe foregather at the little house in the Hampstead Road, the housewhich Kit enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past hadnot been unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the pianofrom ear, and sing the songs of the street with a charming cockneytwang. But there was nothing of the stage about her now. She was bornfor domesticity and, as the wife of Malim, she wished to forget allthat had gone before. She even hesitated to give us her wonderfulimitations of the customers at the fried fish shop, because in herheart she did not think such impersonations altogether suitable for arespectable married woman. 

It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that Ishall pay few more visits there. 

I have mentioned at this point the love of my old friends who made myfirst years in London a period of happiness, since it was in this monthof April that I had a momentous conversation with Julian aboutMargaret. 

He had come to Walpole Street to use my typewriter, and seemed amazedto find that I was still living in much the same style as I had alwaysdone. 

"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 justthen. " 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 shoddysurroundings as you did when your manuscripts were responsible for anextra size in waste-paper baskets. I was surprised to hear that youwere still in Walpole Street. I supposed that, at any rate, you hadtaken the whole house. "

His eyes raked the little sitting-room from the sham marble mantelpieceto the bamboo cabinet. I surveyed it, too, and suddenly it did seemunnecessarily 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 amaterialist. You don't live like this from choice. If you were tofollow your own inclinations, you'd do things in the best style youcould run to. You'd be in Jermyn Street; you'd have your man, a cottagein Surrey; you'd entertain, go out a good deal. You'd certainly give upthese dingy quarters. My friendship for you deplores a mammoth skeletonin your cupboard, James. My study of advertising tells me that thispaltry existence of yours does not adequately push your name before thepublic. 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'thelp feeling it's odd----"

"When I came to London, " I said, firmly, "I was most desperately inlove. I was to make a fortune, incidentally my name, marry, and livehappily ever after. There seemed last year nothing complex about thatprogramme. It seemed almost too simple. I even, like a fool, thought toadd 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 hadimagined. To begin with, Bohemians diffuse their brains in everydirection except that where bread-and-butter comes from. I found, too, that unless one earns bread-and-butter, one has to sprint very fast tothe workhouse door to prevent oneself starving before one gets there;so I dropped Bohemia and I dropped many other pleasant fictions aswell. I took to examining pavements, saw how hard they were, had a lookat the gutters, and saw how broad they were. I noticed the accumulationof dirt on the house fronts, the actual proportions of industrialbuildings. 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. Ipitied myself. And after that came pity for the girl I loved. I sworethat I would never let her come to my side in the ring where themonster Poverty and I were fighting. If you've been there you've beenin hell. And if you come out with your soul alive you can't tell otherpeople 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 littleturn-up with the monster was short and sharp. It wasn't one of theold-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 bothhands, fighting all the time. I was going for the knock-out in thefirst round. Not your method, Julian. "

"No, " said Julian; "it's not my method. I treat the monster rather as awild animal than as a hooligan; and hearing that wild animals won't domore than sniff at you if you lie perfectly still, I adopted that rusetowards him to save myself the trouble of a conflict. But the effect oflying perfectly still was that I used to fall asleep; and that workssatisfactorily. "

"Julian, " I said, "I detect a touch of envy in your voice. You try tokeep 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 tomyself, 'I've won. I'll write to Margaret, and tell her so!' Do youknow I had actually begun to write the letter when another thoughtstruck me. One that started me sweating and shaking. 'The monster, ' Isaid again to myself, 'the monster is devilish cunning. Perhaps he'sonly shamming! It looks as if he were beaten. Suppose it's only a feintto get me off my guard. Suppose he just wants me to take my eyes offhim so that he may get at me again as soon as I've begun to look for acomfortable chair and a mantelpiece to rest my feet on!' I told myselfthat I wouldn't risk bringing Margaret over. I didn't dare chance herbeing with me if ever I had to go back into the ring. So I kept jumpingand stamping on the monster. The referee had given me the fight and hadgone 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'sFate who arranges the programme, and, by stress of business, Fatepostpones many contests so late that before they can take place the manhas died. Those who die before their fight comes on are called richmen. To return, however, to my own monster: I was at last convincedthat 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 methis morning whilst I brushed my hair. "

"Ah, " said Julian; "and now, I suppose, you really will write to MissMargaret----" He paused. 

"Goodwin?"

"To Miss Margaret Goodwin, " he repeated. 

"Look here, Julian, " I said irritably; "it's no use your repeatingevery observation I make as though you were Massa Johnson on MargateSands. "

"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'ma blackguard nor that you're sorry for us both. At this present momentI've no more affection for Margaret than I have for this chair. Whenprecisely I left off caring for her I don't know. Why I ever thought Iloved her I don't know, either. But ever since I came to London all thelove 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 shywith women. I can talk to them in a sort of way, but I never seem ableto get intimate. Margaret was different. She saved my life, and wespent the summer in Guernsey together. "

"And you seriously expected not to fall in love?" Julian laughed "Mydear 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 andone'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 thatletter. " I sat down resting my head on my hands. After all--love andliberty--they're both very sweet. 

"I'm thinking, " said Julian, watching the smoke from his pipeabstractedly, "that you will probably write tonight; and I think I knowhow you're feeling. "

"Julian, " I said, "must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go. Butmust it be tonight?"

Julian hesitated. 

"No, " he said; "but you've made up your mind, so why put off theinevitable?"

"I can't, " I exclaimed; "oh, I really can't. I must have my freedom alittle longer. "

"You must give it up some day. It'll be all the harder when you've gotto face it. "

"I don't mind that. A little more freedom, just a little; and then I'lltell her to come to me. "

He smoked in silence. 

"Surely, " I said, "this little more freedom that I ask is a small thingcompared 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 abreathing space before you give up all that you love best. But there'sa risk. "

"Of what?"

"Of her finding out by some other means than yourself and before yourletter comes, that the letter should have been written earlier. Do yousign all your stuff with your own name?"

"Yes. "

"Well, then, she's bound to see how you're getting on. She'll see yourname in the magazines, in newspapers and in books. She'll know youdon'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 yourincome doesn't square with the rest of the evidence; and she'll wonderwhy you pose as a pauper when you're really raking in the money withboth 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 possiblyhit on some way out of the difficulty. I'm bound to say, though, Ican'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 acouple of months, indeed, it seemed that another golden age of thenoble art was approaching, and that the rejuvenation of boxing wouldoccur, 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 upin line, and had shown them what a large proportion of an eight-ounceglove is padding, they grew more at ease. To be asked suddenly to fightthree rounds with one of your friends before an audience, also of yourfriends, is embarrassing. One feels hot and uncomfortable. Hatton'sboys jibbed nervously. As a preliminary measure, therefore, I drilledthem in a class at foot-work and the left lead. They found the exerciseexhilarating. If this was the idea, they seemed to say, let the thinggo on. Then I showed them how to be highly scientific with a punchball. Finally, I sparred lightly with them myself. 

In the rough they were impossible boxers. After their initial distrusthad evaporated under my gentle handling of them, they forgot all I hadtaught them about position and guards. They bored in, heads down andarms going like semicircular pistons. Once or twice I had to stop them. They were easily steadied. They hastened to adopt a certain snakinessof attack instead of the frontal method which had left them so exposed. They began to cultivate a kind of negative style. They weretremendously impressed by the superiority of science over strength. 

I am not sure that I did not harp rather too much on the scientificnote. Perhaps if I had referred to it less, the ultimate disaster wouldnot have been quite so appalling. On the other hand, I had not theslightest suspicion that they would so exaggerate my meaning when I wasremarking on the worth of science, how it "tells, " and how it causesthe meagre stripling to play fast and loose with huge, brawnyruffians--no cowards, mark you--and hairy as to their chests. 

But the weeds at Hatton's Club were fascinated by my homilies onscience. The simplicity of the thing appealed to them irresistibly. They caught at the expression, "Science, " and regarded it as the "HeyPresto!" of a friendly conjurer who could so arrange matters for themthat powerful opponents would fall flat, involuntarily, at the sight oftheir technically correct attitude. 

I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, "Lookhere, science is no practical use to you unless you've got low-bridged, snub noses, protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of avacuum-cleaner, stomach muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legsof mutton, and biceps like transatlantic cables"--had I said that, theywould have voted boxing a fraud, and gone away to quarrel over a gameof 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 acompliment. Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself toHatton and had proved himself to be of real service in many ways. Hewas an honest man, but he could not box. He came down to the hall onenight 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 neatin their work. The sight was very different from the absurd exhibitionwhich Price had seen on the night I started with them. He might easilyhave 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 tome 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, "theirstyle. 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 Hallfairly buzzed with style. An apology for a blow which landed on yourchest with the delicacy of an Agag among butterflies was extolled tothe skies because it was a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with a random swing on the mark, therewas a pained shudder. Not only Walter Greenway, but the whole clubexplained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, an awful violation ofstyle, practically a crime. By the time they had finished explaining, Alf was dazed; and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a viewto his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in suchhalf-hearted fashion that Walter had time to step stylishly aside andshow 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 wouldever have the tremendous sequel which was brought about by the comingof Thomas Blake. 

Fate never planned a coup so successfully. The psychology of Blake'sarrival was perfect. The boxers of Carnation Hall had worked themselvesinto a mental condition which I knew was as ridiculous as it wasdangerous. Their conceit and their imagination transformed the hallinto a kind of improved National Sporting Club. They went about with anair of subdued but tremendous athleticism. They affected a sort ofself-conscious nonchalance. They adopted an odiously patronisingattitude towards the once popular game of backgammon. I daresay thatpicture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of bloodand iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect ofa table full of important military dispatches. Well, the club boys, toa boy, posed as generals of blood and iron when they condescended toplay backgammon. They did it, but they let you see that they did notregard it as one of the serious things of life. 

Also, knowing that each other's hitting was so scientific as to beharmless, they would sometimes deliberately put their eye in front oftheir opponent's stylish left, in the hope that the blow would raise abruise. It hardly ever did. But occasionally----! Oh, then you shouldhave seen the hero-with-the-quiet-smile look on their faces as theylounged ostentatiously about the place. In a word, they were abovethemselves. They sighed for fresh worlds to conquer. And Thomas Blakesupplied the long-felt want. 

Personally, I did not see his actual arrival. I only saw his handiworkafter he had been a visitor awhile within the hall. But, to avoidunnecessary verbiage and to avail myself of the privilege of an author, I will set down, from the evidence of witnesses, the main points of theepisode as though I myself had been present at his entrance. 

He did not strike them, I am informed, as a particularly big man. Hewas a shade under average height. His shoulders seemed to them not somuch broad as "humpy. " He rolled straight in from the street on a wetSaturday night at ten minutes to nine, asking for "free tea. "

I should mention that on certain Fridays Hatton gave a free meal to hisparishioners on the understanding that it was rigidly connected with aShort Address. The preceding Friday had been such an occasion. Theplacards announcing the tea were still clinging to the outer railingsof the hall. 

When I said that Blake asked for free tea, I should have said, shoutedfor free tea. He cast one decisive glance at Hatton's placards, androlled up. He shot into the gate, up the steps, down the passage, andthrough the door leading into the big corrugated-iron hall which I usedfor my lessons. And all the time he kept shouting for free tea. 

In the hall the members of my class were collected. Some were changingtheir clothes; others, already changed, were tapping the punch-ball. They knew that I always came punctually at nine o'clock, and they likedto be ready for me. Amongst those present was Sidney Price. 

Thomas Blake brought up short, hiccuping, in the midst of them. "Gimmethat free tea!" he said. 

Sidney Price, whose moral fortitude has never been impeached, was thefirst 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! Whatoh! 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 thismornin'--this way. " Here he took into his confidence the group whichhad gathered uncertainly round him. "My wife's brother, 'im wot's apostman, 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 boatlies, 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, wotd'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 ownbrother-in-law. Oh, he's a nice man, I _don't_ think!"

Thomas Blake nodded his head as one who, though pained by thehollowness 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 recumbentboatman'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 freetea tonight. "

The effect was magical. A very sinister expression came over the faceof the prostrate one, and he slowly clambered to his feet. 

"Ho!" he said, disengaging himself from his coat. "Ho. There ain't nofree 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. WotI says is, 'Come on, all of yer. ' I'm Tom Blake, I am. You can arstthem 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 throughyer 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 thelot of yer: you and yer free tea and yer errers. "

At this point Alf Joblin detached himself from the hovering crowd andsaid to Price: "He must be cowed. I'll knock sense into the drunkenbrute. "

"Well, " said Price, "he's got to go; but you won't hurt him, Alf, willyou?"

"No, " said Alf, "I won't hurt him. I'll just make him look a fool. Thisis 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, habituallyrefrained from delivering any sort of attack until he was well assuredthat he had seen an orthodox opening. A large part of every roundbetween Hatton's boys was devoted to stealthy circular movements, signifying nothing. But Thomas Blake had not had the advantage ofscientific tuition. He came banging in with a sweeping right. Alfstopped him with his left. Again Blake swung his right, and again hetook Alf's stopping blow without a blink. Then he went straight in, right and left in quick succession. The force of the right was brokenby Alf's guard, but the left got home on the mark; and Alf Joblin'swind left him suddenly. He sat down on the floor. 

To say that this tragedy in less than five seconds produced dismayamong the onlookers would be incorrect. They were not dismayed. Theywere 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 forthinking that Alf with all his scientific knowledge was not more than amatch for this ignorant, intoxicated boatman, such a reflection neverentered their heads. What is more, each separate member of the audiencewas convinced that he individually was the proper person to illustratethe efficacy of style versus untutored savagery. 

As soon, therefore, as Alf Joblin went writhing to the floor, andThomas Blake's voice was raised afresh in a universal challenge, WalterGreenway stepped briskly forward. 

And as soon as Walter's guard had been smashed down by a mostunconventional attack, and Walter himself had been knocked senseless bya swing on the side of the jaw, Bill Shale leaped gaily forth to takehis place. 

And so it happened that, when I entered the building at nine, it was asthough a devastating tornado had swept down every club boy, sparingonly Sidney Price, who was preparing miserably to meet his fate. 

To me, standing in the doorway, the situation was plain at the firstglance. 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 inquiredgenially. 

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 veryunpleasant to have one's past continually rising up to confront one. 

"Look 'ere!" he said, a conciliatory note in his voice, "you and me'spals, mister, ain't we? Say we're pals. Of course we are. You and medon't want no fuss. Of course we don't. Then look here: this is 'ow itis. You come along with me and 'ave a drop. "

It did not seem likely that my class would require any instruction inboxing 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 friendlinessitself. He did not ask after Kit, but gave his opinion of hergratuitously. According to him, she was unkind to her relations. "Crool'arsh, " he said. A girl, in fact, who made no allowances for a man, andwas 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 painfulfervour, "you look out for Tom Blake, mister. Tom Blake of the_Ashlade_ and _Lechton_. No ceremony. Jest drop in on me andthe missis. Goo' night. "

At the moment of writing Tom Blake is rapidly acquiring an assuredposition in the heart of the British poetry-loving public. Thisincident in his career should interest his numerous admirers. The worldknows 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, thestirring episode of the previous night to Julian. He agreed with methat it was curious that our potato-thrower of Covent Garden marketshould have crossed my path again. But I noticed that, though helistened intently enough, he lay flat on his back in his hammock, notlooking at me, but blinking at the ceiling; and when I had finished heturned his face towards the wall--which was unusual, since I generallylunched on his breakfast, as I was doing then, to the accompaniment ofquite a flow of languid abuse. 

I was in particularly high spirits that morning, for I fancied that Ihad found a way out of my difficulty about Margaret. That subject beinguppermost 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 toGuernsey. "

"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 asgood as writing, isn't it? We agreed on that. "

"Yes; that was the idea. If you could find a way of keeping her fromknowing how well you were getting on with your writing, you were totake it. What's your idea?"

"I've hit on a very simple way out of the difficulty, " I said. "It cameto me only this morning. All I need do is to sign my stuff with apseudonym. "

"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 youwere in. "

"You might have suggested it. "

Julian slid to the floor, drained the almost empty teapot, rescued thelast kidney, and began his breakfast. 

"I would have suggested it, " he said, "if the idea had been worthanything. "

"What! What's wrong with it?"

"My dear man, it's too risky. It's not as though you kept to one formof literary work. You're so confoundedly versatile. Let's suppose youdid 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 ofEngland but of the Channel Islands, that George Chandos was reallyJimmy Cloyster?"

"What rot!" I said. "Why the deuce should they want to write paragraphsabout 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 necessarilybe in the secret from the beginning. There are your publishers, Prodderand Way. Then there are the editors of the magazine which publishesyour Society dialogue bilge, and of all the newspapers, other than the_Orb_, in which your serious verse appears. My dear Jimmy, thenews that you and George Chandos were the same man would go up and downFleet Street and into the Barrel like wildfire. And after that theparagraphs. "

I saw the truth of his reasoning before he had finished speaking. Oncemore my spirits fell to the point where they had been before I hit uponwhat I thought was such a bright scheme. 

Julian's pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again, andspoke through the smoke:

"The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandosare a single individual. "

"But why should the editors know that? Why shouldn't I simply send inmy 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. Itwould do all right for a bit. Then one morning: 'Dear Mr. Chandos, --Ishould be glad if you could make it convenient to call here some timebetween Tuesday and Thursday. --Yours faithfully. Editor ofSomething-or-other. ' Sooner or later a man who writes at all regularlyfor the papers is bound to meet the editors of them. A successfulauthor can't conduct all his business through the post. Of course, ifyou chucked London and went to live in the country----"

"I couldn't, " I said. "I simply couldn't do it. London's got into mybones. "

"It does, " said Julian. 

"I like the country, but I couldn't live there. Besides, I don'tbelieve 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 tonewhich seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirelyhopeless. 

"I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that youand George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage toprovide George with separate flesh and blood of his own, there's noreason----"

"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, notcounting the _Orb_?"

I reflected. 

"Well, of course, I do a certain amount of odd work, but lately I'verather narrowed it down, and concentrated my output. It seemed to me abetter plan than sowing stuff indiscriminately through all the papersin 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 pickcarefully three men on whom you can rely. Divide your signed stuffbetween these three men. They will receive your copy, sign it withtheir 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 isconcerned, they will become actually the authors of the manuscriptswhich you have prepared for them to sign. They will forward you thecheques when they arrive, and keep accounts to which you will haveaccess. I suppose you will have to pay them a commission on a scale tobe fixed by mutual arrangement. As regards your unsigned work, there isnothing to prevent your doing that yourself--'On Your Way, ' I mean, whenever there's any holiday work going: general articles, and lightverse. I say, though, half a moment. "

"Why, what?"

"I've thought of a difficulty. The editors who have been taking yourstuff hitherto may have a respect for the name of James OrlebarCloyster which they may not extend to the name of John Smith or GeorgeChandos, or whoever it is. I mean, it's quite likely the withdrawal ofthe name will lead to the rejection of the manuscript. "

"Oh no; that's all right, " I said. "It's the stuff they want, not thename. I don't say that names don't matter. They do. But only if they'rebig names. Kipling might get a story rejected if he sent it in under afalse name, which they'd have taken otherwise just because he wasKipling. What they want from me is the goods. I can shove any label onthem I like. The editor will read my ghosts' stuff, see it's what hewants, 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 scratchthat difficulty, Julian. Any more?"

"I think not. Of course, there's the objection that you'll lose anycelebrity you might have got. No one'll say, 'Oh, Mr. Cloyster, Ienjoyed your last book so much!'"

"And no one'll say, 'Oh, do you _write_, Mr. Cloyster? Howinteresting! 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 youwill be free but inglorious. You choose freedom? All right, then. Passthe 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 encroachfurther on my hours of leisure. Skeffington's Sloe Gin has alreadybecome an incubus. "

I could not move him from this decision. 

It is not everybody who, in a moment of emergency, can put his hand onthree men of his acquaintance capable of carrying through a more orless delicate business for him. Certainly I found a difficulty inmaking my selection. I ran over the list of my friends in my mind. ThenI was compelled to take pencil and paper, and settle down seriously towhat I now saw would be a task of some difficulty. After half an hour Iread through my list, and could not help smiling. I had indeed a mixedlot of acquaintances. First came Julian and Malim, the two pillars ofmy world. I scratched them out. Julian had been asked and had refused;and, as for Malim, I shrank from exposing my absurd compositions to hiscritical eye. A man who could deal so trenchantly over a pipe and awhisky-and-soda with Established Reputations would hardly take kindlyto seeing my work in print under his name. I wished it had beenpossible to secure him, but I did not disguise it from myself that itwas not. 

The rest of the list was made up of members of the Barrel Club(impossible because of their inherent tendency to break out intopersonal paragraphs); writers like Fermin and Gresham, above me on theliterary ladder, and consequently unapproachable in a matter of thiskind; certain college friends, who had vanished into space, as men doon 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 mysuggestion. Hatton was one, Price was another, and Blake was the third. Hatton should have my fiction, Price my Society stuff, Blake my seriousverse. 

That evening I went off to the Temple to sound Hatton on the subject ofsigning my third book. The wretched sale of my first two had acted assomething of a check to my enthusiasm for novel-writing. I had pausedto take stock of my position. My first two novels had, I found onre-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 orOxford. He fancies unconsciously that the world is peopled withundergraduates. He forgets that what appeals to an undergraduate publicmay be Greek to the outside reader and, unfortunately, not compulsoryGreek. The reviewers had dealt kindly with my two books ("this pleasantlittle squib, " "full of quiet humour, " "should amuse all who remembertheir undergraduate days"); but the great heart of the public hadremained untouched, as had the great purse of the public. I haddetermined to adopt a different style. And now my third book was ready. It was called, _When It Was Lurid_, with the sub-title, _A Taleof God and Allah_. There was a piquant admixture of love, religion, and Eastern scenery which seemed to point to a record number ofeditions. 

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 satdown. 

"What's this?" inquired Hatton, fingering the brown-paper parcel. "Ifit's the corpse of a murdered editor, I think it's only fair to let youknow that I have a prejudice against having my rooms used as acemetery. Go and throw him into the river. "

"It's anything but a corpse. It's the most lively bit of writing everdone. 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 shouldsay, weighs anything between one and two tons, simply to use it as atemporary 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 particularlyeasy 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 forthe move. When he had grasped my meaning, he looked at me rathercuriously. 

"Doesn't it strike you, " he said, "that what you propose is slightlydishonourable?"

"You mean that I have come deliberately to insult you, Hatton?"

"Our conversation seems to be getting difficult, unless you grant thathonour 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, inmy opinion, if I were to pose as the writer of your books, and gainedcredit for a literary skill----"

I laughed. 

"You won't get credit for literary skill out of the sort of books Iwant you to put your name to. They're potboilers. You needn't worryabout Fame. You'll be a martyr, not a hero. "

"You may be right. You wrote the book. But, in any case, I should bemore of a charlatan than I care about. "

"You won't do it?" I said. "I'm sorry. It would have been a greatconvenience to me. "

"On the other hand, " continued Hatton, ignoring my remark, "there arearguments 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 amoment--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 cando 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 overterms. 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 ofmy Society dialogues will be immediately apparent to those who haveread them. They were just the sort of things you would expect aninsurance clerk to write. The humour was thin, the satire as cheap asthe papers in which they appeared, and the vulgarity in exactly theright quantity for a public that ate it by the pound and asked formore. Every thing pointed to Sidney Price as the man. 

It was my intention to allow each of my three ghosts to imagine that hewas alone in the business; so I did not get Price's address fromHatton, who might have wondered why I wanted it, and had suspicions. Iapplied to the doorkeeper at Carnation Hall; and on the followingevening I rang the front-door bell of The Hollyhocks, Belmont ParkRoad, Brixton. 

Whilst I was waiting on the step, I was able to get a view through theslats of the Venetian blind of the front ground-floor sitting-room. Icould scarcely restrain a cry of pure aesthetic delight at what I sawwithin. Price was sitting on a horse-hair sofa with an arm round thewaist of a rather good-looking girl. Her eyes were fixed on his. It wasEdwin and Angelina in real life. 

Up till then I had suffered much discomfort from the illustrated recordof their adventures in the comic papers. "Is there really, " I had oftenasked myself, "a body of men so gifted that they can construct theimpossible details of the lives of nonexistent types purely fromimagination? If such creative genius as theirs is unrecognized andignored, what hope of recognition is there for one's own work?" Thethought had frequently saddened me; but here at last they were--Edwinand Angelina in the flesh!

I took the gallant Sidney for a fifteen-minute stroll up and down thelength of the Belmont Park Road. Poor Angelina! He came, as heexpressed it, "like a bird. " Give him a sec. To slip on a pair ofboots, 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 passagethat he quite forgot to tell the lady that he was going out, and, as weleft, 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 asit by herself. Looked in to have a chat, or is there anything I cando?"

"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 ofstuff under my own name, there's a danger of the public getting tiredof me. "

He nodded. 

"Now, I'm with you there, mind you, " he said. "'Can't have too much ofa good thing, ' some chaps say. I say, 'Yes, you can. ' Stands to reasona chap can't go on writing and writing without making a bloomer everynow and then. What he wants is to take his time over it. Look at allthe real swells--'Erbert Spencer, Marie Corelli, and what not--youdon't find them pushing it out every day of the year. They wait a bitand 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, isthat you must turn out a good deal, or you don't make enough to liveon. I've got to go on getting stuff published, but I don't want peopleto 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 madeyou think of me?"

"The fact is, my dear fellow, " I said, "this writing is a game wherepersonality counts to an enormous extent. The man who signs my Societydialogues will probably come into personal contact with the editors ofthe papers in which they appear. He will be asked to call at theiroffices. So you see I must have a man who looks as if he had writtenthe stuff. "

"I see, " he said complacently. "Dressy sort of chap. Chap who looks asif 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 thinksome of us chaps in the 'Moon' were a bit O. T. , but we aren't init--not in the same street. Chaps, I mean, who'd call a girl behind thebar by her Christian name as soon as look at you. One chap I knew usedto give the girl at the cash-desk of the 'Mecca' he went to bottles ofscent. 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 thinknothing of that in the Smart Set. Ever read 'God's Good Man'? There's abook! 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 tounderstand that all would be well. He would carry the job through onthe strict Q. T. He closely willingly with my offer of ten per cent, thus affording a striking contrast to the grasping Hatton. He assuredme he had found literary chaps not half bad. Had occasionally had anidea of writing a bit himself. 

We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placingmy "Dialogues of Mayfair" and my "London and Country House Tales" inreally 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 anenormous quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notablythe _St. Stephen's Gazette_. Already I was beginning to oust fromtheir positions on that excellent journal the old crusted poetesses whohad supplied it from its foundation with verse. The prices they paid onthe _St. Stephen's_ were in excellent taste. In the musical world, too, I was making way rapidly. Lyrics of the tea-and-muffin typestreamed from my pen. "Sleep whilst I Sing, Love, " had brought me in anastonishing amount of money, in spite of the music-pirates. It was onthe barrel-organs. Adults hummed it. Infants crooned it in their cots. Comic men at music-halls opened their turns by remarking soothingly tothe conductor of the orchestra, "I'm going to sing now, so you go tosleep, love. " In a word, while the boom lasted, it was a littlegold-mine to me. 

Thomas Blake was as obviously the man for me here as Sidney Price hadbeen in the case of my Society dialogues. The public would findsomething infinitely piquant in the thought that its most sentimentalditties 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 hethought of his poems, and he would say, "Oo-er!" and they would hailhim as delightfully original. In the case of Thomas Blake I saw myearnings going up with a bound. His personality would be a nobleadvertisement. 

He was aboard the _Ashlade_ or _Lechton_ on the Cut, so I wasinformed by Kit. Which information was not luminous to me. Furtherinquiries, however, led me to the bridge at Brentford, whence startsthat almost unknown system of inland navigation which extends toManchester and Birmingham. 

Here I accosted at a venture a ruminative bargee. "Tom Blake?" herepeated, reflectively. "Oh! 'e's been off this three hours on a tripto 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 whichwas evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, heslouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner to the towpath. 

I took the hint. It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. Judging bythe pace of the barges I had seen, I should catch Blake easily beforenightfall. 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 haveconsiderably delayed the _Ashlade_ and _Lechton_. 

The afternoon wore on. I went steadily forward, making inquiries as toThomas's whereabouts from the boats which met me, and always hearingthat he was still ahead. 

Footsore and hungry, I overtook him at Cowley. The two boats were inthe lock. Thomas and a lady, presumably his wife, were ashore. On the_Ashlade_'s raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-lookingboys 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 salutedhim. He was a little blank at first, but when I reminded him of ourlast 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 Itell 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 onthe _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 tillersviolently against the southern sluice gates. 

"If them boys, " said Tom Blake in an overwrought voice, "lets themtillers 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 withwhich Thomas's feet bounded on the _Ashlade_'s cabin-top. He madeLiz fast to the circular foot of iron chimney projecting from theboards; then, jumping back to the land, he said, more in sorrow than inanger: "Lazy little brats! an' they've '_ad_ their tea, too. "

Clear of the locks, I walked with Thomas and his ancient horse, tryingto explain what I wanted done. But it was not until we had tied up forthe night, had had beer at the Shovel, and (Nuppie and Albert beingsafely asleep in the second cabin) had met at supper that myinstructions had been fully grasped. Thomas himself was inclined to bediffident, and had it not been for Ada would, I think, have let myoffer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me of thecottage they had at Fenny Stratford, which they used as headquarterswhilst waiting for a cargo. 

"That can be used as a permanent address, " I said. "All you have to dois to write your name at the end of each typewritten sheet, enclose itin 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. Inany difficulty, simply write to me--here's my own address--and I'll seeyou 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 cashedthe cheques by mistake, he'd go to prison quick. "

"Yes, mister, " came back Thomas's voice, again a shade thoughtfullymodulated. 

CHAPTER 15

EVA EVERSLEIGH_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_

With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication ofassured freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked onair. This was my state of mind when I determined to pay a visit to theGunton-Cresswells. I had known them in my college days, but since I hadbeen engaged in literature I had sedulously avoided them because Iremembered that Margaret had once told me they were her friends. 

But now there was no need for me to fear them on that account, andthinking that the solid comfort of their house in Kensington would befar from disagreeable, thither, one afternoon in spring, I made my way. It is wonderful how friendly Convention is to Art when Art does notappear to want to borrow money. 

No. 5, Kensington Lane, W. , is the stronghold of Britishrespectability. It is more respectable than the most respectablesuburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is that of a mother to a daughter whohas gone on the stage and made a success. Kensington Lane is almosttolerant of Mayfair. But not quite. It admits the success, but shakesits head. 

Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell took an early opportunity of drawing me aside, and began gently to pump me. After I had responded with sufficientdocility to her leads, she reiterated her delight at seeing me again. Ihad concluded my replies with the words, "I am a struggling journalist, Mrs. Cresswell. " I accompanied the phrase with a half-smile which shetook to mean--as I intended she should--that I was amusing myself bydabbling in literature, backed by a small, but adequate, privateincome. 

"Oh, come, James, " she said, smiling approvingly, "you know you willmake a quite too dreadfully clever success. How dare you try to deceiveme like that? A struggling journalist, indeed. "

But I knew she liked that "struggling journalist" immensely. She wouldcouple me and my own epithet together before her friends. She wouldenjoy unconsciously an imperceptible, but exquisite, sensation ofpatronage by having me at her house. Even if she discussed me withMargaret I was safe. For Margaret would give an altogether differentinterpretation of the smile with which I described myself asstruggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued by her as "brave";for it must not be forgotten that as suddenly as my name had achieved alittle publicity, just so suddenly had it utterly disappeared. 

 * * * * *

Towards the end of May, it happened that Julian dropped into my roomsabout 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, inspectingmy hat closely. I cared not a bit for Julian's sneers; for the smell ofthe flesh-pots of Kensington had laid hold of my soul, and I wasresolved to make the most of the respite which my system gave me. 

"What salon is to have the honour today?" he asked, spreading himselfon 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'veinvited to stop with them. Funny, by the way, that her name should bethe same as yours. "

"Not particularly, " said Julian shortly; "she's my cousin. My cousinEva. "

This was startling. There was a pause. Presently Julian said, "Do youknow, Jimmy, that if I were not the philosopher I am, I'd curse thisawful indolence of mine. "

I saw it in a flash, and went up to him holding out my hand insympathy. "Thanks, " he said, gripping it; "but don't speak of it. Icouldn'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 tocompose himself. And so an hour passed. At a quarter past four I got upto go out. Julian lay recumbent. It seemed terrible to leave himbrooding alone over his misery. 

A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, Eva Eversleigh and I became firm friends. Of her personI need simply say that it was the most beautiful that Nature evercreated. Pressed as to details, I should add that she was _petite_, dark, had brown hair, very big blue eyes, a _retroussé_ nose, and a rather wide mouth. 

Julian had said she was "true as steel. " Therefore, I felt nodiffidence in manoeuvring myself into her society on every conceivableoccasion. Sometimes she spoke to me of Julian, whom I admitted I knew, and, with feminine courage, she hid her hopeless, all-devouringaffection for her cousin under the cloak of ingenuous levity. Shelaughed 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 toa dance since my last May-week at Cambridge. Also No. 5, KensingtonLane had completely usurped the position I had previously assigned toParadise. To waltz with Julian's cousin--that was the ambition whichnow dwarfed my former hankering for the fame of authorship or ahabitation in Bohemia. 

Mrs. Goodwin once said that happiness consists in anticipating animpossible future. Be that as it may, I certainly thought my sensationswere pleasant enough when at length my hansom pulled up jerkily besidethe red-carpeted steps of No. 5, Kensington Lane. As I paid the fare, Icould hear the murmur from within of a waltz tune--and I kept repeatingto myself that Eva had promised me the privilege of taking her in tosupper, and had given me the last two waltzes and the first two extras. 

I went to pay my _devoirs_ to my hostess. She was supinelygamesome. "Ah, " she said, showing her excellent teeth, "Geniusattendant at the revels of Terpsichore. "

"Where Beauty, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, " I responded, cutting it, asthough mutton, thick, "teaches e'en the humblest visitor the reigningMuse's art. "

"You may have this one, if you like, " said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswellsimply. 

Supper came at last, and, with supper, Eva. 

I must now write it down that she was not a type of English beauty. Shewas 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 mereglorification of the ordinary merry glitter--which scores of girlspossess at every ball. To begin with, there was a diabolical abandonin 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 allmen have seen that mist; but I am sure that no man has seen it morethan once; and, from what I've seen of the average man, I doubt ifmost of them have ever seen it at all. Well, there it was for me tosee in Eva Eversleigh's eyes that night at supper. It made me thinkof things unspeakable. I felt a rush of classic aestheticism: Arcadia, Helen of Troy, the happy valleys of the early Greeks. Supper: I believeI gave her oyster _pâtés_. But I was far away. Deep, deep, deepin 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 nearme, of the sailors; and faintly o'er the distance of the dead-calm searose intermittently the sound of brine-foam at the clashing rocks.... 

As we sat there _tête-à-tête_, she smiled across the table at mewith such perfect friendliness, it seemed as though a magic barrierseparated our two selves from all the chattering, rustling crowd aroundus. When she spoke, a little quiver of feeling blended adorably withthe low, sweet tones of her voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, butwith just that charming hint of intimacy which men friends have who mayhave known one another from birth, and may know one another for alifetime, but never become bores, never change. Only when it comesbetween a woman and a man, it is incomparably finer. It is the talk, ofcourse, 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 stillamazed to what lengths deliberate coquetry can go. 

She actually took pains to elude me, and gave those waltzes tostrangers. 

From being comfortably rocked in the dark blue waters of a Grecian sea, I was suddenly transported to the realities of the ballroom. Mytheoretical love for Eva was now a substantial truth. I was in an agonyof desire, in a frenzy of jealousy. I wanted to hurl the two strangersto 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 theroom to the grounds, the gallery or the conservatory. I tried to steadymy whirling head with a cigarette and a whisky-and-soda in thesmoking-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 togetherwith an effort, I saw her standing alone. It struck me for the firsttime that she was clothed in cream. Her skin gleamed shining white. Shestood erect, her arms by her sides. Behind her was a huge, black velvet_portière_ of many folds, supported by two dull brazen columns. 

As I advanced towards her, two or three men bowed and spoke to her. Shesmiled and dismissed them, and, still smiling pleasantly, her glancetraversed 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 toaddress her, I heard her sigh. 

"You're tired, " I said, forgetting my two last dances, forgettingeverything but that I loved her. 

"Perhaps I am, " she said, taking my arm. We turned in silence to the_portière_ and found ourselves in the hall. The doors were opened. Some servants were there. At the bottom of the steps I chanced to see ayellow 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 thedriver. 

I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her. Could it help remembrance now that we two sped alone through emptystreets, her warm, palpitating body touching mine?

Julian, his friendship for me, his love for Eva; Margaret and her lovefor 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, Idrew 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 gotriumphantly through life with that reputation. But how far is this dueto absence of temptation? Life, which is like cricket in so many ways, resembles the game in this also. A batsman makes a century, and, havingmade it, is bowled by a ball which he is utterly unable to play. Whatif that ball had come at the beginning of his innings instead of at theend of it? Men go through life without a stain on their honour. Iwonder if it simply means that they had the luck not to have the goodball bowled to them early in their innings. To take my own case. I hadalways considered myself a man of honour. I had a code that was rigidcompared with that of a large number of men. In theory I should neverhave swerved from it. I was fully prepared to carry out my promise andmarry Margaret, at the expense of my happiness--until I met Eva. Iwould have done anything to avoid injuring Julian, my friend, until Imet Eva. Eva was my temptation, and I fell. Nothing in the worldmattered, so that she was mine. I ought to have had a revulsion offeeling as I walked back to my rooms in Walpole Street. The dance wasover. The music had ceased. The dawn was chill. And at a point midwaybetween Kensington Lane and the Brompton Oratory I had proposed toEversleigh'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 toJulian or to Margaret, or--for she must suffer, too--to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, who, I knew well, was socially ambitious for herniece. 

To all these things I was indifferent. I repeated softly to myself, "Welove each other. "

From this state of coma, however, I was aroused by the appearance of mywindow-blind. I saw, in fact, that my room was illuminated. Rememberingthat I had been careful to put out my lamp before I left, I feared, asI opened the hall door, a troublesome encounter with a madhousebreaker. Mad, for no room such as mine could attract a burglar whohas even the slightest pretensions to sanity. 

It was not a burglar. It was Julian Eversleigh, and he was lying asleepon 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 thechance of your coming in when I happened to look out of the window. Agirl was coming down the street, looking at the numbers of the houses. She stopped here. Intuition told me she was Miss Goodwin. While she wasringing the bell I did all I could to increase the shabby squalor ofyour room. She was shown in here, and I introduced myself as yourfriend. We chatted. I drew an agonising picture of your struggle forexistence. You were brave, talented, and unsuccessful. Though you wentoften hungry, you had a plucky smile upon your lips. It was ameritorious bit of work. Miss Goodwin cried a good deal. She ischarming. 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 withthe Gunton-Cresswells. She knows them, it seems. They didn't know shewas coming. She didn't know herself until this morning. She happened tobe walking on the quay at St. Peter's Port. The outward-bound boat wason the point of starting for England. A wave of affection swept overMiss Goodwin. She felt she must see you. Scribbling a note, which shedespatched to her mother, she went aboard. She came straight here. Then, when I had finished with her, when I had lied consistently aboutyou 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, sodifferent 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 togrumble at the part Fate forces one to play. Sympathetic or otherwise, one can only enact one's _rôle_ to the utmost of one's ability. Mine was now essentially unsympathetic, but I was determined that itshould be adequately played. 

I went to the fireplace and poked the fire into a blaze. Then, throwingmy hat on the table and lighting a cigarette, I regarded Juliancynically. 

"You're a nice sort of person, aren't you?" I said. 

"What do you mean?" asked Julian, startled, as I had meant that heshould 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 theeyes 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 couldrealise the depths to which I was sinking in putting this insult uponhim. But my better feelings were gagged and bound that night. The onethought uppermost in my mind was that I must tell Julian of Eva, andthat by his story of Margaret he had given me an opening for making myconfession with the minimum of discomfort to myself. 

It was pitiful to see the first shaft of my insinuation slowly sinkinto him. I could see by the look in his eyes that he had grasped mymeaning. 

"Jimmy, " he gasped, "you can't think--are you joking?"

"I am not surprised at your asking that question, " I repliedpleasantly. "You know how tolerant I am. But I'm not joking. Not that Iblame you, my dear fellow. Margaret is, or used to be, verygood-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. Youspend an hour here alone with Margaret. She is young, and very pretty. You are placed immediately on terms of intimacy by the fact that youhave, in myself, a subject of mutual interest. That breaks the ice. Youare at cross-purposes, but your main sympathies are identical. Also, you have a strong objective sympathy for Margaret. I think we maypresuppose that this second sympathy is stronger than the first. Itpivots on a woman, not on a man. And on a woman who is present, not ona man who is absent. You see my meaning? At any rate, the solid factremains that she stayed an hour with you, whom she had met for thefirst time today, and did not feel equal to meeting me, whom she hasloved for two years. If you want me to explain myself further, I haveno objection to doing so. I mean that you made love to her. "

I watched him narrowly to see how he would take it. The dazedexpression deepened on his face. 

"You are apparently sane, " he said, very wearily. "You seem to besober. "

"I am both, " I said. 

There was a pause. 

"It's no use for me, " he began, evidently collecting his thoughts witha strong effort, "to say your charge is preposterous. I don't supposemere denial would convince you. I can only say, instead, that thecharge 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 yourlove story, and you know mine. Miss Eversleigh, my cousin, is to mewhat Miss Goodwin is to you--true as steel. My loyalty and myfriendship for you are the same as your loyalty and your friendship forme. "

"Well?"

"Well, if I have spent an hour with Miss Goodwin, you have spent morethan an hour with my cousin. What right have you to suspect me morethan 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 Imentioned 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 hecraned his head forward in the manner of a deaf man listening withdifficulty. 

Then he left the room without a word. 

He had not been gone two minutes when there were three short, sharptaps at my window. 

Julian returned? Impossible. Yet who else couldhave 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 thesame, there's no need to tell her every little detail of a man's pastlife. Not that I've been a Don What's-his-name. Far from it. Costs abit 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'toften think of going it a bit when things are slack at the office andmy pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. It's theloneliness 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 amind 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 onthe 1st, and gives you the envelope ("Mr. Price") and you take out thefive sovereigns--well, somehow, there's such a lot of other thingswhich you don't want to buy but have just got to. Tommy Milner said theother day, and I quite agree with him, "When I took my cleanhandkerchief out last fortnight, " he said, "I couldn't help totting upwhat a lot I spend on trifles. " That's it. There you've got it in anutshell. Washing, bootlaces, bus-tickets--trifles, in fact: that'swhere the coin goes. Only the other morning I bust my braces. I waslate already, and pinning them together all but lost me the 9:16, onlyit was a bit behind time. It struck me then as I ran to the stationthat 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 thatI had to go out and get a cup of tea at the A. B. C. ; or I may now andagain have gone up West of an evening for a bit of a look round; butbeyond that I've never been really what you'd call vicious. Very likelyit's been my friendship for Mr. Hatton that's curbed me breaking out asI've sometimes imagined myself doing when I've been alone in the NewBusiness Room. Though I must say, in common honesty to myself, thatthere's always been the fear of getting the sack from the "Moon. " The"Moon" isn't like some other insurance companies I could mentionwhich'll take anyone. Your refs. Must be A1, or you don't stand anearthly. Simply not an earthly. Besides, the "Moon" isn't an InsuranceCompany at all: it's an _As_surance Company. Of course, now I'vechucked the "Moon" ("shot the moon, " as Tommy Milner, who's the officecomic, put it) and taken to Literature I could do pretty well what Iliked, if it weren't for Norah. 

Which brings me back to what I was saying just now--that I'm not surewhether I shall tell her the Past. I may and I may not. I'll have tothink it over. Anyway, I'm going to write it down first and see how itlooks. 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 ratesof percentage for the "Moon" and listening to Tommy Milner's so-calledwitticisms. Of course, I've cut him now. A literary man, a man whosupplies the _Strawberry Leaf_ with two columns of SocialInterludes at a salary I'm not going to mention in case Norah gets tohear of it and wants to lash out, a man whose Society novels arecompeted for by every publisher in London and New York--well, can a manin that position be expected to keep up with an impudent littleledger-lugger like Tommy Milner? It can't be done. 

I first met the Reverend on the top of Box Hill one Saturdayafternoon. Bike had punctured, and the Reverend gave me theloan of his cyclists' repairing outfit. We had our tea together. Watercress, bread-and-butter, and two sorts of jam--one bob perhead. He issued an invite to his diggings in the Temple. Cocoa andcigs. Of an evening. Regular pally, him and me was. Then he got intothe 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 theyall thought a lot of the Reverend, and so did I. Consequently it wasall right. The next link in the chain was a chap called Cloyster. James Orlebar Cloyster. The Reverend brought him down to teachboxing. For my own part, I don't fancy anything in the way ofbrutality. The club, so I thought, had got on very nicely withmore intellectual pursuits: draughts, chess, bagatelle, and what-not. But the Rev. Wanted boxing, and boxing it had to be. Not that itwould have done for him or me to have mixed ourselves up in it. Hehad his congregation to consider, and I am often on duty at thedownstairs counter before the very heart of the public. A black eyeor 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 torealise this. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Cloyster was notmy 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 evilcometh good, and it was Tom Blake, who, indirectly, stopped the boxinglessons. The club boys never wore the gloves after drunken Blake'svisit. 

I shall never--no, positively never forget that night in June whenmatters came to a head in Shaftesbury Avenue. Oh, I say, it was a bithot--very warm. 

Each successive phase is limned indelibly--that's the sort of literarystyle 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 myold friend, Charlie Cookson. Very good company is Charlie Cookson. Seehim at a shilling hop at the Holborn: he's pretty much all there allthe time. Well-known follower--of course, purely as an amateur--of thelate Dan Leno, king of comedians; good penetrating voice; writes hisown in-between bits--you know what I mean: the funny observations onmothers-in-law, motors, and marriage, marked "Spoken" in thesong-books. Fellows often tell him he'd make a mint of money in thehalls, 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 Agencythe other day. 

Well, I met Charlie at something after ten. Directly he spotted me hewas at his antics, standing stock still on the pavement in a crouchingattitude, and grasping his umbrella like a tomahawk. His humour'salways high-class, but he's the sort of fellow who doesn't care a blowwhat he does. Chronic in that respect, absolutely. The passers-bycouldn't think what he was up to. "Whoop-whoop-whoop!" that's what hesaid. He did, straight. Only _yelled_ it. I thought it was going abit too far in a public place. So, to show him, I just said "Goodevening, Cookson; how are you this evening?" With all his entertainingways he's sometimes slow at taking a hint. No tact, if you see what Imean. 

In this case, for instance, he answered at the top of his voice: "BollyGolly, yah!" and pretended to scalp me with his umbrella. I immediatelyducked, and somehow knocked my bowler against his elbow. He caught itas it was falling off my head. Then he said, "Indian brave give littlepale face chief his hat. " This was really too much, and I felt relievedwhen a policeman told us to move on. Charlie said: "Come and have twopenn'orth of something. "

Well, we stayed chatting over our drinks (in fact, I was well into mysecond lemon and dash) at the Stockwood Hotel until nearly eleven. Atfive to, Charlie said good-bye, because he was living in, and I walkedout into the Charing Cross Road, meaning to turn down ShaftesburyAvenue so as to get a breath of fresh air. Outside the Oxford there wasa bit of a crowd. I asked a man standing outside a tobacconist's whatthe trouble was. "Says he won't go away without kissing the girl thatsang '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 beforeI knew what had happened I found myself close to the centre of it. Alarge man in dirty corduroys stood with his back to me. His shapeseemed strangely familiar. Still singing, and swaying to horribleangles all over the shop, he slowly pivoted round. In a moment Irecognised the bleary features of Tom Blake. At the same time herecognised me. He stretched out a long arm and seized me by theshoulder. "Oh, " he sobbed, "I thought I 'ad no friend in the wide worldexcept 'er; but now I've got yew it's orlright. Yus, yus, it'sorlright. " 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 neverto 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?" saidBlake, linking his arm in mine and dragging me away with him. Behindus, the policeman was shunting the spectators. Oh, it was excessivelydispleasing 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 careto think about. 

By leaning heavily on my shoulder and using me, so to speak, asballast, drunken Blake just managed to make progress, I cannot sayunostentatiously, but at any rate not so noticeably as to be taken intocustody. 

I didn't know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn't know whenwe were going to stop. 

In this frightful manner of progression we had actually gained sight ofPiccadilly 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 haveknocked me down with a feather: bowled me over clean. It startled Blakea goodish bit, too. All along the Avenue he'd been making just a quietsort 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 youplease. 

It was too thick. 

"You blighter, " I says. "You _blooming_ blighter. You talk to melike 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 lookedround to see who the other individual was. You'll hardly credit me whenI tell you it was the Reverend. But it was. Honest truth, it was theRev. John Hatton and no error. His face fairly frightened me. Simplyblazing: red: fair scarlet. He kept by the side of us and let me haveit all he could. "I thought you knew better, Price, " that's what hesaid. "I thought you knew better. Here are you, a friend of mine, amember of the Club, a man I've trusted, going about the streets ofLondon in a bestial state of disgusting intoxication. That's enough initself. But you've done worse than that. You've lured poor Blake intointemperance. Yes, with all your advantages of education andup-bringing, you deliberately set to work to put temptation in the wayof poor, weak, hard-working Blake. Drunkenness is Blake's besettingsin, and you----"

Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as Punch at beingcalled hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar. 

"'Ow dare yer!" he burst out. "I ain't never tasted a drop o' beer inmy natural. Born an' bred teetotal, that's wot I was, and don't yewforget it, neither. "

"Blake, " said the Reverend, "that's not the truth. "

"Call me a drunkard, do yer?" replied Blake. "Go on. Say it again. SayI'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 theCircus. He was trying to run, but his advance took the form ofsemi-circular sweeps all over the pavement. He had circled off sounexpectedly that he had gained some fifty yards before we realisedwhat 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 eyeand began laughing. "Our best plan, " he said, "is to get a four-wheelerand 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 asofa, where he snored peacefully whilst the Reverend brought eggs and aslab of bacon out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He also brought afrying-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 anythingin my life. " I may not be in a very high position in the "Moon, " butI'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, "Iwish 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'tbring 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 abigger one. "

"Nonsense, " I exclaimed, "she's quite wrong about that. You watch whatI can carry in one load. " And I packed the tray with everything he hadmentioned. 

"What price that?" I said, putting the whole boiling on thesitting-room table. 

The Reverend began to roar with laughter. "It's ridiculous, " hechuckled. "I shall tell her it's ridiculous. She ought to be ashamed ofherself. "

Shortly after we had supper, previously having aroused Blake. 

The drunken fellow seemed completely restored by his repose. He atemore 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 tobaccobox, from which the Reverend filled his briar. I remained true to mypacket of "Queen of the Harem. " I shall think twice before chucking upcig. Smoking as long as "Queen of the Harem" don't go abovetuppence-half-penny per ten. 

We were sitting there smoking in front of the fire--it was a shadeparky for the time of year--and not talking a great deal, when theReverend said to Blake, "Things are looking up on the canal, aren'tthey, Tom?"

"No, " said Blake; "things ain't lookin' up on the canal. "

"Got a little house property, " said the Reverend, "to spend when youfeel 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 OrlebarCloyster?" 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 Istruck. '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. Yewdon'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'reall fren's of 'is, I'll take it on myself to tell you wot thatnoble-natured man is giving me money for. Blowed if 'e shall 'ide hisbloomin' light under a blanky bushel any longer. " And then he explainedthat for putting his name to a sheet or two of paper, and addressing afew 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 totake. 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 waslistening so carefully to every word that I kept myself frominterrupting; but when he'd got it off his chest, I clutched theReverend'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 soconcerned over Blake's business. "

"Blake's business be jiggered, " I said. "It's my business, too. I'mdoing for Mister James Orlebar Cloyster exactly what Blake's doing. AndI'm making money. You don't understand. "

"On the contrary, I'm just beginning to understand. You see, I'm doingfor Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster exactly the same service as you andBlake. 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 TomBlake. 

"Seemed to me that if one of the three gave the show away to the othertwo, the compact made by each of the other two came to an endautomatically, " from myself. 

"The reason I have broken my promise of secrecy is this: that I'mdetermined we three shall make a united demand for a higher rate ofpayment. You, of course, have your own uses for the money, I need minefor those humanitarian objects for which my whole life is lived, " fromthe Reverend. 

"Wot 'o, " said Blake. "More coin. Wot 'o. Might 'ave thought o' thatbefore. "

"I'm with you, sir, " said I. "We're entitled to a higher rate, I'llmake a memo to that effect. "

"No, no, " said the Reverend. "We can do better than that. We threeshould have a personal interview with Cloyster and tell him ourdecision. "

"When?" I asked. 

"Now. At once. We are here together, and I see no reason to prevent ourarranging 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 toBrixton slap bang pop hours ago, so I thought I might just as well makea night of it. We jumped into our overcoats and hats, and hurried toFleet Street. We walked towards the Strand until we found afour-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. Hecan't have gone to bed yet. His late hours save us a great deal oftrouble. " And he went up the two or three steps which led to the frontdoor. 

A glance at Tom Blake showed me that the barge-driver was alarmed. Helooked solemn and did not speak. I felt funny, too. Like when I firsthanded round the collection-plate in our parish church. Sort of emptyfeeling. 

But the Reverend was all there, spry and business-like. 

He leaned over the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on theground 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 theReverend and myself. 

After a bit of waiting the latch clicked and the door opened. The doorwas opened by Mr. Cloyster himself. He was in evening dress andhysterics. I thought I had heard a rummy sound from the other side ofthe door. Couldn't account for it at the time. Must have been himlaughing. 

At the sight of us he tried to pull himself together. He half succeededafter a bit, and asked us to come in. 

To say his room was plainly furnished doesn't express it. The apartmentwas 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 werehard, and the whole thing was uncomfortable. Never struck such a shoddyplace in my natural, ever since I called on a man I know slightly whowas in "The Hand of Blood" travelling company No. 3 B. 

"Delighted to see you, I'm sure, " said Mr. Cloyster. "In fact, I wasjust going to sit down and write to you. "

"Really, " said the Reverend. "Well, we've come of our own accord, andwe'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 threewant our contracts revised. "

"What contracts?" said Mr. Cloyster. 

"Our contracts connected with your manuscripts. "

"Since when have the several matters of business which I arrangedprivately with each of you become public?"

"Tonight. It was quite unavoidable. We met by chance. We are not toblame. 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 surelyit'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 cannotafford to destroy. That is clear, because, had it not been so, youwould never have initiated it. I do not know for what reason you wereforced to employ this system, but I do know that powerful circumstancesmust 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 toask you to come to me. One by one, of course; for I had no idea thatthe 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 youthat 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 wehad helped him. He said that he was now engaged to be married, and hadto save every penny. "Otherwise, I should have tried to meet you inthis affair of the half-profits. " He added that we had omitted tocongratulate 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 wasNapoleon, and we were the generals; and if there were three humpier menwalking the streets of London at that moment I should have liked tohave 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 quarterwithout being late, which just shows the sort of scale on which the"Moon" does things. Cookson, down at the Oxford Street Emporium, getsfined regular when he's late. Shilling the first hour and twopenceevery five minutes after. I've known gentlemen in banks, railwaycompanies, dry goods, and woollen offices, the Indian trade, jute, tea--every manner of shop--but they all say the same thing, "We areruled 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 fearthat makes them run to catch their train. But the "Moon's" method is ofa different standard. The "Moon" does not intimidate; no, it entwinesitself round, it insinuates itself into, the hearts of its employees. It suggests, in fact, that we should not be late by offering us thissmall bonus. No insurance office and, up to the time of writing, noother assurance office has been able to boast as much. The same causeis at the bottom of the "Moon's" high reputation, both inside andoutside. It does things in a big way. It's spacious. 

The "Moon's" timing system is great, too. Great in its simplicity. Theregulation says you've got to be in the office by ten o'clock. Supposeyou arrive with ten minutes to spare. You go into the outer office(there's only one entrance--the big one in Threadneedle Street) andfind on the right-hand side of the circular counter a ledger. Theledger 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 theledger and on the other side there is a blank page ruled down themiddle with a red line. Having made your appearance at ten to ten, youput your initials in a line with your name on the page opposite and tothe left of the division. If, on the other hand, you've missed yourtrain, and don't turn up till ten minutes _past_ ten, you've gotto initial your name on the other side of the red line. In the space onthe right of the line, a thick black dash has been drawn by Leach, thecashier. He does this on the last stroke of ten. It makes the page lookneat, he says. Which is quite right and proper. I see his point of viewentirely. 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 inlate. They might forget and initial the wrong side. 

After ten the book goes into Mr. Leach's private partition, and you'vegot to go in there to sign. 

It was there when I came into the office on the morning after we'd beento talk business with Mr. Cloyster. It had been there about an hour anda half. 

"Lost your bonus, Price, my boy, " said genial Mr. Leach. And theGeneral Manager, Mr. Fennell, who had stepped out of his own room closeby, 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. WhatCommerce loses, Art gains, " said the G. M. 

He may have meant to be funny, or he may not. Some of those standingnear took him one way, others the other. Some gravely bowed theirheads, others burst into guffaws. The G. M. Often puzzled his staff inthat way. All were anxious to do the right thing by him, but he made itso difficult to tell what the right thing was. 

But, as I went down the basement stairs to change my coat in theclerks' locker-room, I understood from the G. M. 's words how humiliatingmy position was. 

I had always been a booky sort of person. At home it had been astanding joke that, when a boy, I would sooner spend a penny on_Tit-Bits_ than liquorice. And it was true. Not that I dislikedliquorice. I liked _Tit-Bits_ better, though. So the thing hadgone on. I advanced from _Deadwood Dick_ to Hall Caine and GuyBoothby; and since I had joined the "Moon" I had actually gone a busterand bought _Omar Khayyam_ in the Golden Treasury series. Added towhich, I had recently composed a little lyric for a singer at the"Moon's" annual smoking concert. The lines were topical and weredescriptive of our Complete Compensation Policy. Tommy Milner was thevocalist. 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 whatevermanuscripts he sent me, and forward him all cheques for a considerationof ten per cent. Softest job ever a man had. Easy money. Kudos--I hadalmost too much of it. Which takes me back to the G. M. 's remark aboutmy leaving the office. Since he's bought that big house at Regent'sPark he's done a lot of entertaining at the restaurants. His name'salways cropping up in the "Here and There" column, and naturally he's asubscriber to the _Strawberry Leaf_. The G. M. Has everything ofthe best and plenty of it. (You don't see the G. M. With memo. Formstucked round his cuffs: he wears a clean shirt every morning of hislife. All tip-top people have their little eccentricities. ) And the_Strawberry Leaf_, the smartest, goeyest, personalest weekly, isnever missing from his drawing-room what-not. Every week it's there, regular as clockwork. That's what started my literary reputation amongthe fellows at the "Moon. " Mr. Cloyster was contributing a series ofshort dialogues to the _Strawberry Leaf_--called, "In Town. "These, on publication, bore my own signature. As a matter of fact, Ihappened to see the G. M. Showing the first of the series to Mr. Leachin his private room. I've kept it by me, and I don't wonder the newscreated 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 hisvocation, " "A distinctly clever head, " "Reaping in the shekels"--thatwas the worst part. The "Moon, " to a man, was bent on finding out "howmuch Sidney Price makes out of his bits in the papers. " Some droppedhints--the G. M. , Leach, and the men at the counter. Others, like TommyMilner, 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 percent. Commission worked out at. On the other hand, I dared not pretendI was being paid at the usual rates. I should have gone broke intwenty-four hours. You have no idea how constantly I was given theopportunity of lending five shillings to important members of the"Moon" staff. It struck me then--and I have found out for certainsince--that there is a popular anxiety to borrow from a man who earnsmoney by writing. The earnings of a successful writer are, to thecommon intelligence, something he ought not really to have. And anyone, in default of abstracting his income, may fall back upon taking up histime. 

It did, no doubt, appear that I was coining the ready. Besides the_Strawberry Leaf_, _Features_, and _The Key of the Street_ wereprinting 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 wasentering the names and addresses of inquirers in the Proposal Book, Iwas trying to gather courage to meet what was in store. 

For the future held this: that my name would disappear from the papersas suddenly as it had arrived there. People would want to know why Ihad given up writing. "Written himself out, " "No staying power, " "Asshort-lived as a Barnum monstrosity": these would be the remarks whichwould herald ridicule and possibly pity. 

And I should be in just the same beastly fix at the "Hollyhocks" as Iwas 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 myselfwell on them--uncommonly well. I had ordered, as a present to myparents, new furniture for the drawing-room. I had pressed my father tohave 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 agood deal. Our weekly visit to a matinée (upper circle and ices), followed by tea at the Cabin or Lyons' Popular, had become aninstitution. We had gone occasionally to a ball at the Town Hall. 

What would Norah say when all this ended abruptly without anyexplanation?

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 nothinghad 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 cameright. It was like this. 

I was sitting eating my lunch at Eliza's in Birchin Lane. Twentyminutes was the official allowance for the meal, and I took my twentyminutes at two o'clock. The _St. Stephen's Gazette_ was lying nearme. I picked it up. Anything to distract my thoughts from the troubleto come. That was how I felt. Reading mechanically the front page, Isaw 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. HadMr. Cloyster, then, continued to work his system with Thomas Blake tothe exclusion of the Reverend and myself?

Still worrying over the thing, I turned over the pages of the paperuntil 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'mthe only one left out. It's a bit thick. "

That night I wrote to Blake and to the Reverend asking whether they hadbeen taken on afresh, and if so, couldn't I get a look in, as thingswere 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 stationaryVanguard. I, too, had been in the habit of reading Mr. Cloyster'sdialogues before I signed and sent them off. I had often thought tomyself, also, that they couldn't take much writing, that it was all aknack; and the more I read of them the more transparent the knackappeared to me to be. Just for a lark, I sat down that very evening andhad a go at one. Taking the Park for my scene, I made two or threetheatrical celebrities whose names I had seen in the newspapers talkabout a horse race. At least, one talked about a horse race, and theothers thought she was gassing about a new musical comedy, the name ofthe play being the same as the name of the horse, "The Oriental Belle. "A very amusing muddle, with lots of _doubles entendres_, and heapsof adverbial explanation in small print. Such as:

 Miss Adeline Genée (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. Cloysterin this than ever Mr. Cloyster could have put into it. " And the editorof the _Strawberry Leaf_ printed it next issue as a matter ofcourse. I say, "as a matter of course" with intention, because thefellows at the "Moon" took it as a matter of course, too. You see, whenit first appeared, I left the copy about the desk in the New BusinessRoom, hoping Tommy Milner or some of them would rush up andcongratulate me. But they didn't. They simply said, "Don't litter theplace 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 knowit was my maiden effort at original composition, and I couldn't tellthem. 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 societystuff as long as mine was in the market. They wouldn't pay for Cloysterwhilst they were offered the refusal of super-Cloyster. Wasn't likely. You must understand I wasn't over-easy in my conscience about theaffair. I had, in a manner of speaking, pinched Mr. Cloyster's job. Butthen, I argued to myself, he was earning quite as much as was good forany one man by his serious verse. 

And at that very minute our slavey, little Ethelbertina, knocked at mybedroom door and gave me a postcard. It was addressed to me in thick, straggly writing, and was so covered with thumb-marks that a Bertillonexpert would have gone straight off his nut at the sight of it. "Myusbend, " began the postcard, "as received yourn. E as no truk wif theother 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 dois writin up for im. "

So then I saw how that "Cry" thing in the _St. Stephen's_ had comethere. 

 * * * * *

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 thesmoking-room of the Piccadilly Cabin. Her, I mean, with the fuzzygolden 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 oftelling me that. Why, I don't know, especially as it was always tidyand well off her shoulders. 

And then there was the haughty lady who sold programmes in theHaymarket Amphitheatre--but she's got the sack, so Cookson informs me. 

Therefore, as I shall tell Norah plainly that I disapprove of theCabin, the past can hatch no egg of discord in the shape of theCast-Off Glove. 

The only thing that I can think of as needing suppression is the part Iplayed in Mr. Cloyster's system. 

There's no doubt that the Reverend, Blake and I have, between us, put afairly considerable spoke in Mr. Cloyster's literary wheel. But what amI 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 hervaluation of my capabilities. At present, my dialogues dazzle her; andonce your _fiancée_ is dazzled the basis of matrimonial happinessis 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 editorand 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 hiswork is accepted, which it won't be; for directly I leave his marketclear, someone else will collar it slap off. 

Besides, I've no right to stop my dialogues. My duty to Norah isgreater than my duty to Mr. Cloyster. Unless I continue to be paid byliterature I shall not be able to marry Norah until three years nextquarter. The "Moon" has passed a rule about it, and an official whomarries on an income not larger than eighty pounds per annum is liableto dismissal without notice. 

Norah's mother wouldn't let her wait three years, and though fellowshave been known to have had a couple of kids at the time of theirofficial marriage, I personally couldn't stand the wear and tear ofthat 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 mesleepy 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 anequation, 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--whichI doubt) I shall be grateful. As I said before, my brain is not workingproperly. 

There is no doubt that my temperament has changed, and in a very shortspace of time. A month ago I was soured, cynical, I didn't brush myhair, and I slept too much. I talked a good deal about Life. Now I amblithe and optimistic. I use pomade, part in the middle, and sleepeight hours and no more. I have not made an epigram for days. It is allvery queer. 

I took a new attitude towards life at about a quarter to three on themorning after the Gunton-Cresswells's dance. I had waited for James inhis 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 hadwatched his career from the start. I knew him before he had locatedexactly the short cut to Fortune. Our friendship embraced the wholeperiod of his sudden, extraordinary success. 

Had not envy by that time been dead in me, it might have been pain tome to watch him accomplish unswervingly with his effortless genius thethings I had once dreamt I, too, would laboriously achieve. 

But I grudged him nothing. Rather, I had pleasure in those triumphs ofmy friend. 

There was no confidence we had withheld from one another. 

When he told me of his relations with Margaret Goodwin he had countedon my sympathy as naturally as he had requested and received my advice. 

To no living soul, save James, would I have confessed my owntragedy--my hopeless love for Eva. 

It is inconceivable that I should have misjudged a man so utterly as Imisjudged James. 

That is the latent factor at the root of my problem. The innaterottenness, the cardiac villainy of James Orlebar Cloyster. 

In a measure it was my own hand that laid the train which eventuallyblew James' hidden smoulder of fire into the blazing beacon ofwickedness, in which my friend's Satanic soul is visible in all itslurid nakedness. 

I remember well that evening, mild with the prelude of spring, when Ievolved for James' benefit the System. It was a device which was topreserve my friend's liberty and, at the same time, to preserve myfriend's honour. How perfect in its irony!

Margaret Goodwin, mark you, was not to know he could afford to marryher, 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 wentinto Society. 

Among his acquaintances were the Gunton-Cresswells, and at their househe met Eva. Whether his determination to treat Eva as he had treatedMargaret came to him instantly, or by degrees I do not know. Inwardlyhe may have had his scheme matured in embryo, but outwardly he wasstill the accomplished hypocrite. He was the soul of honour--outwardly. He was the essence of sympathetic tact as far as his specious exteriorwent. Then came the 27th of May. On that date the first of JamesOrlebar Cloyster's masks was removed. 

I had breakfasted earlier than usual, so that by the time I had walkedfrom 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! "AndJames, " I murmured, "is actually giving this the miss in baulk!" Idiscovered, 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 whatpretext I manufactured, but I remember I persuaded her to go back toGuernsey that very day. I think I said that James was spending Fridaytill Monday in the country, and had left no address. I was determinedthat they should not meet. She was far too good for a man who obviouslydid not appreciate her in the least. 

We had a very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt totouch on James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded indiverting our conversation into less uninteresting topics. 

She talked of Guernsey, I of London. I said I felt I had known her allmy 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 controlmy 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 tome--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 toldme he was engaged to Eva. That was an astounding thing; but what wasmore astounding was that James had somehow got wind of the real spiritof my interview with Margaret. 

I have called James Orlebar Cloyster a fool; I have called him avillain. I will never cease to call him a genius. For by somemarvellous capacity for introspection, by some incredible projection ofhis own mind into other people's matters, he was able to tax me to myface with an attempt to win his former _fiancée's_ affections. Itried to choke him off. I used every ounce of bluff I possessed. Invain. I left Walpole Street in a state approaching mental revolution. 

My exact feelings towards James were too intricate to be defined in asingle word. Not so my feelings towards Eva. "Hate" supplied the lacunain 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 regardto Eva and myself. She had not been hostile to me on that account. Shehad only pointed out that as I could do nothing towards supporting EvaI had better keep away when my cousin was in London. That was manyyears ago. Since then we had seldom met. Latterly, not at all. Invitations still arrived from her, but her afternoon parties clashedwith my after-breakfast pipe, and as for her evening receptions--well, by the time I had pieced together the various component parts of mydress clothes, I found myself ready for bed. That is to say, more readyfor bed than I usually am. 

I went to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in a very bitter mood. I was bent ontrouble. 

"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 hasbeen a bosom friend of mine. "

"I'm afraid you are going to be extremely disagreeable about yourcousin's engagement, " she said. 

"I am, " I answered her. "Very disagreeable. I intend to shadow theyoung couple, to be constantly meeting them, calling attention to them. James will most likely have to try to assault me. That may mean a blackeye for dear James. It will certainly mean the police court. Theirengagement will be, in short, a succession of hideous _contretemps_, a series of laughable scenes. "

"Julian, " said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, "hitherto you have acted manfullytoward 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 reallywere, so I said:

"Never you mind. Selfish or not, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, I'm out fortrouble. "

That night I had a letter from her. She said that in order to avoid allunpleasantness, Eva's engagement would be of the briefest naturepossible. 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 ofthe 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, Ihad not meant a word I had said to that good lady. 

In the days preceding the twelfth of June I confess I rather softenedto James. The _entente cordiale_ was established between us. Hetold me how irresistible Eva had been that night; mentioned howcompletely she had carried him away. Had she not carried me away inprecisely the same manner once upon a time?

He swore he loved her as dearly as--(I can't call to mind the simile heemployed, though it was masterly and impressive. ) I even hinted thatthe threats I had used in the presence of Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell werenot serious. He thanked me, but said I had frightened her to such goodpurpose that the date would now have to stand. "You will not hesurprised to hear, " he added, "that I have called in all my work. Ishall want every penny I make. The expenses of an engaged man arehair-raising. I send her a lot of flowers every morning--you've noconception how much a few orchids cost. Then, whenever I go to see herI take her some little present--a gold-mounted umbrella, a bicyclelamp, or a patent scent-bottle. I'm indebted to you, Julian, positivelyindebted 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. Thechurch clock chiming twelve. The agitated, weeping figure of Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell approaching my hammock. A telegram thrust into myhand. Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell's hysterical exclamation, "You infamousmonster--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 thefollowing 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, withthat 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 hadJames done this? Why should he wish to treat Eva in this manner? I wasdelighted that he had done so, but why had he? A very unexpectedperson, James. 

James was lying back in his shabby old armchair, smoking a pipe. Therewas tea on the table. The room seemed more dishevelled than ever. Itwould 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 acup of tea, and took a muffin. Both were cold and clammy. I went to thebell. 

"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 usingmy 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'llcharge 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 recklessextravagance. "

James blushed slightly--a feat of which I was surprised to see that hewas capable. 

"The fact is----" he began. 

I interrupted him. 

"Never mind about that, " I said. "What I want to know is--what's themeaning of this?" And I shoved the bilious-hued telegraph form underhis 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 Irefused you a clean cup--because I cannot afford luxuries. "

"It may be my dulness; but, still, I don't follow you. What exactly areyou 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 alow, 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, " Isaid, "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'mjolly 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 mypoverty with me. I love her too dearly. "

I was nearly sick. The beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft-musicvoice as if he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. Thestained-glass expression on his face made me feel homicidal. 

"Oh, drop it, " I said. "Poverty! Good Lord! Isn't two thousand a yearenough 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 editionof _The Belle of Wells_. That'll keep me going for a bit, but it'sabsolutely out of the question to think of marrying anyone. If I cankeep 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 goeson. "

"I tell you you are mad. Otherwise you'd have called in your work, andsaved yourself having to pay those commissions to Hatton and theothers. As it is, I believe they've somehow done you out of yourcheques, 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 seemto credit me with any sense at all. Do you think I never read thepapers and magazines? You can't have called in your work. The stuff'sstill being printed over the signatures of Sidney Price, Tom Blake, andthe Rev. John Hatton. "

I caught sight of a _Strawberry Leaf_ lying on the floor besidehis 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 threedevils have pinched my job. They've learned the trick of the thingthrough reading my stuff, and now they're turning it out forthemselves. They've cut me out. My market's gone. The editors andpublishers won't look at me. I have had eleven printed rejection formsthis week. One editor wrote and said that he did not wantJohn-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 ofthe 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 doit. And meanwhile"--he lowered his voice, and seemed surprised that theorchestra did not strike up the slow music--"meanwhile, I shall ask Evato wait. "

To wait! The colossal, the Napoleonic impudence of the man! I haveknown men who seemed literally to exude gall, but never one sooverflowing with it as James Orlebar Cloyster. As I looked at himstanding there and uttering that great speech, I admired him. I ceasedto wonder at his success in life. 

I shook my head. 

"I can't do it, " I said regretfully. "I simply cannot begin to say whatI 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 sayis that you are unique. "

"What do you mean?"

"Absolutely unique. Though I had hoped you would have known me betterthan to believe that I would swallow the ludicrous yarn you'veprepared. Don't you ever stop and ask yourself on these occasions ifit'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 anordinary member of the audience. I know how the illusion is produced. I've seen the strings pulled. Why, dash it, _I_ showed you how topull them. I never came across a finer example of seething the kid inits mother's milk. I put you up to the system, and you turn round andtry 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 audacityto attempt to work off on Eva the game you played on Margaret. Butyou'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. Itseems, therefore, that I may expect to extract a certain amount ofamusement from the situation. The fun will be inaugurated by yourtelling 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 anhour's entertainment by telling her of the System, and explaining toher, in detail, the exact method of its working and the reason why youset it going. Having amused Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in this manner, Ishould make similar revelations to Eva. It would not be pleasant foryou subsequently, I suppose, but we all have our troubles. That wouldbe 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 asolid phalanx, and asked them to corroborate me. "

"They wouldn't do it, " he said, snatching at a straw. "They wouldn'tgive 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 toldJames that this was bluff. But I had gathered a certain knowledge ofthe bargee's character from James's conversation, and I knew that hewas a drunken, indiscreet sort of person who might be expected toreveal everything in circumstances such as I had described; so I riskedthe shot, and it went home. James's opposition collapsed. 

"I shall then, " administering the _coup de grâce_, "arrange ameeting between the Gunton-Cresswells and old Mrs. Goodwin. "

"Thank you, " said James, "but don't bother. On second thoughts I willtell 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. Itwill 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 bewanted; found a white shirt, which looked presentable after a littlepruning of the cuffs with a razor; and drove to the Gunton-Cresswells'sin time for dinner. 

There was a certain atmosphere of unrest about the house. I attributedthis 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 wasgoing out to a fancy-dress ball that night. 

She was having dinner sent up to her room, they told me, and wouldbe 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 studywhen 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 hecan 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 isinfinitesimal. "

"How odd!" I remarked. 

"It sounds odd; in fact, I could scarcely believe it until I got hisletter of explanation. I'll show it to you. Here it is. "

I read James Orlebar Cloyster's letter with care. It was notparticularly long, but I wish I had a copy of it; for it is the finestwork 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 themistake 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, sheloves him so. "

Eva now entered the room. When I caught sight of her I remembered I hadpictured her crushed and humiliated. I had expected to gloat over acertain dewiness of her eyes, a patient drooping of her lips. I willsay 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 venerableTory who rarely spoke except to grumble. Even Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, who had lately been elected to the newly-formed _Les Serfsd'Avenir_, was inclined to deprecate it. 

But I was sure Eva had chosen the better part. The dress suited her toperfection. Her legs are the legs of a boy. 

As I looked at her withconcentrated hatred, I realised I had never seen a human soul soradiant, so brimming with _espièglerie_, so altogether to bedesired. 

"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, andtake Eva to the ball?

"But I'm not in fancy dress. "

Overruled. Fancy dress not an essential. Crowds of men there inordinary evening clothes. 

So we drove off. 

We hardly exchanged a syllable. No one has much to say just before adance. 

I looked at Eva out of the corner of my eye, trying to discover justwhat it was in her that attracted men. I knew her charm, though Iflattered 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 itcritically. She is not what I should describe as exactly a type ofEnglish beauty. You know the sort of beauty I mean? Queenly, statuesque, a daughter of the gods, divinely fair. Her charm is not inher features. It is in her expression. 

Tonight, for instance, as we drove to the ball, there sparkled in hereyes a light such as I had never seen in them before. Every girl isanimated at a ball, but this was more than mere animation. There was alatent devilry about her; and behind the sparkle and the glitter afilm, 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 toeat an excellent supper, and was noticed in the smoking-room with acigarette in my mouth. 

At last the first of my two waltzes. The Eton Boating Song--one of myfavourites. I threaded my way through the room in search of her. Shewas in neither of the doorways. I cast my eyes about the room. Hercostume 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 notstrike me. It did not occur to me that as I hated the girl so much, itwas much the best thing that could happen that I should see as littleof her as possible. My hatred was entirely concentrated on the bounderwho had stolen my dance. He was a small, pink-faced little beast, andit maddened me to see that he danced better than I could ever havedone. 

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 chosesome other partner, or sat alone waiting for me, I do not know. When Ireturned to the ballroom the last waltz was over, and the orchestra wasbeginning 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 wasEva. 

I drew back. 

Two or three men came up, and asked her for the dance. She sent themaway, and my heart leaped as they went. 

She was standing with her back towards me. Now she turned. Our eyesmet. We stood for a moment looking at one another. 

Then I heard her give a little sigh; and instantly I forgoteverything--my hatred, my two lost dances, the pink-facedblighter--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 outtogether into the starry night. A few yards off stood a hansom. "Driveto the corner of Sloane Street, " I said to the man, "by way of thePark. "

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 emptystreets alone, her warm, palpitating body touching mine. 

James, and his awful predicament, which would last till Eva gave himup; Eva's callous treatment of my former love for her; my ownnewly-acquired affection for Margaret; my self-respect--these thingshad 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 linoleummanufacturers. I am taking over their huge system of advertising nextweek. 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 sometime, and had, indeed, mentioned to his wife and Eva at lunch that daythat he intended to write to me about it. I am more grateful to himthan I can ever make him understand. Eva, I know, cares nothing formoney--she told me so--but it is a comfort to feel that I can keep heralmost 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 Resumedby James Orlebar Cloyster

CHAPTER 24

A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS

O perfidy of woman! O feminine inconstancy! That is the only allusion Ishall permit to escape me on the subject of Eva Eversleigh's engagementto that scoundrel Julian. 

I had the news by telegraph, and the heavens darkened above me, whilstthe solid earth rocked below. 

I had been trapped into dishonour, and even the bait had been withheldfrom me. 

But it was not the loss of Eva that troubled me most. It should haveoutweighed all my other misfortunes and made them seem of no account, but it did not. Man is essentially a materialist. The prospect of anempty stomach is more serious to him than a broken heart. A brokenheart is the luxury of the well-to-do. What troubled me more than allother things at this juncture was the thought that I was face to facewith starvation, and that only the grimmest of fights could enable meto avoid it. I quaked at the prospect. The early struggles of thewriter to keep his head above water form an experience which does notbear repetition. The hopeless feeling of chipping a little niche foroneself out of the solid rock with a nib is a nightmare even in timesof prosperity. I remembered the grey days of my literaryapprenticeship, and I shivered at the thought that I must go throughthem 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 Iwas doing "On Your Way, " one or two of us used to go down Fleet Streetfor coffee after the morning's work with the regularity of machines. Itformed 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 thatFane, the man who did the "People and Things" column. With luck I oughtto get a clear fifteen weeks of regular work. It would just save me. Infifteen weeks I ought to have got going again. The difficulty was thatI had dropped out. Editors had forgotten my work. John Hatton theyknew, and Sidney Price they knew; but who was James Orlebar Cloyster?There would be much creaking of joints and wobbling of wheels before mytriumphal car could gather speed again. But, with a regular salarycoming in week by week from the _Orb_, I could endure this. Ibecame almost cheerful. It is an exhilarating sensation having one'sback 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 forme. If I could work with a sixth of his dash and pluck, I should besafe. He was giving me work. He might give me more. The new edition ofthe _Belle of Wells_ was due in another fortnight. My lyrics wouldbe 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 havethe laugh of you all yet. "

I was shaking my fist at him when the door opened. I hurriedly tiltedback 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. Iwas going to write to you. "

"Oh, yes, " I said, "of course. About the holiday work. When are youoff?"

"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?" hesaid. 

It was not to my interests to cry myself down, so I said that I wasdoing quite decently. He seemed relieved. 

"You're making quite a good income, I suppose? I mean, no difficultyabout placing your stuff?"

"Editors squeal for it. "

"Because, otherwise what I wanted to say to you might have beensomething of a blow. But it won't affect you much if you're doingplenty of work elsewhere. "

A cold hand seemed laid upon my heart. My mind leaped to what hemeant. Something had gone wrong with the _Orb_ holiday work, mysheet-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 paragraphconspicuously 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 seeingyou. I said I thought I should. 'Well, tell him, ' said Hamilton, 'thatthat paragraph of his about Stickney has only cost us five hundredpounds. That's all. ' And he went out again. Apparently Stickney was onthe point of advertising largely with the _Orb_, and had backedout in a huff. Today, I went to see him about my holiday, and he wantedto know who was coming in to do my work. I mentioned you, and heabsolutely refused to have you in. I'm awfully sorry about it. "

I was silent. The shock was too great. Instead of drifting easily intomy struggle on a comfortable weekly salary, I should have to start thetooth-and-nail fighting at once. I wanted to get away somewhere bymyself, and grapple with the position. 

I said good-bye to Fermin, retaining sufficient presence of mind totreat the thing lightly, and walked swiftly along the restless Strand, marvelling at what I had suffered at the hands of Fortune. The deceiverof Margaret, deceived by Eva, a pauper! I covered the distance betweenGroom's and Walpole Street in sombre meditation. 

In a sort of dull panic I sat down immediately on my arrival, and triedto work. I told myself that I must turn out something, that it would bemadness to waste a moment. 

I sat and chewed my pen from two o'clock till five, but not a page ofprintable stuff could I turn out. Looking back at myself at thatmoment, I am not surprised that my ideas did not flow. It would havebeen a wonderful triumph of strength of mind if I had been able towrite after all that had happened. Dr. Johnson has laid it down that aman can write at any time, if he sets himself to it earnestly; but minewere exceptional circumstances. My life's happiness and my means forsupporting life at all, happy or otherwise, had been swept away in asingle morning; and I found myself utterly unable to pen a coherentsentence. 

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 landladybrought in a large parcel. 

I recognised the writing on the label. The hand was Margaret's. Iwondered in an impersonal sort of way what Margaret could be sending tome. From the feel of it the contents were paper. 

It amuses me now to think that it was a good half-hour before I tookthe trouble to cut the string. Fortune and happiness were waiting forme in that parcel, and I would not bother to open it. I sat in mychair, smoking and thinking, and occasionally cast a gloomy eye at theparcel. But I did not open it. Then my pipe went out, and I found thatI had no matches in my pocket. There were some at the farther end ofthe mantelpiece. I had to get up to reach them, and, once up, I foundmyself filled with a sufficient amount of energy to take a knife fromthe table and cut the string. 

Languidly I undid the brown paper. The contents were a pile oftypewritten 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 wasthat she had written a play, and wished me to put my name to it andhawk it round: to pass off as my work her own amateurish effort atplaywriting. Ludicrous. And so immoral, too. I had always imagined thatMargaret had a perfectly flawless sense of honesty. Yet here she wasasking me deliberately to impose on the credulity of some poor, trusting theatrical manager. The dreadful disillusionment of it shockedme. 

Most men would have salved their wounded susceptibilities by putting amatch to the manuscript without further thought or investigation. 

But I have ever been haunted by a somewhat over-strict conscience, andI 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 upagainst the potato dish. 

I read on and on. I could not leave it. Incredible as it would appearfrom anyone but me, I solemnly assure you that the typewritten nonsenseI 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 ofmy own, I was, nevertheless, sufficiently gifted with an appreciationof 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 Londonaudience, and force laughter and tears from it.... Well, the publicside of that idiotic play is history. Everyone knows how many nights itran, and the Press from time to time tells its readers what were theprofits from it that accrued to the author. 

I turned to Margaret's letter and re-read the last page. She put thething very well, very sensibly. As I read, my scruples began to vanish. After all, was it so very immoral, this little deception that sheproposed?

"I have written down the words, " she said; "but the conception isyours. The play was inspired by you. But for you I should never havebegun it. " Well, if she put it like that----

"You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. Youknow the right men to go to. To approach them on behalf of a stranger'swork 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. Atthe post-office, at the bottom of the King's Road, I stopped to send atelegram. It consisted of the words, "Accept thankfully. --Cloyster. "

Then I took a cab from the rank at Sloane Square, and told the man todrive to the stage-door of the Briggs Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. 

The cab-rank in Sloane Square is really a Home for SuperannuatedHorses. It is a sort of equine Athenaeum. No horse is ever seen theretill it has passed well into the sere and yellow. A Sloane Squarecab-horse may be distinguished by the dignity of its movements. It ishappiest when walking. 

The animal which had the privilege of making history by conveying meand _The Girl who Waited_ to the Briggs Theatre was asthmatic, and, I think, sickening for the botts. I had plenty of time to cool mybrain and think out a plan of campaign. 

Stanley Briggs, whom I proposed to try first, was the one man I shouldhave liked to see in the part of James, the hero of the piece. The partmight have been written round him. 

There was the objection, of course, that _The Girl who Waited_ wasnot a musical comedy, but I knew he would consider a straight play, andput it on if it suited him. I was confident that _The Girl whoWaited_ would be just what he wanted. 

The problem was how to get him to himself for a sufficient space oftime. When a man is doing the work of half a dozen he is likely to geton in the world, but he has, as a rule, little leisure forconversation. 

My octogenarian came to a standstill at last at the stage-door, andseemed 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 notdue on the stage for another ten minutes. Mr. Richard Belsey, hisvalet, 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. TheO. P. Corner was packed--standing room only--and the overflow reachednearly to the doors. The Black Hole of Calcutta was roomy compared withthe wings on the night of a new song. Everybody who had the leastexcuse for being out of his or her dressing-room at that moment waspeering through odd chinks in the scenery. Chorus-girls, show-girls, chorus-men, principals, children, scene-shifters, and other theatricalfauna waited in a solid mass for the arrival of the music-cue. 

The atmosphere behind the scenes has always had the effect of making mefeel as if my boots were number fourteens and my hands, if anything, larger. Directly I have passed the swing-doors I shuffle like oneoppressed with a guilty conscience. Outside I may have been composed, even jaunty. Inside I am hangdog. Beads of perspiration form on mybrow. My collar tightens. My boots begin to squeak. I smile vacuously. 

I shuffled, smiling vacuously and clutching the type-script of _TheGirl who Waited_, to the O. P. Corner. I caught the eye of a talllady in salmon-pink, and said "Good evening" huskily--my voice isalways husky behind the scenes: elsewhere it is like some beautifulbell. A piercing whisper of "Sh-h-h-!" came from somewhere close athand. This sort of thing does not help bright and sparklingconversation. I sh-h-hed, and passed on. 

At the back of the O. P. Corner Timothy Prince, the comedian, wasfilling in the time before the next entrance by waltzing with one ofthe 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 hedashed off. "

At this moment the music-cue was given, and a considerable section ofthe 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 afterMiss 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'sbird was sedentary compared with this elusive man. 

Presently he appeared. 

"Hullo, dear old boy, " he said. "Welcome to Elsmore. Come and see mebefore 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, throughthe 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 tokeep 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 tothe 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, anddictating letters to his secretary. Taking advantage of this spell ofcomparative idleness, I advanced (l. C. ) with the typescript. 

"Hullo, old boy, " he said, "just a minute! Sit down, won't you? Have acigar. "

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 sayis 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 goingoff while you're singing the last line of the refrain, not after you'vefinished. All back. I've told you a hundred times. Do try and get itright--I simply daren't look at a motor bill. These fellers at thegarage cram it on--I mean, what can you _do_? You're up againstit--Miss Hinckel, I've got seventy-five letters I want you to takedown. Ready? 'Mrs. Robert Boodle, Sandringham, Mafeking Road, Balham. Dear Madam: Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he fears that he has nopart to offer to your son. He is glad that he made such a success athis school theatricals. ' 'James Winterbotham, Pleasant Cottage, Rhodesia Terrace, Stockwell. Dear Sir: Mr. Briggs desires me to saythat he remembers meeting your wife's cousin at the public dinner youmention, but that he fears he has no part at present to offer to yourdaughter. ' '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 finishedsketching out the idea for the lyric, "and let me have it as soon asyou 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 youhave 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 atthree. 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 roundin their chairs, and a Rand magnate, who was eating peas at the nexttable, started and cut his mouth. "Go? It's the limit! This is justthe 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 toourselves. 

Briggs, after a lifetime spent in doing three things at once, is not aman who lets a great deal of grass grow under his feet. Before I lefthim that night the "ideal cast" of the play had been jotted down, andmuch of the actual cast settled. Rehearsals were in full swing within aweek, and the play was produced within ten days of the demise of itspredecessor. 

Meanwhile, the satisfactory sum which I received in advance ofroyalties was sufficient to remove any regrets as to the loss ofthe _Orb_ holiday work. With _The Girl who Waited_ in activerehearsal, "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, itdawned upon me that I had to meet Mrs. Goodwin and Margaret atWaterloo. All through the busy days of rehearsal, even on those awfuldays when everything went wrong and actresses, breaking down, sobbed inthe wings and refused to be comforted, I had dimly recognised the factthat when I met Margaret I should have to be honest with her. Plans forevasion had been half-matured by my inventive faculties, only to bediscarded, unpolished, on account of the insistent claims of theendless rehearsals. To have concocted a story with which to persuadeMargaret that I stood to lose money if the play succeeded would havebeen a clear day's work. And I had no clear days. 

But this was not all. There was another reason. Somehow my sentimentswith regard to her were changing again. It was as if I were awakingfrom some dream. I felt as if my eyes had been blindfolded to preventme seeing Margaret as she really was, and that now the bandage had beenremoved. As the day of production drew nearer, and the play began totake shape, I caught myself sincerely admiring the girl who could hitoff, first shot, the exact shade of drivel which the London stagerequired. What culture, what excessive brain-power she must have. Howabsurdly _naïve_, how impossibly melodramatic, how maudlinlysentimental, how improbable--in fact, how altogether womanly she musthave grown. 

Womanly! That did it. I felt that she was womanly. And it came aboutthat it was my Margaret of the Cobo shrimping journeys that I wasprepared to welcome as I drove that morning to Waterloo Station. 

And so, when the train rolled in, and the Goodwins alighted, andMargaret kissed me, by an extraordinarily lucky chance I found that Iloved her more dearly than ever. 

 * * * * *

That _première_ is still fresh in my memory. 

Mrs. Goodwin, Margaret, and myself occupied the stage box, and invarious parts of the house I could see the familiar faces of those whomI 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 hadbeen sitting near me. 

Eva and Julian were with Mr. And Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in the boxopposite us. To the Barrel Club I had sent the first row of the dresscircle. It was expensive, but worth it. Hatton and Sidney Price were inthe stalls. Tom Blake had preferred a free pass to the gallery. Kit andMalim 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 theoverture, and it was to the appropriate strains of "Land of Hope andGlory" that the curtain rose on the first act of my play. 

The first act, I should mention (though it is no doubt superfluous todo so) is bright and suggestive, but ends on a clear, firm note ofpathos. That is why, as soon as the lights went up, I levelled myglasses at the eyes of the critics. Certainly in two cases, and, Ithink, in a third, I caught the glint of tear-drops. One critic wasblowing his nose, another sobbed like a child, and I had a hurriedvision of a third staggering out to the foyer with his hand to hiseyes. Margaret was removing her own tears with a handkerchief. Mrs. Goodwin's unmoved face may have hidden a lacerated soul, but she didnot betray herself. Hers may have been the thoughts that lie too deepfor tears. At any rate, she did not weep. Instead, she drew from herreticule the fragmentary writings of an early Portuguese author. Theseshe perused during the present and succeeding _entr'actes_. 

Pressing Margaret's hand, I walked round to the Gunton-Cresswells's boxto see what effect the act had had on them. One glance at their faceswas enough. They were long and hard. "This is a real compliment, " Isaid 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 observedto Julian how curiously lacking I was in dramatic instinct, and Julianhad predicted to Eva and her aunt and uncle a glorious fiasco. Theywere furious at their hopes being so egregiously disappointed. Had theydreamt 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 heardMichael declare that "there'd not been such an act produced since hisshow was put on at----" He was interrupted by old Maundrell assertingthat "the business arranged for valet reminded him of a story aboutLeopold Lewis. "

They, too, added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctlyfrigid. 

Ascending to the gallery I found another compliment awaiting me. TomBlake was fast asleep. The quality of Blake's intellect was in inverseratio to that of Mrs. Goodwin. Neither of them appreciated the stuffthat suited so well the tastes of the million; and it was consequentlyquite consistent that while Mrs. Goodwin dozed in spirit Tom Blakeshould 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 myplay had received. 

But an encounter with Kit and Malim was altogether charming. They hadhad some slight quarrel on the way to the theatre, and had found ameans of reconciliation in their mutual emotion at the pathos of thefirst act's finale. They were now sitting hand in hand telling eachother 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-madwith excitement--how it all comes back to me. 

And now, as I sit in this quiet smoking-room of a St. Peter's Porthotel, I hear again the shout of "Author!" I see myself again steppingforward from the wings. That short appearance of mine, that briefspeech behind the footlights fixed my future.... 

 * * * * *

"James Orlebar Cloyster, the plutocratic playwright, to Margaret, onlydaughter of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LL. D. "