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Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Town, by John Alexander Hammerton
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Title: The Call of the Town
A Tale of Literary Life
Author: John Alexander Hammerton
Release Date: September 19, 2010 [EBook #33763]
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<h1>THE CALL OF THE TOWN</h1>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<h1>The Call of the Town</h1>
<h2>A Tale of Literary Life</h2>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="smcenter">by</p>
<h2>J. A. HAMMERTON</h2>
<p class="smcenter">author of<br />
"j. m. barrie and his books," "lord rosebery," "tony's<br />
highland tour," etc.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center">LONDON<br />
R. A. EVERETT & CO.<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C.</span><br />
1904</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
<p><span style="font-variant: small-caps; margin-left: 5%">chap.</span> <span class="ralignsc">page</span></p>
<ul class="TOCR">
<li>"THE PROUD PARENT" <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_9">9</a></span></li>
<li>HENRY LEAVES HOME <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_22">22</a></span></li>
<li>THE REAL AND THE IDEAL <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_36">36</a></span></li>
<li>MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_53">53</a></span></li>
<li>IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_61">61</a></span></li>
<li>WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_70">70</a></span></li>
<li>AMONG NEW FRIENDS <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_80">80</a></span></li>
<li>THE YOUNG JOURNALIST <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_91">91</a></span></li>
<li>WHAT THE NECKTIE TOLD <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_100">100</a></span></li>
<li>VIOLET EYES <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_111">111</a></span></li>
<li>ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_122">122</a></span></li>
<li>"A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL" <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_136">136</a></span></li>
<li>THE PHILANDERERS <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_147">147</a></span></li>
<li>FATE AND A FIDDLER <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_157">157</a></span></li>
<li>"THE MYSTERIOUS MR. P." <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_164">164</a></span></li>
<li>DRIFTING <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_177">177</a></span></li>
<li>THE WAY OF A WOMAN <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_192">192</a></span></li>
<li>IN LONDON TOWN <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_202">202</a></span></li>
<li>THE PEN AND THE PENCIL CLUB <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_214">214</a></span></li>
<li>THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_228">228</a></span></li>
<li>"THAT BOOK" <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_239">239</a></span></li>
<li>HOME AGAIN <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_246">246</a></span></li>
<li>A TRAGIC ENDING <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_257">257</a></span></li>
<li>ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER <span class="ralign"><a href="#Pg_262">262</a></span></li>
</ul>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_9" id="Pg_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
<h1>THE CALL OF THE TOWN</h1>
<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<h3>"THE PROUD PARENT"</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">If</span> you happen to be riding a bicycle you arrive
somewhat unexpectedly in the little Ardenshire
village of Hampton Bagot, and are through it in
a flash, before you quite realise its existence. But
in the unlikely event of your having business or
pleasure there, you approach the place more
leisurely in the carrier's cart from the little station
which absurdly bears the name of the village, though
two miles distant.</p>
<p>The ancient Parish Church, with its curious old
chained library and bits of Saxon masonry, "perfectly
unique," as Mr. Godfrey Needham, the vicar,
used to say, and the one wide street of quaint old
houses, with their half-timbered fronts, remain to this
day much as they were, no doubt, when good Queen
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 10]</span>
Bess ruled England. But the thirsty cyclist, whose
throat may happen to be parched at this particular
stage of his journey, is a poor substitute for the
old-time stage-coach which made Hampton Bagot
a place of change. Somehow, the village continues
to exist, though its few hundred people scrape their
livings in ways that are not obvious to the casual
visitor. The surrounding district is richly pastoral,
plentifully sprinkled with cosy farm-houses, and here,
perhaps, we have the reason why Hampton continues
under the sun.</p>
<p>If you wandered along the few hundred yards of
street, and noted the various substitutes for shops,
in which oranges and sweets and babies' clothing
mingle familiarly with hams and shoe-laces, you
would be struck by the more pretentious exterior
of one which bears in crudely-painted letters the
legend, EDWARD JOHN CHARLES, and underneath,
in smaller characters, the words <span class="smcap">Post Office</span>.
The building, a two-storied one, with the familiar
blackened timbers supporting high-pitched gables,
and a bay-window of lozenged glass, was, at the
time of which I write, the place of next importance
in the village to the "Wings and Spur." Behind
this window, and by peering closely, one could
see dusty packets of writing-paper and fly-blown
envelopes, a few cheap books, clay and briar pipes,
tobacco, and some withered-looking cigars. Below
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 11]</span>
the window, after diligent search, a slit for the
admission of letters might be found.</p>
<p>But while the place itself would easily have been
passed over, not so the figure at the door; for there,
most days of the week and most hours of the day,
stood the portly form of Edward John Charles
himself.</p>
<p>It was as though the legend overhead referred to
the man beneath, and the smile usually on his face
spoke of contentment with himself and the world
at large. His face was ruddy and clean-shaven,
as he chose to coax his whisker underneath his
chin, where it sprouted so amply that the need
to wear a collar or a tie did not exist; certainly,
was not recognised.</p>
<p>Somewhat under medium height, and of more
than medium girth, Edward John Charles was by no
means an unpleasant figure to the eye, and if the
commonplace caste of face and prominent ears did
not suggest any marked intellectual gifts, the net
result of a casual survey was "a good-natured
sort." He had a habit of concealing his hands
mysteriously underneath his coat-tails as he stood
at the door beneath the staring sign, and his coat
had absorbed something of its owner's nature, for
by the perch of the tails one could guess his mood.
They were flapped nervously when the wearer was
displeased; they opened into a wide and settled
<b><span style="font-size: large;">V</span></b>
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 12]</span>
inverted when he was in the full flavour of his
satisfaction; and happily that was their most common
condition. Indeed, the coat-tails of Edward John
Charles were as eloquent as the stumpy appendage
of the Irish terrier usually to be seen at the door
with him.</p>
<p>Edward John stood in his familiar place this
morning, and surveyed placidly the one and only
street of Hampton Bagot.</p>
<p>The street does not belong to Hampton at all,
but is only so many yards of a great highway to
London. If you asked a Hampton man where it
led to, he would say to Stratford, as that is the end
of his world. That he is spending his life on a
main-travelled road that goes on and on until it is
lost in the multitudinous streets of modern Babylon
has never occurred to him. Stratford is his <i>ultima
thule</i>, the objective of his longest travels.</p>
<p>But Edward John was no ordinary man, despite
his common exterior, and it was in the list of his
distinctions that he had in his early manhood spent
two days in London. To him, the road on which
he looked out for so many hours each day was
one of the tentacles thrown out by the mighty City
to drag the sons of Nature into its gluttonous maw.</p>
<p>"It ain't got me, 'owever," he reflected, as he
contentedly wagged his tails; "but as for 'Enry,
why, 'oo knows?"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 13]</span></p>
<p>And really, what London would have done with
Edward John we cannot guess, nor have we at
present any idea of what it will do with 'Enry.</p>
<p>At this particular moment you would scarcely
have credited the postmaster-bookseller-tobacconist
with such philosophic reflections; for he seemed to
be chiefly interested in watching with a critical eye
a dawdling creature by the name of Miffin, the
inefficient tailor across the way.</p>
<p>Edward John pursed his lips and flapped his
coat-tails in stern disapproval of that sluggard's
method of removing the single shutter which covered
his window as a protection from the sun's rays,
rather than a barrier to thieves, the latter being
unknown in Hampton. Miffin made the mere act of
withdrawing a bolt a function of five or ten minutes'
duration, exchanging courtesies with every possible
creature in the neighbourhood, from schoolboys to
cats, while engaged in the operation. He would
even call across to Edward John on the state of the
day, and secretly wonder when the postmaster ever
did a stroke of work, while in the mind of the latter
certain wise maxims about ants and sluggards from
the Book of Proverbs were suggesting themselves as
peculiarly applicable to Mr. Miffin.</p>
<p>Presently, as Edward John turned his glance along
the village street towards the Parish Church, which
sat on a leafy knoll to the west, with a reproving eye
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 14]</span>
on all Hampton, he saw the Rev. Godfrey Needham
hastening eastward at a brisk pace.</p>
<p>The sight was no unusual one. Mr. Needham
never moved unless in a whirl, the looseness of his
clerical garb helping him to create quite a little
gust of energy as he hurried by with his good-hearted
greetings to his admiring parishioners.
Such haste in a man of sixty was unaccountable,
especially when one was fully alive to his appearance.
He looked as if he had suddenly awakened
after going to sleep a century before, and was in a
hurry to make up lost time. Thin-faced, with
prominent nose, and eyes red at the rims, blinking
behind spectacles; he wore a rusty clerical hat and
clothes of ancient cut and material, his trousers
terminating a good three inches above his low
shoes and disclosing socks, formerly white. The
fact that his legs remotely suggested a pair of
calipers added to the quaintness of the figure he
presented while in full stride down the village street.</p>
<p>The moment Mr. Needham swung into view, the
coat-tails of the postmaster were violently agitated,
and his face broadened into a smile as he turned
quickly into the doorway and called:</p>
<p>"'Enry, 'ere quick. 'Ere's the passon!"</p>
<p>Back in the shade and coolness of the shop the
person thus addressed had been eagerly engaged
in dipping into several volumes just brought that
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 15]</span>
morning by the carrier from Birmingham, for it
was Mr. Edward John Charles's great privilege to
be the medium of obtaining books for several
of the county gentry in the neighbourhood of
Hampton, and these were always feverishly
fingered by his son Henry before being
despatched to their purchasers.</p>
<p>This same Henry was esteemed by his fond
parent a perfect marvel of learning, and nothing
delighted more the postmaster than to present him
on all available occasions for the vicar's admiration.</p>
<p>In response to the summons, Henry issued into
the sunlight of the open door, and craning his
neck beyond the projecting window, beheld the
advancing figure of the vicar. But the vicar, rusty
and time-soiled though he seemed, was still well-oiled
mentally, and had taken in at a glance the
manœuvres at the Post Office door. Knowing that
he would have to fight his way past, he slowed
down and approached with a pleasant "Good-morning"
to Edward John and a bright smile for
Henry, who was his favourite among the lads of
the village.</p>
<p>"Well, Henry," he said, as if opening fire, "how
do the studies progress?"</p>
<p>"'Enry," returned the postmaster, before the lad
had time to answer, "is making wonnerful progress,
simply wonnerful. I reckon all the prizes at the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 16]</span>
school this term are as good as 'is," and the coat-tails
opened into a particularly expanded
<b><span style="font-size: large;">V</span></b>.
"And as for Latin, vicar," he continued, "I
shouldn't be surprised if 'e was soon upsides with
yourself! 'E's at it every night. Oh, 'e do
study, I can tell you."</p>
<p>Mr. Needham smiled at this parental puffery,
and answered somewhat timidly:</p>
<p>"Ah, my dear Mr. Charles, I am afraid I have
credit for more Latin than I possess. Nothing
is so hard for a scholar as to live up to his
reputation."</p>
<p>He even glanced furtively down the street,
debating whether he should clap on full sail
forthwith, and resume his voyage before the
postmaster's prodigy could gratify Edward John
by giving him a Latin poser. Only for a moment
did he hesitate, however, and recovering his self-confidence,
Mr. Needham continued brazenly:</p>
<p>"But, after all, one does not master Latin so soon
as that. Henry, I am afraid, will still have much
to learn of the classic tongue."</p>
<p>"But won't you try me, sir?" blurted out the
youthful subject of discussion. "I should really like
to be tested."</p>
<p>"Come now, do, Mr. Needham," urged the postmaster
teasingly, his face shining with pleasure in
delighted anticipation of the coming battle of wits.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 17]</span>
"Tackle 'im on Virgil; tackle 'im on Virgil. Put
'im through 'is paces, do, and let's see what's in
the led."</p>
<p>"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Mr.
Charles; but I am pressed this morning, and must
not delay further. Some other day, perhaps, I shall
see how he stands in the classics, but really I must
be off. Good morning, Mr. Charles; good morning,
Henry!"</p>
<p>So saying, the vicar beat a retreat, and as Edward
John watched the breeze-blown frock-coat and the
twinkling calipers disappear eastward, he cherished
the suspicion that the Rev. Godfrey Needham really
did not know so much of Latin after all. Nor did
the shrewd Mr. Charles arrive at a wrong conclusion.
The dear old vicar's reputation as a Latinist rested
almost entirely on the fact that it was his custom
when showing a visitor through the Parish Church of
Hampton Bagot to point to several memorials in the
chancel, and after asking if the visitor knew Latin,
to glibly recite the inscriptions in that tongue, and
follow this up by condescending to give their
English equivalents. It was a harmless vanity,
and was typical of many little corners in the
quaint character of this good man.</p>
<p>Miffin had now accomplished the elaborate
ceremony of opening his inefficient shop, and
sniffing contemptuously as he retired indoors at
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 18]</span>
the presumptuous Mr. Charles, whose encounter
with the vicar he had carefully overheard, he had
the satisfaction of seeing the portly form of
Edward John disappear inside the Post Office,
presumably for the purpose of doing a little
business.</p>
<p>"And now, 'Enry," said the proud parent, still
chuckling at the obvious retreat of the vicar, "it
is time for school, my boy. Remember, <i>tempus
fugits</i>. Yes, my word, <i>tempus</i> do <i>fugit</i>."</p>
<p>Thus admonished, the rising hope of the postmaster
shouldered his satchel and set out
schoolward.</p>
<p>Henry Charles was in almost every sense a
direct contrast to his father. Taller than the
latter already, although not yet sixteen years of
age, he was lean and sallow of appearance, with
long, narrow, ungainly features, redeemed from
plainness only by the intensity of his glowing
brown eyes. By several years the oldest lad at
the church school, where Mr. Arnold Page retailed
his somewhat limited store of learning to some
forty scholars, Henry was the scandal of the
village. To the good folk of Hampton it seemed
almost a temptation of Providence to keep a lad
at school after he was twelve years of age, and
to them Henry was a byword for laziness and
the possibilities of a shameful end. Often would
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 19]</span>
the postmaster's cronies assure him that he could
hope for no good to come of such conduct. At
the "Wings and Spur" almost any evening "that
long, lanky, lumbering lout of a good-for-nothing,
'Enry Charles," was quoted in conversation as an
example of the follies a man could commit who
had once gone so far out of his natural station as
to visit London and admire "book-larnin'."</p>
<p>"It's downright sinful, I calls it, to keep a led
at school arter twelve years of age, when 'e
moite be earnin' three shillin' a week a-doin' of
some honest werk."</p>
<p>This was the opinion enunciated more than once
by Mr. Miffin in the taproom of the inn, and always
assented to with acclamation by the company.</p>
<p>But Henry was sublimely unconscious of the
interest he created, and his father was stoutly
determined in the course he would pursue. So
the youth continued to read all the books that
came his way, to dream dreams of lands that lay
beyond eye-scope of Hampton Bagot. If the main
road through the village went to Stratford-on-Avon,
it did not stay there for Henry, and when it did go
there it carried his thoughts to the home of his
favourite author.</p>
<p>It was, perhaps, the very fact of Hampton's
nearness to the shrine of Shakespeare that set
the postmaster's boy thinking of books and the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 20]</span>
life of letters. Already he dwelt in an enchanted
land whither none else in Hampton had ever
wandered, and from the printed page he had built
up for himself a city of his own—a city with the
familiar name of London. There, as his father
had told him—for had not Edward John trod its
streets for two whole days?—lived the great men
of letters, their busy pens plying on countless
sheets of paper, and, like the touch of magic
wands, conjuring up for their holders fame and
fortune.</p>
<p>Edward John Charles was truly a phenomenon—a
bookseller in the tiniest way, who had become
imbued with some idea of the dignity of literature,
and esteemed its exponents in inverse ratio to his
own unlettered condition; thought of his scanty
schooling being the one shadow which ever
darkened his brow.</p>
<p>To this fairy London, this home of learning, this
emporium of all the graces, Henry Charles looked
forward in his day-dreams, while his neighbours
lamented his father's folly in not setting him to
hoe potatoes, or at least to sell ounces of shag.</p>
<p>"The led is struck on books; it's books with 'im
mornin', noon, an' night, and I ain't the man to
stand in 'is way," quoth Edward John, in expostulation
with a friendly neighbour who advised him to
put Henry to work. "I don't know what 'e's going
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 21]</span>
to be, or what's in 'im; but whatever it is, the led
shall 'ave his chance."</p>
<p>And when Edward John Charles said a thing he
meant it.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_22" id="Pg_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
<h3>HENRY LEAVES HOME</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">It</span> had been ever the habit of Edward John Charles
that when he made up his mind to do a thing, that
thing was as good as done. How else would it have
been possible for a man to rise to the onerous and
honoured position of postmaster at Hampton Bagot?
For some time he had been tending to the conclusion
that Henry would soon require to make a move if
he was ever to rise in the world. Not that the
postmaster was influenced by the opinions of the
village gossips, brutally frank and straightforward
though these were. He prided himself on being
above such trifles, though, if the truth be told, the
Post Office was the veritable centre of the local
gossip-mongering.</p>
<p>But the last encounter with Mr. Needham, and
Henry's shyly audacious offer to stand an examination
at the hands of the vicar, confirmed the portly
Mr. Charles in the opinion that his youthful prodigy
had outgrown all the possibilities of Hampton Bagot.
Had not Mr. Page confessed there was really
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 23]</span>
nothing more he could teach the studious Henry?
Did he not admit that after a few lessons in Latin
Henry shot ahead so fast he soon outstripped the
learning of his tutor? Surely, then, further delay
in starting him upon the battle of life were only
wasting his sweetness on the desert air of Hampton
Bagot, as Mr. Charles, in one of his literary moods,
would say. Besides, the supposed laziness of the
youth was a growing scandal to the community;
and after all, even the postmaster could not afford
altogether to ignore public opinion.</p>
<p>It will have been gathered by now that although
to every outward appearance an intensely commonplace,
podgy personality, Edward John Charles
possessed within his ample bosom the qualities
which made him curiously different from the ruck
of village humanity. It would be a fair assumption
that in all the countless hamlets of sweet Ardenshire
there lived not another parent who could contemplate
with equanimity a bookish strain in the blood of
any of his offspring.</p>
<p>The literary taste has ever been discouraged in
these parts of the green Midlands, and such stray
books as the postmaster sold to the village folk
were bought chiefly for the gilt on their covers,
which rendered them eyeable objects for the
parlour table. He himself had not read a dozen
books in all his prosperous life, and perhaps his
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 24]</span>
loud interest in literature was nothing better than
affectation, springing from the accident of his
becoming the most convenient agent for supplying
the "county people" in the neighbourhood with
their literary goods. Beginning in affectation,
his pretended admiration of books and bookmen
had fostered a serious love for them in his son,
and Edward John was just the man to boldly face
the consequences.</p>
<p>When his mind was made up on the necessity
of translating Henry to a new field in which his
dazzling qualities could radiate with ampler freedom
than in the narrow confines of Hampton Bagot,
his thoughts turned to his friend, Mr. Ephraim
Griggs, who represented literature in the very
stronghold of its greatest captain, and already he
saw Henry a busy assistant in the well-known
second-hand book-shop at Stratford-on-Avon. A
word from him to Mr. Griggs, and the golden
gates of Bookland would swing wide open to the
glittering Henry!</p>
<p>So, without a hint of his mission and its
weighty issues, the carrier's waggon creaked with
the added weight of Edward John Charles a few
mornings later, on its way to Stratford.</p>
<p>For all who are willing to work without
monetary reward there is no lack of opportunity,
and Mr. Griggs readily consented to receive Henry
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 25]</span>
into his business as a second assistant. The die
was cast, and in the evening the postmaster
returned mysteriously happy. Although an inveterate
gossip, he could be tantalisingly silent
when it suited his mood, and as he surveyed
the village street from his accustomed post that
evening, there was nothing but the usual serenity
of his face and the satisfactory cock of his coat-tails
to give a clue to the sweet thoughts dancing
in his brain.</p>
<p>When the entire Charles family were seated
at the supper-table, the auspicious moment had
arrived for Edward John to disclose his hand.
Whatever he thought fit to arrange would be
good. Mrs. Charles, a thin little person, who
worshipped her ample husband from afar, and
spent her life in cleaning the five living rooms
which constituted their household, never removing
the curl-papers from her hair until after tea, was
certain to applaud his every opinion, while the
three girls, the eldest of whom bore the burden
of the business on her shoulders, could be depended
upon for reserve support.</p>
<p>When Mr. Charles had detailed the arrangements
he had made, whereby Henry was to enter
the business of Mr. Ephraim Griggs, there was
unanimous approval.</p>
<p>"I've always said, 'Enry, that you'd 'ave your
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 26]</span>
chance, and 'ere it is," said Mr. Charles, brushing
some crumbs of cheese from his whisker. "There
is no sayin' what this may lead to. Some of the
greatest men in the world 'ave started lower
down the ladder than that."</p>
<p>"Yes, dad," responded the delighted Henry.
"Why, Shakespeare himself used to hold horses
for gentlemen in London."</p>
<p>"Just look at that," beamed Mr. Charles on his
worshipping family. "Shakespeare uster 'old 'osses.
You'll never need to do that, my boy."</p>
<p>"And his father was only a woolstapler, dad!"
panted the youth.</p>
<p>"A common woolstapler! Think on't! And
me in the book-line—in a small way, p'raps—but
in the book-line, for all that."</p>
<p>And the thought that a woolstapler's son who
had been fain to tend horses for a penny, and
in the end had achieved deathless fame which
brought admirers from the ends of the earth to
his humble birthplace in Stratford-on-Avon, made
Edward John look around his own little house,
and wonder how many years it would be before
the world was trooping to Hampton Bagot to
gaze on the early home of Henry Charles.
Hampton was only a few miles from Stratford,
and Henry would never be so low as the
holding of horses.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 27]</span></p>
<p>We can but dimly realise the joy with which
Henry received the news of the opening his
father had made for him. To a lad of his
temperament he already saw himself a chartered
libertine in the realms of literature, roving from
book to book on the crowded shelves of Mr.
Griggs; here following the doughty deeds of some
of Sir Walter's heroes, taking a hand, perchance, in
the rescue of his heroines, and anon communing
with such glorious company as Addison and Lamb
and Hazlitt. Had he not read and re-read, and
remembered every chapter of that classic work of
which his father had sold as many as seven copies
in six months to the Hamptonians—"Famous
Boyhoods," by Uncle Jim? Within the gold-encrusted
covers of that enchanting book had he
not learned how Charles Dickens used to paste
labels on jam-pots before he found fame and
fortune in a bottle of ink? Was not he aware
that Robert Burns had been a ploughman, and
were not ploughmen in Hampton Bagot as common
as hay-ricks and as poor as mice? Had not Oliver
Goldsmith been hard put to it often to find a dinner,
while Henry Charles had never lacked a meal?
And had not Dr. Johnson, who received a ludicrously
large sum of money for making a dictionary,
lived in a garret? Emphatically, Henry Charles had
reason to look the future in the face clear-eyed, and
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 28]</span>
to bless Uncle Jim for giving him those inspiring
facts. Moreover, a famous author had said: "In
the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail."
Had not Henry copied these lines in atrocious
handwriting till they swam before his eyes, and
had not his schoolmaster assured him his penmanship
was the worst he had ever witnessed, and were
not all great authors wretched penmen? True, he
still had doubts as to what "the lexicon of youth"
might be.</p>
<p>Unlike his father, Henry was not a talkative
person, and, indeed, it was one of the black marks
against him in popular opinion that he did not make
himself as sociable as he might have done with the
lads of Hampton. But weighted with such news,
the need to noise it abroad was pressing, and as
soon as he could slip away from the supper-table
he was publishing the intelligence wherever a
chance opening could be found.</p>
<p>In five minutes it had the village by the ears, and
the inefficient Miffin, ironing a coat at the moment
it reached him, paused in his operation to deliver
himself of a sceptical sniff and some adverse opinions
on puffed-up fools who were eternally talking of
book-larnin' and things quite above them, instead
of attending to their business.</p>
<p>"In moi opinion," and he stated it with engaging
frankness, "Edward John would do a sight better
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 29]</span>
to let his long-legged lout stick at 'ome and sell
nibs and sealin'-wex and postage-stemps, like his
fifteen-stone father."</p>
<p>But really, Miffin's opinion did not count for
much, although on this occasion it cost him dear,
as he had left the heated iron lying on the coat,
to its eternal destruction.</p>
<p>Elated with the prospect which the magic wand
of his father had swung open to his sight—those
fields of fair renown through which he was about
to wander—Henry had soon exhausted the possibilities
of the village, and found himself tramping
the field-path towards Little Flixton, in the hope
of meeting some returning villagers, to whom he
could unbosom the startling news at first hand,
and have the joy of surprising them into
congratulations.</p>
<p>The meadows had been lately cut, and the smell
of new-mown hay hung sensuously in the air. Never
would he forget that evening in all the years that
were to be. Although the hay-fields had been to
him a commonplace of life since he could toddle,
they would never smell as they did that night, and
would never be so sweet again. After all, it is our
sense of smell that treasures for us most vividly the
impressions of our life. The memory of all our great
moments is aided largely by our nostrils.</p>
<p>In one of these meadows, sloping down from a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 30]</span>
wooded mound, Henry espied a white-frocked girlish
figure seated among the hay in the soft gloaming.
It was Eunice Lyndon, the grand-daughter of old
Carne, the sexton, who, as he told you himself, had
held that post for "two-an'-forty year." Eunice's
mother, old Carne's only daughter, whom many
remembered as the "Rose of Hampton," had died
of consumption, and there were some who thought
that the shadow of this dread complaint hung over
the girl also.</p>
<p>Now, as a rule, Henry had a poor opinion of
girls. They were all very well in their way, of
course, but could never hope to shine in the world
like men. This evening, however, he was so brimful
of his news that he was glad to tell it to anybody.
He had even told Maggs, the blacksmith, though
the latter had been over-free with cider at the
"Wings and Spur."</p>
<p>Henry crossed the slope of the meadow towards
Eunice, who held a long stalk of grass in her hand,
and was intent upon watching a green caterpillar
worming its way up it.</p>
<p>"Oh, Henry," she cried out, a pretty blush
mounting to her cheeks as he approached, "just
look at this fellow!"</p>
<p>Henry glanced down disdainfully at the caterpillar.
Such trifles were altogether beneath his
notice in that great hour.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 31]</span></p>
<p>"Listen, Eunice," he began, flinging himself down
beside her. "I have news for you."</p>
<p>"News!" she echoed, still intent upon the caterpillar.
"Isn't it a lovely green?"</p>
<p>"I'm going away."</p>
<p>She raised her head, and two violet eyes, with a
puzzled expression, were dreamily fixed upon him,
half-questioning.</p>
<p>"Going away! Where to?... Oh, there, I've
lost it!" as the caterpillar fell among the grass.</p>
<p>"To Stratford first," Henry answered in a lordly
way; "afterwards—London, I daresay."</p>
<p>Eunice was profoundly impressed. London!
Wasn't that a risky undertaking? She knew it
to be a wonderful place when one got there, but
had heard it was crowded with people who did
terrible things. Mr. Jukes, the landlord of the
"Wings and Spur," had been to London on some
law business not long ago, and could talk of
nothing else since. Indeed, Edward John Charles
had felt Mr. Jukes's rivalry very keenly; for the
innkeeper's visit being of later date than his, the
glory of it was fresher to the Hampton mind.</p>
<p>Henry, conscious that he had taken her breath
away, gathered up his knees and fell to dreaming
of London. The shadows of evening crept softly
upon them as they sat there; the trees on the high
ground behind them rustled gently in the light
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 32]</span>
summer breeze; and somehow, the whole scene—the
sloping meadow, the darkening hedgerows, the
shadowy outline of the country beyond—mingled
strangely with his dreams of the future. Years
afterwards, when the quiet, peaceful life of Hampton
was a dear thing of the past to him, the scent of
new-mown hay recreated that evening in every
detail, and he saw again the rose-flushed lass who
had sat in silent wonder by his side.</p>
<p>Mr. Charles was of opinion that the sooner his son
was started on his upward course the better. Henry,
therefore, was withdrawn from school, and immediate
preparations made for his departure—preparations in
which Edward John took no manual part, but which,
judging by the poise of his coat-tails, went forward
to his mind. Mrs. Charles even forgot to take the
curl-papers out of her hair for two whole days before
the eventful morning.</p>
<p>On the eve of the day appointed for Henry's
departure Mr. Page called in to wish him good-bye.
A little later the vicar flashed for a moment
into the dingy interior of the shop and shook
hands with him.</p>
<p>"Remember, my dear Henry, <i>labor omnia vincit
improbus</i>, as the Latinists say," using one of his few
but favourite Latin phrases, and rolling it lovingly
like a chocolate-cream 'twixt tongue and palate.
"And remember also, my dear Henry, that <i>les belles</i>
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 33]</span>
<i>actions cachées sont les plus estimables</i>," pronouncing
atrociously a phrase he had picked up a few
hours before, "which means, my dear young
friend, that you should do good by stealth, and
blush to find it fame."</p>
<p>Henry blushed forthwith.</p>
<p>"And let me present you with a little keepsake.
It is a copy of my new book, my poem on
Queen Victoria, which the <i>Midland Agricultural
News</i> has described in terms of praise that I hope
I am too modest to quote. I have signed it with
my autograph, and I trust you will lay to heart
its lessons."</p>
<p>The poem in question was a sixteen-page
pamphlet in a gaudy cover. It enjoyed a large
circulation by gratuitous distribution. To the
vicar's great regret, he had found at the end of
a dictionary the French phrase about beautiful
actions too late to be incorporated in his verses.</p>
<p>Henry was profoundly moved, but like all
great people in their great moments, he was
deplorably commonplace.</p>
<p>"I thank you, sir," was all his genius prompted.
He was gravelled for a Latin snatch to cap the
vicar's, and the Rev. Godfrey Needham stood
supreme.</p>
<p>"Eh, but <i>tempus</i> do <i>fugit</i>, passon," Edward
John broke in at this juncture. "It's only loike
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 34]</span>
yesterday that 'Enry was a-startin' school, and
'ere 'e's a-goin' out into the great world to carve
out a name for hisself—'oo knows 'e ain't?"</p>
<p>"With youth all things are possible." returned
Mr. Needham. "We shall be proud of Henry yet.
He certainly has my best wishes for his success.
<i>Sursum corda</i>, my friend, as the Latin hath it.
And to you, Henry, <i>Deus vobiscum</i>. Good-bye!"</p>
<p>"Good-bye, and thank you, sir," said the
overwhelmed Henry.</p>
<p>In a moment more the white-socked calipers had
carried Mr. Needham out of Henry's life for some
years to come.</p>
<p>When the great morning arrived, the whole house
was turned upside down. The village itself was
agitated. Henry was quite the hero of the moment,
despite the sniffing disapproval of Miffin. But one
can't destroy a coat and retain a friendly feeling
for the cause of the catastrophe.</p>
<p>"Merk moi werds," he said to his apprentice, as
together they watched from behind the door the
preparations across the street. "Young Che'les will
never do nowt. He'll come to a bed end, and
Ed'ard John will rue this day. Merk moi werds."
And he emphasised his wisdom with a skinny
forefinger.</p>
<p>Henry's mother cried over him a little, and impressed
upon him that the three pots of blackberry
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 35]</span>
jam—her own making—were at the bottom of his
trunk, away from the shirts and linen, in case of
accident. His sisters, one by one, threw their arms
around him, and said commonplace things to him
to hide the less common thoughts in their mind.</p>
<p>At length Henry took his seat on the carrier's
waggon, after receiving a luminous impression of
London—modern London, not the Edward-John
London—from Mr. Jukes of the "Wings and Spur,"
and drove away, turning his face from his friends
to avoid a silly inclination to cry. As the carrier
cracked his whip while his horses gathered pace
down the street, his passenger looked back to the
old familiar house and signalled to the group still
standing by the door; but for all the high hopes
that beckoned him along this road that ran to
London he was sorry to go.</p>
<p>When they were passing the cottage of old Carne,
and a sweet face lit by two violet eyes looked out
between the dimity curtains, while a girl's hand
rattled pleasantly on the window, Henry smiled and
waved his arm. But he was dimly conscious he
had lost something he could not define. It had
to do with tears on a woman's wrinkled face.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_36" id="Pg_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
<h3>THE REAL AND THE IDEAL</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">It</span> was a perfect day in "the sweet o' the year"
when the carrier's waggon creaked along the
highway to Stratford with Henry Charles perched
beside the red-faced driver.</p>
<p>There is, perhaps, no county in all England so
full of charm in spring-time and the early summer
as leafy Ardenshire. The road on which the
hope of Hampton travelled is typical of many in
that fair countryside. Gleaming white in the
morning sunshine, it lies snug between high banks
of prodigal growth, bramble and trailing arbutus,
backed by green bushes, among which the massy
white clots of elder-blossom look like snowy souvenirs
of the winter that has fled, with here and there a
strong note of colour struck by swaying foxgloves.
The lanes that steal away from the highway are
often as beautiful as those of glorious Devon,
and all bear promise that if the wanderer will but
come with them he will surely find the veritable
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 37]</span></p>
<p class="noindent">
<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"Bank whereon the wild thyme blows,</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows;</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Quite over-canopy'd with luscious woodbine,</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."</span><br />
</p>
<p>But it was not of the wild beauties by the way
that Henry thought as onward creaked the
waggon. Nor was it for long that the picture of
his mother's face and the light of violet eyes
occupied his mind. His thoughts ran forward
swifter than ever the train would go which in
later years was to bring Hampton Bagot within
half-an-hour's journey of Stratford.</p>
<p>Twice before had he travelled this same way,
and both times to the same place. But now all
was changed. The carrier would crack his whip
on his homeward way that evening and sing his
snatches of song, but not for Henry.</p>
<p>For the first time in his life the youth would
stretch himself upon an unfamiliar bed, and hear
voices that had never spoken to him before. He
would tread the streets where once the steps of
the immortal bard had been as common as his
own comings and goings at the Hampton Post
Office. Till now he had dreamed what life might
be in a town larger than his native hamlet, and
this night he would begin to know, to live it.</p>
<p>The wayside wild flowers, so recently part and
parcel of his daily life, paled before his eyes when
he thought of the temple of books toward which
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 38]</span>
his course was bent. The smell of the new bindings,
and the mouldy suggestions of old volumes,
were sweeter to him for the moment than the
scented hedgerows. Already he had built up for
himself the figure of his Mr. Ephraim Griggs.</p>
<p>A man of medium height, somewhat bent in
the back, high forehead, intelligent face, eyes aided
with spectacles in their constant task of examining
the treasures stacked around.</p>
<p>His hair? Grey—yes, of course, it must be
grey; thin to baldness on the top, but abundant
at the back of the head. Clothes? Old-fashioned,
no doubt; negligent, certainly; yet not altogether
slovenly.</p>
<p>He saw the figure, vivid as life, moving about
the shop, talking with innocent display of erudition
to some wealthy customer, or half reluctantly
selling a costly volume from his shelves.</p>
<p>This dream-companion kept him company all
the way, and it was only in a listless fashion that
he chatted with the carrier, to whom books were
no better than common lumber.</p>
<p>Stratford was reached early in the afternoon,
and as the waggon rumbled over the Clopton
Bridge, Henry thought that the scene presented
here by the soft flowing Avon, with the spire of
Shakespeare's Church softly etched on the sky, and
the strange masonry of the world-famed Memorial
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 39]</span>
Theatre in the middle distance, was the fairest
man could see.</p>
<p>The thoughtfulness of his father had arranged
for Henry a lodging near to Rother Street, and
thither the carrier undertook to drive him before
stopping at the market-hall to distribute his
goods. On the way up the broad and pleasant
High Street Henry was excited, for there, to his
joy, he beheld the name of Ephraim Griggs upon a
window well stocked with books—smaller, perhaps,
and dustier than he had pictured it in his own
mind.</p>
<p>Mrs. Filbert, the landlady with whom Edward
John had arranged for Henry's board and lodging,
was a widow of more than middle age, who had
brought up a considerable family, most of whom
were now "doing for themselves." In summertime
she often let her best rooms to visitors, but
nothing rejoiced her more than the prospect of a
permanent lodger. She was fortunate already
in having one who came under that description,
and whose acquaintance we may make in due
time.</p>
<p>Mrs. Filbert was a motherly soul, and set Henry
at his ease at once when she took him to the
little bedroom he was to share with one of her
sons, a lad about his own age. Nor would she
allow him to fare forth into the town until he
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 40]</span>
had disposed of some dinner she had kept for
him, suspecting that his means did not run to the
luxury of a meal at one of the country inns on
the way from Hampton.</p>
<p>When Henry had freed himself from the motherly
attentions of Mrs. Filbert, and again found himself
in the High Street, it was late afternoon. With
a beating heart he walked direct to the shop of
Mr. Griggs, but as his engagement commenced the
next morning, he did not intend to present himself
to his future employer that afternoon.</p>
<p>His purpose was merely a preliminary inspection
of the place, for on his two previous visits to
Stratford the establishment which had suddenly
become his centre of interest had not been noticed
by him.</p>
<p>The window was dustier than he had supposed
from his sight of it while passing with the carrier,
and many of the books that were offered for
sale were disappointingly commonplace. As for
the collection in the window-box, labelled in
crude blue letters, "All in this row 2<i>d.</i> each," he
was amazed that Mr. Griggs should exhibit them.
For the most part they were old school-books,
and he remembered, with a sudden sense of wealth
unreckoned, that he had quite a number at home
as good as these. He was not aware that only a
summer ago a sharp visitor had picked up from
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 41]</span>
this bundle a volume which he sold in London
for £9.</p>
<p>Timidly did Henry peep in at the doorway,
which was narrower than he had expected, and
a trifle shabby so far as painting was concerned.</p>
<p>So much as he could see of the shop inside
accorded but little better with his mental picture
of the place. Books were there in abundance,
many of them presenting some degree of order,
and as many more seemingly in hopeless
confusion.</p>
<p>He got a glimpse of a counter, at which he
supposed the business of the place was transacted,
but the inadequate back view of the figure of a young
man bending at a desk in a gloomy corner was
the only thing suggesting life.</p>
<p>His first peep assuredly was not what he had
looked forward to, but who knew to what hidden
chambers of interest the door at the far side of
the front shop gave access?</p>
<p>Afraid to further pursue his inspection, Henry
moved away somewhat hurriedly when the young
man at the desk showed signs of moving towards
the door, having probably scented a customer.</p>
<p>He wandered next to Shakespeare's Church,
lingering on the way at the Memorial, then fresh
from the hands of the builders, and loudly out of
harmony with everything else in Stratford. Anon he
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 42]</span>
was peeping in at the old Grammar School and
the Guild Hall, and tea-time found him loitering
around the Birthplace, with half a desire to set out
then and there to Anne Hathaway's Cottage.</p>
<p>The business of dealing in Shakespeare's
memory had not yet developed into Stratford's
staple industry, nor had local boyhood begun to
earn precarious pennies by waylaying visitors and
rehearsing to them in parrot fashion the leading
dates in the life of the poet. But the principal
show-place of the town had long been attracting
pilgrims from the ends of the earth, and for the
first time in his life Henry heard the English
language produced with strong nasal accompaniment
by a group of brisk-looking young men and
women issuing from the shrine in Market Street.</p>
<p>There was little sleep for him that night, nor was
the unusual circumstances of his sharing a bed with
another youth the cause of it. He wondered at his
ability to peep in at Mr. Griggs's door without entering
precipitately and avowing himself the new assistant.
But his father's instructions on this point had been
explicit. He had to present himself at the proper
hour of the morning; neither early nor late, but at
the hour precisely. It would have been unbusiness-like
to stroll in the previous afternoon, and if
business-like habits were not acquired now they
never would be.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 43]</span></p>
<p>But Henry had read so recently the wonderful
story of "Monte Cristo," and was so impressed by
the hero's habit of keeping his appointments to the
second, that he required no advice on this point.</p>
<p>"Suppose I go down in the morning and enter the
shop when the market-clock is striking the fifth note
of nine. That would be a good start to make!"</p>
<p>Thus he thought, and thus he did. But alas! the
new Monte Cristo found no appreciative audience
awaiting him.</p>
<p>For a moment he stood at the counter in the
middle of the shop, with half a mind to run away.
His entry had been unheralded, unobserved. No
one was visible. But hesitating whether to knock
on the counter, as customers at Hampton Post Office
were wont to do, or take down a book until someone
appeared, he became aware of certain sounds
issuing from behind a wooden partition which
enclosed a corner of the shop.</p>
<p>Henry shuffled his feet noisily, and plucked up
courage to rap on the counter, for the market-clock
had ceased its striking by quite a minute, and no one
had witnessed his romantic punctuality.</p>
<p>In answer to the knocking there appeared from
behind the partition a youngster of some twelve
years, who seemed to have been disturbed in some
pleasant but undutiful occupation. On seeing that
the person at the counter was merely a youth, just
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 44]</span>
old enough to make a boy wish to be his age, but
not old enough to inspire him with respect, the
youngster, without a word of inquiry or apology,
stooped down and lifted on to the counter a little
bull pup, which he stroked with all the pride of a
fancier, challenging Henry with his eyes to produce
its equal.</p>
<p>Loftily indifferent to the behaviour of the boy, and
secretly wondering if Monte Cristo had ever been so
absurdly received on any of the occasions when he
opened a door as the clock struck the appointed hour
of meeting, Henry said, with a touch of indignation
in his voice:</p>
<p>"I am the new assistant, and I wish to see Mr.
Griggs."</p>
<p>The boy gave a whistle of surprise, and eyed
Henry boldly. Hastily stowing away the pup in
some secret receptacle under the counter, he
proceeded to the side-door, taking a backward
glance at the new assistant, and disclosing under
his snub nose a very wide and smiling mouth.</p>
<p>"Shop!" bawled the lad, as he opened the door.</p>
<p>Without another word, and leaving the door
ajar, he went and perched himself on a stool,
from which position he brazenly surveyed the new
assistant.</p>
<p>Henry waited, quailing somewhat under the
searching gaze of this juvenile servitor in the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 45]</span>
temple of literature. He surveyed at leisure the
walls so thickly stacked with dusty volumes, and
wondered why the youngster was not cleaning
them or arranging the bundles on the floor, instead
of sitting on the stool swaying his legs idly.</p>
<p>How different it all was from what he had
expected! The books were there and in abundance,
yet they were heaped about more like potatoes in
a greengrocer's than things worthy of respect. It
was difficult to connect this youthful dog-fancier
with literary pursuits, and Henry could only hope
that Mr. Griggs in his person would make up for
what his establishment had lost in contrast with
his ideal picture of it.</p>
<p>It was some little time before the shuffle of
slip-shod feet was heard behind the back-door.
The new assistant grew expectant. The shuffle
suggested the approach of the venerable book-lover
himself. There was a pause, during which Henry's
heart thumped against his bosom, and then a large
and tousled head was thrust inquiringly beyond
the door, in a way that suggested a desire to
conceal the absence of a collar and tie.</p>
<p>The head belonged to Mr. Ephraim Griggs,
dealer in second-hand books and prints.</p>
<p>"Oh, it's young Charles, is it?" said Mr. Griggs,
displaying a little more of his person, and showing
that he was in the act of drying his hands. "Just
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 46]</span>
come in here, will you?" he went on, jerking
his head back towards the passage. "I want
your advice."</p>
<p>Wondering on what subject he might be capable
of advising the veteran, he went through to the
passage, where Mr. Griggs, having finished with
the towel, offered him a cold and flabby hand.</p>
<p>Henry felt tempted to laugh, and probably a
little inclined to cry, when he stood before his
employer, and found that his mental portrait of
the man tallied in no particular with the person
facing him.</p>
<p>There was little of the book-worm about Mr.
Griggs. He did not even wear spectacles; an
offence which Henry found hardest to forgive.
Not so tall as Edward John, nor yet so stout, he
was a long-bearded fellow, with a nasty habit of
breathing heavily through his nose, as if that
organ were clogged with dust from his books. As
he stood before Henry he was in his shirt-sleeves,
and, judging by the latter, the garment as a whole
was ready for the wash. His waistcoat was glossy
with droppings of snuff; his trousers, Henry noticed,
were very baggy at the knees and appeared to be
a size too large for him; while his feet were
encased in ragged carpet slippers.</p>
<p>Evidently Mr. Griggs was in some trouble, and
while Henry was speculating as to what the cause
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 47]</span>
of his anxiety might be, the learned bookseller
said, somewhat anxiously, and in a thin, wheezy
voice:</p>
<p>"Tell me, do you know anythink about poultry?"</p>
<p>"Poultry!" gasped Henry.</p>
<p>"Yes," replied Mr. Griggs, with a solemnity
which struck the new assistant as absurdly
pathetic. "Hens," he explained further; "my
best one is down with croup or somethink o'
the kind. Your father has taken a many prizes
with his birds, and I thought you might know
all about 'em. I've never had great success with
'em myself. Come outside and tell me what you
think."</p>
<p>Without waiting for a reply, the bookseller
shuffled through the passage into a back-yard,
and the youth followed as one in a dream.</p>
<p>The yard was almost entirely devoted to poultry,
and if Mr. Griggs was an amateur at the pursuit,
he had at least prepared for it in no mean way,
three sides of the place being taken up with
wired hen-runs and a wooden house for his stock.
In a compartment by itself, gasping and choking,
lay the object of the old man's solicitude.</p>
<p>"The finest layer I ever had," he declared
despondingly. "An egg a day as reg'lar as
clockwork. I'd rather lose two of the others."</p>
<p>His sorrow deepened when Henry said that he
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 48]</span>
had never seen a hen in that state before, and
did not know what was wrong with it.</p>
<p>"Then I'll be forced to ask old John
Shakespeare, the grocer, what to do; although I
'ate the man, and don't want to be beholden to
him for anythink. But he's our champion breeder,
and what must be, must be."</p>
<p>Shakespeare, grocer, hens! Henry doubted
seriously if his ears were doing their duty, but
there was no mistaking the anxiety of Mr.
Ephraim Griggs. He could not have been more
perturbed if his wife had been dangerously ill.
His wife? That reminded Henry that he had
heard his father say Mrs. Griggs had been dead
these many years. Perhaps that was why the
bookseller was so untidy.</p>
<p>"You had better go back to the shop, my lad,"
said he, in a voice which meant he was now
resigned to the worst, "and take a look round. I'll
be in there directly."</p>
<p>When Henry returned to the shop he found
that Mr. Pemble, the senior assistant, had arrived;
but for the moment that young gentleman was
so engrossed with the study of his features in a
broken looking-glass that he did not notice
Henry's entrance. Mr. Pemble's anxiety seemed
to be centred around the tardy growth of an
incipient moustache, which, when an illuminating
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 49]</span>
ray of sunshine fell upon his upper lip, was
readily visible to the naked eye.</p>
<p>A somewhat prim and characterless person, with
more teeth than his mouth seemed able to
accommodate, Mr. Pemble was the <i>bête noir</i> of
Jenks, the dog-loving shop-boy, who, with a sly
wink to Henry and an expressive grimace,
indicated unmistakably his opinion of the senior
assistant.</p>
<p>This was a sign to the new-comer that if he
cared to make common cause against Mr. Pemble,
Jenks was with him to the death; but Henry,
either in his rustic simplicity or his lofty indifference
to the youngster, did not respond, and
waited for Mr. Pemble to languidly acknowledge
his presence.</p>
<p>"Ah, you're the new assistant Mr. Griggs was
speaking of," he said at length.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir," replied Henry, and at the delicious
sound of the flattering "sir" Mr. Pemble endeavoured
to tug his laggard moustache. "Mr. Griggs
says I'm to have a look round until he is ready,"
Henry went on, casting a dubious glance at the
walls and the thickly-strewn floor.</p>
<p>"Oh, that's all right," drawled Mr. Pemble, who
now turned his attention to some small parcels that
had arrived by the morning's post.</p>
<p>In a little while Mr. Griggs appeared, fully
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 50]</span>
clothed, by the addition of a faded black morning
coat and a creased white collar. He beckoned
Henry into the back-parlour, which served as a sort
of office and a general lumber-room.</p>
<p>"Sit you down, my lad, and let's see what we have
here," he said, pointing to a crazy arm-chair beside
an old Pembroke table, on which a broken ink-bottle
and some rusty pens lay, together with a
muddle of notepaper.</p>
<p>The bookseller then turned to a large case of old
volumes recently acquired at the sale of a country
house, and picking up several of these he flapped
the dust from them, puffing and blowing like a
walrus. Glancing briefly at the title-pages of the
first two, he threw them in a corner with a brief
but emphatic "Rubbish!" The next fished forth
satisfied him better, and taking up one of his latest
catalogues, he showed Henry how to write down
the title and description of the book.</p>
<p>So he proceeded for a time, initiating the youth
in the art of cataloguing, which with Mr. Griggs
did not take a particularly exalted form. He
eschewed such aids to ready references as alphabetical
entry, and was content so long as the
principal items of his stock appeared on his printed
list, quite irrespective of order or value. These
lists, villainously printed, were a source of unfailing
amusement to the educated book-buyers into whose
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 51]</span>
hands they fell, for every page contained the most
hilarious blunders, whereby the best-known classics
assumed new and surprising disguises.</p>
<p>Henry took to the simple work eagerly, and
displayed far greater interest than his employer did
in the books that came to light as the case was
gradually emptying. Now and again during the
forenoon Mr. Griggs would suddenly disappear from
the parlour, as his thoughts reverted to his suffering
Dorking, only to return from his visit to the poultry
with a gloomy shake of the head.</p>
<p>When dinner-time arrived, Henry and Jenks were
left in charge of the shop while Mr. Pemble went
home to dine, and the old bookseller shambled
upstairs to some of the unknown domestic rooms.
Jenks, unabashed by Henry's obvious determination
not to familiarise with him, boldly asked if he
knew how to play that great and universal game
of boyhood called "knifey." When Henry said
that he didn't, and hadn't time to think of it,
Jenks was filled with disgust, for he found it a
delightful pastime when the hours hung heavy on
his hands, and he had been at the trouble to import
a specially soft piece of wood for the purpose of
playing "knifey" whenever an opportunity occurred.
Failing Henry's assistance, he brazenly proceeded
to engage in the pastime by himself.</p>
<p>The task of cataloguing occupied but little of the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 52]</span>
afternoon, and for the remainder of the day there
was nothing to do but idling. Indeed, Henry found
himself wondering by what means Mr. Griggs
contrived to exist, as nothing seemed to matter
beyond his devotion to the poultry and Mr.
Pemble's frequent inspections of his upper lip.</p>
<p>On the whole, the impression left by his first day
at business was by no means bright, as he could
not suppose there would be books to catalogue
every day, and he had not seen more than
half-a-dozen customers in the shop.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_53" id="Pg_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
<h3>MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Ten</span> days had passed, and the new assistant was
more than ever at a loss to understand how a
business so laxly conducted and apparently so
unremunerative could provide a living for Mr.
Griggs, Pemble, and Jenks. Henry knew that he,
at least, was no burden on his employer's finances;
but he was not yet aware that Mr. Pemble was
there on a similar footing, while Jenks's labours
were rewarded weekly with half-a-crown.</p>
<p>But this morning a bright and new star swung
into his ambit, when a young man of about twenty
years of age sauntered jauntily into the shop, his
hat stuck on one side of his head and a cigarette
drooping from his lips, where grew a moustache
which must have struck envy into the soul of Mr.
Pemble. The new-comer winked cheerily to Jenks,
nodded a "How d'you do?" to the senior assistant,
and then, to Henry's surprise, he said:</p>
<p>"I suppose you're the chap that Mrs. Filbert's
been telling me about. We're both in the same digs."</p>
<p>"I beg your pardon!" Henry stammered.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 54]</span></p>
<p>"Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know."</p>
<p>"Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert
always talks about," answered Henry, brightening.</p>
<p>"That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor
Smith—with the accent on the Trev. There's such
a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's got
to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to
be buried in the crowd."</p>
<p>"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor
Smith," replied Henry, who, it will be seen, was
beginning to know something of the social graces.</p>
<p>"Right you are, young 'un," said the breezy one.
"I'm just back from my fortnight's holidays. Been
to London, don't you know. Jolly time. Thought
I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See
you later, and tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off.
Big case on at the police court this morning."</p>
<p>Mr. Smith—Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please—was
indeed a person who had assumed considerable
importance in Henry's mind before he met him face
to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom
good Mrs. Filbert set much store.</p>
<p>"'E's that smart," she told Henry the first night
he had stayed beneath her roof "there's no sayin'
what he don't know. He writes a many fine things
in the <i>Guardian</i>, specially 'is story of the Mop,
which my Tommy read out quite easy-like last
October."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 55]</span></p>
<p>"He'll be a journalist, then," Henry suggested.</p>
<p>"Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways,
e's a heditor or a reporter or somethink. The
<i>Guardian</i> pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must
be clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody
likes Mr. Trevor."</p>
<p>It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune
that had brought him to the very house where
one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and
although keenly disappointed at the melancholy
falling off in his actual experience of life under
the ægis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his vision
of what that was to be, he now looked forward
to meeting Mr. Trevor Smith with the hope that
he might point the way to better things.</p>
<p>The exact position of that local representative
of the Fourth Estate is best defined as district
reporter. The paper which employed him was
published in the busy industrial centre of
Wheelton, some twenty-five miles distant, where it
maintained a struggling existence as the <i>Wheelton
Guardian</i>.</p>
<p>It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column
of notes on men and affairs in the Stratford district
every week, to supply reports of the local police
court proceedings, municipal meetings, and so forth,
and also to canvass for advertisements, the few
hundred copies of the paper sold in Stratford
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 56]</span>
every week, thanks to these attractions, being
mendaciously headed <i>Stratford Guardian</i>.</p>
<p>What the district reporter—who occasionally
hinted that he was really the editor when he saw
a chance to impress a stranger thereby—called
"the office," was a desk in the back premises
of the news-agent and fancy-goods-shop whence the
<i>Guardian</i> was distributed weekly.</p>
<p>Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of
his business to be well liked, and if there was a
good deal of humbug about him, he was still
excellent value to the <i>Guardian</i> for the twenty-one
shillings which the proprietors of that journal paid
him each week. One does not expect genius for
a guinea a week; not even the ability to write
English. But it is a mistake to suppose the latter
is ever required of a district reporter. The essential
qualifications are a working knowledge of shorthand
and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor
Smith was deficient in neither; certainly not in
the latter quality. He was generously impressed
with the magnitude of his importance, and had
chosen the Miltonic motto for his "Stratford Notes
and Comments":</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Give me the liberty to know, to think,
and to utter freely above all other
liberties.</span>"</p></div><p>
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 57]</span></p>
<p>He took this liberty whenever he knew that the
weight of local opinion tended in a certain direction.
At other times he was lavish in his use of complimentary
adjectives concerning every one he
wrote about, from the Mayor to the town crier.
No wonder he was popular.</p>
<p>The notes which appeared in the <i>Guardian</i>
during its reporter's holiday were from another
hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to
reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty
pen was at work again. It is one of the strangest
experiences that comes to the writing man—this
interest of the layman in anyone who writes
words that are printed. We seldom feel interested
in the personality of the man who made our
watch, but the fellow who wrote the report of the
tea-meeting we attended last week—ah, there's
something to stir the blood!</p>
<p>Now that they had met, these two, Henry was
throbbing with excitement to hear what his new
friend had to tell him of life and its wonders.
Nor was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the
youth.</p>
<p>"By Jove, London's the place," he observed to
Henry as he dug his teeth into a juicy tart—one
of many received that day in Henry's weekly
hamper from home. "London's the place! Just
fancy, I saw the huge building of the <i>Morning</i>
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 58]</span>
<i>Sunburst</i>, Johnnies at the door in livery, hundreds
of people running out and in; and the chap that
edits that paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week
reporter on that rag the <i>Stratford Times</i>, which
isn't a patch on the <i>Guardian</i>."</p>
<p>"He must be very clever."</p>
<p>"Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty
small beer in Stratford," pursued the lively Trevor,
helping himself to a third tart from Henry's
store. "Then there's Wilkins of the <i>Pictorial
Globe</i>, a glorious crib—fifteen hundred a year, I'll
bet. He used to run that rocky little rag-bag
the <i>Arden Advertiser</i>. You should see his office
in the Strand. By gum—a palace, my boy, a
palace!"</p>
<p>"But perhaps he knows all about pictures."</p>
<p>"Pictures! He doesn't know a wall-poster from
a Joshua Reynolds!"</p>
<p>"Then how do they get these grand situations?"</p>
<p>"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But,
I say, your mater knows how to make ripping
good fruit-cakes."</p>
<p>"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his
thoughts were far away, where Luck the Goddess
reigned. "And do you intend to go to London
some day—to stay, I mean?"</p>
<p>"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha!
as the heavy villain hath it. Everybody gets his
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 59]</span>
chance, don't you know. For all that, there's
many a jolly good journalist never gets a show
in Fleet Street. But what's the row?" he
exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet
and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out
in the evening quiet.</p>
<p>Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump
and hose being wheeled along the street from the
police station across the way, and a crowd of
youngsters running after it.</p>
<p>"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy,
by Jingo! Come along with me. There's ten
bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot,
and it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near
the station."</p>
<p>He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and
Henry hurried with him, intent on seeing the
journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a
brewery, and did considerable damage before it
was got under. In the excitement of the scene
Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to
point gleaning information, and looking quite
the most important figure present. He had got
ahead of Griffin, the <i>Times</i> reporter; his ten
shillings for duplicating reports to the daily
papers seemed likely enough. They were as
good as spent already—a new hat for one thing,
and some new neckties for another.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 60]</span></p>
<p>The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful.
He had been present throughout the scene, he
had seen the frightened horses being rescued from
the flaming stable, and had read about it all to
the extent of twenty lines in next morning's
<i>Birmingham Gazette</i>—twenty glowing lines from
the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith—twenty lines
in which the "conflagration" burned again.</p>
<p>He had tasted blood. This was better fun
than idling the hours away with Mr. Ephraim
Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a
disappointment.</p>
<p>Here was Life.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_61" id="Pg_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
<h3>IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Up</span> to the night of the fire, Henry had only been
dreaming of what he wished to do in the world of
work. Unless one of his age has had his fate
sharply settled for him by being placed at some
trade or profession—for which he is usually unsuited—by
the masterful action of his parents, he has,
at best, a nebulous vision of the path he will
pursue.</p>
<p>With natural instinct, and aided by the accident
of Edward John's business relations in Stratford,
Henry had looked to literature through the gateway
of the book-shop—of all, the most unlikely. But
he had been shorn speedily of his illusions in that
quarter.</p>
<p>A month in the establishment of Mr. Ephraim
Griggs had left him wondering if he were a footstep
nearer his goal than he had been before he bade
farewell to Hampton. If the Temple of Literature
which he had builded in his brain had not exactly
crumbled into nothingness, it was no longer possible
to rub shoulders with the slatternly Griggs and the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 62]</span>
insipid Pemble, and still to dream dreams such as
had held his mind when he determined to fare
forth an adventurer into the unknown realms of
Bookland.</p>
<p>The weeks dragged on wearily. So rude had
been Henry's experience of the second-hand book-shop,
in disgust he had almost concluded that
after all there was as much glory in his father's
business as in that of Mr. Griggs. Trevor Smith,
however, had appeared on the scene at an opportune
moment, and sent his thoughts off at a tangent.</p>
<p>Clearly, journalism was the high road to literature.
It enabled one to get into print, and that, at least,
was a great matter.</p>
<p>Already the agreeable Trevor could pose as
Henry's literary godfather. He had allowed him
to write one or two simple notes about the visit
of a circus to the town and the annual flower-show,
and these had actually appeared in type in
the <i>Guardian</i>.</p>
<p>The fact that Trevor had twice borrowed half-a-crown
from his fellow-lodger, and had twenty times
forgotten to repay, while he had also assimilated
innumerable examples of Mrs. Charles's baking, had
probably something to do with his readiness in
opening his columns to the youth. But that did
not in the least detract from the bursting joy with
which Henry read his own little paragraphs a score
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 63]</span>
of times; nor did Edward John suspect that the
first appearance of his young hopeful in the
splendour of print was due to such adventitious
aid.</p>
<p>Henry's masterpiece was a letter to the editor of
the <i>Guardian</i> protesting against the charge of
sixpence exacted for admission to view the grave
of Shakespeare. This was signed "Thespian," at
the suggestion of Trevor, who never by any chance
wrote of actors or of the theatre, but always of "sons
of Thespis," or of "the temple of Thespis." Quite a
lively correspondence ensued in the columns of the
paper, and it was a great delight to Henry that he
and Trevor Smith alone knew who the correspondents
were. Between them they did it all. Oh, Henry
was learning what journalism meant!</p>
<p>"Take my word for it, Henry, journalism's your
game," his merry mentor assured him. "That last
par of yours about the Christ Church muffin-struggle
is nearly as good as I could have done myself.
You're cut out for a journalist as sure as eggs is
eggs. All that you want is an opportunity to show
what's in you."</p>
<p>Yes, only the opportunity was awanting. And
how to get it?</p>
<p>"Look at me," Mr. Trevor Smith continued, "I
was only a common clerk in the <i>Guardian</i> office—a
common clerk, mind you—but I had the sense to
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 64]</span>
learn shorthand, and got the first opening as a
reporter—and here I am!"</p>
<p>He helped himself to a luscious pear from the stock
which Henry had just received from home that day.</p>
<p>Indeed, these little bursts of confidence usually
took place on the evening Henry's weekly hamper
arrived, but he had never noticed the coincidence.
A year or two later, perhaps, he might suspect there
had been some connection between the events;
meanwhile, his bump of observation had not been
abnormally developed.</p>
<p>To-night the reporter appeared especially concerned
for the welfare of his young friend, and it occurred
to him to ask if Henry had been trying his hand at
something more ambitious than mere paragraphs.
He blushingly admitted that he had.</p>
<p>"Then trot it out, my boy, and I'll tell you what
it's worth in a couple of ticks," said Trevor, quite
unconcerned as to the length or character of Henry's
"something."</p>
<p>It is Nature's way that the rawest youths and
maidens who desire to follow a literary career
invariably commence by writing essays on aspects
of life which world-worn men of fifty find impossible
to discuss with any approach to ripened knowledge.
Henry's unpublished manuscript now brought forth
of his trunk proved to be a very long and absurdly
grandiloquent essay on "Liberty."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 65]</span></p>
<p>Neither the subject nor the wordiness of the
manuscript dismayed the hopeful Trevor, who took
it in his hand and ran his eyes with lightning
rapidity over page after page.</p>
<p>"Ripping, my boy, ripping! That's the sort of
stuff to make the critics sit up."</p>
<p>Henry thrilled and reddened, but winced a
little when he heard his handiwork described as
"stuff."</p>
<p>"Really? Do you think anybody would care to
publish it?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Just the sort o' thing for the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>
or the <i>Quarterly</i>," Trevor assured him gaily, although
the rascal had never set eyes on either of these
reviews. "But I should hold it back a bit until you
have made your name, for the editors of these things
never give an unknown man a chance."</p>
<p>"Still, you think I ought to persevere?"</p>
<p>"Don't I just! I couldn't have written stuff like
that at your age for a mint of money. Take my
tip, young 'un, you've got it in you to make a name;
and when you're riding down Fleet Street in your
carriage and pair, don't forget your humble servant
who gave you the first leg-up. That phrase of yours
on the last page about liberty being born among the
stars and flying earthward to brighten all mankind
is worthy of Carlyle at his best."</p>
<p>"I always liked Carlyle; but I'll try very hard to
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 66]</span>
do something even better—I mean better than what
I've written."</p>
<p>"And, by-the-by, my dear Henry, do you think
you could stretch me another half-crown? I'm
rather rocky just now, but am expecting a tidy
sum for lineage next week," said Trevor, in an
off-hand way, and ignoring his friend's confusion,
as he lifted his hat and prepared to go out.</p>
<p>Henry stretched the half-crown—with difficulty,
for it meant a week's pocket-money—and when his
companion had left he executed a wild dance round
the table. Ambition had been fired within him
again. He determined that not even the Slough
of Despond, to which he likened the shop of Mr.
Griggs, would discourage him for a day in his
onward march to that City Beautiful where one's
life was spent in writing fine thoughts for mankind
to read and remember.</p>
<p>The difficulty remained: how to get the opportunity?
All the copy-book maxims of his boyhood
availed him nothing; all the stories of brave men
who seized opportunity instead of waiting for it to
turn up, inspired, encouraged, whispered of hope, but
did not bring the situation to a simpler issue.</p>
<p>Soon after this evening he determined to induce
Trevor to come down from his gorgeous generalisings
to plain facts.</p>
<p>"It is all very well to say my essay is so good, but
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 67]</span>
do you honestly think I should go on writing things
like that if I wish to become a journalist?"</p>
<p>It took something out of Henry to put it so
bluntly. Despite the familiar manner in which
Trevor addressed him, the youth, who was naturally
reticent, always spoke of him with deference due to
one of older years, and especially to one who was a
real live journalist. Henry, however, was gradually
losing his country shyness, and the fact that Mr.
Trevor Smith continued in his debt to the extent
of seven-and-sixpence encouraged him to greater
boldness in his dealings with that slippery gentleman.</p>
<p>"I confess that I have had enough of old Griggs.
There is nothing to learn from him, and I do think
I should like to get work on a newspaper. Is there
any chance of an opening on the <i>Guardian</i> at
Wheelton? I have been pegging in at my shorthand
for the last three weeks, you know."</p>
<p>"Well, since you put it that way, and since you
seem to be dead set on giving old Griggs the slip,
there is one thing you could do," Trevor admitted,
now that he had been asked to come down to hard
facts.</p>
<p>"What is that?" asked Henry eagerly.</p>
<p>"Get your gov'nor to shell out to old Spring,
and he'll take you on like a shot."</p>
<p>"Shell out?" said Henry, evidently not alive to
Trevor's slang. "What do you mean?"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 68]</span></p>
<p>"Why," returned his professional adviser, with
a smile at the rustic ignorance, "haven't you seen
advertisements in the daily papers something like
this: 'The editor of a well-known provincial
weekly has an opening for journalistic pupil.
Moderate premium. Small salary after first six
months'? There's your opportunity."</p>
<p>"Ah, I see the idea," said Henry, upon whom
a light had dawned.</p>
<p>"What do you say to that?" Trevor pursued.</p>
<p>"Yes, that might do, and no doubt dad would
'shell out,' as you call it. But is there any such
vacancy at present?"</p>
<p>"If there isn't, the Balmy One—that's another
of our pet names for Old Springthorpe, the
editor—will jolly soon make one, provided your
pater is ready with the dibs. Write your
gov'nor about it, and if he's open to spring
twenty-five golden quid, leave the rest to me."</p>
<p>To Henry the suggestion seemed a good one,
and he wondered that he had waited so long
before getting Trevor to bring the situation to
so practical an issue. The fact was, Mr. Smith
rather liked the fun of patronising the youth, to
say nothing of his share in the weekly hamper,
and Henry's willingness to render slight but
useful assistance by attending an occasional
meeting on his behalf. Accordingly, he had
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 69]</span>
not been anxious to lose his company too
soon.</p>
<p>To Edward John Charles his son's letter, with
its bold proposal, came with somewhat of surprise.
It had never occurred to him to couple the Press
with "Literatoor," but he said at once that if
Henry felt journalism was good enough for him,
why, he would help him to become an editor with
as much pleasure as he would have set him up
in the egg-and-butter trade, had he been so
minded.</p>
<p>Within a week the postmaster took another
journey to Stratford, and thence by train to
Wheelton, together with Henry, to interview Mr.
Martin Springthorpe, editor of the <i>Wheelton
Guardian</i>, to whom Mr. Charles carried a letter
of introduction from Trevor Smith, wherein that
gentleman averred he had taken great personal
interest in the literary work of Henry Charles,
and had even been able to make use of sundry
items from his pen. He commended him to Mr.
Springthorpe's best consideration.</p>
<p>Trevor had also taken the trouble to write
privily to his chief, saying that he thought Mr.
Charles would come down to the tune of five-and-twenty
pounds, and not to frighten him off
by asking more.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_70" id="Pg_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
<h3>WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Wheelton</span>, an industrial town of some importance,
lies less than an hour's journey by rail from Stratford.
It is not exactly a home of learning, nor has it given
any distinguished men to literature or science, but
it boasts four weekly newspapers and a small daily
sheet, which would appear to be more than the
inhabitants require in the shape of local reading
matter, for, with one exception, the newspapers of
the town have a hard struggle for existence.</p>
<p>At the time when Henry Charles and his father
made their first journey thither the journalistic
conditions were not quite so straitened, as the
evening paper and one of the weeklies had not
come to increase competition; but even then the
<i>Guardian</i> was the least successful of the three.</p>
<p>The office of Mr. Springthorpe's journal was
situated up a flight of narrow stairs, the shop on
the street front having been let to a pork-butcher
for the sake of the rent. On the first floor were
the editor's room, the reporters' room, and another
small apartment that served as the general office,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 71]</span>
and contained a staff of one weedy young man
with downy side-whiskers, and a perky little office
boy.</p>
<p>Up a further crazy stair the composing-room
was reached, and here five men and several boys
put into type what was sent from the rooms below.
The printing was done in premises on the ground
floor behind the pork-butcher's, extended by the
addition of a rather rickety wooden outbuilding.
By no means an establishment to impress a visitor
with the importance of the journal here produced,
or to give a beginner any exaggerated idea of the
dignity of journalism. Still, the massive gilt letters
proclaiming <span class="smcap">The Guardian</span> above the pork-butcher's
had the power to make Henry's blood
tingle when first he saw them.</p>
<p>Up the stair he followed his father, with much
fluttering of the heart, but reassured by the confident
and cheerful look on the face of Edward
John, who went about the business as outwardly
calm as if he were buying a fresh stock of
stationery.</p>
<p>The office-boy showed the visitors into a room
to the left of the counter, on the door of which the
pregnant word <span class="smcap">Editor</span>, printed in bold letters on
a slip of paper, had been pasted but recently,
judging by its cleanness, as contrasted with the
soiled appearance of everything else.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 72]</span></p>
<p>The editor's room was plainly furnished, not to
say shabbily, despite the fact that it figured
frequently in the <i>Guardian</i> gossip columns under
the attractive title of "The Sanctum." In the
middle of the floor stood a large writing-table, from
which the leather covering had peeled off, exposing
the wood beneath like a plane tree with its bark
half-shed. On the table lay, in picturesque confusion,
bundles of galley-slips, clippings from
newspapers, sheets of "copy" paper, all partially
secured in their positions by small slabs of lead as
paper-weights.</p>
<p>The waste-paper basket to the left of the table
had overflowed, and the floor around was strewn
with cut newspapers and crumpled sheets of manuscript.
On the walls hung two large maps, one
showing the railways of England and the other
the Midland counties. Above the fireplace a
printer's calendar was nailed. Three soiled and
battered haircloth chairs completed the furniture of
the room when we have added a damaged arm-chair,
cushioned with a pile of old papers. This was
the editor's chair. Its intrinsic value was probably
half-a-crown, but to the regular readers of
the <i>Guardian</i> it must have seemed as priceless
as the gold stool of Ashanti, for they were
accustomed to read two columns every week
headed "From the Editor's Chair."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 73]</span></p>
<p>The short, thick-set person, with the slightly
bald head and distinctly red nose above a heavy
black moustache, which trailed its way down each
side of a clean-shaven chin and drooped over into
space, was the editor himself. With a briar pipe,
burnt at one side, stuck in his mouth, and puffing
vigorously, he sat there in his shirt sleeves, and
his pen flew swiftly over the sheets of paper that
lay before him.</p>
<p>When Mr. Charles and his son entered, the
editor laid down his pipe and pen, and rising
from his chair, said in the most affable way:</p>
<p>"Ah, I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Charles;
and this is your son Henry, of whose ability I
have already heard."</p>
<p>Shaking hands with each, he pointed them to
seats and resumed his own.</p>
<p>"So Henry is ambitious of embarking on a
journalistic career," he remarked, as he lifted his
pipe again; adding, "I hope you don't mind my
smoking. I find a weed a great incentive to
thought."</p>
<p>Mr. Springthorpe always spoke like a leading
article, and it was noticed by those who knew
him best that on the occasions when his nose was
particularly ruddy and his utterance somewhat
thick, his flow of language and the stateliness
of his words were even more marked than when
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 74]</span>
one could not detect the odour of the tap-room
in his vicinity.</p>
<p>"Yes, 'Enry is anxious to get on a noospaper,"
Mr. Charles replied. "And Mr. Trevor Smith has
written this letter about him for you to read."</p>
<p>The editor reached out and took the letter with
a great show of interest, reading it carefully, as
though it were a document of much importance,
while Henry sat fumbling with his hat, conscious
that he had again arrived at a critical moment in
his career.</p>
<p>"This is very nattering indeed, Mr. Charles,"
said the editor at length, "and I attach great
weight to the opinion of Mr. Trevor Smith, who
is an able and promising member of my staff."</p>
<p>"Then you think that 'Enry might suit you?"</p>
<p>"I have little doubt that he would prove a
worthy addition to the ranks of journalism, and
if I had any urgent need of a new member on
my reportorial staff, I should willingly offer him
an engagement. But, as I think I explained to
you in my letter, I have not at present any
pressing need for literary assistance."</p>
<p>Henry's face clouded as he listened, but
brightened the next instant, when Mr. Springthorpe
continued:</p>
<p>"It would, however, be a pity not to hold out
the hand of encouragement to so bright a young
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 75]</span>
man as your son, and I should be delighted to
have the privilege of initiating him into the
mysteries of newspaper work if you are prepared
to pay a premium, and to let him serve the
first six months without salary."</p>
<p>"There need be no difficulty about that," said
Mr. Charles, "and I am prepared to pay you now
a reasonable sum for any trouble you will take
with him. How much would you expect?"</p>
<p>"Well, it all depends. I have had pupils who
have paid as much as a hundred pounds."
Edward John sighed, and Henry felt a tightening
at the throat. "Fifty is what I usually expect."
The visitors breathed more freely. "But I feel
that in Henry we have a young man of peculiar
aptitude, who would soon make himself a useful
colleague of my other assistants; and that being
so, I should be content with half the amount."</p>
<p>"That's a bargain, then," said Mr. Charles,
entirely relieved, as he took out his cheque-book
and filled up a cheque in favour of Mr. Martin
Springthorpe for twenty-five pounds. "Of course,
I s'pose you give 'im a salary after the first six
months," he added, when he handed the cheque to
the editor.</p>
<p>"I shall be only too happy to adequately
remunerate his services when the period of
probation is terminated," Mr. Springthorpe assured
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 76]</span>
him, placing the precious paper carefully in his
pocket-book.</p>
<p>"And when would you like me to begin, sir?"
asked Henry, who had scarcely opened his mouth
since entering the room, the editor's shrewd eye
for character, together with Mr. Trevor Smith's
valuable testimonial, being all that Mr. Springthorpe
had whereby to arrive at his flattering
estimate of the young man's brightness and
peculiar aptitude for journalism.</p>
<p>"Let me see, now—this is the 18th of July.
Suppose we say that you commence your duties
here on Monday, the 25th. How would that suit
you?"</p>
<p>"That would fit in nicely, 'Enry, my lad,
wouldn't it?" said Mr. Charles.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir," said the new reporter to the chief,
who had been bought with a price. "I could
start on that day, as there is nothing to keep me
at Stratford."</p>
<p>"Do you know anything of shorthand?" the
editor asked, as an afterthought.</p>
<p>"A little, sir; and I am studying it every night
just now."</p>
<p>"That's right, my boy, wire in at your shorthand;
a reporter is of little use without that
accomplishment. To one of your ability it will
be easy to acquire. I picked it up myself in a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 77]</span>
fortnight, and even now, although I seldom use
it, I could still take my turn at a verbatim with
the best of them."</p>
<p>The great business completed, Mr. Charles and
his son set out to look for lodgings for Henry,
being recommended to the mother of one of the
other reporters, who let apartments.</p>
<p>On the way back to Stratford, after having settled
this little matter, Edward John waxed as enthusiastic
as his son in picturing the possibilities which he had
thus opened up for Henry. "Tis money makes the
mare to go, my lad," he said. "Five-and-twenty
pounds is a goodish bit out o' my savings, but I've
always said you'd 'ave your chance, no matter what
it cost me."</p>
<p>"I hope that I'll be able to prove the money
hasn't been wasted, dad."</p>
<p>"I'm sure o' that, 'Enry—if you only wire in at
your work and show the editor the stuff that's in
you. Just fancy what old Miffin and the others will
say when they 'ear that 'Enry Chawles is a reporter
on the <i>Guardian</i>!"</p>
<p>"I mean to study very hard, get up my shorthand,
and to write as much as ever I can when I join the
staff. But of course I shan't stay in Wheelton all
my life. There's better papers than the <i>Guardian</i>,
you know."</p>
<p>"That's the true spirit, lad; always look ahead. If
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 78]</span>
I hadn't been looking ahead all these years, where
would the twenty-five pounds ha' come from, and
the money that's to keep you for the next six
months?"</p>
<p>"I'm sure I don't know what could have been
done without it. I don't think opportunities are as
plentiful as we are told."</p>
<p>Henry had learned a little since that day he rode
to Stratford with the carrier.</p>
<p>"Didn't think much of the office, though. Did
you, 'Enry?"</p>
<p>"No," he admitted somewhat unwillingly, "it
wasn't so fine as I had expected; but perhaps it
is as good as they need."</p>
<p>"And nobody needs anythink better than that,"
which summed up in a sentence Edward John's
philosophy of life and the secret of his financial
soundness.</p>
<p>The few days remaining to Henry in Stratford
went past all too slowly, despite the jubilation of Mr.
Trevor Smith at the success of his promising <i>protégé</i>,
and Henry's application to the study of shorthand,
with which most of his time at the book-shop had
been occupied of late. Mr. Griggs and Pemble he
left without a pang, the former still concerned about
his poultry, and the latter still cultivating his
moustache; but he was sorry to say good-bye to
Mrs. Filbert and the irrepressible Trevor, who would
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 79]</span>
have made the success of his proposal an excuse to
borrow a fourth half-crown, were it not that the
memory of the unpaid three had better not be
reawakened when Henry was going away.</p>
<p>His journey to Wheelton found him with hopes
scarcely so high as those he had cherished on his
way to Stratford some three months before, but
he was at least fortified with some measure of that
common sense which only rises in the mind as the
illusions of youth begin to sink.</p>
<p>It was not thought necessary for him to revisit
Hampton Bagot before removing to Wheelton—his
face was still turned away from home. Thus far he
had been marking time merely; but now he was on
the march in earnest.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_80" id="Pg_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
<h3>AMONG NEW FRIENDS</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Saturday</span>, the 23rd of July, will always
remain a red-letter day in the history of Henry
Charles. Even at this distance of time he could
doubtless recall every feature of the day as the
train that carried him steamed into the station.
The languorous atmosphere of a hot summer afternoon,
the steady drizzle of warm rain, the flood of
water around a gutter-grating in Main Street, caused
by a collection of straw and rotten leaves—even that
will always appear when a vision of the day arises
before his memory. The station platform had been
freshly strewn with sawdust on account of the
weather, and the pungent smell of that is not
forgotten. Thus it is that the commonest features
of our surroundings, noted under exceptional circumstances,
are automatically registered for ever by our
senses.</p>
<p>Edgar Winton, the reporter at whose home Henry
was to lodge, had undertaken to meet his new
colleague at the station, and pilot him to the house.
But by some mischance he was not there, and the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 81]</span>
young adventurer stood for a moment lonely and
disappointed, while the train in which he had
travelled continued on its journey.</p>
<p>His belongings, however, were not embarrassing,
and for all his fragile looks Henry was still robust
as any country lad. Nor did his sense of dignity
come between him and the shouldering of his load
up the steep and shabby main street of the town,
and along sundry shabbier by-streets to the semi-genteel
district of Woodland Road, where at
No. 29 was the home of the Wintons.</p>
<p>Mrs. Winton seemed to be as amiable a landlady
as good Mrs. Filbert, and more refined. Henry felt
at once that so far as home-life was concerned his
lines had fallen again in pleasant places. He had
now risen to the dignity of a separate room, small
indeed, and almost crowded with the single iron
bedstead, the tiny dressing-table and chair, which,
together with a few faded chromographs on the walls,
made up its entire furnishing. It was on the second
storey of the house, which had only two flats, and
looked across a kitchen-garden to the back of a row
of still smaller houses. By way of wardrobe accommodation,
the back of the door was generously
studded with hooks for hanging clothes. For the
privilege of sleeping here Edward John had agreed
to pay on behalf of his son the weekly sum of four
shillings, and Mrs. Winton was to cook such food
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 82]</span>
as Henry required, charging only the market
prices.</p>
<p>As it was late afternoon when Henry had reached
his lodging, and Edgar was expected home for tea
at five o'clock, Mrs. Winton's new guest, after a
somewhat perfunctory toilet, descended to the
parlour to await the coming of his fellow-worker.
A copy of the <i>Guardian</i> for that week lay on the
easy chair in which the landlady asked Henry to
rest himself, and he was presently reading with
close attention the weighty observations of his
future chief, who spoke "From the Editor's Chair"
like any pope <i>ex cathedra</i>.</p>
<p>Mrs. Winton having removed the vase of dusty
"everlasting flowers," which stood <i>solus</i> in the middle
of the faded green serge cloth that covered the
oval table, and spread on the latter a cloth of
snowy linen, busied herself in arranging the tea
things.</p>
<p>Henry noted that cups and saucers were set for
five, and as he only knew of four in the household,
including Edgar's father and himself, he fell to
wondering who the fifth might be. Undoubtedly
his powers of observation had been sharpened from
contact with the Stratford representative of the
<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
<p>The preparations for the evening meal had just
been completed when the outer door was opened,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 83]</span>
and Edgar, a fresh-complexioned young fellow of
nineteen, arrived, full of apologies for having been
unable to meet his guest, as he had been unexpectedly
called upon to attend an inquest at the
"Crown" Inn.</p>
<p>"And an interesting case it is, by Jove!" he
exclaimed brightly. "A man has shuffled off this
mortal coil by—what d'you think?"</p>
<p>"Poison or a razor," suggested Henry, out of the
fulness of his knowledge of poor humanity.</p>
<p>"Nothing so common for Johnnie Briggs the
bookie. Everybody knows Johnnie, and he meant
to make a noise when he snuffed out. Up to the
eyes in debt, I fancy. He has choked himself with
a leather boot-lace, and Wiggins in the High Street
is as proud as Punch because it was one of his
laces. Isn't it funny?"</p>
<p>"It's very horrible," said Henry, who could not
help showing in his looks the feeling of disgust
aroused within him by Edgar's levity in speaking
of so bad an occurrence.</p>
<p>"Horrible! Why, I think it's stunning, and old
Spring will be as mad as a march hare because
Johnnie didn't perform his dramatic exit in time
for this week's edition of the <i>Guardian</i>. The
<i>Advertiser</i> will be out next Wednesday with full
details, and we don't appear till Friday. It's
always the way; that Wednesday rag gets all the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 84]</span>
spicy bits. But there, don't let us start talking
shop all at once. I'm famished. How are you?"</p>
<p>But before Henry could describe his condition, a
bright young woman of some eighteen years had
entered the parlour, to be introduced unceremoniously
as "My sister Flo—Mr. Henry Charles."</p>
<p>Here, then, was number five, and a very acceptable
tea-table companion, thought Henry, though the
blushing and mumbling with which he said how
pleased he was to meet her showed him to be as
awkward in the presence of the fair sex as he was
new to the jargon of journalism. He dared hardly
lift his eyes to look the new-comer in the face, but
on her part there was no evidence of shyness.</p>
<p>Over the tea-cups—for Mr. and Mrs. Winton had
now come in, and all were seated at the table—Henry
began to feel more at home among the
family, and Mr. Winton proved to be a quiet, homely
person, though Henry noticed that Edgar lost to
some extent his high spirits when his father came
on the scene. Evidently the Wintons were people
"in reduced circumstances," for both the father and
mother showed signs of superior breeding.</p>
<p>"I hope you will get on all right at the <i>Guardian</i>,"
Mr. Winton remarked. "You won't be short of
work, if Edgar is a sample. He's always slogging
away at something. If it's not the police courts,
it's a political meeting, or a—"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 85]</span></p>
<p>"Tea-fight, dad."</p>
<p>"Slang again, Eddie," put in Flo.</p>
<p>"Yes. Edgar delights in these flippancies; his
trade seems to induce that," said Mrs. Winton.
"Will you pass your cup, Mr. Charles?"</p>
<p>As Henry handed his cup to Flo, almost dropping
it in the excitement of being dubbed "Mister," Edgar
took up his mother's words, and exclaimed, with
simulated indignation:</p>
<p>"Trade! Who calls it a trade? Remember,
mater, that journalism is a profession—the Fourth
Estate!"</p>
<p>"There's not much profession about attending
inquests on suicides, and writing about the drunks
and disorderlies," Flo remarked, fearless of her
brother's displeasure.</p>
<p>"Come, come now," interposed Mr. Winton, who
had not spoken since Edgar broke in upon his
remarks. "You mustn't give our young friend too
low an opinion of his new business," and turning
to Henry, he remarked: "It is your first appointment,
is it not?"</p>
<p>"Yes, I have only done some odds and ends for
the <i>Guardian</i> when at Stratford. Of course, I'm
hoping to do some good work here, but we must do
the small things before we are able to do the great
ones, I think."</p>
<p>A long speech for Henry to make before
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 86]</span>
company, and not performed without an
effort.</p>
<p>"True, indeed, for only those who can do the little
things well can do the great things well," was Mr.
Winton's comment.</p>
<p>"And I was only joking," added Flo, looking
archly at Henry, whose eyes immediately contemplated
the lessening liquid in his cup. "Journalism
is all very well, I'm sure, but newspaper fellows are
so conceited that I think we need to take some of
the side off them."</p>
<p>"Who's talking slang now?" from Edgar.</p>
<p>"Well, it may be slangy, but it's true; and I hope
Mr. Charles won't fall into the habit of talking as if,
because a man writes paragraphs in a printed paper,
he knows more than Solomon."</p>
<p>"I'm afraid I know very little, Miss Winton. I'm
here to learn." Oh, Henry was becoming quite a
tea-table success.</p>
<p>"And I'm sure we hope you will find your new
work up to your expectations. I have never met
Mr. Springthorpe myself," said Mr. Winton, as he
rose and retired to the living-room, which was
half-kitchen, to smoke his evening pipe, while Flo
helped her mother to clear away the tea-things
and restore the dusty immortelles to their place
of honour.</p>
<p>"The dad says he has never met Mr. Springthorpe,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 87]</span>
and a good thing for his idea of journalism. Not
that old Spring doesn't strike you well enough
at first meeting; but you'll soon find him out,"
Edgar said to Henry when they were alone in
the parlour.</p>
<p>"He seemed very considerate, I thought, when
my father and I called on him. A little pompous,
perhaps."</p>
<p>"Oh, you've noticed that! You'll see more of it
by-and-by. But he can be wonderfully considerate
when there is a nice little premium attached to a
new pupil. Your pater must have come down
handsome on the spot, for the Balmy One has
been swaggering around in a new frock-suit and
shiny topper since you were engaged. Let me
be frank with you, and tell you at once that you
needn't expect anything of value out of our gorgeous
chief. What you learn you'll have to pick up
from Bertram and myself, and from Yardley the
sub."</p>
<p>"I understood that I was really Mr. Springthorpe's
pupil."</p>
<p>"You're not the first that understood that; but
really it doesn't matter, for you'll get there all the
same, as they say in the song. You'll have lots to
do and you'll soon learn, but don't fancy old Spring
is going to sit down and teach you. His duty ends
when he converts your premium into clothing for the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 88]</span>
outer, and refreshment for the inner man. A good
sort, but fond o' the bottle, like so many clever
journalists."</p>
<p>"And were you a pupil also before you became
a full reporter?"</p>
<p>"Not on the <i>Guardian</i>. I served six months as a
junior on the <i>Advertiser</i>, and received the order of
the sack at the end of that time, as they had no
further use for services which had begun to require a
weekly fifteen bob. Luckily, the <i>Guardian</i> was in a
hole at the time, both the chief reporter and his
assistant having given notice, and the pupil then
flourishing was a hopeless youngster, who has since
returned to the business of his father, who is in the
aerated water trade. So I was engaged at once, and
on the noble salary of fifteen bob a week I remain to
this day, although I was promised an increase at the
end of twelve months, and I have been on the staff
for sixteen. I occasionally pick up a bit of lineage,
and that helps to pan out, you know; but I'm only
hanging on until something better turns up elsewhere,
and then good-bye to the <i>Guardian</i>. My
ambition is Birmingham."</p>
<p>"Birmingham! Wouldn't you rather like to get to
London?"</p>
<p>"Who wouldn't? But I have the sense to know
I'm not cut out for Fleet Street. In any case, no
London editor would look at a man from Wheelton.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 89]</span>
You must have experience on a good provincial
daily before thinking of London Town."</p>
<p>"I'm surprised, for Mr. Trevor Smith told me of
many London editors who used to be on local papers
like—our own."</p>
<p>"Trevor Smith is an ass. He knows as much
about journalism as a monkey knows of algebra.
He can't write for nuts. Most of his copy has to
be rewritten by Yardley before it's fit to print."</p>
<p>Henry heard this unflattering description of his
friend with some dismay, but remembered that
Trevor had given him a very similar account of
Edgar. He was beginning to know something of
that brotherly feeling which always exists between
fellow-craftsmen.</p>
<p>Winton showed himself very companionable, and
in the evening took Henry for a walk round the
town, in the course of which they visited the police
station, where he was introduced as "the new
<i>Guardian</i> man." This connection between the Press
and the Police was one to which Henry would yet
learn to attach much importance.</p>
<p>On the Sunday he attended church with Mr.
Winton and Edgar in the morning, and would have
gone again in the evening if Edgar and his father
had been so disposed, but it seemed to be the rule
of the house for the female side to attend the evening
service, as in the morning they were engaged in
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 90]</span>
household duties. Edgar confessed to Henry that
he didn't reckon much of church-going, and only
went to please the dad. He further avowed that
he thought religion a lot of rot, and that most
journalists were atheists. He had heard that
George Augustus Sala believed in eternal punishment,
but that was about all the religion he knew
of among knights of the pen.</p>
<p>Henry, who had been reared in the quiet atmosphere
of a church-loving home, and had never
listened to doubts about religion, heard Edgar's
opinions with some dismay, but did not venture
to dispute them. He had an uneasy feeling that
the more he saw of men the less they justified his
ideals, and he began to wonder whether, if he had
to let slip his illusions of daily life, he would not
also have to modify his religious convictions.</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_91" id="Pg_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
<h3>THE YOUNG JOURNALIST</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">With</span> the morning, however, Henry was fresh for
the fray again. The prospects of his first day in
active journalism swept away all doubts and
misgivings.</p>
<p>Edgar having to attend the Monday police court,
which was always fat with drunks and wife-beaters,
Henry was left to make his way to the <i>Guardian</i>
office himself.</p>
<p>On his arrival there he found the office-boy
descending the stairs by using the railing as a slide,
at the end of which he fell somewhat heavily on the
door-mat, but picked himself up and smiled at Henry
in proof that no bones were broken. Upstairs, the
weedy young man with downy whiskers, who bore
on his narrow shoulders the full weight of the
<i>Guardian's</i> commercial affairs, was at work on the
morning's letters. He looked up as Henry entered,
and inquired his business.</p>
<p>"Is Mr. Springthorpe in?" the new reporter
asked.</p>
<p>The clerk was surprised for a moment to hear
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 92]</span>
the editor's name mentioned thus early in the day.
Then he answered:</p>
<p>"No, he is rather irregular in his hours. He
may not arrive till eleven or twelve to-day!"</p>
<p>"It's only ten o'clock now," said Henry, as
though he were thinking aloud. He would never
try to play Monte Cristo again, and Winton had
told him that Mr. Springthorpe was never assiduous
in his office attendance.</p>
<p>"But I expect Mr. Yardley soon," the clerk
continued. "Are you Mr. Charles?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Shall I go to the reporters' room?"</p>
<p>The clerk opened the door for him, and he
entered on the scene of his future labours. A long
table of plain wood, cut and hacked by knives on
the edges, stood in the centre of the floor, and
around it were four cane-chairs, all of different shapes.
The floor was covered by worn-out oilcloth, the
walls were dingy, the ceilings blistered like a water-biscuit.
A single gasalier, carrying two burners,
hung from the roof and served to light the table, on
which lay a few bundles of copy-paper, two ink-pots,
and some pens. The only other furniture in the
room was a small bookcase half-filled with volumes,
most of which were tattered, and some without
binding, having reached that condition, not so much
from frequent reference as from occasional use in
a game wherein the reportorial staff tried to keep
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 93]</span>
two books flying round the room from hand to
hand without falling—a game that was never
successful. A bundle of unopened newspapers, in
postal wrappers, lay at the window-end of the
table, and also a few letters.</p>
<p>Presently the door was opened and Mr. Wilfrid
Yardley, sub-editor, stepped in. He was a man
of sallow complexion, with very black hair and
dark, restless eyes that suggested worry. He wore
a light yellowish summer suit and a straw hat.
For a moment he paused on seeing Henry, who,
as he entered, was examining the literary treasures
in the bookcase.</p>
<p>"Good morning!" he said. "You are Mr. Charles,
I suppose?" and he held out his hand to Henry.
"You are early. The reporters have no hours.
I'm the only one on the literary staff who is
chained to the desk."</p>
<p>He took off his hat and jacket, exchanging the
latter for a ragged thing that hung on one of the
pegs along the wall. Then he seated himself at
the end of the table, and commenced opening the
newspapers that lay there. All the while his eyes
flitted about in his head as if he feared that someone
would pounce on him unawares. Evidently a
quiet fellow and a conscientious worker, but a trifle
too nervous to have much character.</p>
<p>"Mr. Springthorpe has not fixed any work for
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 94]</span>
you?" he said to Henry, with questioning eyebrows,
while slitting an envelope.</p>
<p>"No, nothing has been arranged. I suppose
I'm to do anything that turns up."</p>
<p>"Bertram—that is our chief reporter—will want
you to help him, I suppose. But I'm sure I could
do with assistance. You can't learn too much,
however, so just try your hand here," and he
marked several items in a daily paper referring
to happenings in the Midland counties. "Try to
rewrite those pars, keeping in all the facts, but
only using about one-third of the space in each
case. Sit down in that chair there, and perhaps
you'll find a pen that suits you among those,
though I never can."</p>
<p>Henry acquitted himself very well according to
Mr. Yardley, and found the latter so considerate
in his advice that he immediately conceived a
liking for him.</p>
<p>After all, Trevor Smith and Edgar Winton were
raw youths, but here was a man of thirty-five at
least, and there was no "side" about him. He
seemed capable and intelligent. Why, then, did
he stick in Wheelton? Would Henry only reach
a similar post when he was his age? These
thoughts came to him as he watched the earnest
face of Yardley poring over reporters' copy,
"licking it into shape," sucking the while at his
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 95]</span>
briar pipe. Such thoughts are not pleasant, but
they must come to every youth who aspires to
make a success of life, and they will for a moment
damp his enthusiasm, unless he has the perception
which tells him that no two men's careers are
alike, and that every man carries within himself the
qualities that make for success or failure. But
Yardley may not have thought himself a failure,
and there's the rub.</p>
<p>When the editor arrived he showed no overweening
interest in Henry, but warmly commended
him for the work he had done under the subeditor's
eye, and urged him to make the most
of his opportunities, without telling him how.
Undoubtedly Winton had described the situation
accurately to Henry—Mr. Springthorpe's interest
ended when he pocketed the premium.</p>
<p>Bertram, the chief reporter, proved to be a
person with distinct family resemblance to Trevor
Smith, and was probably about twenty-eight years
of age. He shared the editor's weakness for looking
upon the wine when it is red, but always managed
to get through the work required of him. Without
possessing qualities of the slightest distinction, he
had achieved a reputation in various newspaper
offices as "a clever fellow if he'd only keep
straight."</p>
<p>This is, perhaps, not peculiar to journalism, and
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 96]</span>
if we inquire into the characters of many who are
reputed to be exceptionally endowed, but imperil
their success by unsteady habits, we shall find that
in most cases their abilities are below the average
of the steady plodder, who is seldom described as
clever, simply because the shadow of unsteadiness
never falls on his life as a background for the
better display of such qualities as he possesses.
The fact is, that your "clever fellow if he'd only
keep sober" is a very ordinary fellow, whose ever-changing
employers are apt to over-estimate his
abilities during a decent spell of sobriety.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>It is doubtful if it would be to the advantage of
our story to dwell at any length on the next few
months of Henry's life. The newspaper office in
which he found himself was typical of hundreds in
the English provinces, no better nor worse. The
existence of the <i>Guardian</i> was one constant struggle
to increase a small circulation and add to the
advertising revenue of the paper. To the latter
end the services of the reporters were frequently
required, and puffs of tradesmen had to be written
whenever there was a chance of securing thereby
a new advertisement. All the petty details of local
life had to be reported at great length, even to the
wedding presents received by the daughter of an
undertaker in a small way of business. These were
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 97]</span>
actually displayed with the names of their donors
in separate lines, following the report of the marriage
ceremony, which included a full description of the
bride's dress, with the name of the local dressmaker
who had made it.</p>
<p>The pettiness of it all was rudely borne in upon
the young reporter when it came to his knowledge
that the item—"Purse from Servant of Bride's
Mother"—represented an expenditure of eleven-pence
three-farthings on the part of a faithful
domestic thirteen years of age.</p>
<p>As an off-set against these experiences, Henry
had made one great upward move. In a moment
of audacity, which he must recall with wonder, he
ventured to write a leading article and to swagger
the editorial "we." It so happened that when he
presented this to the editor, that worthy, having
had a bibulous week and being short of copy,
pronounced it good, and printed it with a few
alterations. As it was Mr. Springthorpe's aim to
do a minimum of work each week, he generously
encouraged the youth to further editorial effort, with
the result that Henry "we'd" pretty frequently in
the leading columns of the <i>Guardian</i>. He was the
first "pupil" who had ever shown any marked
ability, and Springthorpe was secretly proud of
him.</p>
<p>As the six months wore away, Henry began to
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 98]</span>
hope that he might be added to the permanent
staff, but neither Bertram nor Edgar showed signs
of departing, and the prospects of his receiving a
salaried position remained low. To the surprise of
his colleagues, however, and against all precedent,
he was not ejected at the end of his six months,
but actually received a salary of half-a-guinea a
week, accompanied, however, by the information
that he would do well to look elsewhere for a
situation at his leisure.</p>
<p>Now commenced a strenuous time of replying to
advertisements in the <i>Daily News</i>. For a while never
a sign came back from those doves of his which went
forth trembling, but in the spring of the year after
his going to Wheelton, there came a reply from
the manager of one of the two daily papers at the
large and important Midland town of Laysford,
asking Henry to come and see him with reference
to his application for the post of editorial assistant.</p>
<p>The plan of submitting specimens of his work,
backed by an eloquent testimonial from Mr.
Springthorpe, had at length succeeded, and to the
amazement of the staff, Henry returned from the
interview entitled to regard himself as assistant
editor of the <i>Laysford Leader</i>. To this day the
event is talked of at the office of the <i>Guardian</i>,
but it is never recorded that important factors in
bringing it about were the pressing need of the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 99]</span>
<i>Leader</i> to have a new assistant at a week's notice,
and the growing desire of Mr. Springthorpe to save
half-a-guinea on the weekly expenses of the
<i>Guardian</i>. Moreover, Henry had named a salary
five shillings less than the only other likely
candidate.</p>
<p>From such sordid circumstances do events of
life-importance spring.</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_100" id="Pg_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
<h3>WHAT THE NECKTIE TOLD</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> grey-blue reek of Hampton Bagot is curling
up into the azure sky. From the hill on which
the church stands the little village lies snug like
a bead on a chain—the London Road—in a jewel-case
of billowy satin: green Ardenshire. A haunt
of ancient peace this August day. The only noises
are the pleasant rattle of a reaping-machine and
the musical tinkle of an anvil, while now and again
the petulant ring of a cyclist's bell reaches the ear
of the lounger on the hill, and thrills some honest
cottager with the hope that the ringer may rest at
her house for tea.</p>
<p>The faint sound of a far whistle reminds us
that time has passed since we last stood in
Hampton's one street: a mile and a half away,
the station, which is to advertise the name of the
village to travelling humanity for ever, has been
finished, and several times each day trains to and
from Birmingham condescend to pause in their
puffing progress at the tiny platform. But most of
them go squealing through, indignant at finding
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 101]</span>
such a contemptible little station on <i>their</i> line. The
stationmaster-porter-ticket-collector and his junior
are not overworked—or else they could not play so
long with the latter's terrier, who is the liveliest
member of the staff. But there are a few tickets
to be taken every day, a few carriage-doors to be
shut, a few whistles to blow, a few throbs of
importance for the young official.</p>
<p>We know of one passenger who is to arrive
this Saturday afternoon; at least, they are expecting
him at Hampton Bagot.</p>
<p>The station has made no difference to the village.
Certainly none to the figure at the Post Office door.
The smile might have been registered, the tilt of
the coat-tails patented. Edward John Charles has
not altered a hair, although it is almost six years
since we last saw him wagging his tails here.</p>
<p>"You're expectin' 'im 'ome to-day, Ed'ard John,
I 'ear," the inefficient Miffin observes as he crosses
to the Charles establishment for an ounce of shag.</p>
<p>"Yes, and about time, I think. Why, he ain't
been through this door for two year, and last time
'e could on'y stay four days."</p>
<p>"In moi opinion, them youths what goes to the
cities learns to despise their 'umble 'omes," Miffin
commented, with a sad fall of the eyes. "Now, if
I 'ad a son 'e'd 'ave to stay at 'ome, and take up
'is fether's trade."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 102]</span></p>
<p>"But you ain't got a son, Miffin, and that's all
the difference. If there was a young Miffin, why,
you're just the man to ha' been proud o' 'im makin'
'is way in the world. Mind you, Hampton ain't
the on'y place under the sun."</p>
<p>"It'll be strange for 'Enry to come to the station,"
said Miffin, adroitly diverting the drift of the talk;
for he was touchy on the subject of children,
being as discontented because he had none as
most of the village folk were because they had so
many.</p>
<p>"He says it's going to bring 'im often back to
us, and I believe he means it."</p>
<p>"Well, it's to be 'oped 'e'll never regret leavin'
'ome," was the last croak of the gloomy tailor, as
he rammed home a charge of shag into his burnt
cherry-wood pipe with his claw-like forefinger, and
stepped back to his flat irons.</p>
<p>Edward John chuckled contentedly. Miffin was
a constant entertainment to him. He had a
suspicion that the tailor had been appointed by
Providence to prevent his becoming unduly puffed
up about his talented son.</p>
<p>Just in time for tea, the subject of their conversation
jumped down from the butcher's gig in
which he had travelled from the station. His
father welcomed him with a sedate shake of the
hand; his sisters three ran to him and were
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 103]</span>
shyly kissed. How our sisters shoot straight into
womanhood with the gathering up of their back
hair and the lengthening of their frocks! A
brotherly kiss after two years to a sister who
may have another young man to kiss her, produces
shyness in the least self-conscious of young men.</p>
<p>In the parlour Henry found his mother, still the
timid, withered little woman he had always known
her, busy setting the tea, her curl-papers still eloquent
of her household toils. He was conscious of the
curl-papers for the first time as he kissed her
dry lips. The near view of the papers offended
some new feeling within him. He was strangely
tempted to pluck them out.</p>
<p>There was a great change to be noted in the
appearance of the only Henry. It was four years
since he had left Wheelton, almost six since he
went away to Stratford, and Laysford especially
stamps its character on its residents.</p>
<p>"Bless me, 'Enry, but you're growing all to legs,
like a young colt," his father remarked, as he
seated himself and took a smiling survey of his
son, who was given the honour of the arm-chair;
a fact that marked another stage in his upward
career. "All to legs, my boy!"</p>
<p>"But there's lots of time to fill out yet, dad.
I weigh ten stone eleven."</p>
<p>"Mostly bones, eh?"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 104]</span></p>
<p>"But I feel all right."</p>
<p>"You look it, my lad; and between you an' I,
I'd rather have your bones than my beef!"</p>
<p>"I hope you have always remembered to wear
flannel next your skin, Henry?" his mother
ventured to ask, in the hilarious moment which
her husband was enjoying as the meed of his
merry thought.</p>
<p>"Oh, I'm all right, mother! Don't worry about
me. Wear flannel next the skin, drink cod-liver
oil like water, and am never without a chest-protector
on the hottest day."</p>
<p>His sisters laughed, but doubted their ears.
Henry had never been jocular. Evidently the
neat cut of his summer suit, the elegant tie, were
not the only things Laysford had endowed him
with.</p>
<p>"Your mother always was coddling you up as a
boy. She forgets that you're a man now. Why,
your moustache is big enough for a Frenchie. Don't
it get into the tea? I never could abide a moustache.
It's one of they furrin ideas."</p>
<p>"My moustache is rather admired, dad," said
Henry brightly, glancing slily at his sisters.</p>
<p>"Hark at the lad.... By whom?"</p>
<p>"Ladies ... perhaps!"</p>
<p>Oh, Henry, you might have broken it more
gently! Edward John smiled and called him "a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 105]</span>
young dog"; his mother's face clouded for a
moment, and brightened; the girls understood—at
least Dora, who was nineteen, and Kit, who was
two years younger, understood—and laughed. Milly
was only a maiden of bashful fifteen.</p>
<p>"It's simply wonnerful, 'Enry, how you've
smartened up since you were 'ome two years ago.
Your second two years have done more for you
than the first," said Edward John, buttering his
bread at the tea-table.</p>
<p>"Glad you think so, dad. But I say, mother,
it's funny to be buttering my own bread again; I
haven't buttered any since I was at home last."</p>
<p>"When I was in London I never buttered a bit.
All done for you. Wonnerful how they encourage
laziness in the city." Edward John had need to
remind them that he had been to London; for
Henry had actually spent two summer holidays
there instead of coming to Hampton, and the
glory of his father's visit was in danger of being
tarnished.</p>
<p>"Still thinking o' going to London some day
for good, I suppose?" he went on.</p>
<p>"Oh, of course; but the fact is that the more I
learn of journalism the more difficult London seems.
It is all plain sailing at eighteen; but at twenty-two
... well, I'm just beginning to think I'm not
a heaven-born genius, dad."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 106]</span></p>
<p>"But it ain't what you think about yourself that
matters."</p>
<p>"That's just what does matter—in journalism. I've
learned one great thing since leaving home. The
world takes a man pretty much at his own valuation.
A fool who takes himself seriously is like to be taken
seriously by other fools, and you know how many
fools there are in England according to Carlyle."</p>
<p>"Well, then, if you are a fool, try it," retorted
the postmaster merrily.</p>
<p>"But a wise man, who thinks himself a fool, is
likely to be thought a fool by—"</p>
<p>"Wise men?"</p>
<p>"Perhaps by them also; but certainly by the
fools, who are in the majority."</p>
<p>"Nonsense, my lad! Was it for this I paid that
Springthorpe fellow five-and-twenty pounds?"</p>
<p>"Henry's only joking, dad," Dora suggested.
Her sense of humour was not magnetic.</p>
<p>"A jest in earnest, Dora; for the more one learns
the less one knows."</p>
<p>An amazing fellow: a veritable changeling this
Henry! His mother watched him almost like a
stranger.</p>
<p>"Rank heresy, now, you're talking. I wunner
what old Mr. Needham would say to that?"
exclaimed his father, who had a fear that his son
had grown a trifle conceited.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 107]</span></p>
<p>"That I had learned a lot since you wanted him
to tackle me on Virgil. But I like my work for all
that; in fact, because of it. It is about the only
kind of work in which one is learning every day;
and I'm beginning to think that the real fun of life
is not the knowledge of things so much as the
getting to know them."</p>
<p>"Well, look 'ere, 'Enry. You're dragging your
poor old father out into deep waters, an' you know
he can't swim. You're talking like one of your
articles. For I read 'em all that you mark with
blue pencil, and your mother keeps 'em, even when
she's hard up for paper to light the fire."</p>
<p>Henry wondered in his heart if, at a pinch, she
would have used one for her curl-papers. He
noticed just then, for the first time in his life, that
the parlour of his old home was very small; the
ceiling was so low that he found himself almost
choking for breath when he looked up.</p>
<p>Dora and her mother were clearing away the
tea-dishes, and Henry went upstairs to the bedroom
where he would sleep with his father. The old
nest had altered in a hundred ways, although none
but Henry knew that. He had once been a bird
of the brood here, but he had taken wings away,
and to return for a fortnight once in two years
was only to realise how far his wings had carried
him. Henry had been born here, the people that
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 108]</span>
he loved the best of all were still living here in
the old home—his old home. Yet it could never
be anything but his <i>old</i> home now. We talk about
returning home; but really we never do so. Once
we leave the home of our boyhood and youth, we
never return again. It is seldom we wish to go
back to the old life; and when the wish is there,
Fate is usually against its fulfilment.</p>
<p>Henry Charles had certainly altered in a bewildering
variety of ways since we first made his
acquaintance. Then a tall, sallow youth of sixteen,
ungainly in limb and not well-featured, his nose
unshapely, his mouth too large, but a pair of dark
eyes gleaming with spirit to light up the homeliness
of the face. Now, a man—oh, the few short years,
the tiny bridge across the chasm, the bridge we never
pass again!—a man: tall as a dragoon, leggy, it is
true, as the shrewd eye of his father had judged;
but no longer thin to veritable lantern jaws, rather
a promise of ample fleshing, and a nose that had
sharpened itself into an organ not uncomely of
outline. This changing of the nose is one of the
most curious of our few tadpole resemblances. His
mouth might still be large, but a glossy moustache
hides many an anti-Cupid pair of lips, which a few
passes of the razor would unmask to set the dear
boy flying. Henry's hair was raven black and
ample—perilously near to disaster for a hero. But
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 109]</span>
we must have the truth in this narrative, cost what
it may.</p>
<p>As he stood in the bedroom, brushing his hair
and bending carefully to avoid knocking his head
against the ceiling, which sloped steeply to the
dormer window, where stood the looking-glass on its
old mahogany table with the white linen cover, Henry
presented the picture of a wholesome young
Englishman, proud of brain rather than muscle,
and differing therein from the ruck of his fellows,
but joining hands with them again in the careful
touch to his hair, the neat collar, the pretty necktie.</p>
<p>Now, the moment a young man begins to look
to his neckties, unless he is a mere dude, there is a
reason for it. Henry Charles was impossible miles
from dudeism; <i>ergo</i>, there was a reason for his
lingering at the looking-glass.</p>
<p>He had been slower than the average young man
to awaken to the fact that for most male beings
still unmated, there is some young lady deeply
interested in his neckties and the cut of his coat.
But he had awakened, and now the difficulty was
to know which young lady: there seemed to be so
many in Laysford who took an interest in the clever
young assistant editor of the <i>Leader</i>. To be on the
safe side, it was well to be observant of the sartorial
conventions, even while in the inner recesses of the
literary mind disdaining them.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 110]</span></p>
<p>That is Henry's state of mind when we see him
after tea at the mirror in the camceiled bedroom. If
it surprises you, remember that it is four years
since you met him last, and many things can happen
in that time. How do we know what has happened
to him? His necktie tells us something, doesn't it?
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_111" id="Pg_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
<h3>VIOLET EYES</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">When</span> Henry was seated alongside the carrier that
fateful morning long ago—Henry, you must be
more than twenty-two!—he had to pass the cottage
of old Carne the sexton, and a sweet face, jewelled
with a pair of violet eyes, looked out between the
curtains, a girl's hand rattled on the window-pane.
The owner of these eyes had been playing with
a caterpillar when Henry went round the village
telling everybody he met that he was going away
to Stratford—her among the rest. But surely that
was ages ago! "I could never have been such a
young ass," Henry would say to a certainty if you
were to ask him at the mirror.</p>
<p>Well, here is Eunice Lyndon in proof of the
fact that it was almost six years since. At all events,
she says she is just nineteen, and she was thirteen
then. She doesn't play with caterpillars now; but
her eyes are certainly violet, though Henry probably
thought they were blue, if he thought of them at
all.</p>
<p>The six years have wrought wonders in the girl
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 112]</span>
who rattled on the window when Henry went forth
to the fray.</p>
<p>For one thing, Eunice, who was the chum of Dora,
and thus a frequent visitor in the Charles household,
had discredited the croakers by continuing
to live and even to strengthen, despite the fact of
her mother's consumptive end. Poor Mrs. Charles,
who had seldom a chance of opening her mouth
on any topic, never avoided stating, as an article
of her faith, that all children of consumptive parents
were doomed as clearly as though their sentence
had been passed by a hanging judge. It was positively
an insult to her and to many another anxious
mother for the progeny of consumptive parents to
go on living. For such to wax strong was against
Nature, and in the teeth of medical experience.</p>
<p>Eunice had offended Nature, diddled the doctors,
and looked all the better for the offence. The pasty
whiteness of her girlhood had given place to a
creamy freshness, which blended perfectly with her
high colour—so you see her red cheeks were not
the flame of consumption, but the bloom of health.
Her colour was of that intensity which seems to
come from the atmosphere around the face, and to
shine upon the skin as a shaft of ruby light, carried
by the sunbeams through a cathedral window, glows
on a marble statue.</p>
<p>Her features were pretty, but with no mere
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 113]</span>
prettiness. They were marked by character. The
nose would have been a despised model for a
Grecian; the mouth not dollishly small, yet small,
firm-set, the firmness being saved from shrewish
suggestion by an upward ending of the lips. Eunice
had a chin; a most essential quality in man and
woman, sometimes unhappily omitted. A chin that
said: "Yes, I mean what I say; and I mean to
say what I mean." Eyes that—well, they were
violet eyes, and what more can one say? A
forehead not high, but wide, to carry a wealth
of lustrous dark hair.</p>
<p>Eunice was no Diana in stature, for she had
scarcely grown an inch in all those years since we
saw her with the caterpillar. She had sprung up
suddenly as a girl, and remained at the same
height for womanhood to clothe her. Perhaps five
feet four. But do not let us condescend upon such
details. She was small, she was dainty; enough
is said. Violet eyes—more than enough!</p>
<p>It is not to be supposed that Eunice and Henry
had ever been sweethearts. That is altogether too
rude a suggestion. What does a girl of thirteen
think of sweethearts? A lad of sixteen? They
pick up the conventional phrase, with its suggestion
of friendship more intimate than everyday acquaintance,
from their elders; that is all. There may
possibly be a liking for each other, a liking more
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 114]</span>
than for any other playmates. That is rare. The
most that could be guessed about Eunice and
Henry before his leaving home was that he had
been more inclined to talk with her than with
any other girls who came to the house, and as
he, in his cubhood, had a sniff of contempt for
most girls, that counted for very little. Perhaps,
on second thoughts, it might be held to count for
a good deal.</p>
<p>When Henry had been home two summers ago,
Eunice was away on one of her rare visits to an
aunt in Tewksbury—in a sense, at the world's end.
So Henry had rarely seen her since that peep she
took at him long ago in Memoryland. He had
heard of her frequently, we will suppose, in the
letters from his sister Dora, and she of him from
her chum.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, an important event had happened in
her life. Old Edgar Carne, Eunice's grandfather,
had died a year ago, and left his orphan grand-daughter
at eighteen with the tiniest little fortune,
equal to probably twenty pounds a year. For a
time it seemed likely that she would leave the
village and go to reside with her aunt at Tewksbury,
as she had now no blood relations in
Hampton Bagot, though many warm-hearted
friends. Simple in her tastes, educated only to
the extent of a village curriculum, which did not
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 115]</span>
breed ambition, fond of domestic duties and the
light work of a garden, Eunice had no clear-cut
path ahead, and would have preferred to stay on
among the people who had been planted around
her by the hand of friendship.</p>
<p>It so fell out that Fate pinned her to Hampton
yet awhile. The housekeeper of the Rev. Godfrey
Needham had left, and it was suggested to him
by Mr. Charles that Eunice and a young serving-maid
would do wonders in brightening up the
vicarage, where an elderly housekeeper had only
fostered frowsiness. Besides, the vicar had recently
to the amazement of his parishioners, taken a little
lass of nine to live with him, the orphan child of
a relation of his long-dead wife. Eunice could
thus be of double service to him in mothering
the little one, and her sympathy could be relied
upon, since she herself had been robbed of a
mother's love so early. It was even whispered
that the coming of little Marjorie had something
to do with the old housekeeper giving notice to
leave; she was "no hand wi' childer," as she
herself confessed.</p>
<p>Mr. Needham fell in with Edward John's
proposal; Eunice was delighted; and a year had
testified to its wisdom. The vicarage had never
been so bright in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant, the vicar himself had come under the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 116]</span>
transforming hand of Eunice, and now, within hail
of seventy, he was a sprucer figure than he had
been since the days of his brief married happiness—forty
years before. His collars were always
spotless, his white ties—white. His trousers
reached to his shoes at last. Perhaps his step
had lost its springiness, his coat its breezy freedom;
but he had gained in dignity what was lost in
quaintness.</p>
<p>As for Eunice herself, this one short year had
carried her well into womanhood, and though
only nineteen she was the counsellor of many who
were older. There is a wonderful reserve of
domestic gold in every young woman whose bank
is run upon. At an age when a young man is
watching his moustache's progress, many a young
woman is grappling heroically, obscurely, with the
essential things of life. Yet Eunice was doing no
more than thousands of womenkind had done.</p>
<p>But her position as housekeeper at the vicarage,
as teacher in the Sunday School, conferred certain
advantages, and brought her more prominently into
the life of the little village. From being "Old
Carne's little girl," she had been translated into
"Miss Lyndon at the vicarage." Her daily
pursuits, the refining influence of her duties,
quickly developed and ripened her own excellent
qualities of heart and mind, and in twelve fleeting
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 117]</span>
months she stood forth a woman; discreet of
tongue, yet bright with happiness, resourceful,
heart-free.</p>
<p>Henry noted, with a thrilling interest he could
scarce account for, these changes in his little friend
of long ago, when she came under his eyes again
at church on the Sunday following his arrival.</p>
<p>"How do you do, Miss Lyndon?" and "How
are you, Mr. Charles? It seems a lifetime since
you went away," did not suggest the sputtering
fires of kindling passion.</p>
<p>"Yes, it takes an effort of mind sometimes to
recall my Hampton days." One was almost
suspicious of affectation.</p>
<p>"Really! That's scarcely kind to Hampton and—us."</p>
<p>"Ah, I am not likely to forget old friends; but
I mean that the years of almost changeless life
here are only the impression of a morning sky,
compared with the crowded day that has followed."</p>
<p>Was the suspicion well founded?</p>
<p>"Then you've been bitten by the dog Town, and
go hunting for a hair of him!"</p>
<p>Eunice smiled at her conceit, and Henry laughed
with rising eyebrows, that said: "This young lady
has improved wonderfully."</p>
<p>"Good, Eunice; very good! You have a turn
for metaphor, I see." The "Eunice" slipped out,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 118]</span>
and immediately brought a deeper tinge of colour
to the girl's cheek. The man was sallow, but his
eyes looked away from her after it was out. "Do
you read much, or are your duties at the vicarage
engrossing?" was said with an air of friendly
interest only.</p>
<p>"Engrossing, yes. You see, I've to play little
mother. One of my charges is ten and the other
nearly seventy. So I feel a centenarian. But I
don't get much time for reading, what with visiting
in the parish and keeping the vicarage in order.
No; I'm not a bit clever, and I have only a dark
idea of what a metaphor is."</p>
<p>"Ah, you should tell that to the marines," was
all that Henry could say by way of comment.</p>
<p>He had made obvious conversational progress
in the outer world, but there was an artificial
touch about his talk—a literary touch—that was
not quite equal to his swimming dolphin-like, in
a sea of talk, around this child of Nature.</p>
<p>"You are liking Laysford, I hear," the little
mother said, after some paces in silence.</p>
<p>"Immensely! The place teems with life. You've
just to stir it and behold a boiling pot of human
interest."</p>
<p>"And how is the stirring done?"</p>
<p>"Ah, there you have me! That's the worst of
metaphors. I must rid myself of the habit; it
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 119]</span>
comes, I fancy, of too much Meredith on an
empty head."</p>
<p>"Dear me! And what is Meredith?"</p>
<p>"It is a man that writes things."</p>
<p>"Like you?"</p>
<p>"Not like me, I hope. He writes for all time;
I for an hour—literally. But don't let's talk of
writing. There are greater things to do in this
world. Unless one were a Meredith."</p>
<p>"You didn't always think so."</p>
<p>"No; but I've learned young, and that's a good
thing. When I read Meredith I hide my face at
the thought of writing anything. But you've
done very well, so far, without books, if I'm to
believe your own story."</p>
<p>"I suppose folk lived before printing was
invented?"</p>
<p>"I used to wonder how they did; but now I
am willing to believe it possible."</p>
<p>"You will come and see Mr. Needham at the
vicarage, while you are here, I hope? He often
talks about you."</p>
<p>"I shall be delighted.... And you? You will
give us a peep at the old house?"</p>
<p>"Oh, yes! Dora and I are bosom friends."</p>
<p>"Early next week you can look for me to have
a chat with ... Mr. Needham."</p>
<p>"I'll be in soon ... to see Dora."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 120]</span></p>
<p>They shook hands at the field path to the
vicarage, and Eunice went up the hill hand-in-hand
with Marjorie, whom Henry had never
deigned to notice. She looked back when a
few hundred yards had been covered, but the
young man was stepping briskly after his father
and his two younger sisters, who had gone
ahead.</p>
<p>"How Eunice Lyndon has improved," said
Henry to Dora when they sat at dinner.</p>
<p>"Isn't she bright? I think she is the sweetest
girl I know."</p>
<p>"But you don't know many, Dora."</p>
<p>"She's made a wonnerful change on the passon.
An' it was all my own idea," Edward John
declared with satisfaction, as he scooped up a
mouthful of green peas with his knife.</p>
<p>"Her mother—poor thing—died o' consumption,"
Mrs. Charles remarked, and sighed as though she
were placing a wreath on Eunice's coffin.</p>
<p>"But she's the very picture of health, mother,"
Henry protested.</p>
<p>"Still, there's consumption in the family," she
murmured.</p>
<p>"Nothing to do with her case. Doctors are
now giving up the idea that the disease is
hereditary," Henry said, with unnecessary emphasis,
as it seemed to Edward John.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 121]</span></p>
<p>"But doctors don't know everythink, 'Enry,
my boy," his father remarked.</p>
<p>"And neither do mothers."</p>
<p>Whereat one of them sighed again.</p>
<p>The meal went on in silence for a while, and
the pudding was at vanishing point when Henry
broke into talk again.</p>
<p>"By the way, Dora, did I ever tell you that
the Wintons have come to Laysford? You
remember them? My old friends at Wheelton."</p>
<p>"You never mentioned it."</p>
<p>"Funny that I had forgotten. Edgar joined the
<i>Leader</i> nearly six months ago as second reporter,
and the whole family have removed to Laysford,
when Mr. Winton got a post as cashier in a
large hosiery factory."</p>
<p>"There was a sister, I think?"</p>
<p>"Yes; Flo—a jolly, dashing sort of girl."</p>
<p>"Pretty?"</p>
<p>"Extremely! One of your blonde beauties.
Almost as tall as I am, and nearly my age."</p>
<p>"Indeed!"</p>
<p>"A fine puddin', mother, but just a trifle too
many o' them sultanas," said Edward John.</p>
<p>Mrs. Charles sighed once more.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_122" id="Pg_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
<h3>ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">When</span> Henry's holiday had ended and he stepped
once again into the outer darkness that lay beyond
Hampton Bagot, the words of his which kept
ringing like alarm-bells in the ears of his mother
and Dora were: "Flo—a jolly, dashing sort of
girl." They had been spoken once only; but that
was enough. The essential woman in his mother
and sister pounced on them like a cat on a mouse
peeping from its hole. They turned the phrase
over in their mind, put it away, took it down,
pecked at it; tossed it afar, and ran after it
forthwith, wishful to forget it, but unable to let
it go.</p>
<p>It might mean much, it might mean nothing.
With some young men it would not have been
an excuse for a second thought, but Henry was
not like other young men. He was their Henry—or
rather, he had been; for Mrs. Charles now
watched him with something of that chagrin which
must arise in the maternal bosom of the hen that
has mothered a brood of ducklings when she sees
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 123]</span>
them going where she cannot follow. As for
Dora, she doubted if she had ever known this new
Henry who spoke easily of "Flo—a jolly, dashing
sort of girl."</p>
<p>The phrase, careless and colloquial though it
was, had all the potency of the biograph to project
before the mind's eye of Mrs. Charles and of Dora
pictures of a young woman who stepped out,
smirked, disappeared, and came again in a new
dress to do many things they disliked.</p>
<p>But it was not the same young woman that
both of them saw, and neither of them mentioned
her thoughts to the other. The figure which
flashed frequently on to the screen of his mother's
thoughts was that of a bold, designing creature—dangerously
attractive—whose purpose was to
entrap her Henry. Dora recognised her dressed
for another part, in which she displayed a
tendency to giggle and cast flattering eyes on a
gullible young man.</p>
<p>Edward John saw nothing of this figure in the
fairy drama of his mind, where Henry always
moved close to the footlights and left the other
characters in the unillumined region of the stage.</p>
<p>Henry had renewed his acquaintance with the
Rev. Godfrey Needham, whom he found still
swimming, though with weakening stroke, in his
sea of scrappy scholarship, rising manfully some
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 124]</span>
times on a fine billow of Latin, but spluttering a
moment later when he breasted a frothy wave of
French.</p>
<p>"Ah, my dear Henry, toil on, plod on, and
remember always that <i>Hoffnung ist der Wanderstab
von der Wiege bis zum grabe</i>, which, as you have no
German, means that hope is the pilgrim's staff
from the cradle to the grave. We are all pilgrims—always
pilgrims—you in the sunshine, I in the
frost of life."</p>
<p>This was his benediction; and somehow the
innocent vanity of the vicar's borrowed philosophy
no longer amused, but fingered tender cords in the
soul of the young man.</p>
<p>Eunice, although she had met him several times
after that walk from the church, had never said
so much to him again; but "Shall we not see you
again for two years?" was spoken with a touch
of sadness which thrilled him into—"I shall hope
to see you often in the future."</p>
<p>Miffin was alone among the village folk in his
opinion of the new Henry. The young man's
neat-fitting summer suit, his elegant necktie, even
his well-made boots annoyed that worthy by their
quiet advertisement of prosperity. He was one of
those who resented success in others, mainly
because he knew himself for a failure. Moreover,
no man is pleased to see his prophecies given the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 125]</span>
lie. The tailor still blandly assured his cronies
when they enlarged on the worldly progress of the
postmaster's son, that the rising tide of Henry's
affairs would yet turn. "Merk moi werds," said
he, "them young men what goes into City life
seldom do any good. They dress well, p'raps,
but there's a soight o' tailors in the big towns
as fail 'cause the loikes of 'Enry forgets to pay
'em."</p>
<p>As for Henry himself, his brief reversion to the
home of his boyhood had struck a new note in
his life: a note that had only sounded falteringly
before, but now rang out clear, sharp, alarming.
The simple contentment which seemed to breathe
in this little village soothed and comforted him,
straight from the jangle of the great City, and he
felt for the first day or two as if he could submit
to have his wings clipped, and flutter away no
more.</p>
<p>But soon the dulness of Hampton was the
impression which refused to leave the surface of
his thoughts, and he understood that, having
answered with a light heart to the bugle of the
town, he must continue in its fighting line though
the heart was heavier. Perhaps he knew in his
secret soul that this heaviness of heart followed
its opening to the imperious knock of Doubt.
But still he held fast to his cherished ambitions,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 126]</span>
and was as eager again for the fray as the
morphomaniac for a new dose of his drug, though
it was with a gnawing sense of regret that he
journeyed back to Laysford.</p>
<p>On his arrival there, Edgar Winton met him at
the station, evidently weighted with news. The
contrast between the two young men was more
real than apparent. When they first met at
Wheelton, Henry had presented the exterior of a
raw country lad, with an eye that had only
peeped at a tiny corner of life, and a knowledge
of journalism that was laughably little. Edgar,
on the other hand, had all the pert confidence of
the City youth and the quickly-gathered cynicism
of the young journalist. But there he had
remained, as so many do remain from twenty-one
to their last day, while the strain of seriousness in
the nature of Henry, and the richness of the virgin
soil in him for the City to plough, had produced
a growth of character which in the intervening
years had shot him far ahead of Edgar in every
respect.</p>
<p>Whether Edgar's friendship for Henry sprang
from the true root of affection, or was merely the
outcome of a desire to stand well in the favour
of one whose friendship would be well worth
having from a business point of view, cannot be
stated with confidence, but there is a fair supposition
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 127]</span>
that it was of the latter quality, since natures
like Edgar's are seldom capable of true friendship,
though they boil and bubble with good fellowship
for all who are brought into relation with them.
Perhaps Edgar had learned at an early age the
knack of spotting "useful men to know," which
accounts for much in the success of those whose
endowments are meagre.</p>
<p>In any case, the broad result was the same.
Henry and Edgar were friends, and if Henry had
long since concluded that Edgar was of the empty-headed,
rattling order of mankind, still he tolerated
him, if merely because he had been one of the
first designed by Fate to intimate association with
him when the life-battle began. He could even
have tolerated the suggestion of friendship between
Trevor Smith and himself for the same reason,
while knowing now in his heart that Trevor was
a humbug.</p>
<p>The meeting between the two at the station was
very cordial, and Edgar let his imp of news leap
free to Henry, to work its wild way in his
mind.</p>
<p>"You are just in the nick of time, and no mistake.
If I hadn't known you would be back
to-day, I should have wired you this morning—that
is, of course, if a telegram could get to that
benighted village of yours."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 128]</span></p>
<p>"The nick of time? Wire? What has
happened?"</p>
<p>"A very great deal. Oh, we've had a nice
old kick-up at the <i>Leader</i>!"</p>
<p>"Kick-up! Have Macgregor and Jones been
squabbling again?"</p>
<p>"The fact is, Mac has had to resign; it only
took place last night, and we all suppose that you
will get the crib."</p>
<p>"But surely Macgregor has not let one of these
wretched bickerings lead to his resignation?"</p>
<p>"Oh dear, no! He has done a giddier thing
than that, and will clear out of Laysford like a
dog with its tail down. The fact is, he has been
caught cheating at cards at the Liberal Club, and
the <i>Leader</i> cannot afford to be edited by a cheat,
don't y' know."</p>
<p>"What a fool the man has been; and yet something
of the kind was bound to happen. Many a
time his fondness for the card-playing gang at the
Club has meant double work for me."</p>
<p>"That has been the joke since you went away,
as old Mac has come rushing into the office about
midnight, and vamped up a couple of leaders with
the aid of his scissors and the London dailies.
We heard Jones and he rowing about the character
of his stuff a week ago. It seems that Sir Henry
had complained."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 129]</span></p>
<p>"Well, I am heartily sorry for his wife and
family. I hope the affair may be patched up."</p>
<p>"No fear of that. He has got to go with a
rush; and why should you be sorry if his shoes
are waiting for you?"</p>
<p>"Still, I am sorry. As for the shoes, I hope
they won't lead my feet the same road."</p>
<p>Just a touch of priggishness here; but remember,
Henry was young.</p>
<p>Truly, this was startling news. Mr. Duncan
Macgregor, the editor of the <i>Leader</i>, was a journalist
of excellent parts; one who had held important
positions in London and the provinces, but whose
fondness for the whisky of his native land had
made his life a changeful one. For nearly five
years he had been jogging along pretty comfortably
in Laysford, to the great joy of his much-tried wife;
but his position as editor of the <i>Leader</i>, which
represented the dominant party in local politics,
made him much sought after by scheming public
men, and in the end brought his old weakness for
what is ironically called "social life" to the top.</p>
<p>Duncan Macgregor, indeed, for nearly two years
had been scamping his duties, on the pretence
that by constant fraternising with the sportive
element of the Liberal Club he was representing
his paper in the quarter where its influence was of
most importance. He had even developed a new
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 130]</span>
enthusiasm for public life, and was scheming to
become a Justice of the Peace and to enter Laysford
Town Council. He had not been careful to
note that Mr. Wilfred Jones, the general manager
of the <i>Leader</i> Company, and a more important
person than the editor in the eyes of the shareholders,
considered that he was the natural figurehead
of the concern. Mr. Jones had been elected
to the magistrates' bench, and was a candidate for
the next municipal election, dreaming even of
venturing to contest one of the Parliamentary
divisions.</p>
<p>As it was due to the acute management of Mr.
Jones that the <i>Leader</i> had been lifted from a
languishing condition to a state of financial prosperity,
and Sir Henry Field, the chairman of
directors, and the other shareholders, were now
enjoying an annual return for their money, it was
only natural that the general manager was a more
important person than the editor in their estimation.
He was certainly so in his own opinion, and
although a man of no intellectual attainments, he
did not hesitate on various occasions to dispute
with the editor about the quality of his leaders.
One of Duncan Macgregor's favourite stories of
these disputes related to his humorous use of the
phrase, "A nice derangement of epitaphs," which
Mr. Jones pointed out was sheer nonsense, as there
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 131]</span>
was not another word about epitaphs in the leader!
The manager had a suspicion that the editor had
been looking on the whisky when it was golden,
else he could not have written such twaddle. But
when it happened, as it did during Henry's absence,
that the leading articles were largely made up of
clippings from London newspapers, linked together
by a few words from the editor, Mr. Jones's criticism
was based on sounder grounds.</p>
<p>Edgar accompanied Henry to his rooms, where
the news was discussed in all its aspects, and at
length Edgar gave him a jerky and stumbling invitation
to spend the evening at his home, on
the ground that Henry had always been a great
favourite of "the mater's," and she would like to
see him after his holiday.</p>
<p>Now, the journalist who is engaged on a daily
paper has to turn the day upside down. He is
generally starting to his work when ordinary folk
are enjoying their hours of ease. Like the baker,
he sallies forth to his factory when the lamps are
glimmering; for the newspaper must accompany
the morning roll; but of the two, the printed sheet
is the less essential to life, and at a pinch would be
the first to go. To that extent the baker's business
is the more important. This was often a saddening
thought to Henry, when his eye caught the dusty
figures at work in an underground bakery which
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 132]</span>
he passed every evening on his way to the office.
The result of the daily journalist's topsy-turvy
life is practically to cut him off from social intercourse
with his fellow-men who are not engaged
in the same profession, and consequently he moves
in a narrow groove. Even his Sundays are not
sacred to him. There was a time when Henry
used to hurry from evening service to his desk
at the office, and set to work on a leader or
some editorial notes for Monday morning's paper.
Latterly he was always at his desk, but seldom
at the service. Arriving home at two or three
in the morning and sleeping until about noon does
not put a man into the mood for cultivating
friendships between two and eight p.m., supposing
there were friendships to be cultivated at such
absurd hours of the day.</p>
<p>Thus Henry's life had been ordered since
coming to Laysford; his office and his bed eating
up the most of it; his afternoons being devoted
to a walk in the park, or research at the public
library and reading in his rooms. The only
house he had ever visited was that of the Wintons,
and there he had been but once on the journalist's
Sunday, <i>i.e.</i>, Saturday.</p>
<p>It was true, no doubt, that Mrs. Winton thought
highly of him, and he respected her as a very
amiable landlady of past years. But Edgar could
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 133]</span>
have told him—and perhaps the affected suddenness
of the invitation did tell him—that it was not
the matronly Mrs. Winton who had suggested his
coming. Edgar had indeed been prompted by a
very broad hint from his sister, whose interest in
Henry had varied greatly from the first, but was
now rising with the prospect of his becoming a
full-fledged editor. Indeed, although there was
more that one young man in Wheelton whom Flo
had boasted to her girl friends of being able to
turn round her little finger, the prospects of a "good
match" in that limited sphere were not quite equal
to her desires, and she heartily seconded the proposal
to remove to Laysford. Henry had developed
in interest, and there were possibilities—who knew?</p>
<p>There were many reasons why Henry would
have preferred to spend the evening in his own
rooms. The fragrance of Hampton came back to
him the moment that the train shot into Laysford,
with its din of busy life. The impression of
village dulness receded, and here, with the rattle
of Edgar's irresponsible tongue in his ears, and
the squalid story of his editor's downfall to occupy
his mind, he was fain to hark back again to the
memory of that quiet existence which he felt
doomed to renounce for ever. His worldly wisdom
told him he need not repine at Macgregor's folly,
since it brought Henry Charles his opportunity;
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 134]</span>
but the philosopher in him saw the situation
whole, and the squalid side of it could not be
ignored. As Edgar seemed bent on carrying him
off, and as he was not expected at the office
until the following day, he decided to accompany
young Winton to his home, hoping, perhaps, that
a careless evening would brighten his thoughts.</p>
<p>The chattering streams of life flowing through
the main streets of the thronged city, the clatter
of the tramcars, and the thousand noises that
smote the ear fresh from the ancient peace of a
remote village, all frightened the mind back to
Hampton, the faces of his friends; and, oddly as
it seemed to Henry, the face that looked oftenest
into his was not one of his own home circle. None
of his womenkind had violet eyes.</p>
<p>On reaching the house, Edgar had his usual
hunt for his latchkey, and whether it was the
murmur of his conversation with Henry during
the operation of finding the key and applying it,
or merely chance that had brought Flo in her
daintiest dress and archest smile into the hall as
the door was opened, cannot be well determined.
Certainly there was a look of delighted surprise
on her face when she exclaimed:</p>
<p>"Oh, Mr. Charles, is it really you?" surrendering
him her hand, and allowing it to remain in his.
"When did you get back?"</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 135]</span>
"Only this evening," he replied, clearly conscious
that this was a most attractive young lady, and
not a little flattered at the warmth of her
reception. "I arrived at six o'clock."</p>
<p>"How very good of you to come and see us
so soon! We ought to consider ourselves flattered."</p>
<p>"Oh, I had nothing else to do," he murmured
ineptly, and was suddenly conscious that he still
held her hand. He dropped it awkwardly.</p>
<p>"I am sure you must have many things to do—a
busy man like you."</p>
<p>"It is seldom I have a free evening, so I am
glad to use this one in seeing my old friends."
He had recovered aplomb.</p>
<p>"And your old friends are charmed to see you,"
she returned, with a look that told she could
speak for one of them at least. "You are like
one of the wonders we read about but seldom see.
Edgar keeps us posted in news of you."</p>
<p>She cast down her eyes coyly, as if a sudden
thought whispered that she had said too much,
and led the way to the little drawing-room, Henry
pleasantly thrilled with the charm of her voice
and the freedom of her greeting. But strangely
enough, another face which lingered in his memory
glowed there again, and the thought that came to
him was that its owner had not been half so
cordial in her welcome to him.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_136" id="Pg_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
<h3>"A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL"</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> removing of the Wintons to Laysford had
been a distinct change for the better in the
fortunes of the family. Mr. Winton's situation
furnished him with a comfortable income, and
Edgar was now contributing appreciably to the
domestic funds, while Miss Winton's music-teaching
brought an acceptable addition beyond furnishing
her with an ample variety of dress, in which she
always displayed a bold, though a cultivated
taste.</p>
<p>Their house was a great improvement on the
little home in which Henry had lodged six years
ago, though it was still a poor substitute for the
luxurious residence Mr. Winton had maintained
before his business failure, when Flo and Edgar
were children. The old horse-hair furniture had
disappeared from the dining-room, and in its
place stood an elegant leather suite. Henry would
find the former still doing duty in a room upstairs,
which Edgar called his study. The drawing-room
was the most notable indication of changed
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 137]</span>
fortunes, and bore many traces of Flo's adorning
hand, Edgar proudly drawing Henry's attention to
some of her paintings, and thus affording her
excellent excuse for becoming blushes.</p>
<p>"Why, Henry, it is quite like old times to have
you among us again," said Mrs. Winton, when he
had entered the drawing-room.</p>
<p>She retained the right to his Christian name,
although Flo, who had been in the habit of
addressing him familiarly at Wheelton, had
surrendered that, as Henry noticed, and was
annoyed at himself for noticing. Mr. Winton
joined in the welcome, and Henry expressed
his pleasure to be among them again.</p>
<p>"I need not ask whether you had a good time
while you were away," Mr. Winton continued.
"You are looking extremely well; brown as a
berry."</p>
<p>"Quite like a gipsy," suggested Flo, and she
decided at that moment that she had always
entertained a distinct preference for the Romany
type of manly beauty.</p>
<p>It was not altogether to her mind that the
conversation swiftly drifted into the uninteresting
channels of public life in Laysford, touching even
the state of the hosiery trade, in which Mr.
Winton was engaged. At the tea-table, however,
Flo had Henry by her side, and made the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 138]</span>
talking pace with some spirit and, it must be
granted, vivacity.</p>
<p>It is the most natural thing in the world for a
young gentleman visitor at a small family table like
the Wintons' to be placed alongside the daughter
of the household, but there are young ladies who
contrive to make the most natural situation seem
exceptional. Perhaps Miss Winton was one of these,
as Henry felt when he sat down that the arrangement
had more of artifice than nature in it. But while
having the sense to suspect this, he was rather
flattered than otherwise in his suspicion, and as with
most young men of his age, a show of friendliness
from a young lady reached home to that piece of
vanity which we all have somewhere concealed, and
sometimes, maybe, not even hidden.</p>
<p>He noticed in a sidelong glance, and possibly for
the first time, that the profile of Miss Winton's face
was distinctly good. The nose was almost Jewish,
and all the better for that; the mouth perhaps too
small, but that was not seen in the side view; the
chin neat, and sweeping gracefully into a neck of
which the owner was doubtless proud, as she had
not been at pains to hide it. Nor could a fault
be found with her endowment of fair hair,
displayed low-coiled, and decorated with a glittering
diamond clasp. The diamonds were paste, of
course, but what of that? They sparkled.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 139]</span>
It must be accepted as proof of Henry's
opening eyes that he noticed these things, and
found himself wondering if a certain other young
lady possessed such good looks. For the life of
him he could not say; and he took that, foolishly,
as evidence in favour of the girl by his side. His
thoughts were immediately turned on himself,
when Edgar exclaimed:</p>
<p>"By the way, dad, I'm the first to tell Henry
that he is likely to be my new boss."</p>
<p>"Edgar, you're hopeless," put in Flo.</p>
<p>"If you mean your new editor," said Mr.
Winton sententiously, as he finished the carving
of the cold roast, "then I'm glad to hear it, and
I hope he will boss some of his good sense into
you."</p>
<p>"Then it is really true that Mr. Macgregor is
leaving?" said Mrs. Winton, with a look towards
Henry.</p>
<p>"So Edgar tells me, but I have heard nothing
official, and I have purposely kept away from the
office to-night."</p>
<p>"You can take it from me that his going is a
dead cert," resumed the irrepressible young man;
adding with a glance at his father, whose
philological strictness was a source of sorrow to
the son, "That is, there seems to be very little
doubt about the matter. And if old Mac goes,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 140]</span>
Henry is well in the running for the editorial
chair, and a rocky bit of furniture that is."</p>
<p>"I wonder," said Flo, leaning forward with a
quizzing glance to catch Henry's eye, "if you
would be a hard taskmaster, Henry?" It was
difficult for the girl to go on Mistering when the
others Henried to their heart's content. "I am
sure you could put your foot down firmly if you
liked."</p>
<p>Henry laughed, pleased at the interest taken in
him, and conscious that he was made much of in
this house.</p>
<p>"There may never be any occasion for me to
try it," he replied; "even if a vacancy does arise,
my age may bar me."</p>
<p>"Not at all; the great Delane was scarcely
twenty-four when he got the editorship of the
<i>Times</i>," Edgar remarked, with the conviction that
he had displayed a deep knowledge of journalistic
history and settled this point.</p>
<p>"Besides," added Flo, "you are one of those
men whose age is not written on their face. I'm
sure no one could guess whether you were twenty
or thirty. You could pass for any age you like to
name."</p>
<p>"There's something in that," said Henry musingly;
"but I'm afraid I must confess that I was
only twenty-two last birthday."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 141]</span>
"Great Scott! and you'll soon be bossing some
chaps old enough to be your pater. The snows
of four-and-twenty winters have fallen on my own
cranium. It makes me sick to think of it."</p>
<p>From Edgar, obviously.</p>
<p>All this was very sweet to Henry. At twenty-two
the average man tingles with pleasure when
it is suggested that he would pass for thirty, and
at thirty he is secretly purchasing hair-restorers
for application to the crown of his head, and
plying a razor where he had been wont to
cultivate a moustache. He is charmed then
beyond measure when his age is guessed at
twenty-two.</p>
<p>Mr. Winton settled down in an arm-chair in the
dining-room for his after-supper snooze, and while
Mrs. Winton had to turn her attention for a little
to household affairs, superintending the inefficient
maid-of-all-work—whose presence in the house was
another mark of prosperity—the others withdrew
to the drawing-room. Edgar lounged about aimlessly
for a time, and then suddenly pleaded the
urgency of a letter he had to write. Henry and
Flo were left alone.</p>
<p>This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of
young men who are "eligible," but it is not until
they have ceased to be in that blissful condition
that they suspect a woman's hand had some part
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 142]</span>
in arranging these accidental openings for confidences.
Flo looked certainly as innocent as a dove
when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's
eyes had been wide open he might have noticed
that Edgar's recollection of his urgent letter was
preceded by a meaning look and a contraction
of the brows from his sister.</p>
<p>"Now," she said softly, turning to Henry with
an air of eager interest, "do tell me all about
your visit to Hampton. The name of the place
sounds quite romantic to me. Is it on the
map?"</p>
<p>"I'm afraid you would search your atlas for it
in vain. At best it could only be a pin-point;
like that very tiny German duchy which the
American traveller said he would drive round
rather than pay toll to pass through. It is
smaller than the Laysford market-place."</p>
<p>"So small as that! Then it's all the more
interesting to me."</p>
<p>"But there's really nothing to tell about it.
One day is the same as another there. Nothing
ever happens. It is a veritable Sleepy Hollow."</p>
<p>"But there were interesting folk there. You
see, I know my Washington Irving."</p>
<p>Flo had the shrewdness to judge this to be an
effective touch, and it did not matter that her
knowledge of the American author was limited to
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 143]</span>
the bare fact that he had written something
about a place of that name.</p>
<p>"I am glad to find you have read one of my
favourites," Henry replied, and the echo of an
absurd "What is Meredith?" rang in his ears.
It prompted him to ask, without apparent
reason:</p>
<p>"By-the-by, have you read Meredith? He is
one of the least known and greatest of living
writers."</p>
<p>"Oh, yes, isn't he perfectly lovely?" She had a
vague recollection of hearing the name somewhere.</p>
<p>"I am just in the middle of his latest novel,
'Beauchamp's Career.' It is positively Titanic."</p>
<p>"I am sure it must be interesting, and I should
love to read it. But really you must tell me
about this Sleepy Hollow of yours. Who did
you see there?"</p>
<p>"My own folk, of course, and a handful of old
friends."</p>
<p>"Anybody in par-tic-u-lar?"</p>
<p>Flo smiled roguishly. She had practised the
smile before, and could do it to perfection.</p>
<p>"N-o; nobody—worth mentioning."</p>
<p>Henry had a suspicion that he was being
teased, and he rather liked the operation.</p>
<p>"Really! I can scarcely believe you. But all
the same, I have a fancy to see this birthplace of
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 144]</span>
our budding editor. I imagine it must be a
sweet little spot."</p>
<p>"Perhaps it is best in imagination. You would
find the actual thing deadly dull."</p>
<p>He felt himself drifting rudderless before a
freshening breeze of talkee-talkee.</p>
<p>"No, no, no; I am sure I wouldn't, though
you do not paint it with purple. Do you know,"
she went on, resting her pretty head upon her
hand and glancing up sideways at him, "I'm
beginning to think that they don't appreciate you
properly in Hampton Bagot. A prophet has no
honour in his own country, they say. But we are
proud of you here."</p>
<p>"Perhaps that maxim is not always true,
although it is biblical. In my own case, I fear
there is at least one at Hampton who thinks too
much of my ability."</p>
<p>"Ah, now you have said it. And who is that
one, pray?"</p>
<p>"My father."</p>
<p>"Oh! No one else?"</p>
<p>"My mother and sisters, perhaps."</p>
<p>"I should so much like to meet your sisters.
I almost feel as if I knew them already. Who
knows but some day I may have a peep at your
Sleepy Hollow, and tell your sisters all about
you!"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 145]</span></p>
<p>The prospect was an alarming one to Henry,
and for the first time in his life he felt himself
ashamed of that little home behind the Post Office
door. But on the whole, the chatter of this young
lady was pleasant in his ears. By no means vain
of his abilities, he was still hungry for appreciation,
and he had not yet learned the most difficult of
all lessons: to recognise sincere admiration. It
seemed to him that in Flo Winton he had found
one who understood him, whose sympathetic
interest in his work and ambitions could brace
and hearten him in the discharge of the important
duties to which there was every likelihood of his
being called before he was a day older.</p>
<p>The return of Mrs. Winton to the drawing-room
sent the talk off at an obtuse angle, and Edgar,
having finished that important letter, came in to
render the remainder of the evening hopeless to
Flo; but when Henry parted from her in the hall
with another lingering hand-shake, he had the
feeling that something like an understanding had
been established between them; and it was with
a springy stride and a light heart he passed out
to the nearest tramway station.</p>
<p>The next afternoon he looked in at the office,
and found the manager anxious to speak with
him. It was even as Edgar had prophesied. Sir
Henry Field was understood to think so highly of
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 146]</span>
Henry's work that he agreed with Mr. Jones in
offering him the editorship at a commencing salary
of £250 a year. A bright young member of the
reporting staff was named as his assistant. "If
Sir Henry should ask your age," Mr. Jones
advised, "you are getting on for thirty. You
would pass for that, and I have confidence in
you."</p>
<p>Henry found himself returning to his rooms as
one who walked on eggs, murmuring to himself,
with comic iteration: "Two hundred and fifty a
year! two hundred and fifty a year!" And he
saw arising in Hampton Bagot a fine new villa,
the pride of the place, to be inhabited by Edward
John Charles and his family circle. Yet he had
once been so proud of that quaint old house with
the Post Office in front.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_147" id="Pg_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
<h3>THE PHILANDERERS</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> news was round the <i>Leader</i> office like a flash
of summer lightning. The most secret transactions
in the managerial room of a newspaper seem to
have this strange quality of immediately becoming
the common knowledge of the office-boy, without
any one person being accusable of blabbing. Not
only so; but in a few hours there was no journalist
in Laysford, from the unattached penny-a-liner,
who wrote paragraphs for London trade papers,
to the editors of the rival dailies, that did not
know who was the new editor of the <i>Leader</i>.
Almost as soon as the news had been confirmed,
Edgar had penned a flowery eulogium and posted
it to that mighty organ of journalism, the <i>Fourth
Estate</i>, which has whimpered from youth to age
that journalists will not buy it, although they have
never been averse from reading—or writing—its
personal puffs. Edgar showed herein either a
better judgment of Henry's character than one
would have expected from him, or a little touch
of innocence in one so fain to be a man of the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 148]</span>
world. It is seldom that the subjects of these
gushing personal notices in the <i>Fourth Estate</i> wait
for others to sing their praises; they can and do
sound the loud timbrel themselves. Shyness has
no part in journalism, and even the bashful young
junior, who has been trying quack remedies for
blushing, leaves his bashfulness outside the door
of the reporters' room after his first week on the
press.</p>
<p>But somehow, a thick streak of rustic simplicity
remained in Henry's character despite all the eye-opening
and mental widening which had resulted
from his City life. If Edgar had not sent that
paragraph Henry never would, and if we could
but peer into the inmost corner of Edgar's heart
we might find that the impulse behind the writing
of the absurd little puff about "a rising young
journalist" was to stand well with the man who
had come to greatness—as greatness was esteemed
in the journalistic world of Laysford.</p>
<p>The news was conveyed in characteristic style to
a quarter where it was eagerly hoped for.</p>
<p>"It's happened just as I expected," Edgar
announced, when he returned home that evening.
"Old Mac has got the shoot direct; no humming
and hawing, but 'Out you go!'"</p>
<p>"I suppose you mean he has been discharged?"
said Mr. Winton quietly.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 149]</span></p>
<p>"Yes, dad, that's the long and short of it; and
Henry is to be our new boss. You remember I
told him we all expected it."</p>
<p>"So far as I recollect," his father observed
sententiously, "that was how you put it."</p>
<p>"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Winton.
"Henry has got on," with an emphasis on "Henry
has" and a motherly look towards Edgar, who
gave no sign that the implied comparison was
present in his mind.</p>
<p>The one whose interest was most personal had
given least sign, but Flo's heart was fluttering in a
way that was known only to herself. Following
on the heels of her first thrill of satisfaction
stepped something resembling irritation. She would
have preferred that Edgar had been less eager with
the news, and had left it for Henry to convey in
person. What a splendid opportunity that would
have been for unaffected congratulation! Out of
her momentary irascible mood she threw a taunt
at Edgar.</p>
<p>"And you, I suppose, have been appointed
Henry's assistant—that would be the least they
could do for such a brilliant young man."</p>
<p>Edgar flushed and winced. This flicked him
on the raw; but his well-exercised powers of
denunciation were equal to the occasion.</p>
<p>"No such luck for me; that Scotch ass Tait has
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 150]</span>
got Henry's crib. He is one of those sly, slaving
plodders, without a touch of ability."</p>
<p>"I have noticed, Edgar," put in his father, "that
it is the plodders who steadily push ahead."</p>
<p>"Oh, that's all right; but I don't like Tait."
Perhaps this explained a good deal.</p>
<p>A sudden sense of the value of Edgar's services
in her love affair with Henry filled Flo with regret
for having been spiteful to her dear brother, and
she at once endeavoured to save him from further
unfavourable criticism by expressing the belief that
Henry would doubtless help to advance him all he
could. When the first opportunity offered, Flo
drew Edgar again to her favourite topic, and had
quite smoothed away any ruffles in her brother's
temper before she reached this diplomatic point:</p>
<p>"Now that Henry has so much in his power, you
must keep on the best of terms with him. Get
him to come and see us as often as you can. Why
not ask him to dine with us on Sunday next?
He could stay until required at the office."</p>
<p>"Not much use of that, I fancy; Saturday is
about the only day he is likely to come."</p>
<p>"Nonsense! Sunday should suit as well," with a
touch of impatience.</p>
<p>"But you must remember, Flo, that Henry isn't
like us. Unless he has changed more than I know,
there is a big chunk of the go-to-meeting young
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 151]</span>
man left in him; you never know when you may
bump up against some of his religious principles.
You remember that he used to go to church with
as much pleasure as an ordinary chap goes to a
music-hall. In fact, he did the thing as easily as
take his dinner."</p>
<p>"Yes, yes; but he is getting over those narrow-minded
country ways."</p>
<p>"Perhaps you are right. You don't find much
of that antiquated religious nonsense among us
gentlemen of the Press—hem, hem!—Henry's is
the only case of the kind that I have seen. But
there is hope for him yet," and Edgar laughed
heartily at his own wit, while Flo rewarded him
with a smile as she pushed home the one point
she wished to make.</p>
<p>"Then you think you may be able to induce
him to spend Sunday with us?"</p>
<p>"I'll do my best. Can't say more. Usual
dinner hour, I suppose?"</p>
<p>"Two o'clock. That gives him time for forenoon
church—if he really must go."</p>
<p>Much to Edgar's surprise, and more to his satisfaction,
the editor of the <i>Leader</i> consented with
unusual readiness to honour the Wintons the
following Sunday, and when the day came Henry
was not at the forenoon service. He was not
even annoyed at himself for having lain abed too
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 152]</span>
long. His mind was filled with thoughts of the
importance he had suddenly assumed in the eyes
of many who had previously seemed unaware of
his existence. Even the church folk, among
whom he had moved for years almost unfriended,
were now curiously interested in him, and the
vicar had done him the remarkable honour of
inviting him to dinner to meet several gentlemen
prominent in the religious and social life of the
city, an invitation which it had given Henry a
malicious pleasure to refuse, as the memory of his
cold entrances and exits through the door of
Holy Trinity contrasted frigidly with this
unfamiliar friendliness.</p>
<p>Yet the vicar was a good man, and the church
folk were in the main good people too. Henry's
experience was no unusual one, nor unnatural.
It was but the outcome of that pride of youth
which, while one is hungry for friendship, restrains
one from any show of a desire to make friends.
He was not the first nor the last young man who
coming from a small town or village where the
church life has an intimate social side, expects
something of the same in the larger communion
of the city, and is chilled by what seems frosty
indifference. The fault, however—if any fault there
be—lies nearly always with the individual, and
not with his fellow-Christians. So, or not; religion
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 153]</span>
is no matter of hand-shaking and social smirks.
The truth is that Henry had at last been touched
by that dread complaint of Self-importance, from
which before he had appeared to be immune.</p>
<p>A swelling head, from the contemplation of one's
importance in the great drama of life, and a heart
swelling with thoughts of one young woman, are
two phenomena which make the bachelor days of
all men remarkably alike at one stage or another.</p>
<p>If "the youngest editor of any daily newspaper
in England" (<i>vide</i> the <i>Fourth Estate</i>) let the
church slide that Sunday morning, he devoted
as much care to his personal appearance as the
least devout of ladies to her Easter Sunday toilet.
When he arrived at the Wintons, arrayed in a
well-fitting frock-coat and glossy silk hat, there
was no least lingering trace of the outward Henry
we knew of old.</p>
<p>The dinner was very daintily served indeed;
there was a touch of pleasant luxury about the
meal which contrasted most favourably with the
homely cuisine of Hampton Bagot, to say nothing
of his lonely bachelor dinners. He knew that the
hand which had set this table and superintended
that meal was Flo's, and assured himself he was
on the right tack. What a charming hostess she
would make! How well she would entertain his
friends, and do the honours of his house!
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 154]</span>
It was in pure innocence of heart, and merely
with a desire to agreeably tease the visitor, that
Mr. Winton remarked during the meal:</p>
<p>"Well, Henry, you are quite an important
personage now; the next thing we shall hear is
that you have blossomed out with a fine villa in
Park Road, and—a wife!"</p>
<p>From the mother—any mother—such an observation
would, in all likelihood, have been prompted
by thoughts of a daughter; but not from the
father—not from any father.</p>
<p>Flo tried not to look conscious; though under
cover of her apparent indifference she stole an
anxious glance at Henry, who only laughed. The
laugh was not convincing of the indifference which
his speech suggested:</p>
<p>"Plenty of time for that, Mr. Winton. I have
a lot to do before I turn my thoughts to the
domestic side of life. Besides, it means a year or
two of saving."</p>
<p>Flo imagined that for one brief second the eye
of their interesting visitor rested upon her as he
delivered himself so to her father.</p>
<p>It was the first occasion since the old days at
Wheelton that Henry had engaged to spend more
than an hour or two at the Wintons, and the
drawing-room conversation seeming to flag a little
after dinner, Flo suggested a walk. The weather
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 155]</span>
was alluring, and Laysford on an autumn day is
one of the most lovable towns in England. Henry
was nothing loth, and for the sake of appearance,
Edgar was included; but before they had reached
the green banks of the River Lays the obliging
fellow had suddenly remembered an appointment
with a friend who lived in an opposite direction,
and Flo and Henry were bereft of his company
for the remainder of the walk, which now lay along
the grove of elms by the river-side.</p>
<p>"It's really too bad of Edgar," said Flo, with a
fine show of indignation when he had gone. "One
can't depend on him for five minutes at a time;
he's always rushing away like that."</p>
<p>"Never mind," replied Mr. Henry Innocent,
glancing at his companion in a way that showed
the situation was by no means disagreeable to
him. "He will very likely be home before we get
back."</p>
<p>"But I am afraid you will find me dull
company," she said, although shining eyes and an
arch smile gave flat contradiction to the words.</p>
<p>"I don't think you need be afraid of that."</p>
<p>"Really! Why?"</p>
<p>"Because you must know it is not the case."</p>
<p>Thus and thus, as in the past, now, and always,
your loving couples. The gabble-gabble reads
tame in print, and we will listen no further. Let
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 156]</span>
them have their fill of it; their giggles, their tiffs
if they may; why should the stuff be written
down? But this must be said: Flo had reason to
believe that the affair of her heart was making
progress. She thought that Henry was coming
out of his shell, and the process was of deep
interest to her.</p>
<p>Edgar had not returned when the couple
reached home, and he was absent from the tea-table.
The day had been rich indeed to Flo, and
Henry was almost in as high spirits as his
companion. When the evening bells pealed out
for church he still dawdled in the undevotional
atmosphere of the Wintons' drawing-room. Yet
even for him they did not ring in vain. At their
sweet sound the shutter of forgetfulness was raised
from his mind, and he saw again a tiny country
church perched on a green hill; a ragged file of
homely folk trailing up the path and through the
lych-gate, familiar faces all in the long-ago; and
from the vicarage, with failing step, the grey-haired
pastor of the flock, and by the old man's
side the figure of a sweet woman, on which for a
moment his mental vision lingered, to be rudely
broken by—"A penny for your thoughts, Mr.
Editor," from Flo.</p>
<p>The shutter came down with a rush.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_157" id="Pg_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
<h3>FATE AND A FIDDLER</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">In</span> the life of journalism—many ways the least
conventional of callings, in which there remains
even in our prosaic day a savour of Bohemianism—there
is still the need to observe the conventions
of a commercial age. An editor who
familiarises with his reporters imperils his
authority, for every man of his staff considers
himself to be as good a craftsman as the editor;
and does not the humblest junior carry in his
wallet the potential quill of an editor-in-chief?</p>
<p>A newspaper, moreover, for all the prating
about the profession of journalism, is as much a
business establishment as the grocer's round the
corner. <i>Ergo</i>, if the grocer has his villa, so must
the editor. If the editor be a bachelor, then the
dignity of his paper demands that he shall take
lodging in the most pretentious neighbourhood his
means will allow.</p>
<p>Perhaps this had not occurred to Henry until a
fairly broad hint from the manager indicated what
was expected of him. Perhaps, also, it was the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 158]</span>
need to move into "swagger diggings" that
superinduced the aforesaid attack of "swelled
head." Henry justified to himself his removal,
and the increased expense entailed thereby, on the
ground that his collection of books, mainly review
copies, defaced by obnoxious rubber stamps—"With
the publisher's compliments"—was rapidly
growing beyond the accommodation of his tiny
sitting-room. So to the spacious house of a
certain Mrs. Arkwright, in the aristocratic neighbourhood
of Park Road, he moved with his
belongings.</p>
<p>His new apartments were luxurious beyond the
wildest dreams of his early youth, and for that
reason alone he stood in imminent danger of
developing expensive tastes. Ah, these furnished
apartments of our bachelor days! At an outlay
comparatively small contrasted with the immediate
end attained, they lift the young man into an
easeful atmosphere he would fain continue when
he sets up house of his own; only to find that
the hire of two well-appointed rooms is child's
play to the maintenance of a house on the same
scale. With the more cautious the convenience of
first-class apartments makes housekeeping appear
formidable. And there you have the secret "love
story" of many an easy bachelor.</p>
<p>Mrs. Arkwright's house was filled with well-paying
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 159]</span>
lodgers, but as all had their separate rooms, while
the landlady's family occupied the basement, there
was not much common intercourse between the
paying guests—for it should have been noted that
Henry had now passed into a locality where the
word "lodger" was taboo, and the evasive
euphemism "paying guest" took its place.</p>
<p>At first Henry was too much interested in himself
and his regal "we" to concern himself greatly about
the other lodgers, and in any case his regular
absence at the office every night would almost
have served for a "Box and Cox" arrangement.
But sometimes, as he had been about to leave in
the evening for his editorial duties, he had heard
the delicious strains of a 'cello superbly played in
the room above him, and although no judge of
music, he felt that the unseen player must be a
person of some character, for the wailing note of
the music bore with it a strong individual touch.
It seemed to him that this fingering of the minor
chords bespoke a performer whose personality was
as distinctly expressed in music as an author's soul
is bared in his written words.</p>
<p>The unknown musician piqued his curiosity.
Who was the occupant of the room overhead,
whose soul gave forth that mournful note? There
was something, too, in the music very soothing to
him. One night he lingered, listening to the player,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 160]</span>
following the plaintive cadence of the piece till
the music trailed away into silence, when he noticed
with a start that it was half an hour behind the
time he was usually to be found at his desk. He
fancied after this evening that there was something
in the room overhead he would have to reckon with.</p>
<p>The identity of the unknown player could easily
have been settled by consulting Mrs. Arkwright,
but that lady was almost as mournful as the music,
and strangly reserved, so Henry refrained for a
time from mentioning the subject to her. Besides,
there was a pleasant element of mystery in the
thing, which appealed to his imagination. But at
last curiosity came uppermost, and while she was
laying his supper about eight o'clock one evening—the
last meal of the day before setting out for
his nightly task—he asked the landlady who
occupied the room above.</p>
<p>"Well now, Mr. Charles," she answered, almost
brightly, as though struck with some coincidence,
"it is strange you should speak of him, for only
this very day he was speaking to me of you."</p>
<p>"Indeed! Then it's a him?"</p>
<p>"Yes, sir; a gentleman," with a pursing of the
lips.</p>
<p>"Young, I suppose?"</p>
<p>"Not much older than you, sir. But he has
seen a lot of the world."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 161]</span></p>
<p>This was accepted as an unconscious reflection
on his own experience.</p>
<p>"Been here long?"</p>
<p>"About two months, sir, this time. I have had
him staying with me before. He belongs to Laysford,
you see. He comes and goes as the fancy takes
him. Most of his time he spends in London."</p>
<p>"In London," said Henry, who still dreamed
dreams, although he was an editor so soon. "Do
you happen to know his occupation?"</p>
<p>"He writes, sir, I think, like you do. Leastways,
he is often at it in his room upstairs, and
is very particular about any of his papers being
touched."</p>
<p>"And he was speaking to you of me, you say?"</p>
<p>"Yes, sir. He asked me who you were. I told
him you were the editor or something of the <i>Leader</i>.
He seemed quite interested, and said he would like
to come down and meet you some evening, if you
had no objection."</p>
<p>"None whatever. On the contrary, I should be
very pleased to make his acquaintance; and
perhaps you would be good enough to tell
him so."</p>
<p>"I will give him your message, sir. I am sure
you would like him, for he has a way of making
himself liked by everybody."</p>
<p>"You make me quite anxious to meet him,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 162]</span>
Mrs. Arkwright. By the way, I don't think you
mentioned his name."</p>
<p>"It's a strange name for a gentleman, sir,"
replied Mrs. Arkwright, the pale ghost of a
smile chasing across her worn features—"Phineas
Puddephatt. We call him Mr. P. for short. His
family used to be very well known in Laysford.
You see, he is a gentleman of some fortune."</p>
<p>Henry found himself dangerously near to open
laughter at mention of the egregious name, but he
succeeded in commanding his features, perhaps
from fear of shocking the prim Mrs. Arkwright,
who had carried on a longer conversation with
him than he could have believed possible from so
reserved a lady. The most he could venture by
way of facetiousness was:</p>
<p>"Then, until we meet I shall call him 'the
mysterious Mr. P.'"</p>
<p>With the flicker of another smile the landlady left
her paying guest to the enjoyment of his supper
and thoughts of the comic muse who could couple
the sobbing of a 'cello with Puddephatt.</p>
<p>A week or more went past with those two
sleeping under the same roof, but a series of
engagements prevented Henry from hitting off
just the moment for meeting. One Saturday
evening, when both were at home, the opportunity
came. Noticing Henry deep in a book after
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 163]</span>
supper, Mrs. Arkwright asked if he intended to
remain indoors all the evening, and being
answered in the affirmative, suggested that she
would mention the fact to Mr. P., who was also
disengaged. Henry assenting, continued with the
book, a new novel that was provoking a storm
of criticism, and which he had determined to
review himself.</p>
<p>Not long after Mrs. Arkwright had left him
there came a knock at his door. To the invitation
of a cheery "Come in," Mr. Phineas
Puddephatt stepped across the threshold, bringing
a new and powerful influence into the life of
Henry Charles.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_164" id="Pg_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
<h3>"THE MYSTERIOUS MR. P."</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> mysterious Mr. P. was revealed to the eye of his
fellow-lodger as a man of medium height, well built,
almost soldierly in the carriage of his body, with a
pale, colourless face, clean shaven as an actor's, his
hair, though plentiful, fast turning grey. The
velvet jacket which he wore, together with the
studied negligence of his necktie, were distinctly
marks of affectation, if Henry had an eye for such,
and it is more than possible he had. Still, the
general effect of Mr. P.'s appearance must have
been generally favourable to the young man who rose
to greet him as he entered the room. It went some
way to support the romantic picture of him which
Henry had sketched out in his mind, and nothing is
more flattering to our self-esteem than thus to find
ourselves anticipating Nature. 'Tis easily done,
however, given the fact that the unknown scrapes a
fiddle. Yet why should musicians proclaim their
profession in their person as plainly as any stableboy
his? The amateur is even more professional
in his appearance than the professional himself.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 165]</span></p>
<p>As Mr. P. closed the door and advanced some
steps to shake hands with the occupant of the room,
his pale features were lit up by a smile that put
Henry at his ease forthwith, for there had been a
momentary revolt of shyness in the young man's
mind after expressing his desire to meet the
gentleman from upstairs. It was a worn man of
the world and a very provincial young man who
shook hands.</p>
<p>"You will pardon this late and informal visit,
Mr. Charles," said Mr. Puddephatt, "but it has
seemed so unneighbourly never to have met you
before, and you are so much engaged, that I determined
to take the first opportunity of passing an
hour with you."</p>
<p>"I am indeed happy to meet you."</p>
<p>"The fact that you are a man of letters interests
me greatly, for I too have dabbled a little with the
pen, and Laysford is a dull place for the literary
man, as everybody seems bent on money-grubbing."</p>
<p>"My own occupation is, I fear, not unsuited to an
industrial town. Pray sit down and make yourself
comfortable."</p>
<p>"Still, journalism is at least a province of literature,"
said the visitor, smiling.</p>
<p>He helped himself to a cigarette, and took the
easy-chair Henry had moved forward to the fire.</p>
<p>"A sphere of influence, perhaps, if not quite a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 166]</span>
province," Henry replied, catching something of
Mr. P.'s rather studied conversational manner, as he
seated himself and toyed with his cigarette. "I am
beginning to think that literature and journalism
have less in common than I once supposed. Have
you ever engaged in journalism?"</p>
<p>"Only slightly. I have done a little in the
reviews, chiefly on musical subjects. My efforts
have been in the direction of fiction."</p>
<p>Henry had almost remarked that the name of his
fellow-lodger was not familiar to him as a writer of
fiction, but congratulated himself on leaving the
thought unexpressed; and since the other made no
further reference to his own work, Henry fancied he
might be one of the rare authors who did not care
to discuss their books, and wisely refrained from
inquiring too closely as to the nature of these
literary efforts at which the still mysterious Mr. P.
had so vaguely hinted. The latter also tacked away
from the subject, and continued after a pause:</p>
<p>"I see you are well up-to-date, Mr. Charles, in the
matter of books," his sleepy eyes brightening almost
into eagerness while they scanned the heap of new
novels for review lying on Henry's desk.</p>
<p>"That in a sense is forced on me," replied the
young editor, "although my own personal taste is
to blame for the extra work involved. Until I
suggested it the <i>Leader</i> had paid practically no
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 167]</span>
attention to books. You see, it sells for its market
reports and local news—far more important things
than literature."</p>
<p>"It was always the way; the arts have hung for
ages on the skirts of trade."</p>
<p>"The result is that I have to do all our reviews
myself."</p>
<p>"I can assure you of at least one appreciative
reader who rejoiced when the <i>Leader</i> took on the
literary touch you have given it. It is said that
people get the kind of journalism they are fitted for;
but for my part, I believe that the colourless writing
of most provincial papers is the result of lack of taste
in the journalists themselves. You don't find, for
instance, that the more literary <i>Leader</i> is less popular
than the bald and tasteless production it used
to be?"</p>
<p>"On the contrary, I am told it is doing better,"
Henry replied, with a touch of self-satisfaction which
might have been modified if he had inquired more
closely into the cause of the increased circulation.</p>
<p>A series of local tragedies, and a heated controversy
on the licensing question, had probably more
to do with the result than all the editor's literary
taste.</p>
<p>"You have a book here, I notice," continued Mr.
Puddephatt, singling out the novel Henry had been
reading, and had laid down, with the paper-knife
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 168]</span>
between its pages near to the end, "in which I
am not a little interested. The critics have been
denouncing it so heartily that the publisher has
difficulty in keeping pace with the demand."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry to hear it, for I mean to slate it too,
and it is small consolation if that only helps to sell
the thing."</p>
<p>Henry turned to the table and picked up the red
cloth volume. It was entitled "Ashes," the name
of the writer being Adrian Grant. The eyes of his
guest followed his movements, and studied his face
with unusual sharpness. He made a barely concealed
effort to appear only languidly interested
when the editor proceeded to denounce the work in
good set terms.</p>
<p>"I certainly shall do myself the pleasure of 'letting
myself go' when I sit down to give Adrian Grant
my opinion of his book."</p>
<p>Henry had entered fully into that most delusive
joy of journalism which spurs the young, raw writer
on when he imagines he has some unpalatable
truths to deliver. But in this case there was a
worthier impulse than the common delight of
attacking an author in print. Despite the influences
that seemed to have been undermining the simple
religious faith Henry had brought away from his
native village, there still remained in him a strong
abhorrence of that paganish cynicism which, expressed
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 169]</span>
in fiction, tends to drag the mind into the sunless
dungeons of thought and away from the glorious
light of Christian truth. This book, "Ashes," was
precisely of that type. Under the guise of a story
pretending to reflect the manners of the time, it
discussed problems which were in no sense representative
of the varied whole of life, and the
discussion of which appealed mainly to the morbid
taste of readers who cared not a jot for art.</p>
<p>"I shall be most interested to read your review,"
said Mr. P.; "and might I steal a march on your
other readers by asking what impression 'Ashes'
has made on you?"</p>
<p>"I can best describe it by saying it leaves a
nasty taste in the mouth—clever, but not nice."</p>
<p>"Which might suggest that the author has
succeeded in his task," rejoined the other, laughing
and lighting a fresh cigarette, "since ashes have
usually that effect. You know Moore's famous
lines:</p>
<p class="noindent">
<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">
"'Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye,</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5em;">But turn to ashes on the lips'?"</span>
</p>
<p>"Yes, and I think that 'Dead Sea Fruits' would
have been as good a title for the book. But happily
for mankind, we are not in the habit of making
excursions to the Dead Sea to taste its apples."</p>
<p>"There speaks hopeful youth. That is precisely
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 170]</span>
what mankind is ever doing; that is the tragedy of
life."</p>
<p>"Surely there is more beauty than ugliness in the
world, and even if there were less would it not be
nobler to draw man's thoughts to the beauty rather
than to the ugliness?"</p>
<p>"Your view of art is somewhat Philistine, don't
you think? The artist's business is not with morals
but with truth, and truth is not always beautiful."</p>
<p>"But there must be a purpose behind every work
of art—a moral purpose, I mean," the younger man
persisted, although he was conscious he was no
match in argument against the defender of "Ashes."</p>
<p>Henry's opinions were still in that state of
flux when a young man's thoughts take on some
colouring from every influence that touches them,
and are only in a very minor degree the expression
of his own mind.</p>
<p>"The only purpose the artist need avow is
to express the truth as he sees it," continued Mr.
Puddephatt confidently. "I shall admit that the
picture set forth in this novel is ugly, but I believe
it to be true. Remember, we have the butcher's
shop as well as the pastrycook's in Nature, and I
fancy the former is the larger establishment."</p>
<p>"Admitted," Henry retorted, with lessening fervour,
"but are we not told that the end of art is to
please?"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 171]</span></p>
<p>"Assuredly; to please what?—Our sense of
the artistic. The Italians have a fine way of
talking about 'beautiful ugliness,' and if the artist,
working within the limits of his medium, proves
to others that the thing he has produced—picture,
statue, book—is in tune with Nature, let it be never
so ugly, it must still please our artistic sense."</p>
<p>Henry found himself wandering in a <i>cul de sac</i>
of thought. This man who opposed his mind to
his could out-manœuvre him at every move. He
was painfully conscious now that opinions he
had thought to be his own were only unwinnowed
sheaves of thought gleaned in the field of his reading.
Still, he felt that with pen in hand, and no quick
answer to each phrase, he could prove his case.
How often does the writing man feel thus.</p>
<p>"But there is nothing in this book, so far as I
can see," urged Henry warmly, "that tends to
elevate the mind to better things. It may be true
what you say of the butcher's shop, but the
pastrycook's is a pleasanter place any day."</p>
<p>"Ah, my young friend, that way lies indigestion,"
the other retorted, smiling. "It is none of the artist's
business to elevate; it is his function to interpret
life, and you will tramp far along the dusty road
of life to find anything that elevates. The fact
is, when I—I mean, when Adrian Grant set himself
to write that book, I believe his purpose was
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 172]</span>
to attack the mawkish sentimentality of our contemporary
fiction, to strike a blow at the shoddy
romance which is the worst form of art. For my
part, deliver me, I pray, from all writers who seek
to elevate. The true watchword is 'Art for art's
sake.'"</p>
<p>"To me it seems rather 'Art for dirt's sake,'"
Henry rejoined a little savagely, and a shadow of
displeasure clouded the features of his visitor at the
words. "But admitting all you say, is there no
Power apart from ourselves that tends to draw
our thoughts, our very souls, upward?"</p>
<p>"I have looked for it in vain," the other speaker
replied, with a languid wave of the hand. "What
about the life of our slums, for instance? Is every
man and woman there a villain, a lost soul? Surely
not. Yet we see every evil rampant, we see every
virtue dead; vice triumphant. Who is to blame?
The people: the victims? Surely not. Reason says
no, a thousand times. Where is this Power you
speak of when slumland exists, a horror? But in
Kensington there is as little that elevates as there
is in Whitechapel. The honest man loses generally
in the struggle; the scoundrel flaunts himself before
high heaven; he rides in mayoral furs, he swarms
into Parliament, he mounts the very pulpit itself."</p>
<p>Henry was abashed and silent before the impassioned
language of the speaker, who had suddenly
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 173]</span>
flamed up and risen from his seat, pacing the room
with restless strides while he declaimed and gesticulated
surprisingly for one who had seemed so self-possessed,
so <i>blasé</i>. Henry was silent because of
his inability to understand the mystery of pain—a
mystery to older heads than his.</p>
<p>"I have searched the world for a principle, for a
law of life," exclaimed Mr. P., stopping suddenly and
looking the journalist straight in the face, "and I
have never scented one."</p>
<p>"We are told to love one another," said Henry,
almost timidly.</p>
<p>"Well, do you find that principle at work? I
find hate, malice, inhumanity, wherever I turn my
eyes. That is what I meant by the butcher's shop.
I find ministers preaching the gospel of peace and
buttressing the policy of war and plunder. I find
hypocrisy enthroned, honesty contemned."</p>
<p>"But if one believes in the Word of God, is it
not better to be the honest man contemned than
the throned hypocrite?"</p>
<p>"If we find every fact of life at cross-purpose
with Scripture, what then?"</p>
<p>"Perhaps you don't believe in the Bible?" Henry
put it thus bluntly to him.</p>
<p>"I prefer to say that it does not convince me.
It tells, for example, of a man who was guilty of a
paltry fraud in attempting to cheat a small number
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 174]</span>
of his fellows; and upon whom, in the very act,
sudden destruction fell. He was struck down dead,
we are told. Where to-day is that Power which
meted out such swift and deadly punishment?
Here, in this town, men lie and cheat with impunity,
and on a scale which involves hundreds of innocent
victims. The Divine vengeance slumbers. God—if
there is a God—sleeps; or else looks on with supreme
indifference to the sufferings of His creatures."</p>
<p>"It is all a great mystery, I confess," returned
Henry, with something very like a sigh.</p>
<p>The anchor of faith, which had of late been
dragging, seemed almost to have slipped, and he
felt himself drifting out into dark and troubled
waters. This was the young man who, less than
an hour ago, was vowing to trounce the author of
"Ashes" for his gloomy view of life. The thought
had come to him that perhaps his very faith was
a mere convention of early teaching. He sat ill
at ease before his visitor, whose passionate outburst
had left both without further speech. It was a
strange conclusion of an irresponsible gossip on the
art of literature. After looking for a minute or
two at Henry's book-shelves, Mr. Puddephatt said
abruptly:</p>
<p>"I am indebted to you for a most enjoyable
hour, Mr. Charles, and hope we shall see more of
each other in the future."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 175]</span></p>
<p>"I hope so too," answered Henry, at a loss for
words, his brain in a whirl of distracting thought.</p>
<p>When the mysterious Mr. P. quitted the room,
Henry felt that his lightly-chosen epithet was
more suitable than ever. But it was less of the
man he thought, as he now unconsciously imitated
him in pacing his room, than of the ideas he had
enunciated; these had instantly become detached
from their originator and boiled up in Henry's mind
with all the lees of youthful doubts and questionings
that had been lying there. The mental
ferment had a harassing effect on him. Almost
for the first time in his life he felt a strange
desire to turn inside out his spiritual nature and
find what it consisted of. And the next instant
the thought was madness to him.</p>
<p>"I said to him that we are told to love one
another," he reflected, setting his teeth defiantly.
"If we did, then evil would cease out of the
world. So the religion which teaches this must
be right. But we don't do so—he was right there—and
if our natures are not capable of this love,
what profits the advice? He's no fool; but the
way seems very dark. I half wish he hadn't
touched the subject."</p>
<p>As these thoughts were coursing through Henry's
mind, the strains of a 'cello, soothing and
sensuous, came from the room above, adding a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 176]</span>
dramatic touch to a memorable experience, and
reminding him startlingly that he had never
spoken a word to Mr. P. about his music.</p>
<p>The lateness of the hour surprised Henry, who
threw himself down in a chair and stared blankly
at the dying embers in the grate, while the
musician sounded with exquisite touch the closing
bars of a nocturne.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_177" id="Pg_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
<h3>DRIFTING</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">When</span> Henry's review of "Ashes" appeared, it was
not so violent an attack on the author as he had
meant it to be. Indeed, he was half-ashamed when
he read in print what he had written about that
much-discussed book; in certain passages it sounded
suspiciously like Mr. P.'s own phrases.</p>
<p>"We shall admit that it is no business of art to
concern itself with morals." Where did we hear the
words before? "It is, alas, only too true that life
is not all sweetness: it has more than a dash of
bitter." A platitude; and borrowed at that. "But
we must not suppose that only beauty is true and
artistic: ugliness may still be of the very essence
of art." Really, the fiddler fellow might have done
the review himself. No doubt, when he read it, he
felt that it was mainly his.</p>
<p>Henry had yet to discover that the opinions he
gave forth with so much pomp and circumstance
had been unconsciously pilfered. The mind of every
young man is an unblushing thief. It drifts into
honest ways in due time, however, and when it
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 178]</span>
does not, the aged plagiarist may argue that he
still remains young.</p>
<p>In a word, the influence of Mr. Puddephatt fell
upon Henry at a most critical moment in his
zigzag journey towards sober common-sense, and
the modified tone of the review indicated a similar
change in the inner thoughts of the young journalist—too
sudden, perhaps, to be alarming.</p>
<p>But it was apparent that he had become unsettled
in his religious convictions as the result of frequent
subsequent meetings with his fellow-lodger, who
exercised a conscious fascination over the younger
man, and could induce Henry to reveal his inmost
thoughts without himself volunteering much about
his own personal history. Mr. P. was actuated,
no doubt, mainly by sheer interest in his friend,
and had no sinister end—as he conceived it—in
view. So the friendship grew, to the no small
annoyance of Flo Winton, who had frequent cause
to chide her lover for giving more of his scanty
leisure to Mr. P. than to one—mentioning no
names—who had perhaps more claim upon it.</p>
<p>At the <i>Leader</i> office he was finding things less
to his mind than he had hoped. Five years ago
the editorship of a daily paper was a golden dream
to him; a year ago, his brightest hope; to-day, a
post involving much drudgery, more diplomacy and
temporising; small satisfaction.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 179]</span></p>
<p>He imagined that his case was exceptional. "If
this," and "granted that," the editorship of the
<i>Leader</i> was an ideal post. Minus the ifs, it was
not a bed of roses. The cyclist who is bumping
along a rough road notices that his friend is
wheeling smoothly on the other side, and steers
across to get on the smooth track, just as his
friend leaves it for the same reason reversed.</p>
<p>We all suppose our trials to be exceptional,
and the chances are that the people we are
envying are envying us. Conceivably, the editorship
of the <i>Times</i> is not heavenly. There were
some hundreds of ambitious journalists ready to
rush for Henry's post the moment he showed
signs of quitting. A newspaper that has had
fifteen editors in five years will have five hundred
candidates for the job when the fifteenth gives up
the struggle. Henry had learned at the rate of a
year a week since he became editor.</p>
<p>That leader yesterday had displeased the chairman
of directors, as it was somewhat outspoken in favour
of municipal trams, and the chairman was a shareholder
in the existing company. Another director
wanted to see more news from the colliery districts
than the paper usually contained, and a third
fancied that the City news was not full enough.
Yet another, a wealthy hosiery manufacturer, who
was wont to boast himself a "self-made man,"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 180]</span>
pointed out that they didn't like leaders to be
humorous, and he was open to bet as the heditor
was wrong in saying "politics was tabu," when
everybody knoo as 'ow the word was "tabooed."
He'd looked it hup in the dictionary 'imself.
Politics and newspaper-editorship bring us strange
bedfellows.</p>
<p>The simple truth was that Henry, all too soon,
had learned what an editor's responsibility meant.
It meant supporting the political programme of the
party which the paper represented, temporising
with selfish interests, humouring ignorance when it
wore diamond rings, toiling for others to take
the credit, and blundering for oneself to bear the
blame.</p>
<p>Many of these worries would have been
absent from the editorship of a really first-class
newspaper; but first-class journals are seldom
edited by young men of twenty-two or thereby.
Henry had no financial control—a good thing
for him, perhaps—and the manager had won the
confidence of the directors through procuring
dividends by cutting down expenses. He saved
sixpence a week by insisting on the caretaker,
who made tea for the staff every evening, buying
in a less quantity of milk. He pointed out to the
poor woman that she was unduly severe on
scrubbing-brushes, and after refusing to sign a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 181]</span>
bill for a sixpenny ball of string required in the
packing department, on the plea that "there was a
deal of waste going on," he went out to dine
with Sir Henry Field, the chairman of directors,
to the tune of a guinea a head "for the prestige of
the paper." He had even stopped the <i>Spectator</i>
and the <i>Saturday Review</i>, which had been bought
for the editor in the past, urging that it was
dangerous to read them, as that might interfere
with the editor's originality in his leaders. Besides,
it saved a shilling a week, and really one didn't
know what journalistic competition was coming to.</p>
<p>Yet Henry had "succeeded," though he had not
"arrived." Best evidence of his success was the
jealousy which he created among the older members
of the staff, and the contempt in which his name
was held in the rival newspaper offices. But he
was not satisfied. In less than a year he had ceased
to thrill with pride when he was spoken of as editor
of the <i>Leader</i>. The political party of which his
paper was the avowed local mouthpiece had won
a splendid victory at the School Board election,
"thanks in no small degree to the able support of
the <i>Leader</i>," the orators averred when they performed
the mutual back-patting at the Liberal Club meeting.
Sir Henry Field bowed his acknowledgments
of the praise when he rose; and the manager of the
<i>Leader</i> was much in evidence. Henry was at that
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 182]</span>
moment writing away at his desk with his coat off.
This is the pathetic side of journalism and of life—one
man sows, another reaps.</p>
<p>Nor was Henry's love affair progressing more
happily than his experience of editing. The swelled
head was subsiding; perhaps the swelled heart
also. He heard frequently from home, and there
was occasional mention of Eunice; and when his
eye caught the name in his sister's letters he had a
momentary twinge of a regret which he could not
express, and did not quite understand.</p>
<p>Flo Winton had in no wise altered so far as he
was capable of judging. She was still the bright,
attractive young woman he had grown suddenly
conscious of a few years ago. Nothing had been
whispered of "engagement," but she had indicated
in many unmistakable little ways that she regarded
Henry's future as bound up with her own. Yet he
now began to wonder if he were wise to let things
drift on as they were shaping. He wondered, and
let things drift. Flo was quite clear in her mind
that they were "as good as engaged." She
understood that the woman who hesitates is lost.</p>
<p>Mr. P. was away from Laysford for the winter,
the second he had spent in London and on the
Continent since Henry and he became acquainted,
when the journalist had the first real glimpse into
the mysteriousness of his friend.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 183]</span></p>
<p>While compiling his weekly column of literary
gossip for the <i>Leader</i>—a feature which more than
one director had stigmatised as shameful waste of
good space that might have been filled with real
news or market reports—Henry found a short paragraph
in the personal column of a London weekly
which made him stare at the print:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"I understand that Adrian Grant, whose
book 'Ashes' was so widely discussed last
autumn, is the pen-name of a Mr. Phineas
Pudifant, a country gentleman who is well
known in certain select circles of London's
literary and musical world. His previous novel,
'The Corrupter,' published two years before
'Ashes,' had a distinct artistic success; but
the great popularity of his later book was
as remarkable as it was unexpected and
unsought. Adrian Grant is essentially a
writer for art's sake, and not for so much
per thousand words."</p></div>
<p>Henry doubted the evidence of his eyes as he
read the startling news. The journal in which the
paragraph appeared, and the <i>chroniqueur</i> responsible
for it, were noted for the authoritative character of
their information, and he knew that such a statement
could not have been made so deliberately unless it
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 184]</span>
were true to the facts. The very misspelling of
the name was in its favour. There were queer
names in England, but Mr. P.'s was especially odd,
and even wrongly spelt it retained its peculiarity.
Still, it was a tremendous strain on his mind to
accept the statement as accurate. Never, so far as
he could remember, had Mr. P. given him cause to
couple his name with that of the author of "Ashes,"
but after the first shock of surprise, he began to
recall how warmly his reticent friend had defended
the book on the evening when they first met. It
must be true, and now his wonder was that "Adrian
Grant"—he began to think of him under the more
euphonious name—could have suppressed "the
natural man," which is in every author and prides
him on the work of his pen. The mysterious
Mr. P. had deepened in mystery; the more Henry's
acquaintance with him progressed, the less he knew
him.</p>
<p>Henry was tempted to make a paragraph out of
this newly acquired information, and to add thereto
some references of a local nature which would have
been widely quoted from the <i>Leader</i>. But he had
second thoughts that the subject of the paragraph
would not be pleased, and heroically he restrained
himself, avoiding all mention of the matter. The
ordinary person who has no means other than
word of mouth for advertising abroad some choice
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 185]</span>
bit of gossip that has come his way, can but
vaguely estimate the personal restraint which the
journalist possessed of a tit-bit of news must
exercise in keeping the information to himself. It
is the journalist's business to blab, and he is as
fidgety as a woman with a secret. Henry, however,
had the consolation that perhaps after all the statement
might not be correct. There were frequent
cases of coincidence in the most absurd cognomens.</p>
<p>He had to nurse his mystery for the remainder
of that winter and into the early summer, as Mr.
P. remained away from Laysford, and his movements
for a time were quite unknown even to
Mrs. Arkwright, who usually received periodical
cheques for reserving his rooms while he was absent.
A brief note to that lady early in the year had explained
that her well-paying guest would be longer
in returning than he had intended, as he was making
a stay of some months in Sardinia. Another
paragraph with the name properly spelt had found
its way into the newspaper where Henry saw the
first. The second was even briefer, and merely
mentioned that Mr. P. was at present staying in
the Mediterranean island, "where probably some
scenes in his next novel would be laid."</p>
<p>Doubt as to the identity of Adrian Grant had
finally left Henry's mind, and he had even persuaded
himself that there were many passages both
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 186]</span>
in "The Corrupter" and "Ashes" which revealed
the man behind the book. It is surprisingly easy
to find the man in his style when you start by
knowing him.</p>
<p>And now the man himself was back in Laysford
once more. Henry heard the strains of his 'cello
before he met the player again. It was a Saturday
night, and Mr. P. had come downstairs for a chat
with him.</p>
<p>"You must have thought that I had gone away
for good," he said, after warmly greeting his young
friend. "I had it often on my mind to write, but
I am a bad correspondent. The most of my time
away I spent in Sardinia. My mother was a native
of that country, and I find it most interesting."</p>
<p>"I had heard you were making a prolonged stay
there. Indeed, I saw some mention of your movements
in the <i>Weekly Review</i>."</p>
<p>Henry thought this an adroit remark, and fancied
it must lead to a confession, but his companion
merely inclined his head as if he had not quite
caught the words, and went on:</p>
<p>"Ah, but Browning has expressed with grand
simplicity the impulse that sends the wanderer back—'Oh,
to be in England now that April's there!'"</p>
<p>The chance had gone, "conversational openings"
were valueless to one pitted against Adrian Grant.
Henry fumbled nervously among the commonplaces
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 187]</span>
of speech, and his friend, with scarcely another
reference to himself, was presently making the
young journalist talk of—Henry Charles.</p>
<p>"You seem to have been burning the midnight
oil too assiduously, I think. A trifle paler than
when I saw you last. Still grinding away, I
suppose."</p>
<p>"Yes; it is grinding. I have moments when I
think journalism sheer hack-work. The glamour
of the thing is as delusive as the <i>ignis fatuus</i>."</p>
<p>"And there you have life itself. <i>Ergo</i>, to
journalise is to live."</p>
<p>"I begin to believe you are right, but I could
have wished to make the discovery later."</p>
<p>"It's never too early to know the truth. But
come, you are surely thriving professionally, for I
heard your study of the Brontë's which you wrote
for the <i>Lyceum</i> highly praised by the editor when
I was in London last week."</p>
<p>"That is indeed welcome news. You know
Swainton, then?"</p>
<p>"A little. You see, I have done some work for
him myself. The fact is—"</p>
<p>"Are you Adrian Grant?"</p>
<p>Henry blurted out the question and eyed his
friend eagerly, nervously, ashamed of his clumsiness
and desperate to have done with it. Without
a tremor of his eyelids the other replied:
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 188]</span></p>
<p>"Since you put it so bluntly—I am. But I
have peculiar ideas of authorship, and you will
search my rooms in vain for any book or article
I have written. My conception of literature is an
artistic expression of what life has told me. I say
my say and have done with that work. I say it
as it pleases my artistic sense, and I pass to some
other phase of life that attracts me and asks me
to express it. To the profession of letters I have
no strong attachment. To live is better than to
write. I know some Sardinian peasants who are
kings compared with Tennyson—yes, I will say
Tennyson."</p>
<p>Henry was dumb at the vagaries of the man.</p>
<p>"The craft of letters," he went on, "I know only
as a branch of life, and far from the noblest."</p>
<p>Adrian Grant could make a thousand pounds,
perhaps two, out of any novel he now cared to
write. The thought flashed through Henry's mind
and left confusion in its tract. What were fame,
success, fortune, if one who had won them set
such small store thereby?</p>
<p>"I have no wish to be associated with my
books," he continued. "The reverse. All great
art should be anonymous. Think of the precious
sculptures of Greece, the work of unknown men
who knew that the joy of expressing truth was
immortal fame. It is a stupid convention of a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 189]</span>
stupid age that a book should bear an author's
name. My own name is scarcely pleasant to eye
or ear; but I do not quarrel with a scurvy trick
of Fate. It tickets the man, and that is enough.
My pen-name has served its purpose in securing
a sort of impersonal appeal for my books, which
cease to be mine once the printer has done his
work. You will never, I hope, identify me with
my works in anything you may write. I am
taking steps to prevent such senseless twaddle
about Adrian Grant as appeared in the <i>Weekly
Review</i> from becoming general. Who betrayed
my secret I know not."</p>
<p>"You will find it difficult to contradict."</p>
<p>"No doubt, but once contradicted by my solicitors,
who shall be able to swear to its truth?"</p>
<p>"But why suppress truth, since your aim is to
express it?" asked Henry laughingly.</p>
<p>"Ah, there we have to use the word in its
common commercial sense. The truth that my
name is what it is, and the truth that life is an
Armageddon, a phantasmagoria, have no relationship."</p>
<p>Mr. P. had risen to the passionate height of his
unforgotten first meeting with Henry, whose mind
was now swaying in a chaos of wild and whirling
thought at the touch of this strange creature.</p>
<p>"But there," exclaimed the novelist savagely,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 190]</span>
"let us talk of simpler things," and he threw
himself into the chair he had vacated to pace the
room. "You say you are less enamoured of your
work than you used to be. I can understand it,
and I should like to help you. From what I have
seen of you, the more literary work of a high-class
journal would suit you better; give you
the chance to express yourself—if you have
anything to express—and I think you have some
sense of style, though your ideas are deplorably
British—that is to say, Philistine."</p>
<p>"Do you really think I might succeed in
London?" Henry asked, ignoring the sneer at his
ideas.</p>
<p>"Succeed as the world accounts success, most
probably. You have the dogged British quality
of sticking to a thing, or you'd never have been
where you are so soon. But it's soulless work
churning out this political twaddle."</p>
<p>"I realise that, and I'm no politician; only one
by force, so to speak. You see, I write for a
living."</p>
<p>"A terrible condition, but there is worse. Well,
there is some zest, at least, in getting into handgrips
with London. If you've a stomach for the
fray, I could help. The whole scheme of life there
is different. The provinces have nothing to compare
with it, as you would soon discover."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 191]</span></p>
<p>"But I believe it would be best to try my fortune
as soon as I could."</p>
<p>"Yes, it's well to know the worst early," and Mr.
P. gave a melancholy smile. "If you care, I shall
mention you to Swainton of the <i>Lyceum</i>. I have
some influence with him, I fancy; and he knows
you already as a promising contributor."</p>
<p>"I should be most grateful," said Henry, not
without misgivings.</p>
<p>But his mind was now trained direct on London,
his earliest ambition. He had made his way with
surprising quickness in the provinces, and still he
was not happy.</p>
<p>"Who is happy?" asked his friend. "Call no
man happy until he is dead!—Solon was at his
wisest there."</p>
<p>"Happiness is worth pursuing, all the same,"
Henry returned, lamely enough, since he allowed
the pagan fallacy to pass unquestioned. "I shan't
be happy till I try my luck in London; and if
not then—well, we'll see."</p>
<p>Truly, his mind was seriously unsettled by the
spell of this man's strange personality.</p>
<p>Henry's eyes were turned to London, but he was
soon to find that there was one person who did not
relish the prospect, for reasons of her own.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_192" id="Pg_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
<h3>THE WAY OF A WOMAN</h3>
<p class="noindent">"<span class="smcap">What</span> makes you think of London, when you're
doing so well in Laysford?" Flo Winton asked
her sweetheart, strolling one Sunday by the banks
of the Lays.</p>
<p>"But well in Laysford may be ill in London,"
he replied.</p>
<p>"That's just it. Why not be content, and don't
play the dog with the bone?"</p>
<p>A woman seldom sees beyond the end of her
nose. Flo Winton was no doubt perfectly honest
in her counsel to Henry, and entirely selfish. Let
his professional chances go hang; he was doing
pretty well in Laysford, and she rather fancied the
town as a place to live in. Besides, "out of sight,
out of mind."</p>
<p>"It is the reverse from the dog and the bone,"
returned Henry. "What I now hold is little
better than the mere shadow of success, the real
thing is only to be found in Fleet Street. Comfort,
food, raiment, furniture, money to spend—these
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 193]</span>
can be earned in the provinces, but the
success I aim at must be sought in London."</p>
<p>"Dear me! And what will you do with it
when you've found it—if you ever do so?"</p>
<p>This was scarcely lover-like, and Henry felt
the implied sneer; but he was determined not to
be shaken from his plan. He did not answer
Flo.</p>
<p>"Money to keep a nice home and go about
a bit among the smart set of the town—isn't
that success?" she continued. "You are working
that way here. You're a somebody here; in
London you'd be one of the crowd. At least,
that's what I believe."</p>
<p>"And I too, Flo. Fancy being a somebody in a
town whose Lord Mayor can barely sign his name,
whose chief constable is a habitual drunkard,
whose town clerk wouldn't be fit for devilling to
a London barrister, whose whole corporation is a
gang of plunderers scheming for their own ends.
Fancy having to whitewash these ruffians in my leading
articles. A somebody! Rather the millioneth
man in London than the first in Laysford."</p>
<p>This looked bad for Flo; her reason for his
staying was his own reason for wishing himself
away. Henry was horridly honest and absurdly
upright to be a newspaper editor in a thriving
provincial town.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 194]</span></p>
<p>"I tell you frankly," he went on, while Flo
walked now in moody silence by his side, "I
could never settle down in Laysford. Any ass
with money is courted here."</p>
<p>"And it's the same everywhere; the same in
London," she snapped.</p>
<p>"Perhaps; only in London you can avoid the
society of the money-grubbers, and find a congenial
clime where the foul element does not enter.
You see, London isn't a town; it's a country, and
there are communities of kindred interests within
its borders."</p>
<p>"How do you know?"</p>
<p>"Well, I can gather as much from my inquiries,
and from what I read."</p>
<p>"A lot of use that is. I know it's fearfully
expensive to live in London."</p>
<p>"But one can make more money."</p>
<p>"I thought you despised money-grubbing."</p>
<p>"For the mere sake of the grubbing, yes. But
where it costs more to live there is usually more
to live for, and more means of earning the
necessary cash."</p>
<p>"Money; you simply can't get away from it, yet
you sneer at the wealthy folk here. You only wish
you had half of their complaint, as the thirsty cabby
said of the drunk who was supposed to be ill."</p>
<p>Flo laughed aridly at her simile, without
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 195]</span>
looking her companion in the face. Henry
felt irritated by her as never before. But his teeth
were set. Both kept silence for a time.</p>
<p>"Of course you never think of me," said Flo
at length, trailing her sunshade among the pebbles.</p>
<p>"That's just what I do, though."</p>
<p>"How kind of you!"</p>
<p>The sneer froze Henry like a sudden frost.</p>
<p>"Men are such unselfish things, to be sure,"
she went on; the ice thickening rapidly.</p>
<p>Henry had really thought a great deal about
her, and not without some misgivings. He had
seen himself a successful worker in Fleet Street,
with a dainty house out Hampstead way—he did
not know where that might be, but he thought it
was the literary quarter—and Flo looking her
best as mistress of that home, with many a notable
personage for guest. But he had also moments
when he wondered if he were not a fool to
bother his head about her, and when she said,
"How kind of you!" he was glad they were not
married yet. For all that, if Flo insisted, he
supposed it would have to be, though there had
been no arrangement in so many binding words.
He was inclined to let her have to insist, however;
and if she did—why, life would be ever after the
making the best of a bad job. Not a healthy
condition of love, it will be perceived.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 196]</span></p>
<p>As they were nearing the Wintons' again,
Henry thawed a little.</p>
<p>"Wouldn't you really like to live in London,
Flo?" he said.</p>
<p>"Perhaps, and perhaps not. No doubt I would.
But what I don't like—and I may as well be
frank about it—is living here and you in London."</p>
<p>"Ah, but that need not be for long," Henry
returned kindly.</p>
<p>"So you say. But one never knows."</p>
<p>She was honestly unhappy at the idea of his
leaving her, and Henry, when he understood this,
felt his heart rise a little in sympathy—the
swelling had gone down since we last saw them
together. But he did not guess that he was
pleased rather by the flattering thought that she
would miss him, than softened by the sentiment
of leaving her behind him.</p>
<p>"After all," he said, "I'm not away yet."</p>
<p>"It's that horrid Puddy—what-you-call-him—that's
to blame for stuffing your head with ideas of
throwing up such a good post as you have. Take
my advice, Henry, stay where you are, for a while
at any rate. There's a dear, good fellow!"</p>
<p>But the dear, good fellow kissed Flo somewhat
frigidly when he parted from her that night, and
decided that Adrian Grant was right in his estimate
of women as creatures who, in the mass, had no
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 197]</span>
ideas beyond social comfort, no ambition higher
than "society," and who were only interested in the
projects of men to the extent these might advance
their own selfish desires.</p>
<p>"She said I never considered her. By Jove, I
could wish I did not," Henry reflected, biting his
moustache savagely in his mood of discontent. "I
wonder what P. would think of her?"</p>
<p>When a man wonders what another would
think of his sweetheart it is a cloudy day for
the latter. When the man hesitates, the woman
is lost.</p>
<p>Mr. P. had never encountered Miss Winton; but
a few days after the frosty episode in her love-story,
Henry and his friend met Flo in the market-place,
and stopping, she was introduced. This not
without qualms to Henry, who could scarce avoid
the meeting, and was yet loth to present his friend
to Flo, in view of her expressed dislike for him.
But the ready courtesy and charming manner of
the author-musician seemed to please her, and to
Henry's surprise, her eyes, her smiles, were more for
Mr. P. than for himself. She could be most attractive
when she liked, this young lady who had called
his friend "horrid," and was absurdly opposed to his
dream of London. Henry did not know whether to
be pleased or disappointed at the bearing of Miss
Winton. He was glad she had not been cold to Mr. P.,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 198]</span>
hurt that she was pleasant—so superfluously pleasant.
On the whole, he was irritated, uneasy.</p>
<p>Something in the manner of his friend contributed
to this result. Not a word had been spoken in the
short conversation on the pavement of the old
market-place to awaken or enliven doubt or jealousy,
but there was an indefinable something in Mr. P.'s
manner to Flo, and his remarks when they parted
from her, to indicate that he had not been favourably
impressed.</p>
<p>A year or two ago happiness seemed such an
easy thing—so simple, so difficult to escape—that by
contrast, Henry's present state of querulous unrest
put it as far away as a fog removes the wonted
position of a prominent landmark. He had an
inclination to kick somebody—himself, deservedly.
Could Flo be right about settling down in Laysford,
where he was a potential "somebody"? Suppose he
had an opportunity to go to London now, should
he take it? If the man who wrote as Adrian
Grant had unsettled his mind so far as his old
simple faith in God's goodness and mercy was
concerned, and Stratford and Wheelton and Laysford
together had muddied his pictures of journalism,
and even Flo had clouded his thoughts of happiness,
what was worth while? Might London be all he
had painted it? Was it to be "never glad, confident
morning again"?
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 199]</span></p>
<p>Such was the muddle of Henry's mind when the
two returned to Mrs. Arkwright's from their afternoon
stroll, and each went to his own rooms.
Henry threw himself into an arm-chair and gave
himself up to brooding thoughts—dark, distracting.
He was not long alone, for his fellow-lodger
came to his door in the space of five minutes,
with a letter open in his hand and a smiling face,
which betokened good news.</p>
<p>"How's this for a piece of fortune?" he exclaimed,
stepping briskly towards Henry, and handing him
the letter. "Read. It has just come with the
afternoon post."</p>
<p>What Henry read was a brief note from Mr.
Swainton of the <i>Lyceum</i>, saying, that, curiously
enough, the very week he had received Mr. P.'s
letter asking him if he knew of any suitable post
for his friend, Mr. Charles, the editor of the
<i>Watchman</i> had mentioned that he was on the lookout
for a smart young journalist as assistant editor
of that weekly review. He had spoken to him of
Mr. Charles, and he now wrote to say that if the
latter would run up to town and see Mr. Godfrey
Pilkington, the gentleman in question, he might
"pull off" the job. It would be worth £350 a
year, he fancied.</p>
<p>Good news, indeed. At the magic touch of
"London" Henry's doubts were dissipated. They
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 200]</span>
had existed only while the prospect still seemed
to be uncertain. He would have preferred an
editorship; but an assistant in London was (he
imagined) as good as any editor in the provinces.</p>
<p>"You know the <i>Watchman</i>, I suppose?" said Mr.
P., who had closely observed the young editor's
delighted expression while reading the letter.</p>
<p>"Know it? I should think I do," he answered,
with his old buoyancy of spirit. "A perfect production,
the best of all the sixpenny weeklies,
although it is the youngest. How can I thank
you?"</p>
<p>"Not so fast; you've still 'to pull it off,' as
Swainton says. All that I have done has been
to open the door for you."</p>
<p>"But isn't that everything?"</p>
<p>"Almost, but not quite. If Henry Charles is
found 'as advertised,' all will be well. Something,
you see, depends on yourself."</p>
<p>"Get it or not, I'm eternally your debtor. Anyhow,
my varied experience should be of value,
though they usually hanker after university chaps
on these weekly reviews. But the <i>Watchman</i> is
a rare old Tory, and here I'm shrieking Radicalism
at five pound a week."</p>
<p>"Don't let that disturb you. I fancy your
politics are of no importance. It's your journalistic
knowledge that's wanted. To make up the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 201]</span>
paper, arrange the book reviews, write some of
them—the paragraphs and so forth. Pilkington is
a society fellow who takes life easily, and wants
a competent sub. That's about the situation, I
should say. I believe Lord Dingleton finances
the paper as a hobby."</p>
<p>"In any case, it would mean a footing in London,
and that is all I want."</p>
<p>"I am confident you'll suit, and although I
advise you not to build too much on London, I
believe it's worth having a try at—if only to
knock on the head your romantic notions of life
there. When will you go?"</p>
<p>"To-morrow; first train; back in the evening.
Nobody the wiser if it doesn't come off."</p>
<p>But it did; and for good or ill, with scarce
a thought of Flo, Henry returned to Laysford
engaged as assistant-editor of the <i>Watchman</i>, on
the understanding that he would start as soon
as he could possibly get away from the <i>Leader</i>.
The gentleman then assisting Mr. Pilkington was
a distinguished Oxford man, oozing learning at
every pore, but as incompetent a journalist as one
would meet within the radius of Newspaperland.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_202" id="Pg_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
<h3>IN LONDON TOWN</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> directors of the <i>Leader</i> were more gracious
about his resignation than Henry had expected.
Evidently, although quite satisfied with his work,
they did not apprehend any insurmountable difficulty
in securing a successor. The manager hinted (after
Henry's going was certain) that rather than have
had the trouble of changing editors, they might even
have arranged to advance his salary—supreme proof
that he had not been without his merits in the eyes
of his employers. Mr Jones, by virtue of his superior
years, took leave to warn him of the gravity of the
step he was taking, and assured him that at £350
a year in London he would be no better off than
he was with £100 less in Laysford. For one brief
moment Flo's desire that he should stay passed
through his mind, but in his heart he knew that
it was not entirely a matter of money, and he set
his teeth to "Now or never."</p>
<p>When it had been arranged that he was to leave
the <i>Leader</i>, the manager exhibited almost indecent
haste in appointing his successor, and was careful
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 203]</span>
to remind him that although, as events turned out,
he would be free to go in a month's time, the
Company was entitled to at least three months'
notice, and possibly six. Mr. Jones had a habit of
making generosity fit in with business; he did not
mention that he had secured a successor who was
to receive £50 a year less than Henry had been
getting. At one time an editor of the <i>Leader</i> had
been paid as much as £750 a year, but that was in
the days of a showy start, when money went out
more rapidly than it came in, and during the succeeding
years the pay-books would show a steady decline
in the rate of editorial salaries. By strict limitation
of payments, Mr. Jones was steadily increasing the
dividends of the shareholders, and steadily depreciating
the standard of the staff. The day that
Henry left, the literary touch which Adrian Grant
and a limited few had noticed in the <i>Leader</i> under
his editorship disappeared, and the market and police
intelligence again gave the tone of the sheet.</p>
<p>The most serious feature of his removal was the
conduct of Miss Winton, who gave him more than
one bad quarter of an hour for his selfishness in
actually accepting the engagement "without a
single thought of her." Flo harped so steadily on
this note, that Henry was half-persuaded he was
indeed a shamefully selfish young man; and when
he closely examined his conduct, he wondered
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 204]</span>
whether the satisfaction with which he had reported
his fortune to his father arose from filial affection
or from downright vanity.</p>
<p>The upshot of Miss Winton's exposition of his
selfishness and her tearful protestations against his
deserting her was a formal engagement, where only
an "understanding" had existed before. This
seemed to still her anxious heart, but Henry had
made the proposition with none of the fervour with
which more than once in fancy he had seen himself
begging for her hand. In truth, his heart misgave
him, and he did not mention the matter in any of
his letters home. He rightly judged that such
news might dull the keen edge of pleasure his
London appointment would afford to his own
folk at Hampton. He did not even mention it to
Mr. Puddephatt. For the first time in his life he
felt himself something of a dissembler. In this way
his removal to London rather aggravated his state
of mental unrest than modified it. His brightest
dream had come true, but—</p>
<p>The first weeks in London, however, were so full
of new sensations and agreeable distractions, that
he had scarcely been a fortnight away from Laysford
when it looked like a year. To walk down Fleet
Street and the Strand each day, or to thread the
old byways between the Embankment and Holborn,
with the knowledge that no excursion train was
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 205]</span>
to rush him off northward at the end of fourteen
days, was a pleasure which only the provincial
settling in London could enjoy. How he had
longed for years to tread these pavements as a
resident, and not merely as a gaping visitor. His
feet gripped them while he walked, as though he
thought at every stride, "Ye are firm beneath me
at last, O Streets of London!"</p>
<p>Fleet Street, he knew in his heart, was outwardly
as shabby a thoroughfare as ever served for the
main artery of a great city, but he also knew that
if the buildings were mean and the crowd that
surged along its pavements as common to the
eye as any in the frowsiest provincial city, there
was more romance behind many of these shabby
windows which bore the names of journals, famous
and obscure, than in stately Whitehall or in Park
Lane. The hum of printing-presses from dingy
basements, the smell of printer's ink from many
open doors, had a charm for him which perversely
recalled the scent of new-mown hay in a Hampton
meadow long years before.</p>
<p>At first, he rarely passed a street without noting
its name, an odd building without finding something
to engage his interest, a man of uncommon
aspect without wondering who he might be—what
paper did he edit? But soon his daily walk
from his lodgings in Woburn Place to the office
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 206]</span>
of the <i>Watchman</i> opposite the Law Courts was
performed with less attention to the common
objects of the route.</p>
<p>A sausage shop hard by his office, sending forth
at all hours of the day a strong odour of frying
fat and onions, remained the freshest of his
impressions; he never passed it without thinking
of its impertinence in such a quarter; but one day
he discovered that it was not without claim to
literary associations.</p>
<p>A young man with a chin that had required
a shave for at least three days, wearing a shabby
black mackintosh suggestive of shabbier things
below, and boots much down at heel, came out
of the shop with the aroma of sausage and onion
strong upon him, and the fag-end of a savoury
mouthful in the act of descending his throat.
Something in the features of this dilapidated
person struck Henry as oddly familiar, so that he
glanced at him intently, and looked back, still
puzzling as to who the fellow could be, when he
found the shabby one looking at him, and evidently
equally exercised concerning his identity.
After a moment's hesitation, Henry walked back
to him, and the sausage-eater flushed as he said:</p>
<p>"Why, Hen—Mr. Charles—can it be you? I
knew you were in London, and had half a mind
to call on you, but you—well—"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 207]</span></p>
<p>The reason why was too obvious to call for
explanation.</p>
<p>Henry himself was quite as much confused as
the speaker. It was a shock to him to recognise
in the person before him none other than one
who had first pointed out to him the road to
Journalism—"Trevor Smith, if you please."</p>
<p>What a change from those Stratford days, when
he had talked so jauntily of fortunes made in
Fleet Street, so hopefully of the coming of his
own chance there. The greasy hat was worn
with none of the old rakish air, but served only
as a sorry covering for unkempt locks; and if
London streets were paved with gold, the precious
metal had worn away the heels of Trevor's boots
as surely as any of the baser sorts.</p>
<p>It was difficult for one so transparently honest
as Henry to pretend not to notice the pitiable
condition of his old friend, and there was a
forced cordiality in his tone when he greeted
him.</p>
<p>"My dear fellow, I am delighted to meet you
again. Odd, isn't it, that we should meet among
London's millions? Come along with me to the
Press Restaurant for a bit of lunch and a chat
over old times."</p>
<p>"Thank you very much," said Trevor, "but the
fact is I have just had something to eat—"
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 208]</span></p>
<p>"Never mind that; so have I. Let it be coffee
and a chat."</p>
<p>Together they crossed the street and sought
out a remote corner of the restaurant, where,
despite his protestations, Trevor submitted to
adding two poached eggs on toast to the
sumptous repast he had taken at the sausage-shop.</p>
<p>The story he had to tell was as threadbare as
his clothes; with variations, it might stand for that
of fifty per cent, of Fleet Street's wrecks; the other
moiety being explained by the one word, Drink.</p>
<p>Some two years after Henry left Wheelton the
Stratford edition of the <i>Guardian</i> had been discontinued.
Despite the brilliancy of the "Notes and
Comments" from Trevor's pungent pen, the number
of copies sold brought no profit to the proprietors,
and the journalist who had demanded weekly "the
liberty to know, to think, and to utter freely above
all other liberties," was given the liberty to find
another situation. Every effort to secure a reportership
had failed, though he confessed to having
answered upwards of eighty advertisements; and
then, as a last resource, he had found his way
to London, which calls for only those who have
fought and won their fight in the provinces, but
receives with every one such a waggon-load of
wastrels.</p>
<p>"And now?" asked Henry.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 209]</span></p>
<p>"Writing introductions about different towns for
the British Directories, Limited, at half-a-crown a
thousand words. Some weeks it means as much
as fifteen shillings, but the job will soon be finished,
and I see nothing ahead of it."</p>
<p>Trevor was near to weeping point, but perhaps
Henry was more affected than he by the recital
of his woes. Gone was every vestige of his old
journalistic chatter, and in the very highway of
the profession he ranked as an alien compared with
the position he had held when he and Henry lodged
together at Stratford. Stranger still, in dropping
the old jargon of the newspaper man, he seemed
to have lost even the confidence to ask a loan now
that he stood more in need of it, and Henry could
better spare the money.</p>
<p>It was left to Henry to suggest that perhaps the
loan of a pound, "as between two fellow-journalists,"
would not be amiss. "Most men of letters," he
added kindly, "have at one time or other experienced
reverses of fortune. There is no hurry for
repayment."</p>
<p>"I am most grateful; you are indeed a good
friend to me," said Trevor, not without a touch of
real emotion; "and if only I can get <i>Jinks's Weekly</i>
to use a three-guinea article on 'A Week in a Dosshouse,'
you shall have the money back soon. They
took an article from me—nearly two years ago—on
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 210]</span>
'Fortunes made in Journalism.' I got four guineas
for it; but it was the only thing of any length I
have managed to place since coming to town."</p>
<p>The odd couple parted at the restaurant door,
and Trevor Smith shuffled off Strandwards without
any profuse thanks, for he was one of those who,
lacking both the capacity and the opportunity to
succeed, when overtaken by misfortune become so
shrivelled in character that they display not even
the melancholy pluck necessary to mendicancy.
The chances were that he and Henry would never
meet again. The stout ship under full sail had
sighted the derelict for a moment—that was all.
Like so many of his kind, Trevor Smith was fated
to sink out of sight in the dark, mysterious oubliette
of London's failures.</p>
<p>The assistant editor of the <i>Watchman</i> returned
to his office almost as sad at heart, if not more so,
than the man he had left, whose heart was numbed
and passionless.</p>
<p>The office of his paper was scarcely so elegant
as he had once imagined all London editorial
quarters to be. The entrance was a fairly wide
slit between a barber's and a tobacconist's, the
stairs as mean as those at the office of the <i>Wheelton
Guardian</i>; but the first floor, occupied by the
newspaper, was remarkably well furnished, Mr.
Godfrey Pilkington being a gentleman of some
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 211]</span>
taste, and the proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i> did not
stint him in such items of expense. At first Henry
had marvelled that a peer of the realm could have
deigned to mount such miserable stairs or to trust
his august person in elbowing between the barber's
and the tobacconist's, but he soon learned that the
most unpretentious accommodation on the highway
of journalism may cost as much as marble halls in
a provincial city.</p>
<p>The editor, as Adrian Grant had hinted, was no
glutton for work, and an hour or two each day
appeared to satisfy his taste. Thus all the details
of the <i>Watchman</i> were left to Henry, the chief
articles being contributed by friends of Mr.
Pilkington. A cashier, a clerk, and an advertising
manager were the only members of the office
staff; and as the paper was distributed by a large
wholesale house, no business beyond the editorial
and advertising affairs of the <i>Watchman</i> was conducted
at the office. A very humdrum place, in
truth, except on the rare occasions when the lordly
proprietor put in an appearance, or Mr. Pilkington
received some political person with an axe to grind,
and an eye on the <i>Watchman</i>, as a possible grinder.</p>
<p>For all that, the <i>Watchman</i> made a brave show
every Friday, and its articles were quoted widely
in the provincial Press as representing the weighty
opinion of Tory inner circles; and the more the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 212]</span>
<i>Watchman</i> was quoted the higher rose the hopes
of Mr. Pilkington that Lord Dingleton would
continue to bridge the monthly chasm which
yawned between the income of the <i>Watchman</i> and
the cost of its production, for—let us blab the
horrid truth, as yet unknown to Henry—the paper
was merely the expensive hobby of his lordship.</p>
<p>On returning to his office after his encounter
with Trevor Smith, the young journalist was
surprised and delighted to find Adrian Grant
seated in his chair, and smoking the eternal
cigarette.</p>
<p>"Thought I would just drop in to see how you
were getting along," the visitor said, rising and
shaking hands with his protégé. "Very comfortable
quarters here," glancing round Henry's
well-furnished room.</p>
<p>"I had just been wondering this very day when
I should have the pleasure of seeing you again."
The sincerity of Henry's words was apparent
on his face.</p>
<p>"I have only run up to town for a week or
two before leaving for another spell in Sardinia.
I am getting restless again, and there flow the
waters of Nepenthe. But the question is: How
are you?"</p>
<p>"Pleased with my work, at least, I must say,
and fascinated by London. But only to-day I
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 213]</span>
have had a peep at its under side, and I fear that
the less one knows of that the better for one's
peace."</p>
<p>"'See all, nor be afraid.' Surely you will let
Browning advise you if that decadent Adrian Grant
is too pessimistic for your healthy British taste,"
said the visitor, with the hint of a smile.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_214" id="Pg_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
<h3>THE PEN AND PENCIL CLUB</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> "Magpie" is, or was, a hotel of the good
old-fashioned homely type, standing in a street off
the Strand, in the Adelphi quarter. One must
speak thus indefinitely, since the whole face of
the neighbourhood has been transformed within
recent years, and many a memory-laden house
demolished. At the "Magpie" the era of electric
bells, elevators, ostentation, had produced no
effect, and within hail of many <i>caravansérais</i>,
where the pomp and circumstance of King Money
might have been seen in all its extravagance, the
"Magpie" retained its flavour of old-time cosiness
and plainness.</p>
<p>It was a hotel much frequented by the better
class of country visitors; the London man of
fashion never strayed within its portals. But here,
by reason of the retired situation of the place, the
accommodation of the rooms, and in some degree
(we may suppose) the moderate terms, the headquarters
of the Pen and Pencil Club were situated.
Less than three hundred yards away, the Strand
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 215]</span>
was a turgid stream of noises; here was a backwater
startlingly quiet.</p>
<p>Though certain of the vulgar upstarts, who manage
to sneak into every community of proper men, not
excepting literary clubland, complained that they
could not get eatable food at the "Magpie," the
members of the club, as a whole, did eat with some
heartiness whenever they assembled around the
board, which was twice a month during autumn
and winter. Few of the members turned up in
evening dress; the average author does not find
it necessary to entirely expose his shirt-front when
he sits down to his evening meal. Something of
the older Bohemianism hung, like lavender in an
ancient chest, about the Pen and Pencil Club; from
which it will be understood that it was not exactly
the Bohemianism of dirty clothes and stale beer,
but rather that brotherliness which enables men
of kindred tastes and interests to dispense with
the artificial ceremonies of society.</p>
<p>Such was the spirit of the company to which
Henry was introduced by his friend at the "Magpie."
The buzz of talk in the club-room dazed him a little
at first, and very timidly did he submit to be introduced
to this celebrity and to that. Most of the
members and guests assembled were standing
talking familiarly, awaiting the summons to dinner.</p>
<p>"Let me introduce my friend Mr. Charles, of the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 216]</span>
<i>Watchman</i>, Mr. Angus St. Clair," said Mr. P., thus
mentioning the name of a world-famous Scottish
novelist, with whom Henry almost funked shaking
hands.</p>
<p>Yet Mr. Sinclair was scarcely so impressive to
gaze upon as many a City clerk; far less so than
any young man behind a draper's counter in Oxford
Street. He was below medium height, quite without
distinction of features, and wore a faded brown suit.
Withal, his publishers could sell fifty thousand copies
of any book he cared to write, and the Press of the
Anglo-Saxon race resounded with anecdotes about
him.</p>
<p>"Ma name's pronounced Sinkler, but they pock-puddens
will ca' me St. Clair, so what can a body
do, Mr. Chairles?"</p>
<p>Mr. Charles couldn't enlighten him; but his host
suggested that the Scotch didn't know how to pronounce
their own names, and weren't very particular
how they treated English ones. The secretary of the
club dragged Mr. Sinclair off before he could return
fire to introduce him to one craving his hand-shake,
and Mr. Puddephatt, who appeared to be known only
as Adrian Grant among the members, said to Henry
that whenever he saw Sinclair he thought of a boiled
egg, because the fellow seemed so small and thin
that he felt he could break his skull with a tap of
a spoon.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 217]</span></p>
<p>"Ah, Mr. Grinton, how do you do?... My guest,
Mr. Charles, of the <i>Watchman</i>—a coming man, my
dear Grinton, a coming man."</p>
<p>Mr. Edward Grinton shook hands with the coming
man, who was never in a more retiring mood.</p>
<p>"I read the <i>Watchman</i>," he said, "and like it, but
I wish it wouldn't worry about my literary style.
The only test of merit in novels, Mr. Charles, is sales.
Ask at any bookseller if his customers care a straw for
literary style. They want a story, and I give 'em what
they—Ah, Tredgold! Still slogging at that play?"
and Mr. Grinton turned abruptly to another member
who had two plays running at London theatres, and,
in Grinton's phrase, "made pots of money."</p>
<p>This Grinton no longer holds the bookstalls in the
palm of his hand. His star has set; but at that
time his stories sold enormously, and earned him a
large income. They were common trash, concerned
chiefly with mysterious murders, and each had a
startling picture on the cover, which the publisher
alleged was the chief cause of their success. He
had curly hair. That was the only thing about
him Henry noticed.</p>
<p>In turn he was next introduced to Henry Davies,
the editor of the <i>Morning Sun</i>, the great Radical
daily—a man who stuttered strangely, and had
difficulty in saying that he was p—p—pleased to
m—m—meet Mr. Ch—Ch—Charles; Mr. Frederick
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 218]</span>
Fleming, the well-known dramatic critic of the <i>Daily
Journal</i>; and other celebrities whom he had long
worshipped from afar. The most ordinary mortals
all; not one of them had the mystic touch of Adrian
Grant, who seemed to Henry the most distinguished
man among the company.</p>
<p>"Dinner is served, gentlemen," the waiter called,
in rousing tones, and instantly the babble ceased,
and members and guests filed out to the
dining-room.</p>
<p>Henry was seated next to his host, and had on
his right Mr. Bone, the eminent publisher, who
happened to be the guest of Grinton, the novelist.
The lion lay down with the lamb in the Pen and
Pencil Club.</p>
<p>It was the custom of the fraternity after dining
to carry on a discussion on some literary topic,
and to "talk shop" to their heart's content. The
chairman, Mr. Diamond Jones, a highly successful
literary critic, whose profound ignorance of
literature's deeper depths was the standing joke
of his fellow-clubmen, mentioned that they did
talk shop there, but contended that "literary shop"
was worth talking, as everybody was interested in
it; other "shop" was only "shop," and therefore
contemptible. Your literary worker has a fine
disdain for every branch of life but his own.</p>
<p>The speaking was scarcely enthralling. It
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 219]</span>
happened to turn on the subject of humour in
literature, and a celebrated humorist opened the
discussion with some observations which suggested
(unfairly) that he knew very little of what he was
talking about. Apparently he had never heard
that Shakespeare was a humorist, or that Carlyle
was not devoid of the quality, or that Thackeray
had some of it, not to mention Dickens. Even
Meredith and Hardy escaped the notice of all the
speakers, who talked about most things but the
topic that had been introduced. Henry concluded
that the gifts of writing and oratory are
seldom wedded in the one. The best speaker was
a novelist, whose books were as free from humour
as Ireland is from snakes. He thought that
humour wasn't a high quality. Good for him that
he had none, as the great reading public likes a
man who is either as serious as an owl or as
giddy as a Merry Andrew. Sinclair was reputedly
a humorist, but it was difficult to get him to open
his mouth on the subject, and when he did the
company was in doubt whether to laugh or
applaud.</p>
<p>"Humour," he said, in his drawling Scotch
accent, "is, according to Russell Lowell, the great
antiseptic of leeterature. For my pairt, 'werna
ma heart licht I wad dee.'" And he sat down.</p>
<p>Really these great guns of literature thundered
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 220]</span>
no better than a twopenny cannon. Henry had
heard as good at a church debating society in
Wheelton. At least, the disparity was scarce
appreciable, and yet the men he had listened to
were, each of them, capable of great things pen
in hand; most of them would have been a loadstar
of interest in any large provincial city. They
were best beheld at a distance and behind the
glamour of their books, he thought.</p>
<p>But he had reason to modify his opinion in the
light of the club-room gossip which followed the
dinner and discussion. He was soon tingling with
delight at hearing men whose names were widely
known discussing the affairs of the literary world.
He felt that he stood at the very fount of those
streams of gossip which flow far and wide through
the channels of the Press. He knew that many a
paragraph he had clipped from a London journal
and printed in his column in the <i>Laysford Leader</i>
had originated in the after-dinner chatter of his
club, or some such coterie. "I am informed that
Mr. Blank's next novel will deal with," or "My
readers may be interested to know that Mr.
So-and-So, the celebrated author of this or that,
is about to," or again, "Mr. Such-and-Such is
contemplating a holiday in Timbuctoo with a view
to local colour for his next romance, which has
been arranged to appear in"—he could now see
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 221]</span>
that these pleasant pars, with their delightful
"behind-the-scenes" flavour, grew out of meetings
like this.</p>
<p>After leaving the "Magpie," Adrian Grant walked
with Henry as far as Long Acre, where the latter
could get a 'bus Bloomsburyward.</p>
<p>"An interesting gathering," said the novelist;
"how did it impress you?"</p>
<p>"Chiefly that distinguished authors are very
like human beings, on the whole."</p>
<p>"I'm glad of that. Now you're learning. But
you'll find much true camaraderie among them,
if you allow for the little eccentricities of the
artistic temperament, which you are sure to notice
the more you know of them. I overheard a very
third-rate novelist to-night telling a guest that
his own books were divided into three periods;
the middle one being a bridge that linked the
two expressions of his mind together. Heavens!
I don't suppose there's a score of people in the
country who are the least concerned in his work.
But he's a good fellow for all his vanity. We're
all of us vain, more or less."</p>
<p>"I was also struck by the number of well-known
people—men, I mean, whose names are
discussed throughout the whole country," Henry
observed. "It was difficult to realise the distinguished
nature of the company. You couldn't
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 222]</span>
see the wood for trees, if the simile will hold
water."</p>
<p>"Quite so. Should you become as famous as
Maister Sinkler, you'll still find that in any club
you enter there will be someone better known
than yourself. That's the best of London. It
brings you to your level. Where life is prolific—look
at China—it is least valued. Where geniuses,
or men of talent, most abound, why, it's like
Gilbert's era, 'when dukes were four a penny.'
At best, you're only a bit of vegetable in London's
broth-pot. But it's good that it should be so.
In the country you are inclined to esteem yourself
too highly, and of all human follies that's the
worst."</p>
<p>Mr. P.'s speech sounded like a literary setting
of Flo's opinion: "You're a somebody here; in
London you'd be one of the crowd."</p>
<p>They walked without speaking through the musty-smelling
region of Covent Garden, and had reached
Long Acre before Henry broke the silence suddenly
by remarking, as if after much considering of the
point:</p>
<p>"You said that one would find some true
camaraderie among the literary set. That scarcely
tallies with your rather pessimistic views of human
nature in general."</p>
<p>"Well, after all, it's difficult to be consistent—and
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 223]</span>
speak your mind. My views of human nature
remain unchanged, and though, as you have said,
authors are very like folk, they do have a touch
of brotherliness which you will find in no other
profession; certainly not in the musical, of which
I know something. There may appear to be a
good deal of back-biting and jealousy among
literary men; but they are always ready to
encourage the new man, to applaud the conscientious
worker. Remember that most authors of genius
have first been proclaimed by their fellows of the
pen. In the nature of things it must be so. The
asinine public has to be told who are the writers
worth reading. Mind you, the duffer will get never
a leg up, and before any one gets a lift he has
to show himself worthy of it. But I suppose the
same might be said of the business world as well."</p>
<p>"Do you think I'm going the right way for a
leg up, then?—if I may bore you with my own
petty affairs."</p>
<p>"Not yet; but you'll soon be shaping that way.
This I realise: journalism will give any moderately
clever fellow a living, but even a genius will scarcely
win a reputation that way. Billy Ricketts writes
a book, and even if it's a bad one, Billy is for a
week or two more noticed in the papers than the
editor of the <i>Times</i> will be in five years. The
journalist who gives his best to his paper is a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 224]</span>
pathetic figure—from the British or Henry Charles
point of view, I mean, as I'm looking at the situation
with your ideas to direct me, your view of success.
He is probably our nearest approach to the Greek
sculptors I seem to remember quoting to you once.
Anonymity is essential to the true artist, I hold;
and strangely, it is the newspaper man—none less
artistic—who conforms to this law in England,
perhaps unwillingly."</p>
<p>"Of course, we'll never agree on that point," said
Henry, "as I'm all for personality."</p>
<p>"So; that's what I know, and hence my line of
reasoning. Play up your personality for all it's
worth, and be happy. It's not my way; but no
matter. And to do so, journalism is at best only
a training school. What you must do is a book.
Once you make a moderate success with a book,
your precious personality has become a marketable
thing in modern Philistia."</p>
<p>"You mean a novel, I suppose?"</p>
<p>"I mean a book. You're not a poet, or the song
within would have rilled out long ago. <i>Ergo</i>, it's
not a book of poetry. You have a literary touch,
and might do well in the essay; but essays are
'off' just now, says the Ass-in-Chief of the
great B. P. You haven't gone round the world on
your hands and knees, or walked from Charing
Cross to St. Paul's on your head—either of which
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 225]</span>
achievements would have given you copy for a
sensational book hot with personality, and made
you the most sought-after lecturer of the day. So
there remains only the novel, and the B. P.
shouts for more novel, like the whimpering
infant it is. Give it novel, my lad. You, as
well as anybody. That the novel has become a
contemptible convention of the publishing trade
is not its fault. Always remember we have
Meredith and Hardy and Stevenson writing
novels, and you will think well of that vehicle of
expression."</p>
<p>"But I have no great impulse to write fiction.
I'd rather write about the men who write it,"
Henry said.</p>
<p>"A pity that; for little of real value is done
without the impulse. But one never knows. Try
and see. The impulse may follow in the same
sense that certain psychologists believe the simulation
of an emotion produces its effect. I like the
idea; but am not quite ready to accept it.
Reproduce the muscular expressions of sorrow or
joy, and you will after a time be sorrowful or
glad, says Nordau. There's something in the
thought, perhaps. Similarly, determine to write
a novel, and the mood for novel-writing will be
induced. I don't say I agree with the theory.
But it's worth a trial, and anyhow a novel is the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 226]</span>
easiest form in which to make a public appeal,
to make merchandise of your personality."</p>
<p>Adrian Grant's face wore its half-cynical smile
as he said this, and extending his hand to Henry,
he added abruptly, as his manner was: "This is
your 'bus, I think; I must make for Kensington."</p>
<p>Henry shook hands at once with a hurried
expression of thanks for his friend's kindness, and
jumped on the 'bus, while Mr. P. hailed a passing
hansom, and set out for his rooms in Gloucester
Road.</p>
<p>Vague and confused were the thoughts of Henry
as the 'bus lumbered its way by historic Drury
Lane and across Holborn, to his door in Bloomsbury.
A 'bus ride was still full of romance to
him, and the glimmering lamps of London were
dearer to his mind than "the swing of Pleiades";
every jingling cab that passed, every lighted
window, was touched with romance in his eyes.
To make this wondrous City listen to him—how
the dream thrilled him! That the unknown
thousands who flitted through these world-famous
streets, and lived behind these lighted windows,
might read what he wrote and know him for the
writer—it was worth trying for. Already he had
seen his book brave in bright gilt, shouldering the
best of them in the book-shops of Holborn and
the Strand; he could read the reviews distinctly:
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 227]</span>
noticed even the size and style of the type they
were set in, was gratified to find them so remarkably
favourable, and—"Wob'n Plice!" shouted the
conductor.</p>
<p>Henry descended to asphalt, and was presently
putting on his slippers in his small sitting-room in
a Bloomsbury boarding-house.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_228" id="Pg_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
<h3>THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">On</span> the mantelpiece of his room, set on end
against the little marble clock which ignored the
flight of time, Henry found three letters. He
examined the addresses and postmarks of each,
and saw at a glance that one was from his sister
Dora, another from Flo, and the third from Edgar
Winton. For a moment he hesitated, undecided
which to open first. Home for him had a far-off
call by now, and it was with the vague sense of
a dream that was past that he read Dora's
fortnightly letters. Flo—hers was a more recent
influence—and from a fascinating it had come to
be an irksome one: the more real by that token.
He burst open Edgar's letter with his forefinger,
and read:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Henry,</span>—I've been going to write you
any time these last six weeks, but—well, old man,
I'm no hand at correspondence unless it's a penny
a line. Besides, I hear about you through Flo,
who is quite reconciled to your absence, which the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 229]</span>
poet tells us makes the heart grow fonder. I
wonder!</p>
<p>"But first of all, you'll want an inside view of
the dear old rickety old <i>Leader</i>. Your successor
is a daisy, and no mistake. Walks into the office
in knickers and a cloth cap, and shaves once a
week when his beard is ready for clipping. Even
Dodge, the newest junior, sneers at him, and
refuses to recognise 'that josser' as editor. It's
hard cheese on a youngster to run up against a
weed like Steel for his first editor. Gives a low
idea of our noble profession, don't you know.</p>
<p>"Steel's greatest feat has been to assault his
wife in the street while drunk (that's Steel, not
the wife, I mean, who was lushing), and get run
in; but a word from 'Puggie' [Mr. Albert Scriven,
the chief reporter, so called by reason of his
physical appearance], who happened to be at the
police station at the time, put the matter right,
and 'Puggie' took our warrior to his ''appy little
'ome.' It fell to my lot to vamp up the usual
editorial cackle myself that night, but I've got to
help the beauty most nights, as he doesn't like
work. Jones knows of his little exploits, but does
nothing. He's got him cheap, and that's enough
for him. Besides, nobody outside the office—and
nobody in it, for that matter—would believe that
Steel was editor of the paper, so Jones swaggers
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 230]</span>
about the town, and has taken to describing himself
as 'managing editor.' Oh, we enjoy life here!
there's a lot of fun in the game. Steel wonders
how the paper lived through the editorship of 'a
literary ass.' He isn't nuts on literature; but with
a pair of scissors, some gum, and a pencil, the
Johnnie can knock out leaders while you cough,
and the joke is nobody seems to be a bit the
worse. Hope you don't mind my telling you this;
but really, do you think anybody reads leaders?
I hope they don't read mine.</p>
<p>"The <i>Leader</i> appeared four hours late yesterday.
What do you think of that? Jones again. He's a
treat. A cog-wheel of the Hoe machine burst, and
there wasn't a spare one in stock, nor in the town.
Though he had been warned months ago, when a
similar accident happened, that the last spare wheel
had been used, he would not spend the money to
stock one or two. We had to borrow one from the
<i>Milton Daily Post</i>. You are well out of the hole,
I can tell you.</p>
<p>"I read the <i>Watchman</i> every week, and think
it immense; but you fly above me, old man.
I'm only a country scribbler, and must admire
you a long way off. I takes off my hat to you,
sir.</p>
<p>"The mater is rather queer just now, and I
hope she isn't going to kipper. But one never can
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 231]</span>
tell. 'Our times are in His hand,' that's Browning,
isn't it? I saw it quoted the other day, and
managed to drag it into a leaderette this week.
Sounds well, I think.</p>
<p>"Pater joins in kind regards—at least, I suppose
he does, though I haven't asked him—and Flo is
sending her warmest breathings direct, I understand.
—Believe me, ever thine,</p>
<p class="right">
"<span class="smcap">Edgar Winton.</span>"
</p>
</div>
<p>Henry was inclined to resent the flippant tone
of the letter, the senseless slang; but he remembered
that it was "only Edgar's way," and stuffed
the sheets back into their envelope and into his
inside pocket. Flo's letter he turned over again
as he lifted it and Dora's from his knee. He
opened his sister's next, and laid the other down.</p>
<p>It was the usual Hampton budget of uninteresting
details about the doings of that little community,
and Henry read it in his usual perfunctory way,
scarce recollecting the people whose names were
recalled by it. "Who on earth is old Gatepost?
I believe she means old John Crew, the farm
bailiff. I'm surprised he is only dying now.
Thought he would have been dead long ago."
Often his thoughts would run thus over some bit
of news from Dora. She seemed to write from out
the past.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 232]</span></p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"Hoping you are well, as we all are when this
leaves. No more at present, from your loving
Sis."</p>
</div>
<p>The phrase might have been stereotyped; it was
Dora's one form of "drawing to a close." Indeed,
she did not draw thither; she simply closed
according to formula when she had spun her
loose threads of news into some semblance of a
web of words.</p>
<p>Dora's letter was presently keeping Edgar's
company, with many another tattered envelope
and note, in Henry's pocket.</p>
<p>He turned to the third of the letters with no
apparent zest.</p>
<p>"She writes a neat hand after all," he murmured,
as he scanned the superscription. A bad sign that.
A man in love should be the last person to ask
for an opinion of the handwriting of his sweetheart.
When he can speak with deliberation on the subject
or think of it with detachment, he has become
critical, and the end—happy or otherwise—is not
far off. Happy only if there is still time or courage
to draw back.</p>
<p>"She writes a neat hand after all," said Henry, as
he rammed his finger into the flap of the scented
envelope and burst it open. "After all!" These
even more than the words preceding them were
suggestive.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 233]</span></p>
<p>The hour was late, and who knows but that may,
to some extent, have been responsible for the
blinking mood in which the young man read his
sweetheart's letter? It was the typical feminine
scrawl, chiefly chatter about society doings in
Laysford.</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"Oh, I'm becoming quite a giddy girl, dearest,
and me engaged. It's too awful. Just fancy, I've
been to three functions—<i>three</i>! Poor me that used
to go nowhere at all. The Mellises' garden party
was a very swell affair. I was there because I
teach the daughter the pianoforte—and a silly thing
she is. But—<i>don't</i> be angry now, Hal—who do
you think took me to the Mayor's reception?
Why, that terrible goose, Mr. Trentham, the
Mayor's secretary. You remember him? Short,
stout, fair moustache, but <i>always</i> well dressed.
Fancies himself, <i>rather</i>. He has asked me to
go with him to another reception, when some sort
of conference comes to Laysford. I don't know
what it is, but the receptions are all right. Lots
of fun and the best of everything. Perhaps you
wouldn't like me to go, dearest? But really you
needn't be <i>jealous</i>. Trentham is <i>really</i> a goose.
Only one is so dull, and then <i>everybody</i> knows I'm
engaged."</p>
</div>
<p>Henry knew, certainly; and he had no doubt
the "everybody" was not unjustified. He accepted
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 234]</span>
the information without a pang of jealousy.</p>
<p>"Everybody knows I'm engaged." Somehow, he
would not readily have confessed to delight in the
fact. Trentham he did not recall as suggestive
of the ungainly biped. "Rather a decent sort of
chap," thought Henry. "Not much in Flo's way,
I imagine." He blinked through the remainder of
the letter, never dreaming—though near to dreamtime—that
Trentham was wondering what Flo
could see in Henry Charles. The man who can
divine just why another man loves or admires one
woman, or why a woman "sees anything" in another
man, has yet to be born. He was certainly neither
Henry Charles nor Mr. Trentham.</p>
<p>"Not a word from Flo about her mother," Henry
reflected, on his way to bed. "Just like her—all
about herself. I wonder if I'm an ass!"</p>
<p>How unreasonable men are. Why should Flo
have written about anyone but herself?</p>
<p>It was time for Henry to wonder. But he was
still wondering months later, when Trentham was
not.</p>
<p>The fact is, this Trentham was a very fair
specimen of the average bull-headed Englishman,
and better than most in the eyes of Miss Winton,
since he enjoyed a private income, which made him
quite independent of the salary attaching to his
official position. His name cropped up frequently
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 235]</span>
for a time in Flo's letters to Henry, but the latter
scarcely referred to it in any of his replies, from which
Flo judged him jealous, and when Trentham had
never a mention from her, Henry supposed him
circling in some other orbit. Here, of course, he
was wrong, and he might have noticed a lowering
temperature in the tone of Flo's epistles. There
was still need to ask himself whether he was an
ass, and to answer in the affirmative. But he never
thought out an answer until one day it came ready-made
in a fine right-hander, which took his breath
away:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Henry,</span>—I am so sorry to tell you
that I cannot continue our engagement. My
affections have undergone a change, and I think
it best for both of us that we should not carry out
the engagement. I have promised to marry Mr.
Trentham, who really thought we were never
engaged. I haven't worn the ring much, as I didn't
care greatly for the style of it, and now return it.
I feel it is best for both of us to cease our correspondence.
I shall always wish you well.—
Sincerely yours,</p>
<p class="right">
"<span class="smcap">Flo Winton.</span>"
</p>
</div>
<p>"An ass," undoubtedly. The thing that he had
often wished had happened, yet he felt chagrined,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 236]</span>
and the sense of having been wronged leaped up
at him.</p>
<p>"She has made a fool of me," thought Henry,
after reading the brief note, "and yet I'm glad."
But he was nothing of the kind. He knew that
he ought to be glad; he had hoped for this for
nearly a year in the odd moments when he saw
things clearly, and realised that Flo was receding
from the place she had once held in his esteem.
His visits to Laysford had not improved matters.
He was vexed, irritated, disappointed—anything
but glad. His self-esteem was wounded, and to
have avoided an injury there he would have faced
even the obligation he had entered into before
coming to London.</p>
<p>"She has taken up Trentham because the
creature has a bit of money," he muttered savagely,
crumpling up the offending note, and then opening
it out to read the fateful words again. "So much
for women!" And he swept the sex aside for
the perfidy of this one, though the woman's very
selfishness was the saving of him.</p>
<p>"Delighted!" he wrote in bold letters on a postcard,
and put her name and address on it. Then
he tore it up, and feared he was a cad to the
bargain.</p>
<p>Delighted! He was miserable for three days,
until he could sit down and pen a sensible letter,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 237]</span>
in which he expressed the opinion that Flo had
a better knowledge of her affections than he had,
and that while he would never have given her
the pain of breaking their engagement, he accepted
the situation with some philosophy, since it did
not altogether run against his own inclination.</p>
<p>A silly affair enough, as he came to understand
once the final letter had been posted, and
even so he had a delusion that at some time he
had been actually in love with Flo. One cannot
tell whether she had any delusions on the same
object. She was not of the kind who dream
dreams.</p>
<p>"I'm terribly sorry, old man, that Flo has cut
up this way," wrote Edgar. "I always fancied
you and she were engaged, but evidently not.
Trentham is a very decent sort. They're to be
married soon now that the mater is all right
again. Flo is nuts on 'style,' you know, and you
are not—unless it's literary style. After all, perhaps
it's for the best. I think everything is for the
best except what happens at the <i>Leader</i> office.
Steel still keeps the uneven tenor of his way.
I make wonderful progress. Don't gasp when
I tell you that, quite unsolicited, I got a rise
of half-a-crown last week. I think I shall
buy a motor-car with it. Fancy, Jones has
gone in for electric light. You wouldn't know the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 238]</span>
place now—the light shows up the dirt so
strongly."</p>
<p>But Laysford had entirely lost interest for Henry
now. To fancy one has been in love is almost as
serious a condition as to be in love.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_239" id="Pg_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
<h3>"THAT BOOK"</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Adrian Grant</span> had gone away to Sardinia, but
he had left Henry urged to the point of writing
"that book." At first Henry approached the task
with but little taste, for he had the good sense
to doubt whether his talent lay in the direction
of creative work, as the writing of fiction is so
comically miscalled. But the thing had to be
done, and as well now as again. At first progress
was slow, as book-reviewing for the <i>Watchman</i>
kept him busy most nights at home, while sub-editorial
duties filled out all too amply his office
hours. There was agony of mind in the writing
of the early chapters, and he had not gone far
when the rupture with Flo came to disturb his
thoughts and to agitate his feelings. But it
had the effect of setting him almost savagely to
his novel again, and gloomy was the atmosphere he
created in his chapters. It was a romance of town
and country life, and was entitled provisionally,
"Grey Life."</p>
<p>For a while after Flo's exit from his life the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 240]</span>
book went ahead rapidly; then he set it aside
almost afraid to go on after reading what he had
written; it was so savage, so unlike anything he
had ever hoped to write. If at that time he could
have been impersonal enough in his criticism, he
would have seen at a glance that Adrian Grant
was not only responsible for his having essayed the
task, but that he had projected something of his
pessimism into the mind of the writer.</p>
<p>The unfolding young editor, who had meant to
write such a scathing review of "Ashes," would
have been as incensed by the unhealthy gloom,
the wintry sadness, of "Grey Life." Of course, it
is to be remembered that the said young editor
had never delivered the terrible slating he intended
to devote to Adrian Grant's popular work, but he
had at least thought it, and believed it would have
been justified, even after he had written something
different. Though the morbidity of sex
was entirely absent from "Grey Life," it contained
a good deal that was as deserving of ban as
anything in "Ashes."</p>
<p>When Mr. P. returned in the late autumn of
the year from his sojourn in the South, he asked
to be shown the manuscript, incomplete as it was;
and pronounced it good.</p>
<p>"You've stuck almost in sight of the end," he said.</p>
<p>"Wrecked in port," replied Henry, laughing.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 241]</span></p>
<p>"Not quite wrecked, but floating rudderless.
There's no reason why this shouldn't hit—if you
want to make a hit. But it's generally books
that are published without intent to 'boom' that
stumble into success. At least, it's been so with
mine."</p>
<p>"But I'm uneasy about it all. Don't you think
the picture intolerably grey?"</p>
<p>"None too grey, my lad—grey is the colour of
life," said the man who had just come back from
cloudless blue skies and gorgeous sunsets.</p>
<p>"Somehow I felt like that when writing, but
when I read it I have an inkling that life is
brighter than I have shown it to be; that
it's worth while living both in country and in
town."</p>
<p>"It's not for me to advise one who has done
so well off his own bat, but I would suggest that
you work the thing out to its bitter end, keeping
true to the artistic impulse which will settle each
of the characters for you, and without you, if you
but let it have its sway."</p>
<p>"But it would be a bitter end for two of them."</p>
<p>"Precisely. For all of them, probably. It is
for most of us."</p>
<p>"There I don't agree with you. Don't you
think the bitter end is at the beginning? The
book ends bitterly at the start, so to speak."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 242]</span></p>
<p>"I do, and I don't object to that in the least.
The fact is, you have subordinated your Philistine
nature most wonderfully, and are in a fair way to
produce a work of art, but here the Philistine
part of you comes uppermost at a critical moment,
and has its usual fit of remorse at a piece of
genuine art. I would not have credited you with
the capacity to produce such a work as this
manuscript contains. That is frank, isn't it?"</p>
<p>"And I ought to be flattered, I suppose. But
I'm not. I've been disillusioned all along the
line, but surely when the illusions fall away life
is not merely a corner for moping in. Besides, is
it a worthy work to disillusionise others?"</p>
<p>"It is. It is the business of sane men to expose
for what they are the fools' paradises of the
world."</p>
<p>"Surely not. Let the fools find it out themselves;
and if they never do, the better for them."</p>
<p>"Look here, my young friend, your best plan is
to take a holiday at once and go down home for
two or three weeks, to get over this mood of contrariness.
I'm surprised that you've been slogging
away in London all through the stifling summer.
It was mere madness. You're suffering from
mental clog. Shake free of Fleet Street for a
week or two, and the book will finish, never fear.
Whatever you do, don't have one of those maudlin,
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 243]</span>
barley-sugar ends. Be true to life, and let all
else go. Perhaps a visit home would supply the
contrast necessary to re-start the mind."</p>
<p>"I've been thinking of that this very day."</p>
<p>"Then my advice is: Go. You're not looking
well. London is a hard task-master, and the slave
who runs to the eternal crack of his whip is by
way of being untimely worn out."</p>
<p>The idea of spending an autumn holiday at home
had been with Henry for some time, even to the
exclusion of plans for a visit to the Continent, and
it was evidence of the influence this strange
friend had over him, that so soon as he suggested
it the project was distinctly forwarded.</p>
<p>In another week he was to be homeward-bound:
heart-free, but disappointed. Successful in a sense,
and a failure in the light of his inner desires.
London had not brought him peace of mind, and
Hampton, he feared, would only bore him into
accepting the life of the City as the lesser of two
evils.</p>
<p>If Henry could have looked inward then he would
have seen that all his uneasiness came from the
dragging of the old anchor of faith which began
long ago at Laysford on his first meeting with Mr.
Puddephatt. That, and naught else. Edward John
believed in the Bible <i>verbatim et litteratim</i>; worshipped
it with the superstitious awe wherewith a
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 244]</span>
sentimental woman bobs to tuppenceworth of stucco
and a penn'orth of paint fashioned into a Bambino;
would have believed it implicitly had the story ran
that Jonah swallowed the whale; and often, indeed,
expressed his readiness for that supreme test of
faith.</p>
<p>To Henry, as to every young man who thinks,
came the inevitable collision between inherited
belief and acquired knowledge. Also the inevitable
wreckage. Many thousands had gone his road
before him, and more will follow. To the father
the roads of Knowledge and of Faith ran neatly
parallel, the one narrow and the other broad;
but as the son laboured at the widening of the
former, the road of Faith, trodden less and less,
was dwindling into a crooked and uncertain
footway. It's an old, old story—why say more
than that the miraculous basis of belief is a mere
quicksand when Knowledge attempts to stand
upon it?</p>
<p>But Edward John was as much a man as his
son would ever be, and Henry could see that his
father was as important a unit in the Kingdom
of Heaven as he could hope to become. Was
Ignorance, then, the kindest friend? No, there must
be a way for the cultured as for the unlettered;
but was it a different way?</p>
<p>Thus and so forth went the unrestful soul of
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 245]</span>
the young man, who was even then writing his
undecided mind into a novel, and by that token
giving evidence of an ignorance as essential
as his father's, different in kind but not in
degree.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_246" id="Pg_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
<h3>HOME AGAIN</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Two</span> days before Henry had planned to leave
London for his holiday at home, Adrian Grant
looked in upon him hurriedly at the <i>Watchman</i>
office to ask if it were possible for him to secure
accommodation at Hampton.</p>
<p>"You!" exclaimed Henry, in surprise, and something
akin to a feeling of shame for the meagre
possibilities of entertainment at his home flushed
his face.</p>
<p>"Why not?" said his friend, with a smile. "I
know less than nothing of English rural life, and
it came to me as an inspiration this morning that
here was a chance to try the effect of country quiet
at home. I have a bit of work to finish, and most
of my writing has been done abroad in drowsy
places. Strange I have never tried our own rural
shades, though I produce but little either in London
or at Laysford."</p>
<p>"It's an idea, certainly," Henry observed, in a
very uncertain tone. "I'm sorry my people—"</p>
<p>"Of course, I would not dream of troubling your
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 247]</span>
folk, but I suppose there's such a thing as a village
inn even in your secluded corner of earth."</p>
<p>"There's the 'Wings and Spur,' to be sure, but
I am doubtful of its comfort."</p>
<p>"It's an inn, and that's enough for one who has
wandered strange roads," and the bright earnestness
of the novelist proved to Henry that he really
meant to carry out this whim of his.</p>
<p>Nor did he fail to notice a strange elation of
manner in Mr. P. for which he could not satisfactorily
account.</p>
<p>The incident, however, was the matter of a
moment, and the novelist went away as hurriedly
as he entered after ascertaining the train by which
Henry purposed travelling from St. Pancras, leaving
the journalist with the uncomfortable sense of being
party to some absurd freak.</p>
<p>His wits were not nimble enough, thus suddenly
taxed, to see all sides of the project, and he swayed
between the pleasant thought of visiting his old
home in the company of one so distinguished as
Adrian Grant, and the dubious fear of the impression
which his humble relatives might make upon this
polished man of the world. His father's doubtful
h's sounded uncomfortably on the ear of his memory;
the prospect of his toil-worn mother entertaining
such a guest, if only for an occasional meal, seemed
too unlikely a thing to contemplate. He turned
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 248]</span>
again to his work with the wish that Adrian Grant
might stay in London, or find some other rural
retreat to suit his capricious taste.</p>
<p>But it was necessary to warn the folks at home,
and to make the best of what might well prove an
awkward business. So Henry wrote to his father
that night, explaining that he was bringing a
distinguished visitor to the village, and though he
would reside at the inn, he would no doubt be a
good deal at their house. This he did after
having seriously debated with himself the idea of
writing to his friend and framing a set of excuses
or plausible reasons why he should not go.
Henry's ingenuity was not equal to that.</p>
<p>All this explains why on a certain autumn
afternoon the Post Office of Hampton Bagot, and
indeed the whole of the village street, exhaled an
air of expectancy. There were hurried traffickings
between the shop of Edward John Charles, the
"Wings and Spur," the butcher's, and sundry
others. Perhaps the loudest note of warning that
an event of unusual interest portended was struck
by the bright red necktie which Edward John
Charles had donned at the urgent request of his
daughters. This was truly a matter for surprise,
for while he had been seen occasionally on weekdays
wearing a collar, the tie had always been a
Sunday vanity. His clothes, too, were his Sunday
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 249]</span>
best. His appearances at the door were frequent
and short, with no pleasant play of the coat-tails;
and his earnest questing glances towards the road
from the station, which opened into the main street
of the village some little distance east of the Post
Office, were foolishly unjustified before the dinner
hour, as there was no possibility of the visitors
arriving until the late afternoon.</p>
<p>Customers at the Post Office were all condemned
to a delightfully exaggerated account of the "lit'ry
gent from Lunnon" who was to grace the village
with his presence and suffuse Henry Charles with
reflected glory, though it seemed a difficult thing
to conceive the pride of Hampton as in need of
glorifying. But the customers were as keen for
Edward John's gossip as he to purvey it, and it
is more than probable that several ounces of shag
were bought that day by persons who stood in
no immediate need of them, but were glad of an
excuse for a chat with the postmaster. Even the
snivelling Miffin shuffled across with such an
excuse for a chat, and returned to tell his
apprentice that he could see no reason for all
this "'ow d'y' do."</p>
<p>"S'possin' there was a railway haccident!
Stranger things 'ave 'appened, merk moi werds,"
said he, with a waggle of his forefinger in the
direction of his junior, who, though much in use
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 250]</span>
as an object for Miffin's addressing, seldom had the
courage to comment upon his employer's opinions.</p>
<p>At the "Wings and Spur," as the afternoon wore
on, there was also the unusual excitement of
despatching a creaky old gig to the station to
bring up the travellers, and Edward John must
needs wander down to exchange opinions with his
friend Mr. Jukes as the vehicle was being got ready.</p>
<p>Even the aged vicar was among the callers at
the Post Office, inquiring if it was certain that
Henry would be at home for the next Sunday,
as that day was to be memorable by the preaching
of Mr. Godfrey Needham's farewell sermon, and
nothing would please him better than to see among
his congregation "one over whom he had watched
with interest and admiration from his earliest
years."</p>
<p>Time had dealt severely with the once quaint
and sprightly figure of this good man. Since
Eunice had taken him in hand he had lost his
old eccentric touches of habit, but year by year
age had slackened his gait and slowed him down
to a grey-haired, tottering figure, who, when we
first saw him, took the village street like the
rising wind. He had now decided to give up the
hard work of his parish and his pulpit, and this
was to devolve upon an alert young curate who
had recently been appointed.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 251]</span></p>
<p>"We need new blood, Mr. Charles, even in the
pulpit. And we old men must make way for
the younger generation," he said sadly to his
faithful parishioner.</p>
<p>"Aye, Mr. Needham, none o' us can stand up
again' Natur'. But you're good for many a year
yet to come, and I hope I am too."</p>
<p>"You are hale as ever, but I can say with the
Psalmist: 'My days are like a shadow that
declineth; and I am withered like grass.'"</p>
<p>"True, Mr. Needham, all flesh is grass, but it
is some comfort to the grass that's withering to
see the new blades a-growing around it"—a speech
Edward John recalled in later years as one of
his happiest efforts in the art of conversation.</p>
<p>"Yes, if the old grass knows that the new is
its seedling. You are happy, Mr. Charles, in that
way."</p>
<p>Edward John hitched at his uncomfortable collar
and modestly fingered his necktie, while Mr.
Needham proceeded to sound the praises of Henry.</p>
<p>"But I confess," the vicar went on to say, "I
am at times troubled in my mind as to how his
faith has withstood the shocks it must receive in
the buffetings of City life. I trust the good seed
which I strove to plant in his heart as a boy has
grown up unchoked by the thistles which the
distractions of the world so often sow there."
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 252]</span></p>
<p>"Oh, 'is 'eart's all right, Mr. Needham," said the
postmaster cheerily, as the vicar shook hands with
him, and moved slowly away towards his home.</p>
<p>Despite the excitement of preparation both at
the Post Office and the inn, and the beguilement of
gossip which brought the most improbable stories
into circulation among the village folk, as, for
example, that Mrs. Charles had borrowed a
silver teapot from the wife of the estate agent to
Sir Henry Birken; a story devoid of fact, for
Edward John had paid in hard cash at Birmingham
for that article, as well as a cream jug to match,
making a special journey for the purpose the
previous day, and thus carrying out a twenty-five-year-old
promise to his patient wife—despite these
excellent reasons for speeding the time, the hours
wore slowly on, and the postmaster must have
covered a mile or two in his wanderings between
his shop door and the corner of the street, from
which a distant view of the returning vehicle might
be had. It was expected back by four o'clock, and
when on the stroke of five it had not returned,
Mrs. Charles was sitting in gloom, with terrible
pictures of railway accidents passing before her
mind, gazing in a sort of mental morgue upon
her dead boy.</p>
<p>Soon after five o'clock the gig pulled up before
the door at a moment when the vigilance of the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 253]</span>
postmaster had been relaxed, and Henry had
stepped into the shop before his father was there
to greet him; but it had been Dora's good fortune
to see him arrive while giving some finishing touches
to his bedroom upstairs, and the clatter of her
descent brought the whole group about him in a
twinkling.</p>
<p>In the excitement of the moment Henry's
expected companion was forgotten, until his
father asked suddenly: "And where's your lit'ry
friend?"</p>
<p>"Oh, I've missed him somehow. He didn't turn
up at St. Pancras this morning, and I've no idea
what's become of him."</p>
<p>The news fell among them like a thunderbolt,
and all but Henry immediately thought of that
silver teapot and other preparations for the
distinguished visitor. Edward John secretly
regretted his journey to Birmingham; but Mrs.
Charles was glad she had the teapot, visitor or
no visitor.</p>
<p>Henry was not altogether sorry, if he had spoken
his mind, for he had never quite reconciled himself
to his friend's proposal. But he did not speak his
mind, and he endeavoured to sympathise with his
father's regrets at the absence of Adrian Grant, as
Mrs. Charles had been straining every nerve to
provide a meal worthy of the man.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 254]</span></p>
<p>"P'raps he'll be to-morrow," said Edward John
"Poor old Jukes 'll feel a bit left. He'd been
building on 'aving 'im."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry for the trouble he has caused you all,
and I hope he may yet turn up so that you won't
be disappointed."</p>
<p>"Never mind, 'Enry, my lad, it's you we want
in the first place, and right glad we are to see you.
The vicar was in asking for you this afternoon.
You'll know a difference on the old man. Going
down the 'ill, he is. But we're all growing older
every day, as the song says. You're filling out
now, and that's good. I said you were growing
all to legs last time. Aye, aye, 'ere you are
again."</p>
<p>"You haven't been troubled with your chest,
Henry, I hope," said Mrs. Charles, taking advantage
of a moment when her husband did not seem to
have a question to ask.</p>
<p>"Chest! dear no, mother; always wear flannel
next the skin, you know," her son replied
lightly.</p>
<p>Mrs. Charles sighed, and her lips tightened as in
pain.</p>
<p>"What books has Mr. Grant written?" Dora
asked, <i>à propos</i> of nothing.</p>
<p>"Some novels which I don't advise you to read,"
said Henry.
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 255]</span></p>
<p>"Why that? I'm growing quite literary," his
sister returned. "Eunice has infected me; she's a
great reader now."</p>
<p>At mention of the name, Henry coloured a little.</p>
<p>"Indeed!" he said. "She always had good
taste, I think; but really I'm sick of books and
writing. I think you used to do pretty well without
them."</p>
<p>"Hearken at that," said his father. "Sick of
books! It's the same all over. Old Brag the
butcher used to say, leave a cat free for a night
in the shop to eat all it could get, and it was
safe to leave the beef alone ever after. I'm sick
o' postage stamps, but we've got to sell 'em."</p>
<p>"I'm not so tired of my work as all that," Henry
went on, "but down here I'm glad to get away
from it."</p>
<p>We know this was scarcely true, as he had brought
down his unfinished manuscript of "that book"
to work at it if he felt the mood come on.
He spoke chiefly to divert the conversation from
the topic of Adrian Grant's novels, which he felt
he could not frankly discuss in this home of
simple life.</p>
<p>"I must call on Mr. Needham before Sunday,"
he added inconsequently to his father.</p>
<p>"Eunice is at home just now, but she's going
away on a visit to her aunt at Tewksbury
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 256]</span>
next week," said Dora, and Mrs. Charles
watched the face of her son anxiously as his
sister spoke.</p>
<p>"Oh, indeed!" said Henry, without betraying
any feeling.
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_257" id="Pg_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
<h3>A TRAGIC ENDING</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">It</span> was on a Friday that Henry arrived at Hampton.
He had expected a telegram from Adrian Grant that
evening, explaining his failure to join him at St.
Pancras, but no word was received. Nor did
Saturday morning bring a note. But it brought
the morning papers and tragic news.</p>
<p>Henry was seated in the garden behind his
father's house—a real old-world garden, with rudely-made
paths and a charming tangle of flowers—gigantic
hollyhocks, bright calceolarias, sweet-smelling
jasmine, stocks, early asters and chrysanthemums,
growing in rich profusion and in the
most haphazard manner. The jasmine climbed
over the trellis-work of the summer-seat, made
long years ago by the hands of Edward John
before he had grown stout and lazy, and now
creaking aloud to be repaired.</p>
<p>He had come out here with a Birmingham
morning paper in his hand—a paper which made
his journalistic blood boil when he thought how
intolerably dull and self-sufficient it was—and he
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 258]</span>
had only opened it at the London letter when he
saw a name that made him fumble the sheets
quickly into small compass for close reading—Adrian
Grant!</p>
<p>A new book by him? a bit of personal gossip?
No. He read:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"The literary world will be shocked this morning
to hear of the tragic death of Mr. Adrian Grant,
the celebrated author of 'Ashes' and other novels,
which have achieved great success in this country
and America. As is well known, the name of the
novelist is an assumed one, his own cognomen
being the somewhat curious one of Phineas
Puddephatt. He was a gentlemen of private means,
and peculiar in his habits. There is probably no
other living writer of his eminence about whose
private life less is known. He was frequently
absent from this country for long periods, and
cared little for the usual attractions of literary life
in London. This morning (Friday) he was found
dead in his apartments at Gloucester Road,
Kensington, under mysterious circumstances. He
had intended leaving to-day for a short stay in the
country, but as he did not appear at breakfast
at the usual hour, and gave no response when
summoned, the door of his bedroom was opened,
and he was not there, nor had his bed been slept
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 259]</span>
in. Entering his study, which adjoined the bedroom,
the domestics were shocked to find Mr. Grant—to
give him the name he is best known by—seated
on a chair, with the handle of his 'cello in his left
hand and the bow held in his right, in the very
act of drawing it across the strings. He was dead;
and the extraordinary life-likeness of the pose
added greatly to the tragic nature of the discovery.
At present no explanation is forthcoming,
and an inquest will be held. The deceased
novelist was an accomplished performer on the
'cello, and those who knew him describe him
even as a master of that instrument, and capable
of having achieved as great, if not greater,
distinction as a musician than as a novelist. He
is believed to have been just about forty years
of age."</p></div>
<p>It seemed but yesterday that Henry read in the
<i>Weekly Review</i> a paragraph about the identity of
Adrian Grant, and now—this! The stabs of Fate
come fast and ruthless to the young man, to rid him
of youth's illusion of immortality. He sees men rise
up suddenly into fame, and dreams that one day
he shall do so too. Then a brief year or two glides
by, and the hearse draws up at the door of Fame's
latest favourite, and youth begins to understand
that the bright game of life must now be played
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 260]</span>
with a blinking eye on the end of all things mortal.
If he also understands that the end is in truth the
beginning, that "the best is yet to be," then he
may be happy no less. If not, he is booked for
cynicism and things unlovely.</p>
<p>Adrian Grant dead! Fame, fortune his, and but
half-way through life. Dead, and "mysteriously."
Henry sat dumb, struck thoughtless with
amazement.</p>
<p>"'Ow d'you like them 'olly'ocks, 'Enry; ain't they
tremenjous?"</p>
<p>The voice of his father recalled him, and the
good human ring of it was sweet in his ears.</p>
<p>"Father, a terrible thing has happened. My
friend Mr. Grant is dead."</p>
<p>Edward John pursed his mouth to whistle in
token of blank surprise, but the scared look on
Henry's face stayed him in the act, and he said
"Well, well!" instead.</p>
<p>"'Ow did it happen? Run over?"</p>
<p>An accident was about the only means of death to
people under seventy that was known in Hampton,
if we except consumption.</p>
<p>"Listen to this, father; it's dreadful!"</p>
<p>And Henry re-read the paragraph, turning also to
the news columns, where the information was supplemented
by the statement of a servant to the effect
that the novelist had been heard playing his 'cello
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 261]</span>
late in the night, and had stopped suddenly in the
middle of a bar.</p>
<p>"Well, well," said Edward John, "that beats all!
Poor fellow, and me went up to Brum to get some
things all on account of 'im."
</p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_262" id="Pg_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
<h3>ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER</h3>
<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Sunday</span> morning came sweet with the soft breath
of golden autumn, and Henry awoke with the breeze
whispering through his open window, "Adrian Grant
is dead." For a moment it seemed that nothing
else mattered, and in a moment more the need to
wash and dress dispelled that gloomy thought.</p>
<p>"Poor Grant!" said Henry to himself, as he
soused his face at the wash-stand. "Poor Grant! I
wonder what he thinks of life and death to-day?"
All the cynical utterances of the dead man crowded
back on the memory of the living. His contempt
of the spiritual life, his jaundiced views of humanity.
It was terrible to think of a gifted man dying
with such cold thoughts in his mind. The mysterious
nature of the death also troubled Henry, and
his knowledge of the man led him to suspect the
use of some drug.</p>
<p>But these thoughts and speculations were
suppressed, if not banished, by the pleasant routine
of the rural morning and the going to morning
church. Henry found himself searching anxiously
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 263]</span>
with his eyes for Eunice Lyndon, and he was
disappointed not to see her there. She was absent
owing to household duties, and a pressing visit to
be made to a sick member of Mr. Needham's flock.</p>
<p>At the close of the service the vicar announced
that his farewell sermon would be delivered in the
evening, and extended a fatherly invitation to his
parishioners to come and hear his last words
to them.</p>
<p>When the clang of the evening bell shook the
drowsy air of the village, it evoked an unusual
response. Many a wheezing veteran and worn old
woman toiled their way up the hill. Never before
was the little church so full as on that peaceful
autumn evening.</p>
<p>The entire Charles family was present, Henry
sitting next to his mother; and as he looked round
upon that homely congregation, nearly every face
in which was familiar to him, the emotions of his
boyhood stirred within him again, and he felt as
if all he had passed through since then was as a
troubled dream.</p>
<p>The slanting rays of the setting sun streamed
through the western windows as Mr. Needham
slowly mounted the pulpit. Every eye was raised
to him as he stood there with his open Bible in
his hand. What would he say? What would be
his last words to them? They were these:
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 264]</span></p>
<p>"I have fought the good fight, I have finished
my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."</p>
<p>In coughless silence, with those listening eyes
fixed upon him, the vicar began his discourse,
making a brave attempt to preserve his outward
calm. He dwelt upon the career of St. Paul;
followed him in his wanderings, his perils of waters,
his perils in the wilderness, and many trials and
sufferings through which he had passed. And now,
in a dungeon at Rome, with a cruel death awaiting
him, as he looked back on it all the triumphant
note broke from him: "I have fought the good
fight."</p>
<p>From that the vicar turned to the career of
another: a great poet, one who had all the world
could offer, and who had drunk so deeply of the
pleasures of life that his soul was satiated with them—Lord
Byron. And when at the last, a stranger in
a strange land, away from friends and kindred, he
took up his pen to write, the last words which he
gave to the world were these:</p>
<p class="noindent">
<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"My days are in the yellow leaf;</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">The flowers and fruits of love are gone;</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The worm, the canker, and the grief</span><br />
<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Are mine alone!"</span>
</p>
<p>The vicar paused; and then, with simple, touching
earnestness, added:
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 265]</span></p>
<p>"Which, my brethren will be yours at the last—'the
worm, the canker, and the grief,' or the crown of
righteousness that fadeth not away?"</p>
<p>Eyes were moist, and hearts throbbed unusually
among the simple-minded village folk as they filed
out, but little was said; they felt they had been
assisting at one of the solemn mysteries of the
church, and no dubious composition, no grandiloquence
of the vicar's came between them and
the heart-cry of the old man.</p>
<p>Edward John broke the silence in which his
little group walked homeward by saying: "There's
a deal of truth in what the vicar said about <i>vanitas
vanitatium</i>, 'Enry. Seems to me there ain't nothing
much worth having in this world unless we're
keepin' in mind the world that is to come."</p>
<p>"That is so, father," Henry assented shortly; for
his mind was full of new and comforting thoughts,
and his heart suffused with a tenderness he could
not speak.</p>
<p>A great love for his father had been budding
steadily when he fancied most it was withering,
and it had burst almost at once into full bloom.
To Mr. Needham also his point of view was
suddenly and for ever changed.</p>
<p>Both his father and the vicar had been objects
of his youthful admiration; but when there came
the illuminating knowledge of the world and the
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 266]</span>
intimate contact with life which journalism brings
to its young professors—as they in their fond hearts
fancy—both figures began to recede into the background,
in common with others that had once been
cherished; for, unwillingly it may have been, but
still actually, the cynic which is in us all was raised
up in Henry by the touch of a master cynic.</p>
<p>Frankly, he had been dangerously near the
condition of a "superior person"—of all human
states the most contemptible. His father's ignorant
ways, the vicar's little affectations of learning, his
mother's curl-papers, his sisters' dowdiness of dress—these
were the things that caused them to recede
to the background of the young man's mind when
the young man was in the first lust of his life-experience.
And all the time he was uneasily
conscious that he himself was at fault, and they
wholesomer bits of God's handiwork than he.</p>
<p>But the tragic ending of the disturber of his
mind, the almost certainty of the cause, was a
crushing commentary on all the philosophy which
Adrian Grant had preached. Art for the sake of art,
and a dose of poison when you take the fancy to
be rid of your responsibilities. That was how
Henry's experience of the novelist summed itself
up in his mind after Mr. Needham's artless little
human sermon. The vicar might be a hide-bound
thinker, a mere echo of ages of hide-bound Bible
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 267]</span>
interpreters, but he was a better and a bigger man
than he who went out with his 'cello between his
knees, thought Henry. Oh, all this prattle of
those who were devoted to the arts! How futile it
sounded when, as with a new revelation, the young
man saw and loved at sight the good, rude health
of his father and his sisters, living as bits of
Nature, and standing not up to rail at Fate, but
without whimpering playing their tiny parts in
the drama of life.</p>
<p>"But all need not be vanity, don't you think,
Mr. Needham?" said Henry, when he called on
the vicar next day. "All isn't vanity, I now feel
sure, if we can keep green a simple faith in God's
goodness to us; and surely if we only attempt to
model our conduct on the life of Jesus we shall be
in the way of spiritual happiness."</p>
<p>"My boy, you have got the drift of what I said.
There's nothing in life to place above that. Surely
to do these things is to fight the good fight, and
learning or want of it matters nothing. All the
learning, so far as I can see, brings one only to
the starting-place of ignorance when we face the
Eternal. Hold fast by that belief, and all will be
well. Let your motto be <i>Servabo fidem</i>, or as the
French hath it, <i>Gardez la foi</i>."</p>
<p>Henry did not smile even in his mind at the
Latin and French tags. He could now accept
<span class="pagenum">[Pg 268]</span>
and almost welcome these little foibles for the
sake of the sheltered life the old man had led, and
the white flower of simple faith which had blossomed
in the garden of his soul.</p>
<p>"Yes, Mr. Needham, I'm not the first who went
to gather wisdom, and came back empty-handed to
find it at my own door."</p>
<p>"Nor the last, Henry; nor the last."</p>
<p>Mr. Needham was not the only one at the vicarage
whom Henry went to see, and during the remainder
of his holiday his visits were remarkably frequent.
Henry's new interest in the vicar seemed extraordinary
to Edward John, though it rejoiced hearts
at the Post Office in a way the postmaster did not
then suspect.</p>
<p>Eunice was lovelier than ever, but with the first
charm of loveliness to Henry, who had at length
discovered that she had violet eyes, and was quite
the most beautiful young woman he had ever
seen.</p>
<p>"How blind I must have been!" said he to himself.</p>
<p>How blind!—nay, he had only been focussing his
gaze on things so far off and vain, that the things
near at hand and to be cherished he had overlooked.
He had been peering at the mysteries of the heavens
through a telescope, and trampling the while on the
loveliness of earth. But at last with the naked eye
of his heart he saw all things in a truer perspective—a<span class="pagenum">[Pg 269]</span>
heart refreshed with the re-entry of its old
first, simple faith.</p>
<p>"That book" was never finished. Henry read
over what he had written, and had the courage to
destroy it, convinced that it was gloomy and unhappy.
Eunice probably had something to do with
that; for he found her ardent in praise of those
who wrote happy books. And when he was in the
train for Fleet Street once again it was with a great
contentment in his soul, and high hope of doing
zestfully his daily task; for he had found that not
only wisdom, but love, often lies at our own door
if we but open our eyes—and our heart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center">THE END</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center"><i>Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth.</i></p>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<div class="bbox">
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</div>
<hr class="hr2"/>
<div class="tnote">
<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
<p>The Contents section has been modified to correspond with the
actual first pages of each chapter.</p>
<p>The ads were moved from the front of the book to the end of the
book.</p>
<p>Errors in punctuations were not corrected unless otherwise noted
below:<br />
On page 51, a period was added after "by himself".</p>
</div>
<pre>
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