THINGS
TheEuston Road, which is perhaps the most funereal thoroughfare in Europe, furnishes their first glimpse of London to fully fifty per cent of all who visit our capital.
Philip was no stranger to London, for he had spent his youth in the wilds of Hampstead; and later on, like most young men, had formed a tolerably intimate acquaintance with that portion of the metropolis which lies within a radius of one mile of Piccadilly Circus. Still, as his cab hurried away from the unspeakable hideousness of Euston Station and turned into that congeries of tombstone-makers' yards and unsavoury lodging-houses which constitutes the Euston Road, even Coventry seemed pleasantly rural by comparison. Most of us are inclined to feel like this at the outset of a new undertaking. Fortunately we can support ourselves through this period with the reflection that every success worth winning is approached by a Euston Road of some kind.
Philip's first few weeks in the London offices were a prolongation of this journey. The young gentleman in the show-room proved to be unspeakably offensive and incompetent; the Yorkshireman in the repairing-shop was incredibly obstinate and secretive. The staff were slack, and the premisesdirty. Letters were not answered promptly, and the accounts were in a shocking mess. Finally, every soul in the place (with the possible exception of the lady typist) greeted the intrusion of the new manager with undisguised hostility.
Philip, reminding himself of the period of time in which Rome was not built, set to work, in his serious methodical fashion, to master departmental details. He went through the repair-shop first, and mindful of Mr. Mablethorpe's admonition to observe People rather than Things, spent much time in studying the characters of each of the men employed. As a result of his investigations two mechanics, props of their Union, were tersely informed that unless their standard of performance was raised at least one hundred per cent, their services would not be required after the end of the current month.
Next came a brief but painful interview with Mr. Murgatroyd, the Yorkshireman, on the subject of perquisites and commissions. The motor industry lends itself to the acquirement of pickings more, perhaps, than any other trade of to-day, and the long-headed Mr. Murgatroyd had made good use of the opportunities thrown in his way for something like ten years. Henceforth, Philip explained to him, there must be no more clandestinedouceursfrom tyre-agents, no more strictly private rebates on consignments of petrol, and no more piling-up of unconsidered trifles in customers' bills. Before undertaking a repairing contract of any magnitude, Mr. Murgatroyd must present a detailed estimate of the cost, and the work was not tobe put in hand until the estimate was approved and countersigned by the owner of the car.
To this Mr. Murgatroyd replied almost tearfully that if Mr. Meldrum proposed to run the establishment upon Sunday-school lines, the sooner they put up the shutters the better.
"Does that mean that you want to resign your post, Mr. Murgatroyd?" asked Philip hopefully.
Mr. Murgatroyd was not to be caught.
"Not at all, sir," he said. "I dare say we shall take a little time to get used to one another's ways, that's all; but in the end I'm sure we shall rub along grandly."
What Mr. Murgatroyd meant was:—
"You are a new broom. In a short time your youthful zeal for reform will have abated, and we can then slip back unto the old comfortable groove. For the present I must make a show of complying with your idiotic commands."
Philip understood this, and calculated that six months of commercial austerity would set his manager looking for a softer berth. Both sides having thus decided to wait and see, the interview terminated.
Philip next introduced his broom into the somewhat Augean garage. Car-washers were straitly informed that their duty was to wash cars and not to rifle the tool-boxes and door-pockets thereof. The current price of that fluctuating commodity, petrol, as fixed from day to day by the brigands who hold the world's supply in the hollow of their unclean hands, was chalked up in a conspicuous position every morning, in order that consumersmight purchase at the market price and not at one fixed by the foreman. Sundry members of that well-organized and far-reaching Society for the Acquisition of Other People's Property—the brotherhood of chauffeurs who used the garage—were put through a brief but drastic course of instruction in the elementary laws ofmeum and tuum; and one particularly enterprising member of the craft, to whose possession a new and expensive jack, recently the property of a gentleman from the country who drove his own car, was traced after a systematic and quite unexpected official enquiry, was directed to remove himself and his vehicle to other quarters as an alternative to prosecution.
Having in the space of three weeks achieved a degree of unpopularity almost incredible to a man who has hitherto encountered only the genial side of his fellow creatures, Philip turned from the garage to the office. Here his troubles were of a different kind. Commercial arithmetic had no terrors for him; the systematic filing of correspondence and the compilation of cross-references appealed readily to his orderly soul. His difficulties arose not so much from these mechanical aids to commerce as from the human agents in charge of them. Mr. Atherton, the young gentleman who presided over the show-room, was, as already indicated, a square peg. The careers open to a younger son of a well-connected but impecunious house are strictly limited in number. Presuming, as is probably the case, that the family resources are already fully taxed in maintaining his elder brother in the army, and that he himself is debarred through insufficiencyof grey matter from entering one of the three learned professions, our young English friend is forced to the inevitable conclusion that he must earn his living in some less distinguished field of effort.
"Not intrade, of course, dear," says his lady mother, with the air of a female Euclid throwing off an elementary and self-evident axiom. "But anything else you like."
The unsophisticated observer might be excused for imagining that the maternal proviso extinguishes our young friend's prospects of a career altogether. Not so. To the upper classes of England there are trades and trades. You may become a land-agent, for instance, without loss of caste; presumably because you cannot possibly make any money out of being a land-agent. You may also become a stockjobber, possibly because a stockjobber's earnings cannot by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as the fruit of honest toil. You may go to Ceylon, or Canada, or California, and there, in the decent obscurity of a foreign clime, live by the work of your own hands. You may even go upon the stage, in a gentlemanly sort of way. But you must not go into trade. You must not buy or sell merchandise in the open market; though, as stated above, you are perfectly at liberty to sell what you have not got, and buy what you could not pay for if you received it, in the world of Bulls and Bears.
However,—no one seems to know why, but the undisputable fact remains,—you may sell automobiles for a living and remain a gentleman.It is not known who discovered this providential law of nature, but ever since its establishment well-born young men have swarmed into the profession; and now the humblest purchaser of an automobile may quite reasonably hope to have his cheque endorsed, and mayhap a cigar accepted, by the descendant of a duke.
The innovation has proved a commercial success, too, or we may be sure that it would not have endured in the unsentimental economic world for a twelvemonth.PaceMr. Mablethorpe, the immaculate young man who attends to our wants in show-rooms knows his business. He is a fair mechanic, a fearless driver, and an excellent salesman. Customers of his own walk of life confide their wants to him as to a brother, while plutocratic but plebeian patrons frequently purchase a more expensive car than they originally contemplated through fear of losing his good opinion.
But there are exceptions, and Mr. Atherton was one. He was grossly ignorant of the elements of mechanics, he was unbusinesslike in his management of correspondence, and he was rude to customers without being impressive. He was also a frequent absentee from his post on matinée days. The indoor staff, down to the very office-boy, took their tone from him; with the result that Philip, in the execution of his duty in the office and show-room, was enabled without any difficulty whatever to eclipse the degree of unpopularity already achieved by him in the garage and repair-shop. But he ploughed resolutely on his way.
In order to be near his work he rented a small flatin Wigmore Street, and furnished it according to his ideals of what was requisite and necessary. He cooked his own breakfast, and took his other meals at Frascati's.
Each afternoon an elderly and incompetent female called, and—to employ her own grim expression—did for him. That is to say, she consumed what was left of Philip's breakfast, and made his bed by the simple expedient of restoring the bedclothes to their overnight position.
His bedroom furniture he boughten suitein Tottenham Court Road, for seven pounds fifteen. In his sitting-room he installed a large table, upon which to draw up plans and specifications, and an armchair. It did not occur to him that he required any more furniture. He cooked his food at a gas-stove and ate it off a corner of this table, sitting on the arm of the chair. The sole ornament, upon his mantelpiece was a model of the Meldrum Carburettor, recently perfected and patented. He made no friends and went nowhere. A woman would have (and ultimately did) shed tears over hisménage. But he was happy enough. Things, not People, still held him bound.
And yet he was not utterly at peace with his world. It is said that a woman is always happy unless she has something to make her unhappy, but that a man is never happy unless he has something to make him happy. Up to this period of his life Philip had never had to hunt for the sources of happiness. His work, and the ever-developing interests of youth, had kept him well supplied. But now, at times, he was conscious of a shortage.Under the increasing cares of existence merejoie de vivrebecomes insufficient as a driving-power, and demands augmentation. Philip's present life—if we except odd hours in the evening devoted to the perfection of the Meldrum inventions—was an ungrateful business at best. He had few friends, and was not of the breed which can solace itself with the companionship that can be purchased in great cities. And therefore he began, inevitably, to draw his necessary happiness from the bank of the Future. Most of us come to this in time, for few there be that are fortunate enough to be able to subsist year in year out upon current income. When we are young we draw upon the Future, and when we are old we fall back (please God) upon the Past. So Philip began to live for the day on which his reforms should come to fruition, and the work in the London offices find itself running forward on oiled wheels. As for the Present—it was a rotten business, but difficulties were made to be overcome.En avant!
But beyond these practical aspirations lay a fairer region. Philip was in love. Not with any material pink-and-white charmer, but, after the perfectly healthy and natural manner of the young man before he grows cynical orblaséwith experience, with Love itself. Only that. At present he was more concerned with the abstract than the concrete. At this period he was inclined to regard matrimony much as a child regards cake—namely, as a consummation to be achieved only after a long mastication of bread-and-butter. At present he was in the thick of the bread-and-butter. Butwhen he had worked strenuously for perhaps ten years, he would assuredly encounter his Lady—he had no clear idea what she was like, but he was absolutely confident of her existence—and would marry her. Then he would be paid in full. Troubles would be halved and joys doubled, and life itself would be the sweeter for the long years of hard service and clean living and high endeavour that lay at present between the dream and its fulfilment.
Meanwhile he was content to hitch his wagon to a star and proceed with the day's work. Business first.
PEOPLE
Forsix months Philip continued to give rope to his esteemed colleagues Messrs. Atherton and Murgatroyd, and within that period the pair duly hanged themselves.
Mr. Murgatroyd went first. For a whole winter he waited patiently for Philip's reforming zeal to spend itself; and then, finding that things were no better but rather grew worse, he retired from the conflict like a prudent man, and invested his not inconsiderable savings in a wayside garage upon a lonely stretch of the Great North Road, where motorists, who are always in a hurry, would not be disposed to haggle over the price of petrol or the cost of tyre-repairs.
He parted from Philip without rancour, and another and younger man was sent up from headquarters to take his place.
Mr. Atherton was not so easy to eject, and was only disposed of in the fulness of time and by the process of filling up the cup. But he went at last, and the change of atmosphere throughout the entire establishment was most noticeable. The two clerks and the office-boy carried out their duties with what is known in transatlantic business circles as "a punch"; the books were put in order; accounts were straightened out; business increased;headquarters said encouraging things. For the present Philip decided not to ask for a successor to Atherton. He felt that he wanted to run the whole Universe single-handed in those days.
Of course there were still crumpled rose-leaves. There was Brand, for instance—Brand of the repairing-shop. He was a strenuous worker and an admirable mechanic, but he suffered intermittently from a severe form of the popular disease of the day—the disease which has its roots in the British national policy of educating a man sufficiently to make him discontented with his lot and then leaving off. Brand was a Socialist, or a Revolutionist, or an Anarchist. Philip could never find out which, and the muddled but pertinacious Brand could never enlighten him. The most noticeable feature of his malady was an over-copious supply of what the repairing-shop as a whole termed "back-chat." Mr. Brand was a stalwart upholder of what he called the dignity of labour. He declined to be patronised; he smelt patronage as an Orangeman smells Popery. He also refused to accept an order with any degree of cheerfulness; though, to do him justice, once he had expressed his opinion of it and the degradation which he incurred in accepting it, he usually carried it out with efficiency and dispatch. To one who knows his job almost anything can be forgiven. We shall hear of Mr. Brand again.
Then there was Alfred, the office-boy. He was a stunted but precocious child, with a taste for music of a vibratory nature. He believed firmly in the adage that a merry heart goes all the way, and whistled excruciatingly from dawn till dusk. Histremolorendering of "All That I Ask is Love" appeared to afford him the maximum of human enjoyment. The departure of Mr. Atherton involved him in some financial loss, for he had been employed by that vicarious sportsman to execute turf commissions on his behalf with an unostentatious individual who conducted his business in the private bar of an unassuming house of call in Wardour Street. Consequently he considered it only just to make things unpleasant for the new manager. This object he accomplished in divers ways, which will be obvious to any schoolboy. Philip suffered in silence, for he was disinclined to further dismissals, and, moreover, could not help liking the impudent youth. His patience was rewarded; for one day, with incredible suddenness, the nuisance ceased, and Master Alfred became almost demonstrative in his assiduity and doglike in his affection. Presently the mystery was unfolded. Alfred had discovered that that usurper, that tyrant, that slave-driver, Mr. Meldrum, was the identical P. Meldrum who had scored the winning try for the Harlequin Football Club against Blackheath on the previous Saturday afternoon. One day, after office hours, almost timidly, he approached his employer and presented a petition from his own club, the Willesden Green Vampires, humbly praying that the great Meldrum would honour this unique brotherhood by consenting to become one of its Vice-Presidents. Philip's heart warmed at the compliment, and he complied gladly. He achieved further and lasting popularity among the Vampires of Willesden Green by officiating as referee in theirannual encounter with the Stoke Newington Hornets. Verily the road to the heart of healthy young-manhood is marked in plain figures.
A third and by no means unattractive rose-leaf was Miss Jennings, the typist. She troubled Philip considerably at first. He found her presence disturbing. To him it seemed fundamentally wrong that a man should sit in a room with his hat on while a young and ladylike girl stood waiting at his elbow for orders. He endeavoured to remedy these anomalies by removing his hat in Miss Jennings's presence and rising from his seat whenever she entered his private room—courtesies which his typist secretly regarded as due to weakness of intellect rather than the instinct of chivalry, though she valued them in her heart none the less.
It was a long time, too, before Philip grew accustomed to dictating letters. His first incursion into this enterprise gave him an uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He began by ringing for Alfred, and asking him to request Miss Jennings to be so good as to come and speak to him for a moment. His message was delivered by that youthful humourist with elaborate ceremony,—this was in the pre-Willesden-Green days,—coupled with a confident assurance that it portended either a proposal of marriage or "the sack." Miss Jennings's reply Philip did not catch, for only Alfred's raucous deliverances could penetrate closed doors, but it effectually silenced that young gentleman's guns. His only discernible retort was "Suffragette!"
Presently Miss Jennings appeared, slightly flushed, and shut the door behind her.
"You want me, Mr. Meldrum?" she asked.
Philip rose to his feet.
"Yes. Would you mind taking down one or two letters for me, Miss Jennings?" he said.
"Oh, is that all?" replied Miss Jennings, quite composed again. "Mr. Atherton usually just shouts. I'll go and get my things."
She returned with her writing-pad, and taking a chair at Philip's elbow, sat down and regarded him with an indulgent smile.
Philip began, huskily:—
The Britannia Motor Company, Limited, Oxford Street, London, October.
The Britannia Motor Company, Limited, Oxford Street, London, October.
Miss Jennings sat patiently waiting.
"I know that bit," she intimated gently.
Philip apologised, and continued hurriedly:—
"Dear Sir—No, I expect you know that bit, too."
"That bit's all right," said Miss Jennings calmly. "I wasn't to know who you were writing to. It might have been your wife."
Philip, who had not hitherto realised that it was possible for a man to correspond with the wife of his bosom by means of a machine operated by a third party, apologised again, and added quite gratuitously that he was not married.
Miss Jennings, having secured the information she required, smiled forgivingly, and the dictation proceeded.
We are in receipt of your letter of October the fourteenth.
We are in receipt of your letter of October the fourteenth.
"They usually say 'esteemed communication,'" said Miss Jennings.
"Thank you," said Philip humbly. "Please correct it." Miss Jennings did so. Philip, regarding the curving neck and prettily coiled hair close beside him, found himself wondering why such a beautiful thing as a young girl should be compelled to work for a living.
Miss Jennings looked up, and caught his eye.
"Well?" she enquired shortly.
Philip coloured guiltily, and continued:—
The cylinders you mention are cast in pairs, and their internal diameter is one hundred millimetres, or—
The cylinders you mention are cast in pairs, and their internal diameter is one hundred millimetres, or—
He paused again. It seemed to him monstrous that a woman should be compelled to waste her youth taking down dry technical stuff like this, when she ought to be outside in the sunshine. If a woman must earn her bread, at least let her do work that was woman's work and not man's leavings. Her real mission, of course, should be to stand apart from the struggle for existence, rendering first aid to her man when he was stricken and companionship when he was weary. But to sit—
Miss Jennings looked up again.
"We can go faster than this," she observed severely. "I'm a trained stenographer."
Philip, collecting himself, dictated an elaborate formula for ascertaining the indicated horse-power of the engine under discussion, at a pace which caused the trained stenographer to pant for breath.
When he had finished, he said:—
"There are two more letters to do, Miss Jennings,but perhaps you would like to rest for a moment."
"No, thank you," said Miss Jennings. "I'm not made of sugar."
Possibly this statement was made—as many feminine statements of the kind are made—in order to be contradicted. More probably it was intended as a test of character. Whatever it was, it failed to intrigue Philip.
"Very well, then," he said, and proceeded to dictate another letter.
"Of course I see how it is, Mr. Meldrum," said Miss Jennings, unbending a little as their joint task came to an end. "You have not been accustomed to working with a woman, and you think she can't work the same as a man. You'll soon find out your mistake. She works twice as hard, and makes less fuss about it."
"I am sure she does," said Philip meekly.
"It's kind of you," proceeded Miss Jennings maternally, "to consider my feelings; but we shall get through a great deal more work if you look on me simply as a machine."
"I do not think that would be possible," said Philip. "I could not do my own work properly if I thought you were not comfortable."
For a moment Miss Jennings eyed her employer keenly.
"Well, try, anyway," she urged. Experience had taught her to beware of gentlemen who were too solicitous about her comfort, and she had not yet taken Philip's complete measure. "I've been earning my living for five years now—ever since I wassixteen," she added carelessly—"and I have found that we do our work better and are much more friendly and comfortable when the gentleman I am working for doesn't worry too much about whether I want a cushion for my back, and that sort of thing."
"I see you are an independent lady," said Philip, smiling.
"Independent? Yes, that's me," agreed Miss Jennings. "You wouldn't take me for a Suffragette, though, would you?" she added, with a tinge of anxiety in her voice.
"I don't think I have ever met one."
"Well, go to one of their meetings—the Park on Sunday, or somewhere—and you won't want to meet one twice. What they're to gain by it all beats me, let alone the show they make of themselves. A woman has enough trouble coming to her in life, without going out in a procession and asking for it. That's how I look at it. Well, I'll go and type these letters."
Miss Jennings's presence gradually ceased to affect Philip's powers of concentration, and he soon dropped into the habit of regarding her as she had asked to be regarded,—namely, as part of the office furniture,—though he persisted in certain small acts of consideration not usually offered to articles of upholstery. Miss Jennings, finding that her defensive attitude was entirely unnecessary, promptly set out with the perversity of her sex—or perhaps quite unconsciously—to stimulate her employer's interest in her. It was a pleasant and quite innocuous diversion, for Philip was usuallyfar too busy to take notice of her little coquetries, and had far too much regard for the sanctity of the unprotected female to respond to them if he did.
He had grown so accustomed to regarding his typist as a mechanical adjunct to the office typewriter that he suffered a mild shock when one day Miss Jennings remarked:—
"So Mr. Atherton's gone? Well, he was no more use than nothing in the office, but he wasn't a bad sort—not if you took him the right way and kept him in his place."
"He was a friend of yours, then?" said Philip.
"Well, he used to take me out sometimes."
"Where to?"
"Oh, the White City, or a theatre. It's a nice change to be taken out by a gentleman sometimes. When you go by yourself with your sister," explained Miss Jennings, "you go in the pit. When any one like Mr. Atherton took me it was reserved seats and dinner somewhere first. I love the theatre. Don't you?"
"I don't go very often," confessed Philip.
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Perhaps it is because I have no one to go with."
Miss Jennings collected her papers and rose.
"Well, I must finish these," she said. "Will there be anything more this morning, Mr. Meldrum?"
"Thank you, that is all."
Philip surveyed the retreating form of Miss Jennings with thoughtful eyes, and his heart smotehim. By evicting the incapable Mr. Atherton he had deprived this plucky, chirpy little city sparrow of one of her most cherished recreations.
"Oh—Miss Jennings," he said nervously.
Miss Jennings turned.
"Would you care to come to the theatre with me?"
Miss Jennings's slightly anæmic features broke into a frank smile.
"It's no good my pretending I don't want to go to the theatre when I do," she remarked; "so why not say so? Where shall we go?"
"Anywhere you please."
"When?"
"To-night, if you like."
Miss Jennings considered.
"I must see if my sister's to be at home," she said. "There are just two of us, and one always stays in of an evening with mother. May I use the telephone? My sister is with Goswell Brothers, in Finsbury Circus."
"Certainly," said Philip.
Miss Jennings sat down at the roll-top desk and took the receiver off the hook. She flatly declined to accept the assurance of the operator at the exchange that the number she required,—
(1) was out of order;(2) was engaged;(3) had not replied;
(1) was out of order;(2) was engaged;(3) had not replied;
(1) was out of order;
(2) was engaged;
(3) had not replied;
and in the incredible space of four minutes succeeded in establishing telephonic communication with a place of business almost a mile away. A much briefer but equally decisive encounter withthe Finsbury Circus office-boy ended with the production of Miss Jennings's sister, who was forthwith addressed:—
"That you, May dear?"
"T'ck, t'ck," replied the instrument.
"I want to go out to-night. Can you stay in with mother, or are you doing anything?"
Apparently the reply was satisfactory, for Miss Jennings turned to Philip.
"That will be all right, Mr. Meldrum," she said.
They dined at Gatti's, and went on to the Gaiety. Philip dropped readily into the etiquette of the amphitheatre stalls, and provided Miss Jennings with chocolates and lemon squashes during the interval. Halfway through the second act he decided that this was the pleasantest evening he had spent since he came to London. What Miss Jennings thought of it all he did not know, for she did not tell him. Having speared her hat to the back of the seat in front and dabbed her hair into position, she sat absolutely silent, with her eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the stage. For the time her perpetual companion, the typewriter, was forgotten, and she lived and moved in the world of romance, where ladies were always fair and gentlemen either gallant or entertaining. Occasionally, without removing her gaze, she would call her host's attention, by a half-unconscious gesture, to some particularly attractive item of the entertainment.
When all was over she sighed resignedly and preceded Philip out into the roaring Strand. Philip, scanning the street for a disengaged cab, asked herwhere she lived. Miss Jennings gave him an address in Balham.
"We had better walk down to the Embankment," he said. "We might pick up a taxi or a hansom outside the Savoy."
Miss Jennings murmured something perfunctory about the facilities offered to the public by the London General Omnibus Company, and then accompanied him to the Embankment.
Presently a hansom was secured, and Philip handed his guest in, at the same time furtively paying the driver.
"Good-night," said Miss Jennings, "and thank you."
They shook hands, for the first time in their acquaintanceship. The cabman and his horse, however, did not know this, and immediately feigned a studious interest in something on the Surrey side of the river.
Philip walked home, and let himself into his dark and silent flat. On turning up the light he found that the lady who "did" for him had omitted to clear the breakfast-table. He accordingly set to work to wash up himself, knowing full well that the task would be even less congenial to-morrow morning.
As he groped philosophically in his tiny pantry for a dish-cloth, it occurred to him that to a lonely man female society is a very helpful thing. And he was right. For it is so helpful that though a man may, and often does, exist contentedly enough without it, once he has tasted thereof he must have it always or feel forever helpless.
And yet, every day, refined young women are surprised, and shocked, and indignant, when a brother in London suddenly telegraphs home to say that he has married a girl out of a tea-shop.
MY SON TIMOTHY
Philipand Miss Jennings resumed business faces next morning; and although they subsequently indulged in other jaunts, one of which—a Saturday-afternoon excursion to Earl's Court—included sister May, no cloud of sentimentality ever arose between them to obscure the simple clarity of their relations. Miss Jennings was much too matter-of-fact a young person to cherish any romantic yearnings after her employer. She was not of the breed which battens upon that inexpensive brand of literature which converts kitchenmaids into duchesses. She recognised Philip for what he was—a very kind, rather shy, and entirely trustworthy gentleman—and accepted such attentions as he offered her with freedom and confidence. Nor did Miss Jennings herself, beyond arousing in him a dim realisation of the fact that the elixir of life is not exclusively composed of petrol, make any direct impression upon Philip's peace of mind. At present his heart was too full of applied mechanics to have room for tenderer preoccupations—a very fortunate condition for a heart to be in when it belongs to a young man who has yet to establish a position for himself.
So life in the London offices went on for two years. It contained a great deal of hard work and a great deal of responsibility and a great deal of drudgery;but it had its compensations. Philip still played Rugby football in the winter and suffered upon a sliding-seat for the honour of the Thames Rowing Club in the summer. There were visits to Cheltenham to see Uncle Joseph, and to Red Gables to see the Mablethorpes. There was the ever-enthralling pageant of London itself. And there was the rapturous day upon which a high official of the Company arrived upon a visitation and announced, after compliments, that the merits of the Meldrum Automatic Lubricator (recently patented) had so favourably impressed the directors that they had decided to adopt the same as the standard pattern upon all the Company's cars. Would Mr. Meldrum enter into a further agreement with the directors to give them the first refusal of any further inventions of his? Those were days.
Then, finally, with a hilarious splash, came Timothy.
He arrived one morning to take possession of a six-cylinder Britannia touring-car which had just been completed to his order—or rather, to the order of an indulgent parent. He was a hare-brained but entirely charming youth of twenty-two, and Philip, who encountered far too few of his own caste in those days, hailed him as a godsend. Each happened to be wearing an Old Studleian tie, so common ground was established at once.
Philip enquired after Mr. Brett, and learned that that "septic blighter" (Timothy's description) had retired from the position of Housemaster and had been relegated to a post of comparative harmlessness; but the old House was going strong.
All this time they were examining the new car. It soon became apparent that the technical knowledge of Mr. Rendle (Timothy) was not of a far-reaching nature, but his anxiety to improve it was so genuine that Philip sent to the workshop for a mechanic to come and lay bare various portions of the car's anatomy. Presently that fire-eating revolutionary, Mr. Brand, appeared.
"If you are not in a hurry," said Philip to him, "we will take the top off the cylinders, and then I can give you a demonstration."
No, Mr. Rendle was in no hurry. He was a young man of leisure, it appeared.
"Only too glad to spend such a profitable morning," he said. "Usually in bed at this time of day."
Mr. Brand, whose views upon the subject of the idle rich were of a decided nature, looked up from a contest with a refractory nut, and regarded Timothy severely. Then, returning to his task, and having exposed the internal secrets of the engine, he plunged into an elaborate lecture, in his most oppressive and industrious-apprentice manner, upon big-ends and timing-gears. Philip did not interrupt. Mr. Brand was fond of the sound of his own voice, and was obviously enjoying his present unique opportunity of laying down the law to a wealthy and ignorant member of the despised upper classes. He employed all the long words he could think of. Timothy positively gaped with admiration.
"I say," he said, "you ought to go into Parliament."
"P'raps I shall," replied the Industrious Apprentice haughtily.
Evidently with the intention of resuming his interrupted discourse, he cleared his throat and took a deep breath. Then, suddenly, his mouth closed with a jerk, he turned a dusky red, and assumed an ostrich-like posture over the cylinders of the car.
"There's a trunk-call coming through for you, Mr. Meldrum," said a clear voice.
Philip turned round, to find Miss Jennings.
"I shall be back directly, Mr. Rendle," he said to Timothy, and accompanied the typist to the office.
"Brand is a great orator, Miss Jennings," he remarked, as he sat down to the telephone.
Miss Jennings sniffed.
"That hot-air artist?" she replied witheringly. "He's the laughing-stock of the place. Not that I know him. We on the office-staff keep ourselves to ourselves. We don't—"
At this moment the trunk-call came through, and the conversation terminated.
When Philip returned to the show-room, Mr. Brand had completed his task and departed to his own place.
"Our chatty friend," announced Timothy, "has put me up to most of the tips. I shall be a prize chauffeur in no time." He surveyed the gleaming car admiringly. "She's a beauty. What should I be able to knock out of her? Sixty?"
"Quite that."
"Wow-wow!" observed Mr. Rendle contentedly."I don't mind laying a thousand to thirty that I get my licence endorsed inside three weeks."
Philip, who regarded new machinery much as a young mother regards a new baby, turned appealingly to the cheerful young savage beside him.
"Don't push her too much at first," he said. "Give the bearings a chance for a hundred miles or two. And—I wouldn't go road-hogging if I were you."
Timothy turned to him in simple wonder.
"But what on earth is the use of my getting a forty-horse-power car," he enquired almost pathetically, "if I can't let her rip?"
"There are too many towns and villages round London to give you much of a chance," said Philip tactfully. "You will be able to find some good open stretches, though, if you get right out west or north," he added, as Timothy's face continued to express disappointment. "Or, I'll tell you what. Take the car to Brooklands, and see what she can do in the level hour."
The face of the car's owner—whose conscience upon the subject of road-racing was evidently at war with his instincts—brightened wonderfully.
"That is some notion," he cried. "You're right. Road-hogging is rotten bad form. We'll run this little lad down to Brooklands—oh, so gently!—and then go round the track all out. Will you come with me?"
"Rather," replied the primeval Philip with great heartiness.
"And come and dine at the Club afterwards," added Timothy, in a final burst of friendliness.
Within the exaggerated saucer constructed for the purpose at Brooklands they succeeded in covering seventy-three miles in sixty minutes, Timothy deliriously clinging to the wheel and Philip sitting watchfully beside him to see that centrifugal force did not send the new car flying over the rim into the conveniently adjacent cemetery of Brookwood.
Thereafter they dined together at the Royal Automobile Club, which seemed to Philip to contain several thousand members. Members swarmed in the great central hall, upon the staircase, and in all the lofty apartments opening therefrom. There appeared to be at least six hall-porters, and there were page-boys innumerable, who drifted about in all directions wearing worried expressions and chanting a mysterious dirge which sounded like "Mr. Hah-Hah, please!" There was a real post-office in one corner, and a theatre ticket-office in another. There were racquet courts, and a swimming-bath, and a shooting-gallery, and a gymnasium, and a bowling-alley, and a fencing-school. Timothy confidently announced that there was a golf links somewhere, but that he had not yet found time to play a round owing to the excessive length of the holes.
Eschewing what Philip's host described as the "cock-and-hen" dining-room (where the two sexes could be seen convivially intermingled, partaking of nourishment to the sound of music), they ascended in a lift to the first floor, where they sat down in a vast refectory of a more monastic type. Here one gentleman greeted them at the door, whilea second took Timothy's order for dinner, and passed it on to a third. The dishes were served by a fourth and cleared away by a fifth. The same ceremony was observed in the ordering of wine.
"Less fuss up here than downstairs," explained Timothy.
Philip enjoyed his meal immensely, though he wondered, characteristically, if all these ministers to his comfort—especially the page-boys—had partaken, or would partake, of an adequate meal themselves. Timothy, who contracted friendships almost as impulsively as he purchased motors, chattered to him with all the splendid buoyancy and frankness of youth. His vocation in life, it appeared, was that of Assistant Private Secretary to a prominent member of His Majesty's Opposition. The post was unpaid, and the duties apparently nominal. But Timothy was quite a mine of totally unreliable information upon the secret political history of the day. He told Philip some surprising stories of the private lives of Cabinet Ministers, and foretold the date of the next general election with great assurance and exactitude.
Later in the evening, as they drank coffee and liqueurs in an apartment which reminded Philip of Victoria Station (as recently rebuilt), Mr. Rendle conducted his guest through a résumé of several love-affairs—highly innocuous intrigues, most of them—and added the information that "that sort of thing" was now "cut out" owing to the gracious and elevating influence of a being only recently encountered, whom he described as "the best little girl that ever stepped."
"I don't know her very well yet," he concluded, in a burst of candour. "In fact, I don't even know what her name is. I met her at a dance. All I could find on my programme next morning was 'tight pink head-band.' But I will find her again."
"I am sure you will," said Philip, who had yet to learn that these final reformations of Timothy's were of a recurrent character.
"Thanks, old friend, for your kind words," replied the love-lorn youth. "Tell me, how much does a man require to marry on?"
"Thirty-five shillings a week," said Philip. "At least, so some of my colleagues tell me."
"I have two thousand a year," said Timothy doubtfully. "I don't know how much that is a week, but I'll work it out some day in shillings and see. Anyhow, when I meet her, I shall take her out in the new car. Are you married?"
"No," said Philip.
"That's a pity. If you had been, your wife might have chaperoned us. But if you get married, let me know."
He looked at his watch.
"Ten o'clock," he announced. "Now, what shall we do next? The resources of the Club are at your entire disposal. Would you like to have a dry shampoo, or fight a duel, or buy a postal order, or what? Or shall we go to a theatre?"
Philip mildly pointed out that most of the theatres opened at eight.
"Then we will go to a music-hall," said the resourceful Timothy. "Waiter, is there a Tube Station in the Club? I always forget."
"No, sir," said the waiter compassionately. "But there is a cold plunge-bath," he suggested.
"No good, I'm afraid; but thanks all the same," said the polite Timothy. "Get a taxi."
PLAIN MEN AND FAIR WOMEN
A fortnightlater Philip filled the vacancy which had been caused two years previously by the removal of Mr. Atherton by offering the post to Tim Rendle—an offer which was accepted by that ornament of the leisured classes with an enthusiasm which would have surprised the horny-handed Brand.
The experiment turned out a complete success. It provided Master Timothy with some much-needed employment, the Britannia Motor Company with an admirable addition to its staff, and Philip with a companion. Tim was a capital salesman. He soon became a brilliant, if slightly reckless driver; and in time he absorbed a fair working knowledge of the mechanics of the automobile. He possessed a charm of manner of which he was quite unconscious, and a unique capacity for getting himself liked. He fell in and out of love on the slightest provocation, and rarely failed to keep Philip informed of his latest entanglement.
Once he offered, as a supreme favour, to introduce Philip to one "Baby," who presided over a small tobacconist's establishment in Wardour Street. The interview was an entire failure. The siren greeted Timothy and his abashed companion most graciously, and was on the point, doubtless,of making some witty and appropriate remarks, when a piano-organ came heavily to anchor just outside the door, and its unwashed custodians proceeded to drown all attempts at conversation with the reverberating strains of "Alexander's Rag-Time Band." Under such circumstances it was impossible to look either affectionate or rakish. A conversation conducted entirely by means of smiles, however affable, and nods, however knowing, rarely leads anywhere; and, Timothy having intimated by a tender glance in the direction of Baby and a despairing gesture towards the door, that his heart was forever hers, but that for the present they must part, the deputation filed ignominiously out, one half of it feeling uncommonly foolish.
Tim was fond of engaging in controversy with Brand, and Philip frequently overheard such epithets as "gilded popinjay," and "grinder of the faces of the poor," exchanged for "dear old soul," and "esteemed citizen," on the occasions when argument and chaff clashed together in the garage or show-room.
Tim created an impression in another quarter, too, as a brief scrap of conversation will show.
"I think, Miss Jennings, that it would be a pretty and appropriate thought if, for the future, on arriving at the scene of my daily toil, I were to kiss you good-morning."
"Think again," suggested Miss Jennings.
"Not necessarily for publication," continued the unabashed Timothy, "but as a guaranty of good faith. A purely domestic salute, in fact. Theselittle things have a softening effect upon a man's character."
"They seem to have had a softening effect upon your brain," observed Miss Jennings swiftly.
"It would do me good," urged Tim. "I have no one to kiss me now that my dear mother has been called away."
Miss Jennings looked up, deceived for a moment.
"Is your mother dead?" she asked, more gently.
"Oh, no. She is very well, thank you," said Tim.
"But you said she had been called away."
"So she has."
"Where?"
"To Holloway Gaol," explained Tim softly. "She is a Militant Suffragette. She tried to burn down Madame Tussaud's. I miss her very much," he added with a sigh. "She comes out about twice a week, under the Cat and Mouse Act. I meet her at the prison gate with sandwiches, but she never kisses me, because her mouth is too full. Will you?"
"It seems to me, Mr. Rendle," remarked Miss Jennings, biting her lip, "that you and I are wasting our time. I have some work to do for Mr. Meldrum. I'll trouble you to get out of this office into the show-room."
"Certainly, Miss Jennings," replied Timothy, striking an attitude. "Good-bye! I will face this thing like a man. I will fight it down. I shall probably go and shoot big game—in Regent's Park. May I send you a stuffed elephant? Orwould you prefer a flock of pumas? I don't know what a puma is like, but the keeper will tell me."
The clatter of the typewriter drowned further foolishness, and Timothy departed to his duties. Here the incident would have ended, but for Miss Jennings's feminine inability to leave well alone.
"Haven't you got a young lady of your own?" she enquired one day of Tim,à propos des bottes.
"Yes," said Tim rapturously; "I have."
"Then, why—"
Timothy hastened to explain.
"Because I haven't met her yet. You cannot expect a lady to kiss you for your mother," he pointed out, "until you have spoken to her. The object of my affections lives in a castle in the air, and she has never actually come down to earth yet."
But Miss Jennings's attention had wandered.
"Kissing is a queer thing," she said musingly.
"It doesn't seem so after a while," Tim hastened to inform her.
"If you had got a young lady of your own," continued Miss Jennings, evidently debating a point which had occupied her attention before, "and you were to kiss another one, in a manner of speaking there would be no harm done."
"None whatever," agreed Tim heartily.
"What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over," continued Miss Jennings sententiously.
"Selah!" corroborated the expectant Timothy.
"But if the eyewasto see—my word!"
Miss Jennings inserted a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter, and continued:—
"Seems to me, kissing another young lady's young gentleman is just like picking up her cup of tea and taking a drink out of it. If she don't get to know about it, no one's a penny the wiser or a penny the worse. But if she does—well, she feels she simplymusthave a clean cup! So don't you take any risks, Mr. Rendle. You've such a silly way of talking that I don't know whether you have a young lady or not. If you haven't one now, you will have some day. If you have—one that's at all fond of you—and go kissing me, you will be sorry directly afterwards."
"The Right Honourable Lady," chanted the graceless Timothy, "then resumed her seat amid applause, having spoken for an hour and fifty minutes. Very well, I will leave you. I shall go and hold Brand's hand in the garage. He loves me, anyhow. Hallo! I say—"
Miss Jennings's serene countenance had flushed crimson.
"Have I said anything to offend you?" asked Tim, in some concern. "I am awfully sorry if I have. I was only rotting, you know. I had no idea Brand was a friend of yours."
Miss Jennings, recovering herself quickly, replied with some asperity that he was no such thing, and again announced that she had some work to do and that the conversation would now terminate.
But it did not. There was a magnetism about Tim which invited confidences.
"I say, Philip, old son," remarked Tim, as they walked down Piccadilly the following Sundayafternoon, "are you aware that our office has become a home of romance?"
Philip did not reply. His thoughts for the moment were centred upon more absorbing business. Presently he said:—
"I think I shall take a long run to-morrow and give it a proper trial on one or two really bad hills, and then go down to Coventry and see Bilston again."
Tim sighed gently, and replied:—
"Permit me to remind you, O most excellent Theophilus,"—this was his retaliation for being addressed as "my son Timothy,"—"that to-day is the Sabbath, and that we have left the Britannia Motor Company and all its works, including the Meldrum Never-Acting Brake, behind us for the space of twenty-four hours. In addition, we have washed ourselves and put on celluloid dickeys, and are now going to the Park to see Suffragettes. Let us be bright."
"Did I tell you the patent has been granted all right?" pursued Philip, referring presumably to the Meldrum Never-Acting Brake.
"You did," said Tim resignedly. "Seven times yesterday and five this morning."
"The Company simply must take it up," continued the single-minded inventor. "The brakes of the Britannia cars have always been their weakness, and now that we are building heavier and heavier bodies things are riskier than ever. Our present brake-power can't be developed any further: even Bilston admits that. My brake is magnetic—a different principle altogether. Itsreserve of power is enormous. It would stop a motor-bus."
"Yes, dear old thing," said Tim soothingly. "I am sure it would. And if you don't come out of the gutter on to the pavement you will stop one, too, and then I shall have to waste a day taking you to Kensal Green in instalments."
He linked his arm in that of his preoccupied friend, and having drawn him into a place of safety, repeated his former question.
"Are you aware that our office has become a home of romance?"
Philip replied that he had not noticed it.
They were on their way to the Park, after the fashion of good citizens, to enjoy the summer sunshine and regale themselves with snacks of oratory upon divers subjects, served gratis by overheated enthusiasts in the neighbourhood of the Marble Arch. After that they were to take tea with Timothy's lady mother in Lowndes Square.
"Well, it has," affirmed Tim. "Citizen Brand is consumed by a hopeless passion for the haughty Jennings."
"Rot!" said Philip, interested at last. "How do you know?"
"I was having a brief chat with Miss Jennings the other day—"
"What about?"
"We were discussing the affections, and so on," was the airy explanation; "and when in the course of conversation I happened to mention Brand's name, the poor young creature turned quite puce in the face."
"That rather sounds," commented the unsophisticated Philip, "as if the hopeless passion were on Miss Jennings's side."
Tim wagged his head sagely.
"Oh, dear, no," he said. "Not at all. In a woman, that is a most misleading symptom. She told me all about it. I notice," he added modestly, "that people confide in me a good deal."
"My son Timothy," said Philip, "you are a gossiping old wife."
"The difficulty, I gather," continued Timothy, quite unmoved by this stricture, "lies in the fact that they seem to have nothing in common whatsoever. Otherwise they are admirably matched. Socially, Miss Jennings is a young lady, while the Citizen is only a mechanic, like ourselves. In politics, Miss Jennings is a Conservative, while Brand is an Anarchist. In religion, Miss Jennings is Church of England, with a leaning to vestments, whereas Brand thinks that heaven and earth were created by the County Council, under the supervision of the Fabian Society."
"I should have thought that it would have been a most suitable match," said Philip. "They would be able to bring each other such fresh ideas."
"That is just what I told her," said Tim; "but it was no use. She said he was only a common person, and did nothing but fill his head with stuff that would put him above his station—night schools, and debating societies, and Ruskin, and Eugenics, and—and Grape Nuts."
"It seems to me rather a laudable ambition on the part of a common person."
"So I said, but I soon gathered that I had said the wrong thing. It appears that the Citizen has been trying to elevate Miss Jennings's mental outlook, too. He took her to the theatre, and that seems to have put the lid on everything."
"Why? I thought she liked the theatre."
"Yes; but the situation was mishandled. They met by appointment outside a Lyons' tea-shop—Miss Jennings in a dressy blouse and the Citizen in the suit which he only wears as a rule on the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille—and proceeded to a hearty meal of buttered buns. Then, instead of being taken to see Lewis Waller, as she had secretly hoped, Miss Jennings found herself at the Court, listening to a brainy rendering of 'Coriolanus' played by an earnest young repertory company without scenery or orchestra. I gather that they parted outside the emergency exit, and went home in different 'buses."
Philip listened to this highly circumstantial narrative in silence. Finally he said:—
"I'm sorry for Brand. He may not be up to Miss Jennings's standard of gentility, but he is the best man we have, and I intend to make him foreman next week. I bet you he finishes high up in the Company's service."
Tim shook his head.
"We shall see," he said. "Meanwhile, let us go and study the Suffragette in her natural state. I hear the Cause received a tremendous fillip last Sunday. Two policemen were jabbed in the eye with hatpins."
But the Suffragettes were not so conspicuous asthey had expected. They did discover a group of intensely respectable and consciously virtuous females haranguing a small and apathetic audience from a lorry, but these had wrecked their chances of patronage from the start by labelling themselves (per banner) "Law-Abiding Suffragists."
"We want Ettes, not Ists," said Tim.
At length their attention was attracted by what looked like a gigantic but listless football scrimmage, some four or five hundred strong, slowly and aimlessly circling about upon a wide grassy space. It was composed mainly of anæmic youths smoking cigarettes. But there was no sign of the ball. All that indicated the centre of activity of this peculiar game was the sound of some twenty or thirty male voices uplifted in song—Timothy explained that the melody was "Let's All Go Down the Strand and Have a Banana"—somewhere about the middle. A couple of impassive policemen appeared to be acting as referees.
Timothy addressed a citizen of London who was standing by.
"What is going on inside here?" he asked.
"Sufferingettes, sir," responded the citizen affably. "The police won't let 'em 'old no meetings now,—not off no waggin, that is,—so they 'as to justtalkto people, standin' about, friendly like, same as me and you. There's a couple of them in there just now"—indicating the scrimmage with his pipe. "You'll 'ear 'em arguin', now and then."
He was right. Presently there was a lull among the choristers. A high-pitched girlish voice became audible, trickling through the press.
"And I ask all of you, ifthatisn't woman's work, what is?"
The speaker paused defiantly for a reply. It came, at once:—
"Washin', ducky!"
The crowd dissolved into happy laughter, and the choir struck up "Meet Me in Dreamland Tonight."
Philip and Tim moved on. Philip felt hot and angry that women—apparently young women—should be subjected to such treatment as this. At the same time he remembered Miss Jennings's dictum upon the subject of asking for trouble, and wondered what on earth the parents of the youthful orators were thinking about.
Presently they came to a group near the Marble Arch. It was being addressed by two speakers simultaneously. The first was an angry-looking old gentleman with a long white beard. He was engaged in expounding some peculiar and (to judge from his apparent temperature) highly contentious point of doctrine to a facetious audience; but it was impossible to ascertain from his discourse whether he was a superheated heresy-hunter, an evangelical revivalist, or an out-and-out atheist. This is a peculiarity of the Hyde Park orator. Set him on his legs, and in ten minutes he has wandered so far from the point—usually through chasing an interrupter down some irrelevant byway—that it is difficult to tell what his subject is and quite impossible to discover which side he is on. As Philip and Timothy strolled up, the bearded one parted company with the last shreds of his temper, chieflyowing to the remorseless hecklings of a muscular Christian (or atheist) who was discharging a steady stream of criticism and obloquy into his left ear at a range of about eighteen inches; and partly by reason of the distraction caused by the voice of the other speaker, a pock-marked gentleman in a frock-coat and bowler hat, who, with glassy eyes fixed upon some invisible textbook suspended in mid-air before him, was thundering forth a philippic in favour of (or against) Tariff Reform.
With gleaming spectacles and waving arms, the old gentleman turned suddenly upon the heckler.
"Out upon you!" he shrieked. "I despise you; I scorn you; I spit upon you! Plague-spot!"
"What abaht the Erpostle Paul?" enquired the Plague-Spot steadily, evidently for the hundredth time.
This naturally induced a fresh paroxysm.
"Miserable creature!" stormed the old gentleman. "Having eyes, you see not! Having ears, you hear not! What did Charles Darwin say in eighteen-seventy-six?"
The crowd turned to the heckler, anxious to see how this thrust would be parried. The heckler pondered a moment, and then enquired in his turn: "What did the Erpostle Paul say in one-oh-one?"
The crowd, evidently regarding this as a good point, laughed approvingly.
"I'llreadyou what Charles Darwin said," spluttered the old gentleman, producing quite a library from his coat-tail. He selected a volume, and turned over the leaves with trembling fingers.
"And now, gentlemen, as regards this question of Exports and Imports," chaunted the Tariff Reform expert. "I will give you a few facts—"
"Fictions!" amended a humorous opponent.
At this moment the old gentleman began to read, in a hurried gabble, what Charles Darwin had said in eighteen-seventy-six. The heckler allowed him two minutes, and then suggested cheerfully:—
"Andnowlet's git back to the Erpostle Paul."
And so on. Our friends moved away, for not far off Philip's eye had discerned a familiar figure gesticulating upon a rostrum. It was Brand. He was addressing a considerable crowd, upon the edge of which Philip and Timothy now took their stand. Philip had never seen his colleague out of his overalls before, and was struck with the man's commanding presence and impassioned delivery.
"Life?" shouted Brand. His face was dead white, but his eyes blazed. "Life? What does life mean to you?" He surveyed his audience with profound contempt. "Beer!"
The crowd accepted this bludgeoning in excellent part.
"What do youdowith Life?" continued the speaker. "The Life that is left to you when you have worked twelve hours a day for some capitalist, and slept eight more, and spent another two coming and going from your work—your spare time, I mean? How do you employ your Sundays? Do you go and study Nature? Do you read elevatin' literature? Do you cultivate your starving minds? No! What do you do? You can't think of anything better to do than to come here and listento fools like me! That's the sort of mugs you are!"
This summary of the situation met with hearty endorsement from all parts of the audience.
"But it ain't your fault," continued Brand compassionately. "You haven't ever been taught what itmeansto enjoy Life. You haven't got the time!" He raised clenched hands to heaven. "Life! Life! It should be beautiful—glorious—sublime! Look round you now! Look at those trees! Listen to that music!"
The crowd, docile but a trifle mystified, obeyed. Faintly to their ears across the Park came the tremendous chords of the Pilgrims' Chorus from "Tannhäuser," played by the Grenadier Guards Band.
Brand sank down over the rail of his platform until his arms hung limply before him.
"Do these sights and sounds thrill us?" he demanded hoarsely. "Do they move us? I'm asking you. Do they? No! Not a thrill, not an emotion! Why? Because we haven't been educated up to them, you and me. We're only the People. We've always had to go to work, work, work! There's never been anytimefor us to learn of the beauty that Life holds for us."