The prospect of settling in London in the society of his schoolfriends pleased him. Marsh and Galway had tried to persuade him to make his home in Dublin, pleading that it was the duty of every educated Irishman to live in Ireland. "We haven't got many educated men on our side," Marsh said, "not a hundred in the whole of Ireland, and we need people like you!" They talked of political schemes that must be prepared for the parliament that would some day be re-established in College Green. "And they can only be prepared by educated men," Marsh said.
Henry would not listen to them. His longing was to be with Gilbert and Roger and Ninian in London. Dublin made very little appeal to him, and the job of regenerating Ireland was so immense that it frightened him. "I haven't got a common ground with you people," he said to Marsh and Galway. "You're Catholic to start off with, and I'm like my father, I think the Catholic religion is a contemptible religion. And you're not interested in anything but Ireland and the Gaelic movement. I'm interested in everything!"
"Don't you want to doanythingfor Ireland then?" John Marsh had asked.
"Oh, yes! I'll vote for Home Rule when I get a vote," he had replied.
"I know what your end will be," Patrick Galway added in a sullen voice. "You'll become a Chelsea Nationalist ... willing to do anything for Ireland but live in it!"
Well, who would want to live in Ireland with its penny-farthing politics! London for him! London and a sense of bigness, of wide ideas and the constant interplay of many minds!
He would talk to his father about Gilbert's proposal. There would be all sorts of subjects to discuss with him, that and the question of an allowance and the question of a career....
The train ran swiftly through the suburbs of Belfast and presently pulled up at the terminus. He descended from his carriage and called a jarvey who drove him across the city to the Northern Counties station where he took train again. It was late that night when he arrived at Ballymartin.
Mr. Quinn had become more absorbed in the Irish Agricultural Co-Operative Movement, and he used the home farm for experiments in scientific cultivation. His talk, when Henry returned home, was mainly about a theory of tillage which he called "continuous cropping," and it was with difficulty that Henry could persuade him to talk about Gilbert's proposal that he should join the household in Bloomsbury.
"I'm glad you've come home, Henry," he said after breakfast on the morning following Henry's return. "This system of continuous cropping is splendid, but it wants careful attention. You've got to adjust it continually to circumstances ... you can't follow any rules about it ... and if you'll just stay here and help me with it, we'll be able to do wonders with the home farm!"
Henry did not wish to settle in Ballymartin, at all events not for a long time.
"I want to go to London, father!" he said.
"London! What for?" Mr. Quinn exclaimed, and then before Henry could say why he wished to go to London, he added, "You'll have to settle on something, Henry. I always meant you to take over the estate fairly soon, to work things out with me. Don't you want to do that?"
"Not particularly, father!"
"Well, what's to become of you, then? Do you want to go into the Army? It's a bit late!..."
"No, father!"
"Or the Navy? But you should have gone to Osborne long ago if you wanted to do that!"
Henry shook his head.
"Well, what do you want to do. Are you thinkin' of the law?"
"I don't care about the law, father!..."
"I don't care about it myself, Henry. I was no good at it, an' mebbe that's the reason I think so little of it. But we have to have lawyers all the same. It would be a good plan now to sentence criminals to be lawyers, wouldn't it? 'The sentence of the Court is that you be taken from this place an' made to practise at the Bar for the rest of your natural life, an' may the Lord have mercy on your soul!' Begod, Henry, that's a great notion!"
Henry interrupted his father's fancy. "I want to write," he said.
"Write!" Mr. Quinn exclaimed. "Write what?"
"Books. Novels, I think!..."
Mr. Quinn put down his paper and gaped at his son. "Good God," he said, "an author!"
"Yes, father."
"You're daft, Henry!"
Henry got up from his chair, and went across to his father and took hold of his shoulder affectionately. "No, father, I'm not," he answered.
"Yes, you are, I tell you. You're clean cracked!..."
"I've written one novel already."
Mr. Quinn threw out his hands in a despairing gesture. "Oh, well," he said, "if you've committed yourself.... Where is it?"
"It's upstairs in my room. The manuscript, I mean. Of course, it hasn't been published yet."
A servant came into the room to clear away the remains of the breakfast, and Mr. Quinn got up from his chair and walked through the open window on to the terrace.
"What's it about?" he said to Henry who had followed him.
"Oh, love!" Henry answered, seating himself beside his father.
Mr. Quinn grunted. "Huh!" he said, gazing intently at the gravel. "Is it sloppy?"
"I don't think so, father. At least, I hope it isn't!"
"Or dirty?"
"No, it isn't dirty. Iknowit isn't dirty," Henry said very emphatically.
Mr. Quinn did not answer for a while. He got up from his seat and walked to the end of the terrace where he busied himself for a few moments in tending to a rosebush. Then he returned to the seat where Henry had remained, and said, "Will you let me read it, Henry?"
"Why, yes, father. Of coarse, I will," Henry answered, rising and moving towards the house. "I'd like you to read it," he added. "Perhaps you'll tell me what you think of it?"
"I will," Mr. Quinn replied, closing his lips down tightly.
"I'll just go and get it," Henry said, and he went into the house.
Mr. Quinn remained seated on the terrace, looking rigidly in front of him, until Henry returned, carrying a pile of manuscript. He took the paper from him without speaking, and glanced at the first sheet on which Henry had written in a large, clear hand:
DRUSILLA: A NOVELBYHENRY QUINN.
and then he turned the page and read what was written on the second sheet:
TOMY FATHER
He looked at the dedication for a longer time than he had looked at the title-page, and his hand trembled a little as he held the paper.
"I thought you wouldn't mind, father!" Henry said.
"Mind!" Mr. Quinn replied. "No, I don't, Henry. I ... I like it, my son. Thanks, Henry. I ..." He got up and moved quickly towards the window. "I'll just go in an' start readin' it now," he said.
He returned the manuscript to Henry on the following afternoon. "I've read worse," he said.
He walked to the end of the terrace and then walked back again. Then he shouted for William Henry Matier, who came running to him. He pointed to a daisy on the lawn and asked the gardener what the hell he meant by not keeping the weeds down.
"Ah, sure, sir!..."
"Root the damn thing up," Mr. Quinn shouted at him, "an' don't let me see another about the place or I'll shoot the boots off you! I don't know under God what I keep you for!"
"Now, you don't mean the half you say, sir!..."
"You're not worth ninepence a week!"
"Aw, now," said Matier, who knew his master, "I'm worth more'n that, sir!"
"How much are you worth? Tell me that, William Henry Matier!"
William Henry rooted up the daisy, and then said that he wouldn't like to put too high a price on himself....
"You'd be a fool if you did," Mr. Quinn interrupted.
" ... but I'd mebbe be worth about double what you named yourself, sir!"
"Eighteenpence!" Mr. Quinn exclaimed.
"Aye, that or a bit more. Were you wantin' anything else, sir!" He winked heavily at Henry as he turned away.
"You're not worth the food you eat," Mr. Quinn said.
"Aw, now, sir, you never know what anybody's worth 'til you have need of them," Matier replied. "A manmightn't be worth a damn to you one day, an' he'd mebbe be worth millions to you the next!"
"There's little fear of you bein' worth millions to any one. Run on now an' do your work if you've any work to do!" Mr. Quinn turned to Henry as the gardener went off. "I suppose you'll be wantin' to live in London for the rest of your life?"
"I should like to go there for a while anyway, father!"
"Huh! All you writin' people seem to think there's no life to be seen anywhere but in London. As if people hadn't got bowels here as well as in town!"
"I don't think that, father!..."
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter whether you think it or not, you'll not be happy 'til you get to London, I suppose. You'll stay here a wee while anyway, won't you? You've only just come home, an' it's a long time since I saw you last!"
"I'll stay as long as you like, father."
"Very well, then. I'll tell you when I've had enough of your company an' then you can go off to your friends. How much money do you think you'll need in London? Don't ask for too much. I need every ha'penny I have for the work. You've no notion what a lot it costs to experiment wi' land, an' I'm not as rich as you might imagine!"
Henry hesitated. He had never talked about money with his father, and he had a curious shyness about doing so now. "I don't know," he replied. "Would two hundred a year be too much?..."
"I'll spare you two hundred an' fifty!"
"Thank you, father. It's awfully good of you!"
"Ah, wheesht with you! Sure, why wouldn't a man be good to his own son. I suppose now you want to hear what I think of your book?"
Henry smiled self-consciously. "Yes, I should like to know your opinion of it. I thought at first you didn't think much of it. You didn't say anything!..."
"I'll give you a couple of years to improve it," Mr.Quinn answered. "If you can't make it better in that time, you're no good!"
"I suppose not."
"An' don't hurry over it. Go out an' look about you a bit. There's a lot of stuff in your story that wouldn't be there if you had any gumption. Get gumption, Henry!"
"I'll try, father. Of course, I know I'm very inexperienced...."
"You are, my son, an' what's more you're tellin' everybody how little you know in that book of yours. Man, dear, women aren't like that!... Well, never mind! You'll find out for yourself soon enough. Mind, I don't mean to say that there aren't some good things in the book. There are ... plenty! If there weren't, I wouldn't waste my breath talkin' to you about it. But there are things in it that are just guff, Henry, just guff. The kind of romantic slush that a young fellow throws off when he first realises that women are ... well, women, damn it! ... I wish to God, you would write a book about continuous croppin'! Now, there's a subject for a good book! There's none of your damned love about that!..."
He had not seen Sheila Morgan since the morning after he had failed to stop the runaway horse. Many times, indeed, she had been in his mind, and often at Trinity, in the long sleepless nights that afflict a young man who is newly conscious of his manhood, he had turned from side to side of his bed in an impotent effort to thrust her from his thoughts. He made fanciful pictures of her in his imagination, making her very beautiful and gracious. He saw her, then, with long dark hair that had the lustre of a moonless night of stars, and he imagined her, sitting close to him, so that her hair fell about his head and shoulder and he could feel the slow movement of her breasts against his side. He would close his eyes and think of her lips onhis, and her heart beating quickly while his thumped so loudly that it seemed that every one must hear it ... and thinking thus, he would clench his fists with futile force and swear to himself that he would go to her and make her marry him. Once, when he had spent an afternoon at the Zoo in the Phœnix Park, he had lingered for a long while in the house where the tigers are caged because, suddenly, it seemed to him that the graceful beast with the bright eyes resembled Sheila. It moved so easily, and as it moved, its fine skin rippled over its muscles like running water....
"I don't suppose she'd like to be called a tigress," he had thought to himself, laughing as he did so, "but that's what she's like. She's beautiful...."
And later in that afternoon, he thought he saw a resemblance between Mary Graham and a brown squirrel that sat on a branch and cracked nuts, throwing the shells away carelessly ... the Mary he had known when he first went to Boveyhayne, not the Mary he had seen on his last visit.
He wondered whether Sheila had altered much, and then he wondered what change four years had made in Mary Graham. Sheila, who had been dominant in his mind in his first year at Trinity, had receded a little into the background by the time he had quitted Dublin, but Mary, never very prominent, had retained her place, neither gaining nor losing position. It was odd, he thought to himself, that he had not been to Boveyhayne in the four years he had been at T.C.D. Mrs. Graham had invited him there several times, but he had not been able to accept the invitations: once his father had been ill, and he had had to hurry to Portrush, where he was staying, and remain with him until he was well again; and another time he had been with Gilbert Farlow at his home in Kent; and another time had agreed to go tramping in Connacht with Marsh and Galway. Ninian and Gilbert and Roger had spent a holiday at Ballymartin.... Ninian took a whole week to realise thathe was in Ulster and not in Scotland, and Gilbert begged hard for the production of a typical Irishman who would say "God bless your honour!" and "Bedad!" and "Bejabers!" and pretended not to believe that there were not any "typical Irishmen" ... and went away, vowing that they would compel Mr. Quinn to invite them to stay with him in the next vac. It was then that Ninian decided that he would like to be a shipbuilder. Mr. Quinn had taken them to Belfast to see the launch of a new liner, and Tom Arthurs had invited them all to join the luncheon party when the launch was over. The Vicereine had come from Dublin to cut the ribbon which would release the great ship and send it moving like a swan down the greasy slips into the river; and Tom Arthurs had conducted her through the Yard, telling her of the purpose of this machine and that engine until the poor lady began to be dubious of her capacity to launch the liner. There were other guides, explaining, as Tom Arthurs explained, the functions of the Yard to the visitors, but Ninian had contrived to attach himself to Tom Arthurs and he listened to him as he talked, as simply as was possible, of the way in which great ships are built. Thereafter, Ninian had tongue for none but Tom Arthurs, and he told him, when the party was over and the guests were leaving the Yard, that he would like to work in the Island. Tom had doubted whether Cambridge was the proper preparation for shipbuilding.... "I was out of my apprenticeship when I was your age," he said ... but he said that Ninian could think about it more seriously and then come to him when his time at Cambridge was up.
"I'm thinking seriously of it now," said Ninian.
"All right, my boy!" Tom Arthurs answered, laughing, and slapped him on the back. "We'll see what we can do for you!"
And Ninian, flushing like a girl, went away full of happiness, and soon afterwards began to imitate Tom Arthurs' Ulster speech in the hope that people would think he wasrelated to the shipbuilder or, at all events, a countryman of his.
It was odd, indeed, that Henry had not seen Mary in that time, but it was still more odd that he had not seen Sheila. Matt Hamilton had died soon after Henry had entered Trinity, but Mrs. Hamilton still had the farm which, people understood, was to be left to Sheila when her aunt died. He had not cared to go to the farm ... a mixture of pride and shyness prevented him from doing so ... but he had hoped to meet her on the roads about Ballymartin. "Perhaps by this time," he said to himself, "she will have forgotten my funk!" But although he frequently loitered in the roads about the "loanie," he never met her, and it was not until he said some casual things to William Henry Matier that he discovered that she was not at the farm. "I heerd tell she was visitin' friends in Bilfast!" Matier said, and with that he had to be content. Ninian and Gilbert and Roger were at Ballymartin then, and he had little opportunity to mourn over her absence; indeed, when he remembered that they were with him, he was glad that she was not at the farm: their presence would have made difficulties in the way of his intercourse with her. He would try to be alone at Ballymartin, in the next vacation, and then he would be able to bring her to his will again. But he did not spend the next vacation at home, and so, with this and other absences from Ballymartin, he was unable to see her for the whole of his time at Trinity. Neither he nor his father had spoken of her since the day when Mr. Quinn had solemnly led him to the library to rebuke him for his sweethearting. Mr. Quinn, indeed, had almost forgotten about Henry's lovemaking with Sheila, and when he met the girl and remembered that there had been lovemaking between his son and her, he thought to himself that Henry had probably completely forgotten her....
He wished to see her again, and his desire became so strong that he started to walk across the fields to the"loanie" that led to Hamilton's farm before he was aware of what he was about. His mind filled again with the visions he had had of her at Trinity, and he imagined that he saw her every now and then hiding behind a tree, ready to spring out on him and startle him with a loud whoop, or running from him and laughing as she ran....
He met her in the "loanie," and for a few moments he did not recognise her. She was sitting on the grass, in the shade of a hedge, huddling a baby close to her breast, and he saw that she was suckling it.
"Oh, Henry, is that you?" she said, starting up hurriedly so that the baby could not suck. She drew her blouse clumsily together, but the fretful child would not be pacified until she had started to feed it again, and so she resumed her seat on the grass.
"I didn't know you were back," she said, holding the baby up to her. "Are you here for long?"
He did not answer immediately. He had not yet completely realised that this was Sheila whom he had been eager to marry, and then when he understood at last that this indeed was she, something inside him kept exclaiming, "But she's got a baby!" and he wondered why she was feeding it.
"Are you married, Sheila?" he said.
She laughed at him, and answered, "That's a quare question to be askin', an' me with this in my arms!" She looked at the baby as she spoke.
"I didn't know you were married," he replied. "I was coming up to the farm to see you!"
"I've been married this year past," she said.
"I didn't know," he murmured. "No one told me!..."
And suddenly he saw that her face was coarser than it had been when he loved her. Her hair was tied untidilyabout her head, and he could see that her hands, as she held the child, were rough and red, and that her nails were broken and misshapen. Her boots were loosely laced, and she seemed to be sprawling....
"I'm all throughother," she said, as if she realised what was in his mind and was anxious to excuse herself to him. "This wee tory hardly gives me a minute's peace, an' my aunt's not so well as she was!"
He nodded his head, but did not speak.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked after a while.
"It's a boy," she said, "an' the very image of his da. He's a lovely child, Henry. Just look at him!"
He came nearer to her and looked at the baby who had his little fingers at her breast as if he would prevent her from taking it from him. The child, still sucking, looked up at him with greedy-sleepy eyes.
"Isn't he a gran' wee fella?" she went on, eyeing her son proudly.
"Whom did you marry?" he asked.
"You know him well," she answered. "Peter Logan that used to keep the forge ... that's who I married. D'ye mind the way he could bend a bar of iron with his two hands?..."
Henry remembered. "Doesn't he keep the forge now?" he asked.
"No, he sold it to Dan McKittrick when he married me. We needed a man on the farm, an' he's gran' at it. There isn't a one in the place can bate him at the reapin', an' you should see the long, straight furrows he can plough. The child's the image of him, an' I declare by the way he's tuggin' at me ... be quit, will you, you wee tory, an' not be hurtin' me with your greed!... he'll be as strong as his da, an' mebbe stronger!"
"Are you stayin' long?" she said again.
"No," he answered. "I'm going to London!..."
"London! Lord bless us, that's a long way!"
"I'm going soon ... in a day or two," he went on,making his resolution as he spoke. The sight of her bare breast embarrassed him, and he wanted to go away quickly.
"You're a one for roamin' the world, I must say!" she said. "You're no sooner here nor you're away again. Mebbe you'll come up an' see my aunt ... she was talkin' about you only last week ... an' Peter'd be right an' glad to welcome you!"
"No, thanks, not to-day," he answered. "I've something to do at home ... I'm sorry!..."
"But you said you were comin' to see me!..."
"I know, but I've just remembered something ... I'm sorry!" He was speaking in a jerky, agitated manner and he began to move away as if he were afraid that she would detain him. "I'll come another time," he added.
"Well, you're the quare man," she said. "Anybody'd think you were afeard of me, the hurry you're in to run away!"
He laughed nervously. "Of course, I'm not afraid of you," he exclaimed. "Why should I be?"
"I don't know!" She looked at him for a few seconds, and then the whimsical look that he remembered so well came into her eyes. "D'ye mind the way you wanted to marry me, Henry?" she said.
"Yes ... yes! Ha, ha!"
"An' now I've this! It's a quaren funny, isn't it?"
"Funny?"
"Aye, the way things go. I wonder what sort of a child I'd a' had if I'd married you!"
"I really don't know!... I'm afraid I must go now!"
"Well, good-bye, Henry! I'll mebbe see you again some time!"
She held out her hand to him and he took it, and then dropped it quickly.
"Yes, perhaps," he answered, and added, "Good-bye!"
He went off quickly, not looking back until he had reached the foot of the "loanie," and then he stood for asecond or two to watch her. She was busy with her baby again. He could see her white breast shining in the sunlight, and her head bent over the sucking child.
"Well, I'm damned," he said to himself, as he hurried off.
And as he hurried home, his mind set on quitting Ballymartin as speedily as possible, he remembered the casual way in which she had spoken of their possibly meeting again. "I'll mebbe see you some time!" she had said. So indifferent to him as that, she was, so happy in her love for her husband whom he remembered as a great big, hairy, tanned man who beat hot iron with heavy hammers and bent it into wheels and shoes for horses.
"She takes more interest in that putty-faced brat of hers than she does in me," he said to himself, angrily, and then, so swift were his changes of mood, he began to laugh. "Of course, she does," he said aloud. "Why shouldn't she? It's hers, isn't it?"
He remembered her young beauty and contrasted it with her appearance when he saw her in the "loanie" with her child. In a few years, he thought, she would be like any village woman, worn out, misshapen, tired, with gnarled knuckles and thickened hands. Already she had begun to neglect her hair....
"It's a damned shame," he murmured. "If she'd married me she'd have kept her looks!..."
"But she wouldn't marry me," he went on. "I wasn't man enough for her.... My God, I wish I was out of this!"
"Father," he said when he got home, "I'd like to go to London at once!"
"You can't go this minute, my son. There's no train the night!"
"I mean, I want to go as soon as possible!"
Mr. Quinn glanced sharply at him. "You're in a desperate hurry all of a sudden," he said. "What's up?"
"Nothing, father, only I want to get to work, and I can't work here!..."
"Restless, are you? I was hopin' you'd give me a bit of your company a while longer!..."
"I'm sorry, father!..."
"That's all right, my boy, that's all right. When do you want to go?"
"To-morrow!"
"You've only been home a short time.... Never mind! I'll come up to Belfast an' see you off. There's a Co-operative Conference there the day after the morra, an' I may as well go up with you as go up alone!"
Henry knew that his father was hurt by his sudden decision to leave Ballymartin, and he felt sorry for the old man's disappointment, but he felt, too, that he could not bear to stay near Hamilton's farm at present, knowing that Sheila, whom he had loved and idealised, was likely to meet him in the roads at any moment, a baby in her arms, perhaps at her breast, and a husband somewhere near at hand.
"I must go," he told himself. "I must get over this...."
Mr. Quinn and he travelled to Belfast together on the following morning, and they spent the hour before the steamer sailed for Liverpool in pacing up and down the deck.
"You can write to me when you get to London," Mr. Quinn said, and Henry nodded his head.
He was very conscious now of his father's disappointment, and although he was determined to go to London, he was moved by the affectionate way in which the old man tried to provide for his needs on the journey.
"Hap yourself well," he had said when they crossed the gangway on to the boat. "These steamers never give you enough clothes on your bunk. I'd put my overcoat on top of the quilt if I were you!..."
They stood for a time looking across the Lagan at the shipyard, and talked about the possibility of Ninian Graham entering the shipbuilding firm, and then they moved to the side of the boat that was against the quay-wall. The hour at which the steamer was to depart was drawing near and the number of passengers had increased. They could hear the noise of the machinery as the cargo was lowered from the quay into the hold, and now and then, the squealing of pigs as the drovers pushed them up the gangways. A herd of cattle came through the sheds and stumbled in a startled, stupid fashion on to the lower decks, while the drovers thwacked them and shouted at them. There was a small crowd of people, friends of passengers and casual onlookers, standing on the quay waiting to see the ship go out, and some of them were shouting messages to their friends. Henry had always liked to watch crowds at times such as this, and often in Dublin, he had spent a while in Westland Row Station, looking at the people who were going to England. He was so interested in the crowd on the quay that he did not hear his father speaking to him.
"I want to speak to you, Henry," the old man said, and then receiving no answer, he said again, "I want to speak to you, Henry!"
"Yes, father?" Henry answered, without looking up.
"Turn round a minute, Henry!..." He hesitated, and Henry turning round, saw that his father was embarrassed.
"What is it, father?" he said.
"I just wanted to say something to you, Henry. You see, you're beginnin' another life ... out of my control, if you follow me ... not that I ever tried to boss you...."
"No, father, you've never done that. You've been awfully decent to me!"
"Ah, now, no more of that! I just wanted to say somethin' to you, only I don't rightly know how to begin...." He fumbled for words and then, as if making a reckless plunge, he blurted out, "Do you know much, Henry?"
"Know much?" Henry answered vaguely.
"Aye. About women an' things? Did you know any women in Dublin?"
"Oh, yes, a few!" Henry answered.
"Did ... did you have anything to do with them?"
"Anything to do with them!"
"Aye!"
Henry began to comprehend his father's questions. "Oh, I ... I kissed one or two of them!" he said.
"Was that all?" Mr. Quinn's voice was so low that Henry had difficulty in hearing him.
"Yes, father," he answered.
"You know, don't you, that there's other things than kisses? Or do you not know it?"
Henry nodded his head.
"I'm ... I'm not interferin' with you, Henry. I'm not just askin' for the sake of askin' ... but ... well, do you know anything about those ... things?"
He moved slightly as he spoke, as if, by moving, he could take the edge off his question.
"I know about them, father. Something!" Henry said huskily, for his father's questions embarrassed him strangely.
"You've never ... you've never!..."
"No, father!"
Mr. Quinn turned away and looked over the side of the boat. He seemed to be watching a piece of orange peel which floated between the wall and the side of the boat. The first bell of warning to friends of passengers was sounded, and he turned sharply and looked at his son. "I'll have to be goin' soon," he said.
"That's only the first bell, father," Henry replied. "There's plenty of time yet!"
"Aye!" Mr. Quinn glanced about the deck which was now covered by passengers. "You'll have plenty of company goin' over," he said.
"Yes!"
They were making conversation with difficulty. Mr. Quinn felt nervous and a little unhappy because Henry was leaving him so soon, and Henry felt disturbed because of the strange conversation he had just had with his father. He had a shamed sense of intrusion into privacies.
"It's very interestin' to see a boat goin' out to sea," Mr. Quinn was saying. "I used to come down here many's a time when I was a young fellow just to watch the steamers goin' out. Did you ever stan' on top of a hill an' watch a boat sailin' out to sea?"
"No, I don't remember doing that!"
"It's a fine sight, that! You see her lights shinin' in the dark a long way off, but you can't see her, except mebbe the foam she makes, an' begod you near want to cry. That's the way it affects me anyway.... Henry, if you ever get into any bother over the head of a woman, you'll tell me, won't you, an' I'll stan' by you!" He said this so suddenly, coming close to Henry as he said it, that Henry was startled. "You'll not forget," he went on.
"No, father, I won't forget!"
"I've been wantin' to say that to you for a good while, but it's a hard thing for a man to say to his own son. I could say it easier to somebody else's son nor I can to you. London's a quare place for a young fella, Henry, but it's no good preachin' to men about women ... no good at all. The only thing you can do is to stan' by a man when he gets into bother. That's all, except to hope to God he'll not disgrace his name if he's your son. You know where to write to, Henry, if you need any help!... Hilloa, there's the second bell!"
They could hear the sailors calling out "Any more for the shore!" and the sound of hurried farewells and the shuffle of awkward feet along the gangways.
"Good-bye, Henry!"
"Good-bye, father!"
"You'll not forget to write now an' awhile?"
"I'll write to you the minute I get to London!"
"Ah, don't hurry yourself! You'll mebbe be tired out when you arrive. Just wait 'til the mornin', an' write at your leisure...."
"Hurry up, sir!" an impatient sailor said.
"Ah, sure, there's plenty of time, man! Good-bye, Henry! I believe I'm the last one to go ashore. Well, so long!"
They shook hands, and then the old man went down the gangway.
"Any more for the shore?" the sailor shouted, unloosing the rope that held the gangway fast to the ship. Then the gangway was cast off. A bell rang, and in an instant the sound of the screws beating in the water was heard. A shudder ran through the boat as the engines began to move, and slowly the gap between the ship and the quay widened. Henry smiled at his father, and the old man blinked and smiled back. The passengers leant against the side of the boat and shouted farewells and messages to their friends on shore. "Mind an' write!" "Remember me to every one, will you!" "Tell Maggie I was askin' for her!" Then hats were waved and handkerchiefs were floated like flags.... A woman stood near to Henry and cried miserably to herself.... The ship swung into the middle of the Lagan and began to move down towards the sea. Henry could still see his father, standing under the yellow glare of a large lamp hanging from the shed. He had taken off his hat, and was waving it to his son. It seemed to Henry suddenly that the old man's hair was very grey and thin.... He took out his handkerchief andwaved it vigorously in response. Somewhere in the steerage people were singing a hymn:
'Til we me .. ee .. eet, 'til we me .. eet,'Til we meet at Je . e . su's feet ... Jesu's feet,'Til we me .. ee .. eet, 'til we me .. eet,God be with you 'til we meet again!
The slurring, sentimental sounds became extraordinarily human and moving in the dusky glow, and he felt tempted to hum the words under his breath in harmony with the singers in the steerage; but two men were standing behind him, and he was afraid they would overhear him. He could hear one of them saying to his companion, "I always say, eat as much as you can stuff inside you, an' run the risk of bein' sick. Some people makes a point of eatin' nothin' at all when they're crossin' the Channel, but they're sick all the same, an' they damn near throw off their insides. A drop of whiskey is a good thing!..."
The boat was making way now, and the people on the quay were ceasing to have separate outlines: they were merging in a big, dark blur under the yellow light. Henry could not see his father at the spot where he had stood when the ship moved away, and he felt disappointed when he thought to himself that the old man had not waited until the last moment. Then he saw a figure hurrying along the quays, waving a large white handkerchief.... It was his father, trying to keep pace with the boat, and Henry shouted to him and waved his hands to him in a kind of delirium. Gradually the boat outstripped the old man, and at last he stood still and watched it disappearing into the darkness. He was still waving to Henry, but no sound came from him. He seemed to be terribly alone there on the dark quay.... Henry shuddered in the night air, and glancing about him saw that most of the passengers had gone down to the saloon or to their cabins. He, too, was almost alone. He turned to look again at his father, straining to catch the last glimpse of him, and while he was straining thus, he heard the old man's voice vibrating across the river to him. "Good-bye Henry!" he shouted. "God bless you, son!" and Henry felt that he must leap overboard and swim back to the shore. He waved his handkerchief towards the place where his father was standing and tried to shout "Good-bye, father!" to him, but his voice rattled weakly in his throat, and he felt tears starting in his eyes.
"It's silly of me to behave like this," he murmured to himself, rubbing his eyes with his hand.
The boat had passed between the Twin Islands and was now sailing swiftly down the Lough towards the Irish Sea. The lights on the quay faded into a faint yellow blur, like little lost stars, and presently, when the cold airs of the sea struck him sharply, he turned and went towards the saloon.
"I hope to goodness it'll be smooth all the way over," he said to himself.
Roger Carey and Gilbert Farlow met him at Euston.
"Hilloa, Quinny!" Gilbert said, "I've been made a dramatic critic, and I'm to do my first play to-night!"
"Hurray!" he answered, and turned to greet Roger.
"We've bagged a taxi," Gilbert went on. "The driver looks cheeky ... that's why we hired him. We'll give him a tuppenny tip and then we'll give him in charge!..."
"All taxi drivers are cheeky," Roger interrupted.
"But this is a very cheeky one!... Hi, porter!"
It was extraordinarily good to be with Gilbert and Roger again; extraordinarily good to hear Gilbert's exaggerated speech and see him ordering people about without hurting their feelings; extraordinarily good to listen to Roger's slow, unflickering voice as he stated the facts ... for Roger had always stated the facts. In all their discussions, it was Roger who reminded them of the essential things, refusing persistently to be carried away by Gilbert's imagination or Ninian's impatience. People were sometimes irritated by Roger's slow, imperturbable way of speaking ... they called him a prig ... but as they knew him better, they lost their irritation and thought of him with respect. "But we're all prigs," Gilbert said once in reply to some one who sneered at Roger. "Ninian and Quinny and Roger and me, we're frightful prigs. That's because we're so much brainier than most people. Of course, Roger was Second Wrangler, and that affects a man, I suppose, but he's terribly clever, young Roger is!..."
As they drove home, Gilbert told their news to Henry.
"Ninian's coming up to-morrow ... sooner than he meant to. He's very keen on going to Harland and Wolff's, but he's afraid he's too old to begin building ships. Tom Arthurs says he ought to have gone straight to the Island from Rumpell's instead of going to Cambridge, and poor old Ninian was horribly blasphemous about it all. It's funny to hear him trying to talk like an Orangeman ... he mixes it up with Devonshire dialect ... and thinks he's imitating Tom Arthurs. I suppose he'll have to content himself with building railways and things like that. It's a great pity!"
"I don't believe he really wants to be a shipbuilder," Roger said. "He likes Tom Arthurs, and he wants to be what Arthurs is. That's all. If Arthurs were a comedian, Ninian would want to be a comedian, too!"
"It must be splendid," Henry murmured, "to be able to influence people like that!"
The taxi drew up to the door of a house in one of the quieter Bloomsbury squares, and Henry, looking out of the window, while Gilbert opened the door of the cab, saw that the garden in the centre of the square was very green. He could see figures in white flannels running and jumping, and the sound of tennis balls, as they collided with the racquets, pleased him.
"Your room overlooks the square," Gilbert said, as Henry got out of the cab.
"Splendid!" he replied. "I shall imagine I'm in Dublin when I look out of the window. It's just like Merrion Square!..."
"Well, pay the cabby, will you? I'm broke!" said Gilbert.
"You always are," Roger murmured.
Ninian joined them on the following day, very cheerless and irritable. It was impossible for him to enter theshipbuilding firm owing to his age, and so he had decided to enter the offices of a firm of engineers in London. "Anybody can build a damned railway," he said, "but it takes a man to build a ship. I'd love to build a liner ... one that could cross the Atlantic in four days!"
"Four days!" Gilbert scoffed. "My dear Ninian, boats don't crawl across the ocean! People want boats that will take them to New York in twenty-four hours!..."
"And now, young fellows!" he went on, "it's time that we thought seriously about our immortal souls!"
"Oh, is it?" said Ninian.
"Yes, it is," Gilbert replied.
They had dined, and were now sitting in Gilbert's room in the lax attitude of people who have eaten well and are content.
"Here we are," Gilbert went on, using his pipe as a modulator of his points, "four bright lads simply bursting with brains, and the question is, what is to become of us? The Boy: What Will He Become? Take Roger, for example, will he become Lord Chancellor of England, or a footling little Registrar of a footling County Court?..."
"I haven't had a brief yet," Roger interrupted, "so that question's somewhat premature, isn't it?"
"I'm not talking aboutnow... I'm talking about the future," Gilbert replied. "We ought to have some notion of what we're going to do with our lives.... As a matter of fact," he continued, "your career's fairly certain, Roger. With all that brain oozing out of you, you're bound to become great. But what about little Ninian here? And Quinny? And me? Ninian's a discontented sort of bloke, and he's quite likely to make a mess of things unless we look after him. He may turn out to be a very great engineer or he may go back to Boveyhayne and play the turnip-headed squire!..."
"Always rotting a chap," Ninian mumbled.
"And Quinny ... what about little Quinny? He's written a novel!..."
"Written a what?" Ninian demanded, sitting up sharply.
"Have you, Quinny?" said Roger.
Henry blushed and nodded his head. "It isn't good," he said. "I shall have to re-write it!"
"My Lord," said Ninian, "fancy one of us writing a book!"
Gilbert slapped him on the side of the head. "You forget, Ninian, that I've written a play!..."
"A play's not a book!..."
"Myplays are books," Gilbert retorted. "Well, now," he went on, "what's to become of little Quinny: a tip-top novelist with a limited circulation or a third-rater who sells millions?"
"What about yourself?" Ninian said.
"I'm coming to myself. Will I become a great dramatist, like Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw and all those chaps, or merely turn out hack plays?..."
"And the answer is?"
"I don't know, but I'll tell you in ten years' time. We're a brainy lot of lads, and I'm the brainiest of the lot!..."
"Oh, no, you're not," said Ninian. "I've quite a respectable amount of brain myself, but the very best brain in the room belongs to Roger. Doesn't it, Roger?"
"I don't despise my brain, Ninian!" Roger answered.
"Observe the modest demeanour of the truly great man," Gilbert exclaimed. "You'll have to go into politics, Roger. It isn't any good being a barrister unless you do!"
"I've thought of that," Roger answered. "At the moment, I'm wondering which side I'm on. I might manage to get a seat as a Liberal, but I don't believe it would be of much use to me if I got it. I think I shall join the Tories!..."
"Are you a Tory?" Ninian said, "I thought you were a Liberal!"
"No, I'm a barrister. You see," he went on, as if he were arguing a case, "the Liberal majority is too big andthere are far too many clever young men in the party. I should only be one of a crowd if I went into the House now as a Liberal ... and of course I'm not likely to be given a chance of standing for a seat because they've a lot of people on the list already. But the Tories have hardly any clever chaps left. There's Balfour and there's Chamberlain ... and then what is there?"
"Nothing!" said Gilbert.
"A clever man of my age has the chance of a lifetime with the Tories now," Roger continued. "Look at F. E. Robinson ... and he's only a third-rater!"
Gilbert told a story of the early days of the Tory Party after the General Election of 1900 when the Tories had been completely routed by the Liberals. "The Tory remnant was as thick-headed as it could be," he said, "and the Liberals were bursting with brains. Balfour came into the House one night ... he'd just been re-elected ... and he sat down beside Chamberlain. They were frightfully blue. Balfour had a look at the Liberals, and then he turned to his own back-benches and had a look at the Tories. Of course, it may not be true, but they say he went pale with fright. He turned to Chamberlain and said, "My God, Joseph!" and then Chamberlain turned and looked at the Tories and said, "My God, Arthur!" You see, Chamberlain never noticed things until Balfour pointed them out to him, and then he noticed them too much. They went out of the House immediately afterwards and shook hands with each other, and Chamberlain said 'Arthur,we'rethe Opposition!' And so they were. Poor Balfour was awfully lonely after Chamberlain crocked up. Not a soul on his own side that was fit to talk to! It was easy enough for F. E. Robinson to make a name in a crowd like that. And they loathe him, too. He's such a bounder! But they need a fellow to heave mud, so they put up with him. Roger's got more brains in his little finger than that fellow has in his whole body. Haven't you, Roger?"
"People don't have brains in their little fingers," Roger answered.
"You should join the Tories, Roger," Ninian said. "There really isn't much difference between them. My father was a Conservative, but my Uncle Geoffrey was a Liberal. When father was in, uncle was out. It amounted to the same thing in the end!..."
"But Roger ought to be a different sort of Tory!" Gilbert exclaimed. "It's no good having all his brain if he's just going to peddle around with the same old stuff...."
"I don't intend to do that," said Roger.
"Well, what do you intend to do?"
Ninian seized a cushion and put it behind his back.
"Let's have a good old argle-bargle," he said. "What do you say, Quinny?"
Henry, who had not joined in the discussion, leant forward and smiled. "Oh, I like listening to you," he answered. "You're all so sure of yourselves!..."
Gilbert turned on him. "Well, aren't you sure of yourself?" he demanded.
"No, I'm not," Henry answered. "I never am!"
"That's queer," said Gilbert.
"Damned queer," said Ninian.
"Why are you so uncertain of yourself?" Roger asked.
"Don't you feel sure that you'll be a great novelist?" Gilbert added before Henry had time to reply to Roger's question.
"I know jolly well I shall be a clinking good engineer!" Ninian said.
Henry had a shy unwillingness to discuss himself in front of the others, although they were his closest friends. He felt that he could not sit still while they watched him as he told them of his ambitions and his fears.
"Oh, don't let's talk about me," he said. "Go on with your argle-bargle." He was speaking hurriedly, so that he had difficulty in articulating his words. "You weresaying something, Ninian, weren't you ... no, it was you, Roger, about politics!..."
"Oh, yes!" Roger answered.
"Rum chap, you are!" Gilbert said to Henry in a low voice.
"You see," said Roger, "my notion is to restore the prestige of the Tories. Somehow, they've let themselves get the reputation of being consciously heartless. The Liberals go about proclaiming that they are the friends of the poor, and the inference is that the Tories are the friends of the rich!"
"So they are," said Ninian.
"So are the Liberals!" said Roger.
"So's everybody!" said Gilbert.
"But the Tories aren't culpably the friends of the rich," Roger continued. "I mean, they don't go into parliament with the intention of exploiting poor men for the benefit of rich men. It isn't true that they are indifferent to the fate of poor men; but they have allowed the Liberals to give them that character. I've always said that the Tories have the courage of the Liberals' convictions!..."
Gilbert lay back on the floor with his arms under his head. "I remember the first time you said that. It was in the Union!" he exclaimed.
"I shall say it again in the House some day," Roger retorted. "I'm not trying to be funny when I say that. I think the history of the Tory Party shows very plainly that the Tories have done very admirable things for the working-people: Factory Acts and Housing schemes and Workmen's Compensation Acts. Well, I want the Tory Party to remember that it is the custodian of the decency of England. It isn't decent that there should be hungry children and unemployed men and badly-housed families. That kind of thing is intolerable to a gentleman, and aTory is a gentleman. It seems to me inconceivable that a Tory should be willing to make money by cheating a child out of a meal ... but there are plenty of Liberals who do that. And I'm against all this legislation which makes some public authority do things for people which they ought to be doing for themselves. I mean, I hate the notion of the State feeding hungry school-children because the parents cannot afford to feed them, when the proper thing to do is to see that the parents are paid enough for their work to enable them to feed their children themselves. I suppose I'm sloppy ... the Fabians used to say so at Cambridge ... but I prefer the spectacle of a family round its own table to the spectacle of a crowd of assorted youngsters round a municipal school table! And I don't think we're getting the most out of our people! Just think of the millions of men and women in this country who really do not earn more than their keep! That isn't good enough. If you can only just keep yourself going, then you've no right to go ... except to hell as quickly as possible. My idea is that we waste potentialities at present, not by squandering them, but by never using them. All those poor people, for example, how do we know that some of them, if given an opportunity, would not be amazingly worth while! There must be a great deal of brain-power simply chucked away or misused. I know that lots of people believe that men of genius work their way up to their level no matter how low down they begin, but I doubt that, and anyhow I'm not talking of geniuses ... I'm talking of the average clever man ... there must be men of good average quality lost in slums because none of us have taken the trouble to clear the ground for them. And the ground has to be cleared! You can't grow wheat on a sour soil. I often think when I see some hooligan brought into Court that, given a real chance, he might have been a better judge than the man who sends him to gaol. The Tory's job is to restore the balance of things. It isn't only to maintainthe level, but to raise it and to keep on raising it.... I believe in the State of Poise, of equitable adjustment, in which every man will be able to move easily to his proper place.... There are so many obstacles now in the way of man finding his place that, even if he has the strength to get over them, he probably won't have the strength to fill it...."
"My view, perhaps, is narrower than yours, Roger," Henry said, "but I see all these people chiefly as men and women who are shut out of things: books and pictures and plays and music and all the decent things. I don't believe that if they had the chance they would all read Meredith and admire Whistler and go to see Shaw's plays and want to listen to Wagner ... that's not the point, and anyhow the middle and the upper classes are not all marvellously cultured. My point is that their lives are such that they don't even know of Meredith and Whistler and Shaw and Wagner. They don't even know of the second-rate people or the third rate. Magnolia, for instance ... I suppose she reads novelettes, and when she grows out of novelettes, she won't read anything. And she can't afford to go to a West End theatre.... When I think of these people, millions of 'em, I think of them as people like Magnolia, completely shut out of things like that, not even aware of them...."
They spent the remainder of the evening in argument, their talk ranging over the wide field of human activity. They established a system of continual criticism of existing institutions. "Challenge everything," said Gilbert; "make it justify its existence." They tried to discover the truth about things, to shed their prejudices and to see the facts of life exactly as they were. "The great thing is to get rid of Slop!" said Roger. "We've got to convince the judge as well as move the jury. It isn't enough to make the jury feel sloppy ... any ass can do that. You've got to convince the old chap on the bench or you won't geta verdict. That's my belief, and I believe, too, that the jury is more likely to listen to reason than people imagine!"
They did not finish their argument that evening nor on any particular evening. They were spread over a long period, and were part of the process of clearing their minds of cobwebs.
Gilbert had dedicated his life to the renascence of the drama and had written a couple of plays which, he admitted to his friends, had not got the right stuff in them. "I don't know enough yet," he said once to Henry, "but I'm learning...." His dramatic criticism was very pointed, and he speedily acquired a reputation among people who are interested in the theatre, as an acute but harsh critic, and already attempts had been made by theatrical managers either to bribe him or get him dismissed from his paper. The bribing process was quite delicately operated. One manager wrote to him, charmingly plaintive about his criticism, and invited him to put himself in the manager's place. "I assure you," he wrote, "I would willingly produce good work if I could get it, but I can't. Come and see me, and I'll show you a pile of plays that have arrived within the last fortnight. I know quite well, without reading them, that not one of them will be of the slightest worth!" And Gilbert had gone to see him, and had been received very charmingly and told how clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a piece of petulance which delighted him.
"The great big balloon," he said to his editor when he was told of what the actor-knight had said over the telephone. "My Lord, when I hear him spouting blank verse through his nose!..."
"That's all very fine," the editor retorted ruefully, "but your criticism's doing us a lot of harm. Jefferson ofthe Torch Theatre cancelled his advertisement the day after your notice of his new play appeared!"
"Ridiculous ass!" said Gilbert.
"Well, if you say his play's the worst that's ever been put on any stage, what do you expect him to do? Fall on your neck and say, 'Bless you, brother!'? You might try to be kinder to them, Farlow, and do for the love of God remember the advertisement manager. If you could get the human note in your stuff!..."
"The what?"
"The human note. I'm a great believer in the human note."
Gilbert left the office as quickly as he could and went home. He came into the dining-room where the others were already seated at their meal.
"You're late again, Gilbert," said Roger. "Hand over your sixpence!"
Roger, who was never late for anything, had instituted a system of fines for those who were late for meals. The fine for unpunctuality at dinner was sixpence.
"I haven't got a tanner, damn it," Gilbert snapped, "and I'm looking for the human note. That's why I'm late. My heavenly father, I'm hungry! What is there?"
"Sixpence for being late for dinner," said Roger quietly, "and tuppence for blasphemy!"
He entered the amounts in the "Ledger," and then returned to his seat. "You already owe six and threepence," he said, as he sat down, "and this evening's fines bring it up to six and elevenpence. You ought to pay something on account, Gilbert!..."
"Pass the potatoes and don't bleat so much!" said Gilbert. "Look here, Quinny," he said as he helped himself to the potatoes, "what's the human note, and don't you think tuppence is too much for blasphemy?"
"Ask Ninian," Henry answered. "He knows all about humanity!"
"No, he doesn't. Bally mechanic! Aren't you, Ninian? Aren't you a damn little mechanic with a screw-driver for a soul!..."
"You'll get a punch on the jaw in a minute, young fellow me lad!" Ninian exclaimed, leaning over the table and slapping Gilbert on the cheek.
"Fined fourpence for threat of physical violence and ninepence for executing the same," Roger murmured. "I'll enter it presently."
"Somebody should slay Roger," Gilbert said. "Somebody should take hold of his neat little neck and wring it!..."
They finished their meal and sat back in their chairs, smoking and chattering.
"What's all this about the human note, Gilbert?" Henry asked, and Gilbert explained what had happened to him in the editor's room. "I stopped a bobby in the Strand and asked him about it," he said, "but he told me to move on. You ought to know what the human note is, Quinny. You're a novelist, and novelists are supposed to know everything nowadays!"
He did not wait for Henry to explain the meaning of the human note. "I know what Dilton means by it," he said. "Whenhetalks of the human note he means the greasy touch!"
"Slop in fact!" said Roger.
"That's it. Slop! My God, these journalists do love to splash about in their emotions. They can't mention the North Pole without gulping in their throats. Dilton gave me an example of the human note. There was a bye-election in the East End the other day and one of the candidates put his unfortunate infants into 'pearlies' and hawked them about the constituency in a costermonger's barrow, carrying a notice with 'Vote for Our Daddy!' on it. Dilton damned near blubbed when he told me about it!"
"Rage?" said Henry.
"Rage!" Gilbert exclaimed. "Good Lord, no! The man was moved, touched!... He blew his nose hard, and then told me that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin! I'm damned if he didn't write a leading article about it ... and they give him a couple of thousand a year for organising sniffs for the million. All over England, I suppose there were people snivelling over those brats and telling each other that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin!... Oof! gimme the whisky, somebody, for the love of the Lordy God! I want to be sick when I think of the human note!"
"Well, of course," said Roger, "the slop is there, and it's no good getting angry about it. What I want is a Party that won't deal in it. I've always believed that the mob likes an honest man, even if it does call him a Prig, and I'm perfectly certain that when a Prig gets let down by the mob it's because in some subconscious way it knows he's only pretending to be honest ... unless, of course, it's gone off its head with passion of some sort: Boer war jingoism and that kind of thing. And my notion of a member of parliament is a man who represents some degree of general feeling. If he doesn't represent that general feeling he can only do one of two things: try to convert the general opinion to his point of view or else, if he can't convert it, tell it he'll be damned if he'll represent it any longer. That's the attitude I shall adopt in the House!..."
But Gilbert thought that this was a dangerous attitude to maintain.
"If you maintain it too long, you'll never get an office," he said, "and so the only work you'll be able to do will be critical work: you'll never get a chance to do anything constructive; and if you let the Government nobble you, and give you an Under Secretaryship the moment they see you getting dangerous, then you're done for. And anyhow, I don't believe in independent members of parliament. A certain number of sheep are necessary in every organisation, in parliament as much as anywhere else. It would be absolutely impossible to carry on Government if the whole six hundred and seventy members of parliament were as clever and as independent as Lord Hugh Cecil. You must have sheep and lots of 'em!..."
"But they needn't be dead sheep," said Roger. "They needn't be mutton, need they?"
"No, they needn't be mutton, but they must be sheep," Gilbert replied.
"All the politicians I've ever met," said Ninian, "were like New Zealand lamb ... frozen!"
Gilbert leaped on him and slapped his back, capsizing him on to the floor. "Ninian, my son," he said, "that's a good line. Do you mind if I put it in my comedy. It doesn't matter whether you do or not, but I'd like your consent."
"Don't be an old ass," said Ninian.
"Can I use that line about the New Zealand lamb?..."
"Yes, yes ... any damn thing ... only get off my chest! You're ... you're squeezing the inside out of me. Get up, will you!..."
"I'm really quite comfortable, thanks, Ninian. If it weren't for this whacking big bone here!..."
He did not complete the sentence, for Ninian, with a heaving effort, threw him on to the floor, where they scrambled and punched each other....
"There is a fine of eighteenpence," said Roger, "for disorderly conduct. I'll just enter it against you both!"
The combatants rose and routed Roger, and when they had disposed of him, Ninian agreed to let Gilbert use his line about the frozen meat. "I shall expect you to put a note in the programme that the epigram in the second act was supplied by Mr. Ninian Graham," he said.
"Theepigram!" Gilbert exclaimed. "Theepigram!"
"Why, will there be any more?" said Ninian innocently.
Hostilities thereupon broke out again.