Inthe life of journalism—many ways the least conventional of callings, in which there remains even in our prosaic day a savour of Bohemianism—there is still the need to observe the conventions of a commercial age. An editor who familiarises with his reporters imperils his authority, for every man of his staff considers himself to be as good a craftsman as the editor; and does not the humblest junior carry in his wallet the potential quill of an editor-in-chief?
A newspaper, moreover, for all the prating about the profession of journalism, is as much a business establishment as the grocer's round the corner.Ergo, if the grocer has his villa, so must the editor. If the editor be a bachelor, then the dignity of his paper demands that he shall take lodging in the most pretentious neighbourhood his means will allow.
Perhaps this had not occurred to Henry until a fairly broad hint from the manager indicated what was expected of him. Perhaps, also, it was theneed to move into "swagger diggings" that superinduced the aforesaid attack of "swelled head." Henry justified to himself his removal, and the increased expense entailed thereby, on the ground that his collection of books, mainly review copies, defaced by obnoxious rubber stamps—"With the publisher's compliments"—was rapidly growing beyond the accommodation of his tiny sitting-room. So to the spacious house of a certain Mrs. Arkwright, in the aristocratic neighbourhood of Park Road, he moved with his belongings.
His new apartments were luxurious beyond the wildest dreams of his early youth, and for that reason alone he stood in imminent danger of developing expensive tastes. Ah, these furnished apartments of our bachelor days! At an outlay comparatively small contrasted with the immediate end attained, they lift the young man into an easeful atmosphere he would fain continue when he sets up house of his own; only to find that the hire of two well-appointed rooms is child's play to the maintenance of a house on the same scale. With the more cautious the convenience of first-class apartments makes housekeeping appear formidable. And there you have the secret "love story" of many an easy bachelor.
Mrs. Arkwright's house was filled with well-payinglodgers, but as all had their separate rooms, while the landlady's family occupied the basement, there was not much common intercourse between the paying guests—for it should have been noted that Henry had now passed into a locality where the word "lodger" was taboo, and the evasive euphemism "paying guest" took its place.
At first Henry was too much interested in himself and his regal "we" to concern himself greatly about the other lodgers, and in any case his regular absence at the office every night would almost have served for a "Box and Cox" arrangement. But sometimes, as he had been about to leave in the evening for his editorial duties, he had heard the delicious strains of a 'cello superbly played in the room above him, and although no judge of music, he felt that the unseen player must be a person of some character, for the wailing note of the music bore with it a strong individual touch. It seemed to him that this fingering of the minor chords bespoke a performer whose personality was as distinctly expressed in music as an author's soul is bared in his written words.
The unknown musician piqued his curiosity. Who was the occupant of the room overhead, whose soul gave forth that mournful note? There was something, too, in the music very soothing to him. One night he lingered, listening to the player,following the plaintive cadence of the piece till the music trailed away into silence, when he noticed with a start that it was half an hour behind the time he was usually to be found at his desk. He fancied after this evening that there was something in the room overhead he would have to reckon with.
The identity of the unknown player could easily have been settled by consulting Mrs. Arkwright, but that lady was almost as mournful as the music, and strangly reserved, so Henry refrained for a time from mentioning the subject to her. Besides, there was a pleasant element of mystery in the thing, which appealed to his imagination. But at last curiosity came uppermost, and while she was laying his supper about eight o'clock one evening—the last meal of the day before setting out for his nightly task—he asked the landlady who occupied the room above.
"Well now, Mr. Charles," she answered, almost brightly, as though struck with some coincidence, "it is strange you should speak of him, for only this very day he was speaking to me of you."
"Indeed! Then it's a him?"
"Yes, sir; a gentleman," with a pursing of the lips.
"Young, I suppose?"
"Not much older than you, sir. But he has seen a lot of the world."
This was accepted as an unconscious reflection on his own experience.
"Been here long?"
"About two months, sir, this time. I have had him staying with me before. He belongs to Laysford, you see. He comes and goes as the fancy takes him. Most of his time he spends in London."
"In London," said Henry, who still dreamed dreams, although he was an editor so soon. "Do you happen to know his occupation?"
"He writes, sir, I think, like you do. Leastways, he is often at it in his room upstairs, and is very particular about any of his papers being touched."
"And he was speaking to you of me, you say?"
"Yes, sir. He asked me who you were. I told him you were the editor or something of theLeader. He seemed quite interested, and said he would like to come down and meet you some evening, if you had no objection."
"None whatever. On the contrary, I should be very pleased to make his acquaintance; and perhaps you would be good enough to tell him so."
"I will give him your message, sir. I am sure you would like him, for he has a way of making himself liked by everybody."
"You make me quite anxious to meet him,Mrs. Arkwright. By the way, I don't think you mentioned his name."
"It's a strange name for a gentleman, sir," replied Mrs. Arkwright, the pale ghost of a smile chasing across her worn features—"Phineas Puddephatt. We call him Mr. P. for short. His family used to be very well known in Laysford. You see, he is a gentleman of some fortune."
Henry found himself dangerously near to open laughter at mention of the egregious name, but he succeeded in commanding his features, perhaps from fear of shocking the prim Mrs. Arkwright, who had carried on a longer conversation with him than he could have believed possible from so reserved a lady. The most he could venture by way of facetiousness was:
"Then, until we meet I shall call him 'the mysterious Mr. P.'"
With the flicker of another smile the landlady left her paying guest to the enjoyment of his supper and thoughts of the comic muse who could couple the sobbing of a 'cello with Puddephatt.
A week or more went past with those two sleeping under the same roof, but a series of engagements prevented Henry from hitting off just the moment for meeting. One Saturday evening, when both were at home, the opportunity came. Noticing Henry deep in a book aftersupper, Mrs. Arkwright asked if he intended to remain indoors all the evening, and being answered in the affirmative, suggested that she would mention the fact to Mr. P., who was also disengaged. Henry assenting, continued with the book, a new novel that was provoking a storm of criticism, and which he had determined to review himself.
Not long after Mrs. Arkwright had left him there came a knock at his door. To the invitation of a cheery "Come in," Mr. Phineas Puddephatt stepped across the threshold, bringing a new and powerful influence into the life of Henry Charles.
Themysterious Mr. P. was revealed to the eye of his fellow-lodger as a man of medium height, well built, almost soldierly in the carriage of his body, with a pale, colourless face, clean shaven as an actor's, his hair, though plentiful, fast turning grey. The velvet jacket which he wore, together with the studied negligence of his necktie, were distinctly marks of affectation, if Henry had an eye for such, and it is more than possible he had. Still, the general effect of Mr. P.'s appearance must have been generally favourable to the young man who rose to greet him as he entered the room. It went some way to support the romantic picture of him which Henry had sketched out in his mind, and nothing is more flattering to our self-esteem than thus to find ourselves anticipating Nature. 'Tis easily done, however, given the fact that the unknown scrapes a fiddle. Yet why should musicians proclaim their profession in their person as plainly as any stableboy his? The amateur is even more professional in his appearance than the professional himself.
As Mr. P. closed the door and advanced some steps to shake hands with the occupant of the room, his pale features were lit up by a smile that put Henry at his ease forthwith, for there had been a momentary revolt of shyness in the young man's mind after expressing his desire to meet the gentleman from upstairs. It was a worn man of the world and a very provincial young man who shook hands.
"You will pardon this late and informal visit, Mr. Charles," said Mr. Puddephatt, "but it has seemed so unneighbourly never to have met you before, and you are so much engaged, that I determined to take the first opportunity of passing an hour with you."
"I am indeed happy to meet you."
"The fact that you are a man of letters interests me greatly, for I too have dabbled a little with the pen, and Laysford is a dull place for the literary man, as everybody seems bent on money-grubbing."
"My own occupation is, I fear, not unsuited to an industrial town. Pray sit down and make yourself comfortable."
"Still, journalism is at least a province of literature," said the visitor, smiling.
He helped himself to a cigarette, and took the easy-chair Henry had moved forward to the fire.
"A sphere of influence, perhaps, if not quite aprovince," Henry replied, catching something of Mr. P.'s rather studied conversational manner, as he seated himself and toyed with his cigarette. "I am beginning to think that literature and journalism have less in common than I once supposed. Have you ever engaged in journalism?"
"Only slightly. I have done a little in the reviews, chiefly on musical subjects. My efforts have been in the direction of fiction."
Henry had almost remarked that the name of his fellow-lodger was not familiar to him as a writer of fiction, but congratulated himself on leaving the thought unexpressed; and since the other made no further reference to his own work, Henry fancied he might be one of the rare authors who did not care to discuss their books, and wisely refrained from inquiring too closely as to the nature of these literary efforts at which the still mysterious Mr. P. had so vaguely hinted. The latter also tacked away from the subject, and continued after a pause:
"I see you are well up-to-date, Mr. Charles, in the matter of books," his sleepy eyes brightening almost into eagerness while they scanned the heap of new novels for review lying on Henry's desk.
"That in a sense is forced on me," replied the young editor, "although my own personal taste is to blame for the extra work involved. Until I suggested it theLeaderhad paid practically noattention to books. You see, it sells for its market reports and local news—far more important things than literature."
"It was always the way; the arts have hung for ages on the skirts of trade."
"The result is that I have to do all our reviews myself."
"I can assure you of at least one appreciative reader who rejoiced when theLeadertook on the literary touch you have given it. It is said that people get the kind of journalism they are fitted for; but for my part, I believe that the colourless writing of most provincial papers is the result of lack of taste in the journalists themselves. You don't find, for instance, that the more literaryLeaderis less popular than the bald and tasteless production it used to be?"
"On the contrary, I am told it is doing better," Henry replied, with a touch of self-satisfaction which might have been modified if he had inquired more closely into the cause of the increased circulation.
A series of local tragedies, and a heated controversy on the licensing question, had probably more to do with the result than all the editor's literary taste.
"You have a book here, I notice," continued Mr. Puddephatt, singling out the novel Henry had been reading, and had laid down, with the paper-knifebetween its pages near to the end, "in which I am not a little interested. The critics have been denouncing it so heartily that the publisher has difficulty in keeping pace with the demand."
"I'm sorry to hear it, for I mean to slate it too, and it is small consolation if that only helps to sell the thing."
Henry turned to the table and picked up the red cloth volume. It was entitled "Ashes," the name of the writer being Adrian Grant. The eyes of his guest followed his movements, and studied his face with unusual sharpness. He made a barely concealed effort to appear only languidly interested when the editor proceeded to denounce the work in good set terms.
"I certainly shall do myself the pleasure of 'letting myself go' when I sit down to give Adrian Grant my opinion of his book."
Henry had entered fully into that most delusive joy of journalism which spurs the young, raw writer on when he imagines he has some unpalatable truths to deliver. But in this case there was a worthier impulse than the common delight of attacking an author in print. Despite the influences that seemed to have been undermining the simple religious faith Henry had brought away from his native village, there still remained in him a strong abhorrence of that paganish cynicism which, expressedin fiction, tends to drag the mind into the sunless dungeons of thought and away from the glorious light of Christian truth. This book, "Ashes," was precisely of that type. Under the guise of a story pretending to reflect the manners of the time, it discussed problems which were in no sense representative of the varied whole of life, and the discussion of which appealed mainly to the morbid taste of readers who cared not a jot for art.
"I shall be most interested to read your review," said Mr. P.; "and might I steal a march on your other readers by asking what impression 'Ashes' has made on you?"
"I can best describe it by saying it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth—clever, but not nice."
"Which might suggest that the author has succeeded in his task," rejoined the other, laughing and lighting a fresh cigarette, "since ashes have usually that effect. You know Moore's famous lines:
"'Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye,But turn to ashes on the lips'?"
"Yes, and I think that 'Dead Sea Fruits' would have been as good a title for the book. But happily for mankind, we are not in the habit of making excursions to the Dead Sea to taste its apples."
"There speaks hopeful youth. That is preciselywhat mankind is ever doing; that is the tragedy of life."
"Surely there is more beauty than ugliness in the world, and even if there were less would it not be nobler to draw man's thoughts to the beauty rather than to the ugliness?"
"Your view of art is somewhat Philistine, don't you think? The artist's business is not with morals but with truth, and truth is not always beautiful."
"But there must be a purpose behind every work of art—a moral purpose, I mean," the younger man persisted, although he was conscious he was no match in argument against the defender of "Ashes."
Henry's opinions were still in that state of flux when a young man's thoughts take on some colouring from every influence that touches them, and are only in a very minor degree the expression of his own mind.
"The only purpose the artist need avow is to express the truth as he sees it," continued Mr. Puddephatt confidently. "I shall admit that the picture set forth in this novel is ugly, but I believe it to be true. Remember, we have the butcher's shop as well as the pastrycook's in Nature, and I fancy the former is the larger establishment."
"Admitted," Henry retorted, with lessening fervour, "but are we not told that the end of art is to please?"
"Assuredly; to please what?—Our sense of the artistic. The Italians have a fine way of talking about 'beautiful ugliness,' and if the artist, working within the limits of his medium, proves to others that the thing he has produced—picture, statue, book—is in tune with Nature, let it be never so ugly, it must still please our artistic sense."
Henry found himself wandering in acul de sacof thought. This man who opposed his mind to his could out-manœuvre him at every move. He was painfully conscious now that opinions he had thought to be his own were only unwinnowed sheaves of thought gleaned in the field of his reading. Still, he felt that with pen in hand, and no quick answer to each phrase, he could prove his case. How often does the writing man feel thus.
"But there is nothing in this book, so far as I can see," urged Henry warmly, "that tends to elevate the mind to better things. It may be true what you say of the butcher's shop, but the pastrycook's is a pleasanter place any day."
"Ah, my young friend, that way lies indigestion," the other retorted, smiling. "It is none of the artist's business to elevate; it is his function to interpret life, and you will tramp far along the dusty road of life to find anything that elevates. The fact is, when I—I mean, when Adrian Grant set himself to write that book, I believe his purpose wasto attack the mawkish sentimentality of our contemporary fiction, to strike a blow at the shoddy romance which is the worst form of art. For my part, deliver me, I pray, from all writers who seek to elevate. The true watchword is 'Art for art's sake.'"
"To me it seems rather 'Art for dirt's sake,'" Henry rejoined a little savagely, and a shadow of displeasure clouded the features of his visitor at the words. "But admitting all you say, is there no Power apart from ourselves that tends to draw our thoughts, our very souls, upward?"
"I have looked for it in vain," the other speaker replied, with a languid wave of the hand. "What about the life of our slums, for instance? Is every man and woman there a villain, a lost soul? Surely not. Yet we see every evil rampant, we see every virtue dead; vice triumphant. Who is to blame? The people: the victims? Surely not. Reason says no, a thousand times. Where is this Power you speak of when slumland exists, a horror? But in Kensington there is as little that elevates as there is in Whitechapel. The honest man loses generally in the struggle; the scoundrel flaunts himself before high heaven; he rides in mayoral furs, he swarms into Parliament, he mounts the very pulpit itself."
Henry was abashed and silent before the impassioned language of the speaker, who had suddenlyflamed up and risen from his seat, pacing the room with restless strides while he declaimed and gesticulated surprisingly for one who had seemed so self-possessed, soblasé. Henry was silent because of his inability to understand the mystery of pain—a mystery to older heads than his.
"I have searched the world for a principle, for a law of life," exclaimed Mr. P., stopping suddenly and looking the journalist straight in the face, "and I have never scented one."
"We are told to love one another," said Henry, almost timidly.
"Well, do you find that principle at work? I find hate, malice, inhumanity, wherever I turn my eyes. That is what I meant by the butcher's shop. I find ministers preaching the gospel of peace and buttressing the policy of war and plunder. I find hypocrisy enthroned, honesty contemned."
"But if one believes in the Word of God, is it not better to be the honest man contemned than the throned hypocrite?"
"If we find every fact of life at cross-purpose with Scripture, what then?"
"Perhaps you don't believe in the Bible?" Henry put it thus bluntly to him.
"I prefer to say that it does not convince me. It tells, for example, of a man who was guilty of a paltry fraud in attempting to cheat a small numberof his fellows; and upon whom, in the very act, sudden destruction fell. He was struck down dead, we are told. Where to-day is that Power which meted out such swift and deadly punishment? Here, in this town, men lie and cheat with impunity, and on a scale which involves hundreds of innocent victims. The Divine vengeance slumbers. God—if there is a God—sleeps; or else looks on with supreme indifference to the sufferings of His creatures."
"It is all a great mystery, I confess," returned Henry, with something very like a sigh.
The anchor of faith, which had of late been dragging, seemed almost to have slipped, and he felt himself drifting out into dark and troubled waters. This was the young man who, less than an hour ago, was vowing to trounce the author of "Ashes" for his gloomy view of life. The thought had come to him that perhaps his very faith was a mere convention of early teaching. He sat ill at ease before his visitor, whose passionate outburst had left both without further speech. It was a strange conclusion of an irresponsible gossip on the art of literature. After looking for a minute or two at Henry's book-shelves, Mr. Puddephatt said abruptly:
"I am indebted to you for a most enjoyable hour, Mr. Charles, and hope we shall see more of each other in the future."
"I hope so too," answered Henry, at a loss for words, his brain in a whirl of distracting thought.
When the mysterious Mr. P. quitted the room, Henry felt that his lightly-chosen epithet was more suitable than ever. But it was less of the man he thought, as he now unconsciously imitated him in pacing his room, than of the ideas he had enunciated; these had instantly become detached from their originator and boiled up in Henry's mind with all the lees of youthful doubts and questionings that had been lying there. The mental ferment had a harassing effect on him. Almost for the first time in his life he felt a strange desire to turn inside out his spiritual nature and find what it consisted of. And the next instant the thought was madness to him.
"I said to him that we are told to love one another," he reflected, setting his teeth defiantly. "If we did, then evil would cease out of the world. So the religion which teaches this must be right. But we don't do so—he was right there—and if our natures are not capable of this love, what profits the advice? He's no fool; but the way seems very dark. I half wish he hadn't touched the subject."
As these thoughts were coursing through Henry's mind, the strains of a 'cello, soothing and sensuous, came from the room above, adding adramatic touch to a memorable experience, and reminding him startlingly that he had never spoken a word to Mr. P. about his music.
The lateness of the hour surprised Henry, who threw himself down in a chair and stared blankly at the dying embers in the grate, while the musician sounded with exquisite touch the closing bars of a nocturne.
WhenHenry's review of "Ashes" appeared, it was not so violent an attack on the author as he had meant it to be. Indeed, he was half-ashamed when he read in print what he had written about that much-discussed book; in certain passages it sounded suspiciously like Mr. P.'s own phrases.
"We shall admit that it is no business of art to concern itself with morals." Where did we hear the words before? "It is, alas, only too true that life is not all sweetness: it has more than a dash of bitter." A platitude; and borrowed at that. "But we must not suppose that only beauty is true and artistic: ugliness may still be of the very essence of art." Really, the fiddler fellow might have done the review himself. No doubt, when he read it, he felt that it was mainly his.
Henry had yet to discover that the opinions he gave forth with so much pomp and circumstance had been unconsciously pilfered. The mind of every young man is an unblushing thief. It drifts into honest ways in due time, however, and when itdoes not, the aged plagiarist may argue that he still remains young.
In a word, the influence of Mr. Puddephatt fell upon Henry at a most critical moment in his zigzag journey towards sober common-sense, and the modified tone of the review indicated a similar change in the inner thoughts of the young journalist—too sudden, perhaps, to be alarming.
But it was apparent that he had become unsettled in his religious convictions as the result of frequent subsequent meetings with his fellow-lodger, who exercised a conscious fascination over the younger man, and could induce Henry to reveal his inmost thoughts without himself volunteering much about his own personal history. Mr. P. was actuated, no doubt, mainly by sheer interest in his friend, and had no sinister end—as he conceived it—in view. So the friendship grew, to the no small annoyance of Flo Winton, who had frequent cause to chide her lover for giving more of his scanty leisure to Mr. P. than to one—mentioning no names—who had perhaps more claim upon it.
At theLeaderoffice he was finding things less to his mind than he had hoped. Five years ago the editorship of a daily paper was a golden dream to him; a year ago, his brightest hope; to-day, a post involving much drudgery, more diplomacy and temporising; small satisfaction.
He imagined that his case was exceptional. "If this," and "granted that," the editorship of theLeaderwas an ideal post. Minus the ifs, it was not a bed of roses. The cyclist who is bumping along a rough road notices that his friend is wheeling smoothly on the other side, and steers across to get on the smooth track, just as his friend leaves it for the same reason reversed.
We all suppose our trials to be exceptional, and the chances are that the people we are envying are envying us. Conceivably, the editorship of theTimesis not heavenly. There were some hundreds of ambitious journalists ready to rush for Henry's post the moment he showed signs of quitting. A newspaper that has had fifteen editors in five years will have five hundred candidates for the job when the fifteenth gives up the struggle. Henry had learned at the rate of a year a week since he became editor.
That leader yesterday had displeased the chairman of directors, as it was somewhat outspoken in favour of municipal trams, and the chairman was a shareholder in the existing company. Another director wanted to see more news from the colliery districts than the paper usually contained, and a third fancied that the City news was not full enough. Yet another, a wealthy hosiery manufacturer, who was wont to boast himself a "self-made man,"pointed out that they didn't like leaders to be humorous, and he was open to bet as the heditor was wrong in saying "politics was tabu," when everybody knoo as 'ow the word was "tabooed." He'd looked it hup in the dictionary 'imself. Politics and newspaper-editorship bring us strange bedfellows.
The simple truth was that Henry, all too soon, had learned what an editor's responsibility meant. It meant supporting the political programme of the party which the paper represented, temporising with selfish interests, humouring ignorance when it wore diamond rings, toiling for others to take the credit, and blundering for oneself to bear the blame.
Many of these worries would have been absent from the editorship of a really first-class newspaper; but first-class journals are seldom edited by young men of twenty-two or thereby. Henry had no financial control—a good thing for him, perhaps—and the manager had won the confidence of the directors through procuring dividends by cutting down expenses. He saved sixpence a week by insisting on the caretaker, who made tea for the staff every evening, buying in a less quantity of milk. He pointed out to the poor woman that she was unduly severe on scrubbing-brushes, and after refusing to sign abill for a sixpenny ball of string required in the packing department, on the plea that "there was a deal of waste going on," he went out to dine with Sir Henry Field, the chairman of directors, to the tune of a guinea a head "for the prestige of the paper." He had even stopped theSpectatorand theSaturday Review, which had been bought for the editor in the past, urging that it was dangerous to read them, as that might interfere with the editor's originality in his leaders. Besides, it saved a shilling a week, and really one didn't know what journalistic competition was coming to.
Yet Henry had "succeeded," though he had not "arrived." Best evidence of his success was the jealousy which he created among the older members of the staff, and the contempt in which his name was held in the rival newspaper offices. But he was not satisfied. In less than a year he had ceased to thrill with pride when he was spoken of as editor of theLeader. The political party of which his paper was the avowed local mouthpiece had won a splendid victory at the School Board election, "thanks in no small degree to the able support of theLeader," the orators averred when they performed the mutual back-patting at the Liberal Club meeting. Sir Henry Field bowed his acknowledgments of the praise when he rose; and the manager of theLeaderwas much in evidence. Henry was at thatmoment writing away at his desk with his coat off. This is the pathetic side of journalism and of life—one man sows, another reaps.
Nor was Henry's love affair progressing more happily than his experience of editing. The swelled head was subsiding; perhaps the swelled heart also. He heard frequently from home, and there was occasional mention of Eunice; and when his eye caught the name in his sister's letters he had a momentary twinge of a regret which he could not express, and did not quite understand.
Flo Winton had in no wise altered so far as he was capable of judging. She was still the bright, attractive young woman he had grown suddenly conscious of a few years ago. Nothing had been whispered of "engagement," but she had indicated in many unmistakable little ways that she regarded Henry's future as bound up with her own. Yet he now began to wonder if he were wise to let things drift on as they were shaping. He wondered, and let things drift. Flo was quite clear in her mind that they were "as good as engaged." She understood that the woman who hesitates is lost.
Mr. P. was away from Laysford for the winter, the second he had spent in London and on the Continent since Henry and he became acquainted, when the journalist had the first real glimpse into the mysteriousness of his friend.
While compiling his weekly column of literary gossip for theLeader—a feature which more than one director had stigmatised as shameful waste of good space that might have been filled with real news or market reports—Henry found a short paragraph in the personal column of a London weekly which made him stare at the print:
"I understand that Adrian Grant, whose book 'Ashes' was so widely discussed last autumn, is the pen-name of a Mr. Phineas Pudifant, a country gentleman who is well known in certain select circles of London's literary and musical world. His previous novel, 'The Corrupter,' published two years before 'Ashes,' had a distinct artistic success; but the great popularity of his later book was as remarkable as it was unexpected and unsought. Adrian Grant is essentially a writer for art's sake, and not for so much per thousand words."
"I understand that Adrian Grant, whose book 'Ashes' was so widely discussed last autumn, is the pen-name of a Mr. Phineas Pudifant, a country gentleman who is well known in certain select circles of London's literary and musical world. His previous novel, 'The Corrupter,' published two years before 'Ashes,' had a distinct artistic success; but the great popularity of his later book was as remarkable as it was unexpected and unsought. Adrian Grant is essentially a writer for art's sake, and not for so much per thousand words."
Henry doubted the evidence of his eyes as he read the startling news. The journal in which the paragraph appeared, and thechroniqueurresponsible for it, were noted for the authoritative character of their information, and he knew that such a statement could not have been made so deliberately unless itwere true to the facts. The very misspelling of the name was in its favour. There were queer names in England, but Mr. P.'s was especially odd, and even wrongly spelt it retained its peculiarity. Still, it was a tremendous strain on his mind to accept the statement as accurate. Never, so far as he could remember, had Mr. P. given him cause to couple his name with that of the author of "Ashes," but after the first shock of surprise, he began to recall how warmly his reticent friend had defended the book on the evening when they first met. It must be true, and now his wonder was that "Adrian Grant"—he began to think of him under the more euphonious name—could have suppressed "the natural man," which is in every author and prides him on the work of his pen. The mysterious Mr. P. had deepened in mystery; the more Henry's acquaintance with him progressed, the less he knew him.
Henry was tempted to make a paragraph out of this newly acquired information, and to add thereto some references of a local nature which would have been widely quoted from theLeader. But he had second thoughts that the subject of the paragraph would not be pleased, and heroically he restrained himself, avoiding all mention of the matter. The ordinary person who has no means other than word of mouth for advertising abroad some choicebit of gossip that has come his way, can but vaguely estimate the personal restraint which the journalist possessed of a tit-bit of news must exercise in keeping the information to himself. It is the journalist's business to blab, and he is as fidgety as a woman with a secret. Henry, however, had the consolation that perhaps after all the statement might not be correct. There were frequent cases of coincidence in the most absurd cognomens.
He had to nurse his mystery for the remainder of that winter and into the early summer, as Mr. P. remained away from Laysford, and his movements for a time were quite unknown even to Mrs. Arkwright, who usually received periodical cheques for reserving his rooms while he was absent. A brief note to that lady early in the year had explained that her well-paying guest would be longer in returning than he had intended, as he was making a stay of some months in Sardinia. Another paragraph with the name properly spelt had found its way into the newspaper where Henry saw the first. The second was even briefer, and merely mentioned that Mr. P. was at present staying in the Mediterranean island, "where probably some scenes in his next novel would be laid."
Doubt as to the identity of Adrian Grant had finally left Henry's mind, and he had even persuaded himself that there were many passages bothin "The Corrupter" and "Ashes" which revealed the man behind the book. It is surprisingly easy to find the man in his style when you start by knowing him.
And now the man himself was back in Laysford once more. Henry heard the strains of his 'cello before he met the player again. It was a Saturday night, and Mr. P. had come downstairs for a chat with him.
"You must have thought that I had gone away for good," he said, after warmly greeting his young friend. "I had it often on my mind to write, but I am a bad correspondent. The most of my time away I spent in Sardinia. My mother was a native of that country, and I find it most interesting."
"I had heard you were making a prolonged stay there. Indeed, I saw some mention of your movements in theWeekly Review."
Henry thought this an adroit remark, and fancied it must lead to a confession, but his companion merely inclined his head as if he had not quite caught the words, and went on:
"Ah, but Browning has expressed with grand simplicity the impulse that sends the wanderer back—'Oh, to be in England now that April's there!'"
The chance had gone, "conversational openings" were valueless to one pitted against Adrian Grant. Henry fumbled nervously among the commonplacesof speech, and his friend, with scarcely another reference to himself, was presently making the young journalist talk of—Henry Charles.
"You seem to have been burning the midnight oil too assiduously, I think. A trifle paler than when I saw you last. Still grinding away, I suppose."
"Yes; it is grinding. I have moments when I think journalism sheer hack-work. The glamour of the thing is as delusive as theignis fatuus."
"And there you have life itself.Ergo, to journalise is to live."
"I begin to believe you are right, but I could have wished to make the discovery later."
"It's never too early to know the truth. But come, you are surely thriving professionally, for I heard your study of the Brontë's which you wrote for theLyceumhighly praised by the editor when I was in London last week."
"That is indeed welcome news. You know Swainton, then?"
"A little. You see, I have done some work for him myself. The fact is—"
"Are you Adrian Grant?"
Henry blurted out the question and eyed his friend eagerly, nervously, ashamed of his clumsiness and desperate to have done with it. Without a tremor of his eyelids the other replied:
"Since you put it so bluntly—I am. But I have peculiar ideas of authorship, and you will search my rooms in vain for any book or article I have written. My conception of literature is an artistic expression of what life has told me. I say my say and have done with that work. I say it as it pleases my artistic sense, and I pass to some other phase of life that attracts me and asks me to express it. To the profession of letters I have no strong attachment. To live is better than to write. I know some Sardinian peasants who are kings compared with Tennyson—yes, I will say Tennyson."
Henry was dumb at the vagaries of the man.
"The craft of letters," he went on, "I know only as a branch of life, and far from the noblest."
Adrian Grant could make a thousand pounds, perhaps two, out of any novel he now cared to write. The thought flashed through Henry's mind and left confusion in its tract. What were fame, success, fortune, if one who had won them set such small store thereby?
"I have no wish to be associated with my books," he continued. "The reverse. All great art should be anonymous. Think of the precious sculptures of Greece, the work of unknown men who knew that the joy of expressing truth was immortal fame. It is a stupid convention of astupid age that a book should bear an author's name. My own name is scarcely pleasant to eye or ear; but I do not quarrel with a scurvy trick of Fate. It tickets the man, and that is enough. My pen-name has served its purpose in securing a sort of impersonal appeal for my books, which cease to be mine once the printer has done his work. You will never, I hope, identify me with my works in anything you may write. I am taking steps to prevent such senseless twaddle about Adrian Grant as appeared in theWeekly Reviewfrom becoming general. Who betrayed my secret I know not."
"You will find it difficult to contradict."
"No doubt, but once contradicted by my solicitors, who shall be able to swear to its truth?"
"But why suppress truth, since your aim is to express it?" asked Henry laughingly.
"Ah, there we have to use the word in its common commercial sense. The truth that my name is what it is, and the truth that life is an Armageddon, a phantasmagoria, have no relationship."
Mr. P. had risen to the passionate height of his unforgotten first meeting with Henry, whose mind was now swaying in a chaos of wild and whirling thought at the touch of this strange creature.
"But there," exclaimed the novelist savagely,"let us talk of simpler things," and he threw himself into the chair he had vacated to pace the room. "You say you are less enamoured of your work than you used to be. I can understand it, and I should like to help you. From what I have seen of you, the more literary work of a high-class journal would suit you better; give you the chance to express yourself—if you have anything to express—and I think you have some sense of style, though your ideas are deplorably British—that is to say, Philistine."
"Do you really think I might succeed in London?" Henry asked, ignoring the sneer at his ideas.
"Succeed as the world accounts success, most probably. You have the dogged British quality of sticking to a thing, or you'd never have been where you are so soon. But it's soulless work churning out this political twaddle."
"I realise that, and I'm no politician; only one by force, so to speak. You see, I write for a living."
"A terrible condition, but there is worse. Well, there is some zest, at least, in getting into handgrips with London. If you've a stomach for the fray, I could help. The whole scheme of life there is different. The provinces have nothing to compare with it, as you would soon discover."
"But I believe it would be best to try my fortune as soon as I could."
"Yes, it's well to know the worst early," and Mr. P. gave a melancholy smile. "If you care, I shall mention you to Swainton of theLyceum. I have some influence with him, I fancy; and he knows you already as a promising contributor."
"I should be most grateful," said Henry, not without misgivings.
But his mind was now trained direct on London, his earliest ambition. He had made his way with surprising quickness in the provinces, and still he was not happy.
"Who is happy?" asked his friend. "Call no man happy until he is dead!—Solon was at his wisest there."
"Happiness is worth pursuing, all the same," Henry returned, lamely enough, since he allowed the pagan fallacy to pass unquestioned. "I shan't be happy till I try my luck in London; and if not then—well, we'll see."
Truly, his mind was seriously unsettled by the spell of this man's strange personality.
Henry's eyes were turned to London, but he was soon to find that there was one person who did not relish the prospect, for reasons of her own.
"Whatmakes you think of London, when you're doing so well in Laysford?" Flo Winton asked her sweetheart, strolling one Sunday by the banks of the Lays.
"But well in Laysford may be ill in London," he replied.
"That's just it. Why not be content, and don't play the dog with the bone?"
A woman seldom sees beyond the end of her nose. Flo Winton was no doubt perfectly honest in her counsel to Henry, and entirely selfish. Let his professional chances go hang; he was doing pretty well in Laysford, and she rather fancied the town as a place to live in. Besides, "out of sight, out of mind."
"It is the reverse from the dog and the bone," returned Henry. "What I now hold is little better than the mere shadow of success, the real thing is only to be found in Fleet Street. Comfort, food, raiment, furniture, money to spend—thesecan be earned in the provinces, but the success I aim at must be sought in London."
"Dear me! And what will you do with it when you've found it—if you ever do so?"
This was scarcely lover-like, and Henry felt the implied sneer; but he was determined not to be shaken from his plan. He did not answer Flo.
"Money to keep a nice home and go about a bit among the smart set of the town—isn't that success?" she continued. "You are working that way here. You're a somebody here; in London you'd be one of the crowd. At least, that's what I believe."
"And I too, Flo. Fancy being a somebody in a town whose Lord Mayor can barely sign his name, whose chief constable is a habitual drunkard, whose town clerk wouldn't be fit for devilling to a London barrister, whose whole corporation is a gang of plunderers scheming for their own ends. Fancy having to whitewash these ruffians in my leading articles. A somebody! Rather the millioneth man in London than the first in Laysford."
This looked bad for Flo; her reason for his staying was his own reason for wishing himself away. Henry was horridly honest and absurdly upright to be a newspaper editor in a thriving provincial town.
"I tell you frankly," he went on, while Flo walked now in moody silence by his side, "I could never settle down in Laysford. Any ass with money is courted here."
"And it's the same everywhere; the same in London," she snapped.
"Perhaps; only in London you can avoid the society of the money-grubbers, and find a congenial clime where the foul element does not enter. You see, London isn't a town; it's a country, and there are communities of kindred interests within its borders."
"How do you know?"
"Well, I can gather as much from my inquiries, and from what I read."
"A lot of use that is. I know it's fearfully expensive to live in London."
"But one can make more money."
"I thought you despised money-grubbing."
"For the mere sake of the grubbing, yes. But where it costs more to live there is usually more to live for, and more means of earning the necessary cash."
"Money; you simply can't get away from it, yet you sneer at the wealthy folk here. You only wish you had half of their complaint, as the thirsty cabby said of the drunk who was supposed to be ill."
Flo laughed aridly at her simile, withoutlooking her companion in the face. Henry felt irritated by her as never before. But his teeth were set. Both kept silence for a time.
"Of course you never think of me," said Flo at length, trailing her sunshade among the pebbles.
"That's just what I do, though."
"How kind of you!"
The sneer froze Henry like a sudden frost.
"Men are such unselfish things, to be sure," she went on; the ice thickening rapidly.
Henry had really thought a great deal about her, and not without some misgivings. He had seen himself a successful worker in Fleet Street, with a dainty house out Hampstead way—he did not know where that might be, but he thought it was the literary quarter—and Flo looking her best as mistress of that home, with many a notable personage for guest. But he had also moments when he wondered if he were not a fool to bother his head about her, and when she said, "How kind of you!" he was glad they were not married yet. For all that, if Flo insisted, he supposed it would have to be, though there had been no arrangement in so many binding words. He was inclined to let her have to insist, however; and if she did—why, life would be ever after the making the best of a bad job. Not a healthy condition of love, it will be perceived.
As they were nearing the Wintons' again, Henry thawed a little.
"Wouldn't you really like to live in London, Flo?" he said.
"Perhaps, and perhaps not. No doubt I would. But what I don't like—and I may as well be frank about it—is living here and you in London."
"Ah, but that need not be for long," Henry returned kindly.
"So you say. But one never knows."
She was honestly unhappy at the idea of his leaving her, and Henry, when he understood this, felt his heart rise a little in sympathy—the swelling had gone down since we last saw them together. But he did not guess that he was pleased rather by the flattering thought that she would miss him, than softened by the sentiment of leaving her behind him.
"After all," he said, "I'm not away yet."
"It's that horrid Puddy—what-you-call-him—that's to blame for stuffing your head with ideas of throwing up such a good post as you have. Take my advice, Henry, stay where you are, for a while at any rate. There's a dear, good fellow!"
But the dear, good fellow kissed Flo somewhat frigidly when he parted from her that night, and decided that Adrian Grant was right in his estimate of women as creatures who, in the mass, had noideas beyond social comfort, no ambition higher than "society," and who were only interested in the projects of men to the extent these might advance their own selfish desires.
"She said I never considered her. By Jove, I could wish I did not," Henry reflected, biting his moustache savagely in his mood of discontent. "I wonder what P. would think of her?"
When a man wonders what another would think of his sweetheart it is a cloudy day for the latter. When the man hesitates, the woman is lost.
Mr. P. had never encountered Miss Winton; but a few days after the frosty episode in her love-story, Henry and his friend met Flo in the market-place, and stopping, she was introduced. This not without qualms to Henry, who could scarce avoid the meeting, and was yet loth to present his friend to Flo, in view of her expressed dislike for him. But the ready courtesy and charming manner of the author-musician seemed to please her, and to Henry's surprise, her eyes, her smiles, were more for Mr. P. than for himself. She could be most attractive when she liked, this young lady who had called his friend "horrid," and was absurdly opposed to his dream of London. Henry did not know whether to be pleased or disappointed at the bearing of Miss Winton. He was glad she had not been cold to Mr. P.,hurt that she was pleasant—so superfluously pleasant. On the whole, he was irritated, uneasy.
Something in the manner of his friend contributed to this result. Not a word had been spoken in the short conversation on the pavement of the old market-place to awaken or enliven doubt or jealousy, but there was an indefinable something in Mr. P.'s manner to Flo, and his remarks when they parted from her, to indicate that he had not been favourably impressed.
A year or two ago happiness seemed such an easy thing—so simple, so difficult to escape—that by contrast, Henry's present state of querulous unrest put it as far away as a fog removes the wonted position of a prominent landmark. He had an inclination to kick somebody—himself, deservedly. Could Flo be right about settling down in Laysford, where he was a potential "somebody"? Suppose he had an opportunity to go to London now, should he take it? If the man who wrote as Adrian Grant had unsettled his mind so far as his old simple faith in God's goodness and mercy was concerned, and Stratford and Wheelton and Laysford together had muddied his pictures of journalism, and even Flo had clouded his thoughts of happiness, what was worth while? Might London be all he had painted it? Was it to be "never glad, confident morning again"?
Such was the muddle of Henry's mind when the two returned to Mrs. Arkwright's from their afternoon stroll, and each went to his own rooms. Henry threw himself into an arm-chair and gave himself up to brooding thoughts—dark, distracting. He was not long alone, for his fellow-lodger came to his door in the space of five minutes, with a letter open in his hand and a smiling face, which betokened good news.
"How's this for a piece of fortune?" he exclaimed, stepping briskly towards Henry, and handing him the letter. "Read. It has just come with the afternoon post."
What Henry read was a brief note from Mr. Swainton of theLyceum, saying, that, curiously enough, the very week he had received Mr. P.'s letter asking him if he knew of any suitable post for his friend, Mr. Charles, the editor of theWatchmanhad mentioned that he was on the lookout for a smart young journalist as assistant editor of that weekly review. He had spoken to him of Mr. Charles, and he now wrote to say that if the latter would run up to town and see Mr. Godfrey Pilkington, the gentleman in question, he might "pull off" the job. It would be worth £350 a year, he fancied.
Good news, indeed. At the magic touch of "London" Henry's doubts were dissipated. Theyhad existed only while the prospect still seemed to be uncertain. He would have preferred an editorship; but an assistant in London was (he imagined) as good as any editor in the provinces.
"You know theWatchman, I suppose?" said Mr. P., who had closely observed the young editor's delighted expression while reading the letter.
"Know it? I should think I do," he answered, with his old buoyancy of spirit. "A perfect production, the best of all the sixpenny weeklies, although it is the youngest. How can I thank you?"
"Not so fast; you've still 'to pull it off,' as Swainton says. All that I have done has been to open the door for you."
"But isn't that everything?"
"Almost, but not quite. If Henry Charles is found 'as advertised,' all will be well. Something, you see, depends on yourself."
"Get it or not, I'm eternally your debtor. Anyhow, my varied experience should be of value, though they usually hanker after university chaps on these weekly reviews. But theWatchmanis a rare old Tory, and here I'm shrieking Radicalism at five pound a week."
"Don't let that disturb you. I fancy your politics are of no importance. It's your journalistic knowledge that's wanted. To make up thepaper, arrange the book reviews, write some of them—the paragraphs and so forth. Pilkington is a society fellow who takes life easily, and wants a competent sub. That's about the situation, I should say. I believe Lord Dingleton finances the paper as a hobby."
"In any case, it would mean a footing in London, and that is all I want."
"I am confident you'll suit, and although I advise you not to build too much on London, I believe it's worth having a try at—if only to knock on the head your romantic notions of life there. When will you go?"
"To-morrow; first train; back in the evening. Nobody the wiser if it doesn't come off."
But it did; and for good or ill, with scarce a thought of Flo, Henry returned to Laysford engaged as assistant-editor of theWatchman, on the understanding that he would start as soon as he could possibly get away from theLeader. The gentleman then assisting Mr. Pilkington was a distinguished Oxford man, oozing learning at every pore, but as incompetent a journalist as one would meet within the radius of Newspaperland.
Thedirectors of theLeaderwere more gracious about his resignation than Henry had expected. Evidently, although quite satisfied with his work, they did not apprehend any insurmountable difficulty in securing a successor. The manager hinted (after Henry's going was certain) that rather than have had the trouble of changing editors, they might even have arranged to advance his salary—supreme proof that he had not been without his merits in the eyes of his employers. Mr Jones, by virtue of his superior years, took leave to warn him of the gravity of the step he was taking, and assured him that at £350 a year in London he would be no better off than he was with £100 less in Laysford. For one brief moment Flo's desire that he should stay passed through his mind, but in his heart he knew that it was not entirely a matter of money, and he set his teeth to "Now or never."
When it had been arranged that he was to leave theLeader, the manager exhibited almost indecent haste in appointing his successor, and was carefulto remind him that although, as events turned out, he would be free to go in a month's time, the Company was entitled to at least three months' notice, and possibly six. Mr. Jones had a habit of making generosity fit in with business; he did not mention that he had secured a successor who was to receive £50 a year less than Henry had been getting. At one time an editor of theLeaderhad been paid as much as £750 a year, but that was in the days of a showy start, when money went out more rapidly than it came in, and during the succeeding years the pay-books would show a steady decline in the rate of editorial salaries. By strict limitation of payments, Mr. Jones was steadily increasing the dividends of the shareholders, and steadily depreciating the standard of the staff. The day that Henry left, the literary touch which Adrian Grant and a limited few had noticed in theLeaderunder his editorship disappeared, and the market and police intelligence again gave the tone of the sheet.
The most serious feature of his removal was the conduct of Miss Winton, who gave him more than one bad quarter of an hour for his selfishness in actually accepting the engagement "without a single thought of her." Flo harped so steadily on this note, that Henry was half-persuaded he was indeed a shamefully selfish young man; and when he closely examined his conduct, he wonderedwhether the satisfaction with which he had reported his fortune to his father arose from filial affection or from downright vanity.
The upshot of Miss Winton's exposition of his selfishness and her tearful protestations against his deserting her was a formal engagement, where only an "understanding" had existed before. This seemed to still her anxious heart, but Henry had made the proposition with none of the fervour with which more than once in fancy he had seen himself begging for her hand. In truth, his heart misgave him, and he did not mention the matter in any of his letters home. He rightly judged that such news might dull the keen edge of pleasure his London appointment would afford to his own folk at Hampton. He did not even mention it to Mr. Puddephatt. For the first time in his life he felt himself something of a dissembler. In this way his removal to London rather aggravated his state of mental unrest than modified it. His brightest dream had come true, but—
The first weeks in London, however, were so full of new sensations and agreeable distractions, that he had scarcely been a fortnight away from Laysford when it looked like a year. To walk down Fleet Street and the Strand each day, or to thread the old byways between the Embankment and Holborn, with the knowledge that no excursion train wasto rush him off northward at the end of fourteen days, was a pleasure which only the provincial settling in London could enjoy. How he had longed for years to tread these pavements as a resident, and not merely as a gaping visitor. His feet gripped them while he walked, as though he thought at every stride, "Ye are firm beneath me at last, O Streets of London!"
Fleet Street, he knew in his heart, was outwardly as shabby a thoroughfare as ever served for the main artery of a great city, but he also knew that if the buildings were mean and the crowd that surged along its pavements as common to the eye as any in the frowsiest provincial city, there was more romance behind many of these shabby windows which bore the names of journals, famous and obscure, than in stately Whitehall or in Park Lane. The hum of printing-presses from dingy basements, the smell of printer's ink from many open doors, had a charm for him which perversely recalled the scent of new-mown hay in a Hampton meadow long years before.
At first, he rarely passed a street without noting its name, an odd building without finding something to engage his interest, a man of uncommon aspect without wondering who he might be—what paper did he edit? But soon his daily walk from his lodgings in Woburn Place to the officeof theWatchmanopposite the Law Courts was performed with less attention to the common objects of the route.
A sausage shop hard by his office, sending forth at all hours of the day a strong odour of frying fat and onions, remained the freshest of his impressions; he never passed it without thinking of its impertinence in such a quarter; but one day he discovered that it was not without claim to literary associations.
A young man with a chin that had required a shave for at least three days, wearing a shabby black mackintosh suggestive of shabbier things below, and boots much down at heel, came out of the shop with the aroma of sausage and onion strong upon him, and the fag-end of a savoury mouthful in the act of descending his throat. Something in the features of this dilapidated person struck Henry as oddly familiar, so that he glanced at him intently, and looked back, still puzzling as to who the fellow could be, when he found the shabby one looking at him, and evidently equally exercised concerning his identity. After a moment's hesitation, Henry walked back to him, and the sausage-eater flushed as he said:
"Why, Hen—Mr. Charles—can it be you? I knew you were in London, and had half a mind to call on you, but you—well—"
The reason why was too obvious to call for explanation.
Henry himself was quite as much confused as the speaker. It was a shock to him to recognise in the person before him none other than one who had first pointed out to him the road to Journalism—"Trevor Smith, if you please."
What a change from those Stratford days, when he had talked so jauntily of fortunes made in Fleet Street, so hopefully of the coming of his own chance there. The greasy hat was worn with none of the old rakish air, but served only as a sorry covering for unkempt locks; and if London streets were paved with gold, the precious metal had worn away the heels of Trevor's boots as surely as any of the baser sorts.
It was difficult for one so transparently honest as Henry to pretend not to notice the pitiable condition of his old friend, and there was a forced cordiality in his tone when he greeted him.
"My dear fellow, I am delighted to meet you again. Odd, isn't it, that we should meet among London's millions? Come along with me to the Press Restaurant for a bit of lunch and a chat over old times."
"Thank you very much," said Trevor, "but the fact is I have just had something to eat—"
"Never mind that; so have I. Let it be coffee and a chat."
Together they crossed the street and sought out a remote corner of the restaurant, where, despite his protestations, Trevor submitted to adding two poached eggs on toast to the sumptous repast he had taken at the sausage-shop.
The story he had to tell was as threadbare as his clothes; with variations, it might stand for that of fifty per cent, of Fleet Street's wrecks; the other moiety being explained by the one word, Drink.
Some two years after Henry left Wheelton the Stratford edition of theGuardianhad been discontinued. Despite the brilliancy of the "Notes and Comments" from Trevor's pungent pen, the number of copies sold brought no profit to the proprietors, and the journalist who had demanded weekly "the liberty to know, to think, and to utter freely above all other liberties," was given the liberty to find another situation. Every effort to secure a reportership had failed, though he confessed to having answered upwards of eighty advertisements; and then, as a last resource, he had found his way to London, which calls for only those who have fought and won their fight in the provinces, but receives with every one such a waggon-load of wastrels.
"And now?" asked Henry.
"Writing introductions about different towns for the British Directories, Limited, at half-a-crown a thousand words. Some weeks it means as much as fifteen shillings, but the job will soon be finished, and I see nothing ahead of it."
Trevor was near to weeping point, but perhaps Henry was more affected than he by the recital of his woes. Gone was every vestige of his old journalistic chatter, and in the very highway of the profession he ranked as an alien compared with the position he had held when he and Henry lodged together at Stratford. Stranger still, in dropping the old jargon of the newspaper man, he seemed to have lost even the confidence to ask a loan now that he stood more in need of it, and Henry could better spare the money.
It was left to Henry to suggest that perhaps the loan of a pound, "as between two fellow-journalists," would not be amiss. "Most men of letters," he added kindly, "have at one time or other experienced reverses of fortune. There is no hurry for repayment."
"I am most grateful; you are indeed a good friend to me," said Trevor, not without a touch of real emotion; "and if only I can getJinks's Weeklyto use a three-guinea article on 'A Week in a Dosshouse,' you shall have the money back soon. They took an article from me—nearly two years ago—on'Fortunes made in Journalism.' I got four guineas for it; but it was the only thing of any length I have managed to place since coming to town."
The odd couple parted at the restaurant door, and Trevor Smith shuffled off Strandwards without any profuse thanks, for he was one of those who, lacking both the capacity and the opportunity to succeed, when overtaken by misfortune become so shrivelled in character that they display not even the melancholy pluck necessary to mendicancy. The chances were that he and Henry would never meet again. The stout ship under full sail had sighted the derelict for a moment—that was all. Like so many of his kind, Trevor Smith was fated to sink out of sight in the dark, mysterious oubliette of London's failures.
The assistant editor of theWatchmanreturned to his office almost as sad at heart, if not more so, than the man he had left, whose heart was numbed and passionless.
The office of his paper was scarcely so elegant as he had once imagined all London editorial quarters to be. The entrance was a fairly wide slit between a barber's and a tobacconist's, the stairs as mean as those at the office of theWheelton Guardian; but the first floor, occupied by the newspaper, was remarkably well furnished, Mr. Godfrey Pilkington being a gentleman of sometaste, and the proprietor of theWatchmandid not stint him in such items of expense. At first Henry had marvelled that a peer of the realm could have deigned to mount such miserable stairs or to trust his august person in elbowing between the barber's and the tobacconist's, but he soon learned that the most unpretentious accommodation on the highway of journalism may cost as much as marble halls in a provincial city.
The editor, as Adrian Grant had hinted, was no glutton for work, and an hour or two each day appeared to satisfy his taste. Thus all the details of theWatchmanwere left to Henry, the chief articles being contributed by friends of Mr. Pilkington. A cashier, a clerk, and an advertising manager were the only members of the office staff; and as the paper was distributed by a large wholesale house, no business beyond the editorial and advertising affairs of theWatchmanwas conducted at the office. A very humdrum place, in truth, except on the rare occasions when the lordly proprietor put in an appearance, or Mr. Pilkington received some political person with an axe to grind, and an eye on theWatchman, as a possible grinder.