"Of course, it sounds all right as you put it," she answered, "but it isn't all right. I can't explain things. I don't know how to explain them, but I know about them all the same. And I know it isn't all right. You'll begin to think I'm in love with you!..."
"I hope you will be, but you'll never be certain unless you see me fair and often. You'll come again to-morrow, won't you?"
"Oh, good-night," she said impatiently, suddenly breaking from him. "You're like a baby. You think you've only got to keep on asking for things and people will get tired of saying 'No!' I won't go out with you again. You make me feel tired and cross!..."
"Well, if you won't meet me to-morrow night, will you meet me the next night?"
"No!"
"Then will you stay a wee while longer now?"
She turned on the top step and looked at him, and he saw with joy that the anger had gone out of her eyes and that she was smiling at him. "You really are!..." she said, and then she stopped. He waited for her to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders and said only, "I don't know! It simply isn't any good talking to you!"
He went up the steps and stood beside her and took hold of her hand. "Let me kiss you, Eleanor," he said.
She started away from him. "No, of course I won't!"
"Just once!"
"No!"
"Well, why not? You've let me hold your hand. What's the difference?"
"There's every difference. Besides I didn't let you hold my hand. You took it. I couldn't prevent you. You're so rough!..."
"No, my dear, not rough. Not really rough. Eleanor, just once!..."
"No," she said again, this time speaking so loudly that she startled herself. "Please go away. I shan't go out with you again. I was silly to go out with you at all. You don't know how to behave!..."
She broke off abruptly and turned to open the door, but she had difficulty with the key because of her anger.
"Let me open it for you," he said, taking the key from her hand and inserting it in the lock. "There!" he added, when the door was open.
"Thank you," she said, taking the key from him. "Good-night!"
"Good-night, Eleanor!" he replied very softly.
They did not move. She stood with, her hand on the door and he stood on the top step and gazed at her.
"Well—good-night," she said again.
"Dear Eleanor," he replied. "My dear Eleanor!"
She gulped a little. "Goo—good-night!" she said.
"I love you, my dear, so much. I shall never love anyone as I love you. I have never loved anybody else but you, never, never!... Well, I thought I loved someone else, but I didn't!..."
"It's no good," she began, but he interrupted her.
"Well, meet me again to-morrow night at the same place!..."
"No, I won't!"
"At five o'clock. I'll be there before you ... long before you. You'll meet me, won't you?"
"No."
"Please, Eleanor!"
She hesitated. Then she said, "Oh, very well, then! But it'll be the last time. Good-night!"
She pushed the door to, but before she could close it, he whispered "Good-night, my darling!" to her, and then the door was between them.
He waited until he saw the flash of the light in her room, and hoped that she would come to the window; but she did not do so, and after a while he went away.
V
Up in her room, she was staring at her reflection in the mirror, while he was waiting below on the pavement for her to come to the window, and as he walked away, she began to talk to the angry, baffled girl she saw before her.
"I won't marry him," she said. "I won't marry him. I don't love him. I don't even like him. Iwon'tmarry him!..."
I
Now that he had found Eleanor again, he was able to settle down to work. It was necessary, he told himself, that he should have some substantial achievements behind him before she and he were married, particularly as he had lost his employment on theDaily Sensation. The money he possessed would not last for ever and he could hardly hope to sponge on his Uncle William ... even if he were inclined to do so ... for the rest of his life. He must earn money by his own work and earn it quickly. In one way, it was a good thing that he had lost his work on the newspaper ... for he would have all the more time to write his tragedy. The sketch for the Creams had been hurriedly finished and posted to them at a music-hall in Scotland where they were playing, so Cream wrote in acknowledging the MS., to "enormous business. Dolly fetching 'em every time!..." Two pounds per week, John told himself, would pay for the rent and some of the food until he was able to earn large sums of money by his serious plays. The tragedy would establish him. It would not make a fortune for him, for tragedians did not make fortunes, but it would make his name known, and Hinde had assured him that a man with a known name could easily earn a reasonable livelihood as an occasional contributor to the newspapers. It was Hinde who had proposed the subject of the tragedy to him. For years he had dallied with the notion of writing it himself, he said, but now he knew that he would never write anything but newspaper stuff!...
"Do you know anything about St. Patrick?" he said to John.
"A wee bit. Not much."
"Well, you know he was a slave before he was a saint?" John nodded his head. "A man called Milchu," Hinde continued, "was his master. An Ulsterman. He was the chieftain of a clan that spread over Down and Antrim. Our country. He had Patrick for six years, and then he lost him. Patrick escaped. He returned to Ireland as a missionary and sent word to Milchu that he had come to convert him to Christianity, and Milchu sent word back that he'd see him damned first. Milchu wasn't going to be converted by his slave. No fear. And he destroyed himself ... set fire to his belongings and perished in his own flames rather than have it said that an Ulster chieftain was converted by his own slave. That's a great theme for a tragedy. I suppose you're a Christian, Mac?"
"I am. I'm a Presbyterian!"
"Oh, well, you won't see the tragedy of it as well as I see it. Think of a slave trying to convert a free man to a slave religion. There's a tragedy for you!..."
"I don't understand you," said John.
"No? Well, it doesn't matter. There's a theme for you to write about. A free man killing himself rather than be conquered by a slave! Of course, the real tragedy is that St. Patrick converted the rest of Ireland to Christianity! ... Milchu escaped: the others surrendered. It wasn't the English that beat the Irish, Mac. They were beaten before ever the English put their feet on Irish ground. St. Patrick beat them. The slave made slaves of them!..."
"Is that what you call Christians?" John indignantly demanded. "Slaves?"
Hinde shrugged his shoulders. "The Irish people are the most Christian people on earth," he said. "That's all!..."
They put the subject away from them, because they felt that if they did not do so, there must be antagonism between them. But John determined that he would write a play about St. Patrick and the Pagan Milchu. Hinde lent him his ticket for the London Library, and he spent his mornings reading biographies of the saint: Todd and Whitley, Stokes and Zimmer and Professor J. B. Bury; and accounts of the ancient Irish church. Slowly there came into his mind a picture of the saint that was not very like the picture he had known before and was very different from Hinde's conception of the relationship between Milchu and St. Patrick. To him, the wonderful thing was that the slave had triumphed over his owner. Milchu, in his conception, had not been sufficiently manly to stand before Patrick and contend with him, and to own himself the inferior of the two. He had run away from St. Patrick! With that conception of the two men in his mind, he began to write his play.
"You're wrong" said Hinde. "Milchu was a gentleman and Patrick was a slave!..."
"The son of a magistrate!" John indignantly interrupted.
"A lawyer's son!" Hinde sneered. "And Milchu, being a gentleman, would not be governed by a slave. Think of an Irish gentleman being governed by an Irish peasant!" There was a wry look on his face, "And a little common Irish priest to govern a little common Irish peasant!... They won't get gentlemen to live in a land like that!"
"I'm a peasant," said John. "There's not much difference between a shopkeeper and a peasant!..."
"I'm talking of minds," said Hinde, "not of positions. I believe in making peasants comfortable and secure, but I believe also in keeping them in their place. I'm one of the world's Milchus, Mac. I'd rather set fire to myself than submit to my inferiors!"
John sat in his chair in silence for a few moments, trying to understand Hinde's argument. "Then why do you write for papers like theDaily Sensation?" he asked at last.
Hinde winced. "I suppose because I'm not enough of a Milchu," he replied.
II
John had met Eleanor at their customary trysting-place, in front of the bookstall at Charing Cross Road, and they had walked along the Embankment towards Blackfriars. The theme of his tragedy was very present in his mind and he told the story to Eleanor as they walked along the side of the river in the glowing dusk. They stood for a while, with their elbows resting on the stone balustrade, and looked down on the dark tide beneath them. The great, grim arches of Waterloo Bridge, made melancholy by the lemon-coloured light of the lamps which surmounted them, cast big, black shadows on the water. They could hear little lapping waves splashing against the pillars, and presently a tug went swiftly down to the Pool. Neither of them spoke. Behind them the tramcars went whirring by, and once when John looked round, he felt as if he must cry because of the beauty of these swift caravans of light, gliding easily through the misty darkness of a London night. He had turned quickly again to contemplate the river, and as he did so, Eleanor stirred a little, moving more closely to him, demanding, so it seemed, his comfort and protection, and instantly he put his arm about her and drew her tightly to him. He did not care whether anyone saw them or not. It was sufficient for him that in her apprehension she had turned to him. Both his arms were about her, and his lips were on her lips. "Dear Eleanor," he said....
Then she released herself from his embrace. "I felt frightened," she said. "I don't know why. It's so lovely to-night ... and yet I felt frightened!"
"Will we go?" he asked.
"Yes!"
He put his arm in hers and she did not resist him. "You're my sweetheart now, aren't you, Eleanor?" he whispered to her, as they walked along towards Westminster.
She did not answer.
"My dear sweetheart," he went on, "and presently you'll be my dear wife, and we'll have a little house somewhere, and we'll love each other for ever and ever. Won't we?" He pressed her arm in his. "Won't we, Eleanor? Every night when I come home from work and we have had our supper, we'll go for a walk like this, and I'll talk and you'll listen, and we'll be very happy, and we'll never be lonely again. Oh, I pity the poor men who don't know you, Eleanor!..."
She smiled up at him, but still she did not speak.
"I couldn't have believed I should be so happy as I am," he continued. "I wonder if it's right for one woman to have so much power over a man ... to be able to make him happy or miserable just as the fancy takes her ... but I don't care whether it's right or wrong. I'm content so long as I have you. We're going to be married, aren't we, Eleanor? Aren't we?"
He stopped and turned her round so that they were facing each other.
"Aren't we, Eleanor?" he repeated.
"Don't let's talk about that," she murmured. "I'm so happy to-night, and I don't want to think about what's past or what's to come. I only want to be happy now!"
"With me?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Then you do love me?..."
"I don't know. I can't tell. But I'm frightfully happy. I expect I shall feel that I've made a fool of myself ... in the morning, but just now I don't care whether I'm fool or not. I'm like you. I'm content. Let's go on walking!"
They turned back at Boadicea's statue, and when they were in the shadows again, he took his arm from hers and put it about her waist. "Let's pretend there's nobody else here but us," he said.
III
They dined in Soho, and when they had finished their meal, they walked to Oxford Circus and once more climbed to the top of a 'bus that would take them along the Bayswater Road.
"You must like me, Eleanor," he said to her, as they sat huddled together on the back seat, "or you wouldn't come out with me as you do!"
"Yes," she answered, "I think I do like you. It seems odd that I should like you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't ever like you. But I do. You're very likeable, really. It's because you're so silly, I suppose. And so persistent!"
"Then why can't we get married, my dear? Isn't it sickening for you to be living in that club and me to be living at Brixton, when we might be living in our own home? I hate this beastly separation every night. Let's get married, Eleanor!"
"I suppose we will in the end," she said, "but I don't feel like getting married to you. After all, John!..." She called him by his Christian name now. "After all, John, if I were to marry you now, when we know so little of each other, it would be very poor fun for me, if you discovered after we were married that you did not care for me as much as you imagined. And suppose I never fell in love with you?"
"Yes," he said gloomily.
"How awful!"
"But I'd have you. I'd have the comfort of being your husband and of having you for my wife!"
"It mightn't be a comfort. Oh, no, it's too risky, John. We must wait. We must know more of each other!..."
"Will you get engaged to me then?" he suggested.
"But that's a promise. No. Let's just go on as we are now, being friends and meeting sometimes!"
"Supposing we were engaged without anybody knowing about it?" he said. "Would that do?"
"I don't want either of us to be bound ... not yet. Oh, not yet. Do be sensible, John!"
"I am sensible. I know that I want to marry you. That's sensible, isn't it?"
"Yes, I suppose it is," she replied, laughing.
"Well, isn't it sensible to want to be sensible as soon as possible? You needn't laugh. I mean it. It's just foolishness to be going on like this. I'm as sensible as anybody, and I can't see any sense in our not marrying at once. Get engaged to me for a while anyway!"
"But what would be the good of that?"
"All the good in the world. I just want the comfort of knowing there's a chance of you marrying me!"
"It seems so unsatisfactory to me ... and so risky!" she protested.
"I'm willing to take the risk. I'll wait as long as you like."
"I'll think about it. But if I do get engaged to you, we won't get married for a long time!"
"How long?"
"Oh, a long time. A very long time."
"What do you mean? Six months?"
"No, years. Oh, five years, perhaps!"
"My God Almighty!" he said. "Do you know what you're saying! Five years? We might all be dead and buried long before then. What age will I be in five years time. Oh, wheesht with you, Eleanor, and don't be talking such balderdash. Five years! Holy O!"
"What does 'Holy O!' mean?" she demanded.
"I don't know. It's just a thing to say when you can't think of anything else. Five years! Five minutes is more like it!"
"We're too young to be married yet, and in five years' time we'll know each other much better!"
"I should think so, too," he said. "It's a lifetime, woman! Whatever put that idea into your head!"
"If I get engaged to you at all," she replied, "and I'm not sure that I will, it'll be for five years or not at all. You may be willing to take risks, but I'm not. Risks are all right for men ... they can afford to take them ... but women can't. If you don't agree to that, you'll have to give up the idea altogether!"
"Then you'll get engaged to me?"
"No, I didn't say that. I said that if I got engaged to you at all, it would be for five years. I'm not sure that I shall get engaged to you. I don't think I really like you. I think I'd just get tired of saying 'No' to you!..." She could see that his face had become glum, and she hurriedly reassured him. "Yes, I do like you! I like you quite well ... but I'm not going to marry you ... if I ever marry you ... till I'm sure about you!"
They descended from the 'bus and walked towards her club.
"Anyway," he said, "I consider myself engaged to you. And I'll buy you a ring the morrow morning!"
"Indeed, you won't," she said.
"Indeed, I will," he replied. "I'll have it handy for the time you agree to have me!"
"You won't be able to get one until you know the size, and I won't tell you that!..."
They wrangled on the doorstep until it was late, but she would not yield to him. He could consider himself engaged to her if he liked ... she could not prevent him from considering anything he chose to consider ... but she would not consider herself engaged to him nor would she wear a ring until she was sure of her feelings.
He kissed her when they parted, and she did not resist him. It was useless to try to resist an accomplished thing. His childlike insistence both attracted and irritated her. She felt drawn to him because his mind seemed to be so completely centred upon her, and repelled by him because his own wishes appeared to be the only considerations he had. She could not decide whether the love he had for her ... and she believed that he loved her ... was complete devotion or complete selfishness. Love at first sight was a perfectly credible, though unusual thing. It was possible that he had fallen in love with her ... her vanity was pleased by the thought that he had done so ... but she certainly had not fallen in love with him either at first or at second sight. She was not in love with him now. She felt certain of that. He was likeable and kind and a very comforting person, and there was much more pleasure to be had from a walk with him than from an evening spent in the club!... Ugh, that club, that dreadful conglomeration of isolated women! Oh, oh, oh! She gave little shudders as she reflected on her club-mates. Most of them were girls like herself, working as secretaries either in offices or in other places ... to medical men or writers ... and, like her, they had few friends in London. Their homes were in the country. Among them were a number of aimless spinsters, subsisting sparely on private means ... poor, wilting women without occupation or interest. They were of an earlier generation than Eleanor, the generation which was too genteel to work for its living, and they had survived their friends and their families and were left high and dry, without any obvious excuse for existing, among young women who were profoundly contemptuous of a woman who could not earn a living for herself. They sat about in the drawing-room and sizzled! They knew exactly at what hour this girl came in on Monday night, and at exactly what hour the other girl came in on Tuesday night. They whispered things to each other! They thought it was very peculiar behaviour for a girl to come back to the club alone with a man at twelve o'clock ... "midnight, my dear!" they would say, as if "midnight" had a more terrible sound than twelve o'clock ... and they were certain that Miss Dilldall's parents should be informed of the fact that on Saturday evening she went off in a taxi-cab with a man who was wearing dress-clothes and a gibus-hat. Miss Dilldall publicly boasted of the fact that she had smoked a cigarette in a restaurant in Soho!...
Ugh! Even if John were selfish, he was preferable to these drab women, these pitiful females herded together. Women in the mass were very displeasing to look at, and they frightened you. They turned down the corners of their mouths and looked coldly and condemningly at you. It was extraordinary how unanimous the girls were in their dislike of working under women. The woman in authority was more hateful to women even than to men. Eleanor had done some work for an advanced woman, an eminent suffragette, who had crept about the house in rubber-soled shoes so that she might come unexpectedly into the room where Eleanor was working and assure herself that she was getting value for her money!... She was always spying and sneaking round! What an experience that had been! How impossible it had been to work with that woman! A girl in the club had worked for a royal princess ... not at all an advanced woman ... and she, too, had had to seek for employment under a man. The princess was a foolish, spoilt, utterly incompetent person who did not know her own mind for two consecutive hours. She sneaked around, too, and spied!... All these women in authority seemed to spend half their day peering through keyholes.... Perhaps it was because the club was such a dingy, cheerless hole that she liked to go out with John. The food was meagre and poor in quality and vilely cooked. Somehow, women living together seemed unable to feed themselves decently. Miss Dilldall, gay little woman of the world, had solemnly proposed that a man should be hired togrowseabout the meals. "We'll never get good food in this damned compound," she said, "until we get some men into it. Bringing them as guests isn't any good. They're too polite to their hostesses to say anything, but I'm sure that every man who has a meal in this place goes away convinced that the food we are content to eat is a strong argument against votes for women! And so it is. What a hole!"
"That's really why I like going out with him," Eleanor confided to her reflection in the looking-glass as she brushed her hair. "It's really to escape from this dreary club! But I can't marry him for that reason. It wouldn't be fair to him. It would be much less fair to me. Of course, Ilikehim!... Oh, no! No, no!..."
IV
Lizzie was in the hall when John let himself into the house that night.
"Hilloa," he said, "not gone to bed yet?"
"I never 'ave time to go to bed," she said. "'Ow can I get any sleep when I 'ave to look after men! You an' Mr. 'Inde!" She came nearer to him. "You'll get a bit of a surprise when you go upstairs," she said very knowingly.
"Me!"
She nodded her head and giggled.
"What sort of a surprise?" he demanded.
"You'll see when you get upstairs. It's been, waitin' for you 'ere since seven o'clock!..."
"Seven o'clock! What is it? A parcel?"
Lizzie could not control her laughter when he said "parcel." "Ow!" she giggled. "Ow, dear, ow, dear! A parcel! Ow, yes, it's a parcel all right! You'll see when you get up!..."
He began to mount the stairs. "You're an awful fool, Lizzie," he said crossly, leaning over the banisters.
"Losin' your temper, eih?" she replied, bolting the street door.
He hurried up to the sitting-room and as he climbed the flight of stairs that led directly to it, Hinde called out to him, "Is that you, Mac?"
"Yes," he answered.
Hinde came to the door and opened it fully. "There's someone here to see you," he said.
"To see me! At this hour?"
He entered the room as he spoke. His mother was sitting in front of the fire.
"Mother!" he exclaimed, remembering just in time not to say "Ma!" which would have sounded very childish in front of Hinde.
"This is a nice hour of the night to be coming home," she said, trying to speak severely, but she could not maintain the severity in her voice, for his arms were about her and she was hugging him.
"You never told me you were coming," he said. "What brought you over?"
"I've come to see this girl you've got hold of," she answered.
V
"But why didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked. "I'd have met you at the station!"
She ignored his question. "This is a terrible town," she said. "Mr. Hinde says there's near twice as many people in this place as there is in the whole of Ireland. How in the earthly world do they manage to get about their business?"
"Oh, quite easily," he said nonchalantly, and as he spoke he realised that he had come to be a Londoner.
"When I got out at the station," Mrs. MacDermott continued, "I called a porter and said to him, 'Just put that bag on your shoulder and carry it for me!' 'Where to, ma'am?' says he, and then I gave him your address. I thought the man 'ud drop down dead. 'Is it far?' says I. 'Far!' says he. 'It's miles!' By all I can make out, John, you live as far from the station as Millreagh is from Ballyards. I had to come here in one of them things that runs without horses ... what do you call them?"
"Taxi-cabs!"
"That's the name. It's a demented mad place this. Such traffic! Worse nor Belfast on the fair-day!"
"It's like that every day, Mrs. MacDermott!" Hinde interjected.
"What bothers me," she went on, "is how ever you get to know your neighbours!"
"We don't get to know them," Hinde replied. "I've lived in this house for several years, but I don't know the names of the people on either side of it!"
"My God," said Mrs. MacDermott, "what sort of people are you at all! Are you all fell out with each other?"
"No. We're just not interested!"
"I wouldn't live in this place for the wide world," she exclaimed. "And you," she continued turning to her son, "could come here where you know nobody from a place where you knew everybody. The world's queer! What was that water I passed on the way out?..."
"Water!"
"Aye. We went over it on a bridge!"
"Oh, the river!"
"What river!" she said.
"Why, the Thames, of course!"
"Is that what you call it?"
Hinde smiled at John. "So you've learned to call it the river, have you? Mrs. Hinde, in this town we always talk as if there were only one river in the world. A Londoner always says he's going up the river or down the river or on the river. He always speaks of it as the river. He never speaks of it as the Thames. In Belfast, you speak of the Lagan ... never of the river. The same in Dublin. They speak of the Liffey ... never of the river. John's become a Londoner. He knows the proper way to speak of the Thames!"
"London seems to be full of very conceited and unneighbourly people," Mrs. MacDermott said.
John demanded information of his mother. How were Uncle William and Mr. Cairnduff and the minister and Willie Logan?...
"His wife's got a child," Mrs. MacDermott replied severely.
"A boy or a girl?"
"A boy, and the spit of his father, God help him. Thon lad Logan'll come to no good. Aggie's courting hard. Some fellow from Belfast that travels in drapery. She told me to remember her to you!"
"Thank you, mother!"
Hinde rose to leave them. "You'll have a lot to say to each other, and I'm tired," he explained, as he went off to bed.
"I like that man," said Mrs. MacDermott when he had gone. "And now tell me about this girl you've got. Are you in earnest?"
"Yes, ma!" John answered, using the word "ma," now that he was alone with his mother.
"Will she have you?"
"I hope so. She hasn't said definitely yet, but I think she will!"
"Who is she? Moore you said her name was. That's an Irish name!"
"But she's not Irish. She's English. Her father was a clergyman, but he's dead. So is her mother. She has hardly any friends!"
"Does she keep herself?"
"Yes, ma. She works in a motor-place ... in the office, typing letters. She's an awful nice girl, ma! I'm just doting on her, so I am!"
"Do you like her better nor that Belfast girl that married the peeler?..."
"Och, that one," John laughed. "I never think of her now ... never for a minute. Eleanor's the one I think about!"
"Are you sure of yourself?..."
"As sure as God's in heaven, ma!"
"Oh, yes, we know all about that, but are you sure you're sure? You were queerly set on that Belfast girl, you know!"
He pledged himself as convincingly as he could to Eleanor, and told his mother that he could never be happy without her.
"And how do you propose to keep her?" she said, when he had finished.
"Work for her, of course!"
"How much have you earned since you came here?"
"Nothing!"
"And you've no work fornent you?"
"No, not at the minute. I had a job, but I lost it!"
He gave an account of his relationship with theDaily Sensation.
"You'll not be able to buy much with that amount of work," she interrupted.
He told her of the sketch for the Creams and of the tragedy of St. Patrick.
"What's the use of writing about him," she said. "Sure, he's been dead this long while back!"
He did not attempt to make her understand. "And then there's the novel I wrote when I was at home," he concluded.
"But you've heard nothing of it yet. As far as I can see you've done little here that you couldn't have done at home!"
"Oh, yes I have. I've learned a great deal more than I could ever have learned in Ballyards. And I've met Eleanor!"
"H'm!" she said, rising from her seat. "I'm going to my bed now. That girl Lizzie seems a good-natured sort of a soul. Where does Eleanor live?"
"Oh, a long way from here!..."
"Give me her address, will you?"
"Yes, ma, but why?"
"I'm going to see her the morrow!"
He had to explain that Eleanor could not be seen in the day-time because of her employment, and he proposed that his mother should go with him in the evening to meet her at the bookstall at Charing Cross station.
"Very well," she said as she kissed him, "Good-night!"
I
Mrs. MacDermott had remained in London for a week. John, eager to show the sights to her, had tried to persuade her to stay for a longer period, but she was obstinate in her determination to return to Ireland at the end of the week. "I don't like the place," she said; "it's not neighbourly!" She repeated this objection so frequently that John began for the first time in his life to understand something of his mother's point of view. He remembered how she had insisted upon the fact that the MacDermotts had lived over the shop in Ballyards for several generations; and now, with her repetition of the statement that London was an unneighbourly town, he realised that Ballyards in her mind was a place of kinsmen, that the people of Ballyards were members of one family. She was horrified when she discovered that Hinde had been stating the bare truth when he said that he had lived in Miss Squibb's house for several years, but still was ignorant of the names of his neighbours. Miss Squibb had told her that people in London made a habit of taking a house on a three-years' lease. "When it expires, they go somewhere else," she had said. Miss Squibb had never heard of a family that had lived in the same house in London for several generations. She did not think it was a nice idea, that. She liked "chynge" herself, and was sorry she could not afford to get as much of it as she would like to have.
"I do not understand the people in this place," Mrs. MacDermott had complained to Hinde. "They've no feeling for anything. They don't love their homes!..."
But although she had stayed in London for a week only, she had seen much of Eleanor Moore in that time. It had not occurred to John, until the moment his mother and he entered Charing Cross station, that Mrs. MacDermott and Eleanor might not like each other. He imagined that his mother must like Eleanor simply because he liked her, but as he held a swing-door open so that his mother might pass through, a sudden dubiety took possession of him and he became full of alarm. Supposing they did not care for each other?... The doubt had hardly time to enter his mind when it was resolved for him. Eleanor arrived at the bookstall almost simultaneously with themselves. (It struck him then that Eleanor was a remarkably punctual girl.) "This is my mother, Eleanor!" he had said, and stood anxiously by to watch their greeting. The old woman and the girl regarded each other for a moment, and then Mrs. MacDermott had taken Eleanor's outstretched hand and had drawn her to her and had kissed her; and John's dubiety disappeared from his mind. They had dined together in Soho that night, but Mrs. MacDermott had not enjoyed the meal. The number of diners and the clatter of dishes and knives and the foreign look and the foreign language of the waiters disconcerted her and made her feel as if she were a stranger. Above all else in the world, Mrs. MacDermott hated to feel like a stranger! She demanded familiar surroundings and faces, and was unhappy when she found herself without recognition. The menu made her suspicious of the food because it was written in French. She distrusted foreigners. London appeared to be full of all sorts of people from all parts of the world. Never in her life had she seen so many black men as she had seen in London that day. John had taken her to St. Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon and had shown her the place where Queen Victoria returned thanks to Almighty God for her Diamond Jubilee ... and there, standing on the very steps of a Christian church, was a Chinaman! There were no Chinamen in Ballyards, thank God, nor were there any black men either. She realised, of course, that God had made black men and Chinamen and every other sort of men, but she wished that they would stay in the land in which God had put them and would not go trapesing about the world!...
"What about us, then?" said John. "We don't stay in the one place!"
"I know that," she replied. "That's what's wrong with the world. Everyone should stay in his own country!"
The dinner had not entirely pleased John. Somehow, in a way that he could not understand, he found himself being edged out of the conversation, not altogether, but as a principal. His mother and Eleanor addressed each other primarily; they only addressed him now and then and in a way that seemed to indicate that they had suddenly remembered his presence and were afraid he might feel hurt at being left out of their talk. He was glad, of course, that his mother and Eleanor were getting on so well together, but after all he was in charge of this affair.... When his mother proposed to Eleanor that they should meet on the following evening and go somewhere for a quiet talk, he could hardly believe his ears.
"But what about me?" he said.
"Oh, you! You'll do rightly!" his mother replied.
"But!..."
"You can come and bring me home from wherever we go," Mrs. MacDermott continued.
Eleanor had suggested that Mrs. MacDermott should meet her at the bookstall and go to her club from which John would fetch her at ten o'clock.
"That'll do nicely, Eleanor!" Mrs. MacDermott said.
John hardly noticed that his mother had called Eleanor by her Christian name: it seemed natural that she should do so; but he was vaguely disturbed by the arrangement that had just been made.
"I wonder what she's up to?" he said to himself as he moodily examined his mother's face.
He sat back in his chair and listened while Eleanor and his mother talked together. He was not accustomed to taking a subsidiary part in discussions and he greatly disliked his present position, but he could not think of any way of altering it.
"Do you like living in London?" Mrs. MacDermott had suddenly said to Eleanor.
"No, I hate it," Eleanor vehemently answered.
"Then why do you stay?" Mrs. MacDermott continued.
"I have to. A girl gets better-paid work in London than in the provinces. That's the only reason!"
"Would you rather live in the country, then?"
"Yes!" Eleanor said.
"I wonder would you like Ballyards!" Mrs. MacDermott said almost as if she were speaking to herself. Then she began to talk of something else.
II
He had taken his mother to Charing Cross station on the following day, hoping that they would relent and allow him to go to Eleanor's club with them, but neither of them made any sign of relenting. His mother, indeed, turned to him immediately after Eleanor had arrived and said, "Well, we'll say 'Good-bye' for the present, John. We'll expect you at ten!" and very sulkily he had departed from them. He saw Eleanor lead his mother out of the station. She had taken hold of Mrs. MacDermott's arm and drawn it into hers, and linked thus, they had gone out, but neither of them had turned to look back at him. He had not known how to fill in the time between then and ten o'clock ... whether to go to a theatre or walk about the streets ... and had ended by spinning out his dinner-time as long as possible, and then walking from Soho to Eleanor's club. He had arrived there before ten o'clock, but they allowed him to sit with them!... He had an overwhelming sense of beingallowedto do so. Suddenly and unaccountably all his power had gone from him, his instinctive insistence upon his own will, his immediate assumption that what he desired must be acceptable to others and his complete indifference to whether what he desired was acceptable or not to others... suddenly and unaccountably these things had gone from him and he was submitting to the will of his mother and of Eleanor. His mother's conversation, too, had been displeasing to him. She talked of Ballyards and of the shop all the time. She talked of the prosperity of the business and of the respect in which the MacDermotts were held in their town. Mr. Hinde had told her of the harsh conditions in which journalists and writers had to work, particularly the journalists. They had no settled life... they went here, there and everywhere, but their wives stayed always in the one place... and sometimes money was not easily obtainable. Anything might happen to put a journalist out of employment!...
"But I don't want to be a journalist, mother!" John had testily interrupted. "I want to write books and plays!"
"That's even worse." she had said. "It takes a man years and years before he can earn a living out of books. Mr. Hinde told me that!..."
"He seems to have told you a fearful lot," John sarcastically exclaimed.
"I asked him a lot," Mrs. MacDermott replied. "If you ever get that book of yours printed at all, he says, you'll not get more nor thirty pounds for it, if you get that much. And there's little hope of you making your fortune with the tragedy you're wasting your time over. Now, your Uncle William has a big turnover in the shop!..."
"I daresay he has," John snapped, "but I'm not interested in the shop, and I am interested in books!"
"Oh, well," Mrs. MacDermott murmured, "It's nice to have work that takes your fancy, but if you get married I'm thinking your wife'll have a poor job of it making ends meet on the amount of interest you take in your work, if that's all the reward you get for it. You were a year writing that story of yours, and you haven't had a penny-farthing for it yet. However, you know best what suits you. I suppose it's time we were thinking about the road!" She rose as she spoke, and Eleanor rose too. "Come up to my room," Eleanor said, "and we'll get your things!"
They left John sitting in the cheerless room. "That's a queer way for her to be talking," he said to himself. "Making little of me like that!"
He maintained a sulky manner towards his mother as they returned to Brixton, but Mrs. MacDermott paid no heed to him.
"Fancy having to go all this way to see your girl," she said, as they climbed the steps of Miss Squibb's house. "In Ballyards you'd only have to go round the corner!"
"I daresay," he replied, "but you wouldn't find Eleanor's match there if you went!"
"No," she agreed. "Eleanor's a fine girl. I like her queer and well. She was very interested to hear about Ballyards and the shop. Very interested!"
She turned to him at the top of the stairs.
"Good-night, son," she said. "I'm away to my bed. I'm tired!"
She put her arms round him. "You're a queer headstrong wee fellow," she said. "Queer and headstrong! Good-night, son!"
"Good-night, ma!" he replied as he kissed her.
He held her for a moment. "I can't make out what you and Eleanor had to talk about," he said. "What were you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing!" she replied. "Just about things that interest women. You wouldn't be bothered with such talk. And you know, son, women likes to have a wee crack together when there's no men about. It's just a wee comfort to them. Good-night!"
"Good-night, ma!"
She went up the stairs, and when she had disappeared round the bend of the bannisters, John went into the sitting-room. There was a postal packet for him lying on the table. It contained the MS. of his novel. Messrs. Hatchway and Seldon informed him that they had read his story with great interest, but they were sorry to have to inform him that conditions of the publishing trade at present were such that they saw no hope of a return for the money they would be obliged to spend on the book. They would esteem it a favour if he would permit them to see future work of his and they begged to remain his faithfully per pro Hatchway and Selden, J.P.T.
"Asses!" he said, as he wrapped the MS. up again in the very paper in which Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had returned it to him. Then he tied the parcel securely and addressed it to Messrs. Gooden and Knight, who, he told himself, were much better publishers than Messrs. Hatchway and Selden. He would post it in the morning.
III
And then a queer thing happened to him. He had been about to extinguish the light and go to bed, when he remembered that the parcel of MS. was lying on the table and that his mother would see it in the morning. She would probably ask questions about it ... and he would have to tell her that Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had refused to publish it. He seized the parcel and tucked it under his arm. He would keep it in his room and post it without saying anything to her about it. He did not wish her to know that it had been declined. Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had given a very good excuse for not publishing it—conditions of the publishing trade—and they had manifested a desire to see other work of his. That could hardly be said to be a refusal to print the book ... at all events, it could not be called an ordinary, condemnatory refusal. No doubt, had the conditions of the publishing trade been easier, Messrs. Hatchway and Selden would have been extremely pleased to print the book. It was not their fault that the conditions of the publishing trade were so difficult!... Anyhow, he did not wish his mother to know that the book had been refused, even though the conditions of the publishing trade were so difficult. So he took the MS. up to his bedroom with him.
IV
He had been enormously relieved when his mother returned to Ireland. Eleanor and he had seen her off from Euston ... Hinde had come for a few moments snatched from an important job ... and he had been very conscious of some understanding between the two women which was not expressible. It was as if his mother were not his mother, but Eleanor's mother ... as if he were simply Eleanor's young man come to say good-bye to Eleanor's mother ... and she were being polite to him, because Eleanor would like her to be polite to him. He felt that things were being taken out of his control, that he had ceased to have charge of things and was now himself being ordered and controlled; but he could not definitely say what caused him to feel this nor could he think of any notable incident which would confirm him in his fear that control had passed out of his hands. All he knew was that he was glad his mother had resisted his importunities to her to stay for a longer time in London. This state of uncertainty had not begun until Mrs. MacDermott suddenly and without warning had arrived at his lodgings. He hoped that it would end with her departure from Euston. Eleanor's attitude towards him during the week of his mother's visit had been very odd. She accepted him now without any qualms, but not, he felt, as her husband to be, hardly even as her lover. She accepted him, instead, as one who might become her lover if she could persuade herself to consent to allow him to do so. Once, in a moment of dreadful humility, he imagined that she accepted him merely as Mrs. MacDermott's son!... He had watched the train haul itself out of the station and had waved his hat to his mother until she was no longer distinguishable, and then he had turned to Eleanor with a curiously determined look in his eye.
"Are you going to marry me?" he demanded.
"Yes," she said, "I think I will. I like your mother awf'lly, John!..."
"It's me you're going to marry. Not her. Do you like me?"
"Yes, I like you ... though you're frightfully conceited and selfish!..."
"Selfish! Me? Because I try hard to get what I want?" he indignantly exclaimed.
"Oh, we won't argue about it. You'll never understand. I don't know whether I love you or not. But I like you. I like you very much. Of course, we may be making a mistake. It's foolish of me to marry you when I know so little about you ... and that little scares me!..."
"What scares you!"
"Your selfishness scares me. You are selfish. You're frightfully selfish. You think of nothing and no one but yourself!..."
"Amn't I always thinking of you?"
"Oh, yes, but only because you want me to marry you. That's all!"
He was very puzzled by this statement. "What other reason would a man have for thinking of a woman?" he asked.
"That's just it," she replied. "You can't think of any other reason for thinking about a woman ... and I can think of a whole lot of reasons. But I shall marry you in spite of your selfishness because I know you're as good as I'm likely to get!..."
"That's a queer reason for marrying a man!"
"I suppose it is. You're really rather a dear, John, and I daresay I shall get to love you quite well ... but I don't now. Why should I? I haven't known you very long ... and you've rather pestered me, haven't you?"
"No, I haven't!"
"Yes, you have. But I don't mind that. Being pestered by you is somehow different from being pestered by other men...."
"Have any other men bothered you?" he interrupted.
They were walking towards Tottenham Court Road as they spoke, and her arm was securely held in his.
"Of course they have," she answered. "Do you think a girl can walk about London without some man pestering her. Old men!..." She shuddered and said "Oh!" in tones of disgust. "Why are old men so beastly?"
"Are they?"
"Oh, yes, of course they are. Beastly old things. I think old men ought to be killed before they get nasty ... but never mind that. Being pestered by you is very different from that sort of thing. I know very well that you won't stop asking me to marry you until I either say I will or I run away from London altogether and hide myself from you; and I don't want to do that. So I'll marry you!"
He glanced at her in a wrathful manner.
"Is that what my mother told you to say?" he asked.
"Your mother? She never said anything at all about it!"
John laughed. "I told her about it," he said. "That's what she came over about. She wanted to have a look at you!"
"Yes, I suppose I ought to have guessed that. I did in a way, but I didn't know you'd said anything definite about it!"
"I'm always definite," said John.
"Yes. M' yes, I suppose you are!"
They walked down Tottenham Court Road and caught a 'bus going along Oxford Street.
"You don't seem very pleased now that I've said I'll marry you," she murmured, as they sat together on the back seat on top of the 'bus.
"I believe you're only marrying me to get away from that club you're living in!" he replied.
"That's one reason, but it isn't the only reason. Idolike you, John. Really, I do!"
"I want you to love me, love me desperately, the way I love you."
"But you've no right to expect that. Women don't love men for a long time after men love them ... and sometimes they never love them. There's a girl in our club ... well, she's not a girl, but she's unmarried, so, of course we call her a girl ... and she says that most of us can live fairly happily with quite a number of people. She says that a person has one supreme love affair ... which may not come to anything ... and enough liking for about a hundred people to be able to marry and live happily with anyone of them. I think that's true. I've known plenty of men that I think I could have married and been happy enough with. You're one of them!..."
"This is a nice thing to be telling me when my heart's bursting for you. I tell you, Eleanor, I love you till I don't know what I'm doing or thinking, and all you tell me is that I'm one out of a hundred and you like me well enough to put up with me!..."
"You don't want me to tell you that I'm in love with you ... like that ... when I'm not?"
"No, of course not ... only!..."
"Perhaps you don't want to marry me now!"
He put his arm round her and pressed her so tightly that she gave a little cry of rebuke. "I love you so much," he said, "that I'm thankful glad for the least bit of liking you have for me. I wish I'd known sooner. I'd have told my mother before she went back to Ballyards!"
"I'll write and tell her myself," said Eleanor. "I'd like to tell her myself!"
V
"I'm going to be married," John said to Hinde that night.
"I thought as much," Hinde replied.
"Why?"
"Well, when a man does one dam-fool thing, he generally follows it up with another. You lose your job on theSensation,and then you get engaged to be married. I daresay your wife'll have a child just about the time you've spent every ha'penny you possess. I suppose that was her at the station to-night?" John nodded his head. "Well, you're a lucky man!"
"Thank you," said John.
"I don't know whether she's a lucky woman or not!"
"Thankyou," said John. "If you've no more compliments to pay, I'll go to my bed!"
"Good-night. Cream's coming back to-morrow. Miss Squibb had a letter from him this evening!"
But John took no interest in the Creams.
"If I were you, I wouldn't fall out with the Creams," said Hinde. "Now that you're going to get married, the money he'll pay you for a sketch will be useful. I suppose you'll begin to be serious when you're married?"
"I'm serious now," John replied.
"At present, Mac, you're merely bumptious. I was like that when I first came to London. I had noble ideals, but I very soon discovered that the other high-minded men were not quite so idealistic as I was. I know one high-souled fellow who went into a newspaper office and asked to be allowed to review a novel with the express intention of damning it because he had some grudge against the author. Half the exalted scribblers in London are busily employed scratching each other's backs, and if you aren't in their little gang, you either are not noticed at all in their papers or you are unfairly judged or very, very faintly praised. You've either got to be in a gang in London or to be so immeasurably great or lucky that you can disregard gangs ... otherwise there's very little likelihood of you getting a foothold in what you call good papers. I know these papers. Mr. Noblemind is editor of one paper and Mr. Greatfellow is a regular contributor to another and Mr. PraisemeandI'llpraiseyou is the literary editor of a third, and they employ each other; and Mr. Noblemind calls attention to the beauty of his pals' work in his paper, and they call attention to the beauty of his in theirs. My dear Mac, if you really want to know what dishonesty in journalism is, worm yourself into the secrets of the highbrow Press and the noble poets. I'm a Yellow Journalist and a failure, but by heaven, I'm an honest Yellow Journalist and an honest failure. I'm not an indifferent journalist pretending to be a poet!..."
"I don't see what all this has got to do with me," John said.
"No," Hinde replied in a quieter tone. "No, I suppose it hasn't anything to do with you. You're quite right. I'm in a bad temper to-night. I'm glad you're engaged to that girl. She looks a sensible sort of woman. Heard any more about your book?"
"Yes. It's been returned to me!..."
"Oh, my dear chap, I'm very sorry!"
"I've sent it out again. It's sure to be printed by someone," John said.
"I hope so. I wish you'd let me read it!"
"Yes, I'd like you to read it. I wish I'd kept it back a while. But you'll see it some day. Good-night!"
"Good-night, Mac!"
VI
The Creams returned to Miss Squibb's on the following evening, and Cream came to see Hinde and John soon after they arrived. Dolly, he said, was too tired after her journey to do more than send a friendly greeting to them.
"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John. "It's very good, of course, quite classy, in fact, but it wants tightening up. Snap! That's what it wants. And a little bit of vulgarity. Oh, not too much. Of course not. But it doesn't do to overlook vulgarity, Mac. We've all got a bit of it in us, and pers'nally, I see no harm in it,pro-vided ...pro-vided, mind you ... that it's comic. That's the only excuse for vulgarity ... that it's comic. Now, the first thing is the title!"
Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table. "This won't do at all," he said, pointing to the title-page of the play. "Love's Tribute!My dear old Mac, what the hell's the good of a title like that? Where's the snap in it? Where's the attraction, the allurement? Nowhere. A title like that wouldn't draw twopence into a theatre.Love's Tribute!I ask you!..." His feelings made him inarticulate and he gazed round the room in a helpless manner.
"Well, what would you call it?" John demanded.
"Something snappy. I often say a title's half the play. Now, take a piece likeThe Girl Who Lost Her CharacterorThe Man With Two Wives... there's a bit of snap about that. Titles like those simply haul 'em into the theatre.Snap! Go! Ginger!Something that sounds 'ot, but isn't ... that's the stuff to give the British public. You make 'em think they're going to see something ... well,youknow ... and they'll stand four deep in the snow waiting to get into the theatre. If you were to put the Book of Genesis on the stage and call itThe Girl Who Took The Wrong Turning, people 'ud think they'd seen something they oughtn't to ... and they'd tell all their friends. Now, how aboutThe Guilty Womanfor your sketch, Mac?"
John looked at him in astonishment. "But the woman in it isn't guilty of anything," he protested.
"That doesn't matter. The title needn't have anything to do with it. Very few titles have anything to do with the piece. So long as they're snappy, that's all you need think about. Pers'nally, I likeThe Guilty Womanmyself; but Dolly's keen onThe Sinful Woman. And that just reminds me, Mac! Here's a tip for you. Always haveWomanin your title if you can.A Sinful Woman'll draw better thanA Sinful Man. People seem to expect women to be more sinful than men when they are sinful ... or p'raps they're more used to men being sinful than women. I dunno. But it's a fact ...Womanin the title is a bigger draw thanMan. And you got to think of these little things. If you want to make a fortune out of a piece, take my advice and think of a snappy adjective to put in front ofWomanorGirl!Really, you know, play-writing's very simple, if you only remember a few tips like that!..."
"But my play isn't about sin at all," John protested.
"Well, what's the good of it then?" Cream demanded. "All plays are about sin of some sort, aren't they? If people aren't breaking a rule or a commandment, there's no plot, and if there's no plot, there's no play. Of course, Bernard Shaw and all these chaps, they don't believe in plots or climaxes or anything, and they turn out pieces that sound as if they'd wrote the first half in their Oxford days and the second half when they were blind drunk. You've got to have a plot, Mac, and if you've got to have a plot, you've got to have sin. What 'ud Hamlet be without the sin in it? Nothing! Why, there wasn't any drama in the world 'til Adam and Eve fell! You take it from me, Mac, there'll be no drama in heaven. Why? Because there'll be no sin there. But there'll be a hell of a lot in hell! Now, I likeThe Guilty Woman. It's not quite so bare-faced asThe Sinful Woman, but as Dolly likes it better ... she's more intense than I am ... we'll have to have it, I expect!"
"I don't like either of those titles," John said, gulping as he spoke, for he felt that there was a difference of view between Cream and him that could not be overcome.
"Well, think of a better one then," Cream good-naturedly answered. "There's another thing. As I said, the piece wants overhauling, but you can leave that to me. When I've had a good go at it!..."
"But!..."
"Now, look here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had a most unhappy end toThe Profligate... the hero committed suicide in the last act ... but the public wouldn't have it. They said they wanted a happy end, and Pinero had the good sense to give it to them. In my opinion the public was right. The happy end was the right end for that piece!..."
"But artistically!..." John pleaded.
"Artistically!" Cream exclaimed in mocking tones to Hinde. "I ask you! Artistically! What's Art? Pleasing people. That's what Art is!"
"Oh, no," John protested. "Pleasing yourself, perhaps!..."
"And aren't you most pleased when you feel that people are pleased with you, I ask you! What do you publish books for if you only want to please yourself? Why don't you keep your great thoughts to yourself if you don't want to please anybody else? Yah-r-r, this Art talk makes me feel sick. You'd rather sell two thousand copies of a book than two hundred, wouldn't you? Of course, you would. I've heard these highbrow chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few. I acted in a play once by a fellow who was always bleating about the Tasteful Few ... and you should have heard the way he went on when his play only drew the Tasteful Few to see it. If his piece had had a chance of a long run, do you think he'd have stopped it at the end of a month because he objected to long runs as demoralizing to Art? Not likely, my lad!... Now, this piece of yours, Mac, has too much talk in it and not enough incident, see! You'll have to cut some of it. The talk's good, but in plays the talk mustn't take the audience off the point, no matter how good it is. See! You don't want long speeches: you want short ones. The talk ought to be like a couple of chaps sparring ... only not too much fancy work. I've seen a lot of boxing in my time. There's boxers that goes in for what's called pretty work ... nice, neat boxing ... but the spectators soon begin to yawn over it. What people like to see is one chap getting a smack on the jaw and the other chap getting a black eye. And it's the same with everything. Ever seen Cinquevalli balancing a billiard ball on top of another one? Took him years to learn that trick, but he'll tell you himself ... he lives round the corner from here ... that his audiences take more interest in some flashy-looking thing that's dead easy to do. When he throws a cannon-ball up into the air and catches it on the back of his neck ... they think that's wonderful ... but it isn't half so wonderful as balancing one billiard ball on top of another one. See? So it's no good being subtle before simple people. They don't understand you, and they just get up and walk out or give you the bird!..."
"I'm going to tell you something," he continued, as if he had not said a word before. "I've noticed human nature a good deal, and I think I know something about it. There was a sketch we did once, calledThe Twiddley Bits. It was written by the same chap that didThe Girl Who Gets Left... he had a knack, that chap ... only he took to drink and died. There was a joke inThe Twiddley Bitsthat went down everywhere. Here it is. I played the part of a comic footman, and I had to say to the villain, 'What are you looking at, guv'nor?' and he replied, 'I'm wondering what on earth that is!' and then he pointed to my face. That got a laugh to start with. Then I had to say, 'It's my face. What did you think it was? A sardine tin?' That got a roar. Brought the house down, that did. We played that piece all over the world, Mac, and that joke never failed once. Not once. We played it in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and it never missed once. Fetched 'em every time. Human nature's about the same everywhere, once you get to understand it, Mac, and if you like you can put that joke in your play. It'll help it out a bit in the middle!..."
VII
"Well?" said Hinde to John when Cream had left them.
"I'd rather sell happorths of tea and sugar than write the kind of play he wants," John replied.
Hinde paused for a few moments. Then he said, "Why don't you sell tea and sugar. You've got a shop, haven't you?"
"Because I'm going to write books," John answered tartly.
"I see," said Hinde.