III
He was just in time to swallow a hurried meal and set off to the theatre with the Creams. Mrs. Cream, recovered from the devastating effects of a tragical temperament, was very vivacious as they sat in the brougham; and she rallied him on his authorship. She told him that when he was a celebrated writer, she would be able to say that she had discovered him....
"As a matter of fact, Dolly," said her husband, "it was me that thought of the idea!"
She ignored her husband. She pretended that John would become too proud to know the poor little Creams!...
"I'm not too proud to know anyone," he interrupted.
She burbled at him, and pressed closer to him. "You're quite complimentary," she said.
Cream had given John a note to the manager of the theatre which induced that gentleman to admit him, free of charge, to the stalls. He would travel home by himself, for the Creams had to play at other music-halls, and would not be able to take him back to Brixton in their brougham. "We finish up at Walham Green," said Cream, as John left the carriage.
He waited impatiently for the performance ofThe Girl Gets Left, and he had an extraordinary sense of pleasure when he saw Cream's wistful face peering through a window immediately after the curtain went up. The little man was remarkably funny. His look, his voice, his gestures, all compelled laughter from the audience without the audience understanding quite why it was amused. He had the pathetic appearance that all great comedians have, the look of appeal that one saw in the face of Dan Leno, in the face of James Welch, and it seemed that he might as easily cry as laugh. The words he had to say were poor, vapid things, but when he said them, he put some of his own life into them and gave them a greater value than they deserved. The turn of his head was comic; a queer little helpless movement of his hands was comic; the way in which he seemed to stop short and gulp as if he were bracing himself up was comic; the swift downward and then upward glance of his eyes, followed by an assumption of complete humility and resignation, these were comic. And when he appeared on the stage, the audience, knowing something of his quality, collectively lifted itself into an attitude of attention.
A dismal young woman, singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an immense quantity of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six minutes in boring the audience beforeThe Girl Gets Leftbegan; and an air of lassitude had enveloped the men who were sitting in relaxed attitudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they paid to the young woman's underclothing.... But whenThe Girl Gets Leftbegan, and the whimsical face of Cream was seen peering through the window of the scene, the lassitude was lifted and the men's eyes began to brighten again. The first words, the first gesture of comic helplessness, from Cream sent a ripple of laughter round the theatre, and immediately the place was full of that queer, uncontrollable thing, personality.
John laughed heartily at the acting of his new friend, and he decided that he would certainly try to write a play for him. How good Mrs. Cream must be if she were better than her husband, as he so proudly declared she was. It would be a privilege to write a play for people so clever.... Then Mrs. Cream, magnificently dressed, appeared, and as she did so, some of the atmosphere that enveloped the stage and the auditorium and made them one and very intimate, was dispelled. John watched her as she moved about the stage, and wondered why it was that the audience had suddenly become a little fidgetty. His eyes were full of astonishment. He gazed at Mrs. Cream as if he were trying to understand some ineluctable mystery.... He remembered how enthralled he had been by the acting of the girl who had played Juliet. He had been caught up and transported from the theatre to the very streets of Verona. He had felt that he was one of the crowd that followed the Montagues or the Capulets, and had been ready to bite his thumb with the best.... But here was something that left him uneasy and alien. He felt as if he were prying into private affairs, that at any moment someone, a policeman, perhaps, might come along and seize him for trespassing. He did not then know that bad acting always leaves an audience with a sensation of having intruded upon privacies ... that an actor who is incompetent leaves the people who see him acting badly with the feeling that they have vulgarly peeped into his dressing-room and seen him taking off his wig and wiping the paint from his face. Mrs. Cream acted with great vigour; her voice roared over the footlights; and she seemed to hurl herself about the scene as if she were determined either to smash the furniture or to smash herself. She made much noise. Her gestures were lavish. Her dresses were very costly and full of glitter. She worked hard....
"But she can't act," said John to himself, sighing with relief when at last she left the stage to her husband.
The little man's small, fragile voice, with its comic hesitation and its puzzled note, sounded very restful after the torrential noises made by his wife, and in a few moments he had the minds of the audience fused again into one mind and made completely attentive. When the play was ended, there was very hearty applause, but none of it so hearty as the applause from John. The last few moments of the piece had been given to Mr. Cream, and he had left the audience with the pleased impression of himself and forgetful of the jar it had received from his wife....
"That wee man can act all right," said John, clapping his hands until they were sore.
IV
Hinde was waiting for him in the sitting-room when he returned to the lodging-house.
"What did you think of the Creams?" the journalist asked when they had greeted each other and had ended their congratulations on being Ulstermen.
"He's very good," John began....
"And she's rotten?" Hinde interrupted.
"Well!..."
"Oh, my dear fellow, you needn't be afraid of telling me what you think. There's only one person in the world who doesn't realise that Mrs. Cream can't act and never will be able to act ... and that's poor old Cream himself. He's as good a comedian as there is in the world—that little man: the essence of Cockney wit; and he does not know how good he is. He thinks that she is much better than he can ever hope to be, and she thinks so, too; but if it were not for him, MacDermott, she wouldn't get thirty shillings a week in a penny gaff!"
"They've asked me to write a play for them," John said.
"Are you going to do it?"
"I don't know. That play to-night was a very common sort of a piece. It's not the style of play I want to do!..."
"What style of playdoyou want to do?" Hinde asked.
"Good plays. Plays like Shakespeare wrote."
Hinde looked at him quickly. "Oh, well," he said, "there's no harm in aiming high!"
John told him of the book he had written at Ballyards, and of the story he had sent toBlackwood's Magazine.
"I've a great ambition to do big things," he said.
"There's no harm in that either," Hinde replied. "In the meantime, what are you going to do? It'll be a wheen of years yet before you can hope to get anything big done!"
"Oh, I don't know about that," John answered confidently. "The MacDermotts are great people for getting their own way!"
"Mebbe they are ... in Ballyards," Hinde retorted, "but this isn't Ballyards. And you can't spend all your time writing masterpieces. You'll have to do a wee bit of ordinary common work. What about trying to get a job on a paper?"
"I don't mind taking a job if there's one to be got. Only what sort of a job?..."
Hinde teased him. "They'll not let you edit theTimesyet awhile," he said.
"I don't want to edit it," John replied.
"Well, that's a lucky thing for the man that's got the job now!"
John felt aggrieved at once. "You're coddin' me," he complained.
"Say that again," Hinde exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Say what again?"
"Say I'm coddin' you. I haven't heard that word for years. Gwon! Say it!"
"You're coddin' me!..."
"Isn't it lovely? Isn't it a grand word, that? Good Ulster talk!..."
The door opened and Lizzie entered the room.
"Mr. 'Inde!..." she said.
"Don't call me 'Inde," he shouted, jumping up from his chair. "What do you think the letterhwas put in the alphabet for? For you to leave it out?"
Lizzie smiled amiably at him. "Ow, go on," she said, "you're always 'avin' me on!" She turned to John. "'E's a 'oly terror, 'e is. Talks about me speakin' funny, but wot about 'im? I think Irish is the comicest way of talkin' I ever heard. Wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis, Mr. 'Inde?"
"Hinde, woman,Hinde!..."
"Well, wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis?"
"One of these days I'll have you fried and boiled and stewed!..."
Lizzie giggled.
"Ow, you are a funny man, Mr. 'Inde," she said between her titters.
Hinde gaped at her as if he were incapable of expressing himself in adequate language.
"That female," He said turning to John, "always tells me I'm a funny man!..."
"Well, so you are, Mr. 'Inde!" Lizzie interrupted.
"Get out," he roared at her.
Lizzie addressed John. "You'll get used to 'is comic ways when you know 'im as well as I do. Wot'll you 'ave for breakfis?" she continued, speaking again to Hinde.
"Anything," he replied. "Anything on God's earth, so long as you get out!"
"That's all I wanted to know," said Lizzie. "It'll be 'am an' eggs. Goo'-night, Mr. MacDermott!"
"Good-night, Lizzie," John murmured.
"Goo'-night, Mr. 'Inde!"
"Come here!" said Hinde.
She came across the room and stood beside him. He took hold of her chin. "If you hadn't such a rotten accent," he said, "I'd marry you!"
She giggled. "You do myke me laugh, Mr. 'Inde!" she said.
"Hinde, woman,Hinde!..."
She moved away from him as if he had uttered some perfectly commonplace remark. "Very well," she said, "it'll be 'am an' eggs for breakfis. I'm glad you chose them, because we ain't got nothink else in the 'ouse. Goo'-night, all!"
She went out of the room, but hardly had she shut the door behind her, when she opened it again.
"'Ere's the Creams 'ome again!" she said. "Goo'-night all!"
V
A few minutes later, Cream tapped on their door and, in response to Hinde's "Come in!" entered. He greeted Hinde lavishly, and then turned to John.
"Well, my boy," he said, "what do you think of her? Great, isn't she? Absolute eye-opener, that's what she is, I knew you'd be struck dumb by her. That's the effect she has on people. Paralyses them. Lays 'em out. By Gum, Mac, that woman's a wonder!..."
"How is she?" John asked.
Cream shook his head. "All in bits, as usual, Mac. I ought not to let her do the work ... it's wearing her out ... but you can't keep a great artist away from the stage. She'd die quicker if she weren't doing her work than she will while she's doing. That's Art, Mac. Extraordinary thing, Art!..."
"Have a drink, Cream," Hinde exclaimed.
"I don't mind if I do, Hinde, old chap. Did you notice how she held the audience, Mac? The minute she stepped on to the stage, she got 'em. Absolute! She played with 'em ... did what she liked with 'em!... I wish I could get hold of 'em like that. By Heaven, Mac, it must be wonderful to have that woman's power to make an audience do just what you want it to do!..."
Hinde handed a glass of whiskey and soda to him. "Thanks, old chap!" he said, taking it from him. He raised the glass. "Well, here's health!" he murmured, swallowing some of the drink. He put the glass down on the table beside him. "When do you think you'll be able to let us have the manuscript of the play, Mac?"
John started. "Well," he began nervously, "well, I haven't thought much about it yet!..."
"Look here," said Cream, "I've been talking to Dolly about the matter, and this is her idea. She wants to play in a piece about a naval lieutenant. See? In a submarine or something. Something with a bit of snap in it. She'd like to be an Irish girl called Kitty in love with the lieutenant. See? Make it so's he can wear his uniform and a cocked hat and a sword. See? The audience likes to see a bit of style. You could put a comic stoker in ... that 'ud do for me, but of course as I told you, you needn't worry much about my part. I'll look after myself. Now, do you think you could do anything with that idea? Dolly's dead set on playing an Irish girl, and of course, you being Irish and all that, you'd know the ropes!"
"I'll think about it," said John.
"Do. That's a good chap. And perhaps you can let me have the manuscript at the end of the week ... in the rough anyhow!"
He finished his whiskey and soda.
"Have another?" Hinde said.
"No, thanks, no. You know. Mac, the stage is a funny place. The average author doesn't realise what a funny place it is. I've met a few authors in my time, high-brow and low-brow and no-brow-at-all, and they're all the same: think they know more about the theatre than the actor does. But they don't. They all want to be littery. And that's no good ... in the music-halls anyhow. If you've got anything to say to a music-hall audience, don't waste time in being littery or anything like that. Bung It At 'Em, Mac!" He pronounced the last injunction with enormous emphasis. "An audience is about the thickest thing on earth. Got no brains to speak of, and doesn't want to have any. Mind you, each person in the audience may be as clever as you like, but as an audience ... see? ... they're simply thick. And if you want 'em to understand anything, you've got to Bung It At 'Em. No use being delicate or pretty or anything like that. That's what authors don't understand. Now, you heard those back-chat-comedians at the Oxford to-night?"
John nodded his head. "They weren't much good," he said.
"Why?" Cream demanded, and then, before John could speak, he went on to give the answer to his question. "Because they don't know how to get their stuff over the footlights. That's why! They had good stuff to work with, but they didn't know what to do with it.Icould have told 'em. Do you remember that joke about the dog that swallowed the tape-measure and died?"
"Yes. It sounded rather silly!..."
"And it didn't get a laugh. The silliness of a thing doesn't matter if it makes you laugh. This is how they said it. The tall chap says to the little one, 'How's your dog, Joe?' and the little one answered, 'Oh, he died last week. He swallowed a tape-measure and died by inches!...'"
Hinde laughed. "Do people pay good money to listen to that sort of stuff?"
"You're a journalist," Cream replied, "and you ought to know they pay money toreadworse than that!"
"So they do," Hinde admitted.
"When I heard those two duffers ruining that joke," Cream continued, "I felt as if I wanted to run on to the stage and tell 'em how to get it over to the audience. This is how they ought to have done it!"
He stood up and enacted the characters of the two back-chat comedians, and as John watched him and listened to him, he realised what a great actor the little man was.
"Say, Joe, what're you in mourning for?"
"I'm in mourning for my little dog!"
"Your little dog. Why, your little dog ain't dead, is it?"
"Yes, my little dog's dead!"
"Well, Joe, I'm sorry to hear your little dog's dead. What was the matter with your little dog?"
"My little dog died last week."
"Yes, your little dog died last week?..."
"He swallowed a tape-measure!..."
"Good heavens, your little dog swallowed a tape-measure?"
"Yes, my little dog swallowed a tape measure, and HE DIED BY INCHES!"
Cream sat down when he had finished giving his performance. "That's how they ought to have done it," he said.
"It makes me angry to see men ruining a good story. You see, Mac, you've got to lead up to things. Everything in this world has to be led up to. You can't rush bald-headed at anything. And you've got to get a climax. These back-chat chaps hadn't got a climax. The joke was over before the audience had time to realise it was a joke. See?"
"I see," said John.
A few minutes later, Cream went downstairs to his own room.
"That little man knows just how to get an effect," said Hinde. "The amazing thing about him is that he doesn't know that he can act and that his wife can't!..."
"Why do you call her his wife?" John replied.
"Out of civility," said Hinde. "I don't see that it matters much whether she is or not!"
"That's what Lizzie says."
"Lizzie is an intelligent woman. I hope you don't think I was rude to Lizzie just now?..."
"Oh, no," John answered insincerely.
"I wouldn't hurt Lizzie's feelings for the world," said Hinde. "I'm going to bed now, but you needn't hurry unless you want to. I'm tired, and I shall have a busy day to-morrow. I'll see if there's any work that would suit you on my paper. You ought to have some sort of a job besides scribbling masterpieces. I suppose you left a girl behind you in Ballyards?"
John's face flushed. "No," he replied.
"That's good," Hinde said. "You'll be able to get on with your work instead of wasting time writing letters to a girl. Good-night!"
"Good-night. Mr. Hinde!" said John, suddenly ceremonious.
"Not so much of the Mister. Call me Hinde. I think I'll follow Cream's example and call you Mac!"
"Very well, Hinde," said John.
"We'll go up to town in the morning together, if you like!"
"I would," said John.
VI
John's dreams that night were queerly complicated. Eleanor Moore flitted through a scene on a submarine in which a dog was dying by inches while a naval lieutenant made passionate love to an Irish girl called Kitty; and while Eleanor passed vaguely from side to side of the submarine, a gigantic piece of red tape came and enveloped her and enveloped John, too, when, unaccountably, he appeared and tried to save her. He felt himself being strangled by red tape, and he knew that Eleanor was being strangled, too. He felt that if only the dog would eat the red tape, both Eleanor and he would be delivered from it, but somehow the Irish girl called Kitty prevented the dog from eating it. And in the dream, he called pitifully to Eleanor, "She won't let us work up to a climax! She's preventing us from working up to a climax!..."
I
At the end of a month from the day on which he arrived in London, John MacDermott began to consider his position and ended by finding it in a very unsatisfactory state. He had spent much of his time in sight-seeing, and would have spent more of it, had not Hinde informed him that the only way in which to know a city is to live in it, not as a tourist, but as an ordinary citizen. "Change your lodgings every twelve months," he said, "and go and live in a different part of the town every time you change them. Then you'll get to know London. It's no use tearing round the place like an American ... half an hour here and a couple of minutes there, and a Baedeker never out of your hands. Americans think they're getting an impression of a country when they're only getting a sick-headache; and when they go home again, they can never remember whether Mont Blanc was a picture they saw in Paris or a London chop-house where they had old English fare at modern English prices. If you want toknowSt. Paul's Cathedral, don't go there with a guide-book in your hand. Go as one of the congregation!..."
He had sent the manuscript of his novel to a publisher who had not yet expressed any eagerness to accept it, and he had made a half-hearted effort to write a play for the Creams, but had not been very successful with it, chiefly because he felt contempt forThe Girl Gets Leftand had little liking for Mrs. Cream. She came to the sitting-room one morning when Hinde was away and her husband was interviewing his agent, and went straight to John, nibbling a pen at the writing desk, and put her arms about his neck.
"Don't do that," he said, disengaging her arms from about him.
"I love you," she replied very intensely.
"I daresay, but I'm not in love with you, Mrs. Cream, and I never will be. I don't like you. I like your wee man, but I don't like you. I think you're an awful humbug of a woman!..."
Mrs. Cream stood still as if she had been suddenly paralysed.
"You don't like me!..." she said at last, utterly incredulous.
"No, I don't."
"Oh!"
She raised her hands, and for a few moments he imagined that she was about to strike him. Then she dropped them to her side again and laughed.
"I don't know whether to hug you or slap you," she said. "You impudent brat!"
"I wouldn't advise you to do either the one or the other," he answered.
She came nearer to him, and laid her hand on his sleeve.
"You're very cold and hard," she said, and then, in a softer voice, she added his name, "John!"
"What's cold about me? Or hard?" he asked.
"Everything. You must know that I feel more for you than for my husband!..."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing, Mrs. Cream. I want you to understand that I'm not that sort. I come from Ballyards, and we don't do things like that there. Forby, I'm not in love with you. I'm in love with somebody else ... a nice girl, not a married woman ... and I've no time to think of anybody else but her. I'm very busy the day, Mrs. Cream!..."
"Is she an Irish girl?"
"I don't know what nationality she is. I've not managed to get speaking to her yet. It'll be an advantage if she is Irish, but I'll overlook it if she isn't. I'm terrible busy, Mrs. Cream!"
She stood before him in an indecisive attitude.... "You're really a fool," she said, turning away. "I thought you were clever, but you're simply thick-headed!..."
"Because I won't start making love to you, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, Mr. MacDermott. You're thick apart from that. You're so thick that you'll never know how thick you are. I can't think why I wasted a minute's thought on you!..."
John sat down at his desk again. "Sticks an' stones'll break my bones, but names'll never hurt me," he quoted at her. "When you're dead and in your grave, you'll suffer for what you called me!"
She came behind him and put her arms tightly round his neck and forced his head back so that she could conveniently kiss him.
"There!" she exclaimed, hurrying from the room, "I've kissed you anyhow!"
He leaped up and ran to the top of the stairs and leant over the banisters.
"If you do that again," he shouted at her, "I'll give you in charge!"
"Bogie-bogie!" she mocked.
Soon after that time, the Creams had gone on tour again, and John, with a vague promise to Mr. Cream that he would try and do a play for him, let Mrs. Cream slip out of his mind altogether. She had not attempted to make love to him again, and her attitude towards him became more natural, almost, he thought, more friendly. She appeared to bear him no malice, and her friendliness caused him to shed some of his antagonism to her. When they bade goodbye to Hinde and John, she turned to her husband as they were leaving, and said, "I kissed him one morning, and do you know what he did?"
"No," her husband answered.
"He said he'd give me in charge if I tried to do it again," she exclaimed, laughing as she spoke.
"Goo' Lor'!" said Cream. "That's the first time that's ever been said to you, Dolly!" He turned to John. "You're a funny sort of a chap, you are! Fancy not letting Dolly kiss you. Goo' Lor'!"
II
He had tried hard to see Eleanor Moore again, but without success. Every day for a fortnight he went to lunch in the tea-shop where he had first seen her, and in the evening he would hang about the entrance to the offices where she was employed; but he did not see her either there or in the tea-shop, and when a fortnight of disappointment had gone by, he concluded that he would never see her again. He imagined that she was ill, that she had left London, that she had obtained work elsewhere, that he had frightened her ... for he remembered her startled look when she hurried from him into the Tube lift ... and finally and crushingly that she had married someone else. In the mood of bitterness that followed this devastating thought, he planned a tragedy, and in the evenings, when Hinde was engaged for his paper, he worked at it. But the bitterness which he put into it failed to relieve him of any of the bitterness that was in his own mind. He felt doubly betrayed by Eleanor Moore because he had had so little encouragement from her. It hurt him to think that he had only succeeded in alarming her. Maggie Carmichael had responded instantly when he spoke to her and had accepted his embraces and his kisses as amiably as she had accepted his chocolates he had bought for her; but this girl with the tender blue eyes that changed their expression so frequently, had made no response to his offer of affection, had run away from it. If only she had listened to him! He was certain that he could have persuaded her to "go out" with him. He had only to tell her that he loved her, and she would realise that a man who could fall in love with her so immediately as he had done must be acceptable!... The affair with Maggie Carmichael had considerably dashed his belief in romantic love, but he told himself now that it would be ridiculous to condemn his Uncle Matthew's ideals because one girl had fallen short of them. If Maggie Carmichael had behaved badly, that was not a sign that Eleanor Moore would also behave badly. Besides, Eleanor was different from Maggie. There was no comparison between the two girls. After all, he had not really cared for Maggie: he had only fancied that he cared for her. But there was no fancying or imagination about his love for Eleanor, and if he had the good fortune to meet her again, he would not let anything prevent him from telling her plump and plain that he wanted to marry her. Whenever he left the house, he looked about, no matter where he went, in the hope that he might see her.
III
Hinde urged him to do journalism and advised him to make a study of the London newspapers so that he might discover which of them he could most happily work for. "You could do a few articles, perhaps, and then it wouldn't matter whether you agreed with the paper or not, but I'd advise you to try and get a job on one paper for a while. You'll learn a lot from journalism if you don't stay at it too long. It'll be a good while yet before you can make a living at writing books, and you'll want something to keep you going until you can. Journalism's as good as anything, and in some ways, it's a lot better than most things, and let me tell you, Mac, anybody can make a decent living out of newspapers if he only takes the trouble to earn it. Half the fellows in Fleet Street treat journalism as if it were a religious vocation, and they lie about in pubs all day waiting for the Holy Ghost to come down and inspire them with a scoop!"
John studied the London newspapers, as Hinde advised him, but he did not feel drawn towards them. He considered that the morning papers were very inferior to theNorthern Whig, and he was certain that theNorth Down Heraldwas far more interesting than theTimes. The London evening papers, he said to Hinde, gave less value for a half-penny than theBelfast Evening Telegraph, and he complained that there was nothing to read in them.
"You'll have to start a paper yourself, Mac," said Hinde. "All the best papers were started by men who couldn't find anything to read in other papers. It would be a grand notion now to set up a paper for Ulstermen who can't find anything in London that's fit to read. By the Hokey O, that would be a grand notion. We could call the paperTo Hell With the Pope or No Surrender!..."
"Ah, quit your codding," John interrupted. "You know rightly what's wrong with these London papers. They're not telling the truth!"
"And do you think theWhigand theTelegraphare?" Hinde demanded.
"Well, it's whatwecall the truth anyway," John stoutly retorted.
Hinde slapped him on the back. "That's right," he said. "Ulster against the whole civilised world!"
"If I was to take a job on one of these papers," John continued, "I'd insist on telling the truth to the people!"
"You would, would you? And do you know what 'ud happen to you? The people 'ud cut your head off at the end of a fortnight."
"I wouldn't let them."
Hinde sat in silence for a few minutes. Then he leant forward and tapped John on the shoulder, "The editor of theDaily Sensationis a Tyrone man," he said. "He comes from Cookstown!..."
"I never was in it," John murmured.
"Mebbe not, but it exists all the same. Go up the morrow evening to his office and tell him you want a job on his paper so's you can start telling everybody the truth. And see what happens to you."
John answered angrily. "You think you're having me on," he said, "but you're queerly mistaken. I will go, and we'll see what happens!"
"That's what I'm bidding you do," Hinde continued. "And listen! There's a couple I know, called Haverstock, living out at Hampstead. They have discussions every month at their house on some subject or other, and there's to be one next Wednesday. Will you come with me if I go to it?"
John nodded his head.
"Good! The Haverstocks'll be glad to welcome you as you're a friend of mine, but it's not them I'm wanting you to see. It's the crowd they get round them. All the cranks and oddities and solemn mugs of London seem to go to that house one time or another, and I'd just like you to have a look at some of them. The minute they find out you're Irish, they'll plaster you with praise. They'll expect you to talk like a clown, one minute, and weep bitter tears over England's tyranny the next. They're all English, most of them, and they'll tell you that England is the worst country in the world, and that Ireland would be the greatest if it weren't for the fact that some piffling Balkan State is greater. And they'll ram Truth down your throat till you're sick of it. You've only to bleat about Ireland's woes to them, and call yourself a member of a subject race, and they'll be all over you before you know where you are. There's only one other man has a better chance of shining in their society than an Irishman, and that's an Armenian."
"Well, that's great credit to them," John, replied. "I must say it makes me think well of the English!..."
"Don't do that. Never acknowledge to an Englishman that you think well of him. He'll think little of you if you do. Tell him he's a fool, that he's muddle-headed, that he's a tyrant, that he's a materialist and a compromiser and a hypocrite, and he'll pay you well for saying it. But if you tell the truth and say he's the decent fellow he is, he'll land you in the workhouse!..."
IV
It had not been easy to interview the editor of theDaily Sensation. A deprecating commissionaire, eyeing him suspiciously, had cross-examined him in the entrance hall of the newspaper office, and then had compelled him to fill in a form with particulars of himself ... his name and his address ... and of his business. "I suppose," John said sarcastically to the commissionaire, "you don't want me to swear an affidavit about it?"
The commissionaire regarded him contemptuously, but did not reply to the sarcasm.
After a lengthy wait and much whistling and talking through rubber speaking-tubes, John was conducted to a lift, given into the charge of a small boy in uniform who treated him as a nuisance, and taken to the office of the editor. Here he had to wait in the society of the editor's secretary for another lengthy period. He had almost resolved to come away from the office without seeing the editor, when a bell rang and the secretary rising from her desk, bade him to follow her. He was led into an inner room where he saw a man seated at a large desk. The editor glared at him for a moment or two as if he were accusing him of an attempt to commit a fraud. Then he said "Sit down" and began to speak on the telephone. John glanced interestedly about him. There was a portrait of Napoleon ...The Last Phase... on one wall, and, on the wall opposite to it, a portrait of the proprietor of theDaily Sensationin what might fairly be described as the first phase. On the editor's desk was a framed card bearing the legend: SAY IT QUICK....
The telephonic conversation ended, and Mr. Clotworthy ... the editor ... put down the receiver and turned to John, frowning heavily at him. "Well?" he said so shortly that the word was almost unintelligible. "I can give you two minutes," he added, pulling out his watch and placing it on the desk.
"That'll be enough," John, replied. "I want a job on this paper!"
"Everybody wants a job on this paper. The people who are most anxious to get on our staff are the people who are never tired of running us down!..."
"I daresay," said John.
"Ever done any newspaper work before?" the editor demanded.
"No!"
"Then what qualifications have you for the work?..."
"I've written a novel!..."
"That's not a qualification!" Mr. Clotworthy exclaimed.
"But it's not been published yet," John replied.
"Oh, well!... Anything else?"
"I've written several articles which have not been printed, but they're as good as the stuff that's printed in any paper in London.."
"Quite so!"
"And I come from Ulster where all the good men come from," John concluded.
"I've seen some poor specimens from Ulster," Mr. Clotworthy said.
"Mebbe you have, but I'm not one of them."
The editor remained silent for a few moments. He tapped on his desk with an ivory paper-knife and glanced quickly now and then at John.
"What part of Ulster do you come from?" he demanded.
"Ballyards."
"I've heard of it," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "It's not much of a place, is it?"
John flared up angrily. "It's better than Cookstown any day," he said.
"Who told you I came from Cookstown?"
"Never mind who told me. If you don't want to give me a job on your paper, you needn't. There's plenty of other papers in this town!..."
"That temper of yours'll get you into serious bother one of these days, young fellow," said Mr. Clotworthy. "I'm willing to give you work on the paper if you're fit to do it, but don't run away with the notion that you've only to walk in here and say you're an Ulsterman, and you'll immediately get a position. What sort of work do you want to do? You know our paper, I suppose? Well, how would you improve it?"
John opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, the editor stopped him.
"Don't," he exclaimed, "say it doesn't need improvement. A lot of third-rate fellows have tried that tack with me, as if they'd flatter me into giving them a job. The fools never seemed to realise that when they said the paper didn't need improvement they were giving the best reason that could be given why they shouldn't be employed on it. If you weren't a plain-spoken and direct young fellow I wouldn't give you that warning. Go on!"
"In my opinion," John replied, "what's wrong with your paper is that it doesn't tell the truth. It tells lies to its readers. My idea is to tell them the truth instead!"
Mr. Clotworthy laughed at him. "You won't do it on this paper," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because it can't be done. There's no such thing as truth. There never was, and there never will be such a thing as truth. There's only point-of-view!..."
"Well, I've got my point-of-view," John interrupted.
"Yes, but on this paper we express the point-of-view of the man that owns it. That's him there!" He pointed to the companion picture to the portrait of Napoleon. "If you imagine that we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to express your point-of-view, you're making a big mistake, young fellow my lad. What you want is a soap-box in Hyde Park. You can express your own point-of-view there if you can get anybody to listen to you. Or you can start a paper of your own. But this paper is the soap-box of that chap, and his is the only point-of-view that'll be expressed in it. Do you understand me?"
"I do," said John "All the same, I believe in telling the people the truth!"
The editor touched the bell on his desk. "Are you quite sure," said he, "that you know what the truth is?"
"Of course I'm sure." John began, but before he could finish his sentence, the door of the editor's room was opened by the lady-secretary.
"Good-morning, Mr. MacDermott!" said the editor, reaching for the telephone receiver.
"But I haven't finished yet," John protested.
"I have." He tapped the handle of the telephone.
"You can come and see me again when you've learned sense," he added, after he had given an instruction to the telephone operator. "Good morning!"
"Ah, but wait a minute!..."
"We've no use for John the Baptists here. Good morning!"
"All the same!..."
The editor impatiently waved him aside.
"This way, please!" the lady secretary commanded.
John glared at her, half in the mood to ask her what she meant by interrupting him and half in the mood to tell her that it little became a woman to intrude herself into the conversation of men, but the moods did not become complete, and, sulkily calling "Good morning!" to Mr. Clotworthy, he left the office.
"One of these days," he said to the lady secretary when they were in the outer office, "I'll be your boss. And his, too. And I'll sack the pair of you!"
"You'll find the lift at the end of the passage," she replied.
V
Hinde mocked him for his failure to make the editor of theDaily Sensationaccept his view of the universe.
"That man sized you up the minute he clapped his eyes on you," he said. "He's seen hundreds of young fellows like you. We've all seen them. They come down from Oxford and Cambridge with their heads stuffed with ideas pinched from Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, and they try to stampede old Clotworthy. 'By God, I'm a superman!' is their cry, and they say that night and morning and before and after every meal until even they get sick of listening to it. Then they say 'Oh, damn!' and go into the Civil Service, and in three years' time an earthquake wouldn't rouse them. All you youngsters want to go about telling the truth, especially when it's disagreeable, but there isn't one in a million of you is fit to be let loose with the truth, and there isn't one in ten million of men or women wants to be bothered by the truth. Lord alive, Mac, can't you young fellows leave us a few decent lies to comfort ourselves with?..."
"You'll get no lies from me," John replied.
"I can see very well you're going to be a nice cheerful chum to have in the house," Hinde said. "However, I'll bear it. The Haverstocks' 'At Home' is to-night. I don't suppose you have a dress suit?"
"No, I haven't!"
"It doesn't matter. Half the people who go to the Haverstocks don't wear evening dress on principle. That's their way of showing their contempt for conventionality. I suppose you'll come with me?" John nodded his head. "Good! We'll start off immediately after we've had our dinner. You'll get a good dose of Truth to-night, my son. There was a couple went there once ... the rummest couple I ever saw in my life. They thought they must do something for Progress and Advanced Thought, so they pretended they weren't married, but were living in sin!..."
"Like the two downstairs?" said John.
"Aye, only they were legally married all right. You'll observe in time, Mac, that the people who make changes are never the advanced people who talk about them, but the ordinary, conventional people who have no theories about things, but just alter them when they become inconvenient. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth of the man who is a devil of a fellow in print. This couple went to live at a Garden City and made an enormous impression on the Nut-eaters; and every Sunday evening crowds went to see them, living in sin. I went myself one night: it was terribly dull, and I thought if that's the best sin can do for a man, I'm going to join the Salvation Army. The woman took off her wedding-ring and hid it in the clock, and the man made a point of snorting every time he passed a parson. They had a grand time, as I tell you, until a terrible thing happened. A jealous nut-eater ... and I can tell you there's nothing on earth so fearful and vindictive as a jealous vegetarian ... discovered that these two were really married all the time, and he exposed them to their admirers. He produced a copy of their marriage-certificate at a public meeting which the man was addressing on the subject of Intolerable Bonds, and the meeting broke up in disorder. They had to leave the Garden City after that, and they're now hiding somewhere in the north of England and leading a life of shameful matrimony!..."
John giggled. "Are there really people like that?" he asked.
"Lots of them. You'll see some of them, mebbe, at the Haverstocks the night. I think there's to be some sort of a discussion, but I'm not sure. Mrs. Haverstock is a great woman for discussions, but I will say this for her, she doesn't humbug herself over them. She told me once that it was better to talk about adultery than to commit it!..."
John blushed frightfully. He felt the hot blood running all over his body. This casual way of speaking of things that were only acknowledged in the Ten Commandments had a very disturbing effect upon him. He hoped that Hinde would not observe his confusion, and he put his hand in front of his eyes so that he might conceal his red cheeks. If Hinde noticed that John was embarrassed, he did not make any comment about the matter.
"And I daresay it is," he went on. "As long as you're letting off steam, there's no danger of the engine bursting. I've often noticed that there's less misbehaviour in places where people are always chattering as if they had never conducted themselves with decency in their lives than there is in places where they never say a word about it.You'llnotice that too, when you've learned to use your eyes better!..."
VI
The Haverstocks lived in an old creeper-covered and slightly decrepit house in the Spaniards' Road. It was without a bathroom until the Haverstocks took possession of it, for it had been built in the days when the middle-classes had not yet contracted the habit of frequently washing their bodies. From the front windows of the house one saw across Hampstead Heath towards London, and from the back windows one saw across the Heath towards Harrow. The house, in spite of its slight decrepitude and the clumsiness of its construction—the stairs were obviously an afterthought of the architect—had that air of comfortable kindliness which is only to be seen in houses which have been occupied by several generations of human beings. Mr. Haverstock was vaguely known as a sociologist. He investigated the affairs of poor people, and was constantly engaged in inveigling labourers into filling largequestionnaireswith particulars of the wages they earned, the manner in which they spent those wages, the food they ate, the number of children they procreated, and other intimate and personal matters. He was anxious to discover exactly how much proteid was necessary to the maintenance of a labouring man in health and efficiency, and he conducted the most elaborate experiments with beans and bananas for that purpose. It was one of the most discouraging features of modern civilisation, he often said, that the spirit of research and disinterested enquiry was less prevalent among the labouring classes than was desirable. He could not induce a labouring man to live exclusively on beans and bananas for six months in order that he might compare his physical condition at the end of that period with his physical condition after a period spent in flesh-eating. He told sad stories of the reception that had been accorded to some of his assistants at the time that they were obtaining data from workmen on the question of the limitation of the family!...
He was a kindly, solemn man, with large, astonished eyes, and he wore a beard, less as a decoration than as a protest. The beard was really a serious nuisance to him, for he had dainty manners and he disliked to think of soup dribbling down it; but someone had convinced him that a man who wore a beard early in life was definitely bidding defiance to the conventions of the time, and so he sacrificed his sense of niceness to his desire toépater les bourgeois. He said that a beard was a sign of Virility!... Mrs. Haverstock and he were childless. Mrs. Haverstock, a quick-witted and merry-minded American, had married her husband in the days when she believed that a man who wrote books of sufficient dullness must be a distinguished and desirable man; and since she brought a considerable fortune to England with her, she enabled him to write more dull books than he could otherwise have had published. Much of her awe of her husband had disappeared in the course of time, but it had, fortunately, been replaced by deep affection: for his generosity and kindliness appealed to her increasingly as her respect for his learning and solemnity declined. She often said of him that he would do more for his friends than his friends would do for themselves ... and indeed many of them were willing to allow him to do anything and everything for them ... but so long as knight-errantry with an entirely sociological intent made him happy, she did not mind how he spent her money. He had many moments of dubiety about her fortune ... he frequently threatened to cross the Atlantic in order to discover whether the money was justly earned ... but he invariably comforted himself with the reflection that even if the money were ill-gained, he could at least put it to better use than anyone else; and so he refrained from crossing the Atlantic, not without a sensation of relief, for he was an unhappy sailor.
He loved discussions and arguments about Deep Things, and Mrs. Haverstock had invented her series of At Homes in order that her husband might get rid of some of his noble principles at them. She felt that if he could dissipate part of them in argument with other very high-minded men, life, between the At Homes, would be a little more human and livable for her. She secured a regular supply of attendants at these discussions by the simple method of supplying an excellent supper to those who came to them.
"I first met Haverstock," Hinde said to John as they walked along the Spaniards' Road, "during a strike at Canning Town. He was trying to persuade the police to remember that the strikers were men and brothers, and he was trying also to persuade the strikers that force was no argument and that they ought to use constitutional means of settling their disputes with their employers. And between the two, he was in danger of getting his eye knocked out, until I hauled him out of the crowd and shoved him into a cab and took him home. Mrs. Haverstock was so grateful to me that she's invited me to her house ever since ... but the people I meet there make me feel murderous. I like her, a sensible, sonsy woman, and I like him too, although his solemn, priggish airs make me tired, but I cannot bear the crowd they get round them: all the cranks and oddities and smug, self-sufficient, interfering people seem to get into their house, and they're all reforming something or uplifting something else or generally bleating against this country. Things done in England are always inferior to things done elsewhere. English cooking is inferior to French cooking: English organisation is inferior to German organisation. Whatever is done in England is wrongly done. The English are hypocrites, the English are sordid and materialistic, the English are everlastingly compromising, the English are this, that and the other that is unpleasant and objectionable!... I tell you, Mac, there's nobody makes me feel so sick as the Englishman who belittles England!"
"Well, we make little of the English, don't we?" John protested.
"I know we do, and perhaps it is natural that we should, but it's a poor, cheap thing at the best, and does very little credit to our intelligence. The English ideal of life is as good an ideal as there is in the world. I think it is far the finest ideal there is, chiefly because it does not make impossible demands on human beings. When everything that can be alleged against the English is alleged and admitted, it remains true that they love freedom far more constantly than other people, and that without them, freedom would have a very thin time in the world. You ask any liberty-loving American which country has more freedom, his country or this country, and he'll tell you very quickly, England! Englishmen don't argue about freedom: they just are free, and on the whole, they carry freedom with them. An American will argue about liberty even while he is clapping you into gaol for asserting your right to freedom!... Here's the house!"
They turned into the front garden of the Haverstocks' house as he spoke.
"In a way," he said, as they walked along the gravel path leading to the door, "the English Radical is the strongest testimony to the English ideal of freedom that you could have. He is so jealous of his country's good name that he is always ready to shout out if he is not satisfied with her behaviour. That's a good sign, really! Only they're so smug about it!..."
Most of the guests were already assembled when they entered the drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock bade them welcome. Hinde introduced John to them, mentioning that he had only lately arrived from Ireland. Mrs. Haverstock smiled and hoped he would often come to see them, and Mr. Haverstock looked pontifical and said, "Ah, yes. Poor Ireland!PoorIreland! Tragic! Tragic!" He waved his hand in a vague fashion, and then turned to greet the representative of another distressed nation. John could hear him murmuring, "Ah, yes. Poor Georgia!PoorGeorgia! Tragic! Tragic!" but was unable to hear any more because Mrs. Haverstock led him up to a lean, staring youth with goggle eyes who, she said, had promised to read several of his poems to the guests and to open a discussion on Marriage. The goggle-eyed poet informed John that Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley and Browning were comic old gentlemen who entirely misunderstood the nature and function of poetry. He had founded a new school of poetry. It appeared from his account of this school that the important thing was not what was said in a poem, but what was left out of it. He illustrated his meaning by allowing John to read the manuscript of one of the poems he proposed to read that evening. It was entitled "Life," and it contained two lines!...
LIFE
Big, black crows on bare, black branches,Cawing!...
"Where's the rest of it!" said John innocently.
The poet looted at him with such contempt that he felt certain he had committed an indiscretion. "Is that the whole of it?" he hurriedly asked.
"That fact that you ask such a question," said the poet, "shows that you have no knowledge of the completeness of life!..."
"Well, I only came here about a fortnight ago," John humbly replied ... but the poet had moved away and would not listen to him any longer. "I seem to have put my foot in it," John murmured to himself.
He made his way to Hinde's side, resolved that he would not budge from it for the rest of the evening. The people present frightened him, particularly after his experience with the poet, and he determined that he would keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. He felt that all these people were terribly clever and that his ignorance would be immediately apparent if he opened his mouth in their presence. He tried hard to realise the magnitude of "Life," but he could not convince himself that it was either an adequate description of existence or that it was a description of anything; and, in his innocence, he believed that he was mentally deficient. Hinde named some of the guests to him. This one was a novelist and that one had written a play ... and in the excitement of seeing and listening to men who had actually done things that he wished to do, John forgot some of his humiliation.
"I saw you talking to Palfrey," Hinde said to him.
"The poet chap?" John replied.
Hinde nodded his head. "What did you think of him?" he continued.
"He showed me one of his poems. I couldn't understand it, and when I said so, he walked away!"
Hinde laughed. "That's as good a description of him as you could invent," he said. "He always walks away when you can't understand what he's getting at. The reason why he does that is he's afraid someone'll discover he isn't getting at anything. He's just an impertinent person. He thinks he's being great when he's only being cheeky!"
John repeated the poem entitled "Life" to Hinde. "What do you think of that?" he asked.
"I don't think anything of it," Hinde replied.
John felt reassured. "I asked him where the rest of it was, and he nearly ate the face off me," he said. "I was afraid he'd think me a terrible gumph!..."
"If you let a humbug like that impose upon you, Mac, I'll never own you for my friend. Any intelligent office-boy could write poems like that all day long!"
There was a movement in the room, and the guests began to settle in their seats or on the floor, and after a short while, Mr. Haverstock, who acted as chairman of the meeting, took his place in front of a small table, and Mr. Palfrey sat down beside him. The poet, said the chairman, would honour them by reading some new poems to them, after which he would open a discussion on Marriage. They all knew that Marriage was an important matter, affecting the lives of men and women to a far greater extent, probably, than anything else in the world, and it was desirable therefore that they should discuss it frankly and frequently. Problems would remain insoluble so long as people remained silent about them. He could not help expressing his regret to those present at the extraordinary reluctance which the average person had to revealing experiences of matrimony. He had initiated an important enquiry into the question of marital relationships with a view to discovering exactly what it was that caused so many marriages to fail, and he had had to abandon the enquiry because very few people were willing to tell anything about their marriages to him. There was a great deal of foolish reticence in the world ... at this point Mr. Palfrey emphatically said, "Hear! Hear!"... and he trusted that those present that evening would cast away false modesty and would say quite openly what their experiences had been. He would not detain them any longer ... he was quite certain that they were all very anxious to hear Mr. Palfrey ... and so without any more ado he would call upon him to read his poems and then to discuss the great and important question of Marriage.
VII
Mr. Palfrey read his poems in a curious sing-song fashion, beating time with his right hand as he did so. He seemed to be performing physical exercises rather than modulating his own accents, and on two occasions his gesture was longer than his poem. He read "Life" very slowly and very deliberately, saying the word "cawing" in a high-pitched tone, and prolonging it until his breath was exhausted. He recited a dozen of these poems, obtaining his greatest effect with, the last of them, which was entitled, "The Sea":
Immense, incalculable waste,The dribblings from a giant's beard....
"Isn't it wonderful?" said an ecstatic girl sitting next to John.
"No," he replied.
She looked at him interrogatively, and he added, very aggressively, "I think it's twaddle!"
"Oh,doyou?" she exclaimed as if she could scarcely believe her ears.
"I do," said John.
He would have said more, but that Mr. Haverstock was on his feet proposing that they should now have supper and take the more important business of the evening afterwards, namely, the discussion of this great problem of Marriage. They had all been deeply moved by Mr. Palfrey's beautiful verses and would no doubt like an opportunity of discussing them in an informal manner....
Mrs. Haverstock led John to a girl who was sitting at the back of the room, and introduced him to her. Miss Bushe was the daughter of the editor of theDaily Groan, and Mrs. Haverstock desired that John would take her into supper.
"Mr. MacDermott is Irish—he has only just arrived from Ireland," Mrs. Haverstock said to Miss Bushe by way of explanation or possibly as a means of providing them with conversation.
"I've always wanted to go to Ireland," said Miss Bushe, taking his arm and allowing him to lead her to the dining-room.
"Well, why don't you go?" he asked.
All evening people had been telling him that they had always wanted to go to Ireland, but had somehow omitted to do so.
"Well, mother likes Bournemouth," Miss Bushe replied, "and so we always go there. She says that she knows there'll be a bathroom at Bournemouth, and plenty of hot water and she can't bear the thought of going to some place where hot water isn't laid on. I suppose I shall go to Ireland some day!"
"There's plenty of hot water in Ireland," said John.
Miss Bushe giggled. "You're so satirical," she said.
"Satirical?" he exclaimed.
"Yes. About the hot water in Ireland!"
He gazed blankly at her. "I don't understand you," he replied. "I meant just what I said. You can get hot water in Ireland as easily as you can in England. Some people have it laid on in pipes, and other people have to boil it on the fire; but you can get it all right!"
There was a look of disappointment on Miss Bushe's face. "I thought you were making a reference to politics," she said.
John stared at her. Then he turned away. "Will I get you something to eat?" he murmured as he did so. He had observed the other men gallantly waiting upon the ladies.
"Oh, thank you," she said. She glanced towards the table. "I wonder if that trifle has got anything intoxicating in it?" she added.
"I daresay," he answered. "Trifles usually have drink of some sort in them!"
"I couldn't take it if it has anything intoxicating in it," she burbled.
"Why not?" John demanded. "It'll do you no harm!"
"Oh, I couldn't. I simply couldn't if it has anything intoxicating in it. We're very strict about intoxicants. They do so much harm!"
John did not know what to do or say next. She still stared longingly at the trifle, and it was clear that she would greatly like to eat some of it.
"Well?" he said vaguely.
"I wonder," she replied, "whether you'd mind tasting it first, just to see whether it has anything intoxicating in it?"
John thought that this was a strange sort of young woman to take into supper, but he did as she bid him. He took a large portion of the trifle on to a plate and tasted it. She gazed at him in a very anxious manner.
"It has," he said, "and it's lovely!"
The light went out of her eyes. "Then I think I'll just have some blanc-mange," she said.
"There's nothing intoxicating in that," he replied, going to get it for her.
"Do you know," she murmured when he had returned and she was eating the blanc-mange, "I almost wish you had said there was nothing intoxicating in the trifle!..."
"That would have been a lie," John interrupted.
"Yes, but!... Oh, well, this blanc-mange is quite nice!"
John tempted, her. "Taste the trifle anyway," he said.
"Oh, no," she replied, shrinking back. "I couldn't. We're very strict!..."
VIII
After supper, Mr. Palfrey opened the discussion on Marriage. He declared that Marriage was the coward's refuge from Love. He said that Marriage had been invented by lawyers and parsons for the purpose of obtaining fees and authority. These unpleasant people, the lawyers and the parsons, had contrived to make Love an impropriety and had reduced Holy Passion to the status of a schedule to an act of parliament. Cupid had been furnished with a truncheon and a helmet and had been robbed of his wings in order that he might more suitably serve as a policeman. He demanded Free Love, and pleaded for the chaste promiscuity of the birds!... After he had said a great deal in the same strain, he sat down amid applause, and Mr. Haverstock invited discussion. He would like to say, however, that he strongly believed in regulation. In his opinion there was something beautiful in the sight of a bride and a bridegroom signing the parish register in the presence of their friends. The young couple, he said, asked for the approval and sanction of the community in their love-making. Love without Law was License, and he trusted that Mr. Palfrey was not inviting them to approve of Licentiousness....
Mr. Palfrey created an enormous sensation and some laughter by saying that that was precisely what he did invite them to do. All law was composed of hindrances and obstacles and forbiddings, and therefore he was entirely opposed to Law. This statement so nonplussed Mr. Haverstock that he abruptly sat down, and for a few moments the meeting was in a state of chaotic silence. Then a large man rose from the floor where he had been lying almost at full length and announced that in his opinion the world would cease to have any love in it at all if the present craze for vegetable diet increased to any great extent. How could a bean-feaster, he demanded, feel passion in his blood? Meat, he declared, excited the amorous instincts. All the great lovers of the world were extravagantly carnivorous, and all poetry, in the last resort, rested on a foundation of beef-steak puddings. What sort of lover would Romeo have been had he lived on a diet of lentils? Would Juliet have had the power to move the sympathies of generations of men and women if she had nourished her love on haricot beans?...
Immediately he sat down, a lean and bearded youth sprang to his feet and announced in vibrant tones that he had been a practising vegetarian from birth and could affirm from personal experience that a vegetable diet, so far from suppressing the passions, actually stimulated them; and he offered to prove from statistics that vegetarians, in proportion to their number, had been more frequently engaged in romantic philandering than carnivorous persons had. Look at Shelley!... He could assure those present that he was as amorous and passionate as any meat-eater in the room....
The discussion went to pieces after that, and became a wrangle about proteid and food values. There was an elderly lady who insisted on telling John all about the gastric juices!... Hinde rescued him on the plea that they had a long journey in front of them, and very gratefully John accepted the suggestion that they should set off at once in order to reach their lodgings at a reasonable hour. Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock conducted them to the door ... a chilly and contemptuous nod had been accorded to John by Mr. Palfrey ... and pressed them to come again soon. "Every Wednesday evening," said Mr. Haverstock, "we're at home, and we discuss ... everything!..."
They hurried along the Spaniards' Road towards the Tube Station, and as they did so, John told Hinde of his encounter with Miss Bushe over the trifle.
"That accounts for it," Hinde exclaimed aloud.
"Accounts for what?" John demanded.
"TheDaily Groan. I've often wondered what was the matter with that paper, and now I know. They're always wondering whether there's anything intoxicating in the trifle!... I don't mind a boy talking in that wild way. A clever, intelligent lad ought to talk revolutionary stuff, but when a man reaches Palfrey's age and is still gabbling that silly-cleverness, then the man's an ass. There's no depth in him!..."
IX
They sat in the sitting-room for a long while after they had returned to Brixton, and Hinde related some of his reminiscences to John.
"I'm one of the world's failures," he said. "I came to London to try and do great work, and I'm still a journalist. I can recognise a fine book when I see it, but I can't create one. I'm just a journalist, and a journalist isn't really a man. He has no life of his own ... he goes home on sufferance, and may be called up by his editor at any minute to go galloping off in search of a 'story.' We go everywhere and see nothing. We meet everybody and know nobody. A journalist is a man without beliefs and almost without hope. The damned go to Fleet Street when they die. It's an exciting life ... oh, yes, quite exciting, but it's horrible to see men merely as 'copy' and to think of the little secret, intimate things of life only as materials for a good 'story.' I wish I were a grocer!..."
"Why?" John demanded.
"Well, at least a grocer does not look upon human beings merely as consumers of sugar!"
"I could have been a grocer if I'd wanted to," John continued. "My mother wanted me to be a clergyman!"
"What put it into your head to turn scribbler?"
"I just wanted to write a book. I can't make you out, Hinde. One minute you're advising me to go on a paper, and the next minute you're telling me a journalist isn't a man!..."
"When you know more of us," Hinde interrupted, "you'll know that all journalists belittle journalism. It's the one consolation that's left to them. Unless you're prepared to associate only with journalists, Mac, you'd much better keep out of Fleet Street. Newspaper men always feel like fish out of water when they're in the company of other men. They must be near the newspaper atmosphere ... they can't breathe without the stink of ink in their nostrils!..."
"All the same I'll have a try at the life," said John.
X
But at the end of his first month in London, John had no more to his account than this, that he had begun but had not completed a music-hall sketch, that he had begun but had not made much progress with a tragedy, that he had tried to obtain employment on the staff of theDaily Sensationand had failed to do so, and, worst of all, that he had fallen in love with Eleanor Moore but could not find her anywhere. His novel supplied the one element of hope that lightened his thoughts on his month's work. He wished now that he had asked Hinde to read it before it had been sent to the publisher. Perhaps it would redeem the month from its dismal state.