The office was at its busiest, for it was Friday afternoon. JohnBlunt leant back in his comfortable chair and toyed with the key ofthe safe, while he tried to realize his new position. He, JohnBlunt, was junior partner in the great London firm of Macnaughton,Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton & Macnaughton!
He closed his eyes, and his thoughts wandered back to the day when he had first entered the doors of the firm as one of two hundred and seventy-eight applicants for the post of office-boy. They had been interviewed in batches, and old Mr Sanderson, the senior partner, had taken the first batch.
"I like your face, my boy," he had said heartily to John.
"And I like yours," replied John, not to be outdone in politeness.
"Now I wonder if you can spell 'mortgage'?"
"One 'm'?" said John tentatively.
Mr Sanderson was delighted with the lad's knowledge, and engaged him at once.
For three years John had done his duty faithfully. During this time he had saved the firm more than once by his readiness—particularly on one occasion, when he had called old Mr Sanderson's attention to the fact that he had signed a letter to a firm of stockbrokers, "Your loving husband Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton & Macnaughton." Mr Sanderson, always a little absentminded, corrected the error, and promised the boy his articles. Five years later John Blunt was a solicitor.
And now he was actually junior partner in the firm—the firm of which it was said in the City, "If a man has Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton & Macnaughton behind him, he is all right." The City is always coining pithy little epigrams like this.
There was a knock at the door of the inquiry office and a prosperous-looking gentleman came in.
"Can I see Mr Macnaughton," he said politely to the office-boy.
"There isn't no Mr Macnaughton," replied the latter. "They all died years ago."
"Well, well, can I see one of the partners?"
"You can't see Mr Sanderson, because he's having his lunch," said the boy. "Mr Thorpe hasn't come back from lunch yet, Mr Peters has just gone out to lunch, Mr Williams is expected back from lunch every minute, Mr Gourlay went out to lunch an hour ago, Mr Beamish—"
"Tut, tut, isn't anybody in?"
"Mr Blunt is in," said the boy, and took up the telephone. "If you wait a moment I'll see if he's awake."
Half an hour later Mr Masters was shown into John Blunt's room.
"I'm sorry I was engaged," said John. "A most important client. Now, what can I do for you, Mr—er—Masters?"
"I wish to make my will."
"By all means," said John cordially.
"I have only one child, to whom I intend to leave all my money."
"Ha!" said John, with a frown. "This will be a lengthy and difficult business."
"But you can do it?" asked Mr Masters anxiously. "They told me at the hairdresser's that Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton & Macnaughton was the cleverest firm in London."
"We can do it," said John simply, "but it will require all our care; and I think it would be best if I were to come and stay with you for the week-end. We could go into it properly then."
"Thank you," said Mr Masters, clasping the other's hand. "I was just going to suggest it. My motor-car is outside. Let us go at once."
"I will follow you in a moment," said John, and pausing only to snatch a handful of money from the safe for incidental expenses, and to tell the boy that he would be back on Monday, he picked up the well-filled week-end bag which he always kept ready, and hurried after the other.
Inside the car Mr Masters was confidential.
"My daughter," he said, "comes of age to-morrow."
"Oh, it's a daughter?" said John, in surprise. "Is she pretty?"
"She is considered to be the prettiest girl in the county."
"Really?" said John. He thought a moment, and added, "Can we stop at a post-office? I must send an important business telegram." He took out a form and wrote:
"Macmacmacmacmac, London. Shall not be back till Wednesday.—BLUNT."
The car stopped and then sped on again.
"Amy has never been any trouble to me," said Mr Masters, "but I am getting old now, and I would give a thousand pounds to see her happily married."
"To whom would you give it," asked John, whipping out his pocket-book.
"Tut, tut, a mere figure of speech. But I would settle a hundred thousand pounds on her on the wedding-day."
"Indeed?" said John thoughtfully. "Can we stop at another post-office?" he added, bringing out his fountain-pen again. He took out a second telegraph form and wrote:
"Macmacmacmacmac, London. Shall not be back till Friday.—BLUNT."
The car dashed on again, and an hour later arrived it a commodious mansion standing in its own well-timbered grounds of upwards of several acres. At the front-door a graceful figure was standing.
"My solicitor, dear, Mr Blunt," said Mr Masters.
"It is very good of you to come all this way on my father's business," she said shyly.
"Not at all," said John. "A week or—or a fortnight—or—" he looked at her again—"or—three weeks, and the thing is done."
"Is making a will so very difficult?"
"It's a very tricky and complicated affair indeed. However, I think we shall pull it off. Er—might I send an important business telegram?"
"Macmacmacmacmac, London," wrote John. "Very knotty case. Date of return uncertain. Please send more cash for incidental expenses.—BLUNT."
. . . . . . .
Yes, you have guessed what happened. It is an everyday experience in a solicitor's life. John Blunt and Amy Masters were married at St George's, Hanover Square, last May. The wedding was a quiet one, owing to mourning in the bride's family—the result of a too sudden perusal of Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton, Macnaughton & Macnaughton's bill of costs. As Mr Masters said with his expiring breath—he didn't mind paying for our Mr Blunt's skill; nor yet for our Mr Blunt's valuable time—even if most of it was spent in courting Amy; nor, again, for our Mr Blunt's tips to the servants; but he did object to being charged the first-class railway fare both ways when our Mr Blunt had come down and gone up again in the car. And perhaps I ought to add that that is the drawback to this fine profession. One is so often misunderstood.
MR PAUL SAMWAYS was in a mood of deep depression. The artistic temperament is peculiarly subject to these moods, but in Paul's case there was reason why he should take a gloomy view of things. His masterpiece, "The Shot Tower from Battersea Bridge," together with the companion picture, "Battersea Bridge from the Shot Tower," had been purchased by a dealer for seventeen and sixpence. His sepia monochrome, "Night," had brought him an I.O.U. for five shillings. These were his sole earnings for the last six weeks, and starvation stared him in the face.
"If only I had a little capital!" he cried aloud in despair. "Enough to support me until my Academy picture is finished." His Academy picture was a masterly study entitled, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll," and he had been compelled to stop half-way across the Channel through sheer lack of ultramarine.
The clock struck two, reminding him that he had not lunched. He rose wearily and went to the little cupboard which served as a larder. There was but little there to make a satisfying meal—half a loaf of bread, a corner of cheese, and a small tube of Chinese-white. Mechanically he set the things out….
He had finished, and was clearing away, when there came a knock at the door. His charwoman, whose duty it was to clean his brushes every week, came in with a card.
"A lady to see you, sir," she said.
Paul read the card in astonishment.
"The Duchess of Winchester," he exclaimed. "What on earth—Show her in, please." Hastily picking up a brush and the first tube which came to hand, he placed himself in a dramatic position before his easel and set to work.
"How do you do, Mr Samways?" said the
Duchess.
"G—good-afternoon," said Paul, embarrassed both by the presence of a duchess in his studio and by his sudden discovery that he was touching up a sunset with a tube of carbolic tooth-paste.
"Our mutual friend, Lord Ernest Topwood, recommended me to come to you."
Paul, who had never met Lord Ernest, but had once seen his name in a ha'penny paper beneath a photograph of Mr Arnold Bennett, bowed silently.
"As you probably guess, I want you to paint my daughter's portrait."
Paul opened his mouth to say that he was only a landscape painter, and then closed it again. After all, it was hardly fair to bother her Grace with technicalities.
"I hope you can undertake this commission," she said pleadingly.
"I shall be delighted," said Paul. "I am rather busy just now, but I could begin at two o'clock on Monday."
"Excellent," said the Duchess. "Till Monday, then." And Paul, still clutching the tooth-paste, conducted her to her carriage.
Punctually at 3.15 on Monday Lady Hermione appeared. Paul drew a deep breath of astonishment when he saw her, for she was lovely beyond compare. All his skill as a landscape painter would be needed if he were to do justice to her beauty. As quickly as possible he placed her in position and set to work.
"May I let my face go for a moment?" said Lady Hermione after three hours of it.
"Yes, let us stop," said Paul. He had outlined her in charcoal and burnt cork, and it would be too dark to do any more that evening.
"Tell me where you first met Lord Ernest?" she asked as she came down to the fire.
"At the Savoy, in June," said Paul boldly.
Lady Hermione laughed merrily. Paul, who had not regarded his last remark as one of his best things, looked at her in surprise.
"But your portrait of him was in the Academy in May!" she smiled.
Paul made up his mind quickly.
"Lady Hermione," he said with gravity, "do not speak to me of Lord Ernest again. Nor," he added hurriedly, "to Lord Ernest of me. When your picture is finished I will tell you why. Now it is time you went." He woke the Duchess up, and made a few commonplace remarks about the weather. "Remember," he whispered to Lady Hermione as he saw them to their car. She nodded and smiled.
The sittings went on daily. Sometimes Paul would paint rapidly with great sweeps of the brush; sometimes he would spend an hour trying to get on his palette the exact shade of green bice for the famous Winchester emeralds; sometimes in despair he would take a sponge and wipe the whole picture out, and then start madly again. And sometimes he would stop work altogether and tell Lady Hermione about his home-life in Worcestershire. But always, when he woke the Duchess up at the end of the sitting, he would say, "Remember!" and Lady Hermione would nod back at him.
It was a spring-like day in March when the picture was finished, and nothing remained to do but to paint in the signature.
"It is beautiful!" said Lady Hermione, with enthusiasm. "Beautiful!Is it at all like me?"
Paul looked from her to the picture, and back to her again.
"No," he said, "not a bit. You know, I am really a landscape painter."
"What do you mean?" she cried. "You are Peter Samways, A.R.A., the famous portrait painter!"
"No," he said sadly. "That was my secret. I am Paul Samways. A member of the Amateur Rowing Association, it is true, but only an unknown landscape painter. Peter Samways lives in the next studio, and he is not even a relation."
"Then you have deceived me! You have brought me here under false pretences!" She stamped her foot angrily. "My father will not buy that picture, and I forbid you to exhibit it as a portrait of myself."
"My dear Lady Hermione," said Paul, "you need not be alarmed. I propose to exhibit the picture as 'When the Heart is Young.' Nobody will recognize a likeness to you in it. And if the Duke does not buy it I have no doubt that some other purchaser will come along."
Lady Hermione looked at him thoughtfully. "Why did you do it?" she asked gently.
"Because I fell in love with you."
She dropped her eyes, and then raised them gaily to his. "Mother is still asleep," she whispered.
"Hermione!" he cried, dropping his palette and putting his brush behind his ear.
She held out her arms to him.
. . . . . . .
As everybody remembers, "When the Heart is Young," by Paul Samways, was the feature of the Exhibition. It was bought for 10,000 pounds by a retired bottle manufacturer, whom it reminded a little of his late mother. Paul woke to find himself famous. But the success which began for him from this day did not spoil his simple and generous nature. He never forgot his brother artists, whose feet were not yet on the top of the ladder. Indeed, one of his first acts after he was married was to give a commission to Peter Samways, A.R.A.—nothing less than the painting of his wife's portrait. And Lady Hermione was delighted with the result.
The New Bailey was crowded with a gay and fashionable throng. It was a remarkable case of shop-lifting. Aurora Delaine, nineteen, was charged with feloniously stealing and conveying certain articles, the property of the Universal Stores, to wit thirty-five yards of bock muslin, ten pairs of gloves, a sponge, two gimlets, five jars of cold cream, a copy of the Clergy List, three hat-guards, a mariner's compass, a box of drawing-pins, an egg-breaker, six blouses, and a cabman's whistle. The theft had been proved by Albert Jobson, a shopwalker, who gave evidence to the effect that he followed her through the different departments and saw her take the things mentioned in the indictment.
"Just a moment," interrupted the Judge. "Who is defending the prisoner?"
There was an unexpected silence. Rupert Carleton, who had dropped idly into court, looked round in sudden excitement. The poor girl had no counsel! What if he—yes, he would seize the chance! He stood up boldly. "I am, my lord," he said.
Rupert Carleton was still in the twenties, but he had been a briefless barrister for some years. Yet, though briefs would not come, he had been very far from idle. He had stood for Parliament in both the Conservative and Liberal interests (not to mention his own), he had written half a dozen unproduced plays, and he was engaged to be married. But success in his own profession had been delayed. Now at last was his opportunity.
He pulled his wig down firmly over his ears, took out a pair of pince-nez and rose to cross-examine. It was the cross-examination which was to make him famous, the cross-examination which is now given as a model in every legal text-book.
"Mr Jobson," he began suavely, "you say that you saw the accused steal these various articles, and that they were afterwards found upon her?"
"Yes."
"I put it to you," said Rupert, and waited intently for the answer, "that that is a pure invention on your part?"
"No."
With a superhuman effort Rupert hid his disappointment. Unexpected as the answer was, he preserved his impassivity.
"I suggest," he tried again, "that you followed her about and concealed this collection of things in her cloak with a view to advertising your winter sale?"
"No. I saw her steal them."
Rupert frowned; the man seemed impervious to the simplest suggestion. With masterly decision he tapped his pince-nez and fell back upon his third line of defence. "You saw her steal them? What you mean is that you saw her take them from the different counters and put them in her bag?"
"Yes."
"With the intention of paying for them in the ordinary way?"
"No."
"Please be very careful. You said in your evidence that the prisoner, when told she would be charged, cried, 'To think that I should have come to this! Will no one save me?' I suggest that she went up to you with her collection of purchases, pulled out her purse, and said, 'What does all this come to? I can't get any one to serve me.'"
"No."
The obstinacy of some people! Rupert put back his pince-nez in his pocket and brought out another pair. The historic cross-examination continued.
"We will let that pass for the moment," he said. He consulted a sheet of paper and then looked sternly at Mr Jobson. "Mr Jobson, how many times have you been married?"
"Once."
"Quite so." He hesitated and then decided to risk it. "I suggest that your wife left you?"
"Yes."
It was a long shot, but once again the bold course had paid. Rupert heaved a sigh of relief.
"Will you tell the gentlemen of the jury," he said with deadly politeness, "WHY she left you?"
"She died."
A lesser man might have been embarrassed, but Rupert's iron nerve did not fail him.
"Exactly!" he said. "And was that or was that not on the night when you were turned out of the Hampstead Parliament for intoxication?"
"I never was."
"Indeed? Will you cast your mind back to the night of April 24th, 1897? What were you doing on that night?"
"I have no idea," said Jobson, after casting his mind back and waiting in vain for some result.
"In that case you cannot swear that you were not being turned out of the Hampstead Parliament—"
"But I never belonged to it."
Rupert leaped at the damaging admission.
"What? You told the Court that you lived at Hampstead, and yet you say that you never belonged to the Hampstead Parliament? Is THAT your idea of patriotism?"
"I said I lived at Hackney."
"To the Hackney Parliament, I should say. I am suggesting that you were turned out of the Hackney Parliament for—"
"I don't belong to that either."
"Exactly!" said Rupert triumphantly. "Having been turned out for intoxication?"
"And never did belong."
"Indeed? May I take it then that you prefer to spend your evenings in the public-house?"
"If you want to know," said Jobson angrily, "I belong to the HackneyChess Circle, and that takes up most of my evenings."
Rupert gave a sigh of satisfaction and turned to the jury.
"At LAST, gentlemen, we have got it. I thought we should arrive at the truth in the end, in spite of Mr Jobson's prevarications." He turned to the witness. "Now, sir," he said sternly, "you have already told the Court that you have no idea what you were doing on the night of April 24th, 1897. I put it to you once more that this blankness of memory is due to the fact that you were in a state of intoxication on the premises of the Hackney Chess Circle. Can you swear on your oath that this is not so?"
A murmur of admiration for the relentless way in which the truth had been tracked down ran through the court. Rupert drew himself up and put on both pairs of pince-nez at once.
"Come, sir!" he said, "the jury is waiting." But it was not Albert Jobson who answered. It was the counsel for the prosecution. "My lord," he said, getting up slowly, "this has come as a complete surprise to me. In the circumstances, I must advise my clients to withdraw from the case."
"A very proper decision," said his lordship. "The prisoner is discharged without a stain on her character."
. . . . . . .
Briefs poured in upon Rupert next day, and he was engaged for all the big Chancery cases. Within a week his six plays were accepted, and within a fortnight he had entered Parliament as the miners' Member for Coalville. His marriage took place at the end of a month. The wedding presents were even more numerous and costly than usual, and included thirty-five yards of book muslin, ten pairs of gloves, a sponge, two gimlets, five jars of cold cream, a copy of the Clergy List, three hat-guards, a mariner's compass, a box of drawing-pins, an egg-breaker, six blouses, and a cabman's whistle. They were marked quite simply, "From a Grateful Friend."
It was three o'clock, and the afternoon sun reddened the western windows of one of the busiest of Government offices. In an airy room on the third floor Richard Dale was batting. Standing in front of the coal-box with the fire-shovel in his hands, he was a model of the strenuous young Englishman; and as for the third time he turned the Government india-rubber neatly in the direction of square-leg, and so completed his fifty, the bowler could hardly repress a sigh of envious admiration. Even the reserved Matthews, who was too old for cricket, looked up a moment from his putting, and said, "Well played, Dick!"
The fourth occupant of the room was busy at his desk, as if to give the lie to the thoughtless accusation that the Civil Service cultivates the body at the expense of the mind. The eager shouts of the players seemed to annoy him, for he frowned and bit his pen, or else passed his fingers restlessly through his hair.
"How the dickens you expect any one to think in this confounded noise," he cried suddenly.
"What's the matter, Ashby?"
"You're the matter. How am I going to get these verses done for The Evening Surprise if you make such a row? Why don't you go out to tea?"
"Good idea. Come on, Dale. You coming, Matthews?" They went out, leaving the room to Ashby.
In his youth Harold Ashby had often been told by his relations that he had a literary bent. His letters home from school were generally pronounced to be good enough for Punch, and some of them, together with a certificate of character from his Vicar, were actually sent to that paper. But as he grew up he realized that his genius was better fitted for work of a more solid character. His post in the Civil Service gave him full leisure for his Adam: A Fragment, his History of the Microscope, and his Studies in Rural Campanology, and yet left him ample time in which to contribute to the journalism of the day.
The poem he was now finishing for The Evening Surprise was his first contribution to that paper, but he had little doubt that it would be accepted. It was called quite simply, "Love and Death," and it began like this:
"Love! O love! (All other things above).—Why, O why, Am I afraid to die?"
There were six more lines which I have forgotten, but I suppose they gave the reason for this absurd diffidence.
Having written the poem out neatly, Harold put it in an envelope and took it round to The Evening Surprise. The strain of composition had left him rather weak, and he decided to give his brain a rest for the next few days. So it happened that he was at the wickets on the following Wednesday afternoon when the commissionaire brought him in the historic letter. He opened it hastily, the shovel under his arm.
"DEAR SIR," wrote the editor of The Surprise, "will you come round and see me as soon as convenient?"
Harold lost no time. Explaining that he would finish his innings later, he put his coat on, took his hat and stick, and dashed out.
"How do you do?" said the editor. "I wanted to talk to you about your work. We all liked your little poem very much. It will be coming out to-morrow."
"Thursday," said Harold helpfully.
"I was wondering whether we couldn't get you to join our staff. Does the idea of doing 'Aunt Miriam's Cosy Corner' in our afternoon edition appeal to you at all?"
"No," said Harold, "not a bit."
"Ah, that's a pity." He tapped his desk thoughtfully. "Well then, how would you like to be a war correspondent?"
"Very much," said Harold. "I was considered to write rather good letters home from school."
"Splendid! There's this little war in Mexico. When can you start? All expenses and fifty pounds a week. You're not very busy at the office, I suppose, just now?"
"I could get sick leave easily enough," said Harold, "if it wasn't for more than eight or nine months."
"Do; that will be excellent. Here's a blank cheque for your outfit. Can you get off to-morrow? But I suppose you'll have one or two things to finish up at the office first?"
"Well," said Harold cautiously, "I WAS in, and I'd made ninety-six. But if I go back and finish my innings now, and then have to-morrow for buying things, I could get off on Friday."
"Good," said the editor. "Well, here's luck. Come back alive if you can, and if you do we shan't forget you."
Harold spent the next day buying a war correspondent's outfit:—the camel, the travelling bath, the putties, the pith helmet, the quinine, the sleeping-bag, and the thousand-and-one other necessities of active service. On the Friday his colleagues at the office came down in a body to Southampton to see him off. Little did they think that nearly a year would elapse before he again set foot upon England.
I shall not describe all his famous coups in Mexico. Sufficient to say that experience taught him quickly all that he had need to learn; and that whereas he was more than a week late with his cabled account of the first engagement of the war, he was frequently more than a week early afterwards. Indeed, the battle of Parson's Nose, so realistically described in his last telegram, is still waiting to be fought. It is to be hoped that it will be in time for his aptly-named book, With the Mexicans in Mexico, which is coming out next month.
On his return to England Harold found that time had wrought many changes. To begin with, the editor of The Evening Surprise had passed on to The Morning Exclamation.
"You had better take his place," said the ducal proprietor toHarold.
"Right," said Harold. "I suppose I shall have to resign my post at the office?"
"Just as you like. I don't see why you should."
"I should miss the cricket," said Harold wistfully, "and the salary.I'll go round and see what I can arrange."
But there were also changes at the office. Harold had been rising steadily in salary and seniority during his absence, and he found to his delight that he was now a Principal Clerk. He found, too, that he had acquired quite a reputation in the office for quickness and efficiency in his new work.
The first thing to arrange about was his holiday. He had had no holiday for more than a year, and there were some eight weeks owing to him.
"Hullo," said the Assistant Secretary as Harold came in, "you're looking well. I suppose you manage to get away for the week-ends?"
"I've been away on sick leave for some time," said Harold pathetically.
"Have you? You've kept it very secret. Come out and have lunch with me, and we'll do a matinee afterwards."
Harold went out with him happily. It would be pleasant to accept the editorship of The Evening Surprise without giving up the Governmental work which was so dear to him, and the Assistant Secretary's words made this possible for a year or so anyhow. Then, when his absence from the office first began to be noticed, it would be time to think of retiring on an adequate pension.
Mr Levinski, the famous actor-manager, dragged himself from beneath the car, took the snow out of his mouth, and swore heartily. Mortal men are liable to motor accidents; even kings' cars have backfired; but it seems strange that actor-managers are not specially exempt from these occurrences. Mr Levinski was not only angry; he was also a little shocked. When an actor-manager has to walk two miles to the nearest town on a winter evening one may be pardoned a doubt as to whether all is quite right with the world.
But the completest tragedy has its compensations for some one. The pitiable arrival of Mr Levinski at "The Duke's Head," unrecognized and with his fur coat slightly ruffled, might make a sceptic of the most devout optimist, and yet Eustace Merrowby can never look back upon that evening without a sigh of thankfulness; for to him it was the beginning of his career. The story has often been told since—in about a dozen weekly papers, half a dozen daily papers and three dozen provincial papers—but it will always bear telling again.
There was no train to London that night, and Mr Levinski had been compelled to put up at "The Duke's Head." However, he had dined and was feeling slightly better. He summoned the manager of the hotel.
"What does one do in this dam place?" he asked with a yawn.
The manager, instantly recognizing that he was speaking to a member of the aristocracy, made haste to reply. Othello was being played at the town theatre. His daughter, who had already been three times, told him that it was simply sweet. He was sure his lordship …
Mr Levinski dismissed him, and considered the point. He had to amuse himself with something that evening, and the choice apparently lay between Othello and the local Directory. He picked up the Directory. By a lucky chance for Eustace Merrowby it was three years old. Mr Levinski put on his fur coat and went to see Othello.
For some time he was as bored as he had expected to be, but half-way through the Third Act he began to wake up. There was something in the playing of the principal actor which moved him strangely. He looked at his programme. "Othello—Mr EUSTACE MERROWBY." Mr Levinski frowned thoughtfully. "Merrowby?" he said to himself. "I don't know the name, but he's the man I want." He took out the gold pencil presented to him by the Emperor—(the station-master had had a tie-pin)—and wrote a note.
He was finishing breakfast next morning when Mr Merrowby was announced.
"Ah, good-morning," said Mr Levinski, "good-morning. You find me very busy," and here he began to turn the pages of the Directory backwards and forwards, "but I can give you a moment. What is it you want?"
"You asked me to call on you," said Eustace.
"Did I, did I?" He passed his hand across his brow with a noblegesture. "I am so busy, I forget. Ah, now I remember. I saw you playOthello last night. You are the man I want. I am producing 'OomBaas,' the great South African drama, next April at my theatre.Perhaps you know?"
"I have read about it in the papers," said Eustace. In all the papers (he might have added) every day, for the last six months.
"Good. Then you may have heard that one of the scenes is an ostrich farm. I want you to play 'Tommy.'"
"One of the ostriches?" asked Eustace.
"I do not offer the part of an ostrich to a man who has played Othello. Tommy is the Kaffir boy who looks after the farm. It is a black part, like your present one, but not so long. In London you cannot expect to take the leading parts just yet."
"This is very kind of you," cried Eustace gratefully. "I have always longed to get to London. And to start in your theatre!—it's a wonderful chance."
"Good," said Mr Levinski. "Then that's settled." He waved Eustace away and took up the Directory again with a business-like air.
And so Eustace Merrowby came to London. It is a great thing for a young actor to come to London. As Mr Levinski had warned him, his new part was not so big as that of Othello; he had to say "Hofo tsetse!"—which was alleged to be Kaffir for "Down, sir!"—to the big ostrich. But to be at the St George's Theatre at all was an honour which most men would envy him, and his association with a real ostrich was bound to bring him before the public in the pages of the illustrated papers.
Eustace, curiously enough, was not very nervous on the first night. He was fairly certain that he was word-perfect; and if only the ostrich didn't kick him in the back of the neck—as it had tried to once at rehearsal—the evening seemed likely to be a triumph for him. And so it was with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation that, on the morning after, he gathered the papers round him at breakfast, and prepared to read what the critics had to say.
He had a remarkable Press. I give a few examples of the notices he obtained from the leading papers:
"Mr Eustace Merrowby was Tommy."—Daily Telegraph.
"The cast included Mr Eustace Merrowby."—Times.
"… Mr Eustace Merrowby…"—Daily Chronicle.
"We have no space in which to mention all the other performers."—Morning Leader.
"This criticism only concerns the two actors we have mentioned, and does not apply to the rest of the cast."—Sportsman.
"Where all were so good, it would be invidious to single out anybody for special praise."—Daily Mail.
"The acting deserved a better play."—Daily News.
"… Tommy…"—Morning Post.
As Eustace read the papers, he felt that his future was secure. True, The Era, careful never to miss a single performer, had yet to say, "Mr Eustace Merrowby was capital as Tommy," and The Stage, "Tommy was capitally played by Mr Eustace Merrowby"; but even without this he had become one of the Men who Count—one whose private life was of more interest to the public than that of any scientist, general or diplomat in the country.
Into Eustace Merrowby's subsequent career I cannot go at full length. It is perhaps as a member of the Garrick Club that he has attained his fullest development. All the good things of the Garrick which were not previously said by Sydney Smith may safely be put down to Eustace; and there is no doubt that he is the ringleader in all the subtler practical jokes which have made the club famous. It was he who pinned to the back of an unpopular member of the committee a sheet of paper bearing the words
—and the occasion on which he drew the chair from beneath a certain eminent author as the latter was about to sit down is still referred to hilariously by the older members.
Finally, as a convincing proof of his greatness, let it be said that everybody has at least heard the name "Eustace Merrowby"—even though some may be under the impression that it is the trade-mark of a sauce; and that half the young ladies of Wandsworth Common and Winchmore Hill are in love with him. If this be not success, what is?
It is a hard thing to be the younger son of an ancient but impoverished family. The fact that your brother Thomas is taking most of the dibs restricts your inheritance to a paltry two thousand a year, while pride of blood forbids you to supplement this by following any of the common professions. Impossible for a St Verax to be a doctor, a policeman or an architect. He must find some nobler means of existence.
For three years Roger St Verax had lived precariously by betting. To be a St Verax was always to be a sportsman. Roger's father had created a record in the sporting world by winning the Derby and the Waterloo Cup with the same animal—though, in each case, it narrowly escaped disqualification. Roger himself almost created another record by making betting pay. His book, showing how to do it, was actually in the press when disaster overtook him.
He began by dropping (in sporting parlance) a cool thousand on the Jack Joel Selling Plate at Newmarket. On the next race he dropped a cool five hundred, and later on in the afternoon a cool seventy- five pounds ten. The following day found him at Lingfield, where he dropped a cool monkey (to persevere with the language of the racing stable) on the Solly Joel Cup, picked it up on the next race, dropped a cool pony, dropped another cool monkey, dropped a cool wallaby, picked up a cool hippopotamus, and finally, in the last race of the day, dropped a couple of lukewarm ferrets. In short, he was (as they say at Tattersall's Corner) entirely cleaned out.
When a younger son is cleaned out there is only one thing for him to do. Roger St Verax knew instinctively what it was. He bought a new silk hat and a short black coat, and went into the City.
What a wonderful place, dear reader, is the City! You, madam, who read this in your daintily upholstered boudoir, can know but little of the great heart of the City, even though you have driven through its arteries on your way to Liverpool Street Station, and have noted the bare and smoothly brushed polls of the younger natives. You, sir, in your country vicarage, are no less innocent, even though on sultry afternoons you have covered your head with the Financial Supplement of The Times in mistake for the Literary Supplement, and have thus had thrust upon you the stirring news that Bango-Bangos were going up. And I, dear friends, am equally ignorant of the secrets of the Stock Exchange. I know that its members frequently walk to Brighton, and still more frequently stay there; that while finding a home for all the good stories which have been going the rounds for years, they sometimes invent entirely new ones for themselves about the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and that they sing the National Anthem very sternly in unison when occasion demands it. But there must be something more in it than this, or why are Bango-Bangos still going up?
I don't know. And I am sorry to say that even Roger St Verax, a Director of the Bango-Bango Development Company, is not very clear about it all.
It was as a Director of the Bango-Bango Exploration Company that he took up his life in the City. As its name implies, the Company was originally formed to explore Bango-Bango, an impenetrable district in North Australia; but when it came to the point it was found much more profitable to explore Hampstead, Clapham Common, Blackheath, Ealing and other rich and fashionable suburbs. A number of hopeful ladies and gentlemen having been located in these parts, the Company went ahead rapidly, and in 1907 a new prospector was sent out to replace the one who was assumed to have been eaten.
In 1908, Roger first heard the magic word "reconstruction," and to his surprise found himself in possession of twenty thousand pounds and a Directorship of the new Bango-Bango Mining Company.
In 1909 a piece of real gold was identified, and the shares went up like a rocket.
In 1910 the Stock Exchange suddenly woke to the fact that rubber tyres were made of rubber, and in a moment the Great Boom was sprung upon an amazed City. The Bango-Bango Development Company was immediately formed to take over the Bango-Bango Mining Company (together with its prospector, if alive, its plant, shafts and other property, not forgetting the piece of gold) and more particularly to develop the vegetable resources of the district with the view of planting rubber trees in the immediate future. A neatly compiled prospectus put matters very clearly before the stay-at-home Englishman. It explained quite concisely that, supposing the trees were planted so many feet apart throughout the whole property of five thousand square miles, and allowing a certain period for the growth of a tree to maturity, and putting the average yield of rubber per tree at, in round figures, so much, and assuming for the sake of convenience that rubber would remain at its present price, and estimating the cost of working the plantation at say, roughly, 100,000 pounds, why, then it was obvious that the profits would be anything you liked up to two billion a year—while (this was important) more land could doubtless be acquired if the share- holders thought fit. And even if you were certain that a rubber-tree couldn't possibly grow in the Bango-Bango district (as in confidence it couldn't), still it was worth taking shares purely as an investment, seeing how rapidly rubber was going up; not to mention the fact that Roger St Verax, the well-known financier, was a Director … and so on.
In short the Bango-Bango Development Company was, in the language of the City, a safe thing.
Let me hasten to the end of this story. At the end of 1910 Roger was a millionaire; and for quite a week afterwards he used to wonder where all the money had come from. In the old days, when he won a cool thousand by betting, he knew that somebody else had lost a cool thousand by betting, but it did not seem to be so in this case. He had met hundreds of men who had made fortunes through rubber; he had met hundreds who bitterly regretted that they had missed making a fortune; but he had never met any one who had lost a fortune. This made him think the City an even more wonderful place than before.
But before he could be happy there remained one thing for him to do; he must find somebody to share his happiness. He called on his old friend, Mary Brown, one Sunday.
"Mary," he said, with the brisk confidence of the City man, "I find I'm disengaged next Tuesday. Will you meet me at St George's Church at two? I should like to show you the curate and the vestry, and one or two things like that."
"Why, what's happened?"
"I am a millionaire," said Roger calmly. "So long as I only had my beggarly pittance, I could not ask you to marry me. There was nothing for it but to wait in patience. It has been a long weary wait, dear, but the sun has broken through the clouds at last. I am now in a position to support a wife. Tuesday at two," he went on, consulting his pocket diary; "or I could give you half an hour on Monday morning."
"But why this extraordinary hurry? Why mayn't I be married properly, with presents and things?"
"My dear," said Roger reproachfully, "you forget. I am a City man now, and it is imperative that I should be married at once. Only a married man, with everything in his wife's name, can face with confidence the give and take of the bustling City."