Erbentered upon his duties with appetite. The single office of the new society was a spare room over a coffee tavern in Grange Road, and the first disbursement was for the painting on the window in bold white letters the full title of the society, with the added words, “Herbert Barnes, secretary.” (Young Louisa went five minutes out of her way, morning and evening, in order to see this proclamation of her brother’s name.) To the office came Erb promptly every morning at an hour when the attendants at the coffee-room were on their knees scrubbing, chairs set high on tables, and forms on end against the walls, and the young women were a good deal annoyed by the fact that Erb, in these circumstances, bestowed on them none of the chaff and badinage which were as necessary to their existence as the very air. When he had gone through the post letters—the more there were of these the more contented he was—and had answered them on post-cards, he went out, fixing a notice on the door, “Back Shortly. Any messages leave at Bar,” and hurried to some railway depot, or some point where railway carmen were likely to congregate, hurrying non-members into becoming members, passing the word round in regard to publicmeetings, hunting for grievances, and listening always, even when some, with erroneous ideas of his duties, requested advice in regard to some domestic trouble with lodgers, or insubordination on the part of babes. All this meant visits to Paddington, to Willesden, to Dalston, to Poplar, to Nine Elms: it gave to him a fine sensation of ruling London and, in some way, the thought that he was repairing errors made by the Creator of the world. He came in contact with the white-haired Labour member of Parliament, and watched his manner closely; the Labour member invited Erb one evening to the House of Commons, and Erb found that the Labour member had for the House a style differing entirely from that which he used in other places, measuring words with care, speaking with deliberation, and avoiding all the colloquialisms and the jagged sentences that made him popular when he addressed outdoor meetings. And as all young men starting the journey through life model themselves on some one who has arrived, Erb determined to acquire this admirable alternative manner.
Thus it was that one Thursday evening he took courage by the hand, and went Camberwell way to call again at the house where on his previous visit he had made undignified departure because of a pair of rather bright eyes. He thought of her with some nervousness as he went down Camberwell New Road, and, putting aside for a moment the serious matters, gave himself the joy of reviewing his female acquaintances. He had just come tothe sage decision that different women exacted entirely different tributes, some demanding reverence, others admiration, and others something more fervent, when he found himself at the gate and the uneven path between the monumental statuary that led to the door of Professor Danks’s house. The street was one affecting to make a short cut to Queen’s Road, Peckham, but it did not really make a short cut; within its crescent form it included new model dwellings of a violent red, elderly houses with red verandahs, a Liberal Club, and a chapel. A part of the road had undergone the process of being shopped, which is to say that the long useless front gardens had been utilised, and anxious, empty, unsuccessful young establishments came out to the pavement, expending all their profits on gas, and making determined efforts either by placard or minatory signs to persuade the passers-by that business was enormous, and that it was with difficulty that customers could be checked in their desire to patronise. One had started with the proud boast, “Everything at Sixpence-halfpenny,” and had later altered the six to five, and the five to four; only necessary to allow time, and there seemed some good prospect that the reckless shop would eventually give its contents free. Erb pulled at the bell handle, and it came out obligingly.
“Now you ’ave gone and done it,” said the small servant who opened the door. “That’s clever, that is. I suppose you get medals for doing tricks like that? Well, well,” she continued fractiously,as Erb made no reply, “don’t stand there like a great gawk with the knob in your ’and. What d’you want?”
“Might Professor Danks be in?” asked Erb.
“He might and he might not,” explained the small servant. “He’s jest sleepin’ it off a bit on the sofa.”
“Can I see anyone else?”
“Come in,” said the girl with a burst of friendliness. “Never mind about wipin’ your boots; it’s getting to the end of the week. You could seeherif you didn’t mind waiting till she’s finished giving a lesson.”
“Shall I wait here in the passage?”
“Don’t disturb him,” whispered the girl, “if I let you rest your weary bones in the back room.” She opened the door of the back room quietly. “She’sas right as rain,” whispered the girl confidently, “buthe—” The girl gave an expressive wave of the hand, signifying that the Professor was not indispensable to the world’s happiness. Erb went in. “I’d stay and chat to you,” she said through the doorway, “only there’s my ironin’. I’ve got the ’ole ’ouse to look after, mind you, besides answering the front door.”
“Takes a bit of doing, no doubt.”
“You never said a truer word,” whispered the short servant. “There’s pictures in that magazine you can look at. If you want me, ’oller ‘Lizer!’ over the banisters.”
Professor Danks, asleep on the sofa, had theEraover his face for better detachment from a wakeful world: the paper was slipping gradually, and Erb, watching him over the top of the book, knew that the eclipse would be over and the features fully visible in a few minutes. Meanwhile, he noticed that the Professor was a large, heavy man, with snowy hair at one end, and slippers which had walked along muddy pavements at the other; not a man, apparently, of active habits.
“I fear I shall never make anything of you,” her decided voice came from the front room. “You don’t pay attention. You don’t seem to remember what I tell you.”
“Mustn’t be too harsh with my husband, miss,” said a voice with the South London whine. “We all have to make a beginning, don’t forget that.”
“Now, sir. Once more, please, we’ll go through this piece of poetry. And when you say the first lines, ‘Give others the flags of foreign states,’ show some animation; don’t say the words casually, as though you were talking of the weather.”
“You understand, miss,” interposed the pupil’s wife, “that he’s made up the words out of his own head.”
“I am sure of that,” with a touch of sarcasm.
“But, whilst he’s very clever in putting poetry together, he is not so good—I’m speaking, Albert dear, for your own benefit—he is not so good in reciting of them. And we go out into Society a great deal (there’s two parties on at New Cross only next month that we’re asked to), and what Ithought was that it would be so nice any time when an evening began to go a bit slow for me to say casually, ye know, ‘Albert, what about that piece you made up yourself?’ Then for him to get up and recite it in a gentlemanly way.”
“Come now,” said the instructress, “‘Give others the flags of foreign states, I care not for them a jot.’”
“Of course,” interposed the wife again, “his high-pitched voice is against him, but that’s his misfortune, not his fault. Also you may think that he’s left it rather late to take up with elocution. If we’d ever had any children of our own—”
“I really think,” said the girl, “that we must get on with the lesson. Now, sir, if you please. ‘Give others the flags.’”
TheErahad slipped from the Professor’s red face, and the swollen, poached-egg eyes moved, the heavy eyelids made one or two reluctant efforts to unclose. The room, Erb thought, looked as though it were troubled by opposing forces, one anxious to keep it neat and keep it comfortable, the other with entirely different views, and baulking these efforts with some success. Erb saw the household clearly and felt a desire to range himself on the side of order.
“Good evening,” he said, when the leaden eyelids had decided to open. “Having your little nap, sir?”
The Professor sat up, kneading his eyes and then rubbing his white hair violently.
“I have been,” he said, in a voice that would have sounded important if it had not been hoarse, “making a brief excursion into the land of dreams.” He clicked his tongue. “And a devil of a mouth I’ve got on me, too.” He rose heavily and went to a bamboo table where two syphons were standing, tried them, and found they were empty. “A curse,” he said, “on both your houses.”
“I’ve called about some lessons.”
“Lessons!” repeated the Professor moodily. “That I, Reginald Danks, should be reduced to this! I, who might have been at the Lyceum at the present moment but for fate and Irving. How many lessons,” he asked with a change of manner, “do you require, laddie?”
“I thought about six,” said Erb.
“Make it a dozen. We offer thirteen for the price of twelve.”
“What would that number run me into? I want them more for public speaking than anything else.”
“We shall do the whole bag of tricks for you,” said the Professor, placing an enormous hand on Erb’s shoulder, “for a mere trifle.”
“Who is ‘we?’”
“Rather should you say, ‘To whom is it that you refer?’ In this self-appointed task of imparting the principles of voice production and elocution to the—to the masses,” the Professor seemed to restrain himself forcibly from using a contumelious adjective, “I have the advantage of valuableassistance from my daughter. Her system is my system, her methods are my methods, her rules are my rules. If at any time I should be called away on professional business,” here the Professor passed his hand over his lip, “my daughter, Rosalind, takes my place. What is your age?”
Erb gave the information.
“Ah,” the Professor sighed deeply, “in ’74 I was with Barry Sullivan doing the principal towns in a repertoire. No, I’m telling you a lie. It was not in ’74. It was in the autumn of ’73. I played Rosencrantz and the First Grave-digger—an enormous success.”
“Which?”
“I went from Barry Sullivan to join the ‘Murderous Moment’ Company, and that,” said the Professor, striking his waistcoat, “was perhaps one of the biggest triumphs ever witnessed on the dramatic stage. From that hour, sir, from that hour I never looked back.”
The high-voiced pupil in the front room finished his lesson, and his wife took him off with the congratulatory remark that he promised well to make her relatives at forthcoming parties sit up with astonishment. The Professor’s daughter, seeing them both to the front door, remarked that her pupil would be able to find his way alone the next time, whereupon the pupil’s wife answered darkly, “Do you really think I should let him go out?”
“Shall I settle with you?” asked Erb.
“My daughter Rosalind,” said the Professorregretfully, “insists, as a general rule, on taking charge of the business side, but on this occasion—”
“If that’s the rule,” interrupted Erb, “don’t let’s break it. I don’t want any misunderstanding about matters of cash.”
“There have been times in my life, sir, when money has been as nothing to me. Will you believe that there was a time in my professional career when I earnt twenty guineas—twenty of the best—per week?”
“Since you ask me, my answer is ‘No.’”
“You are quite right,” said the Professor, and in no way disconcerted. “Let us be exact in our statements or perish. Not twenty guineas, twenty pounds. But that,” he went on rather hurriedly, “that was at a time when real acting, sir, was appreciated. Nowadays they walk in from the streets. Ee-locution is a lost art; acting, real acting, is not to be seen on the London boards. If you have a cigarette about you, I can get a light from the fireplace.”
Erb acted upon this hint, and listened for the girl’s voice.
“Her mother,” went on the Professor, puffing at the cigarette, and then looking at it disparagingly, “her mother before she fell ill—mind, I’m not complaining—was perhaps, without exception, the most diversified arteest that ever graced the dramatic stage. Ingénue, old woman, soubrette, nothing came amiss to her. That was the differencebetween us—she liked work. And when, just before the end, when I’d been out of engagement for some time, she had an offer for the pair of us, two pounds ten the couple, such was her indomitable spirit that she actually wanted to accept it. But I said ‘No.’ I put my foot down. I admit,” said the Professor genially, “that I lost my temper with her. I told her pretty definitely that I had made up my mind—”
“Yourwhat?” inquired Erb.
“That poverty I could face, dee-privation I could endure, hunger and thirst I could welcome with o-pen arms, but a contemptuous proposition such as this I could not, should not, and would not tolerate. I repeated this,” added the Professor with a fine roll and a sweep of the left hand, “at the inquest.”
“You’re a nice one, I don’t think,” said Erb critically. “How is it they let you live on?”
“Laddie,” said the Professor, tearfully, “my life is not an enviable one even now. My own daughter—Soft!—she comes.”
It occurred to Erb later that in his anxiety to show himself a careless, self-possessed fellow, he rather overdid it, presenting himself in the light of one slightly demented. He nodded his head on formal introduction by the Professor, hummed a cheerful air, and, taking out a packet of cigarette papers, blew at one, and recollecting, twisted the detached slip into a butterfly shape and puffed it to the ceiling. The girl looked at him, at her father, then again atErb. She had a pencil resting between the buttons of her pink blouse, and but for a slight contraction of the forehead that is the public sign of private worry, would have been a very happy-looking young person indeed.
“A would-be student,” said her father with a proud wave of the hand towards Erb, as though he had just made him, “a would-be student, my love: one anxious to gain at our hands the principles of voice pro-duction and ee-locution.”
“When do you propose to begin, sir?” she asked, limping slightly as she went to a desk.
“Soon as your father’s ready, miss.”
“I have heard you speak in the park.”
“Most people have!” replied Erb, with a fine assumption of indifference.
“I’ll just register your name, please.”
“Our sys-tem,” said the Professor oracularly, as Erb bent over her and gave the information (there was a pleasant warm scent from her hair), “is to conduct everything in a perfectly businesslike manner. I remember on one occasion Mr. Phelps said to me, ‘Danks, my dear young friend, never, never—’ My dear Rosalind, give me the word. What was it,” the Professor tapped his large forehead reprovingly, “what was it I was talking about?”
“I don’t think it matters, father. You pay in advance, please,” she said to Erb. “Thank you. I’m not sure that I have sufficient change in the house.”
“I will step down the road,” suggested the Professor with a slight excess of eagerness, “and obtain the necessary—”
“No, father.”
“Think I’ve got just enough silver,” said Erb.
“Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”
Good to be called Mister, better still to find it accompanied by a smile of gratitude that somehow also intimated comradeship and a defensive alliance against the ingenious Professor. The Professor, affecting to examine a pimple on his chin at the mirror, looked at his daughter’s reflection in an appealing way; but she shook her head quickly. The Professor sighed and, turning back the cuffs of his shirt, put on an elderly velvet jacket.
“I have some work to do downstairs,” she said, with a curt little bow to Erb. “You will excuse me.”
“Only too pleased, miss,” he said blunderingly.
“Father, you will give Mr. Barnes an hour, please, in the front room. I will come up when the time is—”
“Then I needn’t say good-bye,” remarked Erb gallantly.
The Professor in the front room declaimed to the new pupil a passage from the “Merchant of Venice,” from the centre of the carpet, and then invited him to repeat it, which Erb did, the Professor arresting him at every line, correcting the accent with acerbity and calling attention to the aspirates with something like tears. “Why don’tyou speak naturally, sir?” demanded the Professor, hitting his own chest with his fist, “as I dew?” At the end of twenty minutes, when the Professor had furnished some really valuable rules in regard to the artifices of voice production, he gave a sudden dramatic start, and begged Erb for pity’s sake not to tell him that the day was Thursday and the hour half-past seven. On Erb admitting his inability to give him other information without stepping beyond the confines of truth, the Professor strode up and down the worn carpet in a state of great agitation, declaring that unless he were in the Strand by eight fifteen, or, at the very latest, eight twenty that evening, he would, in all probability, lose the chance of a lifetime.
“What am I to do?” he asked imploringly. “I appeal to you, laddie? Show me where duty calls?”
On Erb suggesting that perhaps Miss Rosalind would finish the lesson, the Professor shook him warmly by both hands and ordered heaven in a dictatorial way to rain down blessings on the head of his pupil. One difficulty remained. Time pressed, and every moment was (in all probability) golden. Could Mr. Barnes, as an old friend, oblige with half a—no, not half a crown, two shillings. The Professor, in the goodness of his heart, did not mind four sixpences, and hurrying out into the passage, struggled into a long brown overcoat of the old Newmarket shape, took his soft hat, and, having called over the banisters to his daughter to favourhim with a moment’s conversation, bustled through the passage whispering to Erb, “You can explain better than I,” and going out, closed the door quietly. There were signs of flour on the girl’s plump arms as she came up; she rolled down the sleeves of the pink blouse as she entered the front room. Her forehead contracted as she listened.
“How much did he borrow?” she asked, checking a sigh.
“Nothing,” replied Erb boldly.
“Two shillings or a half a crown?”
“But I couldn’t possibly think for a moment—” he began protestingly.
“I wish you had,” she said. “Take it, please. I don’t want father to run into debt if I can help it.”
“Makes me feel as though I’m robbing you.”
“Do you know,” said Miss Rosalind, with not quite half a smile, “it makes me feel as though I were being robbed. Let us get on with the lesson, please; I have another pupil coming at half-past eight.” Erb, for a hot moment, was consumed with unreasonable jealousy of the next pupil. “She is always punctual,” added Rosalind, and Erb became cooler. “Take this book, please, and read aloud the passage I have marked.”
There were faded photographs on the mantelpiece of ladies with exuberant smiles, calculated to disarm any criticism in regard to their eccentric attire, their signatures sprawled across the lower right hand corner, “Ever yours most affectionate!” A frame that had seen stormy days outside provincialtheatres hung on the wall with the address of its last exhibition half rubbed off. Erb as he listened to the girl’s serious corrections and warning, guessed that the half-dozen portraits it contained were all of Rosalind’s mother; they ranged from one as Robinson Crusoe with a white muff to a more matronly representation of (judging from her hat) a designing Frenchwoman holding a revolver in one hand, and clearly prepared to use this. In another she was fondling a child, whose head and face were almost covered by a stage wig, and the child bore some far-away resemblance to the present instructress. On Rosalind limping across the room to place on the fire an economical lump of coal, Erb framed an expression of sympathy; common-sense most fortunately gagged him.
“You left school when you were very young?” said the girl, looking over her shoulder from the fireplace.
“Pawsed the sixth standard when I was—”
“Oh, please, please! Don’t say pawsed.”
“I passed the sixth standard when I was twelve, because I had to. Father was Kentish born, mother wasn’t. Both died in the”—Rosalind put her hands apprehensively to her ears—“in the hospital in one week, both in one week, and I had to set to and get shot of the Board School and go out.”
“As?” she asked curiously.
“As chief of the Transport Department to the principal railway companies,” said Erb glibly, “andpersonal friend, and, I may say, adviser to his Royal—”
“We will proceed,” said Rosalind, haughty on the receipt of sarcasm, “with the lesson, please. There is much to be done in the way of eradicating errors in your speech.”
The reliable lady pupil due at eight thirty spoilt her record by arriving half an hour late. Thus, when Erb’s lesson was finished and the clock on the mantelpiece gave the hour in a hurried asthmatic way, there was still time for polite conversation on a variety of topics; the house, Erb discovered, was not theirs, they only occupied furnished apartments; they had lived in many parts of London, because, said Rosalind cautiously, the Professor liked a change now and again. Erb backed slowly towards the door as each subject was discussed, anxious to stay as long as possible, but more anxious still to make his exit with some clever impressive final remark. He found her book of notices, and insisted politely on reading the neatly pasted slips cut from the “Hornsey Express,” the “South London Journal,” the “Paddington Magpie,” and other newspapers of repute, which said “Miss Rosalind Danks in her recitals made the hit of the evening, and the same may be said of all the other artists on the programme.” That “Miss R. Danks, as our advertisement column shows, is to give An Evening with the Poets and Humorists at our Town Hall on Thursday evening. We wish her a bumper.” That “Miss Rosalind Danks’snaïvetéof manner andgeneralchicenabled her in an American contribution to score a terrific ‘succés d’estime.’ She narrowly escaped an enthusiasticencore.” That “Miss Danks lacks some of the charms necessary for a good platform appearance—”
“I’d like to argue the point with the man who wrote that,” said Erb.
“They have to fill the paper with something,” remarked Miss Rosalind.
“For a good platform appearance, but she has a remarkably distinct enunciation, and some of her lines could be heard almost distinctly at the back of the hall.” That “Miss Danks comes of a theatrical stock, and her father is none other than the celebrated Mr. Reginald Danks, whose Antonio still remains in the memory of the few privileged to witness it. Mr. Reginald Danks informs us that he has had several offers from West End theatres, but that he has some idea of going in for management himself as soon as a convenient playhouse can be secured. Of this, more anon.”
It was natural when Erb had looked through these notices that he should find in his pocket two or three copies of a small poster advertising a lecture by him on the forthcoming Sunday evening, at a hall in Walworth Road. “Mr. Herbert Barnes,” said the poster loudly, adding in a lower voice, “Organising Secretary Railway Carmen’s Union, will speak on The Working Man: What Will Become of Him? No collection. Discussion invited.” Erb gave Miss Rosalind one of these asa present, and then said, “Well now, I must be off,” as though he had been detained greatly against his will.
And here it was that Erb made one of those mistakes of commission which the most reliable of us effect at uncertain intervals. He took up the photograph of a fur-coated young man, clean-shaven face, thin lips, and not quite enough of chin.
“And who,” asked Erb pityingly, “who might this young toff be?”
“He is stage manager,” she said rather proudly, “to a company touring in the provinces. Plays too.”
“Relation?”
“Not yet,” said Rosalind.
As Erb blundered through the passage Rosalind warned him to attend to the home-work she had given him to do, and to come promptly to his next lesson; she held the door open until Erb went out of the gate, a new politeness which he acknowledged by lifting his hat. He had never lifted his hat to a lady before, and had always smiled contemptuously when he had seen gallant youths performing this act of respect. To atone for this retrograde movement he ran against the tardily-arriving lady pupil, and went on without apology. The lady pupil ejaculated, “Clown!” and Erb felt that he had righted himself in his own estimation.
He looked about him as he walked up the crowded pavement towards the Elephant and Castle, because it was always one of his duties to recognisethe railway vans. Disappointment clouded his eyes: he blamed himself for so far forgetting the principal duty of his life as to waste time on unremunerative investments. This was why he missed a Brighton goods van standing with its pair of horses near a large shop in Newington Causeway; the van boy reported Erb’s negligence to his mate when he returned, and this coming on the top of other annoying circumstances, the Brighton man said to himself, “This shall be chalked up against you, young Erb.”
Erb reached Page’s Walk, having tried ineffectually to walk himself into a good humour, and found Louisa with a round spot of colour high up on either cheek, looking out of the window of the model dwellings and hailing him excitedly.
“Put that ’ead of yours in,” he counselled. “You’ll go and catch cold.”
“You won’t catch much,” retorted Louisa, “if you don’t arrange to be on ’and when wanted. ’Urry upstairs, I’ve got something to tell you that can’t be bawled.”
Erb ran up the stone stairs, and Louisa met him at the door of the sitting-room, her eyes bigger than ever with the importance. The room had a slight perfume of violets.
“Who d’you think’s been ’ere?”
“Tell us,” said Erb.
“But guess,” begged Louisa, enjoying the power that was hers.
“Can’t guess.”
“Lady Frances,” said Louisa, in an impressive whisper.
“Well,” remarked Erb curtly, “what of it?”
“What of it? Why, she wanted you to show her over Bermondsey, and she waited here upwards of a hower, chatting away to me like anything.”
“Any other news?”
“Yes,” said Louisa reluctantly, “but nothing of much importance. Letter from Aunt Emma; she’s coming up soon. Oh, and a man called to say there was trouble brewin’ at Willer Walk, and would you see about it as soon as possible.”
“Now,” remarked Erb elatedly, “nowyou’re talking.”
Theparticular blend of trouble which Willow Walk was occupied in brewing proved highly attractive to Erb, and one that gave to all the men concerned a taste of the joys that must have come in the French Revolution. A few impetuous young spirits who had been brooding on grievances since the days when they were van boys were responsible. Erb recognised that here was the first opportunity of justifying his appointment. Warned, however, by the example of other organisers within memory, who had sometimes in similar experiments shown a tendency to excess, Erb took care. He wrote letters to the General Manager, letters for which he received a printed form of acknowledgment and no other, he wrote to the Directors, and received a brief reply to the effect that they could not recognise Mr. Herbert Barnes in the matter, and that the grievances of the staff concerned only the staff and themselves; the men were bitterly annoyed at this, but Erb, because he had anticipated the reply, showed no concern. He worked from dawn near to dawn again, sending letters to members of Parliament, going round to the depots of other railways, attending meetings, and in many ways devoting himself to the work of what he calleddirecting public opinion. In point of fact, he had first to create it. For a good fortnight he gave up everything to devote himself to this one object, gave up everything but his lessons in Camberwell. One of the halfpenny evening papers said, amongst other things, “Mr. Herbert Barnes made an impassioned but logical and excellently delivered speech.” Erb knew the deplorable looking man with a silk hat of the early seventies who had reported this, but that did not prevent him from being highly gratified on seeing the words in print; Louisa spent eighteenpence on a well-bound manuscript book, and in it commenced to paste these notices. The point at issue being that the men demanded better payment of overtime, Erb found here a subject that lent itself to oratorical argument; the story of the man who was so seldom at home that one Sunday his little girl asked the other parent, “Mother, who’s this strange man?” never failed to prove effective, and Erb felt justified in leaving out the fact that the carman in question was one accustomed, when his work finished at night, to go straight from the stables to a house in Old Kent Road, where he usually remained until the potman cried “Time! gentlemen, time!”
The men had sent in their ultimatum to the head office, and had held their last meeting. The Directors had remained adamant on the question of receiving Erb as spokesman, and the men, not having an orator of equal power in their ranks, and fearful of being worsted in a private interview, hadinsisted either that Erb should accompany the deputation or that there should be no deputation at all, but only a strike on the following Monday morning. (The advanced party protested against the idea of giving this formal notice of an unlikely event but Erb insisted and the moderates supported him. “If we can get what we want,” argued the moderates, “by showing a certain amount of what you may call bluff, by all means let us stop at that.”)
It gave Erb a sensation of power to find that not one of these uniformed men in their brass-bound caps was strong-minded enough or sufficiently clear of intellect to carry out any big scheme by himself; they could only keep of one mind by shoring each other up, and he felt that he himself was the one steady, upright person who prevented them all from slipping. He not only kept them together, but he guided them. A suggestion from him on some minor point of detail, and they followed as a ship obeys the helm; if any began a remark with doubting preface of “Ah, but—” the others hushed them down and begged them to have some sense. Erb had made all his plans for the possible stop of work; the other stations and depots were willing to contribute something infinitesimal every week with much the same spirit that they would have paid to see a wrestling match. All the same, Erb showed more confidence than he felt, and when he left the men, declining their invitation to drink success to the movement (clear to them that Fortune was a goddess only to be appeased and gained over bythe pouring out of libations of mild and bitter), he took cheerfulness from his face, and walked, his collar up, along Bermondsey New Road to call for his young sister at her workshop. The sellers on the kerb appealed to him in vain, a shrill-voiced little girl thrust groundsel in his face, and he took no notice. Gay bunches of flowers were flourished in front of his eyes, and he waved them aside. If the men went weak at the knees at the last moment it would be deplorable, but it would be an incident for which he could not blame himself; if he himself were to make some blunder in the conduct of the negotiations it would be fatal to his career, and all other secretaries of all other organisations would whisper about it complacently.
“Anxious times, my girl,” said Erb to Louisa. “Anxious times. We’ll have a tram-ride down to Greenwich and back, and blow dull care away.”
“I’ve just finished,” said Louisa in a whisper. “I’ll pop on me hat, Erb, and be with you in ’alf a moment.”
“What’s become of your voice?”
“Mislaid it somewhere,” said his young sister lightly. “Can’t think for the life of me where I put it last.”
“This work’s beginning to affect your chest,” said Erb.
“Funny thing,” remarked Louisa, with great good temper, halfway up the wooden stairs of the workshop, “but my medical man ordered me carriage exercise. Shan’t be two ticks.”
When Louisa returned, stabbing her hat in one or two places before gaining what seemed to be a satisfactory hold, she was accompanied by giggling young women who had been sent by the rest as a commission to ascertain whether it was Louisa’s own brother or some other girl’s brother who had called for her; Louisa’s own statement appearing too absurd to have any relationship to truth. Moreover, presuming it were Louisa’s young man who had called for her, it was something of a breach of etiquette, as understood by the girls of the workshop, for one young couple to go out alone, the minimum number for such an expedition being four, in which case they talked not so much to their immediate companion as to the other half of the square party, with whom they communicated by shouting. Having ascertained, to their surprise, that Louisa had spoken the exact and literal truth, they saw the brother and sister off from the doorway, warning Louisa to wrap up her neck, and begging Erb to smile and think of something pleasant.
“Never mind their chaff,” said Louisa, in her deep whisper. “I’d a jolly sight rather be going out a bit of an excursion with you than I would with—well,youknow.”
“Wish you hadn’t lost your voice,” said Erb, with concern. “I don’t like the sound of it, at all.”
“There’s some girls in our place never get it back, and after about four or five years of it—Don’t cross over here.”
“Why not?”
“He makes my ’ead ache,” said Louisa promptly. “I’ve only been going out with him for a fortnight, and I know all what he’s going to say as though I’d read it in a printed book. He talks about the weather first, then about his aunt’s rheumatics, then about the day he had at Brighton when he was a kid, then about where he thinks of spendin’ his ’oliday next year, then about how much his ’oliday cost him last year—” A mild gust of wind came and struck Louisa on the mouth; she stopped to cough, holding her hand the while flat on her blouse.
“Keep your mouth shut, youngster,” advised Erb kindly, “until you’ve got used to the fresh air.”
Because both brother and sister felt that in sailing down to New Cross Gate on the top of a tram, and then along by a line less straight and decided to Greenwich they were escaping from worry, they enjoyed the evening’s trip. Going through Hatcham, Louisa declared that one might be in the country, and thereupon, in her own way, declared that they were in the country, that she and her brother had been left a bit of money, which enabled her to give up work at the factory and wear a fresh set of cuffs and collars every day: this sudden stroke of good fortune also permitted Erb to give up his agitating rigmarole (the phrase was Louisa’s own, and Erb accepted it without protest), and they had both settled down somewhere near Epping Forest; Erb, as lord of the manor, with the vicar of the parishchurch for slave, and Louisa as the generous Lady Bountiful, giving blankets and home-made jam to all those willing to subscribe to Conservative principles. They had a stroll up the hill to Greenwich Park, Lady Louisa forced to go slowly on account of some aristocratic paucity of breath, and Sir Herbert, her brother, playing imaginary games of golf with a stick and some pebbles, and going round the links in eighty-two. At the Chalet near the Blackheath side of the park they had tea, Louisa’s insistence on addressing her brother by a full title astonishing the demure people at other wooden tables, puzzling them greatly, and causing, after departure, acrimonious debate between husbands and wives, some deciding that Erb and Louisa were really superior people and others making reference to escapes from Colney Hatch. Louisa, delighted with the game of fooling people, darted down the hill, with Erb following at a sedate trot; she stopped three parts of the way down, and Erb found her leaning against a tree panting with tears in her eyes. These tears she brushed away, declaring that something had come to her mind that had made her laugh exhaustedly, and the two went on more sedately through the open way at the side of the tall iron gates, happier in each other’s company than in the company of anyone else, and showing this in the defiant way with which some people hide real emotions.
“You’rea bright companion,” said Louisa satirically, as the tram turned with a jerk at the footof Blackheath Hill. “You ’aven’t made me laugh for quite five minutes.”
“I’ve been thinking, White Face.”
“My face isn’t white,” protested his sister, leaning back to get a reflection of herself in a draper’s window. “I’ve got quite a colour. Besides, why don’t you give up thinking for a bit? You’re always at it. I wonder your brain—or whatever you like to call it—stands the tax you put on it.”
“You’d be a rare old nagger,” said Erb, hooking the tarpaulin covering carefully and affectionately around his sister, “if ever anybody had the misfortune to marry you. It’d be jor, jor, jor, from morning, noon, till night.”
“And if ever you was silly enough to get engaged, Erb. That’s Deptford Station down there,” said Louisa, as the tram stopped for a moment’s rest. “I used to know a boy who’s ticket collector now. He got so confused the other day when I come down here to go to a lecture that he forgot to take my ticket.” She laughed out of sheer exultation at the terrifying powers of her sex. “Take my advice, Erb, don’t you never get married, even if you are asked to. Not even if it was young Lady Frances.”
“Young idiot,” said Erb. “Think I ever bother my head about such matters? I’ve got much more important work in life. This business that I’ve got on now—”
“Our girls are always asking about you,” said Louisa musingly. “It’s all, ‘Is he engaged?’‘Does he walk out with anybody?’ ‘Is he a woman ’ater?’ and all such rot.”
Erb looked down at the traffic that was speeding at the side of the leisurely tram and gave himself up for a while to the luxury of feeling that he had been the subject of this discussion. He thought of his young elocution teacher, and wondered whether he had any right to accept this position of a misogynist when he knew so well that it was made by adverse circumstances and the existence of a good-looking youth with an unreliable chin and his hair in waves. The driver below whistled aggrievedly at a high load of hops that was coolly occupying the tram lines; the load of hops seemed to be asleep, and the tram driver had to pull up and whistle again. In a side road banners were stretched across with the word “Welcome,” signifying thus that a church bazaar was being held, where articles could be bought at quite six times the amount of their real value. A landau, drawn by a pair of conceited greys, came out of the side street, with a few children following and crying, “Ipipooray!” the proud horses snorted indignantly to find that they were checked by a bucolic waggon and a plebeian tram. A young woman with a scarlet parasol in the landau looked out over the door rather anxiously.
“It’s her ladyship,” cried Louisa, clutching Erb’s arm.
“Good shot,” agreed Erb.
“If only she’d look up and recognise us,” saidLouisa. The other people on the tram began to take an interest in the encounter, and Louisa’s head already trembled with pride.
“She wouldn’t recognise us.”
“Go on with you,” contradicted his sister.
Louisa was afflicted with a sudden cough of such eccentric timbre that some might have declared it to be forced. People on the pavement looked up at her surprisedly, and Lady Frances just then closing her scarlet parasol, for the use of which, indeed, the evening gave but little reason, also glanced upwards. Erb took off his hat and jerked a bow, and Louisa noticed that the closed scarlet parasol was being waved invitingly. She unhooked the tarpaulin cover at once, and, despite Erb’s protestation that they had paid fares to the Elephant, hurried him down the steps. To Louisa’s great delight, the tram, with its absorbedly interested passengers, did not move until the two had reached the open landau, and Lady Frances’s neatly-gloved hand had offered itself in the most friendly way. Louisa declared later that she would have given all that she had in the Post Office Savings Bank to have heard the comments of the passengers.
“This,” said Lady Frances pleasantly, “is the long arm of coincidence. Step in both of you, please, and let me take you home to your place.”
“If you don’t mind excusing us—” began Erb.
(“Oh you—you man,” said his sister to herself. “I can’t call you anything else.”)
“Please,please,” begged Lady Frances. Theystepped in. By a great piece of good luck,’ Erb remembered that amongst the recipes and axioms and words of advice on the back page of an evening paper he had a night or two previously read that gentlemen should always ride with their backs to the horses, and he took his seat opposite to Lady Frances: that young woman, with a touch on Louisa’s arm, directed the short girl to be seated at her side.
“Bricklayers’ Arms Station, Old Kent Road,” said Lady Frances. Mr. Danks, in livery, and his hair prematurely whitened, had jumped down to close the door. Mr. Danks touched his hat, and, without emotion, resumed his seat at the side of the coachman. “You are keeping well, I hope?” To Louisa.
“Ihavebeen feeling a bit chippy,” said Erb’s sister, trying to loll back in the seat, but fearful of losing her foothold.
“So sorry,” said Lady Frances. “And you?”
“Thank you,” said Erb, “middlin’. Can’t say more than that. Been somewhat occupied of late with various matters.”
“I know, I know,” she remarked briskly. “It is that that makes it providential I should have met you. My uncle is a director on one of the railways, and he was talking about you only last night at dinner.”
“Very kind of the gentleman. What name, may I ask?” Lady Frances gave the information, gave also an address, and Erb nodded. “Me and himare somewhat in opposite camps at the present time.”
“My uncle was anxious to meet you,” said young Lady Frances, in her agreeable way.
“Just at this moment I scarcely think—”
“Under a flag of truce,” she suggested. “I was going to write to you, but this will save me from troubling you with a note.”
“No trouble.”
“I’ve been opening a bazaar down here,” went on Lady Frances with a determined air of vivacity. “The oddest thing. Do you ever go to bazaars?”
“Can’t say,” said Erb cautiously, “that I make a practice of frequenting them.”
“Then let me tell you about this. When you open a bazaar you have first to fill your purse with gold, empty it, and then—”
Louisa sat, bolt upright, her feet just touching the floor of the carriage, and feeling, as she afterwards intimated, disinclined to call the Prince of Wales her brother. Her ears listened to Lady Frances’s conversation, and she made incoherent replies when an opinion was demanded, but her eyes were alert on one side of the carriage or the other, sparkling with anxiety to encounter someone whom she knew. Nearly everybody turned to look at them, but it was not until they reached the Dun Cow at the corner of Rotherhithe New Road (the hour being now eight o’clock), at a moment when Louisa had begun to tell herself regretfully no one would believe her account of this gratifying andepoch-making event, that into Old Kent Road, chasing each other, came two girls belonging to her factory. The foremost dodged behind a piano-organ that made a fruitless effort to make its insistent jangle heard above the roar and the murmur of traffic; seeing her pursuer stand transfixed, with a cheerful scream of vengeance half finished, she turned her head. At the sight of Louisa bowing with a genteel air of half recognition the first girl staggered back and sat down helplessly on the handles of the piano-organ, jerking that instrument of music and causing the Italian lady with open bodice to remonstrate in the true accents of Clerkenwell. When near to Bricklayers’ Arms Station Louisa saw again her current young man morbid with the thought of a wasted evening, but still waiting hopefully for hisfiancée, now three hours behind time; the young gentleman’s eyesight being dimmed with resentfulness, it became necessary for her to wave a handkerchief that might, she knew, have been cleaner, and thus engage his attention. At the very last possible moment he signalled astonished acknowledgment.
For Erb, on the other hand, the journey had something less of exultation. From the moment of starting from St. James’s Road, Hatcham, the fear possessed him that he might be seen by some member of his society, who would thereupon communicate facts to colleagues. Thus would his character for independence find itself bruised: thus would the jealousy of the men be aroused; thus would theSpanswick party be able to whisper round the damaging report that Erb had been nobbled by the capitalists. Wherefore Erb, anxious for none of these eventualities, tipped his hat well over his forehead, and, leaning forward, with his face down, listened to Lady Frances’s conversation. The carriage had a scent of refinement; the young woman opposite in her perfect costume was something to be worshipped respectfully, and he scarce wondered when, at one point of the journey up the straight Old Kent Road, he heard one loafer say to another, “Where’s there an election on to-day?” Lady Frances, having completed her account of the bazaar, had information of great importance to communicate, and this she gave in a confidential undertone that was pleasant and flattering.
“From what my uncle says, it appears there is a strike threatening, and—you know all about it perhaps?”
“Heard rumours,” said Erb guardedly.
“He is anxious that you should call upon him at the earliest possible moment to discuss the affair privately, but he is most anxious that it should not appear that he has sought the meeting. You quite see, don’t you? It’s a question ofamour propre.”
“Ho!” said Erb darkly.
“And I should be so glad,” she went on, with the excitement of a young diplomatist, “if I could bring you two together. It would be doing so much good.”
“To him?”
“I could drive you on now,” she suggested hesitatingly, “and we should catch my uncle just after his dinner; an excellent time.”
“I think,” said Erb stolidly, “that we’d better let events work out their natural course.”
“You’re wrong, quite wrong, believe me. Events left alone work out very clumsily at times.” Lady Frances touched him lightly on the knee. “Please do me this very small favour.”
“Since you put it like that then, I don’t mind going up to see him to-night. Not that anything will come from it, mind you. Don’t let’s delude ourselves into thinkingthat.”
“This,” cried Lady Frances, clapping her hands, “is excellent. This is just what I like to be doing.” Erb, still watching fearfully for acquaintances, glanced at her excited young face, with respectful admiration. “Now, I shall drive you straight on—”
“If you don’t mind,” said Erb, “no; we’ll hop out at the corner of Page’s Walk.”
“And not drive up to the dwellings?” asked Louisa disappointed.
“Andnotdrive up to the dwellings,” said Erb firmly. “I’ll get on somehow to see your uncle to-night.”
“You won’t break your word?”
“I should break a lot of other things before I did that.”
Thus it was. Lady Frances shook hands; Erb stepped out, looking narrowly through the opengateway of the goods station, and offering assistance to Louisa absently. As he did so, he saw William Henry, his old van boy, marching out of the gates in a violently new suit of corduroys, and with the responsible air of one controlling all the railways in the world.
“Get better soon,” said Lady Frances to Louisa. “Mr. Barnes, to-night.” Mr. Danks, down from his seat and closing the door (Erb and his sister standing on the pavement, Erb wondering whether he ought to give the footman threepence for himself, and Louisa coming down slowly from heaven to earth), Mr. Danks received the order, “Home, please.”
Erb went half an hour later by tram to Westminster Bridge and walked across. He perceived the necessity for extreme caution; reading and natural wisdom told him that many important schemes had been ruined by the interference of woman. He looked at the lights that starred the borders of the wide river, saw the Terrace where a member of Parliament walked up and down, following the red glow of a cigar, and he knew that if he were ever to get there it would only be by leaping successfully over many obstacles similar to the one which at present confronted him; to allow himself to be distracted from the straight road of progress would be to court disaster.
“Boy,” said the porter at the Mansions, “show No. 124A.” In a lift that darted to the skies Erb was conveyed and ordered to wait in a corridor whilstBoy, who wore as many buttons as could be crowded on his tight jacket, went and hunted for Lady Frances’s uncle and presently ran him to earth in the smoking room, bringing him out triumphantly to the corridor. Erb found himself greeted with considerable heartiness, invited to come into the smoking room that looked down at a height suggesting vertigo at St. James’s Park, taken to a corner, and furnished with a big cigar. Men in evening dress, with the self-confidence that comes after an adequate meal, were telling each other what they would do were they Prime Minister, and Erb was surprised to hear the drastic measures proposed for stamping out opposition; some of these seemed to be scarcely within the limits of reason. And what had Erb to say? A plain man, said Lady Frances’s uncle of himself (which, in one respect at any rate, was a statement bearing the indelible stamp of truth), always of opinion that it was well to plungein medias res. On Erb replying that at present he had no remark to offer, the purple-faced Director seemed taken aback, and diverted the conversation for a time to Trichinopolies and how best to keep them, a subject on which Erb was unable to speak with any pretence of authority.
“A little whiskey?” suggested the Director, with his thumb on the electric bell, “just to keep one alive.”
Lady Frances’s uncle sighed on receiving Erb’s reply, and proceeded to relate a long and not very interesting anecdote concerning an attempt that hadonce been made to swindle him by an hotel proprietor at Cairo, and the courageous way in which he had resisted the overcharge. On Erb looking at his silver watch, the colour of the Director’s face, from sheer anxiety deepened, and he waved into the discussion with a “Pall Mall Gazette” a silent friend who had been sitting in a low easy chair, with hands clasped over his capacious dress waistcoat, gazing at the room with the fixed stare of repletion. The silent friend craned himself into an upright position and lumbered across the room to the window. The Director, thus usefully reinforced, proceeded to open the affair of the impending strike, and, having done this, urged that there never was a difficulty yet that had not a way out, and demanded that Erb should show this way out instantly. Erb suggested that the Director’s colleagues should receive him and the men, listen to their arguments, and concede their requests, or some of them. Director, appealing for the support of the silent man, but receiving none, replied explosively, “That be hanged for a tale!” On which Erb remarked that he had some distance to go, and if the Director would excuse him— Director said, fervently, “For goodness gracious’ sake, let us sit down, and let us thresh this matter out.” Giving up now his original idea of an exit, he remarked that a golden bridge must be built. Why should not Erb simply stand aside, and let the men alone seek consultation with the Directors? Erb declared that he would do this like one o’clock (intimatingthus prompt and definite action), providing there was good likelihood of the men’s requests being complied with. Director, looking at silent friend, and trying to catch that gentleman’s lack lustre eye, inquired how on earth he could pledge his colleagues. Erb, now interested in the game, suggested that Lady Frances’s uncle probably had some idea of the feelings entertained by his fellow directors, and the host, giving up all efforts to get help from his silent friend, admitted that there was something in this. Pressed by Erb to speak as man to man, Director gave the limits of concession that had been decided upon—limits which would not, however, come within sight unless the men came alone, and quite alone, to plead their cause. Erb thought for a few moments, the glare of the silent friend now directed upon him, and then said that he would take Director’s word as the word of a gentleman; the men should send a deputation the following day in their luncheon hour, and he (Erb) would stand aside to watch the result. Director offered a hand, and Erb, instinctively rubbing his palm on his trousers, took it, and the silent friend thereupon suddenly burst into speech (which was the last thing of which one would have thought him capable) saying huskily, and with pompous modesty, that he was very pleased to think that any poor efforts of his should have brought about such a happy agreement; that it was not the first time, and probably would not be the last, that he had presided over a meeting of reconciliation, and thathis methods were always—if he might say so—tact, impartiality, and a desire to hear both sides.
“Quite glad to have met you,” said the Director, also gratified in having accomplished something that would give him the halo of notoriety at to-morrow’s Board meeting. “You’ll go far. Your head is screwed on the right way, my man. Not a liqueur?”
“I take partic’lar care it ain’t screwed in any other fashion,” said Erb.
“Good-bye,” said the Director.
“Be good,” said Erb.
Erbadmitted, at an elocution lesson in Camberwell, that the settlement of the Willow Walk affair had given him a good jerk forward. There was always now a quarter of an hour between the close of his time and the appearance of the next pupil—a quarter of an hour generally occupied by a soliloquy from Erb, prefaced by the cue from Rosalind. “Well now, tell me what you’ve been doing this week.” She had some of the important security that comes to an engaged young woman, and Erb, who looked forward to this weekly exchange of confidences, forced himself to ask politely after Mr. Lawrence Railton, of the “Sin’s Reward” Company, and when Rosalind answered (as she usually did) with a sigh that Mr. Railton had not written for some time, Erb made excuses for him on various grounds, such as that he was probably over-occupied with the work of his profession, that a man in Mr. Railton’s place had to be here, there and everywhere, that it being sometimes the gentleman’s affectionate habit to scribble a hurried postcard to hisfiancéeon the Sunday journeys, likely enough there would be a letter next Monday. On this Rosalind would brighten very much, and sing cheerful words of praise of Mr. Railton, whooccupied, it seemed, a unique and delicate position, in that he was much too good for the provinces and not quite good enough for town; nevertheless, “Sin’s Reward” had booked a week for the Surrey, and the young woman’s bright eyes danced at the thought of seeing him again. Mr. Railton’s real name was Botts, which was held to be unattractive as a name on the bills; his father was a silver chaser in Clerkenwell, and it was generally understood that Mr. Railton had had to cut off his parents with a shilling on the grounds that they insisted on calling him Sammy.
Walking home after this fifteen minutes of happiness, Erb found himself continuing the talk, and affecting that Rosalind was tripping along at his side: it was in these silent talks that he dared to call her “dear,” thereupon colouring so much that passers-by glanced at him curiously; plain-faced ladies went on gay with the thought that their features had the power to confuse a stranger. When, in these circumstances, he encountered men of the society they were sometimes greatly diverted, and cried, “’Ullo, Erb. Going over a speech, eh, Erb?”
No doubt at this period of Erb’s popularity. His unselfish reticence in the Willow Walk affair, the commonsense he exhibited in one or two minor troubles, the increased polish of the spoken word: all these things increased the men’s respect. Also they knew that he worked for them day and night: he had not developed the swollen head ofimportance that in secretaries of other societies was nearly always a prominent feature. He organised a system of benefits on three scales, by which, if you paid in twopence a week, you received fifteen shillings a week in the case of unjust dismissal; twelve shillings a week for unjust suspension; and ten shillings a week for strike pay. He arranged with a pushful solicitor in Camberwell to give legal advice. He had written one or two articles concerning the society in weekly penny papers, and in these he had taken care not to obtrude his own name or his own work. Even Spanswick admitted now that Erb was turning out better than he had expected, but Spanswick’s views might have been brightened by the fact that Erb was organising a ticket benefit at the Surrey on Spanswick’s behalf: this not so much on account of any personal misfortune, but because Mrs. Spanswick, always a thoughtless, inconsiderate woman, had mistakenly chosen a time when Spanswick was temporarily suspended from duty for insobriety, to present him with twin babies. “Three,” grumbled Spanswick, “three, I could have understood. There’d been a bit of money about three. But two—” Spanswick’s friends had promised to rally round him, a feat they performed in theory only, and Erb had to go elsewhere to find buyers of the tickets. Lady Frances had taken a box—a fact which modified and chastened Spanswick’s very extreme views in regard to what he usually called the slave-owning upper classes. Lady Frances had done a kinder thing than this. On one of her visitsto Bermondsey she had met Louisa, white-faced and twitching as a result of her work, had gone to Louisa’s employer, and had made him shake in his very shoes by denouncing him and all his works, had demanded for Louisa a fortnight’s holiday, which the employer, anxious enough to conciliate this emphatic young titled person, and fearful of being sent to the Tower, at once conceded; sent Louisa, with sister Alice for company, away to the country house at Penshurst where the better side of Alice’s nature detached itself, and she became an attentive nurse. Erb’s Aunt Emma lived at Penshurst: the old lady went up high in the estimation of the other villagers by reason of her nieces’ visit to the Court.
The month being July, work well in demand and overtime to be had without asking, Erb was able to obtain consent to almost any project that he liked to submit to his committee. The society was new enough to feel the enthusiasm of youth; the men were pleased with the sensation of power that it gave to them, and they assumed there were no limits to its possibilities. From which causes Erb had several irons heating in the fire, of which one was a new paper to be called “The Carman,” to be issued twice a month, and to cost one halfpenny per copy. The expense of production would be something more than this, but when Erb, who was to be managing editor, used that blessed word “propaganda,” there was nothing more to be said, and the last doubter gave in.
It was at this time that Erb gave up whistling in the streets.
The white-haired labour member had taken him to the House on two occasions, and in the smoking room had introduced him to some wealthy members of the party; and, whilst the board at the side showed the names of unattractive speakers, the members chatted so agreeably that Erb forgot himself occasionally and addressed one who was in evening dress, and had so much money that he wore several coins on his watch chain, as “Sir;” lifting of eyebrows on the part of the labour member told him he had blundered. Members asked questions of Erb, questions which betrayed the fact that their knowledge of the real feelings of the working men was superficial, and thenceforth Erb felt more at his ease. They gave their names as patrons of the Spanswick benefit, and the member who wore coins offered Erb a cigarette, and, seeing him through the outer lobby, begged him to drop a line should anything important occur; this in a way that suggested later to Erb, as he crossed Westminster, that the coin member wanted to find opportunity of becoming attached to some creditable grievance, not so much for the sake of the grievance as for the sake of himself.
“Now,” said Erb definitely to the fringe of lights near St. Thomas’s Hospital, “I’m not going to be made a cat’s paw, mind you.”
Interest came with the arrangements for Spanswick’s benefit. This necessitated calls at the theatrenear the Obelisk in the evenings, and speech with excited men who went about behind the scenes with their hats at the backs of their heads: men who were for ever mislaying letters and documents, and complaining of everybody else’s carelessness, and eventually finding the letters or documents in their own hands; the while on the stage some lady in black, with her face whitened, was bewailing to a keenly interested house the perfidy of man, and assuring the gallery of her determination to track down one particular individual, though he should have made his way to the uttermost ends of the earth. The Spanswick night was to be a ticket benefit (which, being interpreted, meant that only the tickets sold outside the theatre would add to Spanswick’s income and assuage his present distress), and the night selected was a Friday in the week booked by the “Sin’s Reward” Company—Friday, because that was near to the men’s pay day, and would hook them at the fleeting moment when spare cash was on the very point of burning a hole in their pockets. Because Lawrence Railton was of the company, and because Erb was responsible for the success of the evening, Rosalind communicated to the scheme the keen interest that became her so well; her father, with ponderous generosity, had promised to ensure a triumphant evening by giving what he termed the considerable advantage of a somewhat long and not altogether undistinguished experience. Erb was anxious to see Lawrence Railton, desirous of seeing what manner of youthhad succeeded where he had desired to do so. Matters being as they were, there was no alternative but to play the friend of the family, to meet Mr. Railton with the outstretched hand of amity, to congratulate him, and to save up presently for a wedding present which should represent nicely a genial interest in the welfare of the young couple. A plated cruet-stand he thought, as at present advised, but there were arguments in favour of an inkstand that looked like a lawn-tennis set—an inkstand had a suggestion of literary tastes that appealed to the prospective editor of “The Carman;” it suggested also a compliment to Rosalind that a cruet-stand with the best intentions could never convey. He did not quite know how he would endure it all. Perhaps it would best be remedied by increased application to the work of the society, and if ever the day should come when he found himself elected to a seat in that House at Westminster (the outside of which he went to see very often, just for self-encouragement), Rosalind would feel that she might have done better than marry Mr. Lawrence Railton.
“But I don’t quite see,” admitted Erb, as he wrestled with all this, “I don’t quite see what sort of help I shall get out of that.”