A great evening. Aunt Emma confessed to Rosalind, as they came out, that, say what you liked, there was no place like London, and, but for the fact that she wanted to save the bit of money she had put away, she would willingly bid good-bye to Penshurst and come up to town, spending every afternoon at Moore and Burgess’, and every evening at Drury Lane. Outside the theatre was Erb.
“Nice young woman, if ever there was one,” whispered Emma to her nephew. “Superior manner, and all that.”
“Thought you’d get along all right with her,” remarked Erb.
“I’ve been giving her advice.”
“Trust you.”
“Wonnerful to see such qualities of people about,” said the old lady, hailing Rosalind into the discussion as they walked along the crowded Strand. “Nothin like this down where I live.”
“Have you far to walk at the other end?” asked the girl solicitously.
“Not fur,” replied the wonderful old lady. “Ony ’bout four mile and h’af.”
The excursion train was nearly ready to start, and Erb, finding an old acquaintance in the guard, arranged for appropriate finish to a great day by placing his aunt in a first-class compartment. She remarked gleefully that this would be something to tell Mrs. Turley.
“God bless ye, my dear,” she said, kissing Rosalind. “And don’t forget what I told you. Erb, take care of her.”
Rosalind wanted to go into the Strand telegraph office opposite the station for a moment, if Erb did not mind. Erb did not mind, and he waited.
“As much as that?” said Rosalind to the clerk. “Seems a lot of money.”
“Well, you see, miss,” replied the clerk, apologetically, “people don’t telegraph to these distant parts unless it’s about something important.”
“Mydear Mr. Barnes,” wrote Lady Frances’ uncle in a genial note, dated from a Pall Mall club, “I am sorry my niece did not make my intention more apparent; possibly the mistake was my own. I never dreamt of offering you, as you assume, anything in the shape of a bribe. What I thought was that, as one who had the interests both of capital and labour at heart, I might be allowed to make a small contribution towards any movement in which you were interested. You mentioned once an idea of starting a small paper; let my small cheque assist in this excellent effort.
“I was glad to see your admirable speech so fully reported in the newspapers. The new movement owes much to your influential voice. I think we shall want you to run down to Birmingham next week, but the secretary will write you, and he also will see to the expenses. If you will not accept payment for your services, at any rate there is no reason why you should be out of pocket over the business.—Yours with great regard.”
“Reads fair enough,” commented Erb. “I may have worded my letter a bit too harsh.”
From Birmingham the party went to Stafford and to Coventry, all somewhat in the manner of atravelling theatrical company, the party including, indeed, some eccentrics which emphasised the resemblance. There was an Irish barrister, who had hitherto pleaded mainly at Cogers’ Hall, and had a change in temperament for every glass of whiskey that he drank, going up and up the hill of cheerfulness until a certain number was reached, whereupon each succeeding glass made him descend slowly to the tableland of contempt for the world; a young Oxford man eager to make some alteration in the world without delay; and one or two safe men, who could always be relied upon to say a few appropriate words. Erb sent to Rosalind from each town press notices, with crosses near to the references to himself, until it suddenly occurred to him that these signs might have two meanings; afterwards he drew a rather clumsy hand to draw attention to the only item in the papers worthy of Rosalind’s notice.
Erb was now so much in the movement of life that he experienced a kind of restless fever unless he had some new project in hand. He felt ashamed to confess himself hurt on his journey back to town when he found names of other labour leaders endowed with the importance of print, and a newspaper which did not contain his name appeared to him to have been scarce worth the trouble of setting up; this was emphasised by the fact that the Irish barrister, on seeing him off, had given him a generous compliment; patting him on the back, he had assured Erb that the name of Barnes was one that would be engraven in imperishable lettersof gold on the temple of Fame, and that he, for his part, would never, never forget him. Small wonder, with this feeling of self-importance, that Erb should give but little attention to the fact that Louisa was at home in Page’s Walk, looking paler than usual. Louisa remarked that she was really only playing truant, having made up her mind not to work so hard in future. “They think all the more of you,” said Louisa acutely.
A storm seldom occurs without some premonitory signs, and it was on the tramcar that took him to Camberwell—no reason why he should go to Camberwell other than his desire to see Rosalind, and this would make him late for the committee meeting—it was on the tramcar that the first warnings appeared. Erb was seated at the back reading the manuscript, an article commencing, “Brother Workers!” when two men in railway uniform came up the steps, so keenly engaged in conversation that they stopped half-way to settle some disputed point, barring the descent of passengers who wished to alight. When, at the strenuously-worded request of the delayed passengers, and the mild appeal of a tame conductor, they were induced to move, they scampered up, and taking seats immediately in front of Erb, recommenced their argument. One was a member of Erb’s society; the other, a man who had obstinately kept outside. Erb would have spoken to them, but that he was just then in a state of ecstatic admiration over what seemed to him a well-turned sentence in the article.
“Tell you what it is, old man,” said the non-member, slapping his corduroyed knee emphatically. “You’ve been makin’ a little tin god of the chap, and, naturally enough, he’s taken advantage of it. You pass him votes of thanks, and what not, and fill him up with soft soap, and consequence is, he goes swelling about, and—”
“He wasn’t far wrong about that South Western business,” remarked the other with meek determination, “and chance it.”
“You can’t expect a man not to do right sometimes. I ain’t arguin’, mind you, that Erb’s a fool. Far from it! My view of the matter is, if you must know—”
“I never ast for your opinion!”
“Never mind whether you ast for it or not. My view of the whole matter is that he’s the only clever man amongst you. He’s got you all on a bit o’ string. He goes away, as you mentioned, for a week or ten days together, and never thinks of communicatin’ with you; he gets his name in the papers; for all you know he may be playin’ a double game—”
The conductor came up for fares, and the argumentative man fortified his position by paying for both.
“A double game. No, no! let me finish! And all the time laughing in his sleeve at the lot of you. I’ve known that sort before. I’ve met ’em. I’ve come across ’em. I say no more,” he added mysteriously, and sat back, glaring at the sky.
“Well, but—” The member seemed ill-qualified for debate, and Erb was greatly tempted to prompt him. “What I mean is— What I was about to say was—”
“He’s a having you,” said the other, smiling thoughtfully at the sky, “he’s a having you on toast!”
“But what’s it to do with you?” demanded the other, not finding the argument for which he had searched.
“Nothing!” retorted the other.
The member, taken aback by this unexpected reply, could not speak for a few moments. He looked appealingly at the names on the shops by which they were passing for a suggestion, and appeared to find one in the word Goodenough.
“After all,” he began, “for our purpose—”
“Don’t forget this!” interrupted the other. “Don’t letthisfact slip out of your memory. It was you began this argument. I never seeked for it. We was having a glass in the Old Kent Road, and you, or one of the others, began by saying that Erb was growing a great deal too big for his boots.”
“Inever said it,” growled the other sulkily.
“Did someone pass a remark to that effect, or did someone not pass a remark to that effect? Am I speaking the truth, or am I a bloomin’ liar?”
“It’s one or the other,” said the member cautiously.
“That won’t do for me,” said the non-member,now in the sheer enjoyment of cross-examination. “I ast you a straightforward question, and if you can’t give me a straightforward answer, why, I must draw me own conclusions. That’s all.” And smiled again mysteriously at the sky.
“Well,” replied the other, goaded, “I don’t mind going so far as this. Certain thingshavebeen said of late at certain depots that I needn’t name, and it’s all going to be brought up at the meeting to-night. Mind you, it mustn’t go any further.” The other man gave a nod intended to signify that he had guessed all this. “And being meself on Erb’s side, and not wanting to be mixed up in anything like a shindy, why, I’m giving it a miss, and I’m off down to meet the wife’s brother at his club in Peckham and spend a nice, quiet, sociable evening. See?”
“And you,” remarked the other thoughtfully, “you call yourself a man? Well, well, well!” with a sigh, “the longer we live the older we get.”
“What are you snacking at me about now?” demanded the member heatedly.
Erb slipped down the steps, disturbed by the news which he had heard, but with also a feeling of elation at the prospect of a fight. He found the Professor alone in the house in Southampton Street; Rosalind was out giving lessons at a school for superior young ladies at Brixton. Professor full of a kind of stale enthusiasm concerning a new project, which was to take a theatre or a town hall or a room or something and give costume recitals,grave and gay, and to keep on at it night after night until people found themselves forced to come in their thousands; the Professor seemed to have worked this out as though it were a scheme for winning gold at Monte Carlo, and he had already decided what he should do with the enormous profits. Difficulty was to select from the many suburbs of London one place which should be favoured with the experiment; another difficulty (but this he seemed to think of less importance) consisted in the fact that, from inquiries he had caused to be made, it appeared that those who controlled the letting of public premises had a distrustful habit of requiring the rent in advance. Erb, in answer to a question, declared that he had no sort of influence in the City, a place with which the Professor seemed imperfectly acquainted in that he regarded it as a storehouse of valuables, the door of which flew open if you but knew the one, the indispensable word; the Professor considered the matter for a while with one hand twirling his hair, and then, illuminated, announced his intention of taking off his coat to the work. As a first step, he proposed to take a cab to Throgmorton Street, and have a thoroughly good look round. Erb suggested a ’bus and the Professor replied that undertakings of this kind had to be carried through with a certain amount of dash and spirit which could not be done under one and six, or, at the very least, one and three. For this sum Erb compounded, and the Professor made a note of the amount on the backof an envelope that a treacherous memory should not play tricks; the message for Rosalind he could trust to his mind. He was working like a bonded slave, he added, on behalf of his little girl: she was fortunate, indeed, in having a father who could keep accounts. Erb restrained an obvious repartee, and the old gentleman, in his slippers, walked with him out to Camberwell Gate, where, in the interests of economy, he proposed to look in at a bar which had in its window a card bearing the ambiguous announcement, “The ‘Stage’ Taken In.”
Erb found that he had allowed the garrulous old gentleman to detain him longer than he should have done; when, on reaching the coffee-shop in Grange Road he ran upstairs to the committee rooms, he could hear voices raised, and he knew that not only had the meeting already commenced, but that a contentious subject was being debated. The rapping of Payne’s hammer failed to arrest tumultuous speech, and it was only when Erb opened the door that the argumentative voices stopped.
“Fact of the matter is,” said Payne, in the chair, rather hurriedly—“good evening, Erb, you’re lateish—the fact of the matter is this is one of them very peculiar subjects where there’s something, no doubt, to be said on both sides. Let’s get on to the next business.”
Erb went to his chair by the side of Payne and took some papers from his pocket. He looked up and down the table nodding; his salutation was not in every case returned, and some of the men glaredsternly at the advertisements; Spanswick waved his hand in the friendliest manner.
“There’s the matter,” said Payne, “the matter of starting a paper or a organ or something of a sim’lar nature. I call upon the secretary to make a statement.”
“I object,” said a voice.
“That you, Lindsay?”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” announced a hot-faced youth, rising from his seat, “itisme.”
“Sed down,” advised Spanswick audibly at his side. “Don’t make a silly young laughing-stock of yourself.”
This was sufficient for the fiery-faced Mr. Lindsay. He was from St. Pancras, and an engagement with a lady who kept a small laundry at Child’s Hill had recently been annulled at her particular request (a circumstance he had related in confidence to everybody), the Midland man having been driving about London for some days boiling up his thoughts, had decided that the world was managed on some erroneous system; it behoved him to put it right. Lindsay had come to the meeting with the vague desire to get satisfaction by opposing something; here in the discussion concerning Erb appeared a subject which exactly fitted his requirements.
“I should like to say a few brief words on the matter which we ’ave jest been discussing.”
“Question!” cried Spanswick.
“I’ll question you,” retorted Lindsay heatedly,“if you can’t leave off interruptin’. I appeal to the Midland men present, and I ask whether they’re going to allow themselves to be sat upon?”
“You’ll be jumped on if you don’t look out,” said Spanswick. The room began to take sides.
“You do it,” shouted the other, goaded. “You do it, that’s all! Try it on! Have a dash at it, my friend, and see what ’appens. You talk a lot, but I vurry much doubt whether you can do anything else.”
Payne in the chair made his hammer heard above the din of contending voices, and then, standing up, shook the hammer threateningly. If they did not at once stop their row, said Payne, he, as Chairman, would have to consider the advisability of jolly well doing something; having given this vague threat Payne conferred with Erb in a whisper.
“Tell you what occurs to me,” said Payne, with a weak pretence of proclaiming an idea of his own. “Let’s hear what friend Lindsay has to say, and if there’s anything in it, why no doubt our friend the secretary will reply.”
“On a point of order—” said Spanswick, rising.
“I should like to point out—” began a Great Western man in the corner.
“Seems to me that the proper course to pursue—” said another.
The Chair hammered away noisily. A half-minute of strenuous tumult, and the noise subsided. Lindsay, of St. Pancras, rose, buttoning his jacket; this done he unbuttoned it again, continuing thiseccentric action during the whole of his speech. He had some difficulty in finding words at first, but irritating comments from Spanswick served to encourage him, and he succeeded in recapitulating charges which it seemed had been made by certain members, now coy and reserved, against the secretary during the previous half-hour; these Lindsay emphasised by a suggestion that friend Barnes was using the society only for his own personal advancement (at this there was a shout of protest from most of the members that made Erb, his gaze fixed on the blank sheet of white foolscap before him, tingle with satisfaction). When having made his fiercest rush, Lindsay, of St. Pancras, showed signs of wavering, it was Spanswick who pricked him again into fury with a banderillo question to another neighbour: “But what was the real reason why the gel wouldn’t have him?” asked Spanswick.
Lindsay from St. Pancras, waving his arms excitedly, cried now in a scream that they were paying a princely salary to a man who thought he could twist the society round his little finger; who went about mixing with the nobs and getting his name into the papers; who lorded it over everybody, or tried to; who, to put it briefly, and to put it finally, was trying to push everybody else off the earth. Lindsay begged to move that the secretary, Herbert Barnes, be requested to hand in his resignation without delay.
Lindsay, of St. Pancras, sat down, grumbling to himself in an undertone, his head still shakingwith excitement. There was more applause than one would have expected, applause being a thing that can be created furtively by the stamping of feet hidden under the table. Erb rose. As he did so, Spanswick, with his right arm raised, a reminiscence of Board School manners, rose also, and claimed the attention of Payne in the chair.
“I consider it an insult,” said Spanswick loudly, “to allow our friend the secretary to answer the ridic’lous attack that has been made upon him. I claim the right to reply on his behalf.” Erb sat down. “It’s all very well for men to talk who’ve never been tempted either by the attractions of ’igh society, or—what shall I say—the allurements and what not that titled parties, be they gentlemen or be they ladies, can offer, but put them in our friend Erb’s position, and wouldn’t they make mistakes the same as he has? Course they would! Besides, there’s this to be said—”
Spanswick, going on with elaborate replies to attacks that had never been made, did not look at Erb, preferring to direct his argument to the contumacious Lindsay and his friends: the cheers from Erb’s supporters which greeted Spanswick’s start diminished in volume as he went on.
“Drop it!” whispered somebody to him. “Drop it, old man, before you spile it.”
When Spanswick came to a finish of his ingenious Mark Antony speech the room was left with the impression that charges of a very serious nature had been brought against Erb, and that theprincipal defence to be urged was the fact of Erb’s youth and inexperience. Erb, recognising the damage that Spanswick’s advocacy had effected, started up to argue the case from his own point of view, but he was again anticipated by a supporter, this time by a man on whose loyalty he could depend, although his stock of discretion had limits.
“I claim the right to say a few words!” shouted the new man. The room cried, “Erb, Erb, Erb!” being, it seemed, anxious to see if the case could possibly be readjusted, and wishful, at any rate, to see the effort made.
“Take five minutes,” ordered the Chair.
“I can do it in under that,” said the other generously. “If it’s a case of argument by words, I think I’m equal to it: if it’s case of argument by fists, I jolly well know I am. Understand that, my fine friend!” he added, addressing Lindsay.
Lindsay of St. Pancras, at a loss for a good repartee, suggested rather wearily that the speaker should go home and fry his face. The room looked on this as wanting in finish, and to Lindsay’s confusion gave it no applause.
“You come from St. Pancras, I believe? Very well; I’ll St. Pancras you before I’ve done with you.”
“Do it!” cried Lindsay, annoyed by the failure of his retort. “You do it, that’s all!”
Lindsay slipped from his seat, and, evading the efforts made by neighbours to detain him, went quickly to the side of the speaker. The Chair halfrose, his hammer uplifted. Erb stood up with a pained look.
“Here I am,” said Lindsay, offering his scarlet face to Erb’s supporter. “Now show us what you can do.”
The invitation was one not to be declined. The loud smack on the scarlet face made Lindsay stagger; the next moment he had seized a wooden chair, and the speaker had similarly armed himself. Voices in the room shouted, Payne hammered on the table before him, everybody, in an excited way, begged everybody else to keep calm. Erb made his way, thrusting aside the intervening arm, to the quarter of the room where the two men were facing each other. Lindsay swung his chair, and the other guarded; the two chairs broke noisily, and left the two disputants holding a single wooden leg. Spanswick remarked that Lindsay seemed about as successful in undertakings of this kind as in his love affairs, and the St. Pancras youth, goaded by this, brought the leg of the chair viciously down on the head of his opponent. A red line matted the hair; the room filled with uproar.
“Stop ’em! Keep ’em apart!”
“Let ’em fight it out! Stand back and let ’em finish it!”
“Leave off shoving me then! I’ve got as good a right to look on as you have. For two pins—”
“The other one began it. He asked for it.”
“I beg your pardon, he did nothing of the kind whatsoever. Keep your elbows out of the way, orelse I’ll serve you like he served him. Yes, and quick about it, too!”
The sight of blood excited all to the point of ill-temper. Two, with the best intentions, held Erb firmly, screaming to him urgent recommendations to keep cool, and as Erb was the only man in the room capable of exercising any control over the members, there seemed no reason why the disturbance should not go on for all time; the arrival of the landlord with a threat of police caused the two men to loosen their hold of Erb, and he, with a fierce remark condemning the stupidity of all, freed himself, and took charge of the proceedings. Ordered Payne to turn the landlord out and lock the door. Directed his supporters to resume their seats. Found the decanter, the contents of which had been only partly upset, and, pouring water into the palm of his hand, bathed the damaged man’s head. Commanded Lindsay to stand away at the end of the room by himself, which that young man did, to his own astonishment, in the manner of a penitent schoolboy. Gave orders to members of one or two disputant groups, causing them to separate and occupy themselves with other duties. Whispered to Payne. Payne went back to his chair and his hammer.
“Friends,” cried Payne, mopping his forehead, “this meeting’s going to be adjourned for ’alf a hower so as to get cool.”
Most of the men went downstairs, and in the bar discussed the tumultuous event with hushed voices, that outsiders might not share theknowledge; they were not quite certain whether to be proud of the incident or ashamed. Erb told off two men to take his damaged advocate to a chemist’s, and, giving no answer to inquiries concerning his intentions, went out, and walked up and down Grange Road alone. He saw the whole case clearly; admitted that his popularity had received a shock; recognised the true inwardness of Spanswick’s intervention, and foresaw the difficulties that would obstruct his path if he should lose his position. Not seeing Rosalind this evening was, he now felt, an augury of bad luck; he would be glad when the night was over and done with.
“This ain’t my birthday,” said Erb grimly.
All the same, something had to be done. Individual men one could deal with, but with men in a lump you could only safely count on their unreliability. Erb stopped at a furniture shop and tried to guess the identity of a young man with hat tipped back and forehead creased with thought; the face looked familiar, and it was only on approaching that he discovered it was his own reflection in a long mirror marked in chalk, “A Rare Bargain. Late the Property of a Club.” He laughed and went back.
“I don’t want to make a speech,” he said quietly. The room had refilled, members conducting themselves with a studied decorum almost painful to behold; the smoke had escaped by the open windows, and it was possible to see everything clearly. “It appears that there’s some dissatisfaction.”
“No, no!” said voices.
“There’s some dissatisfaction,” repeated Erb determinedly, “and it doesn’t really matter much whether it’s grounded or not. No society can go on like this with success under these circumstances. I started this society—”
“Earear!”
“And I tell you candidly, I feel much more interested in the prosperity of this society than I do in the prosperity of myself. I’m a single man, I regret to— I mean to say I’m a single man, and as a single man, I can find something else to do.”
Members looked at each other with concern.
“That is why, Mr. Chairman, I address myself to you, because you’re an old friend and a—and a good sort.” Payne blinked at the compliment. “And I hand to you, old chum, this letter that I’ve just written out, which contains—”
The room leaned forward to listen.
“Contains my resignation.” Erb sat down.
A murmur started slowly near the Chairman and went down the table, increased its pace and its volume, and came back to Erb in the condition of an angry remonstrance. Half a dozen men rose.
“I give notice,” said Spanswick, “that at the next meeting I shall move the appointment of a new secretary.”
“At the next meeting,” said a Cannon Street man, who had never heard his own voice raised in public speech before, and seemed himself astonished by the novelty, “at the next meeting you’ll damnwell do nothing of the kind.” The room roared its approval. “We don’t want a new secretary, because we ain’t a going to get rid of the old one. The position isn’t vacant. I move, Mr. Chairman, or second, or whatever you call it, that that letter what you’ve got in your hand be given back to our friend Erb, and that he be asked or invited or requested—I don’t know how you put these things—to tear it up and forget all about it; I will now conclude my few remarks by asking you to join me in a well-known song.”
“F—orhe’sa jolly good faillow,For he’s—”
“F—orhe’sa jolly good faillow,For he’s—”
The room sang the refrain with enthusiasm; the man with the broken head came, bandaged, and joined in. Spanswick, recognising that the game for the present was over, beat time.
“That’s all right, then,” said Payne, when the hurrahing stopped. “Now, let’s get on to the next business. ‘Proposed starting of a new paper to be called “The Carman.”’”
Theincident revealed to Erb the fact that the men’s support and confidence had something of a tidal nature. He had watched, sometimes with amusement, always with interest, the state of other leaders—from high water, when they could swim luxuriously, to low water, when they were left stranded ludicrously on the beach; it had not before occurred to him that he himself might encounter a similar experience; he determined now to make his position as secure as possible. In this effort he relied a good deal on the new journal he was preparing, the first number of which was to bear on the front page the words, “Edited by Herbert C. Barnes.” Lady Frances had written on the subject of labour—
“Oh horny-handed sons of toil,Who spin and weave and dig in mines.”
“Oh horny-handed sons of toil,Who spin and weave and dig in mines.”
Erb, summoned to Eaton Square to take charge of this (the risk of loss in the post being too great to endure), had ventured to point out to the poetess, with, of course, great respect, that it would have been more appropriate to introduce something about kindness to horses and the difficulties occasioned bythe stress and turmoil of traffic; Lady Frances, listening with a slight frown on her young forehead, answered that she was much obliged, that she thought she saw her way to another poem to be called “Sturm and Drang,” but she felt it would be unwise to touch the first effort; good poetry was always dashed off on the impulse of the moment.
“I didn’t know that,” remarked Erb, with deference.
So poem Number One was to go in, please, exactly as she had written it, and on the day the paper came out would Erb oblige her very much by coming to dinner at Eaton Square.
“Dinner?” echoed Erb amazedly.
Coming to dinner at Eaton Square, and bringing with him one, or perhaps more, copies.
“What about an evening suit, Lady Frances?”
The managerial young woman had thought of that; her uncle and a few more men would be present, and, to make the dinner quite informal, they would wear morning dress. No, no, please, no excuses of any kind. Lady Frances was going to see her tailor in Maddox Street, and she could give Erb a lift so far. The tall maid (who was Miss Luker of the dance) being rung for, brought in hat and cloak, and helped her young mistress with them, giving no glance towards Erb, and the two went downstairs together. Seated at the side of Lady Frances, he was watched curiously by the drivers of one or two railway vans, who, in theiranxiety to verify what appeared to be a dream, looked round by the side, allowing thus their blinkered horses to peer into omnibuses and nibble at conductors’ hats, necessitating a swift exchange of the kind of repartee in which the London driver is a past master. When Erb stepped out at Maddox Street and raising his hat started back to a point whence he could walk to his office at Bermondsey, Erb noticed that Lady Frances had a look on her face that might come to one who advanced the cause of millions and, by an act of her own, had made a whole world glad. It would be quite unfair to suggest that at this period Erb was by way of becoming a snob, but it would be untrue to say that he had any objection to the soft, pleasant scent, the well-bred air, the gracious manner that he found with Lady Frances. It is also right to say that directly he had left her he began to think of Rosalind and of his work. At this period sometimes one came first, sometimes the other.
“Dinner!” he said to himself.
“Meat dinner at Eaton Square. ’Pon my life, this is the funniest world I ever saw.”
He retained his old habit of talking as he went along the London streets, and people in a hurry stopped on noticing this, and delivered themselves of an opinion in regard to his sanity. In this way he often had long talks with Rosalind of an extremely fervent nature; Rosalind helping him with a few coy questions, all in a way that had never yet found realisation; his fluency in these rehearsalsastonished him sometimes as much as his inexcusable awkwardness when he called at Camberwell.
“I’m a bit of a muddler,” he confessed in Waterloo Place, “where women are concerned. In other matters, now— Look where you’re coming, stupid!”
Spanswick, red faced, short necked, and pimpled, addressed in this way, was walking backwards in the inconvenient manner adopted by some on crowded pavements who wish to review scenes that have passed; it was a silken ankle stepping into a carriage that had clipped Spanswick’s attention.
“What ho!” cried Spanswick. “Still a lordin’ it, Erb, old man? Kind of a amphibious animal, ain’t you?”
“I can swim!” said Erb.
“The best swimmers get drownded sometimes.”
“Not more than once.”
“Talking of which,” said Spanswick cheerily, “are you going to stand us a drink?”
“No,” replied Erb.
“Ah, well,” said Spanswick with an effort, “me and you can’t afford to quarrel. We’ve both got our axes to grind. Whereabouts is Pall Mall?”
“You’re in it now. It runs up that way to the bottom of St. James’s Street.”
“That’s the best of ’aving been a parcels carman,” sighed Spanswick enviously. “I was never anything but a goods man, and I never had no chances of getting amongst the aristocracy as youhave. Otherwise I should meet you on equal terms. How’s the young woman?”
“What young woman?”
“Are there so many of ’em as all that? Seems to me,” remarked Spanswick thoughtfully, “that some of you lead a double life. You’ll come a cropper over it some day, mark my words.”
“I’ll mark your face,” retorted Erb with a sudden burst of annoyance. “I’ve put up with just about enough from you. I may be your secretary, but I’m not your slave.”
“Old man, don’t let’s go kicking up a common fracass here. You don’t understand my style of humour. This newspaper, or journal, or organ, or whatever you like to call it—how’s it going?”
“Well,” said Erb, returning to good temper. “I find I’m having to do it pretty nigh all myself. There’s another column to do now before the first number’s ready.”
“I’mpretty ’andy with me pen,” remarked the other. “I don’t prefess to be a literary man, of course, but— I’ll send you in a few items of news.”
“I shall be ever so much obliged to you. Make ’em smart and readable, mind.”
“I’llmake ’em smart,” said Spanswick.
It seemed to Erb, on the day “The Carman” was to appear, that something special of a less selfish character than the dinner in Eaton Square should be arranged to mark the event. What he vaguely desired was to give an outing to Louisa—the short sisterhad become too weak to take public promenade, and the current young man had to shout to her of an evening, gripping the railings in Page’s Walk. Erb had some daring thought of inviting Rosalind, and taking them both up the river. This detail of the plan he accepted and rejected, and accepted and rejected again; meeting Rosalind herself one evening in the strenuous fight for trams on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, he, after protecting her in the struggle up the steps, and allowing himself in the carrying out of his duty to press the plump arm above the elbow, found himself in the mood of accepting the detail, and he submitted the proposal in a way meant to be deferential, which, however, came out quite brusque and defiant. “Ever been to Battersea Park?” he asked gruffly. Rosalind had never been to Battersea Park. “Care to go?” Rosalind was so busy that she feared— “I’m going to take Louisa.” In that case (with a flush that went partly over her face and then ran away), in that case Rosalind would be very pleased. “Must be Wednesday next,” said Erb shortly. Wednesday was rather an awkward day, because there was a pupil at half-past one, who came in her dinner hour, and another at three. “Put her off,” commanded Erb. Very well, then, the three o’clock pupil should be off; Rosalind declared she would be thinking of the afternoon every hour of the day until it arrived. “So shall I,” said Erb shortly. Had Erb seen Lady Frances lately? “We can’t bear to be apart,” said Erb, in a tone meant to be jocular.
There were times when the one thing certain seemed to be that by no possible chance could the first number of “The Carman” come out on the day appointed. The printers did not place the importance of the undertaking so high as Erb did; difficult to make them understand the importance of producing it on the day fixed; the foreman of the noisy, rattling printing establishment in Southwark said frankly that the world having done without the journal for so long, no great hurt could be occasioned if it should be a day or two late.
But on the day, their van drove up to the doorway of the office where Erb and some of the committee were waiting, and a minute later each man had a copy in his hands, his eyes fixed on the gratifying place where his own name appeared. Erb had taken ingenious care to mention as many names as possible, and, because of this, railway vans sent, say, from Paddington to Haverstock Hill, made a slight detour and called at Bermondsey for copies. There were some misprints, and one man, whose Christian name was given as John instead of James, cancelled his subscription instantly, and prophesied a gloomy future for the paper. Erb demanded opinions, and discovered to his regret, that nearly every line in the small paper received condemnation from somebody (personal paragraphs about high officials in the railway world alone excepted), the fact being that the readers of “The Carman” misapprehended the question, and assumed, when asked for an opinion, that they were invited to giveadverse judgment; a thing that has happened with other critics in other circumstances.
But the particular copies presented to Louisa and to Rosalind extorted from these young women, on their way slowly to Cherry Garden Pier, unqualified approval. On the pier, where they waited for the steamer coming up from Greenwich, the two ladies read again the printed references to themselves.
“Yours,” said Erb importantly, fanning himself with his straw hat, “yours is what we newspaper people call a dummy ad.”
“I can pay for mine,” said Rosalind quickly.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” retorted Erb. “Read it out!”
She read it with a flush of gratification on her young face, Erb looking over her shoulder. The scent of brown Windsor came to him.
“‘Miss Rosalind Danks,’” she read, “‘Professor of Elocution, Declamation, Gesture, et cetera, et cetera. Number so-and-so Southampton Street, Camberwell, S.E. Schools attended. Private lessons given. Assisted by Mr. Reginald C. Danks, formerly of the principal West End theatres. “We shall never forget his Montgiron.”—Vide Press.’”
“Now yours, Louisa.”
A break in his short sister’s voice betokened uncontrollable pride.
“‘We are glad to say that Miss L. Barnes, younger sister of our secretary, is slowly recoveringfrom a rather serious illness.’ First time,” said Louisa, waving the journal in the air, “the very first time my name’s ever been in print.”
“May I suggest, Mr. Editor,” said Rosalind, leading him to the iron chain that protected the edge of the pier, “that it is a little clumsy to express satisfaction at slow recovery? It wasn’t what you meant.”
“Don’t let on to her about it,” urged Erb distressed. “I haven’t got quite the hang of writing. Is there anything else you noticed?”
“Nothing of importance.”
“Tell us,” begged the anxious editor, “and get it over.”
“These personal paragraphs, headed ‘What we Want to Know.’”
“The men all liked them.”
“A little spiteful,” she said quietly. “Calculated to hurt somebody. I shouldn’t, if I were you. This one, for instance.”
“We’ll drop ’em in number two. Here’s our boat coming.”
Some particular people complain of the river steamers, but the “Flying Arrow” that took charge of the three at London Bridge, and conveyed them up under railway bridges, and past embankments, and by the terrace of the House of Commons—Erb waved his straw hat to his friend the white-haired labour member, and the labour member waved in return in such a friendly manner that other passengers became at once interested in Erb, andwhispered (to Louisa’s great satisfaction), “Who is he? Who is he, eh?”—by the Tate Gallery, and between unattractive stores, Nine Elms way, the “Flying Arrow,” I say, for these three young people might have been a gaily caparisoned barge lent by Cleopatra; the gramophone that squeaked out songs in a ghostly, unnatural tone of voice, a selected troupe from the Royal Italian Opera; and the changes that the atmosphere took from inexpensive cigars and cheap tobaccos, the choicest perfumes from Old Bond Street. The top note of satisfaction was reached when Erb, invited to political debate by the self-confident captain, worsted that uniformed official with the greatest possible ease, and sent him back limp to the bridge, to resume a profession for which he was qualified. Disappointing, perhaps, to find that people on the steamboat who studied literature were not applying themselves to “The Carman,” devoting their minds, instead, to cheap journals, which offered German pictures (second-hand), with American jokes underneath, not absolutely new. Erb left two copies of “The Carman,” one aft and one at the other end, and the girls watched results; a lad with a bulgy forehead took up a copy and read it with languid interest; he presently dropped it on the deck, and a waiter in a bowler hat who came along at that moment threw it into the river, where it drifted away helplessly. The other copy seemed likely to taste more of success, for a woman seized it with every sign of delight; when she proceeded to wrap up a pair of boots in the newjournal Erb felt annoyed. But it was not easy to remain in this state with a cheerful young woman like Louisa, or with a more sedate but equally agreeable person like Rosalind, and they presently had a great game of pretending that they were royalty on a tour round the world, so that Nine Elms pier became Gibraltar, and a few minutes later they were going through the Suez Canal, which others called Battersea Bridge. On reaching Sydney (which had no harbour to speak of, but possessed a wobbling pier marked Battersea Park) they disembarked with most of the other voyagers, some of whom had decided that the three were either theatrical people or not quite right in their heads. As they went up the wooden gangway and entered the Park, Louisa had colour in her white cheeks, and, declining assistance of her companions, ordered them to give each other their arms. Which they did for a moment only.
“Shan’t go to that dinner this evening,” said Erb.
“I think you will,” remarked Rosalind.
“Catch you,” said Louisa satirically, “catch you missing a chance like that.”
“I shan’t go. I don’t want anything better’n this.”
“You’ll have to,” decided Louisa. “And come back and tell us all about it. I’d give anything to see Alice’s face when she hears you’ve been upstairs.”
“I’d forgot about Alice.”
“She’s forgot about us,” retorted Louisa.“That’s the worst of tall people, they always look down on you. How’d it be if I sat down here for a bit and let you two walk on and come back for me?”
“And leave you alone?” asked Rosalind.
“I can set here and laugh at the foreigners,” she remarked.
Erb and Rosalind made Louisa comfortable on a chair, and left her applying herself once more to the intellectual delight of again reading through “The Carman,” with special attention to the paragraph that concerned herself. Just before they went out of sight of her, in going round the circle where bicycles were swishing along, they turned and waved their hands: she unpinned her straw hat and lifted it in a gentlemanly way.
“I wonder,” said Erb thoughtfully, “whether she’s going to make old bones.”
“I shouldn’t let her go again to that work of hers.”
“If anything serious happened,” he said slowly, “I’d make such a stir about the business that they’d have to shut up the factory.”
“That wouldn’t bring her back,” remarked Rosalind.
“Back?” Erb stopped affrighted. “Why you don’t think—you don’t fancy for a moment, do you, that she’s going to—” They walked on quickly for a while. “My goodness,” he cried excitedly, “I’d tear the place down for them! There shouldn’t be a stone left! I’d get questions asked about thebusiness in Parliament! I’d organise meetings. I’d make London get white hot about it! I’d never let ’em rest. I’d set every society at ’em. We’d get up demonstrations in the streets. We’d—”
“Don’t let’s get cross about anything,” said Rosalind. “I want to look back on to-day when I get into my dull moments.”
“Younever get dull.”
“I suppose nobody’s life is perfectly happy.”
“I say,” said Erb, walking nearer to her and speaking in an undertone. “You never worry about that chap Railton, do you?”
“Not—not very often.”
“That’s right,” he said. “You know there’s no man in this world that is worth a single tear from your eyes.”
“Don’t talk about me as though I were perfect.”
“You wouldn’t be perfect,” said Erb, “if it wasn’t for your faults.”
They talked of Louisa, and reckoned up amusedly her long list of engagements. From this Erb went on to a short lecture on the time that some wasted over affairs of the heart, urging that there were other matters of equal or greater interest in life, such as the joy of getting on better than other people, and thus extorting the open envy, the cloaked admiration of colleagues. He succeeded at last in minimising the value of love to such a small amount that his companion ceased to give any consenting words, and, noticing her silence, he recognised that he was outrunning her approval;he had to hark back to the point where her silence had commenced to hint at want of agreement. They read the wooden labels on preposterous-looking trees, and invented names of like manner for themselves: Erb delivered a brief address from the banks of the lake to the swans on the water, urging them to form a society of their own and to fight to the last feather for their rights: they found a long broad avenue under trees that leaned across at the top, and a perfectly new Rosalind offered, in a sportive way that amazed Erb and gratified him, to race him as far as a mail-cart, and Erb starting, took no trouble over what appeared an easy task, with the result that he reached the winning-post badly beaten by the limping girl by several yards, and forced to endure from the baby occupant of a mail-cart a sneer of contempt. They rested after this, and, whilst Erb fanned her with his copy of “The Carman,” Rosalind talked of her father, and, instead of becoming serious as usual when the old Professor occupied her thoughts, told with great enjoyment the story of a great week once at Littlehampton when they were playing “East Lynne” with a fit-up company to such imperfectly filled houses that it became certain there would be not only no money with which to pay the excellent landlady on Sunday morning, but scarce a penny to buy food on Saturday. Of aforesaid excellent landlady coming in on the Saturday night and making one of eight people in the pit, and being so affected by the performance by Rosalind as littleWilly, and moved to such anguish of tears by the scene, that she bustled out between the last acts, purchased a sheep’s head at the butcher’s, had a fragrant, gorgeous supper ready for the Professor and Rosalind on their hungry return, and came in after the meal, when the two had searched once more for an emergency exit from the situation, with formal announcement to the effect that she knew quite well that they hadn’t a shilling to bless themselves with, that her native town in regard to appreciation of the dramatic art was past praying for; that Rosalind was a little dear, and that, for her part, if she touched a copper of their non-existent money she would never again know a moment’s peace: the landlady begged two favours, and two favours only—first, that she might give the little girl a good hug; second, that she might be permitted to stay up and bake them a meat and potato pie that would keep their bodies and souls together on to-morrow’s journey.
They remembered Louisa presently, and went back to the white-faced girl, who had found company in a penny novelette left on the seat by someone tired of literature, and who made them go away again until she ascertained whether the young woman in the story married the brilliant young journalist or the middle-aged Peer. When justice had been done by presentation of the prize to brains, and the House of Lords, resigning itself without a murmur, had given its blessing and a cheque, she called them back, and the three held council inregard to the dinner in Eaton Square. Erb was still inclined to be obstinate, but the two young women were equally determined, and they took him across the bridge into King’s Road, where the committee purchased for him a new neck-tie, the while they sent him away to wash his face and hands. They left him presently at Sloane Square, and went home to Bermondsey, because Louisa was now forced to confess that she had become tired; Rosalind having the evening free, and being anxious to hear the report of Erb’s experience in Eaton Square, offered to read to her in Page’s Walk.
Events progressed in Page’s Walk to the point of a cozy chat, where Louisa defied sleep in order to recite to Rosalind in their due order the circumstances of the many engagements from the respective starts to the individual finishes, with imitations of the voice of each suitor, and occasionally a parody of the gait. It was in the middle of a diverting account of Number Five—who had at least one defect in that he had no roof to his mouth—that Erb returned. The two surrounded him, firing questions.
“One at a time,” said Erb, good humoured, because of the unexpected joy of seeing Rosalind again. “One at a time. There were small things first, sardines and what not—”
“Hors d’œuvres,” said Rosalind.
“I daresay. Anyhow, after that, soup.”
“Can’t stand soup,” remarked Louisa. “There’s no stay in soup. Go on, Erb.”
“Now comes what I may term,” said Erb, “the gist or point of this anecdote. The lady with the shoulders next to me—”
“I should faint if I found myself going out like that,” declared Louisa, interrupting again. “How anyone can do it beats me. It’s like being caught in your disables.”
“The lady with the shoulders next to me turned and asked me something that I didn’t exactly catch, and I turned round rather suddenly and said, ‘Beg pardon?’ Knocked the arm of the girl who was serving the fish, and as near upset the plate that she held in her hand as didn’t matter. I jumps up, and then for the first time I recognised it was Alice.”
“Wasn’t she took aback?”
“Not half so much as I was,” said Erb. “I suppose being rather a large dinner party they’d laid her on extra. Of course, I shook hands with her and said, ‘Hullo, Alice, how’s the world using you?’”
“Well, you are,” said Louisa with horror, “absolutely the biggest juggins I ever come across.”
“But what was I to do?”
“Do?” echoed the short sister. “Do? I could have soon shown you what to do. All you’d got to do was to take no notice of her. Ignore her! Look past her! Pretend she wasn’t there! You’ll never get asked again, that’s a very sure thing.”
“I don’t care,” answered Erb. “I’m an awkward chap in these West End circles. When I’m not in ’em I want to be there, and once I’m thereI look round directly for an open door to slip out of.”
“And what did Miss Alice have to say for herself?” asked Louisa, coming back to the incident with relish.
“Oh, she kept very cool, and she just whispered, ‘Sit down, Erb, and behave.’”
“That’s her all over.”
“They stared at me naturally enough, and young Lady Frances seemed a bit upset just for a moment, and nobody spoke for a bit, but after a while they were all chatting away again, and the party with the shoulders next to me began asking me what I thought of the new woman at Covent Garden. Then I put me foot in it again,” said Erb amusedly. “I thought she meant the market.”
“How they’d pull you to pieces after you left,” remarked Louisa sighing. “I can ’ear ’em saying things.”
“I can’t,” said Erb contentedly. “And if I did I shouldn’t care. What would you have done,” he appealed to Rosalind, “what would you have done, now, in similar circumstances?”
Rosalind, as she put on her gloves, considered for a moment before replying. Then she leaned towards him and touched Erb’s knee lightly.
“I should have done,” she said, “exactly as you did.”
There were several reasons why Erb should not take her by the arms; all these reasons jumped up before him as he rose and made a step forward.He stopped himself with an effort, and preceded her to the door. They went downstairs, and he walked bareheaded as far as the “Lord Nelson.”
“You were never nearer being kissed,” he said to her ear, “in all your life.”
“Please, please,” she said reprovingly.
Erb went back to Page’s Walk checked and cooled by this reproof. The prospect that he had had momentarily in his mind of the small house close to Wandsworth Common, with a billiard table lawn at the back, at a time when he, perhaps, would be in the House, unique among all labour members by reason of having a wife who could be introduced with confidence, was dismissed with a caution.
“Letter for you, Erb, on the mantel,” cried Louisa from her room. “It’s just been sent over. Good-night!”
A portentous envelope, addressed to the Editor of “The Carman.” Erb sliced it with his penknife. The large letter paper was folded in three.
“Sir,“We have been consulted by our client, Sir William Durmin, with reference to the libellous statement which appears in No.Iof ‘The Carman.’“Our client cannot allow such statements to be made, and our instructions are to issue a writ without further notice.“If you wish to avoid personal service, pleasesupply us by return of post with the name of your solicitor who will accept service on your behalf.“Yours faithfully.”
“Sir,
“We have been consulted by our client, Sir William Durmin, with reference to the libellous statement which appears in No.Iof ‘The Carman.’
“Our client cannot allow such statements to be made, and our instructions are to issue a writ without further notice.
“If you wish to avoid personal service, pleasesupply us by return of post with the name of your solicitor who will accept service on your behalf.
“Yours faithfully.”
“Now,” said Erb, “the band’s beginning to play.”
Ifpublicity at any cost be a good thing for a new journal, then “The Carman” had no right whatever to complain. The men belonging to the Society felt exultant at references to the impending action. It seemed that they were defying Capital as Capital had never been defied before. They told each other, when they met at receiving offices and railway stations, that Capital was going to have a nasty show up. Erb looked forward to the struggle with eagerness, until he had a meeting with Spanswick, the writer of the paragraph; that amateur journalist admitted, at the end of a keen cross-examination, that he had, perhaps, erred in stating that he knew the statement as a fact of his own knowledge: he remembered now that it had been related to him by a chap of his acquaintance, who was either on the Great Eastern or the South Western, he would not swear which, and he confessed to the indignant Erb that he could no more place his hand on this man’s shoulders and produce him at the Law Courts “than the dead.” Erb told Spanswick exactly what he thought of him, and Spanswick, penitent, declared that it would be a warning for the future: he would not have had this happen for forty thousand pounds. If Erb required him to go intoa witness-box he would guarantee to say on oath just whatever Erb wished him to say. This sporting offer being declined, Spanswick went with downcast head, and examined the lining of his cap, as though hopeful that some solution of the difficulty would be found there. Once clear of the place he gave on the wooden flags of a cellar in Grange Road a few steps of a dance, which seemed to intimate that his regret was but a cloak that could be discarded without much difficulty.
No easy thing to keep up an attitude of hopefulness before the men whilst searching uselessly for facts to justify the Spanswick paragraph; but this was a mere diversion compared with the trouble that came to him the following week. Louisa was at home again after a few days of work at the factory, and Erb, going one afternoon to Page’s Walk for some correspondence, encountered the doctor who had called for a minute to see her. The doctor was a breathless, energetic man, whose fees were so small that, added up, they only made a living wage by reason of the number of his patients.
“Going on all right, doctor?”
“Yes, thanks,” replied the medical man, walking rapidly through the passage, and brushing his hat the while. “Busy though! Up to my eyes in work.”
“I was referring more particularly to my young sister.”
“Oh! she! Oh! it’s what might be expected. Hideous occupation, I call it. One of thosemanufactures that might well be left to foreigners. Good day!”
“One moment,” said Erb, placing a hand on the doctor’s arm, and speaking with great anxiety. “Tell us exactly what you mean in plain language. Ought she to be sent away again?”
“You don’t want to waste money,” said the doctor, glancing at his watch.
“If it’s necessary for her health, I’d spend the last penny I’ve got.”
“Would you really?” The doctor seemed genuinely surprised. “Well, then, perhaps she might get away to the country or the seaside or somewhere.”
“May be the means of saving her life?”
“Oh, no,” said the doctor cheerfully. “I wouldn’t go so far as that.”
Erb shook him violently.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? You—”
“Thought you had the sense to see,” said the doctor curtly. “Credited you with more intelligence apparently than you possess. Good day!”
Louisa resting upstairs in the one armchair declared that she had never felt better. It was only that she was tired, and had no appetite; but, then, see what a good thing it was to feel tired, and just imagine what a saving was effected by the absence of a craving for unlimited food! Erb did not tell his sister what the doctor had said, but his grave appearance hinted something, and Louisa declared not only that all doctors were fools, but wentfurther, and asserted that most of them were born fools. All the same, she consented with some reluctance to go away. Erb went down to Camberwell, to see Rosalind and talk it over. At Camberwell, Rosalind, ready dressed for public promenade, came halfway down the uneven pavement and met him, with both hands outstretched, just by Minerva. She had only that moment been speaking of him to the Professor, and the Professor had said that he, for his part, felt a keen desire to see Erb again.
“But we won’t see him,” she said, in a confidential way that was very pleasing, “because he will only want to borrow, and I am used to his borrowing from most people; but it hurts when he borrows from you.”
“We’ll talk in the hall,” suggested Erb.
“In a whisper,” said Rosalind.
The rare good point of talking in a whisper was that they were obliged to place their heads closely together. Erb explained the difficulty, and Rosalind, after considering for a moment, announced the decision in her emphatic way. School holidays would soon be on. She wanted to take a fortnight’s holiday herself: she would take Louisa away with her, either to Aunt Emma’s, at Penshurst, or, if the seaside was ordered, to Worthing.
“Spoiling your own holiday!”
“Not at all, not at all!” she answered decidedly. “It’s going to be, any way.”
“But why shouldyoutrouble? I could get Lady Frances—she’d do anything for me.”
“No doubt! Find my umbrella there in the corner—the one with the silver knob—and walk down with me to the school.”
It was certainly very pleasant to see how the young woman, after a few moments of reserve, and in the presence of Erb’s depression, became brighter than usual, pushing away all her own trouble, and talking of the Professor’s last escapade as though it were the best joke in the world. The Professor, still declining in the service of the profession, had recently been offered the post of baggage man in a newly-starting provincial company, with the added duty of acting as understudies to the man who played the old City man in Act I., and the Chief of Police in Russia in Act IV. Professor, with many protestations and frequent appeals to the shades of Barry Sullivan and John Ryder and others, had accepted the offer, and, securing on the Saturday night the sum of ten shillings in advance for the purpose of obtaining fine linen, appeared at St. Pancras station the next afternoon on the starting of the special, and denounced “The Banker’s Blood” Company, individually and generally, called upon Heaven to punish them for the attempt to degrade one who had trod the boards long before many of them had been allowed, mistakenly, to see the light of day, and altogether making such a furious scene on the platform, that the manager, consulting hastily with other members of the company in the labelled compartments, gave Rosalind’s father another half-sovereign to refrain from accompanying theparty. All of which Rosalind told in such a merry way that Erb found himself for a time half wooed from melancholy.
“That blessed paper,” he said, going back to trouble ruefully, “has got me in a corner the very first start off.”
“It wants fifteen minutes to the hour,” said Rosalind, looking up at the clock at the corner. “Let’s walk round the Green and hear all about it.”
Rosalind’s hopeful view of the matter was that it might be only what was called a “try on,” and the statement of Erb that he felt he hadn’t a leg to stand on, she declared to be unworthy of him.
Erb walked back to his office feeling that the talk had done good. It was certainly a great thing to find himself more hopeful in regard to Louisa. But he composed on the way a bitter, bitter paragraph concerning the firm in Neckinger Road and its occupation. This seemed so excellent, that he had half a mind to turn it into poetry, but there proved to be some difficulty in finding rhymes for “murder” and for “dastardly,” and he allowed himself on arrival to write it in prose. The copy for number three being made up, he deleted a humorous paragraph about a Bricklayers’ Arms man, whose wife had run away, and this made room. There was much in the lines themselves; more to be read by those who could fill up the blank spaces intervening. Erb looked at it when he had crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s with the pride of a man who, with a mere dip of ink, could force monied folk totremble. A fine thing to have control in this way over the printed word.
All the more satisfactory to get on a grievance, which appeared to be solid, in that he eventually found that he had to step out apologetically from the corner into which Spanswick’s ingenuity had thrust him. There were, it appeared, no grounds whatever for the statement made, and in Featherstone Buildings, Holborn, in a dim office with one light, under which he had to sit, whilst the two partners of the legal firm remained at the other end of the table in the shadow, he underwent, perhaps, the very worst quarter of an hour that he had endured since the time of schooldays. He had had to wait some time whilst one partner was sent for by the other.
“Then we may take it, Mr. Barnes, that you withdraw unreservedly every word of the paragraph in question?”
“That is so.”
“And you are prepared to offer every apology and every recompense that is in your power?” asked the other partner.
“I don’t know,” said Erb, “about recompense.”
“Well, then, every apology?”
“I suppose I shall have to taste blacking,” he said.
The two partners conferred for a long time in an undertone, the while Erb played nervously with a paper-knife. When one of them spoke he held his breath.
“If the paragraph had been copied into other journals, if it had had a wider circulation than that given by your little paper, Mr. Barnes, our client would have instructed us to go on with the legal proceedings, and we should have asked for and obtained heavy damages. If the journal itself was not below contempt—”
“Look here!” interrupted Erb sharply, “don’t you go rubbing it in too thick.”
“Sir William is a man with a large heart,” said the other partner, taking up a more conciliatory tone, “and we shall advise him in the circumstances to do the generous thing. You will print in the next issue of your paper an apology?”
“A most humble apology,” remarked the other partner, “terms of which you will permit us to dictate to you. He will not ask you to pay the costs already incurred, and you must think yourself confoundedly—”
“He understands,” remarked the second partner. “I am sure Mr. Barnes quite understands. Now let us see about drafting the apology.”
“I think I’d better see to that.”
“Now, my dear old friend,” urged the conciliatory partner.
A most abject apology it was, and the only encouragement for Erb came from the severe partner, who recommended several additions intended to make it of a more cringing nature. Erb signed it after a moment’s hesitation, and gave a great sigh of relief when he found himself in Holborn again;he knew that there would be some trouble in convincing his Committee that he had acted throughout with wisdom, but he had so much assurance in his own powers of speech, he had so often taken difficult positions by reason of his own generous ammunition of words, and of their short supply, that he felt confident of success. All the same, the incident would do him no good, and a repetition would undoubtedly weaken his power.