Number Three of “The Carman” came out rather opportunely, for he was able to present a copy to Rosalind and to Louisa on the day he saw them off from London Bridge. They were going to Worthing. Aunt Emma, who had not viewed the sea since childhood’s days, was going there from Penshurst in order to ascertain whether it had changed much. Louisa had to be taken to the station in a four-wheeler, and as she was helped along by her two companions through a rush of arriving City men, the girl seemed proud of the notice that her white face attracted. Erb recited the stinging paragraph that concerned Louisa’s late employers through the open carriage window, when Rosalind had made her patient comfortable with cushions. Two of Louisa’s sweethearts, friends in the presence of disaster, stood away against a lamp-post, and toyed with automatic machines.
“That’s one up against them,” said Louisa with relish. She smiled, but the look soon faded.
“If this don’t have any effect,” declared Erb,“I shall follow it up with something stronger. I’ll never let go of ’em.”
“Shouldn’t like the other gels to lose their shops,” remarked Louisa apprehensively.
“But you wouldn’t see ’em all get ill like you are?”
“I’m not reely ill,” said Louisa. “I’m only pretendin’. Besides, some gels can stand the work and some can’t.”
“Make her get better,” said Erb to Rosalind. “Don’t let her have her own way too much.”
“Not much use having anyone else’s,” remarked Louisa, with an effort at the old pertness.
“If she gets up to any of her nonsense send me a telegram.”
“I’ll write to you very often,” said Rosalind quietly. “Let me know—let me know if you see Lady Frances.”
The guard cried, “Stand away!” and gave the signal to start. Erb put his head in and kissed his sister’s face.
“Might as well serve both alike,” suggested Louisa sportively. She rubbed her eyes with her glove.
“Don’t dare,” said Erb.
One of the infatuated youths walked along with the train, and when Erb, with a wistful look in his eyes, fell back, the youth aimed a packet of chocolate, but either from nervousness or want of practice, missed the compartment and sent it into thenext, where four children pounced upon it with a high scream of delight.
The violence of the paragraph concerning the Neckinger Road firm helped to appease those on the Committee who showed uneasiness in regard to what they called the “climb down.” True, some of them remarked that the attacks on the Neckinger Road firm had nothing to do with the objects of the society, and Erb, reckoning up, found that he had lost the confidence of three, but a carman who had been discharged by the firm for slight inebriety—“I’m a man that varies,” said the ex-carman. “Sometimes I may ’ave twenty pints, sometimes I may ’ave thirty pints, and then other days I may ’ave quite a lot,”—came and begged permission to thank them for the public service that the journal was doing, and assured the Committee, with the air of one having exclusive information, that they would get their reward, in this world or in the next, or in both. As the reports from Rosalind at Worthing became less satisfactory, so the fierceness of the attacks in “The Carman” increased; but it was not until a paragraph appeared headed “Wilful Murder!” that Neckinger Road, after taking the previous outbursts with a calm that suggested it was either deaf or asleep, suddenly started up and took action in the most decided and emphatic manner.
Information has been laid this day by for that you, within the district aforesaid, did unlawfully and maliciouslypublish a certain defamatory libel of and concerning the said well knowing the same defamatory libel to be false, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided. You are therefore hereby summoned to appear before the Court of Summary Jurisdiction sitting at the Southwark Police Court on the twentieth day of October, at the hour of ten in the forenoon, to answer to the said information. Signed with an indistinct signature, one of the magistrates of the police-court of the metropolis.
Information has been laid this day by for that you, within the district aforesaid, did unlawfully and maliciouslypublish a certain defamatory libel of and concerning the said well knowing the same defamatory libel to be false, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided. You are therefore hereby summoned to appear before the Court of Summary Jurisdiction sitting at the Southwark Police Court on the twentieth day of October, at the hour of ten in the forenoon, to answer to the said information. Signed with an indistinct signature, one of the magistrates of the police-court of the metropolis.
This, on a blue-coloured form, which a friendly policeman left one evening, when Erb was wrestling with his brief leading article, and unable to decide whether to give a touch of brightness to the column by the two lines of poetry from William Morris, and risk offending a few subscribers who looked on rhymes as frivolous, or to remain on the safer ground of prose. Erb, in his attacks on the Neckinger Road firm, had begun to feel as a fencer does who makes ingenious passes at the air, and he was so much gratified now to find that he had at last struck something, that he gave the warrant-officer something with which to purchase a drink, and had a very friendly chat with him concerning points of law. Erb had to confess he had not hitherto understood—being a man whose mind was occupied with other matters—that one had to appear at a police-court in regard to a charge of libel: the warrant-officer increased Erb’s knowledge by informing him that not only was this the case where no damageswere claimed, but that the publication had only to be proved and you were at once committed to the Central Criminal Court to take your trial.
“There,” said the officer with relish, “there the Grand Jury has the first go at you, see?”
“They can throw out the Bill?”
“They can,” admitted the other grudgingly, “but bless my soul,” with a return to cheerfulness, “they won’t in your case. Then, in what you may term due course, on comes your case. See? You can either defend yourself—”
“I shall.”
“You know the old saying, I s’pose?”
“Never mind the old saying,” replied Erb. “Get on!”
“Then, of course, if you’re fool enough to conduct your own case, you’ll be fool enough to cross-examine the witnesses for the other side.”
“I shall,” said Erb.
“And a fine old mess you’ll make of it,” remarked the warrant-officer, laughing uproariously. “Lord! I’d give an ounce of shag to be in court when it comes off.”
“I’ll see that it comes off.”
“I’ve seen some of the biggest larks when chaps have been trying to do this sort of thing on their own, that ever you can imagine. Sometimes when I’m a bit down-hearted over anything, or if the wife’s a bit aggravatin’, I just cast my mind back and—”
The warrant-officer laughed again, and, taking off his helmet, mopped the inside of it with his handkerchief.
“Never, I suppose,” said Erb, a little nettled by this ill-timed hilarity, “seen a man in the witness box turned thoroughly inside out?”
“Not by an amateur.”
“Never seen him pinned down to certain facts, never watched him being led on and on and on, until he finds that he hasn’t got a shred of a reputation, a remnant of a character, not a single white spot of innocence or—”
“I like your talk, old man,” interrupted the warrant-officer, fixing on his helmet, “and I wish I could stay to hear more of it. But take care you don’t wear your face out. So long!”
The police of London are not infallible, but the first prophecies of the warrant-officer seemed likely to prove correct. Erb, determined not to fetter himself by legal knowledge, nevertheless found information thrust upon him, and this confirmed the statement that the police-court proceedings would be of a simple and formal nature. He regretted the delay, for he was eager to get to close quarters with the firm, and he spent his days in collecting evidence, he walked about at night, always taking in Camberwell in the tour that he might look up atherwindow, rehearsing the questions that he would put to the firm, imagining contests of words with counsel on the other side, contests from which he always emerged victorious. Spanswick had atlast given up all pretence of being a railway carman, and had resigned his membership (this to the relief of Payne and of Erb); it made Erb stop and think for a few minutes, when one afternoon, looking out of his office window he saw Spanswick driving a single-horse van belonging to the Neckinger Road firm.
Nothing could be more gratifying than the notice accorded by the evening papers to the hearing at the police-court. It happened on a day when little else of importance occurred, so that two journals had the item on their placards—
“ALLEGED NEWSPAPER LIBEL,”
“ALLEGED NEWSPAPER LIBEL,”
and one of them gave an astonishing portrait of Erb, “Sketched by our Artist in Court,” declared the legend underneath, as though this were any excuse. Railway carmen from all quarters somehow managed to include Southwark Police Court in their rounds at the precise hour of the hearing of the case, and when Payne and another householder gave their names in for the purpose of bail they cheered, and the magistrate threatening to have them expelled, they cheered again and filed out at the door.
“Let’s have a bloomin’ meeting,” cried one.
The suggestion clipped their fancy. Erb, coming out quietly, found himself seized by two of the strongest men, carried triumphantly to an empty South Western van standing in Marshalsea Road, and hoisted up to the seat of this, whence, to theobvious surprise of the two roan horses, he made a speech.
“We’ll stick to you, Erb,” cried some of the crowd.
“Through thick and thin,” cried the rest. “Three cheers for Erb. Hip! hip—”
Theweeks had hurried rapidly, more rapidly than usual, for they were pressed with business. The trial at the Central Criminal Court was over, after a hearing that struck Erb as being surprisingly brief, in view of the importance of the case; immediately on the conclusion of the evidence, and the speeches of counsel, the Recorder, from his scarlet-cushioned seat, where he had a robed Alderman and a knee-breeched Under Sheriff for company, had fined him, courteously and pleasantly, the sum of fifty pounds, or in default two months’ imprisonment. The shortness of the trial rendered an organised demonstration of little value in that the men arrived outside the Old Bailey some three hours after the case had been disposed of. Now there is nothing more galling to the Londoner than to be disappointed in his anticipations of a show, and it had required all Erb’s tact and more than his usual amiability to appease them.
Erb had expressed a desire to go to prison to purge the offence (a short purgatory in jail was no bad prelude to political life), but the men would not hear of this: they could not manage without him, he was indispensable, they must have someone to look after the society, there was none to take hisplace, and he had given up this idea with less of reluctance because a disquieting tone had come into the letters of Rosalind from Worthing. But, determined to do something heroic, he insisted that his household goods in Page’s Walk should be sold up, and a scene thus contrived that should attract public attention. Wherefore there was an auction room in New Kent Road, to which all the furniture (with the single exception of the bedding) had been removed “For Convenience of Sale,” and here were as many of the railway carmen of London as could spare themselves conveniently from their duties, and here also were a few alert-eyed youths with note books and sharpened pencils eager to record some incident so amusing that not even a sub-editor’s pencil should venture to delete. A fusty smell of cocoanut wrappings in the long room, bran new furniture gave an odour of polish, retained and preserved because there was no ventilation except that afforded by the entrance from the street; a good-tempered auctioneer at the end of the room, high up and leaning on a rostrum, with a flaring, whistling, naked gas jet that compelled attention, because every now and then it exhibited a humorous desire to singe the top of the auctioneer’s shining silk hat. Erb stood by the wall, rather proud of being in the position of a martyr, his men formed a body-guard around him. Close up by the auctioneer stood half a dozen decrepit old men, thehabituésof the place, ready to snatch up a bargain, to become the intermediaries between buyers and auctioneer, to knock out a sale,or, in short, to do anything and everything except serious labour.
“We have here,” said the auctioneer, leaning over his high desk and pointing with his hammer, “a very fine lot—show No. 13, George, and don’t be all day about it—a very fine lot, consisting of a pianoforte. Music hath charms, gentlemen, as you know, to soothe the savage breast, and it’s always a good investment from that point of view alone. George, jest run over the keys to show these gentlemen what a first-class musician you are.” The attendant, first rubbing the palm of his hand on his green baize apron, stroked the keys from first note to last. “There!” cried the auctioneer, “there’s execution for you! Many a man’s been ’anged for less. Now then, what shall we say for this magnificent instrument? Don’t all speak at once. Did you say twenty pounds, mister?” This to one of the regulars at the side.
“Not being a blank fool,” replied the musty old gentleman, “I did not say twen’y pounds.”
“Well! won’t anyone say twenty pounds jest for a start? Come now. You’ve all learnt some language or other.”
“Four and six,” said one of the carmen chaffingly.
“No, no!” said the auctioneer rather coldly. “I enjoy a joke as well as anyone, but ’pon my word—”
“Five bob!”
“I’m very good tempered,” went on theauctioneer, getting red in the face, “and I can stand as much as most men. But—”
“Five and six!”
“Well,” with resignation, “have your own way about it. Five and six is offered; five and six in two places; six shillings. I thank you, sir! Who’ll say ’alf a sov’, eh? Seven shillings! Very well then. But do let’s go on a shilling at a time; I can’t take sixpenny advances. You know the old story of the girl—”
Erb, looking round with a determined smile on his features, saw Spanswick entering from the pavement; with him a gentleman whose eyes were watery and whose gait was uncertain. Spanswick gave a casual nod to the clump of men, and beckoned to Erb in such an authoritative way that Erb crossed the room when the pianoforte—poor Louisa’s pianoforte, that she would allow no one to play—had been knocked down for twenty-five shillings. The auctioneer ordered his man to show the horsehair sofa and chairs.
“My friend Doubleday,” said Spanswick, introducing his companion. Mr. Doubleday removed his silk hat with care, for the brims seemed rather weak, and in a husky voice declared himself honoured. “One of the cleverest men in South London,” whispered Spanswick to Erb, “only he won’t recognise the fact. Educated, too!”
“This is a noble action of yours, sir,” said Mr. Doubleday, trying to clear his voice. “Reflects the highest credit on what I may venture to termthe manhood of South London.” Spanswick looked at Erb proudly, as though to say, “He can talk, can’t he?” “The newspapers will ring with your praises, sir. Capital will sneak away, abashed and ashamed in the presence of such a brilliant example of self-sacrifice and whole-hearted devotion. I suppose you haven’t got such a thing as a pipe full of tobacco about you? I’ve come out without my pouch.”
“Always comes out without his pouch,” remarked Spanswick admiringly.
“No, no!” said Mr. Doubleday, refusing with something of haughtiness Erb’s further offer. “I have a match, thank you. I have no desire to be indebted for anything,” he drew hard at his pipe, “for anything which I myself possess.”
“Independent old beggar, ain’t he?” whispered Spanswick.
“My friend here gives me to understand—and I have no doubt that his information is per-fectly correct—that you have adopted this attitude because a female relative—a sister, if I mistake not—”
“A sister,” admitted Erb.
“Has suffered grievously. Assuming that to be the case, I can only say that I am proud to grasp your hand, sir, and that I desire your acquaintance.”
“It ain’t many that he’d say that to,” whispered Spanswick.
“I want all the friends I’ve got just now,” said Erb.
“The lines of Longfellow,” said Mr. Doubleday condescendingly, “spring readily to one’s mind.” The hammer of the auctioneer went down with a startling crack; something that he said made the group of men laugh, and Erb was called by them to hear it. “We can make our lives sublime, and um-tee, umpty, umpty, umpty—footsteps on the sands of time,” quoted Mr. Doubleday.
“I must hop off,” said Spanswick. “Hasn’t he got a marvellous memory?”
“You’ll take your friend with you?” said Erb.
“No,” said Spanswick, rather awkwardly, “I’ll leave him. Fancy he’s got something to say to you.”
When the sale was over, it occurred to Erb that he had not eaten that day, and as the men had to hurry off to their duties, he would have been left alone but for Mr. Doubleday’s presence. Erb was glad to leave the gas-scented auction rooms, and would have been content with no other company but his own; he had been acting in a hot, tempestuous way of late, and he was anxious, now that this business was over, to review it all calmly. Anxious, also, think of Louisa, and— But Mr. Doubleday stuck to him, and when Erb entered the Enterprise Dining Rooms, in New Kent Road, Doubleday followed him to the pew, and sat down opposite. Erb gave his order to the girl, who rested the palms of her red hands on the table; when she turned to the other, Doubleday said, assuming the manner of a complaisant guest, that he would have the same.
“Fate,” he said, hanging the deplorable silk hat on a wooden peg, “Fate has thrown us together, sir, in a most remarkable way.”
“Thought it was Spanswick,” said Erb.
“Most inscrutable, the workings of Providence. Stagger even me at times.”
“You don’t mean that?” said Erb.
“Positive truth!” declared Mr. Doubleday. “Now this meeting with you, for instance. If it had been planned it couldn’t have happened more fortunately. Because I have information to give you of the very highest possible value. It means, my dear sir, an absolute epoch-making event in your life, and— Ah! roast beef and Yorkshire pudding! Reminds me of my young days. I recollect when I was a bit of a boy—”
Mr. Doubleday, with heavy jest and leaden-footed reminiscence, took the duty of conversation upon himself, evidently feeling that he was a bright, diverting companion, one who just for his exceptional powers as araconteurwell deserved to be asked out to dine. His stories were so long, and the telling of them so complicated, that Erb was able to allow his mind to concentrate itself on his own affairs. He had taken a definite, a desperate step; the reaction was setting in, and he began to wonder whether he had been precisely right. Something to feel that whatever he did, right or wrong, he had the solid, obstinate, unreasoning support of the men; one could, of course, count upon this; the greater the misfortune he encountered, the more faithful andobedient would they become. There could be no doubt about that. Besides, they had no one else to guide them. He was, as they had admitted, the one, the necessary man. Any signs of rebellion in the past he had always been able to quell with very little trouble; as a last resource, there was always the threat of resignation. Sothatwas satisfactory enough. Less grateful to remember that the revenge he had tried to take on the Neckinger Road firm had done his sister’s health no good whatever. He would run down to Worthing soon to see her and to cheer her.
“Joking apart,” said Mr. Doubleday, snapping his finger and thumb to secure the attention of the waitress, “let’s come to business. (Cabinet pudding, my dear! I daresay my genial host will take the same.) You must understand, please, that what I am about to submit to you is, as we say in the law, entirely without prejudice.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
“I used to be in a secondhand bookseller’s. Now, I suppose I’m right in assuming that you could, if necessary, place your hands on a certain sum of money?”
“I could.”
“About how much shall we say?” asked Mr. Doubleday engagingly.
Erb counted the money in his pocket.
“Twelve shillings and ninepence.”
“I appreciate the humour of that remark,” saidMr. Doubleday in his husky voice, “but I want to talk business. I’m a plain, straightforward man, and what I want to know is simply this. Is there a five-pound note flying about?”
“If there was,” said Erb, “I should catch it.”
“There’s the benefit money,” said the other, looking at himself curiously in the hollow of a spoon, “the benefit money to borrow from, and Yes, yes! I know what you are going to say and I quite agree with you. I think you’re most decidedly in the right. Far be it from me to suggest for a single moment—”
“I’m getting tired of you,” interrupted Erb suddenly. “I wish you’d take your hook and go away. Your face worries me, and your talk makes my head ache.”
“Then it’s time I came to close quarters. Listen to me!” Mr. Doubleday leaned his elbows on the table, and, bending forward, shielded his mouth with his hand that words might not go astray. “This is the situation. A man, a young man, takes up a certain high-minded attitude in regard to a certain firm; gets hauled up for libel; gets fined. His society comes to his rescue. Newspapers have paragraphs applauding him. So far, so good! Fine thing to show up, as far as he can, dangerous trades. But he forgets or he pretends to forget, doesn’t matter which—that not so long ago he, this same young man, went all over the country, making speeches in favour of a syndicate that called itself something or other—”
“I don’t ask your permission before I open my mouth,” cried Erb heatedly.
“True, my lad, true! You can go further than that. You can say that you didn’t do so without being adequately bribed to do it.”
“Bribed!” Erb rose at the table and clenched his fist.
“Keep cool!” said Mr. Doubleday, making a military tent of his two hands. “There’s no extra charge for sitting down.”
“Let me know what you mean by saying that I’ve been bribed.”
“I should have thought that you would have known the meaning of the term by this time. B-r-i-b-e is a word meaning the sum accepted for doing work that you had no business to do. We can easily verify it.” He snapped his fingers. “Got a dictionary, my dear?”
“To eat?” asked the waitress.
“A dictionary,” he repeated with impatience.
“We’ve got an old London directory.”
“Never mind about the exact definition of the word,” said Erb steadily. “Tell me at once what you mean by your accusation.”
“Have you ever in all your life seen a cheque for twenty pounds?”
“Yes!”
“Made payable to yourself?”
“Yes!”
“And signed by—”
“Yes, yes, go on.”
“Nothing more to say,” remarked Mr. Doubleday. “There’s an end of the matter. Only it’s rather a pretty circumstance altogether, don’t you think? This self-sacrificing chap who has allowed himself to be sold up publicly as a protest against harmful trades, is the same man who earlier in the year was speaking throughout the length and breadth of the land in support of trade infinitely more harmful than the one carried on in Neckinger Road.And,” here Mr. Doubleday took down his elderly silk hat and made elaborate pretence of smoothing the nap, “getting uncommonly well paid for it, too. Pretty situation, isn’t it?”
“There’s a very good answer to the charge you bring against me,” said Erb, trying to keep his temper, “but there’s no earthly reason why I should give it. I’m not responsible to you; Iamresponsible to my society.”
“Ah,” cried Mr. Doubleday, putting his hat on jauntily, “glad you recognise that.”
“Idorecognise it.”
“And having recognised it, you see that it would be very much to your interest that the unfortunate transaction should be kept dark.”
“Not at all!”
“In which case,” here he stood up ready to go, and slapped his foot with his bamboo cane, “in which case you’d better come, my lad, to this place”—he placed a worn and travelled card with two addresses ruled out and a third written in, “before six o’clock to-night. Before six o’clock, mind. Aminute past will be too late. And—er—bring that five-pound note along with you.”
He walked jauntily up the aisle of the dining rooms to the street door; when the waitress flew after him, he whispered a few words and pointed back at Erb with his cane.
“Is that right?” demanded the waitress breathlessly of Erb, “is that right that you pay?”
“Looks like it!” replied Erb moodily.
The threat did good in one way in that it aroused all his fighting instincts and that it diverted his mind from Worthing. Going down Walworth Road to look at Rosalind’s house, he rehearsed the expected scene, striking the palm of one hand with the fist the other, and scoring with great neatness over Spanswick and other opponents. Women at the stalls stopped in their loud declaration of the admirable character of their goods, to watch the excited young man as he went by, and remarked to each other that he was evidently in love; an excuse that in their eyes justified any and every sign of eccentric behaviour. On the way back (after walking up and down near the garden of monumental statuary and glancing shyly each time at her window), he met the Professor, and for the sheer pleasure of talking of her engaged him in conversation. The Professor deplored the fact that after you had given the best years of your life to the education of an only child, she should go off to the seaside for a holiday without so much as thinking for a moment of taking you with her, and asked Erb whether hehad half a crown about him in exchange for two separate shillings and a sixpence. On Erb producing this coin the Professor found, with many expressions of deep regret, that he had left the smaller pieces in a waistcoat at home.
“But I shan’t forget, my dear chap,” said the Professor, raising his hand for a stage clasp. “I am one of those who never permit a kindness to escape from their memory. But I hate to be badgered. That ungrateful young scamp Railton, for instance.”
“Ah!”
“What have I not done, or rather what have I not promised to do, for him.”
“Daresay! But—”
“Engaged at one time to my accomplished daughter.”
“But what about him?”
“I am not romancing,” said the other impressively. “I am simply giving you the downright, honest, blunt, straightforward truth when I tell you that he wrote this morning asking me for two pounds on the plea that he had become married at the beginning of the week to a publican’s daughter at Oldham.”
“Did you send it?” asked Erb, with great cheerfulness.
“I wrote and I told him that if, as he said, he had in the past lent me sums amounting in the aggregate to this total, why I could only say that the fact had escaped my memory. I would, however, take an opportunity of looking through mymemoranda in order to see whether I had made any record of such transactions. Could I say anything fairer?”
“And he’s actually married?”
“There is a piece of what is termed wedding cake at home, awaiting my daughter’s return.”
“Will it—will it upset her do you think?” asked Erb nervously.
“I shall warn her not to eat it,” said the Professor.
Erb did an extraordinary thing. Delighted by the news which the Professor had brought he set out upon a walk down through Camberwell into Surrey, a walk that he determined should last until he was tired out, a walk that had some vague advantage of going in the direction of Worthing. He was not used to heroic physical exercise, but on this unique occasion there seemed nothing else to do that would have been appropriate, and he mingled with the evening tide of people receding from London, beating it easily, and finally arriving beyond Dulwich, and well out into the country, where the rare gas lamps were being lighted and a mist came like a decorous veil and protected the face of the roadway modestly. Easier to think here than in the hurry and turmoil and clatter of town. After all, what did public life matter, what did the cause of labour or anything else matter so long as one was personally happy? That had ever been the aim of wise men; in future it should be his. There could always come the superadded amusement ofplaying with lesser minds, directing them and making them perform, exercising control in the manner of the unseen director of a Punch and Judy show. Erb argued this in a quiet road, with gesture and excitement; a sparrow hopped along for some distance with him in a companionable way, twittering approval, and hinting that if there should be such a thing in the corner of a pocket as a few bread crumbs—
It was late when Erb returned by train from Croydon to South Bermondsey station, and in the nearly empty rooms of Page’s Walk he found Payne awaiting him. Payne, with something more than his usual gravity of countenance, seated on the one remaining chair and smoking an empty pipe in a desolate, absent-minded way.
“Well,” said Payne lugubriously, “you’ve done for yourself now.”
“That so,” remarked Erb. “What’s the latest?”
“One of the worst crisisises,” said Payne solemnly, and taking some gloomy enjoyment in making the word as long and as important as possible, “that ever you encountered in all your puff.”
“I’m ready for it,” said Erb.
“They’ve sacked you,” said Payne.
“Is that all?”
“They’ve shown you the door. They’ve helped you downstairs with their foot. They’ve kicked you out, old man.”
“This a joke?” asked Erb.
“Never made a joke in me life,” declared Payne, “and well you know it.”
Erb went over to the window and rested on the window sill.
“Spanswick?” he asked briefly.
“Him,” answered Payne, “and no other.”
“And they settled it all without hearing my account of the case?”
“Old chum! there didn’t seem to be no room for any other account. He’d got chapter and verse for everything he said. All about a twenty pound cheque, all about—”
“And it never occurred to this—this flock of sheep,” shouted Erb excitedly, “that I destroyed that cheque and never cashed it?”
“I don’t think they understand much about cheques,” said Payne. “The fact that you took it was what impressed them.”
Neither spoke for a few minutes.
“Who’s going to take my place?”
“Friend of Spanswick’s.”
“Name Doubleday?”
“Name of Doubleday,” said Payne affirmatively. “Clever sort of sweat, so far as I could judge. What are you going to do about it, old man? Going to organise, I trust. Open-air meeting, say.”
“Did any of the others stick up for my side?”
“Only me!”
A pause again.
“Well, you’re going to do something?”
“You’ve got another guess,” said Erb.
IfErb’s experience of life had been greater, if his knowledge of the trend of events had been more extensive, he would have been helped by the assurance that in this world, mist and sunshine alternate, and that rarely a fog descends on the life of an energetic man and remains there always. But had Erb known this, there would still have remained the undeniable fact that, for the time at any rate, the atmosphere was murky. He showed a certain amount of temper. He sent in his keys addressed to the acting secretary, and, knowing that the accounts were all in order, declined the request that he should attend to explain money matters to his successor; he decided to leave London (having indeed very little there to leave) and to go down to Worthing, giving no one but Payne his address.
“Looks as though you had turned sulky,” remonstrated Payne.
“I have!” said Erb.
The new number of “The Carman,” which he himself had made up, contained a brief paragraph, to make room for which a quotation from Ruskin had been deleted.
“We beg to state that Herbert Barnes has no longer any connection with the Society, and that the position of Secretary will be filled up at the next meeting of the committee. At present everything points to Friend Doubleday, who is in a position to devote the whole of his time to the work, and can be relied on not to have dealings with the representatives of capital.”
More stings came on the way up the Boro’ to London Bridge station. Four railway carmen he met, driving their vans, instead of the “Hello!” and the mystic twist of the whip, there was first a glance of cautious recognition, then a steady look ahead, with an air of absorbed interest, as though realising for the first time the horse’s presence. At the station itself, men of his old Society, on seeing him, hurried round to the tails of their vans, and commenced sorting parcels there with amazing industry. All this sent Erb into the deeper depths, and it was not until he reached Worthing, and found on the platform Rosalind and Aunt Emma and his sister, Louisa, Louisa’s white face becoming pink with excitement, that he forgot his worries.
“Well,” said Aunt Emma, “what’s the best news?”
“There isn’t any best news,” replied Erb.
They went, arm in arm, down the long road to the sea front, and in a shelter there, Erb sat between them, and for the first time since the downfall found the luxury of detailed description andfrank avowal. When the account came of the worst Rosalind touched his sleeve sympathetically.
“And there you are!” said Erb when he had finished. He found himself now inclined to look on the disasters as though they had occurred to someone else with whom he had nothing in common. “And hereIam, in about as awkward a situation as I’ve ever been in in all my life.”
“Complimentary to us,” said Rosalind brightly.
He took her hand and patted it.
“You know what I mean,” he whispered.
“They’d no right to sell up the ’ome,” said Louisa fiercely.
“Yes they had,” said Erb. “By the law.”
“But that Spanswick’s the one that should have suffered.”
“An oven in a oast house,” suggested Aunt Emma, “would finish him off. That’s how he’ll be treated in the next world, anyway.”
“I ought to have verified the information he gave me about the first affair.”
“And in the second affair you were perfectly right.”
“That don’t make any difference to the law of libel. Besides, I was in a temper when I wrote it. I let my feelings get the better of me.”
“What do you propose—”
“Haven’t a single idea,” declared Erb exultantly. “Go back on me hands and knees and get a berth as carman again, I s’pose.”
“That you never shall,” said the two youngwomen emphatically. “You have some long walks whilst you’re down here,” counselled Rosalind, “and think it over by yourself.”
“If a bit of money’s wanted—” began Aunt Emma.
“All this time,” he said, turning to Louisa and pinching her white cheek, “all this time I haven’t inquired howyouare pulling along.”
“I’m as right as rain, Erb.”
“Ah!” he remarked doubtfully, “so you’ve always said. Heard anything of Alice?”
“Not a word from the overgrown minx,” said Louisa with wrath. “If she was here I’d speak my mind to her, and pretty quick about it, too. Oh, yes, I know,” Louisa went on, not to be deterred by an interruption from the rare luxury of an access of temper, “she may have a lot to think of; she takes jolly good care not to think of us.”
“Has anyone written to tell her?” asked Rosalind quietly.
“Why should we?” demanded Erb’s young sister with illogical heat. “It’s her business to find out! But, of course, she wouldn’t care if we was both in the workhouse.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that.”
“I shouldn’t let you,” said Aunt Emma.
“Meanwhile,” interrupted Rosalind, “we’re not giving your brother anything to eat. Let me run off to our rooms and get something ready.”
The opportunity came here for Louisa to tell her brother how good Rosalind had been, what afirst-class nurse she had proved herself, how bright and attentive. “I should have kicked the bucket, I think,” said Louisa looking out across the sea rather thoughtfully, “if it hadn’t been for her. And such a manager! Isn’t she, Aunt Emma?” Erb listening, began to feel that the world was not such a bad world after all. He talked hopefully, but vaguely, of either going to Canada, where he believed a man with a handful of capital was welcomed, and estates presented to him by a hospitable Government, or to New South Wales, where, so far as he could ascertain, labour leaders were in demand, and treated with proper amount of trustfulness. On Aunt Emma asking whether these places were not in point of fact a long way off, Erb was forced to admit that they were a pretty tidy step, and that, everything else being equal, he would prefer to stay in the London where he had been born—the London that he knew, the London that he liked.
“I haven’t played the game well,” admitted Erb candidly. “I’ve tried to be fair and straightforward with both sides, and I’ve managed to fall down in between them. And I’ve hurt myself!”
They had nearly finished their steak at dinner, and Louisa, breaking from new and fiercer condemnation of Alice, was about to inquire of Rosalind whether there was anything for after, when a miniature telegraph boy passed the window in Portland Street, and gave a double knock, altogether out of proportion to his size, at the front door. The landlady’s daughter brought in a telegram, and“Please,” said the landlady’s daughter (inspecting Erb with curiosity, in order to give a report to her mother), “Please is there any answer?”
“Just heard of trouble. Lady Frances wishes to see you this evening. Most important.—Alice.”
“Just heard of trouble. Lady Frances wishes to see you this evening. Most important.—Alice.”
“Take no notice of it,” said Louisa, not yet restored to coolness. “Ignore it!”
Rosalind offered no counsel. Aunt Emma watched her narrowly. Erb considered for a moment, looking from one to another.
“Thought you were going to stay with us a few days?” remarked his sister.
“I ought to go back if it’s really important,” he said. “And Lady Frances is a young lady who doesn’t like being disappointed.”
“Please yourself,” said Aunt Emma shortly. “But take care, that’s all!”
He found news, on his return after this very brief visit, in a letter at the emptied rooms in Page’s Walk that at once encouraged him and gave him perturbation. The white-haired Labour Member wrote in cautious terms that a certain bye-election in a London constituency was imminent. It had been decided to run a Labour candidate; the other two sides were pretty evenly matched, and if the game were played well, and played out, there was good chance of the Labour man making a fair show; there was another chance, less probable, but possible, that the Liberal candidate, if he found he hadno prospect of winning, might retire before the election. The point was (wrote the Labour M.P.), would Erb consent to stand if he were selected? All the expenses would be paid, and all the help that the party could give would be willingly afforded. It would be better to put up a man like Erb, who had never before submitted to the suffrages of a constituency, than a man who had elsewhere undergone the experience of rejection. A reply to the House of Commons would oblige, and, meanwhile, this communication was to be regarded as strictly private.
“He hasn’t heard,” said Erb thoughtfully, “of my come down.”
There were many courses, Erb felt, to pursue which were not straightforward, but only one that was honest. He went into a stationer’s in Willow Walk, and, borrowing pen and ink, and purchasing paper and envelope, wrote a frank letter, giving all the necessary details of recent events, and just caught the five-thirty post as the pillar box was being deprived of its contents. Then he made his way on foot—a desperate spirit of economy possessing him—to Eaton Square.
“Ages since I saw you,” said Mr. Danks the footman, receiving him on the area steps with something like enthusiasm, “but I’ve heard of you over and over again.”
“How are you getting on with your aitches?” asked Erb.
“Very complimentary remarks, too,” said Mr.Danks, ignoring the inquiry. “My cousin Rosie seems to think of nobody else, so far as I can judge. I’d no idea you were a favourite with the fair sex!”
“Ah!” remarked Erb. “It’s brain that tells in the long run.”
“If I thought there was anything in that remark,” said the footman, interested, “I’d go in for literature or something of the kind myself. I’m expecting to be thrown over by a young lady in Lowndes Square by every post, and—but I’m keeping you waiting.”
“I noticed that,” said Erb.
“Jackson,” said cook, now stouter and apparently shorter than ever, “would be down directly.” Would Erb let her cut for him a sandwich or a snack of—well, Erb could please himself, cook’s own motto in the matter of feeding was, “Little and often,” but it had never been her way to force her opinions on other people, in which particular her motto was “Interfere with nobody, and nobody will interfere with you.” Cook had many other aphorisms to impart, and seemed a little hurt when Alice came into the kitchen and claimed her brother with a kiss that had about it unexpected affection.
“I’ve been worrying about you day and night,” declared Alice. “I never thought anything would upset me so much.”
“Wonder you don’t ask after Jessie,” interrupted cook.
“Jessie who?” demanded Erb.
“Just Jessie! Thought you was rather struckon her. She’s with a family travelling abroad now. Tall girl with eyes.”
“I’d forgotten all about her.”
“Ah!” sighed the cook. “That’s a man all over. It’s the old saying over again—”
“And I told Lady Frances,” continued Alice, leaving cook to mutter to a large joint of beef turning before a desperately fierce fire, “and you’re to see her, Erb, directly after dinner.”
“What’s in the wind?”
“That’s more than I can tell you. But I’m very glad you’ve cut your connection with all those common working men.”
“They’ve cut their connection with me,” said Erb.
“Comes to the same thing,” said his sister, equably.
“Last time you was here, Mr. Barnes,” said cook, over her shoulder from the fire, “you came as a friend of the family. Funny world isn’t it? Upstairs one day, downstairs the next.”
“You must be short of money, Erb,” whispered his sister, in an undertone. “I’ve got quite a tidy bit put away in the savings bank. If ten or twenty pounds—”
“Upon my word,” cried Erb, “it’s worth while having a touch of misfortune now and again, if it’s only just to find how much kindness there is about. But I shall find my feet somehow, Alice. Don’t you worry about me.”
“Can’t help doing so.”
“You might do what you can for Louisa, though. If it hadn’t been for—for a friend of mine, I don’t know where she’d have been.”
“We’ve never quite got on together in the past,” said Alice regretfully. “The difference in our heights seem to have led to other differences. But I’ll see that it all dries straight. She’ll pull through, of course.”
“I think she’ll just pull through,” said Erb, thoughtfully, “and that’s about all. Doctor says that if there was unlimited money about she’d be herself in a few months. But there you are, you see! Just when it’s wanted particularly, it goes and hides.”
Mr. Danks knocked and came in with a reverential air that differed from the one with which he had greeted Erb in the area. Lady Frances’ compliments, and she would be pleased to see Mr. Barnes in the drawing-room now.
“Let me put your tie straight,” said Alice.
Lady Frances, looking taller and more charming than ever in her dinner dress, was delighted to see Mr. Barnes again. Quite a long time since they had met. She herself had been very busy—would not Mr. Barnes sit down?—very busy, and that must be taken as her excuse, rather worried, too. There was trouble out in North Africa, and when one had friends there— But the point was this: Lady Frances had heard all about the disastrous events in the Barnes household. In regard to Louisa, she must go to the Riviera with Lady Francesthis winter. No, no! It was entirely a selfish proposition, and Louisa would be a most amusing companion; Lady Frances never tired of Cockney humour.
“In return for which,” said Erb, fervently, “I’ll do any blessed thing you like to ask me.”
“So far, good!” said Lady Frances, with a gesture of applause with her fan. “Now to get on a little further. Her uncle—Mr. Barnes remembered her uncle?”
“I remember him well!”
“Now, this was a great secret, and must not be mentioned to a soul. Her uncle was going to stand for the coming bye-election at— Ah! Mr. Barnes had heard of the probable vacancy. Strange how information flew about—and in this constituency” (here Lady Frances tried to wrinkle her smooth young forehead, and to look extremely wise), “there was, it appeared, a large working class element. Mr. Barnes had been useful in a somewhat similar way before. Why should not he again be of assistance? The money that he would thus earn would enable him to do almost anything. Go abroad to one of the Colonies, or stay here and marry and settle down, or—”
“There’s just this about it that I ought to tell you,” said Erb. “I’ve been asked to have a dash at the same event as an Independent Labour Candidate.”
That, Lady Frances admitted with another effort to look aged, that certainly did complicate matters.Was there probability of Mr. Barnes accepting the offer?
“Not the least probability in the world.”
Capital, capital! The young diplomatist again signified approval with her fan and leaned forward from her chair in a most attractive way. All that now remained to do was for Mr. Barnes to say “yes,” and the whole matter would be arranged satisfactorily.
“Upon my word,” declared Erb, after a few moments’ thought, “to say ‘yes’ would be far and away the easiest thing to do. I owe precious little to my men after the way they’ve treated me, and it would just let them see—”
Mr. Barnes would excuse Lady Frances for interrupting, but a really most supremely brilliant idea had just occurred to her, and it was indispensable that she should communicate it without an instant’s delay. (The young woman panted with surprise and enthusiasm, and Erb watched her reverently.) Why should not Mr. Barnes—this was absolutely the greatest notion that had ever occurred to anybody since the world began—why should not Mr. Barnes do everything he could to forward his candidature as an Independent, and then, just at the last moment retire in favour of—
“No!” said Erb suddenly.
The young woman did not conceal her disappointment at Erb’s unreasonable attitude. No ambassador rebuffed in a mission on which future promotion depended, could have felt greaterannoyance. But she recovered her usual amiability, and, leaving the discussion where it was, spoke further of her intentions in regard to Louisa and the trip to the South of France, on which subject she showed such real kindness that when Erb was presently shown out into Eaton Square by Mr. Danks (“Good evening, sir,” said Mr. Danks respectfully), he felt something like contempt for himself for having declined so abruptly to accept her suggestion and advice. He went off to Payne’s house, where something was done to a magic piece of furniture that pretended ordinarily to be a chair, whereupon it became a bedstead, and afforded comfortable rest for the night.
The next morning Erb, for about the first time in his life, found himself with nothing to do but to count the hours. He envied the easy carelessness of men able to loaf outside the public-houses in Dover Street; in some public gardens near there were able-bodied youths smoking cigarettes and sunning themselves luxuriously, content apparently to feel that there, at any rate, work could never force itself upon their attention, and no danger existed of encountering a job. Whatever happened, Erb knew that he would never slide down to this. It might well be that he would not find himself now in a position to ask Rosalind to become his wife, but he would never become a loafer. He walked up through the increasingly busy crowd of High Street, Borough, and comparison between their state and his forced him to recognise the factthat in no place, under certain conditions, can one be so lonely as in London.
“The very man!” cried a voice. The hook of a walking-stick caught his arm.
“That you?” said Erb. “Get my letter?”
“Got your letter,” said the white-haired Labour M.P. in his swift, energetic way, “and I’m going down now to put everything straight for you.”
“That’ll take a bit of doing.”
“I’ve had more twisted things to deal with than this. Which way were you going?”
“I scarcely know.”
“Then you’re coming down with me.”
“Shan’t I be rather in the way?”
“I hope so,” said the Labour M.P.
A swift walker, the Labour M.P., and one with whom it was not easy to keep pace; he talked at a corresponding rate, so that by the time they reached the office of the London Railway Carmen’s Society, he was showing signs of exhaustion, and the duty of talking to Spanswick, who was perched on the window-sill on the landing, devolved upon Erb. Spanswick wore a look of perturbation and showed some desire not to look at Erb in speaking to him; he puffed at a ragged cigar, at which he glanced now and again with deep regret.
“I can’t make ’ead or tail of it,” said Spanswick, despondently. “It’s a mystery, that’s what it is. Why I should have trusted that man with untold gold.”
“What’s happened?” asked Erb.
“After all I’ve done for him, too,” went on Spanswick. “I’ve treated him like a brother, I have; I might go so far as to say I’ve treated him more like a friend than a brother. It was only last night that we were ’aving a few friendly glasses together—I paid for the last, worse luck!—and he was talking about what he was going to do for the Society, and all the time he must have had this letter in his pocket, ready to pop in the post.”
“Where’s the key to this door?” asked the Labour M.P. sharply.
“He might well call himself Mister Doubleday,” went on Spanswick, finding the key in his pocket, “I’ve never been more deceived in anybody in all my life. Him and me has been pals for over six weeks, and this is how he turns round and treats me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen him home when it’s been necessary after the places were closed, and sometimes,” Spanswick admitted this grudgingly, “sometimes of course, he’s seen me ’ome when it’s been necessary. He’s told me things about his early boyhood; I’ve told him things about my early boyhood. If I’ve had more tobacco in me pouch than he has, he’s always been welcome to a pipeful. I got him the best berth he ever had in all his born days—”
“And outed me from it,” remarked Erb. “What—?”
“But don’t it jest shew you,” demandedSpanswick eagerly, “how the very best of us can sometimes be taken in? I’m looked on as a man who knows enough to come in when it rains, and I certainly pride myself more on taking in others than being took in meself. And here am I, in me fortysecond year—”
“Barnes!” called the voice of the Labour M.P. from the office, “come here!”
Spanswick went on growling to himself as Erb left him and entered the office.
“The books do not appear to have been touched since you left,” said the white-haired man. “Not a figure, not a letter.”
“Then he can’t be accused of tampering with ’em.”
“How much cash did you leave in the safe?” Erb showed the sum at the foot of a page in the accounts book. “I’ve half a mind,” said the Labour M.P., in a determined way, that suggested he was making an understatement, “I have half a mind to break it open!”
“Wouldn’t it be better to give him a chance of coming back?”
“Read that letter!”
Erb read a slip of paper that Doubleday had left on the desk. Doubleday had addressed it to the committee, and it told them that, finding his health was giving way under the stress of the few days’ work, he had decided to take a holiday. If there should be any little trifle short in the cash accounts, that would be replaced as soon as hecould make it convenient to do so. He added that he had drawn the sum standing to the Society’s credit, because there was not enough money in the safe to enable him to take the somewhat lengthened holiday which he felt was necessary. Thanking them for all past favours, regretting their acquaintance had been so brief, and wishing the Society every success, he remained, Theirs faithfully, Edward H. Doubleday.
“I’d like to know the worst,” said the Labour M.P. “I suppose you’ve no experience in forcing looks?”
“It’s a branch of my education,” replied Erb, “that’s been sadly neg— Why, the blessed thing’s open!”
The safe was, indeed, unlocked, and this mattered the less, because the safe was quite empty. Erb struck a match and searched the corners; there was nothing to be seen but an envelope bearing the words, “I.O.U.,” a certain large amount, and Doubleday’s portentous signature.
“What’s the next step, sir?” asked Erb.
“Set the police on his track.”
“And the next?”
“Call the committee together at the earliest possible moment. Make them do what I should have induced them to do even though this had not happened—reinstate you as secretary.”
“Anything else?”
“After that you and I can talk over this bye-election business. I think we shall get you in theHouse, Barnes, before you’re very much older.” The M.P. looked at his large silver watch, “I must be moving. Deputation to the Home Secretary at one. Fine life ours, Barnes; always something doing. Always difficulties to be cleared away. You’ll enjoy it when you’re in the midst of it.”
“Think so?”
The Labour M.P. hurried off, pushing Spanswick aside as that desolate man made an effort to impart some further details of his acute grievance. Spanswick went to the door of the office, but found it shut in his face.
“Now, ifI’dbeen in his place,” cried Spanswick, through the keyhole, “the least I should have thought of saying would have been ‘’Alves!’”