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\title{Paul Kelver, by Jerome K. Jerome}

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\title{Paul Kelver}


\author{Jerome Klapka Jerome}

\maketitle
\vspace*{\stretch{1}}

\noindent This public-domain (U.S.) text was scanned and proofed by
Ron Burkey. The Project Gutenberg edition ({}``pklvr10'') was subsequently
converted to \LaTeX{} using \textbf{GutenMark} software and then re-edited
to correct formatting problems. Any errors can be reported to info@sandroid.org.

\noindent \begin{center}Revision: A\\
Date: 01/21/03\end{center}

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\frontmatter

\pagestyle{myheadings}{\small \tableofcontents{}}\newpage

\mainmatter


\chapter*{\raggedright PROLOGUE.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{PROLOGUE.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{PROLOGUE}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{In}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{which}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{author}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{seeks}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{to}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{cast}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{responsibility}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{this}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{story}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{upon}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{another}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
At the corner of a long, straight, brick-built street in the far East
End of London---one of those lifeless streets, made of two drab walls
upon which the level lines, formed by the precisely even window-sills
and doorsteps, stretch in weary perspective from end to end, suggesting
petrified diagrams proving dead problems---stands a house that ever
draws me to it; so that often, when least conscious of my footsteps,
I awake to find myself hurrying through noisy, crowded thoroughfares,
where flaring naphtha lamps illumine fierce, patient, leaden-coloured
faces; through dim-lit, empty streets, where monstrous shadows come
and go upon the close-drawn blinds; through narrow, noisome streets,
where the gutters swarm with children, and each ever-open doorway
vomits riot; past reeking corners, and across waste places, till at
last I reach the dreary goal of my memory-driven desire, and, coming
to a halt beside the broken railings, find rest.

The house, larger than its fellows, built when the street was still
a country lane, edging the marshes, strikes a strange note of individuality
amid the surrounding harmony of hideousness. It is encompassed on
two sides by what was once a garden, though now but a barren patch
of stones and dust where clothes---it is odd any one should have thought
of washing---hang in perpetuity; while about the door continue the
remnants of a porch, which the stucco falling has left exposed in
all its naked insincerity.

Occasionally I drift hitherward in the day time, when slatternly women
gossip round the area gates, and the silence is broken by the hoarse,
wailing cry of {}``Coals---any coals---three and sixpence a sack---co-o-o-\textit{als}!''\ 
chanted in a tone that absence of response has stamped with chronic
melancholy; but then the street knows me not, and my old friend of
the corner, ashamed of its shabbiness in the unpitying sunlight, turns
its face away, and will not see me as I pass.

Not until the Night, merciful alone of all things to the ugly, draws
her veil across its sordid features will it, as some fond old nurse,
sought out in after years, open wide its arms to welcome me. Then
the teeming life it now shelters, hushed for a time within its walls,
the flickering flare from the {}``King of Prussia'' opposite extinguished,
will it talk with me of the past, asking me many questions, reminding
me of many things I had forgotten. Then into the silent street come
the well-remembered footsteps; in and out the creaking gate pass,
not seeing me, the well-remembered faces; and we talk concerning them;
as two cronies, turning the torn leaves of some old album where the
faded portraits in forgotten fashions, speak together in low tones
of those now dead or scattered, with now a smile and now a sigh, and
many an {}``Ah me!''\ or {}``Dear, dear!''

This bent, worn man, coming towards us with quick impatient steps,
which yet cease every fifty yards or so, while he pauses, leaning
heavily upon his high Malacca cane: {}``It is a handsome face, is
it not?''\ I ask, as I gaze upon it, shadow framed.

{}``Aye, handsome enough,'' answers the old House; {}``and handsomer
still it must have been before you and I knew it, before mean care
had furrowed it with fretful lines.''

{}``I never could make out,'' continues the old House, musingly,
{}``whom you took after; for they were a handsome pair, your father
and your mother, though Lord!\ what a couple of children!''

{}``Children!''\ I say in surprise, for my father must have been
past five and thirty before the House could have known him, and my
mother's face is very close to mine, in the darkness, so that I see
the many grey hairs mingling with the bonny brown.

{}``Children,'' repeats the old House, irritably, so it seems to
me, not liking, perhaps, its opinions questioned, a failing common
to old folk; {}``the most helpless pair of children I ever set eyes
upon. Who but a child, I should like to know, would have conceived
the notion of repairing his fortune by becoming a solicitor at thirty-eight,
or, having conceived such a notion, would have selected the outskirts
of Poplar as a likely centre in which to put up his door-plate?''

{}``It was considered to be a rising neighbourhood,'' I reply, a
little resentful. No son cares to hear the family wisdom criticised,
even though at the bottom of his heart he may be in agreement with
the critic. {}``All sorts and conditions of men, whose affairs were
in connection with the sea would, it was thought, come to reside hereabout,
so as to be near to the new docks; and had they, it is not unreasonable
to suppose they would have quarrelled and disputed with one another,
much to the advantage of a cute solicitor, convenient to their hand.''

{}``Stuff and nonsense,'' retorts the old House, shortly; {}``why,
the mere smell of the place would have been sufficient to keep a sensible
man away. And''---the grim brick face before me twists itself into
a goblin smile---{}``he, of all men in the world, as `the cute solicitor,'
giving advice to shady clients, eager to get out of trouble by the
shortest way, can you fancy it!\ he who for two years starved himself,
living on five shillings a week---that was before you came to London,
when he was here alone. Even your mother knew nothing of it till years
afterwards---so that no man should be a penny the poorer for having
trusted his good name. Do you think the crew of chandlers and brokers,
dock hustlers and freight wreckers would have found him a useful man
of business, even had they come to settle here?''

I have no answer; nor does the old House wait for any, but talks on.

{}``And your mother!\ would any but a child have taken that soft-tongued
wanton to her bosom, and not have seen through acting so transparent?
Would any but the veriest child that never ought to have been let
out into the world by itself have thought to dree her weird in such
folly? Children!\ poor babies they were, both of them.''

{}``Tell me,'' I say---for at such times all my stock of common
sense is not sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay.
From its walls so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps,
surely it has learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes
to learn at last a music of its own. {}``Tell me, I was but a child
to whom life speaks in a strange tongue, was there any truth in the
story?''

{}``Truth!''\ snaps out the old House; {}``just truth enough to
plant a lie upon; and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that
weed. I saw what I saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a
good man, and your father a true wife, but it was the old story: a
man's way is not a woman's way, and a woman's way is not a man's way,
so there lives ever doubt between them.''

{}``But they came together in the end,'' I say, remembering.

{}``Aye, in the end,'' answers the House. {}``That is when you
begin to understand, you men and women, when you come to the end.''

The grave face of a not too recently washed angel peeps shyly at me
through the railings, then, as I turn my head, darts back and disappears.

{}``What has become of her?''\ I ask.

{}``She? Oh, she is well enough,'' replies the House. {}``She lives
close here. You must have passed the shop. You might have seen her
had you looked in. She weighs fourteen stone, about; and has nine
children living. She would be pleased to see you.''

{}``Thank you,'' I say, with a laugh that is not wholly a laugh;
{}``I do not think I will call.'' But I still hear the pit-pat of
her tiny feet, dying down the long street.

The faces thicken round me. A large looming, rubicund visage smiles
kindly on me, bringing back into my heart the old, odd mingling of
instinctive liking held in check by conscientious disapproval. I turn
from it, and see a massive, clean-shaven face, with the ugliest mouth
and the loveliest eyes I ever have known in a man.

{}``Was he as bad, do you think, as they said?''\ I ask of my ancient
friend.

{}``Shouldn't wonder,'' the old House answers. {}``I never knew
a worse---nor a better.''

The wind whisks it aside, leaving to view a little old woman, hobbling
nimbly by aid of a stick. Three corkscrew curls each side of her head
bob with each step she takes, and as she draws near to me, making
the most alarming grimaces, I hear her whisper, as though confiding
to herself some fascinating secret, {}``I'd like to skin 'em. I'd
like to skin 'em all. I'd like to skin 'em all alive!''

It sounds a fiendish sentiment, yet I only laugh, and the little old
lady, with a final facial contortion surpassing all dreams, limps
beyond my ken.

Then, as though choosing contrasts, follows a fair, laughing face.
I saw it in the life only a few hours ago---at least, not it, but
the poor daub that Evil has painted over it, hating the sweetness
underlying. And as I stand gazing at it, wishing it were of the dead
who change not, there drifts back from the shadows that other face,
the one of the wicked mouth and the tender eyes, so that I stand again
helpless between the two I loved so well, he from whom I learned my
first steps in manhood, she from whom I caught my first glimpse of
the beauty and the mystery of woman. And again the cry rises from
my heart, {}``Whose fault was it---yours or hers?'' And again I
hear his mocking laugh as he answers, {}``Whose fault? God made us.''
And thinking of her and of the love I bore her, which was as the love
of a young pilgrim to a saint, it comes into my blood to hate him.
But when I look into his eyes and see the pain that lives there, my
pity grows stronger than my misery, and I can only echo his words,
{}``God made us.''

Merry faces and sad, fair faces and foul, they ride upon the wind;
but the centre round which they circle remains always the one: a little
lad with golden curls more suitable to a girl than to a boy, with
shy, awkward ways and a silent tongue, and a grave, old-fashioned
face.

And, turning from him to my old brick friend, I ask: {}``Would he
know me, could he see me, do you think?''

{}``How should he,'' answers the old House, {}``you are so different
to what he would expect. Would you recognise your own ghost, think
you?''

{}``It is sad to think he would not recognise me,'' I say.

{}``It might be sadder if he did,'' grumbles the old House.

We both remained silent for awhile; but I know of what the old House
is thinking. Soon it speaks as I expected.

{}``You---writer of stories, why don't you write a book about him?
There is something that you know.''

It is the favourite theme of the old House. I never visit it but it
suggests to me this idea.

{}``But he has done nothing?''\ I say.

{}``He has lived,'' answers the old House. {}``Is not that enough?''

{}``Aye, but only in London in these prosaic modern times,'' I persist.
{}``How of such can one make a story that shall interest the people?''

The old House waxes impatient of me.

{}```The people!''' it retorts, {}``what are you all but children
in a dim-lit room, waiting until one by one you are called out to
sleep. And one mounts upon a stool and tells a tale to the others
who have gathered round. Who shall say what will please them, what
will not.''

Returning home with musing footsteps through the softly breathing
streets, I ponder the words of the old House. Is it but as some foolish
mother thinking all the world interested in her child, or may there
lie wisdom in its counsel? Then to my guidance or misguidance comes
the thought of a certain small section of the Public who often of
an evening commands of me a story; and who, when I have told her of
the dreadful giants and of the gallant youths who slay them, of the
wood-cutter's sons who rescue maidens from Ogre-guarded castles; of
the Princesses the most beautiful in all the world, of the Princes
with magic swords, still unsatisfied, creeps closer yet, saying: {}``Now
tell me a real story,'' adding for my comprehending: {}``You know:
about a little girl who lived in a big house with her father and mother,
and who was sometimes naughty, you know.''

So perhaps among the many there may be some who for a moment will
turn aside from tales of haughty Heroes, ruffling it in Court and
Camp, to listen to the story of a very ordinary lad who lived with
very ordinary folk in a modern London street, and who grew up to be
a very ordinary sort of man, loving a little and grieving a little,
helping a few and harming a few, struggling and failing and hoping;
and if any such there be, let them come round me.

But let not those who come to me grow indignant as they listen, saying:
{}``This rascal tells us but a humdrum story, where nothing is as
it should be;'' for I warn all beforehand that I tell but of things
that I have seen. My villains, I fear, are but poor sinners, not altogether
bad; and my good men but sorry saints. My princes do not always slay
their dragons; alas, sometimes, the dragon eats the prince. The wicked
fairies often prove more powerful than the good. The magic thread
leads sometimes wrong, and even the hero is not always brave and true.

So let those come round me only who will be content to hear but their
own story, told by another, saying as they listen, {}``So dreamt
I.\  Ah, yes, that is true, I remember.''


\part*{BOOK I}

\addcontentsline{toc}{part}{BOOK I}


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER I}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER I}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER I}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Paul}}\noun{,} \textit{\noun{arrived}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{in}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{a strange}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{land}}\noun{,}
\textit{\noun{learns}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{many}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{things}}\noun{,}
\textit{\noun{and}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{goes}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{to}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{meet}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{man}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{in}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{grey}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought
to have been born in June, which being, as is well known, the luckiest
month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful parents,
be more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May, which
is, on the other hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I have
proved, I leave to those more conversant with the subject to explain.
An early nurse, the first human being of whom I have any distinct
recollection, unhesitatingly attributed the unfortunate fact to my
natural impatience; which quality she at the same time predicted would
lead me into even greater trouble, a prophecy impressed by future
events with the stamp of prescience. It was from this same bony lady
that I likewise learned the manner of my coming. It seems that I arrived,
quite unexpectedly, two hours after news had reached the house of
the ruin of my father's mines through inundation; misfortunes, as
it was expounded to me, never coming singly in this world to any one.
That all things might be of a piece, my poor mother, attempting to
reach the bell, fell against and broke the \textit{cheval}-\textit{glass},
\textit{thus} further saddening herself with the conviction---for
no amount of reasoning ever succeeded in purging her Welsh blood of
its natural superstition---that whatever might be the result of future
battles with my evil star, the first seven years of tiny existence
had been, by her act, doomed to disaster.

{}``And I must confess,'' added the knobbly Mrs.\ Fursey, with
a sigh, {}``it does look as though there must be some truth in the
saying, after all.''

{}``Then ain't I a lucky little boy?''\ I asked. For hitherto it
had been Mrs.\ Fursey's method to impress upon me my exceptional
good fortune. That I could and did, involuntarily, retire to bed at
six, while less happily placed children were deprived of their natural
rest until eight or nine o'clock, had always been held up to me as
an astounding piece of luck. Some little boys had not a bed at all;
for the which, in my more riotous moments, I envied them. Again, that
at the first sign of a cold it became my unavoidable privilege to
lunch off linseed gruel and sup off brimstone and treacle---a compound
named with deliberate intent to deceive the innocent, the treacle,
so far as taste is concerned, being wickedly subordinated to the brimstone---was
another example of Fortune's favouritism: other little boys were so
astoundingly unlucky as to be left alone when they felt ill. If further
proof were needed to convince that I had been signalled out by Providence
as its especial protege, there remained always the circumstance that
I possessed Mrs.\ Fursey for my nurse. The suggestion that I was
not altogether the luckiest of children was a new departure.

The good dame evidently perceived her error, and made haste to correct
it.

{}``Oh, you! You are lucky enough,'' she replied; {}``I was thinking
of your poor mother.''

{}``Isn't mamma lucky?''

{}``Well, she hasn't been too lucky since you came.''

{}``Wasn't it lucky, her having me?''

{}``I can't say it was, at that particular time.''

{}``Didn't she want me?''

Mrs.\ Fursey was one of those well-meaning persons who are of opinion
that the only reasonable attitude of childhood should be that of perpetual
apology for its existence.

{}``Well, I daresay she could have done without you,'' was the answer.

I can see the picture plainly still. I am sitting on a low chair before
the nursery fire, one knee supported in my locked hands, meanwhile
Mrs.\ Fursey's needle grated with monotonous regularity against her
thimble. At that moment knocked at my small soul for the first time
the problem of life.

Suddenly, without moving, I said:

{}``Then why did she take me in?''

The rasping click of the needle on the thimble ceased abruptly.

{}``Took you in! What's the child talking about? Who's took you in?''

{}``Why, mamma. If she didn't want me, why did she take me in?''

But even while, with heart full of dignified resentment, I propounded
this, as I proudly felt, logically unanswerable question, I was glad
that she had. The vision of my being refused at the bedroom window
presented itself to my imagination. I saw the stork, perplexed and
annoyed, looking as I had sometimes seen Tom Pinfold look when the
fish he had been holding out by the tail had been sniffed at by Anna,
and the kitchen door shut in his face. Would the stork also have gone
away thoughtfully scratching his head with one of those long, compass-like
legs of his, and muttering to himself. And here, incidentally, I fell
a-wondering how the stork had carried me. In the garden I had often
watched a blackbird carrying a worm, and the worm, though no doubt
really safe enough, had always appeared to me nervous and uncomfortable.
Had I wriggled and squirmed in like fashion? And where would the stork
have taken me to then? Possibly to Mrs.\ Fursey's: their cottage
was the nearest. But I felt sure Mrs.\ Fursey would not have taken
me in; and next to them, at the first house in the village, lived
Mr.\ Chumdley, the cobbler, who was lame, and who sat all day hammering
boots with very dirty hands, in a little cave half under the ground,
his whole appearance suggesting a poor-spirited ogre. I should have
hated being his little boy. Possibly nobody would have taken me in.
I grew pensive, thinking of myself as the rejected of all the village.
What would the stork have done with me, left on his hands, so to speak.
The reflection prompted a fresh question.

{}``Nurse, where did I come from?''

{}``Why, I've told you often. The stork brought you.''

{}``Yes, I know. But where did the stork get me from?'' Mrs.\ Fursey
paused for quite a long while before replying. Possibly she was reflecting
whether such answer might not make me unduly conceited. Eventually
she must have decided to run that risk; other opportunities could
be relied upon for neutralising the effect.

{}``Oh, from Heaven.''

{}``But I thought Heaven was a place where you went to,'' I answered;
{}``not where you comed from.'' I know I said {}``comed,'' for
I remember that at this period my irregular verbs were a bewildering
anxiety to my poor mother. {}``Comed'' and {}``goned,'' which
I had worked out for myself, were particular favourites of mine.

Mrs.\ Fursey passed over my grammar in dignified silence. She had
been pointedly requested not to trouble herself with that part of
my education, my mother holding that diverging opinions upon the same
subject only confused a child.

{}``You came from Heaven,'' repeated Mrs.\ Fursey, {}``and you'll
go to Heaven---if you're good.''

{}``Do all little boys and girls come from Heaven?''

{}``So they say.'' Mrs.\ Fursey's tone implied that she was stating
what might possibly be but a popular fallacy, for which she individually
took no responsibility.

{}``And did you come from Heaven, Mrs.\ Fursey?'' Mrs.\ Fursey's
reply to this was decidedly more emphatic.

{}``Of course I did. Where do you think I came from?''

At once, I am ashamed to say, Heaven lost its exalted position in
my eyes. Even before this, it had puzzled me that everybody I knew
should be going there---for so I was always assured; now, connected
as it appeared to be with the origin of Mrs.\ Fursey, much of its
charm disappeared.

But this was not all. Mrs.\ Fursey's information had suggested to
me a fresh grief. I stopped not to console myself with the reflection
that my fate had been but the fate of all little boys and girls. With
a child's egoism I seized only upon my own particular case.

{}``Didn't they want me in Heaven then, either?''\ I asked. {}``Weren't
they fond of me up there?''

The misery in my voice must have penetrated even Mrs.\ Fursey's bosom,
for she answered more sympathetically than usual.

{}``Oh, they liked you well enough, I daresay. I like you, but I
like to get rid of you sometimes.'' There could be no doubt as to
this last. Even at the time, I often doubted whether that six o'clock
bedtime was not occasionally half-past five.

The answer comforted me not. It remained clear that I was not wanted
either in Heaven nor upon the earth. God did not want me. He was glad
to get rid of me. My mother did not want me. She could have done without
me. Nobody wanted me. Why was I here?

And then, as the sudden opening and shutting of the door of a dark
room, came into my childish brain the feeling that Something, somewhere,
must have need of me, or I could not be, Something I felt I belonged
to and that belonged to me, Something that was as much a part of me
as I of It. The feeling came back to me more than once during my childhood,
though I could never put it into words. Years later the son of the
Portuguese Jew explained to me my thought. But all that I myself could
have told was that in that moment I knew for the first time that I
lived, that I was I.

The next instant all was dark again, and I once more a puzzled little
boy, sitting by a nursery fire, asking of a village dame questions
concerning life.

Suddenly a new thought came to me, or rather the recollection of an
old.

{}``Nurse, why haven't we got a husband?''

Mrs.\ Fursey left off her sewing, and stared at me.

{}``What maggot has the child got into its head now?''\ was her
observation; {}``who hasn't got a husband?''

{}``Why, mamma.''

{}``Don't talk nonsense, Master Paul; you know your mamma has got
a husband.''

{}``No, she ain't.''

{}``And don't contradict. Your mamma's husband is your papa, who
lives in London.''

{}``What's the good of \textit{him}!''

Mrs.\ Fursey's reply appeared to me to be unnecessarily vehement.

{}``You wicked child, you; where's your commandments? Your father
is in London working hard to earn money to keep you in idleness, and
you sit there and say `What's the good of him!' I'd be ashamed to
be such an ungrateful little brat.''

I had not meant to be ungrateful. My words were but the repetition
of a conversation I had overheard the day before between my mother
and my aunt.

Had said my aunt: {}``There she goes, moping again. Drat me if ever
I saw such a thing to mope as a woman.''

My aunt was entitled to preach on the subject. She herself grumbled
all day about all things, but she did it cheerfully.

My mother was standing with her hands clasped behind her---a favourite
attitude of hers---gazing through the high French window into the
garden beyond. It must have been spring time, for I remember the white
and yellow crocuses decking the grass.

{}``I want a husband,'' had answered my mother, in a tone so ludicrously
childish that at sound of it I had looked up from the fairy story
I was reading, half expectant to find her changed into a little girl;
{}``I hate not having a husband.''

{}``Help us and save us,'' my aunt had retorted; {}``how many more
does a girl want? She's got one.''

{}``What's the good of him all that way off,'' had pouted my mother;
{}``I want him here where I can get at him.''

I had often heard of this father of mine, who lived far away in London,
and to whom we owed all the blessings of life; but my childish endeavours
to square information with reflection had resulted in my assigning
to him an entirely spiritual existence. I agreed with my mother that
such an one, however to be revered, was no substitute for the flesh
and blood father possessed by luckier folk---the big, strong, masculine
thing that would carry a fellow pig-a-back round the garden, or take
a chap to sail in boats.

{}``You don't understand me, nurse,'' I explained; {}``what I mean
is a husband you can get at.''

{}``Well, and you'll `get at him,' poor gentleman, one of these days,''
answered Mrs.\ Fursey. {}``When he's ready for you he'll send for
you, and then you'll go to him in London.''

I felt that still Mrs.\ Fursey didn't understand. But I foresaw that
further explanation would only shock her, so contented myself with
a simple, matter-of-fact question.

{}``How do you get to London; do you have to die first?''

{}``I do think,'' said Mrs.\ Fursey, in the voice of resigned despair
rather than of surprise, {}``that, without exception, you are the
silliest little boy I ever came across. I've no patience with you.''

{}``I am very sorry, nurse,'' I answered; {}``I thought---''

{}``Then,'' interrupted Mrs.\ Fursey, in the voice of many generations,
{}``you shouldn't think. London,'' continued the good dame, her
experience no doubt suggesting that the shortest road to peace would
be through my understanding of this matter, {}``is a big town, and
you go there in a train. Some time---soon now---your father will write
to your mother that everything is ready. Then you and your mother
and your aunt will leave this place and go to London, and I shall
be rid of you.''

{}``And shan't we come back here ever any more?''

{}``Never again.''

{}``And I'll never play in the garden again, never go down to the
pebble-ridge to tea, or to Jacob's tower?''

{}``Never again.'' I think Mrs.\ Fursey took a pleasure in the
phrase. It sounded, as she said it, like something out of the prayer-book.

{}``And I'll never see Anna, or Tom Pinfold, or old Yeo, or Pincher,
or you, ever any more?'' In this moment of the crumbling from under
me of all my footholds I would have clung even to that dry tuft, Mrs.\ Fursey
herself.

{}``Never any more. You'll go away and begin an entirely new life.
And I do hope, Master Paul,'' added Mrs.\ Fursey, piously, {}``it
may be a better one. That you will make up your mind to---''

But Mrs.\ Fursey's well-meant exhortations, whatever they may have
been, fell upon deaf ears. Here was I face to face with yet another
problem. This life into which I had fallen: it was understandable!
One went away, leaving the pleasant places that one knew, never to
return to them. One left one's labour and one's play to enter upon
a new existence in a strange land. One parted from the friends one
had always known, one saw them never again. Life was indeed a strange
thing; and, would a body comprehend it, then must a body sit staring
into the fire, thinking very hard, unheedful of all idle chatter.

That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my
face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well
as grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls
brush my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her
neck, and drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the
question that all the evening had been knocking at my heart:

{}``I suppose you couldn't send me back now, could you? You see,
you've had me so long.''

{}``Send you back?''

{}``Yes. I'd be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn't I?''

My mother knelt down beside the bed so that her face and mine were
on a level, and looking into her eyes, the fear that had been haunting
me fell from me.

{}``Who has been talking foolishly to a foolish little boy?''\ asked
my mother, keeping my arms still clasped about her neck.

{}``Oh, nurse and I were discussing things, you know,'' I answered,
{}``and she said you could have done without me. Somehow, I did not
mind repeating the words now; clearly it could have been but Mrs.\ Fursey's
fun.

My mother drew me closer to her.

{}``And what made her think that?''

{}``Well, you see,'' I replied, {}``I came at a very awkward time,
didn't I; when you had a lot of other troubles.''

My mother laughed, but the next moment looked grave again.

{}``I did not know you thought about such things,'' she said; {}``we
must be more together, you and I, Paul, and you shall tell me all
you think, because nurse does not quite understand you. It is true
what she said about the trouble; it came just at that time. But I
could not have done without you. I was very unhappy, and you were
sent to comfort me and help me to bear it.'' I liked this explanation
better.

{}``Then it was lucky, your having me?''\ I said. Again my mother
laughed, and again there followed that graver look upon her childish
face.

{}``Will you remember what I am going to say?'' She spoke so earnestly
that I, wriggling into a sitting posture, became earnest also.

{}``I'll try,'' I answered; {}``but I ain't got a very good memory,
have I?''

{}``Not very,'' smiled my mother; {}``but if you think about it
a good deal it will not leave you. When you are a good boy, and later
on, when you are a good man, then I am the luckiest little mother
in all the world. And every time you fail, that means bad luck for
me. You will remember that after I'm gone, when you are a big man,
won't you, Paul?''

So, both of us quite serious, I promised; and though I smile now when
I remember, seeing before me those two earnest, childish faces, yet
I think, however little success it may be I have to boast of, it would
perhaps have been still less had I entirely forgotten.

From that day my mother waxes in my memory; Mrs.\ Fursey, of the
many promontories, waning. There were sunny mornings in the neglected
garden, where the leaves played round us while we worked and read;
twilight evenings in the window seat where, half hidden by the dark
red curtains, we would talk in whispers, why I know not, of good men
and noble women, \textit{ogres}, fairies, saints and demons; they
were pleasant days.

Possibly our curriculum lacked method; maybe it was too varied and
extensive for my age, in consequence of which chronology became confused
within my brain, and fact and fiction more confounded than has usually
been considered permissible, even in history. I saw Aphrodite, ready
armed and risen from the sea, move with stately grace to meet King
Canute, who, throned upon the sand, bade her come no further lest
she should wet his feet. In forest glade I saw King Rufus fall from
a poisoned arrow shot by Robin Hood; but thanks to sweet Queen Eleanor,
who sucked the poison from his wound, I knew he lived. Oliver Cromwell,
having killed King Charles, married his widow, and was in turn stabbed
by Hamlet. Ulysses, in the Argo, it was fixed upon my mind, had discovered
America. Romulus and Remus had slain the wolf and rescued Little Red
Riding Hood. Good King Arthur, for letting the cakes burn, had been
murdered by his uncle in the Tower of London. Prometheus, bound to
the Rock, had been saved by good St.\ George. Paris had given the
apple to William Tell. What matter!\ the information was there. It
needed rearranging, that was all.

Sometimes, of an afternoon, we would climb the steep winding pathway
through the woods, past awful \textit{pr\'{e}cipices}, spirit-haunted,
by grassy swards where fairies danced o' nights, by briar and bracken
sheltered Caves where fearsome creatures lurked, till high above the
creeping sea we would reach the open plateau where rose old Jacob's
ruined tower. {}``Jacob's Folly'' it was more often called about
the country side, and by some {}``The Devil's Tower;'' for legend
had it that there old Jacob and his master, the Devil, had often met
in windy weather to wave false wrecking lights to troubled ships.
Who {}``old Jacob'' was, I never, that I can remember, learned,
nor how nor why he built the Tower. Certain only it is his memory
was unpopular, and the fisher folk would swear that still on stormy
nights strange lights would gleam and flash from the ivy-curtained
windows of his Folly.

But in day time no spot was more inviting, the short moss-grass before
its shattered door, the lichen on its crumbling stones. From its topmost
platform one saw the distant mountains, faint like spectres, and the
silent ships that came and vanished; and about one's feet the pleasant
farm lands and the grave, sweet river.

Smaller and poorer the world has grown since then. Now, behind those
hills lie naught but smoky towns and dingy villages; but then they
screened a land of wonder where princesses dwelt in castles, where
the cities were of gold. Now the ocean is but six days' journey wide,
ending at the New York Custom House. Then, had one set one's sail
upon it, one would have travelled far and far, beyond the golden moonlight,
beyond the gate of clouds; to the magic land of the blood red shore,
t'other side o' the sun. I never dreamt in those days a world could
be so small.

Upon the topmost platform a wooden seat ran round within the parapet,
and sitting there hand in hand, sheltered from the wind which ever
blew about the tower, my mother would people for me all the earth
and air with the forms of myth and legend---perhaps unwisely, yet
I do not know. I took no harm from it, good rather, I think. They
were beautiful fancies, most of them; or so my mother turned them,
making for love and pity, as do all the tales that live, whether poems
or old wives fables. But at that time of course they had no meaning
for me other than the literal; so that my mother, looking into my
eyes, would often hasten to add: {}``But that, you know, is only
an old superstition, and of course there are no such things nowadays.''
Yet, forgetful sometimes of the time, and overtaken homeward by the
shadows, we would hasten swiftly through the darkening path, holding
each other tightly by the hand.

Spring had waxed to summer, summer waned to autumn. Then my aunt and
I one morning, waiting at the breakfast table, saw through the open
window my mother skipping, dancing, pirouetting up the garden path.
She held a letter open in her hand, which as she drew near she waved
about her head, singing:

{}``Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, then comes Wednesday morning.''

She caught me to her and began dancing with me round the room.

Observed my aunt, who continued steadily to eat bread and butter:

{}``Just like 'em all. Goes mad with joy. What for? Because she's
going to leave a decent house, to live in a poky hole in the East
End of London, and keep one servant.''

To my aunt the second person ever remained a grammatical superfluity.
Invariably she spoke not to but of a person, throwing out her conversation
in the form of commentary. This had the advantage of permitting the
party intended to ignore it as mere impersonal philosophy. Seeing
it was generally uncomplimentary, most people preferred so to regard
it; but my mother had never succeeded in schooling herself to indifference.

{}``It's not a poky hole,'' she replied; {}``it's an old-fashioned
house, near the river.''

{}``Plaistow marshes!''\ ejaculated my aunt, {}``calls it the
river!''

{}``So it is the river,'' returned my mother; {}``the river is
the other side of the marshes.''

{}``Let's hope it will always stop there,'' said my aunt.

{}``And it's got a garden,'' continued my mother, ignoring my aunt's
last remark; {}``which is quite an unusual feature in a London house.
And it isn't the East End of London; it is a rising suburb. And you
won't make me miserable because I am too happy.''

{}``Drat the woman!''\ said my aunt, {}``why can't she sit down
and give us our tea before it's all cold?''

{}``You are a disagreeable thing!''\ said my mother.

{}``Not half milk,'' said my aunt. My aunt was never in the least
disturbed by other people's opinion of her, which was perhaps well
for her.

For three days my mother packed and sang; and a dozen times a day
unpacked and laughed, looking for things wanted that were always found
at the very bottom of the very last box looked into, so that Anna,
waiting for a certain undergarment of my aunt's which shall be nameless,
suggested a saving of time:

{}``If I were you, ma'am,'' said Anna, {}``I'd look into the last
box you're going to look into first.''

But it was found eventually in the first box-the box, that is, my
mother had intended to search first, but which, acting on Anna's suggestion,
she had reserved till the last. This caused my mother to be quite
short with Anna, who she said had wasted her time. But by Tuesday
afternoon all stood ready: we were to start early Wednesday morning.

That evening, missing my mother in the house, I sought her in the
garden and found her, as I had expected, on her favourite seat under
the great lime tree; but to my surprise there were tears in her eyes.

{}``But I thought you were glad we were going,'' I said.

{}``So I am,'' answered my mother, drying her eyes only to make
room for fresh tears.

{}``Then why are you crying?''

{}``Because I'm sorry to leave here.''

Grown-up folks with their contradictory ways were a continual puzzle
to me in those days; I am not sure I quite understand them even now,
myself included.

We were up and off next day before the dawn. The sun rose as the wagon
reached the top of the hill; and there we paused and took our farewell
look at Old Jacob's Tower. My mother cried a little behind her veil;
but my aunt only said, {}``I never did care for earwigs in my tea;''
and as for myself I was too excited and expectant to feel much sentiment
about anything.

On the journey I sat next to an exceptionally large and heavy man,
who in his sleep---and he slept often---imagined me to be a piece
of stuffing out of place. Then, grunting and wriggling, he would endeavour
to rub me out, until the continued irritation of my head between the
window and his back would cause him to awake, when he would look down
upon me reprovingly but not unkindly, observing to the carriage generally:
{}``It's a funny thing, ain't it, nobody's ever made a boy yet that
could keep still for ten seconds.'' After which he would pat me heartily
on the head, to show he was not vexed with me, and fall to sleep again
upon me. He was a good-tempered man.

My mother sat occupied chiefly with her own thoughts, and my aunt
had found a congenial companion in a lady who had had her cap basket
sat upon; so I was left mainly to my own resources. When I could get
my head free of the big man's back, I gazed out of the window, and
watched the flying fragments as we shed the world. Now a village would
fall from us, now the yellow corn-land would cling to us for awhile,
or a wood catch at our rushing feet, and sometimes a strong town would
stop us, and hold us, panting for a space. Or, my eyes weary, I would
sit and listen to the hoarse singing of the wheels beneath my feet.
It was a monotonous chaunt, ever the same two lines:

{}``Here we suffer grief and pain,

Here we meet to part again,''

followed by a low, rumbling laugh. Sometimes fortissimo, sometimes
pianissimo; now vivace, now largo; but ever those same two lines,
and ever followed by the same low, rumbling laugh; still to this day
the iron wheels sing to me that same song.

Later on I also must have slept, for I dreamt that as the result of
my having engaged in single combat with a dragon, the dragon, ignoring
all the rules of Fairyland, had swallowed me. It was hot and stuffy
in the dragon's stomach. He had, so it appeared to me, disgracefully
overeaten himself; there were hundreds of us there, entirely undigested,
including Mother Hubbard and a gentleman named Johnson, against whom,
at that period, I entertained a strong prejudice by reason of our
divergent views upon the subject of spelling. Even in this hour of
our mutual discomfort Johnson would not leave me alone, but persisted
in asking me how I spelt Jonah. Nobody was looking, so I kicked him.
He sprang up and came after me. I tried to run away, but became wedged
between Hop-o'-my-Thumb and Julius Caesar. I suppose our tearing about
must have hurt the dragon, for at that moment he gave vent to a most
fearful scream, and I awoke to find the fat man rubbing his left shin,
while we struggled slowly, with steps growing ever feebler, against
a sea of brick that every moment closed in closer round us.

We scrambled out of the carriage into a great echoing cave that might
have been the dragon's home, where, to my alarm, my mother was immediately
swooped down upon by a strange man in grey.

{}``Why's he do that?''\ I asked of my aunt.

{}``Because he's a fool,'' answered my aunt; {}``they all are.''

He put my mother down and came towards us. He was a tall, thin man,
with eyes one felt one would never be afraid of; and instinctively
even then I associated him in my mind with windmills and a lank white
horse.

{}``Why, how he's grown,'' said the grey man, raising me in his
arms until my mother beside me appeared to me in a new light as quite
a little person; {}``and solid too.''

My mother whispered something. I think from her face, for I knew the
signs, it was praise of me.

{}``And he's going to be our new fortune,'' she added aloud, as
the grey man lowered me.

{}``Then,'' said my aunt, who had this while been sitting rigid
upon a flat black box, {}``don't drop him down a coal-mine. That's
all I say.''

I wondered at the time why the grey man's pale face should flush so
crimson, and why my mother should whisper angrily:

{}``Flow can you be so wicked, Fanny? How dare you say such a thing?''

{}``I only said `don't drop him down a coal-mine,''' returned my
aunt, apparently much surprised; {}``you don't want to drop him down
a coal-mine, do you?''

We passed through glittering, joyous streets, piled high each side
with all the good things of the earth; toys and baubles, jewels and
gold, things good to eat and good to drink, things good to wear and
good to see; through pleasant ways where fountains splashed and flowers
bloomed. The people wore bright clothes, had happy faces. They rode
in beautiful carriages, they strolled about, greeting one another
with smiles. The children ran and laughed. London, thought I to myself,
is the city of the fairies.

It passed, and we sank into a grim city of hoarse, roaring streets,
wherein the endless throngs swirled and surged as I had seen the yellow
waters curve and fret, contending, where the river pauses, rock-bound.
Here were no bright costumes, no bright faces, none stayed to greet
another; all was stern, and swift, and voiceless. London, then, said
I to myself, is the city of the giants. They must live in these towering
castles side by side, and these hurrying thousands are their driven
slaves.

But this passed also, and we sank lower yet until we reached a third
city, where a pale mist filled each sombre street. None of the beautiful
things of the world were to be seen here, but only the things coarse
and ugly. And wearily to and fro its sunless passages trudged with
heavy steps a weary people, coarse-clad, and with dull, listless faces.
And London, I knew, was the city of the gnomes who labour sadly all
their lives, imprisoned underground; and a terror seized me lest I,
too, should remain chained here, deep down below the fairy city that
was already but a dream.

We stopped at last in a long, unfinished street. I remember our pushing
our way through a group of dirty urchins, all of whom, my aunt remarked
in passing, ought to be skinned. It was my aunt's one prescription
for all to whom she took objection; but really in the present instance
I think it would have been of service; nothing else whatever could
have restored them to cleanliness. Then the door closed behind us
with an echoing clang, and the small, cold rooms came forward stiffly
to greet us.

The man in grey went to the one window and drew back the curtain;
it was growing dusk now. My aunt sat on a straight, hard chair and
stared fixedly at the three-armed gaselier. My mother stood in the
centre of the room with one small ungloved hand upon the table, and
I noticed---for I was very near---that the poor little one-legged
thing was trembling.

{}``Of course it's not what you've been accustomed to, Maggie,''
said the man in grey; {}``but it's only for a little while.''

He spoke in a new, angry voice; but I could not see his face, his
back being to the light.

My mother drew his arms around us both.

{}``It is the best home in all the world,'' she said; and thus we
stayed for awhile.

{}``Nonsense,'' said my aunt, suddenly; and this aroused us; {}``it's
a poky hole, as I told her it would be. Let her thank the Lord she's
got a man clever enough to get her out of it. I know him; he never
could rest where he was put. Now he's at the bottom; he'll go up.''

It sounded to me a very disagreeable speech; but the grey man laughed---I
had not heard him laugh till then---and my mother ran to my aunt and
kissed her; and somehow the room seemed to become lighter.

For some reason I slept downstairs that night, on the floor, behind
a screen improvised out of a clothes horse and a blanket; and later
in the evening the clatter of knives and forks and the sound of subdued
voices awoke me. My aunt had apparently gone to bed; my mother and
the man in grey were talking together over their supper.

{}``We must buy land,'' said the voice of the grey man; {}``London
is coming this way. The Somebodies'' (I forget the name my father
mentioned) {}``made all their money by buying up land round New York
for a mere song. Then, as the city spread, they became worth millions.''

{}``But where will you get the money from, Luke?''\ asked the voice
of my mother.

The voice of the grey man answered airily:

{}``Oh, that's merely a matter of business. You grant a mortgage.
The property goes up in value. You borrow more. Then you buy more---and
so on.''

{}``I see,'' said my mother.

{}``Being on the spot gives one such an advantage,'' said the grey
man. {}``I shall know just when to buy. It's a great thing, being
on the spot.''

{}``Of course, it must be,'' said my mother.

I suppose I must have dozed, for the next words I heard the grey man
say were:

{}``Of course you have the park opposite, but then the house is small.''

{}``But shall we need a very large one?''\ asked my mother.

{}``One never knows,'' said the grey man. {}``If I should go into
Parliament---''

At this point a hissing sound arose from the neighbourhood of the
fire.

{}``It \textit{looks},'' said my mother, {}``as if it were done.''

{}``If you will hold the dish,'' said the grey man, {}``I think
I can pour it in without spilling.''

Again I must have dozed.

{}``It depends,'' said the grey man, {}``upon what he is going
to be. For the classics, of course, Oxford.''

{}``He's going to be very clever,'' said my mother. She spoke as
one who knows.

{}``We'll hope so,'' said the grey man.

{}``I shouldn't be surprised,'' said my mother, {}``if he turned
out a poet.''

The grey man said something in a low tone that I did not hear.

{}``I'm not so sure,'' answered my mother, {}``it's in the blood.
I've often thought that you, Luke, ought to have been a poet.''

{}``I never had the time,'' said the grey man. {}``There were one
or two little things---''

{}``They were very beautiful,'' interrupted my mother. The clatter
of the knives and forks continued undisturbed for a few moments. Then
continued the grey man:

{}``There would be no harm, provided I made enough. It's the law
of nature. One generation earns, the next spends. We must see. In
any case, I think I should prefer Oxford for him.''

{}``It will be so hard parting from him,'' said my mother.

{}``There will be the vacations,'' said the grey man, {}``when
we shall travel.''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER II.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER II}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{In}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{which}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{makes}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{acquaintance}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{man}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{with}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{ugly}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{mouth}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
The case of my father and mother was not normal. You understand they
had been separated for some years, and though they were not young
in age---indeed, before my childish eyes they loomed quite ancient
folk, and in fact my father must have been nearly forty and my mother
quit of thirty---yet, as you will come to think yourself, no doubt,
during the course of my story, they were in all the essentials of
life little more than boy and girl. This I came to see later on, but
at that time, had I been consulted by enquiring maid or bachelor,
I might unwittingly have given wrong impressions concerning marriage
in the general. I should have described a husband as a man who could
never rest quite content unless his wife were by his side; who twenty
times a day would call from his office door: {}``Maggie, are you
doing anything important? I want to talk to you about a matter of
business.'' ... {}``Maggie, are you alone? Oh, all right, I'll come
down.'' Of a wife I should have said she was a woman whose eyes were
ever love-lit when resting on her man; who was glad where he was and
troubled where he was not. But in every case this might not have been
correct.

Also, I should have had something to say concerning the alarms and
excursions attending residence with any married couple. I should have
recommended the holding up of feet under the table lest, mistaken
for other feet, they should be trodden on and pressed. Also, I should
have advised against entry into any room unpreceded by what in Stageland
is termed {}``noise without.'' It is somewhat disconcerting to the
nervous incomer to be met, the door still in his hand, by a sound
as of people springing suddenly into the air, followed by a weird
scuttling of feet, and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly
in opposite corners, deeply engaged in book or needlework. But, as
I have said, with regard to some households, such precautions might
be needless.

Personally, I fear, I exercised little or no controlling influence
upon my parents in this respect, my intrusions coming soon to be greeted
with: {}``Oh, it's only Spud,'' in a tone of relief, accompanied
generally by the sofa cushion; but of my aunt they stood more in awe.
Not that she ever said anything, and, indeed, to do her justice, in
her efforts to spare their feelings she erred, if at all, on the side
of excess. Never did she move a footstep about the house except to
the music of a sustained and penetrating cough. As my father once
remarked, ungratefully, I must confess, the volume of bark produced
by my aunt in a single day would have done credit to the dying efforts
of a hospital load of consumptives; to a robust and perfectly healthy
lady the cost in nervous force must have been prodigious. Also, that
no fear should live with them that her eyes had seen aught not intended
for them, she would invariably enter backwards any room in which they
might be, closing the door loudly and with difficulty before turning
round: and through dark passages she would walk singing. No woman
alive could have done more; yet---such is human nature!---neither
my father nor my mother was grateful to her, so far as I could judge.

Indeed, strange as it may appear, the more sympathetic towards them
she showed herself, the more irritated against her did they become.

{}``I believe, Fanny, you hate seeing Luke and me happy together,''
said my mother one day, coming up from the kitchen to find my aunt
preparing for entry into the drawing-room by dropping teaspoons at
five-second intervals outside the door: {}``Don't make yourself so
ridiculous.'' My mother spoke really quite unkindly.

{}``Hate it!''\ replied my aunt. {}``Why should I? Why shouldn't
a pair of turtle doves bill and coo, when their united age is only
a little over seventy, the pretty dears?'' The mildness of my aunt's
answers often surprised me.

As for my father, he grew positively vindictive. I remember the occasion
well. It was the first, though not the last time I knew him lose his
temper. What brought up the subject I forget, but my father stopped
suddenly; we were walking by the canal bank.

{}``Your aunt''---my father may not have intended it, but his tone
and manner when speaking of my aunt always conveyed to me the impression
that he regarded me as personally responsible for her existence. This
used to weigh upon me. {}``Your aunt is the most cantankerous, the
most---'' he broke off, and shook his fist towards the setting sun.
{}``I wish to God,'' said my father, {}``your aunt had a comfortable
little income of her own, with a freehold cottage in the country,
by God I do!'' But the next moment, ashamed, I suppose, of his brutality:
{}``Not but what sometimes, of course, she can be very nice, you
know,'' he added; {}``don't tell your mother what I said just now.''

Another who followed with sympathetic interest the domestic comedy
was Susan, our maid-of-all-work, the first of a long and varied series,
extending unto the advent of Amy, to whom the blessing of Heaven.
Susan was a stout and elderly female, liable to sudden fits of sleepiness,
the result, we were given to understand, of trouble; but her heart,
it was her own proud boast, was always in the right place. She could
never look at my father and mother sitting anywhere near each other
but she must flop down and weep awhile; the sight of connubial bliss
always reminding her, so she would explain, of the past glories of
her own married state.

Though an earnest enquirer, I was never able myself to grasp the ins
and outs of this past married life of Susan's. Whether her answers
were purposely framed to elude curiosity, or whether they were the
result of a naturally incoherent mind, I cannot say. Their tendency
was to convey confusion.

On Monday I have seen Susan shed tears of regret into the Brussels
sprouts, that she had been debarred by the pressure of other duties
from lately watering {}``his'' grave, which, I gathered, was at
Manor Park. While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the
recital of her intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of
getting her fingers near the scruff of his neck.

{}``But, I thought, Susan, he was dead,'' was my very natural comment
upon this outbreak.

{}``So did I, Master Paul,'' was Susan's rejoinder; {}``that was
his artfulness.''

{}``Then he isn't buried in Manor Park Cemetery?''

{}``Not yet; but he'll wish he was, the half-baked monkey, when I
get hold of him.''

{}``Then he wasn't a good man?''

{}``Who?''

{}``Your husband.''

{}``Who says he ain't a good man?'' It was Susan's flying leaps
from tense to tense that most bewildered me. {}``If anybody says
he ain't I'll gouge their eye out!''

I hastened to assure Susan that my observation had been intended in
the nature of enquiry, not of assertion.

{}``Brings me a bottle of gin---for my headaches---every time he
comes home,'' continued Susan, showing cause for opinion, {}``every
blessed time.''

And at some such point as this I would retire to the clearer atmosphere
of German grammar or mixed fractions.

We suffered a good deal from Susan one way and another; for having
regard to the admirable position of her heart, we all felt it our
duty to overlook mere failings of the flesh---all but my aunt, that
is, who never made any pretence of being a sentimentalist.

{}``She's a lazy hussy,'' was the opinion expressed of her one morning
by my aunt, who was rinsing; {}``a gulping, snorting, lazy hussy,
that's what she is.'' There was some excuse for my aunt's indignation.
It was then eleven o'clock and Susan was still sleeping off an attack
of what she called {}``new-ralgy.''

{}``She has seen a good deal of trouble,'' said my mother, who was
wiping.

{}``And if she was my cook and housemaid,'' replied my aunt, {}``she
would see more, the slut!''

{}``She's not a good servant in many respects,'' admitted my mother,
{}``but I think she's good-hearted.''

{}``Oh, drat her heart,'' was my aunt's retort. {}``The right place
for that heart of hers is on the doorstep. And that's where I'd put
it, and her and her box alongside it, if I had my way.''

The departure of Susan did take place not long afterwards. It occurred
one Saturday night. My mother came upstairs looking pale.

{}``Luke,'' she said, {}``do please run for the doctor.''

{}``What's the matter?''\ asked my father.

{}``Susan,'' gasped my mother, {}``she's lying on the kitchen floor
breathing in the strangest fashion and quite unable to speak.''

{}``I'll go for Washburn,'' said my father; {}``if I am quick I
shall catch him at the dispensary.''

Five minutes later my father came back panting, followed by the doctor.
This was a big, black-bearded man; added to which he had the knack
of looking bigger than even he really was. He came down the kitchen
stairs two at a time, shaking the whole house. He brushed my mother
aside, and bent over the unconscious Susan, who was on her back with
her mouth wide open. Then he rose and looked at my father and mother,
who were watching him with troubled faces; and then he opened his
mouth, and there came from it a roar of laughter, the like of which
sound I had never heard.

The next moment he had seized a pail half full of water and had flung
it over the woman. She opened her eyes and sat up.

{}``Feeling better?''\ said the doctor, with the pail still in
his hand; {}``have another dose?''

Susan began to gather herself together with the evident intention
of expressing her feelings; but before she could find the first word,
he had pushed the three of us outside and slammed the door behind
us.

From the top of the stairs we could hear Susan's thick, rancorous
voice raging fiercer and fiercer, drowned every now and then by the
man's savage roar of laughter. And, when for want of breath she would
flag for a moment, he would yell out encouragement to her, shouting:
{}``Bravo! Go it, my beauty, give it tongue! Bark, bark! I love to
hear you,'' applauding her, clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

{}``What a beast of a man,'' said my mother.

{}``He is really a most interesting man when you come to know him,''
explained my father.

Replied my mother, stiffly: {}``I don't ever mean to know him.''
But it is only concerning the past that we possess knowledge.

The riot from below ceased at length, and was followed by a new voice,
speaking quietly and emphatically, and then we heard the doctor's
step again upon the stairs.

My mother held her purse open in her hand, and as the man entered
the room she went forward to meet him.

{}``How much do we owe you, Doctor?''\ said my mother. She spoke
in a voice trembling with severity.

He closed the purse and gently pushed it back towards her.

{}``A glass of beer and a chop, Mrs.\ Kelver,'' he answered, {}``which
I am coming back in an hour to cook for myself. And as you will be
without any servant,'' he continued, while my mother stood staring
at him incapable of utterance, {}``you had better let me cook some
for you at the same time. I am an expert at grilling chops.''

{}``But, really, Doctor---'' my mother began. He laid his huge hand
upon her shoulder, and my mother sat down upon the nearest chair.

{}``My dear lady,'' he said, {}``she's a person you never ought
to have had inside your house. She's promised me to be gone in half
an hour, and I'm coming back to see she keeps her word. Give her a
month's wages, and have a clear fire ready for me.'' And before my
mother could reply, he had slammed the front door.

{}``What a very odd sort of a man,'' said my mother, recovering
herself.

{}``He's a character,'' said my father; {}``you might not think
it, but he's worshipped about here.''

{}``I hardly know what to make of him,'' said my mother; {}``I
suppose I had better go out and get some chops;'' which she did.

Susan went, as sober as a judge, on Friday, as the saying is, her
great anxiety being to get out of the house before the doctor returned.
The doctor himself arrived true to his time, and I lay awake---for
no human being ever slept or felt he wanted to sleep while Dr.\ Washburn
was anywhere near---and listened to the gusts of laughter that swept
continually through the house. Even my aunt laughed that supper time,
and when the doctor himself laughed it seemed to me that the bed shook
under me. Not liking to be out of it, I did what spoilt little boys
and even spoilt little girls sometimes will do under similar stress
of feeling, wrapped the blanket round my legs and pattered down, with
my face set to express the sudden desire of a sensitive and possibly
short-lived child for parents' love. My mother pretended to be angry,
but that I knew was only her company manners. Besides, I really had,
if not exactly a pain, an extremely uncomfortable sensation (one common
to me about that period) as of having swallowed the dome of St.\ Paul's.
The doctor said it was a frequent complaint with children, the result
of too early hours and too much study; and, taking me on his knee,
wrote then and there a diet chart for me, which included one tablespoonful
of golden syrup four times a day, and one ounce of sherbet to be placed
upon the tongue and taken neat ten minutes before each meal.

That evening will always live in my remembrance. My mother was brighter
than I had ever seen her. A flush was on her cheek and a sparkle in
her eye, and looking across at her as she sat holding a small painted
screen to shield her face from the fire, the sense of beauty became
suddenly born within me, and answering an impulse I could not have
explained, I slipped down, still with my blanket around me, from the
doctor's knee, and squatted on the edge of the fender, from where,
when I thought no one was noticing me, I could steal furtive glances
up into her face.

So also my father seemed to me to have become all at once bigger and
more dignified, talking with a vigour and an enjoyment that sat newly
on him. Aunt Fan was quite witty and agreeable---for her; and even
I asked one or two questions, at which, for some reason or another,
everybody laughed; which determined me to remember and ask those same
questions again on some future occasion.

That was the great charm of the man, that by the magnetic spell of
his magnificent vitality he drew from everyone their best. In his
company clever people waxed intellectual giants, while the dull sat
amazed at their own originality. Conversing with him, Podsnap might
have been piquant, Dogberry incisive. But better than all else, I
found it listening to his own talk. Of what he spoke I could tell
you no more than could the children of Hamelin have told the tune
the Pied Piper played. I only know that at the tangled music of his
strong voice the walls of the mean room faded away, and that beyond
I saw a brave, laughing world that called to me; a world full of joyous
fight, where some won and some lost. But that mattered not a jot,
because whatever else came of it there was a right royal game for
all; a world where merry gentlemen feared neither life nor death,
and Fate was but the Master of the Revels.

Such was my first introduction to Dr.\ Washburn, or to give him the
name by which he was known in every slum and alley of that quarter,
Dr.\ Fighting Hal; and in a minor key that evening was an index to
the whole man. Often he would wrinkle his nose as a dog before it
bites, and then he was more brute than man---brutish in his instincts,
in his appetites, brutish in his pleasure, brutish in his fun. Or
his deep blue eyes would grow soft as a mother's, and then you might
have thought him an angel in a soft felt hat and a coat so loose-fitting
as to suggest the possibility of his wings being folded away underneath.
Often have I tried to make up my mind whether it has been better for
me or worse that I ever came to know him; but as easy would it be
for the tree to say whether the rushing winds and the wild rains have
shaped it or \textit{mis}-shaped.

Susan's place remained vacant for some time. My mother would explain
to the few friends who occasionally came from afar to see us, that
her {}``housemaid'' she had been compelled to suddenly discharge,
and that we were waiting for the arrival of a new and better specimen.
But the months passed and we still waited, and my father on the rare
days when a client would ring the office bell, would, after pausing
a decent interval, open the front door himself, and then call downstairs
indignantly and loudly, to know why {}``Jane'' or {}``Mary'' could
not attend to their work. And my mother, that the bread-boy or the
milkman might not put it about the neighbourhood that the Kelvers
in the big corner house kept no servant, would hide herself behind
a thick veil and fetch all things herself from streets a long way
off.

For this family of whom I am writing were, I confess, weak and human.
Their poverty they were ashamed of as though it were a crime, and
in consequence their life was more full of paltry and useless subterfuge
than should be perhaps the life of brave men and women. The larder,
I fancy, was very often bare, but the port and sherry with the sweet
biscuits stood always on the sideboard; and the fire had often to
be low in the grate that my father's tall hat might shine resplendent
and my mother's black silk rustle on Sundays.

But I would not have you sneer at them, thinking all pretence must
spring from snobbishness and never from mistaken self-respect. Some
fine gentleman writers there be---men whose world is bounded on the
east by Bond Street---who see in the struggles of poverty to hide
its darns only matter for jest. But myself, I cannot laugh at them.
I know the long hopes and fears that centre round the hired waiter;
the long cost of the cream and the ice jelly ordered the week before
from the confectioner's. But to me it is pathetic, not ridiculous.
Heroism is not all of one pattern. Dr.\ Washburn, had the Prince
of Wales come to see him, would have put his bread and cheese and
jug of beer upon the table, and helped His Royal Highness to half.
But my father and mother's tea was very weak that Mr.\ Jones or Mr.\ Smith
might have a glass of wine should they come to dinner. I remember
the one egg for breakfast, my mother arguing that my father should
have it because he had his business to attend to; my father insisting
that my mother should eat it, she having to go out shopping, a compromise
being effected by their dividing it between them, each clamouring
for the white as the most nourishing. And I know however little the
meal looked upon the table when we started I always rose well satisfied.
These are small things to speak of, but then you must bear in mind
this is a story moving in narrow ways.

To me this life came as a good time. That I was encouraged to eat
treacle in preference to butter seemed to me admirable. Personally,
I preferred sausages for dinner; and a supper of fried fish and potatoes,
brought in stealthily in a carpet bag, was infinitely more enjoyable
than the set meal where nothing was of interest till one came to the
dessert. What fun there was about it all! The cleaning of the doorstep
by night, when from the ill-lit street a gentleman with a piece of
sacking round his legs might very well pass for a somewhat tall charwoman.
I would keep watch at the gate to give warning should any one looking
like a possible late caller turn the corner of the street, coming
back now and then in answer to a low whistle to help my father grope
about in the dark for the hearthstone; he was always mislaying the
hearthstone. How much better, helping to clean the knives or running
errands than wasting all one's morning dwelling upon the shocking
irregularity of certain classes of French verbs; or making useless
calculations as to how long X, walking four and a quarter miles an
hour, would be overtaking Y, whose powers were limited to three and
a half, but who had started two and three quarter hours sooner; the
whole argument being reduced to sheer pedantry by reason of no information
being afforded to the student concerning the respective thirstiness
of X and Y.

Even my father and mother were able to take it lightly with plenty
of laughter and no groaning that I ever heard. For over all lay the
morning light of hope, and what prisoner, escaping from his dungeon,
ever stayed to think of his torn hands and knees when beyond the distant
opening he could see the sunlight glinting through the brambles?

{}``I had no idea,'' said my mother, {}``there was so much to do
in a house. In future I shall arrange for the servants to have regular
hours, and a little time to themselves, for rest. Don't you think
it right, Luke?''

{}``Quite right,'' replied my father; {}``and I'll tell you another
thing we'll do. I shall insist on the landlord's putting a marble
doorstep to the next house we take; you pass a sponge over marble
and it is always clean.''

{}``Or tesselated,'' suggested my mother.

{}``Or tesselated,'' agreed my father; {}``but marble is more uncommon.''

Only once, can I recall a cloud. That was one Sunday when my mother,
speaking across the table in the middle of dinner, said to my father,
{}``We might save the rest of that stew, Luke; there's an omelette
coming.''

My father laid down the spoon. {}``An omelette!''

{}``Yes,'' said my mother. {}``I thought I would like to try again.''

My father stepped into the back kitchen---we dined in the kitchen,
as a rule, it saved much carriage---returning with the wood chopper.

{}``What ever are you going to do, Luke, with the chopper?''\ said
my mother.

{}``Divide the omelette,'' replied my father.

My mother began to cry.

{}``Why, Maggie---!''\ said my father.

{}``I know the other one was leathery,'' said my mother, {}``but
it was the fault of the oven, you know it was, Luke.''

{}``My dear,'' said my father, {}``I only meant it as a joke.''

{}``I don't like that sort of joke,'' said my mother; {}``it isn't
nice of you, Luke.''

I don't think, to be candid, my mother liked much any joke that was
against herself. Indeed, when I come to think of it, I have never
met a woman who did, nor man, either.

There had soon grown up a comradeship between my father and myself
for he was the youngest thing I had met with as yet. Sometimes my
mother seemed very young, and later I met boys and girls nearer to
my own age in years; but they grew, while my father remained always
the same. The hair about his temples was turning grey, and when you
looked close you saw many crow's feet and lines, especially about
the mouth. But his eyes were the eyes of a boy, his laugh the laugh
of a boy, and his heart the heart of a boy. So we were very close
to each other.

In a narrow strip of ground we called our garden we would play a cricket
of our own, encompassed about by many novel rules, rendered necessary
by the locality. For instance, all hitting to leg was forbidden, as
tending to endanger neighbouring windows, while hitting to off was
likewise not to be encouraged, as causing a temporary adjournment
of the game, while batter and bowler went through the house and out
into the street to recover the ball from some predatory crowd of urchins
to whom it had evidently appeared as a gift direct from Heaven. Sometimes
rising very early we would walk across the marshes to bathe in a small
creek that led down to the river, but this was muddy work, necessitating
much washing of legs on the return home. And on rare days we would,
taking the train to Hackney and walking to the bridge, row up the
river Lea, perhaps as far as Ponder's End.

But these sports being hedged around with difficulties, more commonly
for recreation we would take long walks. There were pleasant nooks
even in the neighbourhood of Plaistow marshes in those days. Here
and there a graceful elm still clung to the troubled soil. Surrounded
on all sides by hideousness, picturesque inns still remained hidden
within green walls where, if you were careful not to pry too curiously,
you might sit and sip your glass of beer beneath the oak and dream
yourself where reeking chimneys and mean streets were not. During
such walks my father would talk to me as he would talk to my mother,
telling me all his wild, hopeful plans, discussing with me how I was
to lodge at Oxford, to what particular branches of study and of sport
I was to give my preference, speaking always with such catching confidence
that I came to regard my sojourn in this brick and mortar prison as
only a question of months.

One day, talking of this future, and laughing as we walked briskly.
through the shrill streets, I told him the words my mother had said---long
ago, as it seemed to me, for life is as a stone rolling down-hill,
and moves but slowly at first; she and I sitting on the moss at the
foot of old {}``Jacob's Folly''---that he was our Prince fighting
to deliver us from the grim castle called {}``Hard Times,'' guarded
by the dragon Poverty.

My father laughed and his boyish face flushed with pleasure.

{}``And she was right, Paul,'' he whispered, pressing my small hand
in his---it was necessary to whisper, for the street where we were
was very crowded, but I knew that he wanted to shout. {}``I will
fight him and I will slay him.'' My father made passes in the air
with his walking-stick, and it was evident from the way they drew
aside that the people round about fancied he was mad. {}``I will
batter down the iron gates and she shall be free. I will, God help
me, I will.''

The gallant gentleman! How long and how bravely he fought! But in
the end it was the Dragon triumphed, the Knight that lay upon the
ground, his great heart still. I have read how, with the sword of
Honest Industry, one may always conquer this grim Dragon. But such
was in foolish books. In truth, only with the sword of Chicanery and
the stout buckler of Unscrupulousness shall you be certain of victory
over him. If you care not to use these, pray to your Gods, and take
what comes with a stout heart.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER III.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER III}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{How}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{good}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{luck}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{knocked}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{at}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{door}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{man}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{in}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{grey}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
{}``Louisa!''\ roared my father down the kitchen stairs, {}``are
you all asleep? Here have I had to answer the front door myself.''
Then my father strode into his office, and the door slammed. My father
could be very angry when nobody was by.

Quarter of an hour later his bell rang with a quick, authoritative
jangle. My mother, who was peeling potatoes with difficulty in wash-leather
gloves, looked at my aunt who was shelling peas. The bell rang again
louder still this time.

{}``Once for Louisa, twice for James, isn't it?''\ enquired my
aunt.

{}``You go, Paul,'' said my mother; {}``say that Louisa---'' but
with the words a sudden flush overspread my mother's face, and before
I could lay down my slate she had drawn off her gloves and had passed
me. {}``No, don't stop your lessons, I'll go myself,'' she said,
and ran out.

A few minutes later the kitchen door opened softly, and my mother's
hand, appearing through the jar, beckoned to me mysteriously.

{}``Walk on your toes,'' whispered my mother, setting the example
as she led the way up the stairs; which after the manner of stairs
showed their disapproval of deception by creaking louder and more
often than under any other circumstances; and in this manner we reached
my parents' bedroom, where, in the old-fashioned wardrobe, relic of
better days, reposed my best suit of clothes, or, to be strictly grammatical,
my better.

Never before had I worn these on a week-day morning, but all conversation
not germane to the question of getting into them quickly my mother
swept aside; and when I was complete, down even to the new shoes---Bluchers,
we called them in those days---took me by the hand, and together we
crept down as we had crept up, silent, stealthy and alert. My mother
led me to the street door and opened it.

{}``Shan't I want my cap?''\ I whispered. But my mother only shook
her head and closed the door with a bang; and then the explanation
of the pantomime came to me, for with such {}``business''---comic,
shall I call it, or tragic?---I was becoming familiar; and, my mother's
hand upon my shoulder, we entered my father's office.

Whether from the fact that so often of an evening---our drawing-room
being reserved always as a show-room in case of chance visitors; Cowper's
poems, open face-downwards on the wobbly loo table; the half-finished
crochet work, suggestive of elegant leisure, thrown carelessly over
the arm of the smaller easy-chair---this office would become our sitting-room,
its books and papers, as things of no account, being huddled out of
sight; or whether from the readiness with which my father would come
out of it at all times to play at something else---at cricket in the
back garden on dry days or ninepins in the passage on wet, charging
back into it again whenever a knock sounded at the front door, I cannot
say. But I know that as a child it never occurred to me to regard
my father's profession as a serious affair. To me he was merely playing
there, surrounded by big books and bundles of documents, labelled
profusely but consisting only of blank papers; by japanned tin boxes,
lettered imposingly, but for the most part empty. {}``Sutton Hampden,
Esq.,'' I remember was practically my mother's work-box. The {}``Drayton
Estates'' yielded apparently nothing but apples, a fruit of which
my father was fond; while {}``Mortgages'' it was not until later
in life I discovered had no connection with poems in manuscript, some
in course of correction, others completed.

Now, as the door opened, he rose and came towards us. His hair stood
up from his head, for it was a habit of his to rumple it as he talked;
and this added to his evident efforts to compose his face into an
expression of businesslike gravity, added emphasis, if such were needed,
to the suggestion of the over long schoolboy making believe.

{}``This is the youngster,'' said my father, taking me from my mother,
and passing me on. {}``Tall for his age, isn't he?''

With a twist of his thick lips, he rolled the evil-smelling cigar
he was smoking from the left corner of his mouth to the right; and
held out a fat and not too clean hand, which, as it closed round mine,
brought to my mind the picture of the walrus in my natural history
book; with the other he flapped me kindly on the head.

{}``Like 'is mother, wonderfully like 'is mother, ain't 'e?''\ he
observed, still holding my hand. {}``And that,'' he added with a
wink of one of his small eyes towards my father, {}``is about the
'ighest compliment I can pay 'im, eh?''

His eyes were remarkably small, but marvellously bright and piercing;
so much so that when he turned them again upon me I tried to think
quickly of something nice about him, feeling sure that he could see
right into me.

{}``And where are you thinkin' of sendin' 'im?''\ he continued;
{}``Eton or 'Arrow?''

{}``We haven't quite made up our minds as yet,'' replied my father;
{}``at present we are educating him at home.''

{}``You take my tip,'' said the fat man, {}``and learn all you
can. Look at me! If I'd 'ad the opportunity of being a schollard I
wouldn't be here offering your father an extravagant price for doin'
my work; I'd be able to do it myself.''

{}``You seem to have got on very well without it,'' laughed my father;
and in truth his air of prosperity might have justified greater self-complacency.
Rings sparkled on his blunt fingers, and upon the swelling billows
of his waistcoat rose and sank a massive gold cable.

{}``I'd '\textit{ave} done better with it,'' he grunted.

{}``But you look very clever,'' I said; and though divining with
a child's cuteness that it was desired I should make a favourable
impression upon him, I hoped this would please him, the words were
yet spontaneous.

He laughed heartily, his whole body shaking like some huge jelly.

{}``Well, old Noel Hasluck's not exactly a fool,'' he assented,
{}``but I'd like myself better if I could talk about something else
than business, and didn't drop my aitches. And so would my little
gell.''

{}``You have a daughter?''\ asked my mother, with whom a child,
as a bond of sympathy with the stranger took the place assigned by
most women to disrespectful cooks and incompetent housemaids.

{}``I won't tell you about '\textit{er}. But I'll just bring '\textit{er}
to see you now and then, ma'am, if you don't mind,'' answered Mr.\ Hasluck.
{}``She don't often meet gentle-folks, an' it'll do '\textit{er}
good.''

My mother glanced across at my father, but the man, intercepting her
question, replied to it himself.

{}``You needn't be afraid, ma'am, that she's anything like me,''
he assured her quite good-temperedly; {}``nobody ever believes she's
my daughter, except me and the old woman. She's a little lady, she
is. Freak o' nature, I call it.''

{}``We shall be delighted,'' explained my mother.

{}``Well, you will when you see '\textit{er},'' replied Mr.\ Hasluck,
quite contentedly.

He pushed half-a-crown into my hand, overriding my parents' susceptibilities
with the easy good-temper of a man accustomed to have his way in all
things.

{}``No squanderin' it on the 'eathen,'' was his parting injunction
as I left the room; {}``you spend that on a Christian tradesman.''

It was the first money I ever remember having to spend, that half-crown
of old Hasluck's; suggestions of the delights to be derived from a
new pair of gloves for Sunday, from a Latin grammar, which would then
be all my own, and so on, having hitherto displaced all less exalted
visions concerning the disposal of chance coins coming into my small
hands. But on this occasion I was left free to decide for myself.

The anxiety it gave me!\ the long tossing hours in bed!\ the tramping
of the bewildering streets! Even advice when asked for was denied
me.

{}``You must learn to think for yourself,'' said my father, who
spoke eloquently on the necessity of early acquiring sound judgment
and what he called {}``commercial aptitude.''

{}``No, dear,'' said my mother, {}``Mr.\ Hasluck wanted you to
spend it as you like. If I told you, that would be spending it as
I liked. Your father and I want to see what you will do with it.''

The good little boys in the books bought presents or gave away to
people in distress. For this I hated them with the malignity the lower
nature ever feels towards the higher. I consulted my aunt Fan.

{}``If somebody gave you half-a-crown,'' I put it to her, {}``what
would you buy with it?''

{}``Side-combs,'' said my aunt; she was always losing or breaking
her side-combs.

{}``But I mean if you were me,'' I explained.

{}``Drat the child!''\ said my aunt; {}``how do I know what he
wants if he don't know himself. Idiot!''

The shop windows into which I stared, my nose glued to the pane! The
things I asked the price of! The things I made up my mind to buy and
then decided that I wouldn't buy! Even my patient mother began to
show signs of irritation. It was rapidly assuming the dimensions of
a family curse, was old Hasluck's half-crown.

Then one day I made up my mind, and so ended the trouble. In the window
of a small plumber's shop in a back street near, stood on view among
brass taps, rolls of lead piping and cistern requisites, various squares
of coloured glass, the sort of thing chiefly used, I believe, for
lavatory doors and staircase windows. Some had stars in the centre,
and others, more elaborate, were enriched with designs, severe but
inoffensive. I purchased a dozen of these, the plumber, an affable
man who appeared glad to see me, throwing in two extra out of sheer
generosity.

Why I bought them I did not know at the time, and I do not know now.
My mother cried when she saw them. My father could get no further
than: {}``But what are you going to do with them?''\ to which I
was unable to reply. My aunt, alone, attempted comfort.

{}``If a person fancies coloured glass,'' said my aunt, {}``then
he's a fool not to buy coloured glass when he gets the chance. We
haven't all the same tastes.''

In the end, I cut myself badly with them and consented to their being
thrown into the dust-bin. But looking back, I have come to regard
myself rather as the victim of Fate than of Folly. Many folks have
I met since, recipients of Hasluck's half-crowns---many a man who
has slapped his pocket and blessed the day he first met that {}``Napoleon
of Finance,'' as later he came to be known among his friends---but
it ever ended so; coloured glass and cut fingers. Is it fairy gold
that he and his kind fling round? It would seem to be.

Next time old Hasluck knocked at our front door a maid in cap and
apron opened it to him, and this was but the beginning of change.
New oilcloth glistened in the passage. Lace curtains, such as in that
neighbourhood were the hall-mark of the plutocrat, advertised our
rising fortunes to the street, and greatest marvel of all, at least
to my awed eyes, my father's Sunday clothes came into weekday wear,
new ones taking their place in the great wardrobe that hitherto had
been the stronghold of our gentility; to which we had ever turned
for comfort when rendered despondent by contemplation of the weakness
of our outer walls. {}``Seeing that everything was all right'' is
how my mother would explain it. She would lay the lilac silk upon
the bed, fondly soothing down its rustling undulations, lingering
lovingly over its deep frosted flounces of rich Honiton. Maybe she
had entered the room weary looking and depressed, but soon there would
proceed from her a gentle humming as from some small winged thing
when the sun first touches it and warms it, and sometimes by the time
the Indian shawl, which could go through a wedding ring, but never
would when it was wanted to, had been refolded and fastened again
with the great cameo brooch, and the poke bonnet, like some fractious
child, shaken and petted into good condition, she would be singing
softly to herself, nodding her head to the words: which were generally
to the effect that somebody was too old and somebody else too bold
and another too cold, {}``so he wouldn't do for me;'' and stepping
lightly as though the burden of the years had fallen from her.

One evening---it was before the advent of this Hasluck---I remember
climbing out of bed, for trouble was within me. Creatures, indescribable
but heavy, had sat upon my chest, after which I had fallen downstairs,
slowly and reasonably for the first few hundred flights, then with
haste for the next million miles or so, until I found myself in the
street with nothing on but my nightshirt. Personally, I was shocked,
but nobody else seemed to mind, and I hailed a two-penny 'bus and
climbed in. But when I tried to pay I found I hadn't any pockets,
so I jumped out and ran away and the conductor came after me. My feet
were like lead, and with every step he gained on me, till with a scream
I made one mighty effort and awoke.

Feeling the need of comfort after these unpleasant but by no means
unfamiliar experiences, I wrapped some clothes round me and crept
downstairs. The {}``office'' was dark, but to my surprise a light
shone from under the drawing-room door, and I opened it.

The candles in the silver candlesticks were lighted, and in state,
one in each easy-chair, sat my father and mother, both in their best
clothes; my father in the buckled shoes and the frilled shirt that
I had never seen him wear before, my mother with the Indian shawl
about her shoulders, and upon her head the cap of ceremony that reposed
three hundred and sixty days out of the year in its round wicker-work
nest lined with silk. They started guiltily as I pushed open the door,
but I congratulate myself that I had sense enough---or was it instinct---to
ask no questions.

The last time I had seen them, three hours ago, they had been engaged,
the lights carefully extinguished, cleaning the ground floor windows,
my father the outside, my mother within, and it astonished me the
change not only in their appearance, but in their manner and bearing,
and even in their very voices. My father brought over from the sideboard
the sherry and sweet biscuits and poured out and handed a glass to
my mother, and he and my mother drank to each other, while I between
them ate the biscuits, and the conversation was of Byron's poems and
the great glass palace in Hyde Park.

I wonder am I disloyal setting this down? Maybe to others it shows
but a foolish man and woman, and that is far from my intention. I
dwell upon such trifles because to me the memory of them is very tender.
The virtues of our loved ones we admire, yet after all 'tis but what
we expected of them: how could they do otherwise? Their failings we
would forget; no one of us is perfect. But over their follies we love
to linger, smiling.

To me personally, old Hasluck's coming and all that followed thereupon
made perhaps more difference than to any one else. My father now was
busy all the day; if not in his office, then away in the grim city
of the giants, as I still thought of it; while to my mother came every
day more social and domestic duties; so that for a time I was left
much to my own resources.

Rambling---{}``bummelling,'' as the Germans term it---was my bent.
This my mother would have checked, but my father said:

{}``Don't molly-coddle him. Let him learn to be smart.''

{}``I don't think the smart people are always the nicest,'' demurred
my mother. {}``I don't call you at all `smart,' Luke.''

My father appeared surprised, but reflected.

{}``I should call myself smart---in a sense,'' he explained, after
consideration.

{}``Perhaps you are right, dear,'' replied my mother; {}``and of
course boys are different from girls.''

Sometimes I would wander Victoria Park way, which was then surrounded
by many small cottages in leafy gardens; or even reach as far as Clapton,
where old red brick Georgian houses still stood behind high palings,
and tall elms gave to the wide road on sunny afternoons an old-world
air of peace. But such excursions were the exception, for strange
though it may read, the narrow, squalid streets had greater hold on
me. Not the few main thoroughfares, filled ever with a dull, deep
throbbing as of some tireless iron machine; where the endless human
files, streaming ever up and down, crossing and recrossing, seemed
mere rushing chains of flesh and blood, working upon unseen wheels;
but the dim, weary, lifeless streets---the dark, tortuous roots, as
I fancied them, of that grim forest of entangled brick. Mystery lurked
in their gloom. Fear whispered from behind their silence. Dumb figures
flitted swiftly to and fro, never pausing, never glancing right nor
left. Far-off footsteps, rising swiftly into sound, as swiftly fading,
echoed round their lonely comers. Dreading, yet drawn on, I would
creep along their pavements as through some city of the dead, thinking
of the eyes I saw not watching from the thousand windows; starting
at each muffled sound penetrating the long, dreary walls, behind which
that close-packed, writhing life lay hid.

One day there came a cry from behind a curtained window. I stood still
for a moment and then ran; but before I could get far enough away
I heard it again, a long, piercing cry, growing fiercer before it
ceased; so that I ran faster still, not heeding where I went, till
I found myself in a raw, unfinished street, ending in black waste
land, bordering the river. I stopped, panting, wondering how I should
find my way again. To recover myself and think I sat upon the doorstep
of an empty house, and there came dancing down the road with a curious,
half-running, half-hopping step---something like a water wagtail's---a
child, a boy about my own age, who, after eyeing me strangely sat
down beside me.

We watched each other for a few minutes; and I noticed that his mouth
kept opening and shutting, though he said nothing. Suddenly, edging
closer to me, he spoke in a thick whisper. It sounded as though his
mouth were full of wool.

{}``Wot 'appens to yer when yer dead?''

{}``If you're good you go to Heaven. If you're bad you go to Hell.''

{}``Long way off, both of 'em, ain't they?''

{}``Yes. Millions of miles.''

{}``They can't come after yer? Can't fetch yer back again?''

{}``No, never.''

The doorstep that we occupied was the last. A yard beyond began the
black waste of mud. From the other end of the street, now growing
dark, he never took his staring eyes for an instant.

{}``Ever seen a stiff 'un---a dead 'un?''

{}``No.''

{}``I '\textit{ave}---stuck a pin into 'im. 'E never felt it. Don't
feel anything when yer dead, do yer?''

All the while he kept swaying his body to and fro, twisting his arms
and legs, and making faces. Comical figures made of ginger-bread,
with quaintly curved limbs and grinning features, were to be bought
then in bakers' shops: he made me hungry, reminding me of such.

{}``Of course not. When you are dead you're not there, you know.
Our bodies are but senseless clay.'' I was glad I remembered that
line. I tried to think of the next one, which was about food for worms;
but it evaded me.

{}``I like you,'' he said; and making a fist, he gave me a punch
in the chest. It was the token of palship among the youth of that
neighbourhood, and gravely I returned it, meaning it, for friendship
with children is an affair of the instant, or not at all, and I knew
him for my first chum.

He wormed himself up.

{}``Yer won't tell?''\ he said.

I had no notion what I was not to tell, but our compact demanded that
I should agree.

{}``Say `I swear.'''

{}``I swear.''

The heroes of my favourite fiction bound themselves by such like secret
oaths. Here evidently was a comrade after my own heart.

{}``Good-bye, cockey.''

But he turned again, and taking from his pocket an old knife, thrust
it into my hand. Then with that extraordinary hopping movement of
his ran off across the mud.

I stood watching him, wondering where he could be going. He stumbled
a little further, where the mud began to get softer and deeper, but
struggling up again, went hopping on towards the river.

I shouted to him, but he never looked back. At every few yards he
would sink down almost to his knees in the black mud, but wrenching
himself free would flounder forward. Then, still some distance from
the river, he fell upon his face, and did not rise again. I saw his
arms beating feebler and feebler as he sank till at last the oily
slime closed over him, and I could detect nothing but a faint heaving
underneath the mud. And after a time even that ceased.

It was late before I reached home, and fortunately my father and mother
were still out. I did not tell any one what I had seen, having sworn
not to; and as time went on the incident haunted me less and less
until it became subservient to my will. But of my fancy for those
silent, lifeless streets it cured me for the time. From behind their
still walls I would hear that long cry; down their narrow vistas see
that writhing figure, like some animated ginger-bread, hopping, springing,
falling.

Yet in the more crowded streets another trouble awaited me, one more
tangible.

Have you ever noticed a pack of sparrows round some crumbs perchance
that you have thrown out from your window? Suddenly the rest of the
flock will set upon one. There is a tremendous Lilliputian hubbub,
a tossing of tiny wings and heads, a babel of shrill chirps. It is
comical.

{}``Spiteful little imps they are,'' you say to yourself, much amused.

So I have heard good-tempered men and women calling out to one another
with a laugh.

{}``There go those young devils chivvying that poor little beggar
again; ought to be ashamed of theirselves.''

But, oh!\ the anguish of the poor little beggar! Can any one who
has not been through it imagine it! Reduced to its actualities, what
was it? Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches,
kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it
beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round
each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles---had they
seen me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop,
would I get past him without his noticing me; or would he, swinging
round upon his heel, raise the shrill whoop that brought them from
every doorway to hunt me?

The shame, when caught at last and cornered: the grinning face that
would stop to watch; the careless jokes of passers-by, regarding the
whole thing but as a sparrows' squabble: worst of all, perhaps, the
rare pity! The after humiliation when, finally released, I would dart
away, followed by shouted taunts and laughter; every eye turned to
watch me, shrinking by; my whole small carcass shaking with dry sobs
of bitterness and rage!

If only I could have turned and faced them! So far as the mere bearing
of pain was concerned, I knew myself brave. The physical suffering
resulting from any number of stand-up fights would have been trivial
compared with the mental agony I endured. That I, the comrade of a
hundred heroes---I, who nightly rode with Richard Coeur de Lion, who
against Sir Lancelot himself had couched a lance, and that not altogether
unsuccessful, I to whom all damsels in distress were wont to look
for succour---that I should run from \textit{varlets} such as these!

My friend, my bosom friend, good Robin Hood!\ how would he have behaved
under similar circumstances? how Ivanhoe, my chosen companion in all
quests of knightly enterprise? how---to come to modern times---Jack
Harkaway, mere schoolboy though he might be? Would not one and all
have welcomed such incident with a joyous shout, and in a trice have
scattered to the winds the worthless herd?

But, alas!\ upon my pale lips the joyous shout sank into an unheard
whisper, and the thing that became scattered to the wind was myself,
the first opening that occurred.

Sometimes, the blood boiling in my veins, I would turn, thinking to
go back and at all risk defying my tormentors, prove to myself I was
no coward. But before I had retraced my steps a dozen paces, I would
see in imagination the whole scene again before me: the laughing crowd,
the halting passers-by, the spiteful, mocking little faces every way
I turned; and so instead would creep on home, and climbing stealthily
up into my own room, cry my heart out in the dark upon my bed.

Until one blessed day, when a blessed Fairy, in the form of a small
kitten, lifted the spell that bound me, and set free my limbs.

I have always had a passionate affection for the dumb world, if it
be dumb. My first playmate, I remember, was a water rat. A stream
ran at the bottom of our garden; and sometimes, escaping the vigilant
eye of Mrs.\ Fursey, I would steal out with my supper and join him
on the banks. There, hidden behind the \textit{osiers}, we would play
at banquets, he, it is true, doing most of the banqueting, and I the
make-believe. But it was a good game; added to which it was the only
game I could ever get him to play, though I tried. He was a one-ideaed
rat.

Later I came into the possession of a white specimen all my own. He
lived chiefly in the outside breast pocket of my jacket, in company
with my handkerchief, so that glancing down I could generally see
his little pink eyes gleaming up at me, except on very cold days,
when it would be only his tail that I could see; and when I felt miserable,
somehow he would know it, and, swarming up, push his little cold snout
against my ear. He died just so, clinging round my neck; and from
many of my fellow-men and women have I parted with less pain. It sounds
callous to say so; but, after all, our feelings are not under our
own control; and I have never been able to understand the use of pretending
to emotions one has not. All this, however, comes later. Let me return
now to my fairy kitten.

I heard its cry of pain from afar, and instinctively hastened my steps.
Three or four times I heard it again, and at each call I ran faster,
till, breathless, I arrived upon the scene, the opening of a narrow
court, leading out of a by-street. At first I saw nothing but the
backs of a small mob of urchins. Then from the centre of them came
another wailing appeal for help, and without waiting for any invitation,
I pushed my way into the group.

What I saw was Hecuba to me---gave me the motive and the cue for passion,
transformed me from the dull and muddy-mettled little John-a-dreams
I had been into a small, blind Fury. Pale Thought, that mental emetic,
banished from my system, I became the healthy, unreasoning animal,
and acted as such.

From my methods, I frankly admit, science was absent. In simple, primitive
fashion that would have charmed a Darwinian disciple to observe, I
{}``went for'' the whole crowd. To employ the expressive idiom of
the neighbourhood, I was {}``all over it and inside.'' Something
clung about my feet. By kicking myself free and then standing on it
I gained the advantage of quite an extra foot in height; I don't know
what it was and didn't care. I fought with my arms and I fought with
my legs; where I could get in with my head I did. I fought whatever
came to hand in a spirit of simple thankfulness, grateful for what
I could reach and indifferent to what was beyond me.

That the {}``show''---if again I may be permitted the local idiom---was
not entirely mine I was well aware. That not alone my person but my
property also was being damaged in the rear became dimly conveyed
to me through the sensation of draught. Already the world to the left
of me was mere picturesque perspective, while the growing importance
of my nose was threatening the absorption of all my other features.
These things did not trouble me. I merely noted them as phenomena
and continued to punch steadily.

Until I found that I was punching something soft and yet unyielding.
I looked up to see what this foreign matter that thus mysteriously
had entered into the mixture might be, and discovered it to be a policeman.
Still I did not care. The felon's dock!\ the prison cell!\ a fig
for such mere bogies. An impudent word, an insulting look, and I would
have gone for the Law itself. Pale Thought---it must have been a livid
green by this time---still trembled at respectful distance from me.

Fortunately for all of us, he was not impertinent, and though he spoke
the language of his order, his tone disarmed offence.

{}``Now, then. Now, then. What is all this about?''

There was no need for me to answer. A dozen voluble tongues were ready
to explain to him; and to explain wholly in my favour. This time the
crowd was with me. Let a man school himself to bear dispraise, for
thereby alone shall he call his soul his own. But let no man lie,
saying he is indifferent to popular opinion. That was my first taste
of public applause. The public was not select, and the applause might,
by the sticklers for English pure and undefiled, have been deemed
ill-worded, but to me it was the sweetest music I had ever heard,
or have heard since. I was called a {}``plucky little devil,'' a
{}``fair 'ot 'un,'' not only a {}``good 'un,'' but a {}``good
'un'' preceded by the adjective that in the East bestows upon its
principal every admirable quality that can possibly apply. Under the
circumstances it likewise fitted me literally; but I knew it was intended
rather in its complimentary sense.

Kind, if dirty, hands wiped my face. A neighbouring butcher presented
me with a choice morsel of steak, not to eat but to wear; and I found
it, if I may so express myself without infringing copyright, {}``grateful
and comforting.'' My enemies had long since scooted, some of them,
I had rejoiced to notice, with lame and halting steps. The mutilated
kitten had been restored to its owner, a lady of ample bosom, who,
carried beyond judgment by emotion, publicly offered to adopt me on
the spot. The Law suggested, not for the first time, that everybody
should now move on; and slowly, followed by feminine commendation
mingled with masculine advice as to improved methods for the future,
I was allowed to drift away.

My bones ached, my flesh stung me, yet I walked as upon air. Gradually
I became conscious that I was not alone. A light, pattering step was
trying to keep pace with me. Graciously I slacked my speed, and the
pattering step settled down beside me. Every now and again she would
run ahead and then turn round to look up into my face, much as your
small dog does when he happens not to be misbehaving himself and desires
you to note the fact. Evidently she approved of me. I was not at my
best, as far as appearance was concerned, but women are kittle cattle,
and I think she preferred me so. Thus we walked for quite a long distance
without speaking, I drinking in the tribute of her worship and enjoying
it. Then gaining confidence, she shyly put her hand into mine, and
finding I did not repel her, promptly assumed possession of me, according
to woman's way.

For her age and station she must have been a person of means, for
having tried in vain various methods to make me more acceptable to
followers and such as having passed would turn their heads, she said:

{}``I know, \textit{g\'{e}latines};'' and disappearing into a sweetstuff
shop, returned with quite a quantity. With these, first sucked till
glutinous, we joined my many tatters. I still attracted attention,
but felt warmer.

She informed me that her name was Cissy, and that her father's shop
was in Three Colt Street. I informed her that my name was Paul, and
that my father was a lawyer. I also pointed out to her that a lawyer
is much superior in social position to a shopkeeper, which she acknowledged
cheerfully. We parted at the corner of the Stainsby Road, and I let
her kiss me once. It was understood that in the Stainsby Road we might
meet again.

I left Eliza gaping after me, the front door in her hand, and ran
straight up into my own room. Robinson Crusoe, King Arthur, The Last
of the Barons, Rob Roy! I looked them all in the face and was not
ashamed. I also was a gentleman.

My mother was much troubled when she saw me, but my father, hearing
the story, approved.

{}``But he looks so awful,'' said my mother. {}``In this world,''
said my father, {}``one must occasionally be aggressive---if necessary,
brutal.''

My father would at times be quite savage in his sentiments.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IV.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER IV}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Paul}}\noun{,} \textit{\noun{falling}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{in}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{with}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a Goodly}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{company}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{pilgrims}}\noun{,}
\textit{\noun{learns}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{them}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{road}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{that}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{he}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{must}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{travel}}\noun{.}
\textit{\noun{And}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{meets}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{princess}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{golden}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{locks}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
The East India Dock Road is nowadays a busy, crowded thoroughfare.
The jingle of the tram-bell and the rattle of the omnibus and cart
mingle continuously with the rain of many feet, beating ceaselessly
upon its pavements. But at the time of which I write it was an empty,
voiceless way, bounded on the one side by the long, echoing wall of
the docks and on the other by occasional small houses isolated amid
market gardens, drying grounds and rubbish heaps. Only one thing remains---or
did remain last time I passed along it, connecting it with its former
self---and that is the one-storeyed brick cottage at the commencement
of the bridge, and which was formerly the toll-house. I remember this
toll-house so well because it was there that my childhood fell from
me, and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.

I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow
on a visit to the family dentist. It was an out-of-the-way place in
which to keep him, but there existed advantages of a counterbalancing
nature.

{}``Have the half-crown in your hand,'' my mother would direct me,
while making herself sure that the purse containing it was safe at
the bottom of my knickerbocker pocket; {}``but of course if he won't
take it, why, you must bring it home again.''

I am not sure, but I think he was some distant connection of ours;
at all events, I know he was a kind friend. I, seated in the velvet
chair of state, he would unroll his case of instruments before me,
and ask me to choose, recommending with affectionate eulogisms the
most murderous looking.

But on my opening my mouth to discuss the fearful topic, lo!\ a pair
would shoot from under his coat-sleeve, and almost before I knew what
had happened, the trouble would be over. After that we would have
tea together. He was an old bachelor, and his house stood in a great
garden---for Plaistow in those days was a picturesque village---and
out of the plentiful fruit thereof his housekeeper made the most wonderful
of jams and jellies. Oh, they were good, those teas! Generally our
conversation was of my mother who, it appeared, was once a little
girl: not at all the sort of little girl I should have imagined her;
on the contrary, a prankish, wilful little girl, though good company,
I should say, if all the tales he told of her were true. And I am
inclined to think they were, in spite of the fact that my mother,
when I repeated them to her, would laugh, saying she was sure she
had no recollection of anything of the kind, adding severely that
it was a pity he and I could not find something better to gossip about.
Yet her next question would be:

{}``And what else did he say, if you please?''\ explaining impatiently
when my answer was not of the kind expected: {}``No, no, I mean about
me.''

The tea things cleared away, he would bring out his great microscope.
To me it was a peep-hole into a fairy world where dwelt strange dragons,
mighty monsters, so that I came to regard him as a sort of harmless
magician. It was his pet study, and looking back, I cannot help associating
his enthusiasm for all things microscopical with the fact that he
was an exceptionally little man himself, but one of the biggest hearted
that ever breathed.

On leaving I would formally hand him my half-crown, {}``with mamma's
compliments,'' and he would formally accept it. But on putting my
hand into my jacket pocket when outside the gate I would invariably
find it there. The first time I took it back to him, but unblushingly
he repudiated all knowledge.

{}``Must be another half-crown,'' he suggested; {}``such things
do happen. One puts change into a pocket and overlooks it. Slippery
things, half-crowns.''

Returning home on this particular day of days, I paused upon the bridge,
and watched for awhile the lazy barges manoeuvring their way between
the piers. It was one of those hushed summer evenings when the air
even of grim cities is full of whispering voices; and as, turning
away from the river, I passed through the white toll-gate, I had a
sense of leaving myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was the
impression, that I looked back, half expecting to see myself still
leaning over the iron parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.

It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others
a like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to
me. He passed away from me as a man's body may possibly pass away
from him, leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried
to play his games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting.
I was only a thin ghost, making believe.

It troubled me for quite a spell of time, even to the point of tears,
this feeling that my childhood lay behind me, this sudden realisation
that I was travelling swiftly the strange road called growing up.
I did not want to grow up; could nothing be done to stop it? Rather
would I be always as I had been, playing, dreaming. The dark way frightened
me. Must I go forward?

Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came
to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories,
throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little
Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life.

So likewise must I let him fade with sorrow from this book. But before
I part with him entirely, let me recall what else I can remember of
him. Thus we shall be quit of him, and he will interfere with us no
more.

Chief among the pictures that I see is that of my aunt Fan, crouching
over the kitchen fire; her skirt and crinoline rolled up round her
waist, leaving as sacrifice to custom only her petticoat. Up and down
her body sways in rhythmic motion, her hands stroking affectionately
her own knees; the while I, with paper knife for sword, or horse of
broomstick, stand opposite her, flourishing and declaiming. Sometimes
I am a knight and she a wicked ogre. She is slain, growling and swearing,
and at once becomes the beautiful princess that I secure and bear
away with me upon the prancing broomstick. So long as the princess
is merely holding sweet converse with me from her high-barred window,
the scene is realistic, at least, to sufficiency; but the bearing
away has to be make-believe; for my aunt cannot be persuaded to leave
her chair before the fire, and the everlasting rubbing of her knees.

At other times, with the assistance of the meat chopper, I am an Indian
brave, and then she is Laughing Water or Singing Sunshine, and we
go out scalping together; or in less bloodthirsty moods I am the Fairy
Prince and she the Sleeping Beauty. But in such parts she is not at
her best. Better, when seated in the centre of the up-turned table,
I am Captain Cook, and she the Cannibal Chief.

{}``I shall skin him and hang him in the larder till Sunday week,''
says my aunt, smacking her lips, {}``then he'll be just in right
condition; not too tough and not too high.'' She was always strong
in detail, was my aunt Fan.

I do not wish to deprive my aunt of any credit due to her, but the
more I exercise my memory for evidence, the more I am convinced that
her compliance on these occasions was not conceived entirely in the
spirit of self-sacrifice. Often would she suggest the game and even
the theme; in such case, casting herself invariably for what, in old
theatrical parlance, would have been termed the heavy lead, the dragons
and the wicked uncles, the fussy necromancers and the uninvited fairies.
As authoress of a new cookery book for use in giant-land, my aunt,
I am sure, would have been successful. Most recipes that one reads
are so monotonously meagre: {}``Boil him,'' {}``Put her on the
spit and roast her for supper,'' {}``Cook 'em in a pie---with plenty
of gravy;'' but my aunt into the domestic economy of Ogredom introduced
variety and daintiness.

{}``I think, my dear,'' my aunt would direct, {}``we'll have him
stuffed with chestnuts and served on toast. And don't forget the giblets.
They make such excellent sauce.''

With regard to the diet of imprisoned maidens she would advise:

{}``Not too much fish---it spoils the flesh for roasting.''

The things that she would turn people into---king's sons, rightful
princesses, such sort of people---people who after a time, one would
think, must have quite forgotten what they started as. To let her
have her way was a lesson to me in natural history both present and
pre-historic. The most beautiful damsel that ever lived she would
without a moment's hesitation turn into a \textit{Glyptodon} or a
Hippocrepian. Afterwards, when I could guess at the spelling, I would
look these creatures up in the illustrated dictionary, and feel that
under no circumstances could I have loved the lady ever again. Warriors
and kings she would delight in transforming into plaice or prawns,
and haughty queens into Brussels sprouts.

With gusto would she plan a complicated slaughter, paying heed to
every detail: the sharpening of the knives, the having ready of mops
and pails of water for purposes of after cleaning up. As a writer
she would have followed the realistic school.

Her death, with which we invariably wound up the afternoon, was another
conscientious effort. Indeed, her groans and writhings would sometimes
frighten me. I always welcomed the last gurgle. That finished, but
not a moment before, my aunt would let down her skirt---in this way
suggesting the fall of the curtain upon our play---and set to work
to get the tea.

Another frequently recurring picture that I see is of myself in glazed-peaked
cap explaining many things the while we walk through dingy streets
to yet a smaller figure curly haired and open eyed. Still every now
and then she runs ahead to turn and look admiringly into my face as
on the day she first became captive to the praise and fame of me.

I was glad of her company for more reasons than she knew of. For one,
she protected me against my baser self. With her beside me I should
not have dared to flee from sudden foes. Indeed, together we courted
adventure; for once you get used to it this standing hazard of attack
adds a charm to outdoor exercise that older folk in districts better
policed enjoy not. So possibly my dog feels when together we take
the air. To me it is a simple walk, maybe a little tiresome, suggested
rather by contemplation of my waistband than by desire for walking
for mere walking's sake; to him an expedition full of danger and surprises:
{}``The gentleman asleep with one eye open on The Chequer's doorstep!\ will
he greet me with a friendly sniff or try to bite my head off? This
cross-eyed, lop-eared loafer, lurching against the lamp-post!\ shall
we pass with a careless wag and a `how-do,' or become locked in a
life and death struggle? Impossible to say. This coming corner, now,
'Ware! Is anybody waiting round there to kill me, or not?''

But the trusting face beside me nerved me. As reward in lonely places
I would let her hold my hand.

A second advantage I derived from her company was that of being less
trampled on, less walked over, less swept aside into doorway or gutter
than when alone. A pretty, winsome face had this little maid, if Memory
plays me not kindly false; but also she had a vocabulary; and when
the blind idiot, male or female, instead of passing us by walking
round us, would, after the custom of the blind idiot, seek to gain
the other side of us by walking through us, she would use it.

{}``Now, then, where yer coming to, old glass-eye? We ain't sperrits.
Can't yer see us?''

And if they attempted reply, her child's treble, so strangely at variance
with her dainty appearance, would only rise more shrill.

{}``Garn! They'd run out of 'eads when they was making you. That's
only a turnip wot you've got stuck on top of yer!'' I offer but specimens.

Nor was it of the slightest use attempting personal chastisement,
as sometimes an irate lady or gentleman would be foolish enough to
do. As well might an hippopotamus attempt to reprove a terrier. The
only result was to provide comedy for the entire street.

On these occasions our positions were reversed, I being the admiring
spectator of her prowess. Yet to me she was ever meek, almost irritatingly
submissive. She found out where I lived and would often come and wait
for me for hours, her little face pressed tight against the iron railings,
until either I came out or shook my head at her from my bedroom window,
when she would run off, the dying away into silence of her pattering
feet leaving me a little sad.

I think I cared for her in a way, yet she never entered into my day-dreams,
which means that she existed for me only in the outer world of shadows
that lay round about me and was not of my real life.

Also, I think she was unwise, introducing me to the shop, for children
and dogs---one seems unconsciously to bracket them in one's thoughts---are
snobbish little wretches. If only her father had been a dealer in
firewood I could have soothed myself by imagining mistakes. It was
a common occurrence, as I well knew, for children of quite the best
families to be brought up by wood choppers. Fairies, the best intentioned
in the world, but born muddlers, were generally responsible for these
mishaps, which, however, always became righted in time for the wedding.
Or even had he been a pork butcher, and there were many in the neighbourhood,
I could have thought of him as a swineherd, and so found precedent
for hope.

But a fishmonger---from six in the evening a fried fishmonger! I searched
history in vain. Fried fishmongers were without the pale.

So gradually our meetings became less frequent, though I knew that
every afternoon she waited in the quiet Stainsby Road, where dwelt
in semi-detached, six-roomed villas the aristocracy of Poplar, and
that after awhile, for arriving late at times I have been witness
to the sad fact, tears would trace pathetic patterns upon her dust-besprinkled
cheeks; and with the advent of the world-illuminating Barbara, to
which event I am drawing near, they ceased altogether.

So began and ended my first romance. One of these days---some quiet
summer's afternoon, when even the air of Pigott Street vibrates with
tenderness beneath the whispered sighs of Memory, I shall walk into
the little grocer's shop and boldly ask to see her. So far have I
already gone as to trace her, and often have I tried to catch sight
of her through the glass door, but hitherto in vain. I know she is
the more or less troubled mother of a numerous progeny. I am told
she has grown stout, and probable enough it is that her tongue has
gained rather than lost in sharpness. Yet under all the unrealities
the clumsy-handed world has built about her, I shall see, I know,
the lithesome little maid with fond, admiring eyes. What help they
were to me I never knew till I had lost them. How hard to gain such
eyes I have learned since. Were we to write the truth in our confession
books, should we not admit the quality we most admire in others is
admiration of ourselves? And is it not a wise selection? If you would
have me admirable, my friend, admire me, and speak your commendation
without stint that in the sunshine of your praises I may wax. For
indifference maketh an indifferent man, and contempt a contemptible
man. Come, is it not true? Does not all that is worthy in us grow
best by honour?

Chief among the remaining figures on my childhood's stage were the
many servants of our house, the {}``generals,'' as they were termed.
So rapid, as a rule, was their transit through our kitchen that only
one or two, conspicuous by reason of their lingering, remain upon
my view. It was a neighbourhood in which domestic servants were not
much required. Those intending to take up the calling seriously went
westward. The local ranks were recruited mainly from the discontented
or the disappointed, from those who, unappreciated at home, hoped
from the stranger more discernment; or from the love-lorn, the jilted
and the jealous, who took the cap and apron as in an earlier age their
like would have taken the veil. Maybe, to the comparative seclusion
of our basement, as contrasted with the alternative frivolity of shop
or factory, they felt in such mood more attuned. With the advent of
the new or the recovery of the old young man they would plunge again
into the vain world, leaving my poor mother to search afresh amid
the legions of the cursed.

With these I made such comradeship as I could, for I had no child
friends. Kind creatures were most of them, at least so I found them.
They were poor at {}``making believe,'' but would always squeeze
ten minutes from their work to romp with me, and that, perhaps, was
healthier for me. What, perhaps, was not so good for me was that,
staggered at the amount of {}``book-learning'' implied by my conversation
(for the journalistic instinct, I am inclined to think, was early
displayed in me), they would listen open-mouthed to all my information,
regarding me as a precocious oracle. Sometimes they would obtain permission
to take me home with them to tea, generously eager that their friends
should also profit by me. Then, encouraged by admiring, grinning faces,
I would {}``hold forth,'' keenly enjoying the sound of my own proud
piping.

{}``As good as a book, ain't he?''\ was the tribute most often
paid to me.

{}``As good as a play,'' one enthusiastic listener, an old greengrocer,
went so far as to say.

Already I regarded myself as among the Immortals.

One girl, a dear, wholesome creature named Janet, stayed with us for
months and might have stayed years, but for her addiction to strong
language. The only and well-beloved child of the captain of the barge
{}``Nancy Jane,'' trading between Purfleet and Ponder's End, her
conversation was at once my terror and delight.

{}``Janet,'' my mother would exclaim in agony, her hands going up
instinctively to guard her ears, {}``how can you use such words?''

{}``What words, mum?''

{}``The things you have just called the gas man.''

{}``Him! Well, did you see what he did, mum? Walked straight into
my clean kitchen, without even wiping his boots, the---'' And before
my mother could stop her, Janet had relieved her feelings by calling
him it---or rather them---again, without any idea that she had done
aught else than express in fitting phraseology a natural human emotion.

We were good friends, Janet and I, and therefore it was that I personally
undertook her reformation. It was not an occasion for mincing one's
words. The stake at issue was, I felt, too important. I told her bluntly
that if she persisted in using such language she would inevitably
go to hell.

{}``Then where's my father going?''\ demanded Janet.

{}``Does he use language?''

I gathered from Janet that no one who had enjoyed the privilege of
hearing her father could ever again take interest in the feeble efforts
of herself.

{}``I am afraid, Janet,'' I explained, {}``that if he doesn't give
it up---''

{}``But it's the only way he can talk,'' interrupted Janet. {}``He
don't mean anything by it.''

I sighed, yet set my face against weakness. {}``You see, Janet, people
who swear do go there.''

But Janet would not believe.

{}``God send my dear, kind father to hell just because he can't talk
like the gentlefolks! Don't you believe it of Him, Master Paul. He's
got more sense.''

I hope I pain no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I should
be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking in sloughs
of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More often than
I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious voice of immeasurable
Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries, has it comforted me
to whisper to myself: {}``I don't believe it of Him. He's got more
sense.''

And about that period I had need of all the comfort I could get. As
we descend the road of life, the journey, demanding so much of our
attention, becomes of more importance than the journey's end; but
to the child, standing at the valley's gate, the terminating hills
are clearly visible. What lies beyond them is his constant wonder.
I never questioned my parents directly on the subject, shrinking as
so strangely we all do, both young and old, from discussion of the
very matters of most moment to us; and they, on their part, not guessing
my need, contented themselves with the vague generalities with which
we seek to hide even from ourselves the poverty of our beliefs. But
there were foolish voices about me less reticent; while the literature,
illustrated and otherwise, provided in those days for serious-minded
youth, answered all questionings with blunt brutality. If you did
wrong you burnt in a fiery furnace for ever and ever. Were your imagination
weak you could turn to the accompanying illustration, and see at a
glance how you yourself would writhe and shrink and scream, while
cheerful devils, well organised, were busy stoking. I had been burnt
once, rather badly, in consequence of live coals, in course of transit
on a shovel, being let fall upon me. I imagined these burning coals,
not confined to a mere part of my body, but pressing upon me everywhere,
not snatched swiftly off by loving hands, the pain assuaged by applications
of soft soap and the blue bag, but left there, eating into my flesh
and veins. And this continued for eternity. You suffered for an hour,
a day, a thousand years, and were no nearer to the end; ten thousand,
a million years, and yet, as at the very first, it was for ever, and
for ever still it would always be for ever! I suffered also from insomnia
about this period.

{}``Then be good,'' replied the foolish voices round me; {}``never
do wrong, and so avoid this endless agony.''

But it was so easy to do wrong. There were so many wrong things to
do, and the doing of them was so natural.

{}``Then repent,'' said the voices, always ready.

But how did one repent? What was repentance? Did I {}``hate my sin,''
as I was instructed I must, or merely hate the idea of going to hell
for it? Because the latter, even my child's sense told me, was no
true repentance. Yet how could one know the difference?

Above all else there haunted me the fear of the {}``Unforgivable
Sin.'' What this was I was never able to discover. I dreaded to enquire
too closely, lest I should find I had committed it. Day and night
the terror of it clung to me.

{}``Believe,'' said the voices; {}``so only shall you be saved.''
How believe? How know you did believe? Hours would I kneel in the
dark, repeating in a whispered scream:

{}``I believe, I believe. Oh, I do believe!''\ and then rise with
white knuckles, wondering if I really did believe.

Another question rose to trouble me. In the course of my meanderings
I had made the acquaintance of an old sailor, one of the most disreputable
specimens possible to find; and had learned to love him. Our first
meeting had been outside a confectioner's window, in the Commercial
Road, where he had discovered me standing, my nose against the glass,
a mere palpitating Appetite on legs. He had seized me by the collar,
and hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a stool, he bade
me eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline, but his language
became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed. So soon as I
was finished---it cost him two and fourpence, I remember---we walked
down to the docks together, and he told me stories of the sea and
land that made my blood run cold. Altogether, in the course of three
weeks or a month, we met about half a dozen times, when much the same
programme was gone through. I think I was a fairly frank child, but
I said nothing about him at home, feeling instinctively that if I
did there would be an end of our comradeship, which was dear to me:
not merely by reason of the pastry, though I admit that was a consideration,
but also for his wondrous tales. I believed them all implicitly, and
so came to regard him as one of the most interesting criminals as
yet unhanged: and what was sad about the case, as I felt myself, was
that his recital of his many iniquities, instead of repelling, attracted
me to him. If ever there existed a sinner, here was one. He chewed
tobacco---one of the hundred or so deadly sins, according to my theological
library---and was generally more or less drunk. Not that a stranger
would have noticed this; the only difference being that when sober
he appeared constrained---was less his natural, genial self. In a
burst of confidence he once admitted to me that he was the biggest
blackguard in the merchant service. Unacquainted with the merchant
service, as at the time I was, I saw no reason to doubt him.

One night in a state of intoxication he walked over a gangway and
was drowned. Our mutual friend, the confectioner, seeing me pass the
window, came out to tell me so; and having heard, I walked on, heavy
of heart, and pondering.

About his eternal destination there could be no question. The known
facts precluded the least ray of hope. How could I be happy in heaven,
supposing I eventually did succeed in slipping in, knowing that he,
the lovable old scamp, was burning for ever in hell?

How could Janet, taking it that she reformed and thus escaped damnation,
be contented, knowing the father she loved doomed to torment? The
heavenly hosts, so I argued, could be composed only of the callous
and indifferent.

I wondered how people could go about their business, eat, drink and
be merry, with tremendous fate hanging thus ever suspended over their
heads. When for a little space I myself forgot it, always it fell
back upon me with increased weight.

Nor was the contemplation of heaven itself particularly attractive
to me, for it was a foolish paradise these foolish voices had fashioned
out of their folly. You stood about and sang hymns---for ever! I was
assured that my fear of finding the programme monotonous was due only
to my state of original sin, that when I got there I should discover
I liked it. But I would have given much for the hope of avoiding both
their heaven and their hell.

Fortunately for my sanity I was not left long to brood unoccupied
upon such themes. Our worldly affairs, under the sunshine of old Hasluck's
round red face, prospered---for awhile; and one afternoon my father,
who had been away from home since breakfast time, calling me into
his office where also sat my mother, informed me that the long-talked-of
school was become at last a concrete thing.

{}``The term commences next week,'' explained my father. {}``It
is not exactly what I had intended, but it will do---for the present.
Later, of course, you will go to one of the big public schools; your
mother and I have not yet quite decided which.''

{}``You will meet other boys there, good and bad,'' said my mother,
who sat clasping and unclasping her hands. {}``Be very careful, dear,
how you choose your companions.''

{}``You will learn to take your own part,'' said my father. {}``School
is an epitome of the world. One must assert oneself, or one is sat
upon.''

I knew not what to reply, the vista thus opened out to me was so unexpected.
My blood rejoiced, but my heart sank.

{}``Take one of your long walks,'' said my father, smiling, {}``and
think it over.''

{}``And if you are in any doubt, you know where to go for guidance,
don't you?''\ whispered my mother, who was very grave.

Yet I went to bed, dreaming of quite other things that night: of Queens
of Beauty bending down to crown my brows with laurel: of wronged Princesses
for whose cause I rode to death or victory. For on my return home,
being called into the drawing-room by my father, I stood transfixed,
my cap in hand, staring with all my eyes at the vision that I saw.

No such wonder had I ever seen before, at all events, not to my remembrance.
The maidens that one meets in Poplar streets may be fair enough in
their way, but their millinery displays them not to advantage; and
the few lady visitors that came to us were of a staid and matronly
appearance. Only out of pictures hitherto had such witchery looked
upon me; and from these the spell faded as one gazed.

I heard old Hasluck's smoky voice saying, {}``My little gell, Barbara,''
and I went nearer to her, moving unconsciously.

{}``You can kiss '\textit{er},'' said the smoky voice again; {}``she
won't bite.'' But I did not kiss her. Nor ever felt I wanted to,
upon the mouth.

I suppose she must have been about fourteen, and I a little over ten,
though tall for my age. Later I came to know she had that rare gold
hair that holds the light, so that upon her face, which seemed of
dainty porcelain, there ever fell a softened radiance as from some
shining aureole; those blue eyes where dwell mysteries, shadow veiled.
At the time I knew nothing, but that it seemed to me as though the
fairy-tales had all come true.

She smiled, understanding and well pleased with my confusion. Child
though I was---little more than child though she was, it flattered
her vanity.

Fair and sweet, you had but that one fault. Would it had been another,
less cruel to you yourself.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER V.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER V}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{In}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{which}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{there}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{comes}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{by}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{one}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{bent}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{upon}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{pursuing}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{his}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{own}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{way}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
{}``Correct'' is, I think, the adjective by which I can best describe
Doctor Florret and all his attributes. He was a large man, but not
too large---just the size one would select for the head-master of
an important middle-class school; stout, not fat, suggesting comfort,
not grossness. His hands were white and well shaped. On the left he
wore a fine diamond ring, but it shone rather than sparkled. He spoke
of commonplace things in a voice that lent dignity even to the weather.
His face, which was clean-shaven, radiated benignity tempered by discretion.

So likewise all about him: his wife, the feminine counterpart of himself.
Seeing them side by side one felt tempted to believe that for his
special benefit original methods had been reverted to, and she fashioned,
as his particular helpmeet, out of one of his own ribs. His furniture
was solid, meant for use, not decoration. His pictures, following
the rule laid down for dress, graced without drawing attention to
his walls. He ever said the correct thing at the correct time in the
correct manner. Doubtful of the correct thing to do, one could always
learn it by waiting till he did it; when one at once felt that nothing
else could possibly have been correct. He held on all matters the
correct views. To differ from him was to discover oneself a revolutionary.

In practice, as I learned at the cost of four more or less wasted
years, he of course followed the methods considered correct by English
schoolmen from the days of Edward VI.\ onwards.

Heaven knows I worked hard. I wanted to learn. Ambition---the all
containing ambition of a boy that {}``has its centre everywhere nor
cares to fix itself to form'' stirred within me. Did I pass a speaker
at some corner, hatless, perspiring, pointing Utopias in the air to
restless hungry eyes, at once I saw myself, a Demosthenes swaying
multitudes, a statesman holding the House of Commons spellbound, the
Prime Minister of England, worshipped by the entire country. Even
the Opposition papers, had I known of them, I should have imagined
forced to reluctant admiration. Did the echo of a distant drum fall
upon my ear, then before me rose picturesque fields of carnage, one
figure ever conspicuous: Myself, well to the front, isolated. Promotion
in the British army of my dream being a matter purely of merit, I
returned Commander-in-Chief. Vast crowds thronged every flag-decked
street. I saw white waving hands from every roof and window. I heard
the dull, deep roar of welcome, as with superb seat upon my snow-white
charger---or should it be coal-black? The point cost me much consideration,
so anxious was I that the day should be without a flaw---I slowly
paced at the head of my victorious troops, between wild waves of upturned
faces: walked into a lamp-post or on to the toes of some irascible
old gentleman, and awoke. A drunken sailor stormed from between swing
doors and tacked tumultuously down the street: the factory chimney
belching smoke became a swaying mast. The costers round about me shouted
{}``\textit{Ay}, \textit{ay}, sir. 'Ready, \textit{ay}, ready.''
I was Christopher Columbus, Drake, Nelson, rolled into one. Spurning
the presumption of modern geographers, I discovered new continents.
I defeated the French---those useful French! I died in the moment
of victory. A nation mourned me and I was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Also I lived and was created a Duke. Either alternative had its charm:
personally I was indifferent. Boys who on November the ninth, as explained
by letters from their mothers, read by Doctor Florret with a snort,
were suffering from a severe toothache, told me on November the tenth
of the glories of Lord Mayor's Shows. I heard their chatter fainter
and fainter as from an ever-increasing distance. The bells of Bow
were ringing in my ears. I saw myself a merchant prince, though still
young. Nobles crowded my counting house. I lent them millions and
married their daughters. I listened, unobserved in a corner, to discussion
on some new book. Immediately I was a famous author. All men praised
me: for of reviewers and their density I, in those days, knew nothing.
Poetry, fiction, history, I wrote them all; and all men read, and
wondered. Only here was a crumpled rose leaf in the pillow on which
I laid my swelling head: penmanship was vexation to me, and spelling
puzzled me, so that I wrote with sorrow and many blots and scratchings
out. Almost I put aside the idea of becoming an author.

But along whichever road I might fight my way to the Elysian Fields
of fame, education, I dimly but most certainly comprehended, was a
necessary weapon to my hand. And so, with aching heart and aching
head, I pored over my many books. I see myself now in my small bedroom,
my elbows planted on the shaky, one-legged table, startled every now
and again by the frizzling of my hair coming in contact with the solitary
candle. On cold nights I wear my overcoat, turned up about the neck,
a blanket round my legs, and often I must sit with my fingers in my
ears, the better to shut out the sounds of life, rising importunately
from below. {}``A song, Of a song, To a song, A song, O!\ song!''
{}``I love, Thou lovest, He she or it loves. I should or would love''
over and over again, till my own voice seems some strange buzzing
thing about me, while my head grows smaller and smaller till I put
my hands up frightened, wondering if it still be entire upon my shoulders.

Was I more stupid than the average, or is a boy's brain physically
incapable of the work our educational system demands of it?

{}``Latin and Greek'' I hear repeating the suave tones of Doctor
Florret, echoing as ever the solemn croak of Correctness, {}``are
useful as mental gymnastics.'' My dear Doctor Florret and Co., cannot
you, out of the vast storehouse of really necessary knowledge, select
apparatus better fitted to strengthen and not overstrain the mental
muscles of ten-to-fourteen? You, gentle reader, with brain fully grown,
trained by years of practice to its subtlest uses, take me from your
bookshelf, say, your Browning or even your Shakespeare. Come, you
know this language well. You have not merely learned: it is your mother
tongue. Construe for me this short passage, these few verses: parse,
analyse, resolve into component parts! And now, will you maintain
that it is good for Tommy, tear-stained, ink-bespattered little brat,
to be given AEsop's Fables, Ovid's Metamorphoses to treat in like
manner? Would it not be just as sensible to insist upon his practising
his skinny little arms with hundred pounds dumb-bells?

We were the sons of City men, of not well-to-do professional men,
of minor officials, clerks, shopkeepers, our roads leading through
the workaday world. Yet quite half our time was taken up in studies
utterly useless to us. How I hated them, these youth-tormenting Shades.
Homer!\ how I wished the fishermen had asked him that absurd riddle
earlier. Horace!\ why could not that shipwreck have succeeded: it
would have in the case of any one but a classic.

Until one blessed day there fell into my hands a wondrous talisman.

Hearken unto me, ye heavy burdened little brethren of mine. Waste
not your substance upon tops and marbles, nor yet upon tuck (Do ye
still call it {}``tuck''?), but scrape and save. For in the neighbourhood
of Paternoster Row there dwells a good magician who for silver will
provide you with a {}``Key'' that shall open wide for you the gates
of Hades.

By its aid, the Frogs of Aristophanes became my merry friends. With
Ulysses I wandered eagerly through Wonderland. Doctor Florret was
charmed with my progress, which was real, for now, at last, I was
studying according to the laws of common sense, understanding first,
explaining afterwards. Let Youth, that the folly of Age would imprison
in ignorance, provide itself with {}``Keys.''

But let me not seem to claim credit due to another. Dan it was---Dan
of the strong arm and the soft smile, Dan the wise hater of all useless
labour, sharp-witted, easy-going Dan, who made this grand discovery.

Dan followed me a term later into the Lower Fourth, but before he
had been there a week was handling Latin verse with an ease and dexterity
suggestive of unholy dealings with the Devil. In a lonely corner of
Regent's Park, first making sure no one was within earshot, he revealed
to me his magic.

{}``Don't tell the others,'' he commanded; {}``or it will get out,
and then nobody will be any the better.''

{}``But is it right?''\ I asked.

{}``Look here, young 'un,'' said Dan; {}``what are you here for---what's
your father paying school fees for (it was the appeal to our conscientiousness
most often employed by Dr.\ Florret himself), for you to play a silly
game, or to learn something?

{}``Because if it's only a game---we boys against the masters,''
continued Dan, {}``then let's play according to rule. If we're here
to learn---well, you've been in the class four months and I've just
come, and I bet I know more Ovid than you do already.'' Which was
true.

So I thanked Dan and shared with him his key; and all the Latin I
remember, for whatever good it may be to me, I take it I owe to him.

And knowledge of yet greater value do I owe to the good fortune that
his sound mother wit was ever at my disposal to correct my dreamy
unfeasibility; for from first to last he was my friend; and to have
been the chosen friend of Dan, shrewd judge of man and boy, I deem
no unimportant feather in my cap. He {}``took to'' me, he said,
because I was so jolly green''---{}``such a rummy little mug.''
No other reason would he ever give me, save only a sweet smile and
a tumbling of my hair with his great hand; but I think I understood.
And I loved him because he was big and strong and handsome and kind;
no one but a little boy knows how brutal or how kind a big boy can
be. I was still somewhat of an effeminate little chap, nervous and
shy, with a pink and white face, and hair that no amount of wetting
would make straight. I was growing too fast, which took what strength
I had, and my journey every day, added to school work and home work,
maybe was too much for my years. Every morning I had to be up at six,
leaving the house before seven to catch the seven fifteen from Poplar
station; and from Chalk Farm I had to walk yet another couple of miles.
But that I did not mind, for at Chalk Farm station Dan was always
waiting for me. In the afternoon we walked back together also; and
when I was tired and my back ached---just as if some one had cut a
piece out of it, I felt---he would put his arm round me, for he always
knew, and oh, how strong and restful it was to lean against, so that
one walked as in an easy-chair.

It seems to me, remembering how I would walk thus by his side, looking
up shyly into his face, thinking how strong and good he was, feeling
so glad he liked me, I can understand a little how a woman loves.
He was so solid. With his arm round me, it was good to feel weak.

At first we were in the same class, the Lower Third. He had no business
there. He was head and shoulders taller than any of us and years older.
It was a disgrace to him that he was not in the Upper Fourth. The
Doctor would tell him so before us all twenty times a week. Old Waterhouse
(I call him {}``Old Waterhouse'' because {}``Mister Waterhouse,
M.A.,'' would convey no meaning to me, and I should not know about
whom I was speaking) who cordially liked him, was honestly grieved.
We, his friends, though it was pleasant to have him among us, suffered
in our pride of him. The only person quite contented was Dan himself.
It was his way in all things. Others had their opinion of what was
good for him. He had his own, and his own was the only opinion that
ever influenced him. The Lower Third suited him. For him personally
the Upper Fourth had no attraction.

And even in the Lower Third he was always at the bottom. He preferred
it. He selected the seat and kept it, in spite of all allurements,
in spite of all reproaches. It was nearest to the door. It enabled
him to be first out and last in. Also it afforded a certain sense
of retirement. Its occupant, to an extent screened from observation,
became in the course of time almost forgotten. To Dan's philosophical
temperament its practical advantages outweighed all sentimental objection.

Only on one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome
questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians
never reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers
of such trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no
notice of. They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended
that they did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite
unconsciously to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding
himself in an exposed position on the front bench. I had never seen
Dan out of temper before, but that moment had any of us ventured upon
a whispered congratulation we would have had our head punched, I feel
confident.

Old Waterhouse thought that here at last was reformation. {}``Come,
Brian,'' he cried, rubbing his long thin hands together with delight,
{}``after all, you're not such a fool as you pretend.''

{}``Never said I was,'' muttered Dan to himself, with a backward
glance of regret towards his lost seclusion; and before the day was
out he had worked his way back to it again.

As we were going out together, old Waterhouse passed us on the stairs:
{}``Haven't you any sense of shame, my boy?''\ he asked sorrowfully,
laying his hand kindly on Dan's shoulder.

{}``Yes, sir,'' answered Dan, with his frank smile; {}``plenty.
It isn't yours, that's all.''

He was an excellent fighter. In the whole school of over two hundred
boys, not half a dozen, and those only Upper Sixth boys---fellows
who came in top hats with umbrellas, and who wouldn't out of regard
to their own dignity---could have challenged him with any chance of
success. Yet he fought very seldom, and then always in a bored, lazy
fashion, as though he were doing it purely to oblige the other fellow.

One afternoon, just as we were about to enter Regent's Park by the
wicket opposite Hanover Gate, a biggish boy, an errand boy carrying
an empty basket, and supported by two smaller boys, barred our way.

{}``Can't come in here,'' said the boy with the basket.

{}``Why not?''\ inquired Dan.

{}``'Cos if you do I shall kick you,'' was the simple explanation.

Without a word Dan turned away, prepared to walk on to the next opening.
The boy with the basket, evidently encouraged, followed us: {}``Now,
I'm going to give you your coward's blow,'' he said, stepping in
front of us; {}``will you take it quietly?'' It is a lonely way,
the Outer Circle, on a winter's afternoon.

{}``I'll tell you afterwards,'' said Dan, stopping short.

The boy gave him a slight slap on the cheek. It could not have hurt,
but the indignity, of course, was great. No boy of honour, according
to our code, could have accepted it without retaliating.

{}``Is that all?''\ asked Dan.

{}``That's all---for the present,'' replied the boy with the basket.

{}``Good-bye,'' said Dan, and walked on.

{}``Glad he didn't insist on fighting,'' remarked Dan, cheerfully,
as we proceeded; {}``I'm going to a party tonight.''

Yet on another occasion, in a street off Lisson Grove, he insisted
on fighting a young rough half again his own weight, who, brushing
up against him, had knocked his hat off into the mud.

{}``I wouldn't have said anything about his knocking it off,'' explained
Dan afterwards, tenderly brushing the poor bruised thing with his
coat sleeve, {}``if he hadn't kicked it.''

On another occasion I remember, three or four of us, Dan among the
number, were on our way one broiling summer's afternoon to Hadley
Woods. As we turned off from the highroad just beyond Barnet and struck
into the fields, Dan drew from his pocket an enormous juicy-looking
pear.

{}``Where did you get that from?''\ inquired one, Dudley.

{}``From that big greengrocer's opposite Barnet Church,'' answered
Dan. {}``Have a bit?''

{}``You told me you hadn't any more money,'' retorted Dudley, in
reproachful tones.

{}``No more I had,'' replied Dan, holding out a tempting slice at
the end of his pocket-knife.

{}``You must have had some, or you couldn't have bought that pear,''
argued Dudley, accepting.

{}``Didn't buy it.''

{}``Do you mean to say you stole it?''

{}``Yes.''

{}``You're a thief,'' denounced Dudley, wiping his mouth and throwing
away a pip.

{}``I know it. So are you.''

{}``No, I'm not.''

{}``What's the good of talking nonsense. You robbed an orchard only
last Wednesday at Mill Hill, and gave yourself the stomach-ache.''

{}``That isn't stealing.''

{}``What is it?''

{}``It isn't the same thing.''

{}``What's the difference?''

And nothing could make Dan comprehend the difference. {}``Stealing
is stealing,'' he would have it, {}``whether you take it off a tree
or out of a basket. You're a thief, Dudley; so am I.\  Anybody else
say a piece?''

The thermometer was at that point where morals become slack. We all
had a piece; but we were all of us shocked at Dan, and told him so.
It did not agitate him in the least.

To Dan I could speak my inmost thoughts, knowing he would understand
me, and sometimes from him I received assistance and sometimes confusion.
The yearly examination was approaching. My father and mother said
nothing, but I knew how anxiously each of them awaited the result;
my father, to see how much I had accomplished; my mother, how much
I had endeavoured. I had worked hard, but was doubtful, knowing that
prizes depend less upon what you know than upon what you can make
others believe you know; which applies to prizes beyond those of school.

{}``Are you going in for anything, Dan?''\ I asked him. We were
discussing the subject, crossing Primrose Hill, one bright June morning.

I knew the question absurd. I asked it of him because I wanted him
to ask it of me.

{}``They're not giving away anything I particularly want,'' murmured
Dan, in his lazy drawl: looked at from that point of view, school
prizes are, it must be confessed, not worth their cost.

{}``You're sweating yourself, young 'un, of course?''\ he asked
next, as I expected.

{}``I mean to have a shot at the History,'' I admitted. {}``Wish
I was better at dates.''

{}``It's always two-thirds dates,'' Dan assured me, to my discouragement.
{}``Old Florret thinks you can't eat a potato until you know the
date that chap Raleigh was born.''

{}``I've prayed so hard that I may win the History prize,'' I explained
to him. I never felt shy with Dan. He never laughed at me.

{}``You oughtn't to have done that,'' he said. I stared. {}``It
isn't fair to the other fellows. That won't be your winning the prize;
that will be your getting it through favouritism.''

{}``But they can pray, too,'' I reminded him.

{}``If you all pray for it,'' answered Dan, {}``then it will go,
not to the fellow that knows most history, but to the fellow that's
prayed the hardest. That isn't old Florret's idea, I'm sure.''

{}``But we are told to pray for things we want,'' I insisted.

{}``Beastly mean way of getting 'em,'' retorted Dan. And no argument
that came to me, neither then nor at any future time, brought him
to right thinking on this point.

He would judge all matters for himself. In his opinion Achilles was
a coward, not a hero.

{}``He ought to have told the Trojans that they couldn't hurt any
part of him except his heel, and let them have a shot at that,''
he argued; {}``King Arthur and all the rest of them with their magic
swords, it wasn't playing the game. There's no pluck in fighting if
you know you're bound to win. Beastly cads, I call them all.''

I won no prize that year. Oddly enough, Dan did, for arithmetic; the
only subject studied in the Lower Fourth that interested him. He liked
to see things coming right, he explained.

My father shut himself up with me for half an hour and examined me
himself.

{}``It's very curious, Paul,'' he said, {}``you seem to know a
good deal.''

{}``They asked me all the things I didn't know. They seemed to do
it on purpose,'' I blurted out, and laid my head upon my arm. My
father crossed the room and sat down beside me.

{}``Spud!''\ he said---it was a long time since he had called me
by that childish nickname---{}``perhaps you are going to be with
me, one of the unlucky ones.''

{}``Are you unlucky?''\ I asked.

{}``Invariably,'' answered my father, rumpling his hair. {}``I
don't know why. I try hard---I do the right thing, but it turns out
wrong. It always does.''

{}``But I thought Mr.\ Hasluck was bringing us such good fortune,''
I said, looking up in surprise. {}``We're getting on, aren't we?''

{}``I have thought so before, so often,'' said my father, {}``and
it has always ended in a---in a collapse.''

I put my arms round his neck, for I always felt to my father as to
another boy; bigger than myself and older, but not so very much.

{}``You see, when I married your mother,'' he went on, {}``I was
a rich man. She had everything she wanted.''

{}``But you will get it all back,'' I cried.

{}``I try to think so,'' he answered. {}``I do think so---generally
speaking. But there are times---you would not understand---they come
to you.''

{}``But she is happy,'' I persisted; {}``we are all happy.''

He shook his head.

{}``I watch her,'' he said. {}``Women suffer more than we do. They
live more in the present. I see my hopes, but she---she sees only
me, and I have always been a failure. She has lost faith in me.

I could say nothing. I understood but dimly.

{}``That is why I want you to be an educated man, Paul,'' he continued
after a silence. {}``You can't think what a help education is to
a man. I don't mean it helps you to get on in the world; I think for
that it rather hampers you. But it helps you to bear adversity. To
a man with a well-stored mind, life is interesting on a piece of bread
and a cup of tea. I know. If it were not for you and your mother I
should not trouble.''

And yet at that time our fortunes were at their brightest, so far
as I remember them; and when they were dark again he was full of fresh
hope, planning, scheming, dreaming again. It was never acting. A worse
actor never trod this stage on which we fret. His occasional attempts
at a cheerfulness he did not feel inevitably resulted in our all three
crying in one another's arms. No; it was only when things were going
well that experience came to his injury. Child of misfortune, he ever
rose, Antaeus-like, renewed in strength from contact with his mother.

Nor must it be understood that his despondent moods, even in time
of prosperity, were oft recurring. Generally speaking, as he himself
said, he was full of confidence. Already had he fixed upon our new
house in Guilford Street, then still a good residential quarter; while
at the same time, as he would explain to my mother, sufficiently central
for office purposes, close as it was to Lincoln and Grey's Inn and
Bedford Row, pavements long worn with the weary footsteps of the Law's
sad courtiers.

{}``Poplar,'' said my father, {}``has disappointed me. It seemed
a good idea---a rapidly rising district, singularly destitute of solicitors.
It ought to have turned out well, and yet somehow it hasn't.''

{}``There have been a few come,'' my mother reminded him.

{}``Of a sort,'' admitted my father; {}``a criminal lawyer might
gather something of a practice here, I have no doubt. But for general
work, of course, you must he in a central position. Now, in Guilford
Street people will come to me.''

{}``It should certainly be a pleasanter neighbourhood to live in,''
agreed my mother.

{}``Later on,'' said my father, {}``in case I want the whole house
for offices, we could live ourselves in Regent's Park. It is quite
near to the Park.''

{}``Of course you have consulted Mr.\ Hasluck?''\ asked my mother,
who of the two was by far the more practical.

{}``For Hasluck,'' replied my father, {}``it will be much more
convenient. He grumbles every time at the distance.''

{}``I have never been quite able to understand,'' said my mother,
{}``why Mr.\ Hasluck should have come so far out of his way. There
must surely be plenty of solicitors in the City.''

{}``He had heard of me,'' explained my father. {}``A curious old
fellow---likes his own way of doing things. It's not everyone who
would care for him as a client. But I seem able to manage him.''

Often we would go together, my father and I, to Guilford Street. It
was a large corner house that had taken his fancy, half creeper covered,
with a balcony, and pleasantly situated, overlooking the gardens of
the Foundling Hospital. The wizened old caretaker knew us well, and
having opened the door, would leave us to wander through the empty,
echoing rooms at our own will. We furnished them handsomely in later
Queen Anne style, of which my father was a connoisseur, sparing no
necessary expense; for, as my father observed, good furniture is always
worth its price, while to buy cheap is pure waste of money.

{}``This,'' said my father, on the second floor, stepping from the
bedroom into the smaller room adjoining, {}``I shall make your mother's
boudoir. We will have the walls in lavender and maple green---she
is fond of soft tones---and the window looks out upon the gardens.
There we will put her writing-table.''

My own bedroom was on the third floor, a sunny little room.

{}``You will be quiet here,'' said my father, {}``and we can shut
out the bed and the washstand with a screen.''

Later, I came to occupy it; though its rent---eight and sixpence a
week, including attendance---was somewhat more than at the time I
ought to have afforded. Nevertheless, I adventured it, taking the
opportunity of being an inmate of the house to refurnish it, unknown
to my stout landlady, in later Queen Anne style, putting a neat brass
plate with my father's name upon the door. {}``Luke Kelver, Solicitor.
Office hours, 10 till 4.'' A medical student thought he occupied
my mother's boudoir. He was a dull dog, full of tiresome talk. But
I made acquaintanceship with him; and often of an evening would smoke
my pipe there in silence while pretending to be listening to his monotonous
brag.

The poor thing!\ he had no idea that he was only a foolish ghost;
that his walls, seemingly covered with coarse-coloured prints of wooden-looking
horses, simpering ballet girls and petrified prize-fighters, were
in reality a delicate tone of lavender and maple green; that at her
writing-table in the sunlit window sat my mother, her soft curls curtaining
her quiet face.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VI.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VI}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{shadow}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{that}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{came}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{between}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{man}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{in}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{grey}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{and}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{lady}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{love}}\noun{-}\textit{\noun{lit}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{eyes}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
{}``There's nothing missing,'' said my mother, {}``so far as I
can find out. Depend upon it, that's the explanation: she has got
frightened and has run away.

{}``But what was there to frighten her?''\ said my father, pausing
with a decanter in one hand and the bottle in the other.

{}``It was the idea of the thing,'' replied my mother. {}``She
has never been used to waiting at table. She was actually crying about
it only last night.''

{}``But what's to be done?''\ said my father. {}``They will be
here in less than an hour.''

{}``There will be no dinner for them,'' said my mother, {}``unless
I put on an apron and bring it up myself.''

{}``Where does she live?''\ asked my father.

{}``At Ilford,'' answered my mother.

{}``We must make a joke of it,'' said my father.

My mother, sitting down, began to cry. It had been a trying week for
my mother. A party to dinner---to a real dinner, beginning with anchovies
and ending with ices from the confectioner's; if only they would remain
ices and not, giving way to unaccustomed influences, present themselves
as cold custard---was an extraordinary departure from the even tenor
of our narrow domestic way; indeed, I recollect none previous. First
there had been the house to clean and rearrange almost from top to
bottom; endless small purchases to be made of articles that Need never
misses, but which Ostentation, if ever you let her sneering nose inside
the door, at once demands. Then the kitchen range---it goes without
saying: one might imagine them all members of a stove union, controlled
by some agitating old boiler out of work---had taken the opportunity
to strike, refusing to bake another dish except under permanently
improved conditions, necessitating weary days with plumbers. Fat cookery
books, long neglected on their shelf, had been consulted, argued with
and abused; experiments made, failures sighed over, successes noted;
cost calculated anxiously; means and ways adjusted, hope finally achieved,
shadowed by fear.

And now with victory practically won, to have the reward thus dashed
from her hand at the last moment! Downstairs in the kitchen would
be the dinner, waiting for the guests; upstairs round the glittering
table would be the assembled guests, waiting for their dinner. But
between the two yawned an impassable gulf. The bridge, without a word
of warning, had bolted---was probably by this time well on its way
to Ilford. There was excuse for my mother's tears.

{}``Isn't it possible to get somebody else?''\ asked my father.

{}``Impossible, in the time,'' said my mother. {}``I had been training
her for the whole week. We had rehearsed it perfectly.''

{}``Have it in the kitchen,'' suggested my aunt, who was folding
napkins to look like ships, which they didn't in the least, {}``and
call it a picnic.'' Really it seemed the only practical solution.

There came a light knock at the front door.

{}``It can't be anybody yet, surely,'' exclaimed my father in alarm,
making for his coat.

{}``It's Barbara, I expect,'' explained my mother. {}``She promised
to come round and help me dress. But now, of course, I shan't want
her.'' My mother's nature was pessimistic.

But with the words Barbara ran into the room, for I had taken it upon
myself to admit her, knowing that shadows slipped out through the
window when Barbara came in at the door---in those days, I mean.

She kissed them all three, though it seemed but one movement, she
was so quick. And at once they saw the humour of the thing.

{}``There's going to be no dinner,'' laughed my father. {}``We
are going to look surprised and pretend that it was yesterday. It
will be fun to see their faces.''

{}``There will be a very nice dinner,'' smiled my mother, {}``but
it will be in the kitchen, and there's no way of getting it upstairs.''
And they explained to her the situation.

She stood for an instant, her sweet face the gravest in the group.
Then a light broke upon it.

{}``I'll get you someone,'' she said.

{}``My dear, you don't even know the neighbourhood,'' began my mother.
But Barbara had snatched the latchkey from its nail and was gone.

With her disappearance, shadow fell again upon us. {}``If there were
only an hotel in this beastly neighbourhood,'' said my father.

{}``You must entertain them by yourself, Luke,'' said my mother;
{}``and I must wait---that's all.''

{}``Don't be absurd, Maggie,'' cried my father, getting angry. {}``Can't
cook bring it in?''

{}``No one can cook a dinner and serve it, too,'' answered my mother,
impatiently. {}``Besides, she's not presentable.''

{}``What about Fan?''\ whispered my father.

My mother merely looked. It was sufficient.

{}``Paul?''\ suggested my father.

{}``Thank you,'' retorted my mother. {}``I don't choose to have
my son turned into a footman, if you do.''

{}``Well, hadn't you better go and dress?''\ was my father's next
remark.

{}``It won't take me long to put on an apron,'' was my mother's
reply.

{}``I was looking forward to seeing you in that new frock,'' said
my father. In the case of another, one might have attributed such
a speech to tact; in the case of my father, one felt it was a happy
accident.

My mother confessed---speaking with a certain indulgence, as one does
of one's own follies when past---that she herself also had looked
forward to seeing herself therein. Threatening discord melted into
mutual sympathy.

{}``I so wanted everything to be all right, for your sake, Luke,''
said my mother; {}``I know you were hoping it would help on the business.''

{}``I was only thinking of you, Maggie, dear,'' answered my father.
{}``You are my business.''

{}``I know, dear,'' said my mother. {}``It is hard.''

The key turned in the lock, and we all stood quiet to listen.

{}``She's come back alone,'' said my mother. {}``I knew it was
hopeless.''

The door opened.

{}``Please, ma'am,'' said the new parlour-maid, {}``will I do?''

She stood there, framed by the lintel, in the daintiest of aprons,
the daintiest of caps upon her golden hair; and every objection she
swept aside with the wind of her merry wilfulness. No one ever had
their way with her, nor wanted it.

{}``You shall be footman,'' she ordered, turning to me---but this
time my mother only laughed. {}``Wait here till I come down again.''
Then to my mother: {}``Now, ma'am, are you ready?''

It was the first time I had seen my mother, or, indeed, any other
flesh and blood woman, in evening dress, and to tell the truth I was
a little shocked. Nay, more than a little, and showed it, I suppose;
for my mother flushed and drew her shawl over the gleaming whiteness
of her shoulders, pleading coldness. But Barbara cried out against
this, saying it was a sin such beauty should be hid; and my father,
filching a shawl with a quick hand, so dextrously indeed as to suggest
some previous practice in the feat, dropped on one knee---as though
the world were some sweet picture book---and raised my mother's hand
with grave reverence to his lips; and Barbara, standing behind my
mother's chair, insisted on my following suit, saying the Queen was
receiving. So I knelt also, glancing up shyly as towards the gracious
face of some fair lady hitherto unknown, thus Catching my first glimpse
of the philosophy of clothes.

My memory lingers upon this scene by contrast with the sad, changed
days that swiftly followed, when my mother's eyes would flash towards
my father angry gleams, and her voice ring cruel and hard; though
the moment he was gone her lips would tremble and her eyes grow soft
again and fill with tears; when my father would sit with averted face
and sullen lips tight pressed, or worse, would open them only to pour
forth a rapid flood of savage speech; and fling out of the room, slamming
the door behind him, and I would find him hours afterwards, sitting
alone in the dark, with bowed head between his hands.

Wretched, I would lie awake, hearing through the flimsy walls their
passionate tones, now rising high, now fiercely forced into cold whispers;
and then their words to each other sounded even crueller.

In their estrangement from each other, so new to them, both clung
closer to me, though they would tell me nothing, nor should I have
understood if they had. When my mother was sobbing softly, her arms
clasping me tighter and tighter with each quivering throb, then I
hated my father, who I felt had inflicted this sorrow upon her. Yet
when my father drew me down upon his knee, and I looked into his kind
eyes so full of pain, then I felt angry with my mother, remembering
her bitter tongue.

It seemed to me as though some cruel, unseen thing had crept into
the house to stand ever between them, so that they might never look
into each other's loving eyes but only into the eyes of this evil
shadow. The idea grew upon me until at times I could almost detect
its outline in the air, feel a chillness as it passed me. It trod
silently through the pokey rooms, always alert to thrust its grinning
face before them. Now beside my mother it would whisper in her ear;
and the next moment, stealing across to my father, answer for him
with his voice, but strangely different. I used to think I could hear
it laughing to itself as it stepped back into enfolding space.

To this day I seem to see it, ever following with noiseless footsteps
man and woman, waiting patiently its opportunity to thrust its face
between them. So that I can read no love tale, but, glancing round,
I see its mocking eyes behind my shoulder, reading also, with a silent
laugh. So that never can I meet with boy and girl, whispering in the
twilight, but I see it lurking amid the half lights, just behind them,
creeping after them with stealthy tread, as hand in hand they pass
me in quiet ways.

Shall any of us escape, or lies the road of all through this dark
valley of the shadow of dead love? Is it Love's ordeal? testing the
feeble-hearted from the strong in faith, who shall find each other
yet again, the darkness passed?

Of the dinner itself, until time of dessert, I can give no consecutive
account, for as footman, under the orders of this enthusiastic parlour-maid,
my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of observation
through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that was clear
to me was that the chief guest was a Mr.\ Teidelmann---or Tiedelmann,
I cannot now remember which---a snuffy, mumbling old frump, with whose
name then, however, I was familiar by reason of seeing it so often
in huge letters, though with a Co.\ added, on dreary long blank walls,
bordering the Limehouse reach. He sat at my mother's right hand; and
I wondered, noticing him so ugly and so foolish seeming, how she could
be so interested in him, shouting much and often to him; for added
to his other disattractions he was very deaf, which necessitated his
putting his hand up to his ear at every other observation made to
him, crying querulously: {}``Eh, what? What are you talking about?
Say it again,''---smiling upon him and paying close attention to
his every want. Even old Hasluck, opposite to him, and who, though
pleasant enough in his careless way, was far from being a slave to
politeness, roared himself purple, praising some new disinfectant
of which this same Teidelmann appeared to be the proprietor.

{}``My wife swears by it,'' bellowed Hasluck, leaning across the
table.

{}``Our drains!''\ chimed in Mrs.\ Hasluck, who was a homely soul;
{}``well, you'd hardly know there was any in the house since I've
took to using it.''

{}``What are they talking about?''\ asked Teidelmann, appealing
to my mother. {}``What's he say his wife does?''

{}``Your disinfectant,'' explained my mother; {}``Mrs.\ Hasluck
swears by it.''

{}``Who?''

{}``Mrs.\ Hasluck.''

{}``Does she? Delighted to hear it,'' grunted the old gentleman,
evidently bored.

{}``Nothing like it for a sick-room,'' persisted Hasluck; {}``might
almost call it a scent.''

{}``Makes one quite anxious to be ill,'' remarked my aunt, addressing
no one in particular.

{}``Reminds me of cocoanuts,'' continued Hasluck.

Its proprietor appeared not to hear, but Hasluck was determined his
flattery should not be lost.

{}``I say it reminds me of cocoanuts.'' He screamed it this time.

{}``Oh, does it?''\ was the reply.

{}``Doesn't it you?''

{}``Can't say it does,'' answered Teidelmann. {}``As a matter of
fact, don't know much about it myself. Never use it.''

Old Teidelmann went on with his dinner, but Hasluck was still full
of the subject.

{}``Take my advice,'' he shouted, {}``and buy a bottle.''

{}``Buy a what?''

{}``A bottle,'' roared the other, with an effort palpably beyond
his strength.

{}``What's he say? What's he talking about now?''\ asked Teidelmann,
again appealing to my mother.

{}``He says you ought to buy a bottle,'' again explained my mother.

{}``What of?''

{}``Of your own disinfectant.''

{}``Silly fool!''

Whether he intended the remark to be heard and thus to close the topic
(which it did), or whether, as deaf people are apt to, merely misjudged
the audibility of an intended sotto vocalism, I cannot say. I only
know that outside in the passage I heard the words distinctly, and
therefore assume they reached round the table also.

A lull in the conversation followed, but Hasluck was not thin-skinned,
and the next thing I distinguished was his cheery laugh.

{}``He's quite right,'' was Hasluck's comment; {}``that's what
I am undoubtedly. Because I can't talk about anything but shop myself,
I think everybody else is the same sort of fool.''

But he was doing himself an injustice, for on my next arrival in the
passage he was again shouting across the table, and this time Teidelmann
was evidently interested.

{}``Well, if you could spare the time, I'd be more obliged than I
can tell you,'' Hasluck was saying. {}``I know absolutely nothing
about pictures myself, and Pearsall says you are one of the best judges
in Europe.''

{}``He ought to know,'' chuckled old Teidelmann. {}``He's tried
often enough to palm off rubbish onto me.''

{}``That last purchase of yours must have been a good thing for young---''
Hasluck mentioned the name of a painter since world famous; {}``been
the making of him, I should say.''

{}``I gave him two thousand for the six,'' replied Teidelmann, {}``and
they'll sell for twenty thousand.''

{}``But you'll never sell them?''\ exclaimed my father.

{}``No,'' grunted old Teidelmann, {}``but my widow will.'' There
came a soft, low laugh from a corner of the table I could not see.

{}``It's Anderson's great disappointment,'' followed a languid,
caressing voice (the musical laugh translated into prose, it seemed),
{}``that he has never been able to educate me to a proper appreciation
of art. He'll pay thousands of pounds for a child in rags or a badly
dressed Madonna. Such a waste of money, it appears to me.''

{}``But you would pay thousands for a diamond to hang upon your neck,''
argued my father's voice.

{}``It would enhance the beauty of my neck,'' replied the musical
voice.

{}``An even more absolute waste of money,'' was my father's answer,
spoken low. And I heard again the musical, soft laugh.

{}``Who is she?''\ I asked Barbara.

{}``The second Mrs.\ Teidelmann,'' whispered Barbara. {}``She
is quite a swell. Married him for his money---I don't like her myself,
but she's very beautiful.''

{}``As beautiful as you?''\ I asked incredulously. We were sitting
on the stairs, sharing a jelly.

{}``Oh, me!''\ answered Barbara. {}``I'm only a child. Nobody
takes any notice of me---except other kids, like you.'' For some
reason she appeared out of conceit with herself, which was not her
usual state of mind.

{}``But everybody thinks you beautiful,'' I maintained.

{}``Who?''\ she asked quickly.

{}``Dr.\ Hal,'' I answered.

We were with our backs to the light, so that I could not see her face.

{}``What did he say?''\ she asked, and her voice had more of contentment
in it.

I could not remember his exact words, but about the sense of them
I was positive.

{}``Ask him what he thinks of me, as if you wanted to know yourself,''
Barbara instructed me, {}``and don't forget what he says this time.
I'm curious.'' And though it seemed to me a foolish command---for
what could he say of her more than I myself could tell her---I never
questioned Barbara's wishes.

Yet if I am right in thinking that jealousy of Mrs.\ Teidelmann may
have clouded for a moment Barbara's sunny nature, surely there was
no reason for this, seeing that no one attracted greater attention
throughout the dinner than the parlour-maid.

{}``Where ever did you get her from?''\ asked Mrs.\ Florret, Barbara
having just descended the kitchen stairs.

{}``A neat-handed Phillis,'' commented Dr.\ Florret with approval.

{}``I'll take good care she never waits at my table,'' laughed the
wife of our minister, the Rev.\ Cottle, a broad-built, breezy-voiced
woman, mother of eleven, eight of them boys.

{}``To tell the truth,'' said my mother, {}``she's only here temporarily.''

{}``As a matter of fact,'' said my father, {}``we have to thank
Mrs.\ Hasluck for her.''

{}``Don't leave me out of it,'' laughed Hasluck; {}``can't let
the old girl take all the credit.''

Later my father absent-mindedly addressed her as {}``My dear,''
at which Mrs.\ Cottle shot a swift glance towards my mother; and
before that incident could have been forgotten, Hasluck, when no one
was looking, pinched her elbow, which would not have mattered had
not the unexpectedness of it drawn from her an involuntary {}``augh,''
upon which, for the reputation of the house, and the dinner being
then towards its end; my mother deemed it better to take the whole
company into her confidence. Naturally the story gained for Barbara
still greater admiration, so that when with the dessert, discarding
the apron but still wearing the dainty cap, which showed wisdom, she
and the footman took their places among the guests, she was even more
than before the centre of attention and remark.

{}``It was very nice of you,'' said Mrs.\ Cottle, thus completing
the circle of compliments, {}``and, as I always tell my girls, that
is better than being beautiful.''

{}``Kind hearts,'' added Dr.\ Florret, summing up the case, {}``are
more than coronets.'' Dr.\ Florret had ever ready for the occasion
the correct quotation, but from him, somehow, it never irritated;
rather it fell upon the ear as a necessary rounding and completing
of the theme; like the Amen in church.

Only to my aunt would further observations have occurred.

{}``When I was a girl,'' said my aunt, breaking suddenly upon the
passing silence, {}``I used to look into the glass and say to myself:
'Fanny, you've got to be amiable,' and I was amiable,'' added my
aunt, challenging contradiction with a look; {}``nobody can say that
I wasn't, for years.''

{}``It didn't pay?''\ suggested Hasluck.

{}``It attracted,'' replied my aunt, {}``no attention whatever.''

Hasluck had changed places with my mother, and having after many experiments
learned the correct pitch for conversation with old Teidelmann, talked
with him as much aside as the circumstances of the case would permit.
Hasluck never wasted time on anything else than business. It was in
his opera box on the first night of Verdi's Aida (I am speaking of
course of days then to come) that he arranged the details of his celebrated
deal in guano; and even his very religion, so I have been told and
can believe, he varied to suit the enterprise of the moment, once
during the protracted preliminaries of a cocoa scheme becoming converted
to Quakerism.

But for the most of us interest lay in a discussion between Washburn
and Florret concerning the superior advantages attaching to residence
in the East End.

As a rule, incorrect opinion found itself unable to exist in Dr.\ Florret's
presence. As no bird, it is said, can continue its song once looked
at by an owl, so all originality grew silent under the cold stare
of his disapproving eye. But Dr.\ {}{}``Fighting Hal'' was no gentle
warbler of thought. Vehement, direct, indifferent, he swept through
all polite argument as a strong wind through a murmuring wood, carrying
his partisans with him further than they meant to go, and quite unable
to turn back; leaving his opponents clinging desperately---upside
down, anyhow---to their perches, angry, their feathers much ruffled.

{}``Life!''\ flung out Washburn---Dr.\ Florret had just laid down
unimpeachable rules for the conduct of all mankind on all occasions---{}``what
do you respectable folk know of life? You are not men and women, you
are marionettes. You don't move to your natural emotions implanted
by God; you dance according to the latest book of etiquette. You live
and love, laugh and weep and sin by rule. Only one moment do you come
face to face with life; that is in the moment when you die, leaving
the other puppets to be dressed in black and make believe to cry.''

It was a favourite subject of denunciation with him, the artificiality
of us all.

{}``Little doll,'' he had once called me, and I had resented the
term.

{}``That's all you are, little Paul,'' he had persisted, {}``a
good little hard-working doll, that does what it's made to do, and
thinks what it's made to think. We are all dolls. Your father is a
gallant-hearted, soft-headed little doll; your mother the sweetest
and primmest of dolls. And I'm a silly, dissatisfied doll that longs
to be a man, but hasn't the pluck. We are only dolls, little Paul.''

{}``He's a trifle---a trifle whimsical on some subjects,'' explained
my father, on my repeating this conversation.

{}``There are a certain class of men,'' explained my mother---{}``you
will meet with them more as you grow up---who talk for talking's sake.
They don't know what they mean. And nobody else does either.''

{}``But what would you have?''\ argued Dr.\ Florret, {}``that
every man should do that which is right in his own eyes?''

{}``Far better than, like the old man in the fable, he should do
what every other fool thinks right,'' retorted Washburn. {}``The
other day I called to see whether a patient of mine was still alive
or not. His wife was washing clothes in the front room. `How's your
husband?' I asked. `I think he's dead,' replied the woman. Then, without
leaving off her work, `Jim,' she shouted, `are you there?' No answer
came from the inner room. `He's a goner,' she said, wringing out a
stocking.''

{}``But surely,'' said Dr.\ Florret, {}``you don't admire a woman
for being indifferent to the death of her husband?''

{}``I don't admire her for that,'' replied Washburn, {}``and I
don't blame her. I didn't make the world and I'm not responsible for
it. What I do admire her for is not pretending a grief she didn't
feel. In Berkeley Square she'd have met me at the door with an agonised
face and a handkerchief to her eyes.

{}``Assume a virtue, if you have it not,'' murmured Dr.\ Florret.

{}``Go on,'' said Washburn. {}``How does it run? 'That monster,
custom, who all sense doth eat, of devil's habit, is angel yet in
this, that to the use of actions fair and good he gives a frock that
aptly is put on.' So was the lion's skin by the ass, but it showed
him only the more an ass. Here asses go about as asses, but there
are lions also. I had a woman under my hands only a little while ago.
I could have cured her easily. Why she got worse every day instead
of better I could not understand. Then by accident learned the truth:
instead of helping me she was doing all she could to kill herself.
'I must, Doctor,' she cried. 'I must. I have promised. If I get well
he will only leave me, and if I die now he has sworn to be good to
the children.' Here, I tell you, they live---think their thoughts,
work their will, kill those they hate, die for those they love; savages
if you like, but savage men and women, not bloodless dolls.''

{}``I prefer the dolls,'' concluded Dr.\ Florret.

{}``I admit they are pretty,'' answered Washburn.

{}``I remember,'' said my father, {}``the first masked ball I ever
went to when I was a student in Paris. It struck me just as you say,
Hal; everybody was so exactly alike. I was glad to get out into the
street and see faces.''

{}``But I thought they always unmasked at midnight,'' said the second
Mrs.\ Teidelmann in her soft, languid tones.

{}``I did not wait,'' explained my father.

{}``That was a pity,'' she replied. {}``I should have been interested
to see what they were like, underneath.''

{}``I might have been disappointed,'' answered my father. {}``I
agree with Dr.\ Florret that sometimes the mask is an improvement.''

Barbara was right. She was a beautiful woman, with a face that would
have been singularly winning if one could have avoided the hard cold
eyes ever restless behind the half-closed lids.

Always she was very kind to me. Moreover, since the disappearance
of Cissy she was the first to bestow again upon me a good opinion
of my small self. My mother praised me when I was good, which to her
was the one thing needful; but few of us, I fear, child or grown-up,
take much pride in our solid virtues, finding them generally hindrances
to our desires: like the oyster's pearl, of more comfort to the world
than to ourselves. If others there were who admired me, very guardedly
must they have kept the secret I would so gladly have shared with
them. But this new friend of ours---or had I not better at once say
enemy---made me feel when in her presence a person of importance.
How it was accomplished I cannot explain. No word of flattery nor
even of mere approval ever passed her lips. Her charm to me was not
that she admired me, but that she led me by some mysterious process
to admire myself.

And yet in spite of this and many lesser kindnesses she showed to
me, I never really liked her; but rather feared her, dreading always
the sudden raising of those ever half-closed eyelids.

She sat next to my father at the corner of the table, her chin resting
on her long white hands, her sweet lips parted, and as often as his
eyes were turned away from her, her soft low voice would draw them
back again. Once she laid her hand on his, laughing the while at some
light jest of his, and I saw that he flushed; and following his quick
glance, saw that my mother's eyes were watching also.

I have spoken of my father only as he then appeared to me, a child---an
older chum with many lines about his mobile mouth, the tumbled hair
edged round with grey; but looking back with older eyes, I see him
a slightly stooping, yet still tall and graceful man, with the face
of a poet---the face I mean a poet ought to possess but rarely does,
nature apparently abhorring the obvious---with the shy eyes of a boy,
and a voice tender as a woman's. Never the dingiest little drab that
entered the kitchen but adored him, speaking always of {}``the master''
in tones of fond proprietorship, for to the most slatternly his {}``orders''
had ever the air of requests for favours. Women, I so often read,
can care for only masterful men. But may there not be variety in women
as in other species? Or perhaps---if the suggestion be not over-daring---the
many writers, deeming themselves authorities upon this subject of
woman, may in this one particular have erred? I only know my father
spoke to few women whose eyes did not brighten. Yet hardly should
I call him a masterful man.

{}``I think it's all right,'' whispered Hasluck to my father in
the passage---they were the last to go. {}``What does she think of
it, eh?''

{}``I think she'll be with us,'' answered my father.

{}``Nothing like food for bringing people together,'' said Hasluck.
{}``Good-night.''

The door closed, but Something had crept into the house. It stood
between my father and mother. It followed them silently up the narrow
creaking stairs.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VII}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{passing}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{shadow}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Better is little, than treasure and trouble therewith. Better a dinner
of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. None
but a great man would have dared to utter such a glaring commonplace
as that. Not only on Sundays now, but all the week, came the hot joint
to table, and on every day there was pudding, till a body grew indifferent
to pudding; thus a joy-giving luxury of life being lost and but another
item added to the long list of uninteresting needs. Now we could eat
and drink without stint. No need now to organise for the morrow's
hash. No need now to cut one's bread instead of breaking it, thinking
of Saturday's bread pudding. But there the saying fails, for never
now were we merry. A silent unseen guest sat with us at the board,
so that no longer we laughed and teased as over the half pound of
sausages or the two sweet-scented herrings; but talked constrainedly
of empty things that lay outside us.

Easy enough would it have been for us to move to Guilford Street.
Occasionally in the spiritless tones in which they now spoke on all
subjects save the one, my mother and father would discuss the project;
but always into the conversation would fall, sooner or later, some
loosened thought to stir it to anger, and so the aching months went
by, and the cloud grew.

Then one day the news came that old Teidelmann had died suddenly in
his counting house.

{}``You are going to her?''\ said my mother.

{}``I have been sent for,'' said my father; {}``I must---it may
mean business.''

My mother laughed bitterly; why, at the time, I could not understand;
and my father flung out of the house. During the many hours that he
was away my mother remained locked in her room, and, stealing sometimes
to the door, I was sure I heard her crying; and that she should grieve
so at old Teidelmann's death puzzled me.

She came oftener to our house after that. Her mourning added, I think,
to her beauty, softening---or seeming to soften---the hardness of
her eyes. Always she was very sweet to my mother, who by contrast
beside her appeared witless and ungracious; and to me, whatever her
motive, she was kindness itself; hardly ever arriving without some
trifling gift or plan for affording me some childish treat. By instinct
she understood exactly what I desired and liked, the books that would
appeal to me as those my mother gave me never did, the pleasures that
did please me as opposed to the pleasures that should have pleased
me. Often my mother, talking to me, would chill me with the vista
of the life that lay before me: a narrow, viewless way between twin
endless walls of {}``Must'' and {}``Must not.'' This soft-voiced
lady set me dreaming of life as of sunny fields through which one
wandered laughing, along the winding path of Will; so that, although
as I have said, there lurked at the bottom of my thoughts a fear of
her; yet something within me I seemed unable to control went out to
her, drawn by her subtle sympathy and understanding of it.

{}``Has he ever seen a pantomime?''\ she asked of my father one
morning, looking at me the while with a whimsical screwing of her
mouth.

My heart leaped within me. My father raised his eyebrows: {}``What
would your mother say, do you think?''\ he asked. My heart sank.

{}``She thinks,'' I replied, {}``that theatres are very wicked
places.'' It was the first time that any doubt as to the correctness
of my mother's judgments had ever crossed my mind.

Mrs.\ Teidelmann's smile strengthened my doubt. {}``Dear me,''
she said, {}``I am afraid I must be very wicked. I have always regarded
a pantomime as quite a moral entertainment. All the bad people go
down so very straight to---well, to the fit and proper place for them.
And we could promise to leave before the Clown stole the sausages,
couldn't we, Paul?''

My mother was called and came; and I could not help thinking how insignificant
she looked with her pale face and plain dark frock, standing stiffly
beside this shining lady in her rustling clothes.

{}``You will let him come, Mrs.\ Kelver,'' she pleaded in her soft
caressing tones; {}``it's Dick Whittington, you know---such an excellent
moral.''

My mother had stood silent, clasping and unclasping her hands, a childish
trick she had when troubled; and her lips were trembling. Important
as the matter loomed before my own eyes, I wondered at her agitation.

{}``I am very sorry,'' said my mother, {}``it is very kind of you.
But I would rather he did not go.''

{}``Just this once,'' persisted Mrs.\ Teidelmann. {}``It is holiday
time.''

A ray of sunlight fell into the room, lighting upon her coaxing face,
making where my mother stood seem shadow.

{}``I would rather he did not go,'' repeated my mother, and her
voice sounded harsh and grating. {}``When he is older others must
judge for him, but for the present he must be guided by me---alone.''

{}``I really don't think there could be any harm, Maggie,'' urged
my father. {}``Things have changed since we were young.''

{}``That may be,'' answered my mother, still in the same harsh voice;
{}``it is long ago since then.''

{}``I didn't intend it that way,'' said my father with a short laugh.

{}``I merely meant that I may be wrong,'' answered my mother. {}``I
seem so old among you all---so out of place. I have tried to change,
but I cannot.''

{}``We will say no more about it,'' said Mrs.\ Teidelmann, sweetly.
{}``I merely thought it would give him pleasure; and he has worked
so hard this last term, his father tells me.''

She laid her hand caressingly on my shoulder, drawing me a little
closer to her; and it remained there.

{}``It was very kind of you,'' said my mother, {}``I would do anything
to give him pleasure, anything-I could. He knows that. He understands.''

My mother's hand, I knew, was seeking mine, but I was angry and would
not see; and without another word she left the room.

My mother did not allude again to the subject; but the very next afternoon
she took me herself to a hall in the neighbourhood, where we saw a
magic-lantern, followed by a conjurer. She had dressed herself in
a prettier frock than she had worn for many a long day, and was brighter
and gayer in herself than had lately been her wont, laughing and talking
merrily. But I, nursing my wrongs, remained moody and sulky. At any
other time such rare amusement would have overjoyed me; but the wonders
of the great theatre that from other boys I had heard so much of,
that from gaudy-coloured posters I had built up for myself, were floating
vague and undefined before me in the air; and neither the open-mouthed
sleeper, swallowing his endless chain of rats; nor even the live rabbit
found in the stout old gentleman's hat---the last sort of person in
whose hat one would have expected to find such a thing---could draw
away my mind from the joy I had caught a glimpse of only to lose.

So we walked home through the muddy, darkening streets, speaking but
little; and that night, waking---or rather half waking, as children
do---I thought I saw a figure in white crouching at the foot of my
bed. I must have gone to sleep again; and later, though I cannot say
whether the intervening time was short or long, I opened my eyes to
see it still there; and frightened, I cried out; and my mother rose
from her knees.

She laughed, a curious broken laugh, in answer to my questions. {}``It
was a silly dream I had,'' she explained {}``I must have been thinking
of the conjurer we saw. I dreamt that a wicked Magician had spirited
you away from me. I could not find you and was all alone in the world.''

She put her arms around me, so tight as almost to hurt me. And thus
we remained until again I must have fallen asleep.

It was towards the close of these same holidays that my mother and
I called upon Mrs.\ Teidelmann in her great stone-built house at
Clapton. She had sent a note round that morning, saying she was suffering
from terrible headaches that quite took her senses away, so that she
was unable to come out. She would be leaving England in a few days
to travel. Would my mother come and see her, she would like to say
good-bye to her before she went. My mother handed the letter across
the table to my father.

{}``Of course you will go,'' said my father. {}``Poor girl, I wonder
what the cause can be. She used to be so free from everything of the
kind.''

{}``Do you think it well for me to go?''\ said my mother. {}``What
can she have to say to me?''

{}``Oh, just to say good-bye,'' answered my father. {}``It would
look so pointed not to go.''

It was a dull, sombre house without, but one entered through its commonplace
door as through the weed-grown rock into Aladdin's cave. Old Teidelmann
had been a great collector all his life, and his treasures, now scattered
through a dozen galleries, were then heaped there in curious confusion.
Pictures filled every inch of wall, stood propped against the wonderful
old furniture, were even stretched unframed across the ceilings. Statues
gleamed from every corner (a few of the statues were, I remember,
the only things out of the entire collection that Mrs.\ Teidelmann
kept for herself), carvings, embroideries, priceless china, miniatures
framed in gems, illuminated missals and gorgeously bound books crowded
the room. The ugly little thick-lipped man had surrounded himself
with the beauty of every age, brought from every land. He himself
must have been the only thing cheap and uninteresting to be found
within his own walls; and now he lay shrivelled up in his coffin,
under a monument by means of which an unknown cemetery became quite
famous.

Instructions had been given that my mother was to be shown up into
Mrs.\ Teidelmann's boudoir. She was lying on a sofa near the fire
when we entered, asleep, dressed in a loose lace robe that fell away,
showing her thin but snow-white arms, her rich dark hair falling loose
about her. In sleep she looked less beautiful: harder and with a suggestion
of coarseness about the face, of which at other times it showed no
trace. My mother said she would wait, perhaps Mrs.\ Teidelmann would
awake; and the servant, closing the door softly, left us alone with
her.

An old French clock standing on the mantelpiece, a heart supported
by Cupids, ticked with a muffled, soothing sound. My mother, choosing
a chair by the window, sat with her eyes fixed on the sleeping woman's
face, and it seemed to me---though this may have been but my fancy
born of after-thought---that a faint smile relaxed for a moment the
sleeping woman's pained, pressed lips. Neither I nor my mother spoke,
the only sound in the room being the hushed ticking of the great gilt
clock. Until the other woman after a few slight movements of unrest
began to talk in her sleep.

Only confused murmurs escaped her at first, and then I heard her whisper
my father's name. Very low---hardly more than breathed---were the
words, but upon the silence each syllable struck clear and distinct:
{}``Ah no, we must not. Luke, my darling.''

My mother rose swiftly from her chair, but she spoke in quite matter-of-fact
tones.

{}``Go, Paul,'' she said, {}``wait for me downstairs;'' and noiselessly
opening the door, she pushed me gently out, and closed it again behind
me.

It was half an hour or more before she came down, and at once we left
the house, letting ourselves out. All the way home my mother never
once spoke, but walked as one in a dream with eyes that saw not. With
her hand upon the lock of our gate she came back to life.

{}``You must say nothing, Paul, do you understand?''\ she said.
{}``When people are delirious they use strange words that have no
meaning. Do you understand, Paul; you must never breathe a word---never.''

I promised, and we entered the house; and from that day my mother's
whole manner changed. Not another angry word ever again escaped her
lips, never an angry flash lighted up again her eyes. Mrs.\ Teidelmann
remained away three months. My father, of course, wrote to her often,
for he was managing all her affairs. But my mother wrote to her also---though
this my father, I do not think, knew---long letters that she would
go away by herself to pen, writing them always in the twilight, close
to the window.

{}``Why do you choose this time, just when it's getting dark, to
write your letters,'' my father would expostulate, when by chance
he happened to look into the room. {}``Let me ring for the lamp,
you will strain your eyes.'' But my mother would always excuse herself,
saying she had only a few lines to finish.

{}``I can think better in this light,'' she would explain.

And when Mrs.\ Teidelmann returned, it was my mother who was the
first to call upon her; before even my father knew that she was back.
And from thence onward one might have thought them the closest of
friends, my mother visiting her often, speaking of her to all in terms
of praise and liking.

In this way peace returned unto the house, and my father was tender
again in all his words and actions towards my mother, and my mother
thoughtful as before of all his wants and whims, her voice soft and
low, the sweet smile ever lurking around her lips as in the old days
before this evil thing had come to dwell among us; and I might have
forgotten it had ever cast its blight upon our life but that every
day my mother grew feebler, the little ways that had seemed a part
of her gone from her.

The summer came and went---that time in towns of panting days and
stifling nights, when through the open window crawls to one's face
the hot foul air, heavy with reeking odours drawn from a thousand
streets; when lying awake one seems to hear the fitful breathing of
the myriad mass around, as of some over-laboured beast too tired to
even rest; and my mother moved about the house ever more listlessly.

{}``There's nothing really the matter with her,'' said Dr.\ Hal,
{}``only weakness. It is the place. Cannot you get her away from
it?''

{}``I cannot leave myself,'' said my father, {}``just yet; but
there is no reason why you and the boy should not take a holiday.
This year I can afford it, and later I might possibly join you.''

My mother consented, as she did to all things now, and so it came
about that again of afternoons we climbed---though more slowly and
with many pauses---the steep path to the ruined tower old Jacob in
his happy foolishness had built upon the headland, rested once again
upon its topmost platform, sheltered from the wind that ever blew
about its crumbling walls, saw once more the distant mountains, faint
like spectres, and the silent ships that came and vanished, and about
our feet the pleasant farm lands, and the grave, sweet river.

We had taken lodgings in the village: smaller now it seemed than previously;
but wonderful its sunny calm, after the turmoil of the fierce dark
streets. Mrs.\ Fursey was there still, but quite another than the
Mrs.\ Fursey of my remembrance, a still angular but cheery dame,
bent no longer on suppressing me, but rather on drawing me out before
admiring neighbours, as one saying: {}``The material was unpromising,
as you know. There were times when I almost despaired. But with patience,
and---may I say, a natural gift that way---you see what can be accomplished!''
And Anna, now a buxom wife and mother, with an uncontrollable desire
to fall upon and kiss me at most unexpected moments, necessitating
a never sleeping watchfulness on my part, and a choosing of positions
affording means of ready retreat. And old Chumbley, still cobbling
shoes in his tiny cave. On the bench before him in a row they sat
and watched him while he tapped and tapped and hammered: pert little
shoes piping {}``Be quick, be quick, we want to be toddling. You
seem to have no idea, my good man, how much toddling there is to be
done.'' Dapper boots, sighing: {}``Oh, please make haste, we are
waiting to dance and to strut. Jack walks in the lane, Jill waits
by the gate. Oh, deary, how slowly he taps.'' Stout sober boots,
saying: {}``As soon as you can, old friend. Remember we've work to
do.'' Flat-footed old boots, rusty and limp, mumbling: {}``We haven't
much time, Mr.\ Chumbley. Just a patch, that is all, we haven't much
further to go.'' And old Joe, still peddling his pack, with the help
of the same old jokes. And Tom Pinfold, still puzzled and scratching
his head, the rejected fish still hanging by its tail from his expostulating
hand; one might almost have imagined it the same fish. Grown-up folks
had changed but little. Only the foolish children had been playing
tricks; parties I had left mere sucking babes now swaggering in pinafore
or knickerbocker; children I had known now mincing it as men and women;
such affectation annoyed me.

One afternoon---it was towards the close of the last week of our stay---my
mother and I had climbed, as was so often our wont, to the upper platform
of old Jacob's tower. My mother leant upon the parapet, her eyes fixed
dreamingly upon the distant mountains, and a smile crept to her lips.

{}``What are you thinking of?''\ I asked.

{}``Oh, only of things that happened over there''---she nodded her
head towards the distant hills as to some old crony with whom she
shares secrets---{}``when I was a girl.''

{}``You lived there, long ago, didn't you, when you were young?''
I asked. Boys do not always stop to consider whether their questions
might or might not be better expressed.

{}``You're very rude,'' said my mother---it was long since a tone
of her old self had rung from her in answer to any touch; {}``it
was a very little while ago.''

Suddenly she raised her head and listened. Perhaps some twenty seconds
she remained so with her lips parted, and then from the woods came
a faint, long-drawn {}``Coo-ee.'' We ran to the side of the tower
commanding the pathway from the village, and waited until from among
the dark pines my father emerged into the sunlight.

Seeing us, he shouted again and waved his stick, and from the light
of his eves and his gallant bearing, and the spring of his step across
the heathery turf, we knew instinctively that trouble had come upon
him. He always rose to meet it with that look and air. It was the
old Norse blood in his veins, I suppose. So, one imagines, must those
godless old Pirates have sprung to their feet when the North wind,
loosed as a hawk from the leash, struck at the beaked prow.

We heard his quick step on the rickety stair, and the next moment
he was between us, breathing a little hard, but laughing.

He stood for awhile beside my mother without speaking, both of them
gazing at the distant hills among which, as my mother had explained,
things had happened long ago. And maybe, {}``over there,'' their
memories met and looked upon each other with kind eyes.

{}``Do you remember,'' said my father, {}``we climbed up here---it
was the first walk we took together after coming here. We discussed
our plans for the future, how we would retrieve our fortunes.''

{}``And the future,'' answered my mother, {}``has a way of making
plans for us instead.''

{}``It would seem so,'' replied my father, with a laugh. {}``I
am an unlucky beggar, Maggie. I dropped all your money as well as
my own down that wretched mine.''

{}``It was the will---it was Fate, or whatever you call it,'' said
my mother. {}``You could not help that, Luke.''

{}``If only that damned pump hadn't jambed,'' said my father.

{}``Do you remember that Mrs.\ Tharand?''\ asked my mother.

{}``Yes, what of her?''

{}``A worldly woman, I always thought her. She called on me the morning
we were leaving; I don't think you saw her. 'I've been through more
worries than you would think, to look at me,' she said to me, laughing.
I've always remembered her words: 'and of all the troubles that come
to us in this world, believe me, Mrs.\ Kelver, money troubles are
the easiest to bear.'''

{}``I wish I could think so,'' said my father.

{}``She rather irritated me at the time,'' continued my mother.
{}``I thought it one of those commonplaces with which we console
ourselves for other people's misfortunes. But now I know she spoke
the truth.''

There was silence between them for awhile. Then said my father in
a cheery tone:

{}``I've broken with old Hasluck.''

{}``I thought you would be compelled to sooner or later,'' answered
my mother.

{}``Hasluck,'' exclaimed my father, with sudden vehemence, {}``is
little better than a thief; I told him so.''

{}``What did he say?''\ asked my mother.

{}``Laughed, and said that was better than some people.''

My father laughed himself.

I wish to do the memory of Noel Hasluck no injustice. Ever was he
a kind friend to me; not only then, but in later years, when, having
come to learn that kindness is rarer in the world than I had dreamt,
I was glad of it. Added to which, if only for Barbara's sake, I would
prefer to write of him throughout in terms of praise. Yet even were
his good-tempered, thick-skinned ghost (and unless it were good-tempered
and thick-skinned it would be no true ghost of old Noel Hasluck) to
be reading over my shoulder the words as I write them down, I think
it would agree with me---I do not think it would be offended with
me (for ever in his life he was an admirer and a lover of the Truth,
being one of those good fighters capable of respecting even his foe,
his enemy, against whom from ten to four, occasionally a little later,
he fought right valiantly) for saying that of all the men who go down
into the City each day in a cab or 'bus or train, he was perhaps one
of the most unprincipled: and whether that be saying much or little
I leave to those with more knowledge to decide.

To do others, as it was his conviction, right or wrong, that they
would do him if ever he gave them half a chance, was his notion of
{}``business;'' and in most of his transactions he was successful.
{}``I play a game,'' he would argue, {}``where cheating is the
rule. Nine out of every ten men round the table are sharpers like
myself, and the tenth man is a fool who has no business to be there.
We prey upon each other, and the cutest of us is the winner.''

{}``But the innocent people, lured by your fine promises,'' I ventured
once to suggest to him, {}``the widows and the orphans?''

{}``My dear lad,'' he said, with a laugh, laying his fat hand upon
my shoulder, {}``I remember one of your widows writing me a pathetic
letter about some shares she had taken in a Silver Company of mine.
Lord knows where the mine is now---somewhere in Spain, I think. It
looked as though all her savings were gone. She had an only son, and
it was nearly all they possessed in the world, \textit{etc}., \textit{etc}.---you
know the sort of thing. Well, I did what I've often been numskull
enough to do in similar cases, wrote and offered to buy her out at
par. A week later she answered, thanking me, but saying it did not
matter. There had occurred a momentary rise, and she had sold out
at a profit---to her own brother-in-law, as I discovered, happening
to come across the transfers. You can find widows and orphans round
the Monte Carlo card tables, if you like to look for them; they are
no more deserving of consideration than the rest of the crowd. Besides,
if it comes to that, I'm an orphan myself;'' and he laughed again,
one of his deep, hearty, honest laughs. No one ever possessed a laugh
more suggestive in its every cadence of simple, transparent honesty.
He used to say himself it was worth thousands to him.

Better from the Moralists' point of view had such a man been an out-and-out
rogue. Then might one have pointed, crying: {}``Behold: Dishonesty,
as you will observe in the person of our awful example, to be hated,
needs but to be seen.'' But the duty of the Chronicler is to bear
witness to what he knows, leaving Truth with the whole case before
her to sum up and direct the verdict. In the City, old Hasluck had
a bad reputation and deserved it; in Stoke-Newington---then a green
suburb, containing many fine old houses, standing in great wooded
gardens---he was loved and respected. In his business, he was a man
void of all moral sense, without bowels of compassion for any living
thing; in retirement, a man with a strong sense of duty and a fine
regard for the rights and feelings of others, never happier than when
planning to help or give pleasure. In his office, he would have robbed
his own mother. At home, he would have spent his last penny to add
to her happiness or comfort. I make no attempt to explain. I only
know that such men do exist, and that Hasluck was one of them. One
avoids difficulties by dismissing them as a product of our curiously
complex civilisation---a convenient phrase; let us hope the recording
angel may be equally impressed by it.

Casting about for some reason of excuse to myself for my liking of
him, I hit upon the expedient of regarding him as a modern Robin Hood,
whom we are taught to admire without shame, a Robin Hood up to date,
adapted to the changed conditions of modern environment; making his
living relieving the rich; taking pleasure relieving the poor.

{}``What will you do?''\ asked my mother.

{}``I shall have to give up the office,'' answered my father. {}``Without
him there's not enough to keep it going. He was quite good-tempered
about the matter---offered to divide the work, letting me retain the
straightforward portion for whatever that might be worth. But I declined.
Now I know, I feel I would rather have nothing more to do with him.''

{}``I think you were quite right,'' agreed my mother.

{}``What I blame myself for,'' said my father, {}``is that I didn't
see through him before. Of course he has been making a mere tool of
me from the beginning. I ought to have seen through him. Why didn't
I?''

They discussed the future, or, rather, my father discussed, my mother
listening in silence, stealing a puzzled look at him from time to
time, as though there were something she could not understand.

He would take a situation in the City. One had been offered him. It
might sound poor, but it would be a steady income on which we must
contrive to live. The little money he had saved must be kept for investments---nothing
speculative---judicious {}``dealings,'' by means of which a cool,
clear-headed man could soon accumulate capital. Here the training
acquired by working for old Hasluck would serve him well. One man
my father knew---quite a dull, commonplace man---starting a few years
ago with only a few hundreds, was now worth tens of thousands. Foresight
was the necessary qualification. You watched the {}``tendency''
of things. So often had my father said to himself: {}``This is going
to be a big thing. That other, it is no good,'' and in every instance
his prognostications had been verified. He had {}``felt it;'' some
men had that gift. Now was the time to use it for practical purposes.

{}``Here,'' said my father, breaking off, and casting an approving
eye upon the surrounding scenery, {}``would be a pleasant place to
end one's days. The house you had was very pretty and you liked it.
We might enlarge it, the drawing-room might be thrown out---perhaps
another wing.'' I felt that our good fortune as from this day was
at last established.

But my mother had been listening with growing impatience, her puzzled
glances giving place gradually to flashes of anger; and now she turned
her face full upon him, her question written plainly thereon, demanding
answer.

Some idea of it I had even then, watching her; and since I have come
to read it word for word: {}``But that woman---that woman that loves
you, that you love. Ah, I know---why do you play with me? She is rich.
With her your life will be smooth. And the boy---it will be better
far for him. Cannot you three wait a little longer? What more can
I do? Cannot you see that I am surely dying---dying as quickly as
I can---dying as that poor creature your friend once told us of; knowing
it was the only thing she could do for those she loved. Be honest
with me: I am no longer jealous. All that is past: a man is ever younger
than a woman, and a man changes. I do not blame you. It is for the
best. She and I have talked; it is far better so. Only be honest with
me, or at least silent. Will you not honour me enough for even that?''

My father did not answer, having that to speak of that put my mother's
question out of her mind for all time; so that until the end no word
concerning that other woman passed again between them. Twenty years
later, nearly, I myself happened to meet her, and then long physical
suffering had chased the wantonness away for ever from the pain-worn
mouth; but in that hour of waning voices, as some trouble of the fretful
day when evening falls, so she faded from their life; and if even
the remembrance of her returned at times to either of them, I think
it must have been in those moments when, for no seeming reason, shyly
their hands sought one another.

So the truth of the sad ado---how far my mother's suspicions wronged
my father; for the eye of jealousy (and what loving woman ever lived
that was not jealous?) has its optic nerve terminating not in the
brain but in the heart, which was not constructed for the reception
of true vision---I never knew. Later, long after the curtain of green
earth had been rolled down upon the players, I spoke once on the matter
with Doctor Hal, who must have seen something of the play and with
more understanding eyes than mine, and who thereupon delivered to
me a short lecture on life in general, a performance at which he excelled.

{}``Flee from temptation and pray that you may be delivered from
evil,'' shouted the Doctor---(his was not the Socratic method)---{}``but
remember this: that as sure as the sparks fly upward there will come
a time when, however fast you run, you will be overtaken---cornered---no
one to deliver you but yourself---the gods sitting round interested.
It is a grim fight, for the Thing, you may be sure, has chosen its
right moment. And every woman in the world will sympathise with you
and be just to you, not even despising you should you be overcome;
for however they may talk, every woman in the world knows that male
and female cannot be judged by the same standard. To woman, Nature
and the Law speak with one voice: 'Sin not, lest you be cursed of
your sex!' It is no law of man: it is the law of creation. When the
woman sins, she sins not only against her conscience, but against
her every instinct. But to the man Nature whispers: `Yield.' It is
the Law alone that holds him back. Therefore every woman in the world,
knowing this, will be just to you---every woman in the world but one---the
woman that loves you. From her, hope for no sympathy, hope for no
justice.''

{}``Then you think---'' I began.

{}``I think,'' said the Doctor, {}``that your father loved your
mother devotedly; but he was one of those fighters that for the first
half-dozen rounds or so cause their backers much anxiety. It is a
dangerous method.''

{}``Then you think my mother---''

{}``I think your mother was a good woman, Paul; and the good woman
will never be satisfied with man till the Lord lets her take him to
pieces and put him together herself.''

My father had been pacing to and fro the tiny platform. Now he came
to a halt opposite my mother, placing his hands upon her shoulders.

{}``I want you to help me, Maggie---help me to be brave. I have only
a year or two longer to live, and there's a lot to be done in that
time.''

Slowly the anger died out of my mother's face.

{}``You remember that fall I had when the cage broke,'' my father
went on. {}``Andrews, as you know, feared from the first it might
lead to that. But I always laughed at him.''

{}``How long have you known?''\ my mother asked.

{}``Oh, about six months. I felt it at the beginning of the year,
but I didn't say anything to Washburn till a month later. I thought
it might be only fancy.''

{}``And he is sure?''

My father nodded.

{}``But why have you never told me?''

{}``Because,'' replied my father, with a laugh, {}``I didn't want
you to know. If I could have done without you, I should not have told
you now.''

And at this there came a light into my mother's face that never altogether
left it until the end.

She drew him down beside her on the seat. I had come nearer; and my
father, stretching out his hand, would have had me with them. But
my mother, putting her arms about him, held him close to her, as though
in that moment she would have had him to herself alone.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VIII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VIII}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{How}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{man}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{in}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{grey}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{made}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{ready}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{for}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{his}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{going}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
The eighteen months that followed---for the end came sooner than we
had expected---were, I think, the happiest days my father and mother
had ever known; or if happy be not altogether the right word, let
me say the most beautiful, and most nearly perfect. To them it was
as though God in His sweet thoughtfulness had sent death to knock
lightly at the door, saying: {}``Not yet. You have still a little
longer to be together. In a little while.'' In those last days all
things false and meaningless they laid aside. Nothing was of real
importance to them but that they should love each other, comforting
each other, learning to understand each other. Again we lived poorly;
but there was now no pitiful straining to keep up appearances, no
haunting terror of what the neighbours might think. The petty cares
and worries concerning matters not worth a moment's thought, the mean
desires and fears with which we disfigure ourselves, fell from them.
There came to them broader thought, a wider charity, a deeper pity.
Their love grew greater even than their needs, overflowing towards
at things. Sometimes, recalling these months, it has seemed to me
that we make a mistake seeking to keep Death, God's go-between, ever
from our thoughts. Is it not closing the door to a friend who would
help us would we let him (for who knows life so well), whispering
to us: {}``In a little while. Only a little longer that you have
to be together. Is it worth taking so much thought for self? Is it
worth while being unkind?''

From them a graciousness emanated pervading all around. Even my aunt
Fan decided for the second time in her career to give amiability a
trial. This intention she announced publicly to my mother and myself
one afternoon soon after our return from Devonshire.

{}``I'm a beast of an old woman,'' said my aunt, suddenly.

{}``Don't say that, Fan,'' urged my mother.

{}``What's the good of saying `Don't say it' when I've just said
it,'' snapped back my aunt.

{}``It's your manner,'' explained my mother; {}``people sometimes
think you disagreeable.''

{}``They'd be daft if they didn't,'' interrupted my aunt. {}``Of
course you don't really mean it,'' continued my mother.

{}``Stuff and nonsense,'' snorted my aunt; {}``does she think I'm
a fool. I like being disagreeable. I like to see 'em squirming.''

My mother laughed.

{}``I can be agreeable,'' continued my aunt, {}``if I choose. Nobody
more so.''

{}``Then why not choose?''\ suggested my mother. {}``I tried it
once,'' said my aunt, {}``and it fell flat. Nothing could have fallen
flatter.''

{}``It may not have attracted much attention,'' replied my mother,
with a smile, {}``but one should not be agreeable merely to attract
attention.''

{}``It wasn't only that,'' returned my aunt, {}``it was that it
gave no satisfaction to anybody. It didn't suit me. A disagreeable
person is at their best when they are disagreeable.''

{}``I can hardly agree with you there,'' answered my mother.

{}``I could do it again,'' communed my aunt to herself. There was
a suggestion of vindictiveness in her tones. {}``It's easy enough.
Look at the sort of fools that are agreeable.''

{}``I'm sure you could be if you tried,'' urged my mother.

{}``Let 'em have it,'' continued my aunt, still to herself; {}``that's
the way to teach 'em sense. Let 'em have it.''

And strange though it may seem, my aunt was right and my mother altogether
wrong. My father was the first to notice the change.

{}``Nothing the matter with poor old Fan, is there?''\ he asked.
It was one evening a day or two after my aunt had carried her threat
into effect. {}``Nothing happened, has there?''

{}``No,'' answered my mother, {}``nothing that I know of.''

{}``Her manner is so strange,'' explained my father, {}``so---so
weird.''

My mother smiled. {}``Don't say anything to her. She's trying to
be agreeable.''

My father laughed and then looked wistful. {}``I almost wish she
wouldn't,'' he remarked; {}``we were used to it, and she was rather
amusing.''

But my aunt, being a woman of will, kept her way; and about the same
time that occurred tending to confirm her in her new departure. This
was the introduction into our small circle of James Wellington Gadley.
Properly speaking, it should have been Wellington James, that being
the order in which he had been christened in the year 1815. But in
course of time, and particularly during his school career, it had
been borne in upon him that Wellington is a burdensome name for a
commonplace mortal to bear, and very wisely he had reversed the arrangement.
He was a slightly pompous but simpleminded little old gentleman, very
proud of his position as head clerk to Mr.\ Stillwood, the solicitor
to whom my father was now assistant. Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal
dated back to the Georges, and was a firm bound up with the history---occasionally
shady---of aristocratic England. True, in these later years its glory
was dwindling. Old Mr.\ Stillwood, its sole surviving representative,
declined to be troubled with new partners, explaining frankly, in
answer to all applications, that the business was a dying one, and
that attempting to work it up again would be but putting new wine
into worn-out skins. But though its clientele was a yearly diminishing
quantity, much business yet remained to it, and that of a good class,
its name being still a synonym for solid respectability; and my father
had deemed himself fortunate indeed in securing such an appointment.
James Gadley had entered the firm as office boy in the days of its
pride, and had never awakened to the fact that it was not still the
most important legal firm within the half mile radius from Lombard
Street. Nothing delighted him more than to discuss over and over again
the many strange affairs in which Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal had
been concerned, all of which he had at his tongue's tip. Could he
find a hearer, these he would reargue interminably, but with professional
reticence, personages becoming Mr.\ Y.\ and Lady X.; and places,
{}``the capital of, let us say, a foreign country,'' or {}``a certain
town not a thousand miles from where we are now sitting.'' The majority
of his friends, his methods being somewhat forensic, would seek to
discourage him, but my aunt was a never wearied listener, especially
if the case were one involving suspicion of mystery and crime. When,
during their very first conversation, he exclaimed: {}``Now why---why,
after keeping away from his wife for nearly eighteen years, never
even letting her know whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden
resolve to return to her? That is what I want explained to me!''\ 
he paused, as was his wont, for sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead
of answering as others, with a yawn: {}``Oh, I'm sure I don't know.
Felt he wanted to see her, I suppose,'' replied with prompt intelligence:

{}``To murder her---by slow poison.''

{}``To murder her! But why?''

{}``In order to marry the other woman.''

{}``What other woman?''

{}``The woman he had just met and fallen in love with. Before that
it was immaterial to him what had become of his wife. This woman had
said to him: 'Come back to me a free man or never see my face again.'''

{}``Dear me! Now that's very curious.''

{}``Nothing of the sort. Plain common sense.''

{}``I mean, it's curious because, as a matter of fact, his wife did
die a little later, and he did marry again.''

{}``Told you so,'' remarked my aunt.

In this way every case in the Stillwood annals was reviewed, and light
thrown upon it by my aunt's insight into the hidden springs of human
action. Fortunate that the actors remained mere Mr.\ X.\ and Lady
Y., for into the most innocent seeming behaviour my aunt read ever
dark criminal intent.

{}``I think you are a little too severe,'' Mr.\ Gadley would now
and then plead.

{}``We're all of us miserable sinners,'' my aunt would cheerfully
affirm; {}``only we don't all get the same chances.''

An elderly maiden lady, a Miss Z., residing in {}``a western town
once famous as the resort of fashion, but which we will not name,''
my aunt was convinced had burnt down a house containing a will, and
forged another under which her children---should she ever marry and
be blessed with such---would inherit among them on coming of age a
fortune of seven hundred pounds.

The freshness of her views on this, his favourite topic, always fascinated
Mr.\ Gadley.

{}``I have to thank you, ma'am,'' he would remark on rising, {}``for
a most delightful conversation. I may not be able to agree with your
conclusions, but they afford food for reflection.''

To which my aunt would reply, {}``I hate talking to any one who agrees
with me. It's like taking a walk to see one's own looking-glass. I'd
rather talk to somebody who didn't, even if he were a fool,'' which
for her was gracious.

He was a stout little gentleman with a stomach that protruded about
a foot in front of him, and of this he appeared to be quite unaware.
Nor would it have mattered had it not been for his desire when talking
to approach as close to his listener as possible. Gradually in the
course of conversation, his stomach acting as a gentle battering ram,
he would in this way drive you backwards round the room, sometimes,
unless you were artful, pinning you hopelessly into a corner, when
it would surprise him that in spite of all his efforts he never succeeded
in getting any nearer to you. His first evening at our house he was
talking to my aunt from the corner of his chair. As he grew more interested
so he drew his chair nearer and nearer, till at length, having withdrawn
inch by inch to avoid his encroachments, my aunt was sitting on the
extreme edge of her own. His next move sent her on to the floor. She
said nothing, which surprised me; but on the occasion of his next
visit she was busy darning stockings, an unusual occupation for her.
He approached nearer and nearer as before; but this time she sat her
ground, and it was he who in course of time sprang back with an exclamation
foreign to the subject under discussion.

Ever afterwards my aunt met him with stockings in her hand, and they
talked with a space between their chairs.

Nothing further came of it, though his being a widower added to their
intercourse that spice of possibility no woman is ever too old to
relish; but that he admired her intellectually was evident. Once he
even went so far as to exclaim: {}``Miss Davies, you should have
been a solicitor's wife!''\ to his thinking the crown of feminine
ambition. To which my aunt had replied: {}``Chances are I should
have been if one had ever asked me.'' And warmed by appreciation,
my aunt's amiability took root and flourished, though assuming, as
all growth developed late is apt to, fantastic shape.

There came to her the idea, by no means ill-founded, that by flattery
one can most readily render oneself agreeable; so conscientiously
she set to work to flatter in season and out. I am sure she meant
to give pleasure, but the effect produced was that of thinly veiled
sarcasm.

My father would relate to us some trifling story, some incident noticed
during the day that had seemed to him amusing. At once she would break
out into enthusiasm, holding up her hands in astonishment.

{}``What a funny man he is! And to think that it comes to him naturally
without an effort. What a gift it is!''

On my mother appearing in a new bonnet, or an old one retrimmed, an
event not unfrequent; for in these days my mother took more thought
than ever formerly for her appearance (you will understand, you women
who have loved), she would step back in simulated amazement.

{}``Don't tell me it's a married woman with a boy getting on for
fourteen. It's a girl. A saucy, tripping girl. That's what it is.''

Persons have been known, I believe, whose vanity, not checked in time,
has grown into a hopeless disease. But I am inclined to think that
a dose of my aunt, about this period, would have cured the most obstinate
case.

So also, and solely for our benefit, she assumed a vivacity and spriteliness
that ill suited her, that having regard to her age and tendency towards
rheumatism must have cost her no small effort. From these experiences
there remains to me the perhaps immoral opinion that Virtue, in common
with all other things, is at her best when unassuming.

Occasionally the old Adam---or should one say Eve---would assert itself
in my aunt, and then, still thoughtful for others, she would descend
into the kitchen and be disagreeable to Amy, our new servitor, who
never minded it. Amy was a philosopher who reconciled herself to all
things by the reflection that there were only twenty-four hours in
a day. It sounds a dismal theory, but from it Amy succeeded in extracting
perpetual cheerfulness. My mother would apologise to her for my aunt's
interference.

{}``Lord bless you, mum, it don't matter. If I wasn't listening to
her something else worse might be happening. Everything's all the
same when it's over.''

Amy had come to us merely as a stop gap, explaining to my mother that
she was about to be married and desired only a temporary engagement
to bridge over the few weeks between then and the ceremony.

{}``It's rather unsatisfactory,'' had said my mother. {}``I dislike
changes.''

{}``I can quite understand it, mum,'' had replied Amy; {}``I dislike
'em myself. Only I heard you were in a hurry, and I thought maybe
that while you were on the lookout for somebody permanent---''

So on that understanding she came. A month later my mother asked her
when she thought the marriage would actually take place.

{}``Don't think I'm wishing you to go,'' explained my mother, {}``indeed
I'd like you to stop. I only want to know in time to make my arrangements.''

{}``Oh, some time in the spring, I expect,'' was Amy's answer.

{}``Oh!''\ said my mother, {}``I understood it was coming off
almost immediately.''

Amy appeared shocked.

{}``I must know a little bit more about him before I go as far as
that,'' she said.

{}``But I don't understand,'' said my mother; {}``you told me when
you came to me that you were going to be married in a few weeks.''

{}``Oh, that one!''\ Her tone suggested that an unfair strain was
being put upon her memory. {}``I didn't feel I wanted him as much
as I thought I did when it came to the point.''

{}``You had meantime met the other one?''\ suggested my mother,
with a smile.

{}``Well, we can't help our feelings, can we, mum?''\ admitted
Amy, frankly, {}``and what I always say is''---she spoke as one
with experience even then---{}``better change your mind before it's
too late afterwards.''

Amiable, sweet-faced, broad-hearted Amy!\ most faithful of friends,
but oh!\ most faithless of lovers. Age has not withered nor custom
staled her liking for infinite variety. Butchers, bakers, soldiers,
sailors, Jacks of all trades! Does the sighing procession never pass
before you, Amy, pointing ghostly fingers of reproach! Still Amy is
engaged. To whom at the particular moment I cannot say, but I fancy
to an early one who has lately become a widower. After more exact
knowledge I do not care to enquire; for to confess ignorance on the
subject, implying that one has treated as a triviality and has forgotten
the most important detail of a matter that to her is of vital importance,
is to hurt her feelings; while to angle for information is but to
entangle oneself. To speak of Him as {}``Tom,'' when Tom has belonged
for weeks to the dead and buried past, to hastily correct oneself
to {}``Dick'' when there hasn't been a Dick for years, clearly not
to know that he is now Harry, annoys her even more. In my mother's
time we always referred to him as {}``Dearest.'' It was the title
with which she herself distinguished them all, and it avoided confusion.

{}``Well, and how's Dearest?''\ my mother would enquire, opening
the door to Amy on the Sunday evening.

{}``Oh, very well indeed, mum, thank you, and he sends you his respects,''
or, {}``Well, not so nicely as I could wish. I'm a little anxious
about him, poor dear!''

{}``When you are married you will be able to take good care of him.''

{}``That's really what he wants---some one to take care of him. It's
what they all want, the poor dears.''

{}``And when is it coming off?''

{}``In the spring, mum.'' She always chose the spring when possible.

Amy was nice to all men, and to Amy all men were nice. Could she have
married a dozen, she might have settled down, with only occasional
regrets concerning those left without in the cold. But to ask her
to select only one out of so many {}``poor dears'' was to suggest
shameful waste of affection.

We had meant to keep our grim secret to ourselves; but to hide one's
troubles long from Amy was like keeping cold hands from the fire.
Very soon she knew everything that was to be known, drawing it all
from my mother as from some overburdened child. Then she put my mother
down into a chair and stood over her.

{}``Now you leave the house and everything connected with it to me,
mum,'' commanded Amy; {}``you've got something else to do.''

And from that day we were in the hands of Amy, and had nothing else
to do but praise the Lord for His goodness.

Barbara also found out (from Washburn, I expect), though she said
nothing, but came often. Old Hasluck would have come himself, I am
sure, had he thought he would be welcome. As it was, he always sent
kind messages and presents of fruit and flowers by Barbara, and always
welcomed me most heartily whenever she allowed me to see her home.

She brought, as ever, sunshine with her, making all trouble seem far
off and shadowy. My mother tended to the fire of love, but Barbara
lit the cheerful lamp of laughter.

And with the lessening days my father seemed to grow younger, life
lying lighter on him.

One summer's night he and I were walking with Barbara to Poplar station,
for sometimes, when he was not looking tired, she would order him
to fetch his hat and stick, explaining to him with a caress, {}``I
like them tall and slight and full grown. The young ones, they don't
know how to flirt! We will take the boy with us as gooseberry;''
and he, pretending to be anxious that my mother did not see, would
kiss her hand, and slip out quietly with her arm linked under his.
It was admirable the way he would enter into the spirit of the thing.

The last cloud faded from before the moon as we turned the corner,
and even the East India Dock Road lay restful in front of us.

{}``I have always regarded myself,'' said my father, {}``as a failure
in life, and it has troubled me.'' I felt him pulled the slightest
little bit away from me, as though Barbara, who held his other arm,
had drawn him towards her with a swift pressure. {}``But do you know
the idea that has come to me within the last few months? That on the
whole I have been successful. I am like a man,'' continued my father,
{}``who in some deep wood has been frightened, thinking he has lost
his way, and suddenly coming to the end of it, finds that by some
lucky chance he has been guided to the right point after all. I cannot
tell you what a comfort it is to me.

{}``What is the right point?''\ asked Barbara.

{}``Ah, that I cannot tell you,'' answered my father, with a laugh.
{}``I only know that for me it is here where I am. All the time I
thought I was wandering away from it I was drawing nearer to it. It
is very wonderful. I am just where I ought to be. If I had only known
I never need have worried.''

Whether it would have troubled either him or my mother very much even
had it been otherwise I cannot say, for Life, so small a thing when
looked at beside Death, seemed to have lost all terror for them; but
be that as it may, I like to remember that Fortune at the last was
kind to my father, prospering his adventures, not to the extent his
sanguine nature had dreamt, but sufficiently: so that no fear for
our future marred the peaceful passing of his tender spirit.

Or should I award thanks not to Fate, but rather to sweet Barbara,
and behind her do I not detect shameless old Hasluck, grinning good-naturedly
in the background?

{}``Now, Uncle Luke, I want your advice. Dad's given me this cheque
as a birthday present. I don't want to spend it. How shall I invest
it?''

{}``My dear, why not consult your father?''

{}``Now, Uncle Luke, dad's a dear, especially after dinner, but you
and I know him. Giving me a present is one thing, doing business for
me is another. He'd unload on me. He'd never be able to resist the
temptation.''

My father would suggest, and Barbara would thank him. But a minute
later would murmur: {}``You don't know anything about Argentinos.''

My father did not, but Barbara did; to quite a remarkable extent for
a young girl.

{}``That child has insisted on leaving this cheque with me and I
have advised her to buy Argentinos,'' my father would observe after
she was gone. {}``I am going to put a few hundreds into them myself.
I hope they will turn out all right, if only for her sake. I have
a presentiment somehow that they will.''

A month later Barbara would greet him with: {}``Isn't it lucky we
bought Argentinos!''

{}``Yes; they haven't turned out badly, have they? I had a feeling,
you know, for Argentinos.''

{}``You're a genius, Uncle Luke. And now we will sell out and buy
Calcuttas, won't we?''

{}``Sell out? But why?''

{}``You said so. You said, 'We will sell out in about a month and
be quite safe.'''

{}``My dear, I've no recollection of it.''

But Barbara had, and before she had done with him, so had he. And
the next day Argentinos would be sold---not any too soon---and Calcuttas
bought.

Could money so gained bring a blessing with it? The question would
plague my father.

{}``It's very much like gambling,'' he would mutter uneasily to
himself at each success, {}``uncommonly like gambling.''

{}``It is for your mother,'' he would impress upon me. {}``When
she is gone, Paul, put it aside, Keep it for doing good; that may
make it clean. Start your own life without any help from it.''

He need not have troubled. It went the road that all luck derived
however indirectly from old Hasluck ever went. Yet it served good
purpose on its way.

But the most marvellous feat, to my thinking, ever accomplished by
Barbara was the bearing off of my father and mother to witness {}``A
Voice from the Grave, or the Power of Love, New and Original Drama
in five acts and thirteen tableaux.''

They had been bred in a narrow creed, both my father and my mother.
That Puritan blood flowed in their veins that throughout our land
has drowned much harmless joyousness; yet those who know of it only
from hearsay do foolishly to speak but ill of it. If ever earnest
times should come again, not how to enjoy but how to live being the
question, Fate demanding of us to show not what we have but what we
are, we may regret that they are fewer among us than formerly, those
who trained themselves to despise all pleasure, because in pleasure
they saw the subtlest foe to principle and duty. No graceful growth,
this Puritanism, for its roots are in the hard, stern facts of life;
but it is strong, and from it has sprung all that is worth preserving
in the Anglo-Saxon character. Its men feared and its women loved God,
and if their words were harsh their hearts were tender. If they shut
out the sunshine from their lives it was that their eyes might see
better the glory lying beyond; and if their view be correct, that
earth's threescore years and ten are but as preparation for eternity,
then who shall call them even foolish for turning away their thoughts
from its allurements.

{}``Still, I think I should like to have a look at one, just to see
what it is like,'' argued my father; {}``one cannot judge of a thing
that one knows nothing about.''

I imagine it was his first argument rather than his second that convinced
my mother.

{}``That is true,'' she answered. {}``I remember how shocked my
poor father was when he found me one night at the bedroom window reading
Sir Walter Scott by the light of the moon.''

{}``What about the boy?''\ said my father, for I had been included
in the invitation.

{}``We will all be wicked together,'' said my mother.

So an evening or two later the four of us stood at the corner of Pigott
Street waiting for the 'bus.

{}``It is a close evening,'' said my father; {}``let's go the whole
hog and ride outside.''

In those days for a lady to ride outside a 'bus was as in these days
for a lady to smoke in public. Surely my mother's guardian angel must
have betaken himself off in a huff.

{}``Will you keep close behind and see to my skirt?''\ answered
my mother, commencing preparations. If you will remember that these
were the days of \textit{crinolines}, that the {}``knife-boards''
of \textit{\'{o}mnibuses} were then approached by a perpendicular
ladder, the rungs two feet apart, you will understand the necessity
for such precaution.

Which of us was the most excited throughout that long ride it would
be difficult to say. Barbara, feeling keenly her responsibility as
prompter and leader of the dread enterprise, sat anxious, as she explained
to us afterwards, hoping there would be nothing shocking in the play,
nothing to belie its innocent title; pleased with her success so far,
yet still fearful of failure, doubtful till the last moment lest we
should suddenly repent, and stopping the 'bus, flee from the wrath
to come. My father was the youngest of us all. Compared with him I
was sober and contained. He fidgeted: people remarked upon it. He
hummed. But for the stern eye of a thin young man sitting next to
him trying to read a paper, I believe he would have broken out into
song. Every minute he would lean across to enquire of my mother: {}``How
are you feeling---all right?'' To which my mother would reply with
a nod and a smile, She sat very silent herself, clasping and unclasping
her hands. As for myself, I remember feeling so sorry for the crowds
that passed us on their way home. It was sad to think of the long
dull evening that lay before them. I wondered how they could face
it.

Our seats were in the front row of the upper circle. The lights were
low and the house only half full when we reached them.

{}``It seems very orderly and---and respectable,'' whispered my
mother. There seemed a touch of disappointment in her tone.

{}``We are rather early,'' replied Barbara; {}``it will be livelier
when the band comes in and they turn up the gas.''

But even when this happened my mother was not content. {}``There
is so little room for the actors,'' she complained.

It was explained to her that the green curtain would go up, that the
stage lay behind.

So we waited, my mother sitting stiffly on the extreme edge of her
seat, holding me tightly by the hand; I believe with some vague idea
of flight, should out of that vault-scented gloom the devil suddenly
appear to claim us for his own. But before the curtain was quite up
she had forgotten him.

You poor folk that go to the theatre a dozen times a year, perhaps
oftener, what do you know of plays? You see no drama, you see but
middle-aged Mr.\ Brown, churchwarden, payer of taxes, foolishly pretending
to be a brigand; Miss Jones, daughter of old Jones the Chemist, making
believe to be a haughty Princess. How can you, a grown man, waste
money on a seat to witness such tomfoolery! What we saw was something
very different. A young and beautiful girl---true, not a lady by birth,
being merely the daughter of an honest yeoman, but one equal in all
the essentials of womanhood to the noblest in the land---suffered
before our very eyes an amount of misfortune that, had one not seen
it for oneself, one would never have believed Fate could have accumulated
upon the head of any single individual. Beside her woes our own poor
troubles sank into insignificance. We had used to grieve, as my mother
in a whisper reminded my father, if now and again we had not been
able to afford meat for dinner. This poor creature, driven even from
her wretched attic, compelled to wander through the snow without so
much as an umbrella to protect her, had not even a crust to eat; and
yet never lost her faith in Providence. It was a lesson, as my mother
remarked afterwards, that she should never forget. And virtue had
been triumphant, let shallow cynics say what they will. Had we not
proved it with our own senses? The villain---I think his Christian
name, if one can apply the word {}``Christian'' in connection with
such a fiend, was Jasper---had never really loved the heroine. He
was incapable of love. My mother had felt this before he had been
on the stage five minutes, and my father---in spite of protests from
callous people behind who appeared to be utterly indifferent to what
was going on under their very noses---had agreed with her. What he
was in love with was her fortune---the fortune that had been left
to her by her uncle in Australia, but about which nobody but the villain
knew anything. Had she swerved a hair's breadth from the course of
almost supernatural rectitude, had her love for the hero ever weakened,
her belief in him---in spite of damning evidence to the contrary---for
a moment wavered, then wickedness might have triumphed. How at times,
knowing all the facts but helpless to interfere, we trembled, lest
deceived by the cruel lies the villain told her; she should yield
to importunity. How we thrilled when, in language eloquent though
rude, she flung his false love back into his teeth. Yet still we feared.
We knew well that it was not the hero who had done the murder. {}``Poor
dear,'' as Amy would have called him, he was quite incapable of doing
anything requiring one-half as much smartness. We knew that it was
not he, poor innocent lamb!\ who had betrayed the lady with the French
accent; we had heard her on the subject and had formed a very shrewd
conjecture. But appearances, we could not help admitting, were terribly
to his disfavour. The circumstantial evidence against him would have
hanged an Archbishop. Could she in face of it still retain her faith?
There were moments when my mother restrained with difficulty her desire
to rise and explain.

Between the acts Barbara would whisper to her that she was not to
mind, because it was only a play, and that everything would be sure
to come right in the end.

{}``I know, my dear,'' my mother would answer, laughing, {}``it
is very foolish of me; I forget. Paul, when you see me getting excited,
you must remind me.''

But of what use was I in such case! I, who only by holding on to the
arms of my seat could keep myself from swarming down on to the stage
to fling myself between this noble damsel and her persecutor---this
fair-haired, creamy angel in whose presence for the time being I had
forgotten even Barbara.

The end came at last. The uncle from Australia was not dead. The villain---bungler
as well as knave---had killed the wrong man, somebody of no importance
whatever. As a matter of fact, the comic man himself was the uncle
from Australia---had been so all along. My mother had had a suspicion
of this from the very first. She told us so three times, to make up,
I suppose, for not having mentioned it before. How we cheered and
laughed, in spite of the tears in our eyes.

By pure accident it happened to be the first night of the piece, and
the author, in response to much shouting and whistling, came before
the curtain. He was fat and looked commonplace; but I deemed him a
genius, and my mother said he had a good face, and waved her handkerchief
wildly; while my father shouted {}``Bravo!''\ long after everybody
else had finished; and people round about muttered {}``packed house,''
which I didn't understand at the time, but came to later.

And stranger still, it happened to be before that very same curtain
that many years later I myself stepped forth to make my first bow
as a playwright. I saw the house but dimly, for on such occasion one's
vision is apt to be clouded. All that I saw clearly was in the front
row of the second circle---a sweet face laughing though the tears
were in her eyes; and she waved to me a handkerchief. And on one side
of her stood a gallant gentleman with merry eyes who shouted {}``Bravo!''\ 
and on the other a dreamy-looking lad; but he appeared disappointed,
having expected better work from me. And the fourth face I could not
see, for it was turned away from me.

Barbara, determined on completeness, insisted upon supper. In those
days respectability fed at home; but one resort possible there was,
an eating-house with some pretence to gaiety behind St.\ Clement
Danes, and to that she led us. It was a long, narrow room, divided
into wooden compartments, after the old coffee-house plan, a gangway
down the centre. Now we should call it a dismal hole, and closing
the door hasten away. But to Adam, Eve in her Sunday fig-leaves was
a stylishly dressed woman; and to my eyes, with its gilded mirrors
and its flaring gas, the place seemed a palace.

Barbara ordered oysters, a fish that familiarity with its empty shell
had made me curious concerning. Truly no spot on the globe is so rich
in oyster shells as the East End of London. A stranger might be led
to the impression (erroneous) that the customary lunch of the East
End labourer consists of oysters. How they collect there in such quantities
is a mystery, though Washburn, to whom I once presented the problem,
found no difficulty in solving it to his own satisfaction: {}``To
the rich man the oyster; to the poor man the shell; thus are the Creator's
gifts divided among all His creatures; none being sent empty away.''
For drink the others had stout and I had ginger beer. The waiter,
who called me {}``Sir,'' advised against this mixture; but among
us all the dominating sentiment by this time was that nothing really
mattered very much. Afterwards my father called for a cigar and boldly
lighted it, though my mother looked anxious; and fortunately perhaps
it would not draw. And then it came out that he himself had once written
a play.

{}``You never told me of that,'' complained my mother.

{}``It was a long while ago,'' replied my father; {}``nothing came
of it.''

{}``It might have been a success,'' said my mother; {}``you always
had a gift for writing.''

{}``I must look it over again,'' said my father; {}``I had quite
forgotten it. I have an impression it wasn't at all bad.''

{}``It can be of much help,'' said my mother, {}``a good play.
It makes one think.''

We put Barbara into a cab and rode home ourselves inside a 'bus. My
mother was tired, so my father slipped his arm round her, telling
her to lean against him, and soon she fell asleep with her head upon
his shoulder. A coarse-looking wench sat opposite, her man's arm round
her likewise, and she also fell asleep, her powdered face against
his coat.

{}``They can do with a bit of nursing, can't they?''\ said the
man with a grin to the conductor.

{}``Ah, they're just kids,'' agreed the conductor, sympathetically,
{}``that's what they are, all of 'em, just kids.''

So the day ended. But oh, the emptiness of the morrow! Life without
a crime, without a single noble sentiment to brighten it!---no comic
uncles, no creamy angels! Oh, the barrenness and dreariness of life!
Even my mother at moments was quite irritable.

We were much together again, my father and I, about this time. Often,
making my way from school into the City, I would walk home with him,
he leaning on each occasion a little heavier upon my arm. To this
day I can always meet and walk with him down the Commercial Road.
And on Saturday afternoons, crossing the river to Greenwich, we would
climb the hill and sit there talking, or sometimes merely thinking
together, watching the dim vast city so strangely still and silent
at our feet.

At first I did not grasp the fact that he was dying. The {}``year
to two'' of life that Washburn had allowed to him had somehow become
converted in my mind to vague years, a fate with no immediate meaning;
the meanwhile he himself appeared to grow from day to day in buoyancy.
How could I know it was his great heart rising to his need.

The comprehension came to me suddenly. It was one afternoon in early
spring. I was on my way to the City to meet him. The Holborn Viaduct
was then in building, and the traffic round about was in consequence
always much disorganised. The 'bus on which I was riding became entangled
in a block at the corner of Snow Hill, and for ten minutes we had
been merely crawling, one joint of a long, sinuous serpent moving
by short, painful jerks. It came to me while I was sitting there with
a sharp spasm of physical pain. I jumped from the 'bus and began to
run, and the terror and the hurt of it grew with every step. I ran
as if I feared he might be dead before I could reach the office. He
was waiting for me with a smile as usual, and I flung myself sobbing
into his arms.

I think he understood, though I could explain nothing, but that I
had had a fear something had happened to him, for from that time forward
he dropped all reserve with me, and talked openly of our approaching
parting.

{}``It might have come to us earlier, my dear boy,'' he would say
with his arm round me, {}``or it might have been a little later.
A year or so one way or the other, what does it matter? And it is
only for a little while, Paul. We shall meet again.''

But I could not answer him, for clutch them to me as I would, all
my beliefs---the beliefs in which I had been bred, the beliefs that
until then I had never doubted, in that hour of their first trial,
were falling from me. I could not even pray. If I could have prayed
for anything, it would have been for my father's life. But if prayer
were all powerful, as they said, would our loved ones ever die? Man
has not faith enough, they would explain; if he had there would be
no parting. So the Lord jests with His creatures, offering with the
one hand to snatch back with the other. I flung the mockery from me.
There was no firm foothold anywhere. What were all the religions of
the word but narcotics with which Humanity seeks to dull its pain,
drugs in which it drowns its terrors, faith but a bubble that death
pricks.

I do not mean my thoughts took this form. I was little more than a
lad, and to the young all thought is dumb, speaking only with a cry.
But they were there, vague, inarticulate. Thoughts do not come to
us as we grow older. They are with us all our lives. We learn their
language, that is all.

One fair still evening it burst from me. We had lingered in the Park
longer than usual, slowly pacing the broad avenue leading from the
Observatory to the Heath. I poured forth all my doubts and fears---that
he was leaving me for ever, that I should never see him again, I could
not believe. What could I do to believe?

{}``I am glad you have spoken, Paul,'' he said, {}``it would have
been sad had we parted not understanding each other. It has been my
fault. I did not know you had these doubts. They come to all of us
sooner or later. But we hide them from one another. It is foolish.''

{}``But tell me,'' I cried, {}``what can I do? How can I make myself
believe?''

{}``My dear lad,'' answered my father, {}``how can it matter what
we believe or disbelieve? It will not alter God's facts. Would you
liken Him to some irritable schoolmaster, angry because you cannot
understand him?''

{}``What do you believe,'' I asked, {}``father, really I mean.''

The night had fallen. My father put his arm round me and drew me to
him.

{}``That we are God's children, little brother,'' he answered, {}``that
what He wills for us is best. It may be life, it may be sleep; it
will be best. I cannot think that He will let us die: that were to
think of Him as without purpose. But His uses may not be our desires.
We must trust Him. `Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.'''

We walked awhile in silence before my father spoke again.

{}``'Now abideth these three, Faith, Hope and Charity'---you remember
the verse---Faith in God's goodness to us, Hope that our dreams may
be fulfiled. But these concern but ourselves---the greatest of all
is Charity.''

Out of the night-shrouded human hive beneath our feet shone here and
there a point of light.

{}``Be kind, that is all it means,'' continued my father. {}``Often
we do what we think right, and evil comes of it, and out of evil comes
good. We cannot understand---maybe the old laws we have misread. But
the new Law, that we love one another---all creatures He has made;
that is so clear. And if it be that we are here together only for
a little while, Paul, the future dark, how much the greater need have
we of one another.''

I looked up into my father's face, and the peace that shone from it
slid into my soul and gave me strength.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER IX}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{fashioning}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Loves of my youth, whither are ye vanished? Tubby of the golden locks;
Langley of the dented nose; Shamus stout of heart but faint of limb,
easy enough to {}``down,'' but utterly impossible to make to cry:
{}``I give you best;'' Neal the thin; and Dicky, {}``dicky Dick''
the fat; Ballett of the weeping eye; Beau Bunnie lord of many ties,
who always fought in black kid gloves; all ye others, ye whose names
I cannot recollect, though I well remember ye were very dear to me,
whither are ye vanished, where haunt your creeping ghosts? Had one
told me then there would come a day I should never see again your
merry faces, never hear your wild, shrill whoop of greeting, never
feel again the warm clasp of your inky fingers, never fight again
nor quarrel with you, never hate you, never love you, could I then
have borne the thought, I wonder?

Once, methinks, not long ago, I saw you, Tubby, you with whom so often
I discovered the North Pole, probed the problem of the sources of
the Nile, (Have you forgotten, Tubby, our secret camping ground beside
the lonely waters of the Regent's Park canal, where discussing our
frugal meal of toasted elephant's tongue---by the uninitiated mistakable
for jumbles---there would break upon our trained hunters' ear the
hungry lion or tiger's distant roar, mingled with the melancholy,
long-drawn growling of the Polar Bear, growing ever in volume and
impatience until half-past four precisely; and we would snatch our
rifles, and with stealthy tread and every sense alert make our way
through the jungle---until stopped by the spiked fencing round the
Zoological Gardens?) I feel sure it was you, in spite of your side
whiskers and the greyness and the thinness of your once clustering
golden locks. You were hurrying down Throgmorton Street chained to
a small black bag. I should have stopped you, but that I had no time
to spare, having to catch a train at Liverpool Street and to get shaved
on the way. I wonder if you recognised me: you looked at me a little
hard, I thought. Gallant, kindly hearted Shamus, you who fought once
for half an hour to save a frog from being skinned; they tell me you
are now an Income Tax assessor; a man, it is reported, with power
of disbelief unusual among even Inland Revenue circles; of little
faith, lacking in the charity that thinketh no evil. May Providence
direct you to other districts than to mine.

So Time, Nature's handy-man, bustles to and fro about the many rooms,
making all things tidy, covers with sweet earth the burnt volcanoes,
turns to use the debris of the ages, smoothes again the ground above
the dead, heals again the beech bark marred by lovers.

In the beginning I was far from being a favourite with my schoolmates,
and this was the first time trouble came to dwell with me. Later,
we men and women generally succeed in convincing ourselves that whatever
else we may have missed in life, popularity in a greater or less degree
we have at all events secured, for without it altogether few of us,
I think, would care to face existence. But where the child suffers
keener than the man is in finding himself exposed to the cold truth
without the protecting clothes of self-deception. My ostracism was
painfully plain to me, and, as was my nature, I brooded upon it in
silence.

{}``Can you run?''\ asked of me one day a most important personage
whose name I have forgotten. He was head of the Lower Fourth, a tall
youth with a nose like a beak, and the manner of one born to authority.
He was the son of a draper in the Edgware Road, and his father failing,
he had to be content for a niche in life with a lower clerkship in
the Civil Service. But to us youngsters he always appeared a Duke
of Wellington in embryo, and under other circumstances might, perhaps,
have become one.

{}``Yes,'' I answered. As a matter of fact it was my one accomplishment,
and rumour of it maybe had reached him.

{}``Run round the playground twice at your fastest,'' he commanded;
{}``let me see you.''

I clinched my fists and charged off. How grateful I was to him for
having spoken to me, the outcast of the class, thus publicly, I could
only show by my exertions to please him. When I drew up before him
I was panting hard, but I could see that he was satisfied.

{}``Why don't the fellows like you?''\ he asked bluntly.

If only I could have stepped out of my shyness, spoken my real thoughts!
{}``O Lord of the Lower Fourth! You upon whom success---the only
success in life worth having---has fallen as from the laps of the
gods! You to whom all Lower Fourth hearts turn!\ tell me the secret
of this popularity. How may I acquire it? No price can be too great
for me to pay for it. Vain little egoist that I am, it is the sum
of my desires, and will be till the long years have taught me wisdom.
The want of it embitters all my days. Why does silence fall upon their
chattering groups when I draw near? Why do they drive me from their
games? What is it shuts me out from them, repels them from me? I creep
into the corners and shed scalding tears of shame. I watch with envious
eyes and ears all you to whom the wondrous gift is given. What is
your secret? Is it Tommy's swagger? Then I will swagger, too, with
anxious heart, with mingled fear and hope. But why---why, seeing that
in Tommy they admire it, do they wait for me with imitations of cock-a-doodle-do,
strut beside me mimicking a pouter pigeon? Is it Dicky's playfulness?---Dicky,
who runs away with their balls, snatches their caps from off their
heads, springs upon their backs when they are least expecting it?

Why should Dicky's reward be laughter, and mine a bloody nose and
a widened, deepened circle of dislike? I am no heavier than Dicky;
if anything a pound or two lighter. Is it Billy's friendliness? I
too would fling my arms about their necks; but from me they angrily
wrench themselves free. Is indifference the best plan? I walk apart
with step I try so hard to render careless; but none follows, no little
friendly arm is slipped through mine. Should one seek to win one's
way by kind offices? Ah, if one could! How I would fag for them. I
could do their sums for them---I am good at sums---write their impositions
for them, gladly take upon myself their punishments, would they but
return my service with a little love and---more important still---a
little admiration.''

But all I could find to say was, sulkily: {}``They do like me, some
of them.'' I dared not, aloud, acknowledge the truth.

{}``Don't tell lies,'' he answered; {}``you know they don't---none
of them.'' And I hung my head.

{}``I'll tell you what I'll do,'' he continued in his lordly way;
{}``I'll give you a chance. We're starting hare and hounds next Saturday;
you can be a hare. You needn't tell anybody. Just turn up on Saturday
and I'll see to it. Mind, you'll have to run like the devil.''

He walked away without waiting for my answer, leaving me to meet Joy
running towards me with outstretched hands. The great moment comes
to all of us; to the politician, when the Party whip slips from confabulation
with the Front Bench to congratulate him, smiling, on his really admirable
little speech; to the youthful dramatist, reading in his bed-sitting-room
the managerial note asking him to call that morning at eleven; to
the subaltern, beckoned to the stirrup of his chief---the moment when
the sun breaks through the morning mists, and the world lies stretched
before us, our way clear.

Obeying orders, I gave no hint in school of the great fortune that
had come to me; but hurrying home, I exploded in the passage before
the front door could be closed behind me.

{}``I am to be a hare because I run so fast. Anybody can be a hound,
but there's only two hares, and they all want me. And can I have a
jersey? We begin next Saturday. He saw me run. I ran twice round the
playground. He said I was splendid! Of course, it's a great honour
to be a hare. We start from Hampstead Heath. And may I have a pair
of shoes?''

The jersey and the shoes my mother and I purchased that very day,
for the fear was upon me that unless we hastened, the last blue and
white striped jersey in London might be sold, and the market be empty
of running shoes. That evening, before getting into bed, I dressed
myself in full costume to admire myself before the glass; and from
then till the end of the week, to the terror of my mother, I practised
leaping over chairs, and my method of descending stairs was perilous
and roundabout. But, as I explained to them, the credit of the Lower
Fourth was at stake, and banisters and legs equally of small account
as compared with fame and honour; and my father, nodding his head,
supported me with manly argument; but my mother added to her prayers
another line.

Saturday came. The members of the hunt were mostly boys who lived
in the neighbourhood; so the arrangement was that at half-past two
we should meet at the turnpike gate outside the Spaniards. I brought
my lunch with me and ate it in Regent's Park, and then took the 'bus
to the Heath. One by one the others came up. Beyond mere glances,
none of them took any notice of me. I was wearing my ordinary clothes
over my jersey. I knew they thought I had come merely to see them
start, and I hugged to myself the dream of the surprise that was in
store for them, and of which I should be the hero. He came, one of
the last, our leader and chief, and I sidled up behind him and waited,
while he busied himself organising and constructing.

{}``But we've only got one hare,'' cried one of them. {}``We ought
to have two, you know, in case one gets blown.''

{}``We've got two,'' answered the Duke. {}``Think I don't know
what I'm about? Young Kelver's going to be the other one.''

Silence fell upon the meet.

{}``Oh, I say, we don't want him,'' at last broke in a voice. {}``He's
a muff.''

{}``He can run,'' explained the Duke.

{}``Let him run home,'' came another voice, which was greeted with
laughter.

{}``You'll run home in a minute yourself,'' threatened the Duke,
{}``if I have any of your cheek. Who's captain here---you or me?
Now, young 'un, are you ready?''

I had commenced unbuttoning my jacket, but my hands fell to my side.
{}``I don't want to come,'' I answered, {}``if they don't want
me.''

{}``He'll get his feet wet,'' suggested the boy who had spoken first.
{}``Don't spoil him, he's his mother's pet.''

{}``Are you coming or are you not?''\ shouted the Duke, seeing
me still motionless. But the tears were coming into my eyes and would
not go back. I turned my face away without speaking.

{}``All right, stop then,'' cried the Duke, who, like all authoritative
people, was impatient above all things of hesitation. {}``Here, Keefe,
you take the bag and be off. It'll be dark before we start.''

My substitute snatched eagerly at the chance, and away went the hares,
while I, still keeping my face hid, moved slowly off.

{}``Cry-baby!''\ shouted a sharp-eyed youngster.

{}``Let him alone,'' growled the Duke; and I went on to where the
cedars grew.

I heard them start off a few minutes later with a whoop. How could
I go home, confess my disappointment, my shame? My father would be
expecting me with many questions, my mother waiting for me with hot
water and blankets. What explanation could I give that would not betray
my miserable secret?

It was a chill, dismal afternoon, the Heath deserted, a thin rain
commencing. I slipped off my shirt and jacket, and rolling them under
my arm, trotted off alone, hare and hounds combined in one small carcass,
to chase myself sadly by myself.

I see it still, that pathetically ridiculous little figure, jogging
doggedly over the dank fields. Mile after mile it runs, the little
idiot; jumping---sometimes falling into the muddy ditches: it seems
anxious rather than otherwise to get itself into a mess; scrambling
through the dripping hedges; swarming over tarry fence and slimy paling.
On, on it pants---through Bishop's Wood, by tangled Churchyard Bottom,
where now the railway shrieks; down sloppy lanes, bordering Muswell
Hill, where now stand rows of jerry-built, prim villas. At intervals
it stops an instant to dab its eyes with its dingy little rag of a
handkerchief, to rearrange the bundle under its arm, its chief anxiety
to keep well out of sight of chance wanderers, to dodge farmhouses,
to dart across highroads when nobody is looking. And so tear-smeared
and mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch End Lane,
where to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred shops, and
dead beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to tear off its
soaked jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless account of
the jolly afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration and the praise
that it has won.

You poor, pitiful little brat! Popularity? it is a shadow. Turn your
eyes towards it, and it shall ever run before you, escaping you. Turn
your back upon it, walk joyously towards the living sun, and it shall
follow you. Am I not right? Why, then, do you look at me, your little
face twisted into that quizzical grin?

When one takes service with Deceit, one signs a contract that one
may not break but under penalty. Maybe it was good for my health,
those lonely runs; but oh, they were dreary! By a process of argument
not uncommon I persuaded myself that truth was a matter of mere words,
that so long as I had actually gone over the ground I described I
was not lying. To further satisfy my conscience, I bought a big satchel
and scattered from it torn-up paper as I ran.

{}``And they never catch you?''\ asked my mother.

{}``Oh, no, never; they never even get within sight of me.''

{}``Be careful, dear,'' would advise my mother; {}``don't overstrain
yourself.'' But I could see that she was proud of me.

And after awhile imagination came to my help, so that often I could
hear behind me the sound of pursuing feet, catch through gaps in the
trees a sight of a merry, host upon my trail, and would redouble my
speed.

Thus, but for Dan, my loneliness would have been unbearable. His friendship
was always there for me to creep to, the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land. To this day one may always know Dan's politics: they
are those of the Party out of power. Always without question one may
know the cause that he will champion, the unpopular cause; the man
he will defend, the man who is down.

{}``You are such an un-understandable chap,'' complained a fellow
Clubman to him once in my hearing. {}``I sometimes ask myself if
you have any opinions at all.''

{}``I hate a crowd,'' was Dan's only confession of faith.

He never claimed anything from me in return for his affection; he
was there for me to hold to when I wanted him. When, baffled in all
my attempts to win the affections of others, I returned to him for
comfort, he gave it me, without even relieving himself of friendly
advice. When at length childish success came to me and I needed him
less, he was neither hurt nor surprised. Other people---their thoughts,
their actions, even when these concerned himself---never troubled
him. He loved to bestow, but as to response was strangely indifferent;
indeed, if anything, it bored him. His nature appeared to be that
of the fountain, which fulfils itself by giving, but is unable to
receive.

My popularity came to me unexpectedly after I had given up hoping
for it; surprising me, annoying me. Gradually it dawned upon me that
my company was being sought.

{}``Come along, Kelver,'' would say the spokesman of one group;
{}``we're going part of your way home. You can walk with us.''

Maybe I would go with them, but more often, before we reached the
gate, the delight of my society would be claimed by a rival troop.

{}``He's coming with us this afternoon. He promised.''

{}``No, he didn't.''

{}``Yes, he did.''

{}``Well, he ain't, anyhow. See?''

{}``Oh, isn't he? Who says he isn't?''

{}``I do.''

{}``Punch his head, Dick!''

{}``Yes, you do, Jimmy Blake, and I'll punch yours. Come, Kelver.''

I might have been some Queen of Beauty offered as prize for knightly
contest. Indeed, more than once the argument concluded thus primitively,
I being carried off in triumph by the victorious party.

For a period it remained a mystery to me, until I asked explanation
of Norval---we called him {}``Norval,'' he being one George Grampian:
it was our wit. From taking joy in teasing me, Norval had suddenly
become one of my greatest admirers. This by itself was difficult enough
to understand. He was in the second eleven, and after Dan the best
fighter in the lower school. If I could understand Norval's change
of attitude all would be plain to me; so when next time, bounding
upon me in the cloakroom and slipping his arm into mine, he clamoured
for my company to Camden Town, I put the question to him bluntly.

{}``Why should I walk home with you? Why do you want me?''

{}``Because we like you.''

{}``But why do you like me?''

{}``Why! Why, because you're such a funny chap. You say such funny
things.''

It struck me like a slap in the face. I had thought to reach popularity
upon the ladder of heroic qualities. In all the school books I had
read, Leonard or Marmaduke (we had a Marmaduke in the Lower Fifth---they
called him Marmalade: in the school books these disasters are not
contemplated), won love and admiration by reason of integrity of character,
nobility of sentiment, goodness of heart, brilliance of intellect;
combined maybe with a certain amount of agility, instinct in the direction
of bowling, or aptitude for jumping; but such only by the way. Not
one of them had ever said a funny thing, either consciously or unconsciously.

{}``Don't be disagreeable, Kelver. Come with us and we will let you
into the team as an extra. I'll teach you batting.''

So I was to be their Fool---I, dreamer of knightly dreams, aspirant
to hero's fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I
had prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me---in this guise.
Were the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas had
found them?

Had my vanity been less I should have flung their gift back in their
faces. But my thirst for approbation was too intense. I had to choose:
Cut capers and be followed, or walk in dignity, ignored. I chose to
cut the capers. As time wore on I found myself striving to cut them
quicker, quainter, thinking out funny stories, preparing ingenuous
\textit{impromptus}, twisting all ideas into odd expression.

I had my reward. Before long my company was desired by all the school.
But I was never content. I would rather have been the Captain of their
football club, even his deputy Vice; would have given all my meed
of laughter for stuttering Jerry's one round of applause when in our
match against Highbury he knocked up his century, and so won the victory
for us by just three.

Till the end I never quite abandoned hope of exchanging my vine leaves
for the laurels. I would rise an hour earlier in the morning to practise
throwing at broomsticks set up in waste places. At another time, the
sport coming into temporary fashion, I wearied body and mind for weeks
in vain attempts to acquire skill on stilts. That even fat Tubby could
out-distance me upon them saddened my life for months.

A lad there was, a Sixth Form boy, one Wakeham by name, if I remember
rightly, who greatly envied me my gift of being able to amuse. He
was of the age when the other sex begins to be of importance to a
fellow, and the desire had come to him to be regarded as a star of
wit among the social circles of Gospel Oak. Need I say that by nature
he was a ponderously dull boy.

One afternoon I happened to be the centre of a small group in the
playground. I had been holding forth and they had been laughing. Whether
I had delivered myself of anything really entertaining or not I cannot
say. It made no difference; they had got into the habit of laughing
when I talked. Sometimes I would say quite serious things on purpose;
they would laugh just the same. Wakeham was among them, his eyes fixed
on me, watching me as boys watch a conjurer in the hope of finding
out {}``how he does it.'' Later in the afternoon he slipped his
arm through mine, and drew me away into an empty corner of the ground.

{}``I say, Kelver,'' he broke out, the moment we were beyond hearing,
{}``you really are funny!''

It gave me no pleasure. If he had told me that he admired my bowling
I might not have believed him, but should have loved him for it.

{}``So are you,'' I answered savagely, {}``only you don't know
it.''

{}``No, I'm not,'' he replied. {}``Wish I was. I say, Kelver''---he
glanced round to see that no one was within earshot---{}``do you
think you could teach me to be funny?''

I was about to reply with conviction in the negative when an idea
occurred to me. Wakeham was famous among us for one thing; he could,
inserting two fingers in his mouth, produce a whistle capable of confusing
dogs a quarter of a mile off, and of causing people near at hand to
jump from six to eighteen inches into the air.

This accomplishment of his I envied him as keenly as he envied me
mine. I did not admire it; I could not see the use of it. Generally
speaking, it called forth irritation rather than affection. A purple-faced
old gentleman, close to whose ear he once performed, promptly cuffed
his head for it; and for so doing was commended by the whole street
as a public benefactor. Drivers of vehicles would respond by flicking
at him, occasionally with success. Even youth, from whom sympathy
might have been expected, appeared impelled, if anything happened
to be at all handy, to take it up and throw it at him. My own social
circle would, I knew, regard it as a vulgar accomplishment, and even
Wakeham himself dared not perform it in the hearing of his own classmates.
That any human being should have desired to acquire it seems incomprehensible.
Yet for weeks in secret I had wrestled to produce the hideous sound.
Why? For three reasons, so far as I can analyse this youngster of
whom I am writing:

Firstly, here was a means of attracting attention; secondly, it was
something that somebody else could do and that he couldn't; thirdly,
it was a thing for which he evidently had no natural aptitude whatever,
and therefore a thing to acquire which his soul yearned the more.
Had a boy come across his path, clever at walking on his hands with
his heels in the air, Master Paul Kelver would in all probability
have broken his neck in attempts to copy and excel. I make no apologies
for the brat: I merely present him as a study for the amusement of
a world of wiser boys---and men.

I struck a bargain with young Wakeham; I undertook to teach him to
be funny in return for his teaching me this costermonger's whistle.

Each of us strove conscientiously to impart knowledge. Neither of
us succeeded. Wakeham tried hard to be funny; I tried hard to whistle.
He did all I told him; I followed his instructions implicitly. The
result was the feeblest of wit and the feeblest of whistles.

{}``Do you think anybody would laugh at that?''\ Wakeham would
pathetically enquire at the termination of his supremest effort. And
honestly I would have to confess I did not think any living being
would.

{}``How far off do you think any one could hear that?''\ I would
demand anxiously, on recovering sufficient breath to speak at all.

{}``Well, it would depend upon whether you knew it was coming,''
Wakeham would reply kindly, not wishing to discourage me.

We abandoned the scheme by mutual consent at about the end of a fortnight.

{}``I suppose it's something that you've got to have inside you,''
I suggested to Wakeham in consolation.

{}``I don't think the roof of your mouth can be quite the right shape
for it,'' concluded Wakeham.

My success as story-teller, commentator, critic, jester, revived my
childish ambition towards authorship. My first stirrings in this direction
I cannot rightly place. I remember when very small falling into a
sunk dust-bin---a deep hole, rather, into which the gardener shot
his rubbish. The fall twisted my ankle so that I could not move; and
the time being evening and my prison some distance from the house,
my predicament loomed large before me. Yet one consolation remained
with me: the incident would be of value to me in the autobiography
upon which I was then engaged. I can distinctly recollect lying on
my back among decaying leaves and broken glass, framing my account.
{}``On this day a strange adventure befell me. Walking in the garden,
all unheeding, I suddenly''---I did not want to add the truth---{}``tumbled
into a dust-hole, six feet square, that any one but a moon calf might
have seen.'' I puzzled to evolve a more dignified situation. The
dust-bin became a cavern, the entrance to which had been artfully
concealed; the six or seven feet I had really fallen, {}``an endless
descent, terminating in a vast and gloomy chamber.'' I was divided
between opposing desires: One, for rescue followed by sympathy and
supper; the other, for the alarming experience of a night of terror
where I lay. Nature conquering Art, I yelled; and the episode terminated
prosaically with a warm bath and arnica. But from it I judge that
desire for the woes and perils of authorship was with me somewhat
early.

Of my many other dreams I would speak freely, discussing them at length
with sympathetic souls, but concerning this one ambition I was curiously
reticent. Only to two---my mother and a grey-bearded Stranger---did
I ever breathe a word of it. Even from my father I kept it a secret,
close comrades in all else though we were. He would have talked of
it much and freely, dragged it into the light of day; and from this
I shrank.

My talk with the Stranger came about in this wise. One evening I had
taken a walk to Victoria Park---a favourite haunt of mine at summer
time. It was a fair and peaceful evening, and I fell a-wandering there
in pleasant reverie, until the waning light hinted to me the question
of time. I looked about me. Only one human being was in sight, a man
with his back towards me, seated upon a bench overlooking the ornamental
water.

I drew nearer. He took no notice of me, and interested---though why,
I could not say---I seated myself beside him at the other end of the
bench. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, with wonderfully
bright, clear eyes and iron-grey hair and beard. I might have thought
him a sea captain, of whom many were always to be met with in that
neighbourhood, but for his hands, which were crossed upon his stick,
and which were white and delicate as a woman's. He turned his face
and glanced at me. I fancied that his lips beneath the grey moustache
smiled; and instinctively I edged a little nearer to him.

{}``Please, sir,'' I said, after awhile, {}``could you tell me
the right time?''

{}``Twenty minutes to eight,'' he answered, looking at his watch.
And his voice drew me towards him even more than had his beautiful
strong face. I thanked him, and we fell back into silence.

{}``Where do you live?''\ he turned and suddenly asked me.

{}``Oh, only over there,'' I answered, with a wave of my arm towards
the chimney-fringed horizon behind us. {}``I needn't be in till half-past
eight. I like this Park so much,'' I added, {}``I often come and
sit here of an evening.'

{}``Why do you like to come and sit here?''\ he asked. {}``Tell
me.''

{}``Oh, I don't know,'' I answered. {}``I think.''

I marvelled at myself. With strangers generally I was shy and silent;
but the magic of his bright eyes seemed to have loosened my tongue.

I told him my name; that we lived in a street always full of ugly
sounds, so that a gentleman could not think, not even in the evening
time, when Thought goes a-visiting.

{}``Mamma does not like the twilight time,'' I confided to him.
{}``It always makes her cry. But then mamma is---not very young,
you know, and has had a deal of trouble; and that makes a difference,
I suppose.''

He laid his hand upon mine. We were sitting nearer to each other now.
{}``God made women weak to teach us men to be tender,'' he said.
{}``But you, Paul, like this 'twilight time'?''

{}``Yes,'' I answered, {}``very much. Don't you?''

{}``And why do you like it?''\ he asked.

{}``Oh,'' I answered, {}``things come to you.''

{}``What things?''

{}``Oh, fancies,'' I explained to him. {}``I am going to be an
author when I grow up, and write books.''

He took my hand in his and shook it gravely, and then returned it
to me. {}``I, too, am a writer of books,'' he said.

And then I knew what had drawn me to him.

So for the first time I understood the joy of talking {}``shop''
with a fellow craftsman. I told him my favourite authors---Scott,
and Dumas, and Victor Hugo; and to my delight found they were his
also; he agreeing with me that real stories were the best, stories
in which people did things.

{}``I used to read silly stuff once,'' I confessed, {}``Indian
tales and that sort of thing, you know. But mamma said I'd never be
able to write if I read that rubbish.''

{}``You will find it so all through life, Paul,'' he replied. {}``The
things that are nice are rarely good for us. And what do you read
now?''

{}``I am reading Marlowe's Plays and De Quincey's Confessions just
now,'' I confided to him.

{}``And do you understand them?''

{}``Fairly well,'' I answered. {}``Mamma says I'll like them better
as I go on. I want to learn to write very, very well indeed,'' I
admitted to him; {}``then I'll be able to earn heaps of money.''

He smiled. {}``So you don't believe in Art for Art's sake, Paul?''

I was puzzled. {}``What does that mean?''\ I asked.

{}``It means in our case, Paul,'' he answered, {}``writing books
for the pleasure of writing books, without thinking of any reward,
without desiring either money or fame.''

It was a new idea to me. {}``Do many authors do that?''\ I asked.

He laughed outright this time. It was a delightful laugh. It rang
through the quiet Park, awaking echoes; and caught by it, I laughed
with him.

{}``Hush!''\ he said; and he glanced round with a whimsical expression
of fear, lest we might have been overheard. {}``Between ourselves,
Paul,'' he continued, drawing me more closely towards him and whispering,
{}``I don't think any of us do. We talk about it. But I'll tell you
this, Paul; it is a trade secret and you must remember it: No man
ever made money or fame but by writing his very best. It may not be
as good as somebody else's best, but it is his best. Remember that,
Paul.''

I promised I would.

{}``And you must not think merely of the money and the fame, Paul,''
he added the next moment, speaking more seriously. {}``Money and
fame are very good things, and only hypocrites pretend to despise
them. But if you write books thinking only of money, you will be disappointed.
It is earned easier in other ways. Tell me, that is not your only
idea?''

I pondered. {}``Mamma says it is a very noble calling, authorship,''
I remembered, {}``and that any one ought to be very proud and glad
to be able to write books, because they give people happiness and
make them forget things; and that one ought to be very good if one
is going to be an author, so as to be worthy to help and teach others.''

{}``And do you try to be good, Paul?''\ he enquired.

{}``Yes,'' I answered; {}``but it's very hard to be quite good---until
of course you're grown up.''

He smiled, but more to himself than to me. {}``Yes,'' he said, {}``I
suppose it is difficult to be good until you are grown up. Perhaps
we shall all of us be good when we're quite grown up.'' Which, from
a gentleman with a grey beard, appeared to me a puzzling observation.

{}``And what else does mamma say about literature?''\ he asked.
{}``Can you remember?''

Again I pondered, and her words came back to me. {}``That he who
can write a great book is greater than a king; that the gift of being
able to write is given to anybody in trust; that an author should
never forget he is God's servant.''

He sat for awhile without speaking, his chin resting on his folded
hands supported by his gold-topped cane. Then he turned and laid a
hand upon my shoulder, and his clear, bright eyes were close to mine.

{}``Your mother is a wise lady, Paul,'' he said. {}``Remember her
words always. In later life let them come back to you; they will guide
you better than the chatter of the Clubs.''

{}``And what modern authors do you read?''\ he asked after a silence:
{}``any of them---Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Dickens?''

{}``I have read `The Last of the Barons,''' I told him; {}``I like
that. And I've been to Barnet and seen the church. And some of Mr.\ Dickens'.''

{}``And what do you think of Mr.\ Dickens?''\ he asked. But he
did not seem very interested in the subject. He had picked up a few
small stones, and was throwing them carefully into the water.

{}``I like him very much,'' I answered; {}``he makes you laugh.''

{}``Not always?''\ he asked. He stopped his stone-throwing, and
turned sharply towards me.

{}``Oh, no, not always,'' I admitted; {}``but I like the funny
bits best. I like so much where Mr.\ Pickwick---''

{}``Oh, damn Mr.\ Pickwick!''\ he said.

{}``Don't you like him?''\ I asked.

{}``Oh, yes, I like him well enough, or used to,'' he replied; {}``I'm
a bit tired of him, that's all. Does your mamma like Mr.---Mr.\ Dickens?''

{}``Not the funny parts,'' I explained to him. {}``She thinks he
is occasionally---''

{}``I know,'' he interrupted, rather irritably, I thought; {}``a
trifle vulgar.''

It surprised me that he should have guessed her exact words. {}``I
don't think mamma has much sense of humour,'' I explained to him.
{}``Sometimes she doesn't even see papa's jokes.''

At that he laughed again. {}``But she likes the other parts?''\ he
enquired, {}``the parts where Mr.\ Dickens isn't---vulgar?''

{}``Oh, yes,'' I answered. {}``She says he can be so beautiful
and tender, when he likes.''

Twilight was deepening. It occurred to me to enquire of him again
the time.

{}``Just over the quarter,'' he answered, looking at his watch.

{}``I'm so sorry,'' I said. {}``I must go now.''

{}``So am I sorry, Paul,'' he answered. {}``Perhaps we shall meet
again. Good-bye.'' Then as our hands touched: {}``You have never
asked me my name, Paul,'' he reminded me.

{}``Oh, haven't I?''\ I answered.

{}``No, Paul,'' he replied, {}``and that makes me think of your
future with hope. You are an egotist, Paul; and that is the beginning
of all art.''

And after that he would not tell me his name. {}``Perhaps next time
we meet,'' he said. {}``Good-bye, Paul. Good luck to you!''

So I went my way. Where the path winds out of sight I turned. He was
still seated upon the bench, but his face was towards me, and he waved
his hand to me. I answered with a wave of mine. And then the intervening
boughs and bushes gradually closed in around me. And across the rising
mist there rose the hoarse, harsh cry:

{}``All out! All out!''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER X.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER X}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{In}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{which}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{is}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{shipwrecked}}\noun{,}
\textit{\noun{and}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{cast}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{into}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{deep}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{waters}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
My father died, curiously enough, on the morning of his birthday.
We had not expected the end to arrive for some time, and at first
did not know that it had come.

{}``I have left him sleeping,'' said my mother, who had slipped
out very quietly in her dressing-gown. {}``Washburn gave him a draught
last night. We won't disturb him.''

So we sat round the breakfast table, speaking in low tones, for the
house was small and flimsy, all sound easily heard through its thin
partitions. Afterwards my mother crept upstairs, I following, and
cautiously opened the door a little way.

The blinds were still down, and the room dark. It seemed a long time
that my mother stood there listening, her ear against the jar. The
first costermonger---a girl's voice, it sounded---passed, crying shrilly:
{}``Watercreases, fine fresh watercreases with your breakfast-a'penny
a bundle watercreases;'' and further off a hoarse youth was wailing:
{}``Mee-ilk-mee-ilk-\textit{oi}.''

Inch by inch my mother opened the door wider and we stole in. He was
lying with his eyes still closed, the lips just slightly parted. I
had never seen death before, and could not realise it. All that I
could see was that he looked even younger than I had ever seen him
look before. By slow degrees only, it came home to me, the knowledge
that he was gone away from us. For days---for weeks, I would hear
his step behind me in the street, his voice calling to me, see his
face among the crowds, and hastening to meet him, stand bewildered
because it had mysteriously disappeared. But at first I felt no pain
whatever.

To my mother it was but a short parting. Into her placid faith had
never fallen fear nor doubt. He was waiting for her. In God's good
time they would meet again. What need of sorrow! Without him the days
passed slowly: the house must ever be a little dull when the good
man's away. But that was all. So my mother would speak of him always---of
his dear, kind ways, of his oddities and follies we loved so to recall,
not through tears, but smiles, thinking of him not as of one belonging
to the past, but as of one beckoning to her from the future.

We lived on still in the old house though ever planning to move, for
the great brick monster had crept closer round about us year by year,
devouring in his progress all things fair. Field and garden, tree
and cottage, time-mellowed house suggesting story, kind hedgerow hiding
hideousness beyond---the few spots yet in that doomed land lingering
to remind one of the sunshine, one by one had he scrunched them between
his ugly teeth. A world apart, this east end of London, this ghetto
of the poor for ever growing, dreariness added year by year to dreariness,
hopelessness stretching ever farther its long, shrivelled arms, these
endless rows of reeking cells where London herds her slaves. Often
of a misty afternoon when we knew that without this city of the dead
life was stirring in the sunshine, we would fare forth to house-hunt
in pleasant suburbs, now themselves added to the weary catacomb of
narrow streets---to Highgate, then a tiny town connected by a coach
with leafy Holloway; to Hampstead with its rows of ancient red-brick
houses, from whose wind-blown heath one saw beyond the woods and farms,
far London's domes and spires, to Wood Green among the pastures, where
smock-coated labourers discussed their politics and ale beneath wide-spreading
elms; to Hornsey, then a village consisting of an ivy-covered church
and one grass-bordered way. But though we often saw {}``the very
thing for us'' and would discuss its possibilities from every point
of view and find them good, we yet delayed.

{}``We must think it over,'' would say my mother; {}``there is
no hurry; for some reasons I shall be sorry to leave Poplar.''

{}``For what reasons, mother?''

{}``Oh, well, no particular reason, Paul. Only we have lived there
so long, you know. It will be a wrench leaving the old house.''

To the making of man go all things, even to the instincts of the clinging
vine. We fling our tendrils round what is the nearest castle-keep
or pig-stye wall, rain and sunshine fastening them but firmer. Dying
Sir Walter Scott---do you remember?---hastening home from Italy, fearful
lest he might not be in time to breathe again the damp mists of the
barren hills. An ancient dame I knew, they had carried her from her
attic in slumland that she might be fanned by the sea breezes, and
the poor old soul lay pining for what she called her {}``home.''
Wife, mother, widow, she had lived there till the alley's reek smelt
good to her nostrils, till its riot was the voices of her people.
Who shall understand us save He who fashioned us?

So the old house held us to its dismal bosom; and not until within
its homely but unlovely arms, first my aunt, and later on my mother
had died, and I had said good-bye to Amy, crying in the midst of littered
emptiness, did I leave it.

My aunt died as she had lived, grumbling.

{}``You will be glad to get rid of me, all of you!''\ she said,
dropping for the first and last time I can recollect into the retort
direct; {}``and I can't say I shall be very sorry to go myself. It
hasn't been my idea of life.''

Poor old lady! That was only a couple of weeks before the end. I do
not suppose she guessed it was so certain or perhaps she might have
been more sentimental.

{}``Don't be foolish,'' said my mother, {}``you're not going to
die!''

{}``What's the use of talking like an idiot,'' retorted my aunt,
{}``I've got to do it some time. Why not now, when everything's all
ready for it. It isn't as if I was enjoying myself.''

{}``I am sure we do all we can for you,'' said my mother. {}``I
know you do,'' replied my aunt. {}``I'm a burden to you. I always
have been.''

{}``Not a burden,'' corrected my mother.

{}``What does the woman call it then,'' snapped back my aunt. {}``Does
she reckon I've been a sunbeam in the house? I've been a trial to
everybody. That's what I was born for; it's my metier.''

My mother put her arms about the poor old soul and kissed her. {}``We
should miss you very much,'' she said.

{}``I'm sure I hope they all will!''\ answered my aunt. {}``It's
the only thing I've got to leave 'em, worth having.''

My mother laughed.

{}``Maybe it's been a good thing for you, Maggie,'' grumbled my
aunt; {}``if it wasn't for cantankerous, disagreeable people like
me, gentle, patient people like you wouldn't get any practice. Perhaps,
after all, I've been a blessing to you in disguise.''

I cannot honestly say we ever wished her back; though we certainly
did miss her---missed many a joke at her oddities, many a laugh at
her cornery ways. It takes all sorts, as the saying goes, to make
a world. Possibly enough if only we perfect folk were left in it we
would find it uncomfortably monotonous.

As for Amy, I believe she really regretted her.

{}``One never knows what's good for one till one's lost it,'' sighed
Amy.

{}``I'm glad to think you liked her,'' said my mother.

{}``You see, mum,'' explained Amy, {}``I was one of a large family;
and a bit of a row now and again cheers one up, I always think. I'll
be losing the power of my tongue if something doesn't come along soon.''

{}``Well, you are going to be married in a few weeks now,'' my mother
reminded her.

But Amy remained despondent. {}``They're poor things, the men, at
a few words, the best of them,'' she replied. {}``As likely as not
just when you're getting interested you turn round to find that they've
put on their hat and gone out.''

My mother and I were very much alone after my aunt's death. Barbara
had gone abroad to put the finishing touches to her education---to
learn the tricks of the Nobs' trade, as old Hasluck phrased it; and
I had left school and taken employment with Mr.\ Stillwood, without
salary, the idea being that I should study for the law.

{}``You are in luck's way, my boy, in luck's way,'' old Mr.\ Gadley
had assured me. {}``To have commenced your career in the office of
Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal will be a passport for you anywhere.
It will stamp you, my boy.''

Mr.\ Stillwood himself was an extremely old and feeble gentleman---so
old and feeble it seemed strange that he, a wealthy man, had not long
ago retired.

{}``I am always meaning to,'' he explained to me one day soon after
my advent in his office. {}``When your poor father came to me he
told me very frankly the sad fact---that he had only a few more years
to live. `Mr.\ Kelver,' I answered him, 'do not let that trouble
you, so far as I am concerned. There are one or two matters in the
office I should like to see cleared up, and in these you can help
me. When they are completed I shall retire! Yet, you see, I linger
on. I am like the old hackney coach horse, Mr.\ Weller---or is it
Mr.\ Jingle---tells us of; if the shafts were drawn away I should
probably collapse. So I jog on, I jog on.'''

He had married late in life a common woman much younger than himself,
who had brought to him a horde of needy and greedy relatives, and
no doubt, as a refuge from her noisy neighbourhood, the daily peace
of Lombard Street was welcome to him. We saw her occasionally. She
was one of those blustering, {}``managing'' women who go through
life under the impression that making a disturbance is somehow {}``putting
things to rights.'' Ridiculously ashamed of her origin, she sought
to hide it under what her friends assured her was the air of a duchess,
but which, as a matter of fact, resembled rather the Sunday manners
of an elderly barmaid. Mr.\ Gadley alone was not afraid of her; but,
on the contrary, kept her always very much in fear of him, often speaking
to her with refreshing candour. He had known her in the days it was
her desire should be buried in oblivion, and had always resented as
a personal insult her entry into the old established aristocratic
firm of Stillwood \& Co.

Her history was peculiar. Mr.\ Stillwood, when a blase man about
town, verging on forty, had first seen her, then a fair-haired, ethereal-looking
child, in spite of her dirt, playing in the gutter. To his lasting
self-reproach it was young Gadley himself, accompanying his employer
home from Westminster, who had drawn Mr.\ Stillwood's attention to
the girl by boxing her ears for having, as he passed, slapped his
face with a convenient sprat. Stillwood, acting on the impulse of
the moment, had taken the child by the hand and dragged her, unwilling,
to her father's place of business---a small coal shed in the Horseferry
Road. The arrangement he there made amounted practically to the purchase
of the child. She was sent abroad to school and the coal shed closed.
On her return, ten years later, a big, handsome young woman, he married
her, and learned at leisure the truth of the old saying, {}``what's
bred in the bone will come out in the flesh,'' scrub it and paint
it and hide it away under fine clothes as you will.

Her constant complaint against her husband was that he was only a
solicitor, a profession she considered vulgar; and nothing {}``riled''
old Gadley more than hearing her views upon this point.

{}``It's not fair to the gals,'' I once heard her say to him. I
was working in the next room, with the door not quite closed, added
to which she talked at the top of her voice on all subjects. {}``What
real gentleman, I should like to know, is going to marry the daughter
of a City attorney? As I told him years ago, he ought to have retired
and gone into the House.''

{}``The very thing your poor father used to talk of doing whenever
things were going a bit queer in the retail coal and potato business,''
grunted old Gadley.

Mrs.\ Stillwood called him a {}``low beast'' in her most aristocratic
tones, and swept out of the room.

Not that old Stillwood himself ever expressed fondness for the law.

{}``I am not at all sure, Kelver,'' I remember his saying to me
on one occasion, {}``that you have done wisely in choosing the law.
It makes one regard humanity morally as the medical profession regards
it physically:---as universally unsound. You suspect everybody of
being a rogue. When people are behaving themselves, we lawyers hear
nothing of them. All we hear of is roguery, trickery and hypocrisy.
It deteriorates the character, Kelver. We live in a perpetual atmosphere
of transgression. I sometimes fancy it may be infectious.''

{}``It does not seem to have infected you, sir,'' I replied; for,
as I think I have already mentioned, the firm of Stillwood, Waterhead
and Royal was held in legal circles as the synonym for rectitude of
dealing quite old-fashioned.

{}``I hope not, Kelver, I hope not,'' the old gentleman replied;
{}``and yet, do you know, I sometimes suspect myself---wonder if
I may not perhaps be a scamp without realising it. A rogue, you know,
Kelver, can always explain himself into an honest man to his own satisfaction.
A scamp is never a scamp to himself.''

His words for the moment alarmed me, for, acting on old Gadley's advice,
I had persuaded my mother to put all her small capital into Mr.\ Stillwood's
hands for re-investment, a transaction that had resulted in substantial
increase of our small income. But, looking into his smiling eyes,
my momentary fear vanished.

Laughing, he laid his hand upon my shoulder. {}``One person always
be suspicious of, Kelver---yourself. Nobody can do you so much harm
as yourself.''

Of Washburn we saw more and more. {}``Hal'' we both called him now,
for removing with his gentle, masterful hands my mother's shyness
from about her, he had established himself almost as one of the family,
my mother regarding him as she might some absurdly bearded boy entrusted
to her care without his knowing it, I looking up to him as to some
wonderful elder brother.

{}``You rest me, Mrs.\ Kelver,'' he would say, lighting his pipe
and sinking down into the deep leathern chair that always waited for
him in our parlour. {}``Your even voice, your soft eyes, your quiet
hands, they soothe me.''

{}``It is good for a man,'' he would say, looking from one to the
other of us through the hanging smoke, {}``to test his wisdom by
two things: the face of a good woman, and the ear of a child---I beg
your pardon, Paul---of a young man. A good woman's face is the white
sunlight. Under the gas-lamps who shall tell diamond from paste? Bring
it into the sunlight: does it stand that test? Then it is good. And
the children!\ they are the waiting earth on which we fling our store.
Is it chaff and dust or living seed? Wait and watch. I shower my thoughts
over our Paul, Mrs.\ Kelver. They seem to me brilliant, deep, original.
The young beggar swallows them, forgets them. They were rubbish. Then
I say something that dwells with him, that grows. Ah, that was alive,
that was a seed. The waiting earth, it can make use only of what is
true.''

{}``You should marry, Hal,'' my mother would say. It was her panacea
for all mankind.

{}``I would, Mrs.\ Kelver,'' he answered her on one occasion, {}``I
would to-morrow if I could marry half a dozen women. I should make
an ideal husband for half a dozen wives. One I should neglect for
five days, and be a burden to upon the sixth.''

From any other than Hal my mother would have taken such a remark,
made even in jest, as an insult to her sex. But Hal's smile was a
coating that could sugar any pill.

{}``I am not one man, Mrs.\ Kelver, I am half a dozen. If I were
to marry one wife she would be married to six husbands. It is too
many for any woman to manage.''

{}``Have you never fallen in love?''\ asked my mother.

{}``Three of me have, but on each occasion the other five of me out-voted
him.''

{}``You're sure six would be sufficient?''\ queried my mother,
smiling.

{}``Just the right number, Mrs.\ Kelver. There is one of me must
worship, adore a woman madly, abjectly; grovel before her like the
Troubadour before his Queen of Song, eat her slipper, drink the water
she has washed in, scourge himself before her window, die for a kiss
of her glove flung down with a laugh. She must be scornful, contemptuous,
cruel. There is another I would cherish, a tender, yielding creature,
one whose face would light at my coming, cloud at my going; one to
whom I should be a god. There is a third I, a child of Pan---an ugly
little beast, Mrs.\ Kelver; horns on head and hoofs on feet, leering
through the wood, seeking its fit mate. And a fourth would wed a wholesome,
homely wench, deep of bosom, broad of hip; fit mother of a sturdy
brood. A fifth could only be content with a true friend, a comrade
wise and witty, a sharer and understander of all joys and thoughts
and feelings. And a last, Mrs.\ Kelver, yearns for a woman pure and
sweet, clothed in love and crowned with holiness. Shouldn't we be
a handful, Mrs.\ Kelver, for any one woman in an eight-roomed house?''

But my mother was not to be discouraged. {}``You will find the woman
one day, Hal, who will be all of them to you---all of them that are
worth having, that is. And your eight-roomed house will be a kingdom!''

{}``A man is many, and a woman but one,'' answered Hal.

{}``That is what men say who are too blind to see more than one side
of a woman,'' retorted my mother, a little sharply; for the honour
and credit of her own sex in all things was very dear to my mother.
And indeed this I have learned, that the flag of Womanhood you shall
ever find upheld by all true women, flouted only by the false. For
a judge in petticoats is ever but a witness in a wig.

Hal laid aside his pipe and leant forward in his chair. {}``Now tell
us, Mrs.\ Kelver, for our guidance, we two young bachelors, what
must the lover of a young girl be?''

Always very serious on this subject of love, my mother answered gravely:
{}``She asks for the whole of a man, Hal, not merely for a sixth,
nor any other part of him. She is a child asking for a lover to whom
she can look up, who will teach her, guide her, protect her. She is
a queen demanding homage, and yet he is her king whom it is her joy
to serve. She asks to be his partner, his fellow-worker, his playmate,
and at the same time she loves to think of him as her child, her big
baby she must take care of. Whatever he has to give she has also to
respond with. You need not marry six wives, Hal; you will find your
six in one.

{}```As the water to the vessel, woman shapes herself to man;' an
old heathen said that three thousand years ago, and others have repeated
him; that is what you mean.''

{}``I don't like that way of putting it,'' answered my mother. {}``I
mean that as you say of man, so in every true woman is contained all
women. But to know her completely you must love her with all love.''

Sometimes the talk would be of religion, for my mother's faith was
no dead thing that must be kept ever sheltered from the air, lest
it crumble.

One evening {}``Who are we that we should live?''\ cried Hal. {}``The
spider is less cruel; the very pig less greedy, gluttonous and foul;
the tiger less tigerish; our cousin ape less monkeyish. What are we
but savages, clothed and ashamed, nine-tenths of us?''

{}``But Sodom and Gomorrah,'' reminded him my mother, {}``would
have been spared for the sake of ten just men.''

{}``Much more sensible to have hurried the ten men out, leaving the
remainder to be buried with all their abominations under their own
ashes,'' growled Hal.

{}``And we shall be purified,'' continued my mother, {}``the evil
in us washed away.''

{}``Why have made us ill merely to mend us? If the Almighty were
so anxious for our company, why not have made us decent in the beginning?''
He had just come away from a meeting of Poor Law Guardians, and was
in a state of dissatisfaction with human nature generally.

{}``It is His way,'' answered my mother. {}``The precious stone
lies hid in clay. He has His purpose.''

{}``Is the stone so very precious?''

{}``Would He have taken so much pains to fashion it if it were not?
You see it all around you, Hal, in your daily practice---heroism,
self-sacrifice, love stronger than death. Can you think He will waste
it, He who uses again even the dead leaf?''

{}``Shall the new leaf remember the new flower?''

{}``Yes, if it ever knew it. Shall memory be the only thing to die?''

Often of an evening I would accompany Hal upon his rounds. By the
savage tribe he both served and ruled he had come to be regarded as
medicine man and priest combined. He was both their tyrant and their
slave, working for them early and late, yet bullying them unmercifully,
enforcing his commands sometimes with vehement tongue, and where that
would not suffice with quick fists; the counsellor, helper, ruler,
literally of thousands. Of income he could have made barely enough
to live upon; but few men could have enjoyed more sense of power;
and that I think it was that held him to the neighbourhood.

{}``Nature laid me by and forgot me for a couple of thousand years,''
was his own explanation of himself. {}``Born in my proper period,
I should have climbed to chieftainship upon uplifted shields. I might
have been an Attila, an Alaric. Among the civilised one can only climb
by crawling, and I am too impatient to crawl. Here I am king at once
by force of brain and muscle.'' So in Poplar he remained, poor in
fees but rich in honour.

The love of justice was a passion with him. The oppressors of the
poor knew and feared him well. Injustice once proved before him, vengeance
followed sure. If the law would not help, he never hesitated to employ
lawlessness, of which he could always command a satisfactory supply.
Bumble might have the Board of Guardians at his back, Shylock legal
support for his pound of flesh; but sooner or later the dark night
brought punishment, a ducking in dock basin or canal, {}``Brutal
Assault Upon a Respected Resident'' (according to the local papers),
the {}``miscreants'' always making and keeping good their escape,
for he was an admirable organiser.

One night it seemed to him necessary that a child should go at once
into the Infirmary.

{}``It ain't no use my taking her now,'' explained the mother, {}``I'll
only get bullyragged for disturbing 'em. My old man was carried there
three months ago when he broke his leg, but they wouldn't take him
in till the morning.''

{}``Oho!\ oho!\ oho!''\ sang Hal, taking the child up in his
arms and putting on his hat. {}``You follow me; we'll have some sport.
Tally ho!\ tally ho!'' And away we went, Hal heading our procession
through the streets, shouting a rollicking song, the baby staring
at him openmouthed.

{}``Now ring,'' cried Hal to the mother on our reaching the Workhouse
gate. {}``Ring modestly, as becomes the poor ringing at the gate
of Charity.'' And the bell tinkled faintly.

{}``Ring again!''\ cried Hal, drawing back into the shadow; and
at last the wicket opened.

{}``Oh, if you please, sir, my baby---''

{}``Blast your baby!''\ answered a husky voice, {}``what d'ye
mean by coming here this time of night?''

{}``Please, sir, I'm afraid it's dying, and the Doctor---''

The man was no sentimentalist, and to do him justice made no hypocritical
pretence of being one. He consigned the baby and its mother and the
doctor to Hell, and the wicket would have closed but for the point
of Hal's stick.

{}``Open the gate!''\ roared Hal. It was idle pretending not to
hear Hal anywhere within half a mile of him when he filled his lungs
for a cry. {}``Open it quick, you blackguard! You gross vat-load
of potato spirit, you---''

That the Governor should speak a language familiar to the governed
was held by the Romans, born rulers of men, essential to authority.
This theory Hal also maintained. His command of idiom understanded
by his people was one of his rods of power. In less time than it took
the trembling porter to loosen the bolts, Hal had presented him with
a word picture of himself, as seen by others, that must have lessened
his self-esteem.

{}``I didn't know as it was you, Doctor,'' explained the man.

{}``No, you thought you had only to deal with some helpless creature
you could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry.''

The House Surgeon was away, but an attendant or two were lounging
about, unfortunately for themselves, for Hal, being there, took it
upon himself to go round the ward setting crooked things straight;
and a busy and alarming time they had of it. Not till a couple of
hours later did he fling himself forth again, having enjoyed himself
greatly.

A gentleman came to reside in the district, a firm believer in the
wisdom of the couplet: {}``A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree,
The more you beat them the better they be.'' The spaniel and the
walnut tree he did not possess, so his wife had the benefit of his
undivided energies. Whether his treatment had improved her morally,
one cannot say; her evident desire to do her best may have been natural
or may have been assisted; but physically it was injuring her. He
used to beat her about the head with his strap, his argument being
that she always seemed half asleep, and that this, for the time being,
woke her up. Sympathisers brought complaint to Hal, for the police
in that neighbourhood are to keep the streets respectable. With the
life in the little cells that line them they are no more concerned
than are the scavengers of the sewers with the domestic arrangements
of the rats.

{}``What's he like?''\ asked Hal.

{}``He's a big 'un,'' answered the woman who had come with the tale,
{}``and he's good with his fists---I've seen him. But there's no
getting at him. He's the sort to have the law on you if you interfere
with him, and she's the sort to help him.''

{}``Any likely time to catch him at it?''\ asked Hal.

{}``Saturdays it's as regular as early closing,'' answered the woman,
{}``but you might have to wait a bit.''

{}``I'll wait in your room, granny, next Saturday,'' suggested Hal.

{}``All right,'' agreed the woman, {}``I'll risk it, even if I
do get a bloody head for it.''

So that week end we sat very still on two rickety chairs listening
to a long succession of sharp, cracking sounds that, had one not known,
one might have imagined produced by some child monotonously exploding
percussion caps, each one followed by an answering groan. Hal never
moved, but sat smoking his pipe, an ugly smile about his mouth. Only
once he opened his lips, and then it was to murmur to himself: {}``And
God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply.''

The horror ceased at last, and later we heard the door unlock and
a man's foot upon the landing above. Hal beckoned to me, and swiftly
we slipped out and down the creaking stairs. He opened the front door,
and we waited in the evil-smelling little passage. The man came towards
us whistling. He was a powerfully built fellow, rather good-looking,
I remember. He stopped abruptly upon catching sight of Hal, who stood
crouching in the shadow of the door.

{}``What are you doing here?''\ he demanded.

{}``Waiting to pull your nose!''\ answered Hal, suiting the action
to the word. And then laughing he ran down the street, I following.

The man gave chase, calling to us with a string of imprecations to
stop. But Hal only ran the faster, though after a street or two he
slackened, and the man gained on us a little.

So we continued, the distance between us and our pursuer now a little
more, now a little less. People turned and stared at us. A few boys,
scenting grim fun, followed shouting for awhile; but these we soon
out-paced, till at last in deserted streets, winding among warehouses
bordering the river, we three ran alone, between long, lifeless walls.
I looked into Hal's face from time to time, and he was laughing; but
every now and then he would look over his shoulder at the man behind
him still following doggedly, and then his face would be twisted into
a comically terrified grimace. Turning into a narrow \textit{cul}-\textit{de}-\textit{sac},
Hal suddenly ducked behind a wide brick buttress, and the man, still
running, passed us. And then Hal stood up and called to him, and the
man turned, looked into Hal's eyes, and understood.

He was not a coward. Besides, even a rat when cornered will fight
for its life. He made a rush at Hal, and Hal made no attempt to defend
himself. He stood there laughing, and the man struck him full in the
face, and the blood spurted out and flowed down into his mouth. The
man came on again, though terror was in every line of his face, all
his desire being to escape. But this time Hal drove him back again.
They fought for awhile, if one can call it fighting, till the man,
mad for air, reeled against the wall, stood there quivering convulsively,
his mouth wide open, resembling more than anything else some huge
dying fish. And Hal drew away and waited.

I have no desire to see again the sight I saw that quiet, still evening,
framed by those high, windowless walls, from behind which sounded
with ceaseless regularity the gentle swish of the incoming tide. All
sense of retribution was drowned in the sight of Hal's evident enjoyment
of his sport. The judge had disappeared, leaving the work to be accomplished
by a savage animal loosened for the purpose.

The wretched creature flung itself again towards its only door of
escape, fought with the vehemence of despair, to be flung back again,
a hideous, bleeding mass of broken flesh. I tried to cling to Hal's
arm, but one jerk of his steel muscles flung me ten feet away.

{}``Keep off, you fool!''\ he cried. {}``I won't kill him. I'm
keeping my head. I shall know when to stop.'' And I crept away and
waited.

Hal joined me a little later, wiping the blood from his face. We made
our way to a small public-house near the river, and from there Hal
sent a couple of men on whom he could rely with instructions how to
act. I never heard any more of the matter. It was a subject on which
I did not care to speak to Hal. I can only hope that good came of
it.

There was a spot---it has been cleared away since to make room for
the approach to Greenwich Tunnel---it was then the entrance to a grain
depot in connection with the Milwall Docks. A curious brick well it
resembled, in the centre of which a roadway wound downward, corkscrew
fashion, disappearing at the bottom into darkness under a yawning
arch. The place possessed the curious property of being ever filled
with a ceaseless murmur, as though it were some aerial maelstrom,
drawing into its silent vacuum all wandering waves of sound from the
restless human ocean flowing round it. No single tone could one ever
distinguish: it was a mingling of all voices, heard there like the
murmur of a sea-soaked shell.

We passed through it on our return. Its work for the day was finished,
its strange, weary song uninterrupted by the mighty waggons thundering
up and down its spiral way. Hal paused, leaning against the railings
that encircled its centre, and listened.

{}``Hark, do you not hear it, Paul?''\ he asked. {}``It is the
music of Humanity. All human notes are needful to its making: the
faint wail of the new-born, the cry of the dying thief; the beating
of the hammers, the merry trip of dancers; the clatter of the teacups,
the roaring of the streets; the crooning of the mother to her babe,
the scream of the tortured child; the meeting kiss of lovers, the
sob of those that part. Listen!\ prayers and curses, sighs and laughter;
the soft breathing of the sleeping, the fretful feet of pain; voices
of pity, voices of hate; the glad song of the strong, the foolish
complaining of the weak. Listen to it, Paul! Right and wrong, good
and evil, hope and despair, it is but one voice---a single note, drawn
by the sweep of the Player's hand across the quivering strings of
man. What is the meaning of it, Paul? Can you read it? Sometimes it
seems to me a note of joy, so full, so endless, so complete, that
I cry: 'Blessed be the Lord whose hammers have beaten upon us, whose
fires have shaped us to His ends!' And sometimes it sounds to me a
dying note, so that I could curse Him who in wantonness has wrung
it from the anguish of His creatures---till I would that I could fling
myself, Prometheus like, between Him and His victims, calling: {}``My
darkness, but their light; my agony, O God; their hope!'''

The faint light from a neighbouring gas-lamp fell upon his face that
an hour before I had seen the face of a wild beast. The ugly mouth
was quivering, tears stood in his great, tender eyes. Could his prayer
in that moment have been granted, could he have pressed against his
bosom all the pain of the world, he would have rejoiced.

He shook himself together with a laugh. {}``Come, Paul, we have had
a busy afternoon, and I'm thirsty. Let us drink some beer, my boy,
good sound beer, and plenty of it.''

My mother fell ill that winter. Mountain born and mountain bred, the
close streets had never agreed with her, and scolded by all of us,
she promised, {}``come the fine weather,'' to put sentiment behind
her, and go away from them.

{}``I'm thinking she will,'' said Hal, gripping my shoulder with
his strong hand, {}``but it'll be by herself that she'll go, lad.
My wonder is,'' he continued, {}``that she has held out so long.
If anything, it is you that have kept her alive. Now that you are
off her mind to a certain extent, she is worrying about your father,
I expect. These women, they never will believe a man can take care
of himself, even in Heaven. She's never quite trusted the Lord with
him, and never will till she's there to give an eye to things herself.''

Hal's prophecy fell true. She left {}``come the fine weather,''
as she had promised: I remember it was the first day primroses were
hawked in the street. But another death had occurred just before;
which, concerning me closely as it does, I had better here dispose
of; and that was the death of old Mr.\ Stillwood, who passed away
rich in honour and regret, and was buried with much ostentation and
much sincere sorrow; for he had been to many of his clients, mostly
old folk, rather a friend than a mere man of business, and had gained
from all with whom he had come in contact, respect, and from many
real affection.

In conformity with the old legal fashions that in his life he had
so fondly clung to, his will was read aloud by Mr.\ Gadley after
the return from the funeral, and many were the tears its recital called
forth. Written years ago by himself and never altered, its quaint
phraseology was full of kindly thought and expression. No one had
been forgotten. Clerks, servants, poor relations, all had been treated
with even-handed justice, while for those with claim upon him, ample
provision had been made. Few wills, I think, could ever have been
read less open to criticism.

Old Gadley slipped his arm into mine as we left the house. {}``If
you've nothing to do, young 'un,'' he said, {}``I'll get you to
come with me to the office. I have got all the keys in my pocket,
and we shall be quiet. It will be sad work for me, and I had rather
we were alone. A couple of hours will show us everything.''

We lighted the wax candles---old Stillwood could never tolerate gas
in his own room---and opening the safe took out the heavy ledgers
one by one, and from them Gadley dictated figures which I wrote down
and added up.

{}``Thirty years I have kept these books for him,'' said old Gadley,
as we laid by the last of them, {}``thirty years come Christmas next,
he and I together. No other hands but ours have ever touched them,
and now people to whom they mean nothing but so much business will
fling them about, drop greasy crumbs upon them---I know their ways,
the brutes!---scribble all over them. And he who always would have
everything so neat and orderly!''

We came to the end of them in less than the time old Gadley had thought
needful: in such perfect order had everything been maintained. I was
preparing to go, but old Gadley had drawn a couple of small keys from
his pocket, and was shuffling again towards the safe.

{}``Only one more,'' he explained in answer to my look, {}``his
own private ledger. It will merely be in the nature of a summary,
but we'll just glance through it.''

He opened an inner drawer and took from it a small thick volume bound
in green leather and closed with two brass locks. An ancient volume,
it appeared, its strong binding faded and stained. Old Gadley sat
down with it at the dead man's own desk, and snuffing the two shaded
candles, unlocked and opened it. I was standing opposite, so that
the book to me was upside down, but the date on the first page, {}``1841,''
caught my eye, as also the small neat writing now brown with age.

{}``So neat, so orderly he always was,'' murmured old Gadley again,
smoothing the page affectionately with his hand, and I waited for
his dictation.

But no glib flow of figures fell from him. His eyebrows suddenly contracted,
his body stiffened itself. Then for the next quarter of an hour nothing
sounded in the quiet room but his turning of the creakling pages.
Once or twice he glanced round swiftly over his shoulder, as though
haunted by the idea of some one behind him; then back to the neat,
closely written folios, his little eyes, now exhibiting a comical
look of horror, starting out of his round red face. First slowly,
then quickly with trembling hands he turned the pages, till the continual
ratling of the leaves sounded like strange, mocking laughter through
the silent, empty room; almost one could imagine it coming from some
watching creature hidden in the shadows.

The end reached, he sat staring before him, his whole body quivering,
great beads of sweat upon his shiny bald head.

{}``Am I mad?''\ was all he could find to say. {}``Kelver, am
I mad?''

He handed me the book. It was a cynically truthful record of fraud,
extending over thirty years. Every client, every friend, every relative
that had fallen into his net he had robbed: the fortunate ones of
a part, the majority of their all. Its very first entry debited him
with the proceeds of his own partner's estate. Its last ran ---{}``Re
Kelver---various sales of stock.'' To his credit were his payments
year after year of imaginary interests on imaginary securities, the
surplus accounted for with simple brevity: {}``Transferred to own
account.'' No record could have been more clear, more frank. Beneath
each transaction was written its true history; the actual investments,
sometimes necessary, carefully distinguished from the false. In neat
red ink would occur here and there a note for his own guidance: {}``Eldest
child comes of age August, '73. Be prepared for trustees desiring
production.'' Turning to {}``August, '73,'' one found that genuine
investment had been made, to be sold again a few months later on.
From beginning to end not a single false step had he committed. Suspicious
clients had been ear-marked: the trusting discriminated with gratitude,
and milked again and again to meet emergency.

As a piece of organisation it was magnificent. No one but a financial
genius could have picked a dozen steps through such a network of chicanery.
For half a lifetime he had moved among it, dignified, respected and
secure.

Whether even he could have maintained his position for another month
was doubtful. Suicide, though hinted at, was proved to have been impossible.
It seemed as though with his amazing audacity he had tricked even
Death into becoming his accomplice.

{}``But it is impossible, Kelver!''\ cried Gadley, {}``this must
be some dream. Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal! What is the meaning
of it?''

He took the book into his hands again, then burst into tears. {}``You
never knew him,'' wailed the poor little man. {}``Stillwood, Waterhead
and Royal! I came here as office boy fifty years ago. He was more
like a friend to me than---'' and again the sobs shook his little
fat body.

I locked the books away and put him into his hat and coat. But I had
much difficulty in getting him out of the office.

{}``I daren't, young 'un,'' he cried, drawing back. {}``Fifty years
I have walked out of this office, proud of it, proud of being connected
with it. I daren't face the street!''

All the way home his only idea was: Could it not be hidden? Honest,
kindly little man that he was, he seemed to have no thought for the
unfortunate victims. The good name of his master, of his friend, gone!
Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal, a by-word! To have avoided that I
believe he would have been willing for yet another hundred clients
to be ruined.

I saw him to his door, then turned homeward; and to my surprise in
a dark by-street heard myself laughing heartily. I checked myself
instantly, feeling ashamed of my callousness, of my seeming indifference
to the trouble even of myself and my mother. Yet as there passed before
me the remembrance of that imposing and expensive funeral with its
mournful following of tearful faces; the hushed reading of the will
with its accompaniment of rustling approval; the picture of the admirably
sympathetic clergyman consoling with white hands Mrs.\ Stillwood,
inclined to hysteria, but anxious concerning her two hundred pounds'
worth of crape which by no possibility of means could now be paid
for---recurred to me the obituary notice in {}``The Chelsea Weekly
Chronicle'': the humour of the thing swept all else before it, and
I laughed again---I could not help it---loud and long. It was my first
introduction to the comedy of life, which is apt to be more brutal
than the comedy of fiction.

But nearing home, the serious side of the matter forced itself uppermost.
Fortunately, our supposed dividends had been paid to us by Mr.\ Stillwood
only the month before. Could I keep the thing from troubling my mother's
last days? It would be hard work. I should have to do it alone, for
a perhaps foolish pride prevented my taking Hal into my confidence,
even made his friendship a dread to me, lest he should come to learn
and offer help. There is a higher generosity, it is said, that can
receive with pleasure as well as bestow favour; but I have never felt
it. Could I be sure of acting my part, of not betraying myself to
her sharp eyes, of keeping newspapers and chance gossip away from
her? Good shrewd Amy I cautioned, but I shrank from even speaking
on the subject to Hal, and my fear was lest he should blunder into
the subject, which for the usual nine days occupied much public attention.
But fortunately he appeared not even to have heard of the scandal.

Possibly had the need lasted longer I might have failed, but as it
was, a few weeks saw the end.

{}``Don't leave me to-day, Paul,'' whispered my mother to me one
morning. So I stayed, and in the evening my mother put her arms around
my neck and I lay beside her, my head upon her breast, as I used to
when a little boy. And when the morning came I was alone.


\part*{BOOK II.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{part}{BOOK II}


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER I}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER I}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER I}

\begin{quote}
\emph{\noun{Describes the desert island to which Paul was drifted.}}
\end{quote}
{}``Room to let for a single gentleman.'' Sometimes in an idle hour,
impelled by foolishness, I will knock at the door. It is opened after
a longer or shorter interval by the {}``slavey''---in the morning,
slatternly, her arms concealed beneath her apron; in the afternoon,
smart in dirty cap and apron. How well I know her! Unchanged, not
grown an inch---her round bewildered eyes, her open mouth, her touzled
hair, her scored red hands. With an effort I refrain from muttering:
{}``So sorry, forgot my key,'' from pushing past her and mounting
two at a time the narrow stairs, carpeted to the first floor, but
bare beyond. Instead, I say, {}``Oh, what rooms have you to let?''\ when,
scuttling to the top of the kitchen stairs, she will call over the
banisters: {}``A gentleman to see the rooms.'' There comes up, panting,
a harassed-looking, elderly female, but genteel in black. She crushes
past the little {}``slavey,'' and approaching, eyes me critically.

{}``I have a very nice room on the first floor,'' she informs me,
{}``and one behind on the third.''

I agree to see them, explaining that I am seeking them for a young
friend of mine. We squeeze past the hat and umbrella stand: there
is just room, but one must keep close to the wall. The first floor
is rather an imposing apartment, with a marble-topped sideboard measuring
quite three feet by two, the doors of which will remain closed if
you introduce a wad of paper between them. A green table-cloth, matching
the curtains, covers the loo-table. The lamp is perfectly safe so
long as it stands in the exact centre of the table, but should not
be shifted. A paper fire-stove ornament in some mysterious way bestows
upon the room an air of chastity. Above the mantelpiece is a fly-blown
mirror, between the once gilt frame and glass of which can be inserted
invitation cards; indeed, one or two so remain, proving that the tenants
even of {}``bed-sitting-rooms'' are not excluded from social delights.
The wall opposite is adorned by an oleograph of the kind Cheap Jacks
sell by auction on Saturday nights in the Pimlico Road, and warrant
as {}``hand-made.'' Generally speaking, it is a Swiss landscape.
There appears to be more {}``body'' in a Swiss landscape than in
scenes from less favoured localities. A dilapidated mill, a foaming
torrent, a mountain, a maiden and a cow can at the least be relied
upon. An easy chair (I disclaim all responsibility for the adjective),
stuffed with many coils of steel wire, each possessing a {}``business
end'' in admirable working order, and covered with horsehair, highly
glazed, awaits the uninitiated. There is one way of sitting upon it,
and only one: by using the extreme edge, and planting your feet firmly
on the floor. If you attempt to lean back in it you inevitably slide
out of it. When so treated it seems to say to you: {}``Excuse me,
you are very heavy, and you would really be much more comfortable
upon the floor. Thank you so much.'' The bed is behind the door,
and the washstand behind the bed. If you sit facing the window you
can forget the bed. On the other hand, if more than one friend come
to call on you, you are glad of it. As a matter of fact, experienced
visitors prefer it---make straight for it, refusing with firmness
to exchange it for the easy chair.

{}``And this room is?''

{}``Eight shillings a week, sir---with attendance, of course.''

{}``Any extras?''

{}``The lamp, sir, is eighteenpence a week; and the kitchen fire,
if the gentleman wishes to dine at home, two shillings.''

{}``And fire?''

{}``Sixpence a scuttle, sir, I charge for coals.''

{}``It's rather a small scuttle.''

The landlady bridles a little. {}``The usual size, I think, sir.''
One presumes there is a special size in coal-scuttles made exclusively
for lodging-house keepers.

I agree that while I am about it I may as well see the other room,
the third floor back. The landlady opens the door for me, but remains
herself on the landing. She is a stout lady, and does not wish to
dwarf the apartment by comparison. The arrangement here does not allow
of your ignoring the bed. It is the life and soul of the room, and
it declines to efface itself. Its only possible rival is the washstand,
straw-coloured; with staring white basin and jug, together with other
appurtenances. It glares defiantly from its corner. {}``I know I'm
small,'' it seems to say; {}``but I'm very useful; and I won't be
ignored.'' The remaining furniture consists of a couple of chairs---there
is no hypocrisy about them: they are not easy and they do not pretend
to be easy; a small chest of light-painted drawers before the window,
with white china handles, upon which is a tiny looking-glass; and,
occupying the entire remaining space, after allowing three square
feet for the tenant, when he arrives, an attenuated four-legged table
apparently home-made. The only ornament in the room is, suspended
above the fireplace, a funeral card, framed in beer corks. As the
corpse introduced by the ancient Egyptians into their banquets, it
is hung there perhaps to remind the occupant of the apartment that
the luxuries and allurements of life have their end; or maybe it consoles
him in despondent moments with the reflection that after all he might
be worse off.

The rent of this room is three-and-sixpence a week, also including
attendance; lamp, as for the first floor, eighteen-pence; but kitchen
fire a shilling.

{}``But why should kitchen fire for the first floor be two shillings,
and for this only one?''

{}``Well, as a rule, sir, the first floor wants more cooking done.''

You are quite right, my dear lady, I was forgetting. The gentleman
in the third floor back!\ cooking for him is not a great tax upon
the kitchen fire. His breakfast, it is what, madam, we call plain,
I think. His lunch he takes out. You may see him, walking round the
quiet square, up and down the narrow street that, leading to nowhere
in particular, is between twelve and two somewhat deserted. He carries
a paper bag, into which at intervals, when he is sure nobody is looking,
his mouth disappears. From studying the neighbourhood one can guess
what it contains. Saveloys hereabouts are plentiful and only twopence
each. There are pie shops, where meat pies are twopence and fruit
pies a penny. The lady behind the counter, using deftly a broad, flat
knife, lifts the little dainty with one twist clean from its tiny
dish: it is marvellous, having regard to the thinness of the pastry,
that she never breaks one. Roley-poley pudding, sweet and wonderfully
satisfying, more especially when cold, is but a penny a slice. Peas
pudding, though this is an awkward thing to eat out of a bag, is comforting
upon cold days. Then with his tea he takes two eggs or a haddock,
the fourpenny size; maybe on rare occasions, a chop or steak; and
you fry it for him, madam, though every time he urges on you how much
he would prefer it grilled, for fried in your one frying-pan its flavour
becomes somewhat confused. But maybe this is the better for him, for,
shutting his eyes and trusting only to smell and flavour, he can imagine
himself enjoying variety. He can begin with herrings, pass on to liver
and bacon, opening his eyes again for a moment perceive that he has
now arrived at the joint, and closing them again, wind up with distinct
suggestion of toasted cheese, thus avoiding monotony. For dinner he
goes out again. Maybe he is not hungry, late meals are a mistake;
or, maybe, putting his hand into his pocket and making calculations
beneath a lamp-post, appetite may come to him. Then there are places
cheerful with the sound of frizzling fat, where fried plaice brown
and odorous may be had for three halfpence, and a handful of sliced
potatoes for a penny; where for fourpence succulent stewed eels may
be discussed; vinegar ad lib.; or for sevenpence---but these are red-letter
evenings---half a sheep's head may be indulged in, which is a supper
fit for any king, who happened to be hungry.

I explain that I will discuss the matter with my young friend when
he arrives. The landlady says, {}``Certainly, sir:'' she is used
to what she calls the {}``wandering Christian;'' and easing my conscience
by slipping a shilling into the {}``slavey's'' astonished, lukewarm
hand, I pass out again into the long, dreary street, now echoing maybe
to the sad cry of {}``Muffins!''

Or sometimes of an evening, the lamp lighted, the remnants of the
meat tea cleared away, the flickering firelight cosifying the dingy
rooms, I go a-visiting. There is no need for me to ring the bell,
to mount the stairs. Through the thin transparent walls I can see
you plainly, old friends of mine, fashions a little changed, that
is all. We wore bell-shaped trousers; eight-and-six to measure, seven-and-six
if from stock; fastened our neckties in dashing style with a horseshoe
pin. I think in the matter of waistcoats we had the advantage of you;
ours were gayer, braver. Our cuffs and collars were of paper: sixpence-halfpenny
the dozen, three-halfpence the pair. On Sunday they were white and
glistening; on Monday less aggressively obvious; on Tuesday morning
decidedly dappled. But on Tuesday evening, when with natty cane, or
umbrella neatly rolled in patent leather case, we took our promenade
down Oxford Street---fashionable hour nine to ten p.m.---we could
shoot our arms and cock our chins with the best. Your india-rubber
linen has its advantages. Storm does not wither it; it braves better
the heat and turmoil of the day. The passing of a sponge!\ and your
{}``Dicky'' is itself again. We had to use bread-crumbs, and so
sacrifice the glaze. Yet I cannot help thinking that for the first
few hours, at all events, our paper was more dazzling.

For the rest I see no change in you, old friends. I wave you greeting
from the misty street. God rest you, gallant gentlemen, lonely and
friendless and despised; making the best of joyless lives; keeping
yourselves genteel on twelve, fifteen, or eighteen (ah, but you are
plutocrats!) shillings a week; saving something even of that, maybe,
to help the old mother in the country, so proud of her {}``gentleman''
son who has book learning and who is {}``something in the City.''
May nothing you dismay. Bullied, and badgered, and baited from nine
to six though you may be, from then till bedtime you are rorty young
dogs. The half-guinea topper, {}``as worn by the Prince of Wales''
(ah, how many a meal has it not cost!), warmed before the fire, brushed
and polished and coaxed, shines resplendent. The second pair of trousers
are drawn from beneath the bed; in the gaslight, with well-marked
crease from top to toe, they will pass for new. A pleasant evening
to you! May your cheap necktie make all the impression your soul can
desire! May your penny cigar be mistaken for Havana! May the barmaid
charm your simple heart by addressing you as {}``Baby!'' May some
sweet shop-girl throw a kindly glance at you, inviting you to walk
with her! May she snigger at your humour; may other dogs cast envious
looks at you, and may no harm come of it!

You dreamers of dreams, you who while your companions play and sleep
will toil upward in the night! You have read Mr.\ Smiles' {}``Self-Help,''
Longfellow's {}``Psalm of Life,'' and so strengthened attack with
confidence {}``French Without a Master,'' {}``Bookkeeping in Six
Lessons.'' With a sigh to yourselves you turn aside from the alluring
streets, from the bright, bewitching eyes, into the stuffy air of
Birkbeck Institutions, Polytechnic Schools. May success compensate
you for your youth devoid of pleasure! May the partner's chair you
seen in visions be yours before the end! May you live one day in Clapham
in a twelve-roomed house!

And, after all, we have our moments, have we not? The Saturday night
at the play. The hours of waiting, they are short. We converse with
kindred souls of the British Drama, its past and future: we have our
views. We dream of Florence This, Kate That; in a little while we
shall see her. Ah, could she but know how we loved her! Her photo
is on our mantelpiece, transforming the dismal little room into a
shrine. The poem we have so often commenced!\ when it is finished
we will post it to her. At least she will acknowledge its receipt;
we can kiss the paper her hand has rested on. The great doors groan,
then quiver. Ah, the wild thrill of that moment! Now push for all
you are worth: charge, wriggle, squirm! It is an epitome of life.
We are through---collarless, panting, pummelled from top to toe: but
what of that? Upward, still upward; then downward with leaps at risk
of our neck, from bench to bench through the gloom. We have gained
the front row! Would we exchange sensations with the stallite, strolling
languidly to his seat? The extravagant dinner once a week! We banquet
\textit{a la Francais}, in Soho, for one-and-six, including wine.
Does Tortoni ever give his customers a repast they enjoy more? I trow
not.

My first lodging was an attic in a square the other side of Blackfriars
Bridge. The rent of the room, if I remember rightly, was three shillings
a week with cooking, half-a-crown without. I purchased a methylated
spirit stove with kettle and frying-pan, and took it without.

Old Hasluck would have helped me willingly, and there were others
to whom I might have appealed, but a boy's pride held me back. I would
make my way alone, win my place in the world by myself. To Hal, knowing
he would sympathise with me, I confided the truth.

{}``Had your mother lived,'' he told me, {}``I should have had
something to say on the subject. Of course, I knew what had happened,
but as it is---well, you need not be afraid, I shall not offer you
help; indeed, I should refuse it were you to ask. Put your Carlyle
in your pocket: he is not all voices, but he is the best maker of
men I know. The great thing to learn of life is not to be afraid of
it.''

{}``Look me up now and then,'' he added, {}``and we'll talk about
the stars, the future of Socialism, and the Woman Question---anything
you like except about yourself and your twopenny-half-penny affairs.''

From another it would have sounded brutal, but I understood him. And
so we shook hands and parted for longer than either of us at the time
expected. The Franco-German War broke out a few weeks later on, and
Hal, the love of adventure always strong within him, volunteered his
services, which were accepted. It was some years before we met again.

On the door-post of a house in Farringdon Street, not far from the
Circus, stood in those days a small brass plate, announcing that the
{}``Ludgate News Rooms'' occupied the third and fourth floors, and
that the admission to the same was one penny. We were a seedy company
that every morning crowded into these rooms: clerks, shopmen, superior
artisans, travellers, warehousemen---all of us out of work. Most of
us were young, but with us was mingled a sprinkling of elder men,
and these latter were always the saddest and most silent of this little
whispering army of the down-at-heel. Roughly speaking, we were divided
into two groups: the newcomers, cheery, confident. These would flit
from newspaper to newspaper with buzz of pleasant anticipation, select
their advertisement as one choosing some dainty out of a rich and
varied menu card, and replying to it as one conferring favour.

{}``Dear Sir,---in reply to your advertisement in to-day's \textit{Standard},
I shall be pleased to accept the post vacant in your office. I am
of good appearance and address. I am an excellent---'' It was really
marvellous the quality and number of our attainments. French!\ we
wrote and spoke it fluently, \textit{a la Ahn}. German!\ of this
we possessed a slighter knowledge, it was true, but sufficient for
mere purposes of commerce. Bookkeeping!\ arithmetic!\ geometry!\ we
played with them. The love of work!\ it was a passion with us. Our
moral character!\ it would have adorned a Free Kirk Elder. {}``I
could call on you to-morrow or Friday between eleven and one, or on
Saturday any time up till two. Salary required, two guineas a week.
An early answer will oblige. Yours truly.''

The old stagers did not buzz. Hour after hour they sat writing, steadily,
methodically, with day by day less hope and heavier fears:

{}``Sir,-Your advt.\ in to-day's \textit{D. T.} I am---'' of such
and such an age. List of qualifications less lengthy, set forth with
more modesty; object desired being air of verisimilitude.---{}``If
you decide to engage me I will endeavour to give you every satisfaction.
Any time you like to appoint I will call on you. I should not ask
a high salary to start with. Yours obediently.''

Dozens of the first letter, hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful
care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand
side of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four
I received a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that
had stood so in my way during the earlier half of my school days had
now, I know not why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn.
A shy child grown-up folks at all events can understand and forgive;
but a shy young man is not unnaturally regarded as a fool. I gave
the impression of being awkward, stupid, sulky. The more I strove
against my temperament the worse I became. My attempts to be at my
ease, to assert myself, resulted---I could see it myself---only in
rudeness.

{}``Well, I have got to see one or two others. We will write and
let you know,'' was the conclusion of each interview, and the end,
as far as I was concerned, of the enterprise.

My few pounds, guard them how I would, were dwindling rapidly. Looking
back, it is easy enough to regard one's early struggles from a humorous
point of view. One knows the story, it all ended happily. But at the
time there is no means of telling whether one's biography is going
to be comedy or tragedy. There were moments when I felt confident
it was going to be the latter. Occasionally, when one is feeling well,
it is not unpleasant to contemplate with pathetic sympathy one's own
death-bed. One thinks of the friends and relations who at last will
understand and regret one, be sorry they had not behaved themselves
better. But myself, there was no one to regret. I felt very small,
very helpless. The world was big. I feared it might walk over me,
trample me down, never seeing me. I seemed unable to attract its attention.

One morning I found waiting for me at the Reading Room another of
the usual missives. It ran: {}``Will Mr.\ P.\ Kelver call at the
above address to-morrow morning between ten-thirty and eleven. The
paper was headed: {}``Lott and Co., Indian Commission Agents, Aldersgate
Street.'' Without much hope I returned to my lodgings, changed my
clothes, donned my silk hat, took my one pair of gloves, drew its
silk case over my holey umbrella; and so equipped for fight with Fate
made my way to Aldersgate Street. For a quarter of an hour or so,
being too soon, I walked up and down the pavement outside the house,
gazing at the second-floor windows, behind which, so the door-plate
had informed me, were the offices of Lott \& Co. I could not recall
their advertisement, nor my reply to it. The firm was evidently not
in a very flourishing condition. I wondered idly what salary they
would offer. For a moment I dreamt of a Cheeryble Brother asking me
kindly if I thought I could do with thirty shillings a week as a beginning;
but the next I recalled my usual fate, and considered whether it was
even worth while to climb the stairs, go through what to me was a
painful ordeal, merely to be impressed again with the sense of my
own worthlessness.

A fine rain began to fall. I did not wish to unroll my umbrella, yet
felt nervous for my hat. It was five minutes to the half hour. Listlessly
I crossed the road and mounted the bare stairs to the second floor.
Two doors faced me, one marked {}``Private.'' I tapped lightly at
the second. Not hearing any response, after a second or two I tapped
again. A sound reached me, but it was unintelligible. I knocked yet
again, still louder. This time I heard a reply in a shrill, plaintive
tone:

{}``Oh, do come in.''

The tone was one of pathetic entreaty. I turned the handle and entered.
It was a small room, dimly lighted by a dirty window, the bottom half
of which was rendered opaque by tissue paper pasted to its panes.
The place suggested a village shop rather than an office. Pots of
jam, jars of pickles, bottles of wine, biscuit tins, parcels of drapery,
boxes of candles, bars of soap, boots, packets of stationery, boxes
of cigars, tinned provisions, guns, cartridges---things sufficient
to furnish a desert island littered every available corner. At a small
desk under the window sat a youth with a remarkably small body and
a remarkably large head; so disproportionate were the two I should
hardly have been surprised had he put up his hands and taken it off.
Half in the room and half out, I paused.

{}``Is this Lott \& Co.?''\ I enquired.

{}``No,'' he answered; {}``it's a room.'' One eye was fixed upon
me, dull and glassy; it never blinked, it never wavered. With the
help of the other he continued his writing.

{}``I mean,'' I explained, coming entirely into the room, {}``are
these the offices of Lott \& Co.?''

{}``It's one of them,'' he replied; {}``the back one. If you're
really anxious for a job, you can shut the door.''

I complied with his suggestion, and then announced that I was Mr.\ 
Kelver---Mr.\ Paul Kelver.

{}``Minikin's my name,'' he returned, {}``Sylvanus Minikin. You
don't happen by any chance to know what you've come for, I suppose?''

Looking at his body, my inclination was to pick my way among the goods
that covered the floor and pull his ears for him. From his grave and
massive face, he might, for all I knew, be the head clerk.

{}``I have called to see Mr.\ Lott,'' I replied, with dignity;
{}``I have an appointment.'' I produced the letter from my pocket,
and leaning across a sewing-machine, I handed it to him for his inspection.
Having read it, he suddenly took from its socket the eye with which
he had been hitherto regarding me, and proceeding to polish it upon
his pocket handkerchief, turned upon me his other. Having satisfied
himself, he handed me back my letter.

{}``Want my advice?''\ he asked.

I thought it might be useful to me, so replied in the affirmative.

{}``Hook it,'' was his curt counsel.

{}``Why?''\ I asked. {}``Isn't he a good employer?''

Replacing his glass eye, he turned again to his work. {}``If employment
is what you want,'' answered Mr.\ Minikin, {}``you'll get it. Best
employer in London. He'll keep you going for twenty-four hours a day,
and then offer you overtime at half salary.''

{}``I must get something to do,'' I confessed.

{}``Sit down then,'' suggested Mr.\ Minikin. {}``Rest while you
can.''

I took the chair; it was the only chair in the room, with the exception
of the one Minikin was sitting on.

{}``Apart from his being a bit of a driver,'' I asked, {}``what
sort of a man is he? Is he pleasant?''

{}``Never saw him put out but once,'' answered Minikin.

It sounded well. {}``When was that?''\ I asked.

{}``All the time I've known him.''

My spirits continued to sink. Had I been left alone with Minikin much
longer, I might have ended by following his advice, {}``hooking it''
before Mr.\ Lott arrived. But the next moment I heard the other door
open, and some one entered the private office. Then the bell rang,
and Minikin disappeared, leaving the communicating door ajar behind
him. The conversation that I overheard was as follows:

{}``Why isn't Mr.\ Skeat here?''

{}``Because he hasn't come.''

{}``Where are the letters?''

{}``Under your nose.''

{}``How dare you answer me like that?''

{}``Well, it's the truth. They are under your nose.''

{}``Did you give Thorneycroft's man my message?''

{}``Yes.''

{}``What did he answer?''

{}``Said you were a liar.''

{}``Oh, he did, did he! What did you reply?''

{}``Asked him to tell me something I didn't know.''

{}``Thought that clever, didn't you?''

{}``Not bad.''

Whatever faults might be laid to Mr.\ Lott's door, he at least, I
concluded, possesssed the virtue of self-control.

{}``Anybody been here?''

{}``Yes.''

{}``Who?''

{}``Mr.\ Kelver---Mr.\ Paul Kelver.''

{}``Kelver, Kelver. Who's Kelver?''

{}``Know what he is---a fool.''

{}``What do you mean?''

{}``He's come after the place.''

{}``Is he there?''

{}``Yes.''

{}``What's he like?''

{}``Not bad looking; fair---''

{}``Idiot! I mean is he smart?''

{}``Just at present---got all his Sunday clothes on.''

{}``Send him in to me. Don't go, don't go.''

{}``How can I send him in to you if I don't go?''

{}``Take these. Have you finished those bills of lading?''

{}``No.''

{}``Good God!\ when will you have finished them?''

{}``Half an hour after I have begun them.''

{}``Get out, get out! Has that door been open all the time?''

{}``Well, I don't suppose it's opened itself.''

Minikin re-entered with papers in his hand. {}``In you go,'' he
said. {}``Heaven help you!'' And I passed in and closed the door
behind me.

The room was a replica of the one I had just left. If possible, it
was more crowded, more packed with miscellaneous articles. I picked
my way through these and approached the desk. Mr.\ Lott was a small,
dingy-looking man, with very dirty hands, and small, restless eyes.
I was glad that he was not imposing, or my shyness might have descended
upon me; as it was, I felt better able to do myself justice. At once
he plunged into the business by seizing and waving in front of my
eyes a bulky bundle of letters tied together with red tape.

{}``One hundred and seventeen answers to an advertisement,'' he
cried with evident satisfaction, {}``in one day! That shows you the
state of the labour market!''

I agreed it was appalling.

{}``Poor devils, poor devils!''\ murmured Mr.\ Lott {}``what
will become of them? Some of them will starve. Terrible death, starvation,
Kelver; takes such a long time---especially when you're young.''

Here also I found myself in accord with him.

{}``Living with your parents?''

I explained to him my situation.

{}``Any friends?''

I informed him I was entirely dependent upon my own efforts.

{}``Any money? Anything coming in?''

I told him I had a few pounds still remaining to me, but that after
that was gone I should be penniless.

{}``And to think, Kelver, that there are hundreds, thousands of young
fellows precisely in your position! How sad, how very sad! How long
have you been looking for a berth?''

{}``A month,'' I answered him.

{}``I thought as much. Do you know why I selected your letter out
of the whole batch?''

I replied I hoped it was because he judged from it I should prove
satisfactory.

{}``Because it's the worst written of them all.'' He pushed it across
to me. {}``Look at it. Awful, isn't it?''

I admitted that handwriting was not my strong point.

{}``Nor spelling either,'' he added, and with truth. {}``Who do
you think will engage you if I don't?''

{}``Nobody,'' he continued, without waiting for me to reply. {}``A
month hence you will still be looking for a berth, and a month after
that. Now, I'm going to do you a good turn; save you from destitution;
give you a start in life.''

I expressed my gratitude.

He waived it aside. {}``That is my notion of philanthropy: help those
that nobody else will help. That young fellow in the other room---he
isn't a bad worker, he's smart, but he's impertinent.''

I murmured that I had gathered so much.

{}``Doesn't mean to be, can't help it. Noticed his trick of looking
at you with his glass eye, keeping the other turned away from you?''

I replied that I had.

{}``Always does it. Used to irritate his last employer to madness.
Said to him one day: 'Do turn that signal lamp of yours off, Minikin,
and look at me with your real eye.' What do you think he answered?
That it was the only one he'd got, and that he didn't want to expose
it to shocks. Wouldn't have mattered so much if it hadn't been one
of the ugliest men in London.''

I murmured my indignation.

{}``I put up with him. Nobody else would. The poor fellow must live.''

I expressed admiration at Mr.\ Lott's humanity.

{}``You don't mind work? You're not one of those good-for-nothings
who sleep all day and wake up when it's time to go home?''

I assured him that in whatever else I might fail I could promise him
industry.

{}``With some of them,'' complained Mr.\ Lott, in a tone of bitterness,
{}``it's nothing but play, girls, gadding about the streets. Work,
business---oh, no. I may go bankrupt; my wife and children may go
into the workhouse. No thought for me, the man that keeps them, feeds
them, clothes them. How much salary do you want?''

I hesitated. I gathered this was not a Cheeryble Brother; it would
be necessary to be moderate in one's demands. {}``Five-and-twenty
shillings a week,'' I suggested.

He repeated the figure in a scream. {}``Five-and-twenty shillings
for writing like that! And can't spell commission! Don't know anything
about the business. Five-and-twenty!---Tell you what I'll do: I'll
give you twelve.''

{}``But I can't live on twelve,'' I explained.

{}``Can't live on twelve! Do you know why? Because you don't know
how to live. I know you all. One veal and ham pie, one roley-poley,
one Dutch cheese and a pint of bitter.''

His recital made my mouth water.

{}``You overload your stomachs, then you can't work. Half the diseases
you young fellows suffer from are brought about by overeating.''

{}``Now, you take my advice,'' continued Mr.\ Lott; {}``try vegetarianism.
In the morning, a little oatmeal. Wonderfully strengthening stuff,
oatmeal: look at the Scotch. For dinner, beans. Why, do you know there's
more nourishment in half a pint of lentil beans than in a pound of
beefsteak---more gluten. That's what you want, more gluten; no corpses,
no dead bodies. Why, I've known young fellows, vegetarians, who have
lived like fighting cocks on sevenpence a day. Seven times seven are
forty-nine. How much do you pay for your room?''

I told him.

{}``Four-and-a-penny and two-and-six makes six-and-seven. That leaves
you five and fivepence for mere foolery. Good God!\ what more do
you want?''

{}``I'll take eighteen, sir,'' I answered. {}``I can't really manage
on less.''

{}``Very well, I won't beat you down,'' he answered. {}``Fifteen
shillings a week.''

{}``I said eighteen,'' I persisted.

{}``Well, and I said fifteen,'' he retorted, somewhat indignant
at the quibbling. {}``That's splitting the difference, isn't it?
I can't be fairer than that.''

I dared not throw away the one opportunity that had occurred. Anything
was better than return to the Reading Rooms, and the empty days full
of despair. I accepted, and it was agreed that I should come the following
Monday morning.

{}``Nabbed?''\ was Minikin's enquiry on my return to the back office
for my hat.

I nodded.

{}``What's he wasting on you?''

{}``Fifteen shillings a week,'' I whispered.

{}``Felt sure somehow that he'd take a liking to you,'' answered
Minikin. {}``Don't be ungrateful and look thin on it.''

Outside the door I heard Mr.\ Lott's shrill voice demanding to know
where postage stamps were to be found.

{}``At the Post-office,'' was Minikin's reply.

The hours were long---in fact, we had no office hours; we got away
when we could, which was rarely before seven or eight---but my work
was interesting. It consisted of buying for unfortunate clients in
India or the Colonies anything they might happen to want, from a stage
coach to a pot of marmalade; packing it and shipping it across to
them. Our {}``commission'' was anything they could be persuaded
to pay over and above the value of the article. I was not much interfered
with. There was that to be said for Lott \& Co., so long as the work
was done he was quite content to leave one to one's own way of doing
it. And hastening through the busy streets, bargaining in shop or
warehouse, bustling important in and out the swarming docks, I often
thanked my stars that I was not as some poor two-pound-a-week clerk
chained to a dreary desk.

The fifteen shillings a week was a tight fit; but that was not my
trouble. Reduce your denominator---you know the quotation. I found
it no philosophical cant, but a practical solution of life. My food
cost me on the average a shilling a day. If more of us limited our
commissariat bill to the same figure, there would be less dyspepsia
abroad. Generally I cooked my own meals in my own frying-pan; but
occasionally I would indulge myself with a more orthodox dinner at
a cook shop, or tea with hot buttered toast at a coffee-shop; and
but for the greasy table-cloth and the dirty-handed waiter, such would
have been even greater delights. The shilling a week for amusements
afforded me at least one, occasionally two, visits to the theatre,
for in those days there were Paradises where for sixpence one could
be a god. Fourpence a week on tobacco gave me half-a-dozen cigarettes
a day; I have spent more on smoke and derived less satisfaction. Dress
was my greatest difficulty. One anxiety in life the poor man is saved:
he knows not the haunting sense of debt. My tailor never dunned me.
His principle was half-a-crown down on receipt of order, the balance
on the handing over of the goods. No system is perfect; the method
avoided friction, it is true; yet on the other hand it was annoying
to be compelled to promenade, come Sundays, in shiny elbows and frayed
trousers, knowing all the while that finished, waiting, was a suit
in which one might have made one's mark---had only one shut one's
eyes passing that pastry-cook's window on pay-day. Surely there should
be a sumptuary law compelling pastry-cooks to deal in cellars or behind
drawn blinds.

Were it because of its mere material hardships that to this day I
think of that period of my life with a shudder, I should not here
confess to it. I was alone. I knew not a living soul to whom I dared
to speak, who cared to speak to me. For those first twelve months
after my mother's death I lived alone, thought alone, felt alone.
In the morning, during the busy day, it was possible to bear; but
in the evenings the sense of desolation gripped me like a physical
pain. The summer evenings came again, bringing with them the long,
lingering light so laden with melancholy. I would walk into the Parks
and, sitting there, watch with hungry eyes the men and women, boys
and girls, moving all around me, talking, laughing, interested in
one another; feeling myself some speechless ghost, seeing but not
seen, crying to the living with a voice they heard not. Sometimes
a solitary figure would pass by and glance back at me; some lonely
creature like myself longing for human sympathy. In the teeming city
must have been thousands such---young men and women to whom a friendly
ear, a kindly voice, would have been as the water of life. Each imprisoned
in his solitary cell of shyness, we looked at one another through
the grating with condoling eyes; further than that was forbidden to
us. Once, in Kensington Gardens, a woman turned, then slowly retracing
her steps, sat down beside me on the bench. Neither of us spoke; had
I done so she would have risen and moved away; yet there was understanding
between us. To each of us it was some comfort to sit thus for a little
while beside the other. Had she poured out her heart to me, she could
have told me nothing more than I knew: {}``I, too, am lonely, friendless;
I, too, long for the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. It is
hard for you, it is harder still for me, a girl; shut out from the
bright world that laughs around me; denied the right of youth to joy
and pleasure; denied the right of womanhood to love and tenderness.''

The footsteps to and fro grew fewer. She moved to rise. Stirred by
an impulse, I stretched out my hand, then seeing the flush upon her
face, drew it back hastily. But the next moment, changing her mind,
she held hers out to me, and I took it. It was the first clasp of
a hand I had felt since six months before I had said good-bye to Hal.
She turned and walked quickly away. I stood watching her; she never
looked round, and I never saw her again.

I take no credit to myself for keeping straight, as it is termed,
during these days. For good or evil, my shyness prevented my taking
part in the flirtations of the streets. Whether inviting eyes were
ever thrown to me as to others, I cannot say. Sometimes, fancying
so---hoping so, I would follow. Yet never could I summon up sufficient
resolution to face the possible rebuff before some less timid swain
would swoop down upon the quarry. Then I would hurry on, cursing myself
for the poorness of my spirit, fancying mocking contempt in the laughter
that followed me.

On a Sunday I would rise early and take long solitary walks into the
country. One winter's day---I remember it was on the road between
Edgware and Stanmore---there issued from a by-road a little ahead
of me a party of boys and girls, young people about my own age, bound
evidently on a skating expedition. I could hear the musical ring of
their blades, clattering as they walked, and the sound of their merry
laughter so clear and bell-like through the frosty air. And an aching
anguish fell upon me. I felt a mad desire to run after them, to plead
with them to let me walk with them a little way, to let me laugh and
talk with them. Every now and then they would pirouette to cry some
jest to one another. I could see their faces: the girls' so sweetly
alluring, framed by their dainty hats and furs, the bright colour
in their cheeks, the light in their teasing eyes. A little further
on they turned aside into a by-lane, and I stood at the corner listening
till the last echo of their joyous voices died away, and on a stone
that still remains standing there I sat down and sobbed.

I would walk about the streets always till very late. I dreaded the
echoing clang of the little front door when I closed it behind me,
the climbing of the silent stairs, the solitude that waited for me
in my empty room. It would rise and come towards me like some living
thing, kissing me with cold lips. Often, unable to bear the closeness
of its presence, I would creep out into the streets. There, even though
it followed me, I was not alone with it. Sometimes I would pace them
the whole night, sharing them with the other outcasts while the city
slept.

Occasionally, during these nightly wanderings would come to me moments
of exaltation when fear fell from me and my blood would leap with
joy at prospect of the fierce struggle opening out before me. Then
it was the ghostly city sighing round me that seemed dead, I the only
living thing real among a world of shadows. In long, echoing streets
I would laugh and shout. Misunderstanding policemen would turn their
bull's-eyes on me, gruffly give me practical advice: they knew not
who I was! I stood the centre of a vast galanty-show: the phantom
houses came and went; from some there shone bright lights; the doors
were open, and little figures flitted in and out, the tiny coaches
glided to and fro, manikins grotesque but pitiful crept across the
star-lit curtain.

Then the mood would change. The city, grim and vast, stretched round
me endless. I crawled, a mere atom, within its folds, helpless, insignificant,
absurd. The houseless forms that shared my vigil were my fellows.
What were we? Animalcule upon its bosom, that it saw not, heeded not.
For company I would mingle with them: ragged men, frowsy women, ageless
youths, gathered round the red glow of some coffee stall.

Rarely would we speak to one another. More like animals we browsed
there, sipping the halfpenny cup of hot water coloured with coffee
grounds (at least it was warm), munching the moist slab of coarse
cake; looking with dull, indifferent eyes each upon the wretchedness
of the others. Perhaps some two would whisper to each other in listless,
monotonous tone, broken here and there by a short, mirthless laugh;
some shivering creature, not yet case-hardened to despair, seek, perhaps,
the relief of curses that none heeded. Later, a faint chill breeze
would shake the shadows loose, a thin, wan light streak the dark air
with shade, and silently, stealthily, we would fade away and disappear.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER II.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER II}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Paul}}\noun{,} \textit{\noun{escaping}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{from}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{his}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{solitude}}\noun{,}
\textit{\noun{falls}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{into}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{strange}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{company}}\noun{.} \textit{\noun{And}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{becomes}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{captive}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{to}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{one}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{haughty}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{mien}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
All things pass, even the self-inflicted sufferings of shy young men,
condemned by temperament to solitude. Came the winter evenings, I
took to work: in it one may drown much sorrow for oneself. With its
handful of fire, its two candles lighted, my {}``apartment'' was
more inviting. I bought myself paper, pens and ink. Great or small,
what more can a writer do? He is but the would-be medium: will the
spirit voices employ him or reject him?

London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand
romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand.
It stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more
or less truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the
things I really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage
maidens, of bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among
mountains, or in moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common
to most youthful fictionists.

A trail of gentle melancholy lay over them. Sentiment was more popular
then than it is now, and, as do all beginners, I scrupulously followed
fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However
naturally her hair might curl---and curly hair, I believe, is the
hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health
she might exhibit in the first chapter, such as {}``dancing eyes,''
{}``colour that came and went,'' {}``ringing laughter,'' {}``fawn-like
agility,'' she was tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely
grave. Snowdrops and early primroses (my botany I worked up from a
useful little volume, {}``Our Garden Favourites, Illustrated'')
grew there as in a forcing house; and if in the neighbourhood of the
coast, the sea-breezes would choose that particular churchyard, somewhat
irreverently, for their favourite playground. Years later a white-haired
man would come there leading little children by the hand, and to them
he would tell the tale anew, which must have been a dismal entertainment
for them.

Now and then, by way of change, it would be the gentleman who would
fall a victim of the deadly atmosphere of my literature. It was of
no particular consequence, so he himself would conclude in his last
soliloquy; {}``it was better so.'' Snowdrops and primroses, for
whatever consolation they might have been to him, it was hopeless
for him to expect; his grave, marked by a rude cross, being as a rule
situate in an exceptionally unfrequented portion of the African veldt
or amid burning sands. For description of final scenery on these occasions
a visit to the British Museum reading-room would be necessary.

Dismal little fledgelings! And again and again would I drive them
from the nest; again and again they fluttered back to me, soiled,
crumpled, physically damaged. Yet one person had admired them, cried
over them---myself.

All methods I tried. Sometimes I would send them forth accompanied
by a curt business note of the take-it-or-leave-it order. At other
times I would attach to it pathetic appeals for its consideration.
Sometimes I would give value to it, stating that the price was five
guineas and requesting that the cheque should be crossed; at other
times seek to tickle editorial cupidity by offering this, my first
contribution to their pages, for nothing---my sample packet, so to
speak, sent gratis, one trial surely sufficient. Now I would write
sarcastically, enclosing together with the stamped envelope for return
a brutally penned note of rejection. Or I would write frankly, explaining
elaborately that I was a beginner, and asking to be told my faults---if
any.

Not one found a resting place for its feet. A month, a week, a couple
of days, they would remain away from me, then return. I never lost
a single one. I wished I had. It would have varied the monotony.

I hated the poor little slavey who, bursting joyously into the room,
would hold them out to me from between her apron-hidden thumb and
finger; her chronic sniff I translated into contempt. If flying down
the stairs at the sound of the postman's knock I secured it from his
hands, it seemed to me he smiled. Tearing them from their envelopes,
I would curse them, abuse them, fling them into the fire sometimes;
but before they were more than scorched I would snatch them out, smooth
them, reread them. The editor himself could never have seen them;
it was impossible; some jealous underling had done this thing. I had
sent them to the wrong paper. They had arrived at the inopportune
moment. Their triumph would come. Rewriting the first and last sheets,
I would send them forth again with fresh hope.

Meanwhile, understanding that the would-be happy warrior must shine
in camp as well as field, I sought to fit myself also for the social
side of life. Smoking and drinking were the twin sins I found most
difficulty in acquiring. I am not claiming a mental excellence so
much as confessing a bodily infirmity. The spirit had always been
willing, but my flesh was weak. Fired by emulation, I had at school
occasionally essayed a cigarette. The result had been distinctly unsatisfactory,
and after some two or three attempts, I had abandoned, for the time
being, all further endeavour; excusing my faint-heartedness by telling
myself with sanctimonious air that smoking was bad for growing boys;
attempting to delude myself by assuming, in presence of contemporaries
of stronger stomach, fine pose of disapproval; yet in my heart knowing
myself a young hypocrite, disguising physical cowardice in the robes
of moral courage: a self-deception to which human nature is prone.

So likewise now and again I had tasted the wine that was red, and
that stood year in, year out, decanted on our sideboard. The true
inwardness of St.\ Paul's prescription had been revealed to me; the
attitude---sometimes sneered at---of those who drink it under doctor's
orders, regarding it purely as a medicine, appeared to me reasonable.
I had noticed also that others, some of them grown men even, making
wry faces, when drinking my mother's claret, and had concluded therefrom
that taste for strong liquor was an accomplishment less easily acquired
than is generally supposed. The lack of it in a young man could be
no disgrace, and accordingly effort in that direction also had I weakly
postponed.

But now, a gentleman at large, my education could no longer be delayed.
To the artist in particular was training---and severe training---an
absolute necessity. Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter
of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink---and that more
than was good for him---would have been dismissed without further
evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no
time positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so
much at least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously.
Smoking, experience taught me, was better practised on Saturday nights,
Sunday affording me the opportunity of walking off the effects. Patience
and determination were eventually crowned with success: I learned
to smoke a cigarette to all appearance as though I were enjoying it.
Young men of less character might here have rested content, but attainment
of the highest has always been with me a motive force. The cigarette
conquered, I next proceeded to attack the cigar. My first one I remember
well: most men do. It was at a smoking concert held in the Islington
Drill Hall, to which Minikin had invited me. Not feeling sure whether
my growing dizziness were due solely to the cigar, or in part to the
hot, over-crowded room, I made my excuses and slipped out. I found
myself in a small courtyard, divided from a neighbouring garden by
a low wall. The cause of my trouble was clearly the cigar. My inclination
was to take it from my mouth and see how far I could throw it. Conscience,
on the other hand, urged me to persevere. It occurred to me that if
climbing on to the wall I could walk along it from end to end, there
would be no excuse for my not heeding the counsels of perfection.
If, on the contrary, try as I might, the wall proved not wide enough
for my footsteps, then I should be entitled to lose the beastly thing,
and, as best I could, make my way home to bed. I attained the wall
with some difficulty and commenced my self-inflicted ordeal. Two yards
further I found myself lying across the wall, my legs hanging down
one side, my head overhanging the other. The position proving suitable
to my requirements, I maintained it. Inclination, again seizing its
opportunity, urged me then and there to take a solemn vow never to
smoke again. I am proud to write that through that hour of temptation
I remained firm; strengthening myself by whispering to myself: {}``Never
despair. What others can do, so can you. Is not all victory won through
suffering?''

A liking for drink I had found, if possible, even yet more difficult
of achievement. Spirits I almost despaired of. Once, confusing bottles,
I drank some hair oil in mistake for whiskey, and found it decidedly
less nauseous. But twice a week I would force myself to swallow a
glass of beer, standing over myself insisting on my draining it to
the bitter dregs. As reward afterwards, to take the taste out of my
mouth, I would treat myself to chocolates; at the same time comforting
myself by assuring myself that it was for my good, that there would
come a day when I should really like it, and be grateful to myself
for having been severe with myself.

In other and more sensible directions I sought also to progress. Gradually
I was overcoming my shyness. It was a slow process. I found the best
plan was not to mind being shy, to accept it as part of my temperament,
and with others laugh at it. The coldness of an indifferent world
is of service in hardening a too sensitive skin. The gradual rubbings
of existence were rounding off my many corners. I became possible
to my fellow creatures, and they to me. I began to take pleasure in
their company.

By directing me to this particular house in Nelson Square, Fate had
done to me a kindness. I flatter myself we were an interesting menagerie
gathered together under its leaky roof. Mrs.\ Peedles, our landlady,
who slept in the basement with the slavey, had been an actress in
Charles Keane's company at the old Princess's. There, it is true,
she had played only insignificant parts. London, as she would explain
to us was even then but a poor judge of art, with prejudices. Besides
an actor-manager, hampered by a wife---we understood. But previously
in the Provinces there had been a career of glory: Juliet, Amy Robsart,
Mrs.\ Haller in {}``The Stranger''---almost the entire roll of
the {}``Legitimates''. Showed we any signs of disbelief, proof was
forthcoming: handbills a yard long, rich in notes of exclamation:
{}``On Tuesday Evening! By Special Desire!!! Blessington's Theatre!
In the Meadow, adjoining the Falcon Arms!''---{}``On Saturday! Under
the Patronage of Col. Sir William and the Officers of the 74th!!!!
In the Corn Exchange!'' Maybe it would convince us further were she
to run through a passage here and there, say Lady Macbeth's sleep-walking
scene, or from Ophelia's entrance in the fourth act? It would be no
trouble; her memory was excellent. We would hasten to assure her of
our perfect faith.

Listening to her, it was difficult, as she herself would frankly admit,
to imagine her the once {}``arch Miss Lucretia Barry;'' looking
at her, to remember there had been an evening when she had been {}``the
cynosure of every eye.'' One found it necessary to fortify oneself
with perusal of underlined extracts from ancient journals, much thumbed
and creased, thoughtfully lent to one for the purpose. Since those
days Fate had woven round her a mantle of depression. She was now
a faded, watery-eyed little woman, prone on the slightest provocation
to sit down suddenly On the nearest chair and at once commence a history
of her troubles. Quite unconscious of this failing, it was an idea
of hers that she was an exceptionally cheerful person.

{}``But there, fretting's no good. We must grin and bear things in
this world,'' she would conclude, wiping her eyes upon her apron.
{}``It's better to laugh than to cry, I always say.'' And to prove
that this was no mere idle sentiment, she would laugh then and there
upon the spot.

Much stair-climbing had bestowed upon her a shortness of breath, which
no amount of panting in her resting moments was able to make good.

{}``You don't know 'ow to breathe,'' explained our second floor
front to her on one occasion, a kindly young man; {}``you don't swallow
it, you only gargle with it. Take a good draught and shut your mouth;
don't be frightened of it; don't let it out again till it's done something:
that's what it's 'ere for.''

He stood over her with his handkerchief pressed against her mouth
to assist her; but it was of no use.

{}``There don't seem any room for it inside me,'' she explained.

Bells had become to her the business of life; she lived listening
for them. Converse to her was a filling in of time while waiting for
interruptions.

A bottle of whiskey fell into my hands that Christmas time, a present
from a commercial traveller in the way of business. Not liking whiskey
myself, it was no sacrifice for me to reserve it for the occasional
comfort of Mrs.\ Peedles, when, breathless, with her hands to her
side, she would sink upon the chair nearest to my door. Her poor,
washed-out face would lighten at the suggestion.

{}``Ah, well,'' she would reply, {}``I don't mind if I do. It's
a poor heart that never rejoices.''

And then, her tongue unloosened, she would sit there and tell me stories
of my predecessors, young men lodgers who like myself had taken her
bed-sitting-rooms, and of the woes and misfortunes that had overtaken
them. I gathered that a more unlucky house I could not have selected.
A former tenant of my own room, of whom I strangely reminded her,
had written poetry on my very table. He was now in Portland doing
five years for forgery. Mrs.\ Peedles appeared to regard the two
accomplishments as merely different expressions of the same art. Another
of her young men, as she affectionately called us, had been of studious
ambition. His career up to a point appeared to have been brilliant.
{}``What he mightn't have been,'' according to Mrs.\ Peedles, there
was practically no saying; what he happened to be at the moment of
conversation was an unpromising inmate of the Hanwell lunatic asylum.

{}``I've always noticed it,'' Mrs.\ Peedles would explain; {}``it's
always the most deserving, those that try hardest, to whom trouble
comes. I'm sure I don't know why.''

I was glad on the whole when that bottle of whiskey was finished.
A second might have driven me to suicide.

There was no Mr.\ Peedles---at least, not for Mrs.\ Peedles, though
as an individual he continued to exist. He had been {}``general utility''
at the Princess's---the old terms were still in vogue at that time---a
fine figure of a man in his day, so I was given to understand, but
one easily led away, especially by minxes. Mrs.\ Peedles spoke bitterly
of general utilities as people of not much use.

For working days Mrs.\ Peedles had one dress and one cap, both black
and void of ostentation; but on Sundays and holidays she would appear
metamorphosed. She had carefully preserved the bulk of her stage wardrobe,
even to the paste-decked shoes and tinsel jewelry. Shapeless in classic
garb as Hermia, or bulgy in brocade and velvet as Lady Teazle, she
would receive her few visitors on Sunday evenings, discarded puppets
like herself, with whom the conversation was of gayer nights before
their wires had been cut; or, her glory hid from the ribald street
beneath a mackintosh, pay her few calls. Maybe it was the unusual
excitement that then brought colour into her furrowed cheeks, that
straightened and darkened her eyebrows, at other times so singularly
unobtrusive. Be this how it may, the change was remarkable, only the
thin grey hair and the work-worn hands remaining for purposes of identification.
Nor was the transformation merely one of surface. Mrs.\ Peedles hung
on her hook behind the kitchen door, dingy, limp, discarded; out of
the wardrobe with the silks and \textit{satins} was lifted down to
be put on as an undergarment Miss Lucretia Barry, like her costumes
somewhat aged, somewhat withered, but still distinctly {}``arch.''

In the room next to me lived a law-writer and his wife. They were
very old and miserably poor. The fault was none of theirs. Despite
copy-books maxims, there is in this world such a thing as ill-luck-persistent,
monotonous, that gradually wears away all power of resistance. I learned
from them their history: it was hopelessly simple, hopelessly uninstructive.
He had been a schoolmaster, she a pupil teacher; they had married
young, and for a while the world had smiled upon them. Then came illness,
attacking them both: nothing out of which any moral could be deduced,
a mere case of bad drains resulting in typhoid fever. They had started
again, saddled by debt, and after years of effort had succeeded in
clearing themselves, only to fall again, this time in helping a friend.
Nor was it even a case of folly: a poor man who had helped them in
their trouble, hardly could they have done otherwise without proving
themselves ungrateful. And so on, a tedious tale, commonplace, trivial.
Now listless, patient, hard working, they had arrived at an animal-like
indifference to their fate, content so long as they could obtain the
bare necessities of existence, passive when these were not forthcoming,
their interest in life limited to the one luxury of the poor---an
occasional glass of beer or spirits. Often days would go by without
his obtaining any work, and then they would more or less starve. Law
documents are generally given out to such men in the evening, to be
returned finished the next morning. Waking in the night, I would hear
through the thin wooden partition that divided our rooms the even
scratching of his pen.

Thus cheek by jowl we worked, I my side of the screen, he his: youth
and age, hope and realisation.

Out of him my fears fashioned a vision of the future. Past his door
I would slink on tiptoe, dread meeting him upon the stairs. Once had
not he said to himself: {}``The world's mine oyster?''\ May not
the voices of the night have proclaimed him also king? Might I not
be but an idle dreamer, mistaking desire for power? Would not the
world prove stronger than I? At such times I would see my life before
me: the clerkship at thirty shillings a week rising by slow instalments,
it may be, to one hundred and fifty a year; the four-roomed house
at Brixton; the girl wife, pretty, perhaps, but sinking so soon into
the slatternly woman; the squalling children. How could I, unaided,
expect to raise myself from the ruck? Was not this the more likely
picture?

Our second floor front was a young fellow in the commercial line.
Jarman was Young London personified---blatant yet kind-hearted; aggressively
self-assertive, generous to a fault; cunning, yet at the same time
frank; shrewd, cheery, and full of pluck. {}``Never say die'' was
his motto, and anything less dead it would be difficult to imagine.
All day long he was noisy, and all night long he snored. He woke with
a start, bathed like a porpoise, sang while dressing, roared for his
boots, and whistled during his breakfast. His entrance and exit were
always to an orchestration of banging doors, directions concerning
his meals shouted at the top of his voice as he plunged up or down
the stairs, the clattering and rattling of brooms and pails flying
before his feet. His departure always left behind it the suggestion
that the house was now to let; it came almost as a shock to meet a
human being on the landing. He would have conveyed an atmosphere of
bustle to the Egyptian pyramids.

Sometimes carrying his own supper-tray, arranged for two, he would
march into my room. At first, resenting his familiarity, I would hint
at my desire to be alone, would explain that I was busy.

{}``You fire away, Shakespeare Redivivus,'' he would reply. {}``Don't
delay the tragedy. Why should London wait? I'll keep quiet.''

But his notion of keeping quiet was to retire into a corner and there
amuse himself by enacting a tragedy of his own in a hoarse whisper,
accompanied by appropriate gesture.

{}``Ah, ah!''\ I would hear him muttering to himself, {}``I '\textit{ave}
killed '\textit{er} good old father; I '\textit{ave} falsely accused
'\textit{er} young man of all the crimes that I '\textit{ave} myself
committed; I '\textit{ave} robbed '\textit{er} of '\textit{er} ancestral
estates. Yet she loves me not! It is streeange!'' Then changing his
bass to a shrill falsetto: {}``It is a cold and dismal night: the
snow falls fast. I will leave me 'at and umbrella be'ind the door
and go out for a walk with the chee-ild. Aha!\ who is this? 'E also
'as forgotten 'is umbrella. Ah, now I know 'im in the pitch dark by
'is cigarette! Villain, murderer, silly josser!\ it is you!'' Then
with lightning change of voice and gesture: {}``Mary, I love yer!''
{}``Sir Jasper Murgatroyd, let me avail myself of this opportunity
to tell you what I think of you---'' {}``No, no; the 'ouses close
in 'alf an hour; there is not tee-ime. Fly with me instead!'' {}``Never!
Un'and me!'' {}``'Ear me! Ah, what '\textit{ave} I done? I '\textit{ave}
slipped upon a piece of orange peel and broke me 'ead! If you will
kindly ask them to turn off the snow and give me a little moonlight,
I will confess all.''

Finding it (much to Jarman's surprise) impossible to renew the thread
of my work, I would abandon my attempts at literature, and instead
listen to his talk, which was always interesting. His conversation
was, it is true, generally about himself, but it was none the less
attractive on that account. His love affairs, which appeared to be
numerous, formed his chief topic. There was no reserve about Jarman:
his life contained no secret chambers. What he {}``told her straight,''
what she {}``up and said to him'' in reply was for all the world
that cared to hear. So far his search after the ideal had met with
but ill success.

{}``Girls,'' he would say, {}``they're all alike, till you know
'em. So long as they're trying to palm themselves off on yer, they'll
persuade you there isn't such another article in all the market. When
they've got yer order---ah, then yer find out what they're really
made of. And you take it from me, 'Omer Junior, most of 'em are put
together cheap. Bah!\ it sickens me sometimes to read the way you
paper-stainers talk about 'em-angels, goddesses, fairies! They've
just been getting at yer. You're giving 'em just the price they're
asking without examining the article. Girls ain't a special make,
like what you seem to think 'em. We're all turned out of the same
old slop shop.''

{}``Not that I say, mind yer,'' he would continue, {}``that there
are none of the right sort. They're to be 'ad---real good '\textit{uns}.
All I say is, taking 'em at their own valuation ain't the way to do
business with 'em.''

What he was on the look out for---to quote his own description---was
a really first class article, not something from which the paint would
come off almost before you got it home.

{}``They're to be found,'' he would cheerfully affirm, {}``but
you've got to look for 'em. They're not the sort that advertises.''

Behind Jarman in the second floor back resided one whom Jarman had
nicknamed {}``The \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}.'' I believe
before my arrival there had been love passages between the two; but
neither of them, so I gathered, had upon closer inspection satisfied
the other's standard. Their present attitude towards each other was
that of insult thinly veiled under exaggerated politeness. Miss Rosina
Sellars was, in her own language, a {}``lady assistant,'' in common
parlance, a barmaid at the Ludgate Hill Station refreshment room.
She was a large, flabby young woman. With less powder, her complexion
might by admirers have been termed creamy; as it was, it presented
the appearance rather of underdone pastry. To be on all occasions
{}``quite the lady'' was her pride. There were those who held the
angle of her dignity to be exaggerated. Jarman would beg her for her
own sake to be more careful lest one day she should fall down backwards
and hurt herself. On the other hand, her bearing was certainly calculated
to check familiarity. Even stockbrokers' clerks---young men as a class
with the bump of reverence but poorly developed---would in her presence
falter and grow hesitating. She had cultivated the art of not noticing
to something approaching perfection. She could draw the noisiest customer
a glass of beer, which he had never ordered; exchange it for three
of whiskey, which he had; take his money and return him his change
without ever seeing him, hearing him, or knowing he was there. It
shattered the self-assertion of the youngest of commercial travellers.
Her tone and manner, outside rare moments of excitement, were suggestive
of an offended but forgiving iceberg. Jarman invariably passed her
with his coat collar turned up to his ears, and even thus protected
might have been observed to shiver. Her stare, in conjunction with
her {}``I beg your pardon!''\ was a moral douche that would have
rendered apologetic and explanatory Don Juan himself.

To me she was always gracious, which by contrast to her general attitude
towards my sex of studied disdain, I confess flattered me. She was
good enough to observe to Mrs.\ Peedles, who repeated it to me, that
I was the only gentleman in the house who knew how to behave himself.

The entire first floor was occupied by an Irishman and---they never
minced the matter themselves, so hardly is there need for me to do
so. She was a charming little dark-eyed woman, an ex-tight-rope dancer,
and always greatly offended Mrs.\ Peedles by claiming Miss Lucretia
Barry as a sister artiste.

{}``Of course I don't know how it may be now,'' would reply Mrs.\ Peedles,
with some slight asperity; {}``but in my time we ladies of the legitimate
stage used to look down upon dancers and such sort. Of course, no
offence to you, Mrs.\ O'Kelly.''

Neither of them was in the least offended.

{}``Sure, Mrs.\ Peedles, ye could never have looked down upon the
Signora,'' the O'Kelly would answer laughing. {}``Ye had to lie
back and look up to her. Why, I've got the crick in me neck to this
day!''

{}``Ah!\ my dear, and you don't know how nervous I was when glancing
down I'd see his handsome face just underneath me, thinking that with
one false step I might spoil it for ever,'' would reply the Signora.

{}``Me darling! I'd have died happy, just smothered in loveliness!''\ 
would return the O'Kelly; and he and the Signora would rush into each
other's arms, and the sound of their kisses would quite excite the
little slavey sweeping down the stairs outside.

He was a barrister attached in theory to the Western Circuit; in practice,
somewhat indifferent to it, much more attached to the lower strata
of Bohemia and the Signora. At the present he was earning all sufficient
for the simple needs of himself and the Signora as a teacher of music
and singing. His method was simple and suited admirably the locality.
Unless specially requested, he never troubled his pupils with such
tiresome things as scales and exercises. His plan was to discover
the song the young man fancied himself singing, the particular jingle
the young lady yearned to knock out of the piano, and to teach it
to them. Was it {}``Tom Bowling?'' Well and good. Come on; follow
your leader. The O'Kelly would sing the first line.

{}``Now then, try that. Don't be afraid. Just open yer mouth and
gave it tongue. That's all right. Everything has a beginning. Sure,
later on, we'll get the time and tune, maybe a little expression.''

Whether the system had any merit in it, I cannot answer. Certain it
was that as often as not it achieved success. Gradually---say, by
the end of twelve eighteen-penny lessons---out of storm and chaos
{}``Tom Bowling'' would emerge, recognisable for all men to hear.
Had the pupil any voice to start with, the O'Kelly improved it; had
he none, the O'Kelly would help him to disguise the fact.

{}``Take it easy, now; take it easy,'' the O'Kelly would counsel.
{}``Sure, it's a delicate organ, yer voice. Don't ye strain it now.
Ye're at yer best when ye're just low and sweet.''

So also with the blushing \textit{pianiste}. At the end of a month
a tune was distinctly discernible; she could hear it herself, and
was happy. His repute spread.

Twice already had he eloped with the Signora (and twice again was
he to repeat the operation, before I finally lost sight of him: to
break oneself of habit is always difficult) and once by well-meaning
friends had he been induced to return to home, if not to beauty. His
wife, who was considerably older than himself, possessed, so he would
inform me with tears in his eyes, every moral excellence that should
attract mankind. Upon her goodness and virtue, her piety and conscientiousness
he would descant to me by the half hour. His sincerity it was impossible
to question. It was beyond doubt that he respected her, admired her,
honoured her. She was a saint, an angel---a wretch, a villain such
as he, was not fit to breathe the same pure air. To do him justice,
it must be admitted he showed no particular desire to do so. As an
aunt or grandmother, I believe he would have suffered her gladly.
He had nothing to say against her, except that he found himself unable
to live with her.

That she must have been a lady of exceptional merit one felt convinced.
The Signora, who had met her only once, and then under somewhat trying
conditions, spoke her praises with equal enthusiasm. Had she, the
Signora, enjoyed the advantage of meeting such a model earlier, she,
the Signora, might have been a better woman. It seemed a pity the
introduction could not have taken place sooner and under different
circumstances. Could they both have adopted her as a sort of mutual
mother-in-law, it would have given them, I am positive, the greatest
satisfaction. On her occasional visits they would have vied with each
other in showing her affectionate attention. For the deserted lady
I tried to feel sorry, but could not avoid the reflection that it
would have been better for all parties had she been less patient and
forgiving. Her husband was evidently much more suited to the Signora.

Indeed, the relationship between these two was more a true marriage
than one generally meets with. No pair of love-birds could have been
more snug together. In their virtues and failings alike they fitted
each other. When sober the immorality of their behaviour never troubled
them; in fact, when sober nothing ever troubled them. They laughed,
joked, played through life, two happy children. To be shocked at them
was impossible. I tried it and failed.

But now and again there came an evening when they were not sober.
It happened when funds were high. On such occasion the O'Kelly would
return laden with bottles of a certain sweet champagne, of which they
were both extremely fond; and a friend or two would be invited to
share in the festivity. Whether any exceptional quality resided in
this particular brand of champagne I am not prepared to argue; my
own personal experience of it has prompted me to avoid it for the
rest of my life. Its effect upon them was certainly unique. Instead
of intoxicating them, it sobered them: there is no other way of explaining
it. With the third or fourth glass they began to take serious views
of life. Before the end of the second bottle they would be staring
at each other, appalled at contemplation of their own transgression.
The Signora, the tears streaming down her pretty face, would declare
herself a wicked, wicked woman; she had dragged down into shame the
most blameless, the most virtuous of men. Emptying her glass, she
would bury her face in her hands, and with her elbows on her knees,
in an agony of remorse, sit rocking to and fro. The O'Kelly, throwing
himself at her feet, would passionately abjure her to {}``look up.''
She had, it appeared, got hold of the thing at the wrong end; it was
he who had dragged her down.

At this point metaphor would become confused. Each had been dragged
down by the other one and ruined; also each one was the other one's
good angel. All that was commendable in the Signora, she owed to the
O'Kelly. Whatever was not discreditable about the O'Kelly was in the
nature of a loan from the Signora. With the help of more champagne
the right course would grow plain to them. She would go back broken-hearted
but repentant to the tight-rope; he would return a better but a blighted
man to Mrs.\ O'Kelly and the Western Circuit. This would be their
last evening together on earth. A fresh bottle would be broached,
and the guest or guests called upon to assist in the ceremony of renunciation;
glasses full to the brim this time.

So much tragedy did they continue to instil into the scene that on
the first occasion of my witnessing it I was unable to refrain from
mingling my tears with theirs. As, however, the next morning they
had forgotten all about it, and as nothing came of it, nor of several
subsequent repetitions, I should have believed a separation between
them impossible but that even while I was an inmate of the house the
thing actually happened.

It came about in this wise. His friends, having discovered him, had
pointed out to him again his duty. The Signora---a really excellent
little woman so far as intention was concerned---had seconded their
endeavours, with the result that on a certain evening in autumn we
of the house assembled all of us on the first floor to support them
on the occasion of their final---so we all deemed it then---leave-taking.
For eleven o'clock two four-wheeled cabs had been ordered, one to
transport the O'Kelly with his belongings to Hampstead and respectability;
in the other the Signora would journey sorrowfully to the Tower Basin,
there to join a circus company sailing for the Continent.

I knocked at the door some quarter of an hour before the appointed
hour of the party. I fancy the idea had originated with the Signora.

{}``Dear Willie has something to say to you,'' she had informed
me that morning on the stairs. {}``He has taken a sincere liking
to you, and it is something very important.''

They were sitting one each side the fireplace, looking very serious;
a bottle of the sobering champagne stood upon the table. The Signora
rose and kissed me gravely on the brow; the O'Kelly laid both hands
upon my shoulders, and sat me down on a chair between them.

{}``Mr.\ Kelver,'' said the Signora, {}``you are very young.''

I hinted---it was one of those rare occasions upon which gallantry
can be combined with truth---that I found myself in company.

The Signora smiled sadly, and shook her head.

{}``Age,'' said the O'Kelly, {}``is a matter of feeling. Kelver,
may ye never be as old as I am feeling now.''

{}``As \textit{we} are feeling,'' corrected the Signora. {}``Kelver,''
said the O'Kelly, pouring out a third glass of champagne, {}``we
want ye to promise us something.''

{}``It will make us both happier,'' added the Signora.

{}``That ye will take warning,'' continued the O'Kelly, {}``by
our wretched example. Paul, in this world there is only one path to
possible happiness. The path of strict---'' he paused.

{}``Propriety,'' suggested the Signora.

{}``Of strict propriety,'' agreed the O'Kelly. {}``Deviate from
it,'' continued the O'Kelly, impressively, {}``and what is the result?''

{}``Unutterable misery,'' supplied the Signora.

{}``Ye think we two have been happy here together,'' said the O'Kelly.

I replied that such was the conclusion to which observation had directed
me.

{}``We tried to appear so,'' explained the Signora; {}``it was
merely on the outside. In reality all the time we hated each other.
Tell him, Willie, dear, how we have hated each other.''

{}``It is impossible,'' said the O'Kelly, finishing and putting
down his glass, {}``to give ye any idea, Kelver, how we have hated
each other.''

{}``How we have quarrelled!''\ said the Signora. {}``Tell him,
dear, how we have quarrelled.''

{}``All day long and half the night,'' concluded the O'Kelly.

{}``Fought,'' added the Signora. {}``You see, Mr.\ Kelver, people
in---in our position always do. If it had been otherwise, if---if
everything had been proper, then of course we should have loved each
other. As it is, it has been a cat and dog existence. Hasn't it been
a cat and dog existence, Willie?''

{}``It's been just hell upon earth,'' murmured the O'Kelly, with
his eyes fixed gloomily upon the fire-stove ornament. Deadly in earnest
though they both were, I could not repress a laugh, their excellent
intention was so obvious. The Signora burst into tears.

{}``He doesn't believe us,'' she wailed.

{}``Me dear,'' replied the O'Kelly, throwing up his part with promptness
and satisfaction, {}``how could ye expect it? How could he believe
that any man could look at ye and hate ye?''

{}``It's all my fault,'' cried the little woman; {}``I am such
a wicked creature. I cannot even be miserable when I am doing wrong.
A decent woman in my place would have been wretched and unhappy, and
made everybody about her wretched and unhappy, and so have set a good
example and have been a warning. I don't seem to have any conscience,
and I do try.'' The poor little lady was sobbing her heart out.

When not shy I could be sensible, and of the O'Kelly and the Signora
one could be no more shy than of a pair of robin redbreasts. Besides,
I was really fond of them; they had been very good to me.

{}``Dear Miss Beltoni,'' I answered, {}``I am going to take warning
by you both.''

She pressed my hand. {}``Oh, do, please do,'' she murmured. {}``We
really have been miserable---now and then.''

{}``I am never going to be content,'' I assured her, {}``until
I find a lady as charming and as amiable as you, and if ever I get
her I'll take good care never to run any risk of losing her.''

It sounded well and pleased us all. The O'Kelly shook me warmly by
the hand, and this time spoke his real feelings.

{}``Me boy,'' he said, {}``all women are good---for somebody. But
the woman that is good for yerself is better for ye than a better
woman who's the best for somebody else. Ye understand?''

I said I did.

At eight o'clock precisely Mrs.\ Peedles arrived---as Flora MacDonald,
in green velvet jacket and twelve to fifteen inches of plaid stocking.
As a topic fitting the occasion we discussed the absent Mr.\ Peedles
and the subject of deserted wives in general.

{}``A fine-looking man,'' allowed Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``but weak---weak
as water.''

The Signora agreed that unfortunately there did exist such men: 'twas
pitiful but true.

{}``My dear,'' continued Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``she wasn't even a
lady.''

The Signora expressed astonishment at the deterioration in Mr.\ Peedles'
taste thus implied.

{}``I won't go so far as to say we never had a difference,'' continued
Mrs.\ Peedles, whose object appeared to be an impartial statement
of the whole case. {}``There may have been incompatability of temperament,
as they say. Myself, I have always been of a playful disposition---frivolous,
some might call me.''

The Signora protested; the O'Kelly declined to listen to such aspersion
on her character even from Mrs.\ Peedles herself.

Mrs.\ Peedles, thus corrected, allowed that maybe frivolous was too
sweeping an accusation: say sportive.

{}``But a good wife to him I always was,'' asserted Mrs.\ Peedles,
with a fine sense of justice; {}``never flighty, like some of them.
I challenge any one to accuse me of having been flighty.''

We felt we should not believe any one who did, and told her so.

Mrs.\ Peedles, drawing her chair closer to the Signora, assumed a
confidential attitude. {}``If they want to go, let 'em go, I always
say,'' she whispered loudly into the Signora's ear. {}``Ten to one
they'll find they've only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.
One can always comfort oneself with that.''

There seemed to be confusion in the mind of Mrs.\ Peedles. Her virtuous
sympathies, I gathered, were with the Signora. Mr.\ O'Kelly's return
to Mrs.\ O'Kelly evidently manifested itself in the light of a shameful
desertion. Having regard to the fact, patent to all who knew him,
that the poor fellow was sacrificing every inclination to stern sense
of duty, such view of the matter was rough on him. But philosophers
from all ages have agreed that our good deeds are the whips with which
Fate punishes us for our bad.

{}``My dear,'' continued Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``when Mr.\ Peedles
left me I thought that I should never smile again. Yet here you see
me laughing away through life, just as ever. You'll get over it all
right.'' And Mrs.\ Peedles wiped away her tears and smiled upon
the Signora; upon which the Signora commenced to cry again.

Happily, timely diversion was made at this point by the bursting into
the room of Jarman, who upon perceiving Mrs.\ Peedles, at once gave
vent to a hoot, supposed to be expressive of Scottish joy, and without
a moment's hesitation commenced to dance a reel.

My neighbours of the first floor knocked at the door a little while
afterwards; and genteelly late arrived Miss Rosina Sellars, coldly
gleaming in a decollete but awe-inspiring costume of mingled black
and scarlet, out of which her fair, if fleshy, neck and arms shone
luxuriant.

We did not go into supper; instead, supper came into us from the restaurant
at the corner of the Blackfriars Road. I cannot say that at first
it was a festive meal. The O'Kelly and the Signora made effort, as
in duty bound, to be cheerful, but for awhile were somewhat unsuccessful.
The third floor front wasted no time in speech, but ate and drank
copiously. Miss Sellars, retaining her gloves---which was perhaps
wise, her hands being her weak point---signalled me out, much to my
embarrassment, as the recipient of her most polite conversation. Mrs.\ Peedles
became reminiscent of parties generally. Seeing that most of Mrs.\ Peedles'
former friends and acquaintances were either dead or in more or less
trouble, her efforts did not tend to enliven the table. One gathering,
of which the present strangely reminded her, was a funeral, chiefly
remarkable from discovery of the romantic fact, late in the proceedings,
that the gentleman in whose honour the whole affair had been organised
was not dead at all; but instead, having taken advantage of an error
arising out of a railway accident, was at the moment eloping with
the wife of his own chief mourner. As Mrs.\ Peedles explained, and
as one could well credit, it had been an awkward position for all
present. Nobody had quite known whether to feel glad or sorry---with
the exception of the chief mourner, upon whose personal undertaking
that the company might regard the ceremony as merely postponed, festivities
came to an end.

Our prop and stay from a convivial point of view was Jarman. As a
delicate attention to Mrs.\ Peedles and her costume he sunk his nationality
and became for the evening, according to his own declaration, {}``a
braw laddie.'' With her---his {}``sonsie lassie,'' so he termed
her---he flirted in the broadest, if not purest, Scotch. The O'Kelly
for him became {}``the Laird;'' the third floor {}``Jamie o' the
Ilk;'' Miss Sellars, {}``the bonnie wee rose;'' myself, {}``the
chiel.'' Periods of silence were dispersed by suggestions that we
should {}``hoot awa','' Jarman himself setting us the example.

With the clearance away of the eatables, making room for the production
of a more varied supply of bottles, matters began to mend. Mrs.\ Peedles
became more arch, Jarman's Scotch more striking and extensive, the
Lady 'Ortensia's remarks less depressingly genteel, her aitches less
accentuated.

Jarman rose to propose the health of the O'Kelly, coupled with that
of the Signora. To the O'Kelly, in a burst of generosity, Jarman promised
our united patronage. To Jarman it appeared that by employing the
O'Kelly to defend us whenever we got into trouble with the police,
and by recommending him to our friends, a steady income should be
assured to him.

The O'Kelly replied feelingly to the effect that Nelson Square, Blackfriars,
would ever remain engraved upon his memory as the fairest and brightest
spot on earth. Personally, nothing would have given him greater pleasure
than to die among the dear friends who now surrounded him. But there
was such a thing as duty, and he and the Signora had come to the conclusion
that true happiness could only be obtained by acting according to
one's conscience, even if it made one miserable.

Jarman, warming to his work, then proposed the health of Mrs.\ Peedles,
as true-hearted and hard-breathing a lady as ever it had been his
privilege to know. Her talent for cheery conversation was familiar
to us all, upon it he need not enlarge; all he would say was that
personally never did she go out of his room without leaving him more
cheerful than when she entered it.

After that---I forget in what---we drank the health of the \textit{Lady}
'\textit{Ortensia}. Persons there were---Jarman would not attempt
to disguise the fact---who complained that the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}
was too distant, {}``too stand-offish.'' With such complaint he
himself had no sympathy; but tastes differed. If the \textit{Lady}
'\textit{Ortensia} were inclined to be exclusive, who should blame
her? Everybody knew their own business best. For use in a second floor
front he could not honestly recommend the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia};
it would not be giving her a fair chance, and it would not be giving
the second floor a fair chance. But for any gentleman fitting up marble
halls, for any one on the lookout for a really {}``toney article,''
Jarman would say: Inquire for Miss Rosina Sellars, and see that you
get her.

There followed my turn. There had been literary chaps in the past,
Jarman admitted so much. Against them he had nothing to say. They
had no doubt done their best. But the gentleman whose health Jarman
wished the company now to drink had this advantage over them: that
they were dead, and he wasn't. Some of this gentleman's work Jarman
had read---in manuscript; but that was a distinction purely temporary.
He, Jarman, claimed to be no judge of literature, but this he could
and would say, it took a good deal to make him miserable, yet this
the literary efforts of Mr.\ Kelver invariably accomplished.

Mrs.\ Peedles, speaking without rising, from personal observation
in the daytime---which she hoped would not be deemed a liberty; literature,
even in manuscript, being, so to speak, public property---found herself
in a position to confirm all that Mr.\ Jarman had remarked. Speaking
as one not entirely without authority on the subject of literature
and the drama, Mrs.\ Peedles could say that passages she had read
had struck her as distinctly not half bad. Some of the love-scenes,
in particular, had made her to feel quite a girl again. How he had
acquired such knowledge was not for her to say. Cries of {}``Naughty!''\ 
from Jarman, and {}``Oh, Mr.\ Kelver, I shall be quite afraid of
you,'' roguishly from Miss Sellars.

The O'Kelly, who, having abandoned his favourite champagne for less
sobering liquor, had since supper-time become rapidly more cheerful,
felt sure there was a future before me. That he had not seen any of
my work, so he assured me, in no way lessened his opinion of it. One
thing only would he impress upon me: that the best work was the result
of strict attention to virtue. His advice to me was to marry young
and be happy.

My persevering efforts of the last few months towards the acquisition
of convivial habits appeared this evening to be receiving their reward.
The O'Kelly's sweet champagne I had drunk with less dislike than hitherto;
a white, syrupy sort of stuff, out of a fat and artistic-looking bottle,
I had found distinctly grateful to the palate. Dimly the quotation
about taking things at the flood, and so getting on quickly, floated
through my brain, coupled with another one about fortune favouring
the bold. It had seemed to me a good occasion to try for the second
time in my life a full flavoured cigar. I had selected with the caution
of a connoisseur one of mottled green complexion from the O'Kelly's
largest box. And so far all had gone well. An easy self-confidence,
delightful by reason of its novelty, had replaced my customary shyness;
a sense of lightness---of positive airiness, emanating from myself,
pervaded all things. Tossing off another glass of the champagne, I
rose to reply.

Modesty in my present mood would have been affectation. To such dear
and well-beloved friends I had no hesitation in admitting the truth,
that I was a clever fellow---a damned clever fellow. I knew it, they
knew it, in a short time everybody would know it. But they need not
fear that in the hour of my pride, when it arrived, I should prove
ungrateful. Never should I forget their kindness to me, a lonely young
man, alone in a lonely--- Here the pathos of my own situation overcame
me; words seemed weak. {}``Jarman---'' I meant, putting my hand
upon his head, to have blessed him for his goodness to me; but he
being not exactly where he looked to be, I just missed him, and sat
down on the edge of my chair, which was a hard one. I had not intended
this to be the end of my speech, by a long one; but Jarman, whispering
to me: {}``Ended at exactly the right moment; shows the born orator,''
strong inclination to remain seated, now that I was down seconding
his counsel, and the company being clearly satisfied, I decided to
leave things where they were.

A delightful dreaminess was stealing over me. Everything and everybody
appeared to be a long way off, but, whether because of this or in
spite of it, exceedingly attractive. Never had I noticed the Signora
so bewitching; in a motherly sort of way even the third floor front
was good to look upon; Mrs.\ Peedles I could almost have believed
to be the real Flora MacDonald sitting in front of me. But the vision
of Miss Rosina Sellars made literally my head to swim. Never before
had I dared to cast upon female loveliness the satisfying gaze with
which I now boldly regarded her every movement. Evidently she noticed
it, for she turned away her eyes. I had heard that exceptionally strong-minded
people merely by concentrating their will could make other, ordinary
people, do just whatever they, the exceptionally strong-minded people,
wished. I willed that Miss Rosina Sellars should turn her eyes again
towards me. Victory crowned my efforts. Evidently I was one of these
exceptionally strong-minded persons. Slowly her eyes came round and
met mine with a smile---a helpless, pathetic smile that said, so I
read it: {}``You know no woman can resist you: be merciful!''

Inflamed by the brutal lust of conquest, I suppose I must have willed
still further, for the next thing I remember is sitting with Miss
Sellars on the sofa, holding her hand, the while the O'Kelly sang
a sentimental ballad, only one line of which comes back to me: {}``For
the angels must have told him, and he knows I love him now,'' much
stress upon the {}``now.'' The others had their backs towards us.
Miss Sellars, with a look that pierced my heart, dropped her somewhat
large head upon my shoulder, leaving, as I observed the next day,
a patch of powder on my coat.

Miss Sellars observed that one of the saddest things in the world
was unrequited love.

I replied gallantly, {}``Whateryou know about it?''

{}``Ah, you men, you men,'' murmured Miss Sellars; {}``you're all
alike.''

This suggested a personal aspersion on my character. {}``Not \textit{allus},''
I murmured.

{}``You don't know what love is,'' said Miss Sellars. {}``You're
not old enough.''

The O'Kelly had passed on to Sullivan's {}``Sweethearts,'' then
in its first popularity.

\begin{verse}
{}``Oh, love for a year---a week---a day!

But oh for the love that loves \textit{al}-wa-\textit{ay}!'' 
\end{verse}
Miss Sellars' languishing eyes were fixed upon me; Miss Sellars' red
lips pouted and twitched; Miss Sellars' white bosom rose and fell.
Never, so it seemed to me, had so large an amount of beauty been concentrated
in one being.

{}``Yeserdo,'' I said. {}``I love you.''

I stooped to kiss the red lips, but something was in my way. It turned
out to be a cold cigar. Miss Sellars thoughtfully removed it, and
threw it away. Our lips met. Her large arms closed about my neck and
held me tight.

{}``Well, I'm sure!''\ came the voice of Mrs.\ Peedles, as from
afar. {}``Nice goings on!''

I have vague remembrance of a somewhat heated discussion, in which
everybody but myself appeared to be taking extreme interest---of Miss
Sellars in her most ladylike and chilling tones defending me against
the charge of {}``being no gentleman,'' which Mrs.\ Peedles was
explaining nobody had said I wasn't. The argument seemed to be of
the circular order. No gentleman had ever kissed Miss Sellars who
had not every right to do so, nor ever would. To kiss Miss Sellars
without such right was to declare oneself no gentleman. Miss Sellars
appealed to me to clear my character from the aspersion of being no
gentleman. I was trying to understand the situation, when Jarman,
seizing me somewhat roughly by the arm, suggested my going to bed.
Miss Sellars, seizing my other arm, suggested my refusing to go to
bed. So far I was with Miss Sellars. I didn't want to go to bed, and
said so. My desire to sit up longer was proof positive to Miss Sellars
that I was a gentleman, but to no one else. The argument shifted,
the question being now as to whether Miss Sellars were a lady. To
prove the point it was, according to Miss Sellars, necessary that
I should repeat I loved her. I did repeat it, adding, with faint remembrance
of my own fiction, that if a life's devotion was likely to be of the
slightest further proof, my heart's blood was at her service. This
cleared the air, Mrs.\ Peedles observing that under such circumstances
it only remained for her to withdraw everything she had said; to which
Miss Sellars replied graciously that she had always known Mrs.\ Peedles
to be a good sort at the bottom.

Nevertheless, gaiety was gone from among us, and for this, in some
way I could not understand, I appeared to be responsible. Jarman was
distinctly sulky. The O'Kelly, suddenly thinking of the time, went
to the door and discovered that the two cabs were waiting. The third
floor recollected that work had to be finished. I myself felt sleepy.

Our host and hostess departed; Jarman again suggested bed, and this
time I agreed with him. After a slight misunderstanding with the door,
I found myself upon the stairs. I had never noticed before that they
were quite perpendicular. Adapting myself to the changed conditions,
I climbed them with the help of my hands. I accomplished the last
flight somewhat quickly, and feeling tired, sat down the moment I
was within my own room. Jarman knocked at the door. I told him to
come in; but he didn't. It occurred to me that the reason was I was
sitting on the floor with my back against the door. The discovery
amused me exceedingly and I laughed; and Jarman, baffled, descended
to his own floor. I found getting into bed a difficulty, owing to
the strange behaviour of the room. It spun round and round. Now the
bed was just in front of me, now it was behind me. I managed at last
to catch it before it could get past me, and holding on by the ironwork,
frustrated its efforts to throw me out again on to the floor.

But it was some time before I went to sleep, and over my intervening
experiences I draw a veil.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER III.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER III}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Good}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{friends}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{show}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{road}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{to}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{freedom}}\noun{.}
\textit{\noun{But}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{before}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{setting}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{out}}\noun{,} \textit{\noun{he}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{will}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{go}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a-visiting}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
The sun was streaming into my window when I woke in the morning. I
sat up and listened. The roar of the streets told me plainly that
the day had begun without me. I reached out my hand for my watch;
it was not in its usual place upon the rickety dressing-table. I raised
myself still higher and looked about me. My clothes lay scattered
on the floor. One boot, in solitary state, occupied the chair by the
fireplace; the other I could not see anywhere.

During the night my head appeared to have grown considerably. I wondered
idly for the moment whether I had not made a mistake and put on Minikin's;
if so, I should be glad to exchange back for my own. This thing I
had got was a top-heavy affair, and was aching most confoundedly.

Suddenly the recollection of the previous night rushed at me and shook
me awake. From a neighbouring steeple rang chimes: I counted with
care. Eleven o'clock. I sprang out of bed, and at once sat down upon
the floor.

I remembered how, holding on to the bed, I had felt the room waltzing
wildly round and round. It had not quite steadied itself even yet.
It was still rotating, not whirling now, but staggering feebly, as
though worn out by its all-night \textit{orgie}. Creeping to the wash-stand,
I succeeded, after one or two false plunges, in getting my head inside
the basin. Then, drawing on my trousers with difficulty and reaching
the easy-chair, I sat down and reviewed matters so far as I was able,
commencing from the present and working back towards the past.

I was feeling very ill. That was quite clear. Something had disagreed
with me.

{}``That strong cigar,'' I whispered feebly to myself; {}``I ought
never to have ventured upon it. And then the little room with all
those people in it. Besides, I have been working very hard. I must
really take more exercise.

It gave me some satisfaction to observe that, shuffling and cowardly
though I might be, I was not a person easily bamboozled.

{}``Nonsense,'' I told myself brutally; {}``don't try to deceive
me. You were drunk.''

{}``Not drunk,'' I pleaded; {}``don't say drunk; it is such a coarse
expression. Some people cannot stand sweet champagne, so I have heard.
It affected my liver. Do please make it a question of liver.''

{}``Drunk,'' I persisted unrelentingly, {}``hopelessly, vulgarly
drunk---drunk as any 'Arry after a Bank Holiday.''

{}``It is the first time,'' I murmured.

{}``It was your first opportunity,'' I replied.

{}``Never again,'' I promised.

{}``The stock phrase,'' I returned.

{}``How old are you?''

{}``Nineteen.''

{}``So you have not even the excuse of youth. How do you know that
it will not grow upon you; that, having thus commenced a downward
career, you will not sink lower and lower, and so end by becoming
a confirmed sot?''

My heavy head dropped into my hands, and I groaned. Many a temperance
tale perused on Sunday afternoons came back to me. Imaginative in
all directions, I watched myself hastening toward a drunkard's grave,
now heroically struggling against temptation, now weakly yielding,
the craving growing upon me. In the misty air about me I saw my father's
white face, my mother's sad eyes. I thought of Barbara, of the scorn
that could quiver round that bewitching mouth; of Hal, with his tremendous
contempt for all forms of weakness. Shame of the present and terror
of the future between them racked my mind.

{}``It shall be never again!''\ I cried aloud. {}``By God, it
shall!'' (At nineteen one is apt to be vehement.) {}``I will leave
this house at once,'' I continued to myself aloud; {}``I will get
away from its unwholesome atmosphere. I will wipe it out of my mind,
and all connected with it. I will make a fresh start. I will---''

Something I had been dimly conscious of at the back of my brain came
forward and stood before me: the flabby figure of Miss Rosina Sellars.
What was she doing here? What right had she to step between me and
my regeneration?

{}``The right of your affianced bride,'' my other half explained,
with a grim smile to myself.

{}``Did I really go so far as that?''

{}``We will not go into details,'' I replied; {}``I do not wish
to dwell upon them. That was the result.''

{}``I was---I was not quite myself at the time. I did not know what
I was doing.''

{}``As a rule, we don't when we do foolish things; but we have to
abide by the consequences, all the same. Unfortunately, it happened
to be in the presence of witnesses, and she is not the sort of lady
to be easily got rid of. You will marry her and settle down with her
in two small rooms. Her people will be your people. You will come
to know them better before many days are passed. Among them she is
regarded as `the lady,' from which you can judge of them. A nice commencement
of your career, is it not, my ambitious young friend? A nice mess
you have made of it!''

{}``What am I to do?''\ I asked.

{}``Upon my word, I don't know,'' I answered.

I passed a wretched day. Ashamed to face Mrs.\ Peedles or even the
slavey, I kept to my room, with the door locked. At dusk, feeling
a little better---or, rather, less bad, I stole out and indulged in
a simple meal, consisting of tea without sugar and a kippered herring,
at a neighbouring coffee-house. Another gentleman, taking his seat
opposite to me and ordering hot buttered toast, I left hastily.

At eight o'clock in the evening Minikin called round from the office
to know what had happened. Seeking help from shame, I confessed to
him the truth.

{}``Thought as much,'' he answered. {}``Seems to have been an A1
from the look of you.''

{}``I am glad it has happened, now it is over,'' I said to him.
{}``It will be a lesson I shall never forget.''

{}``I know,'' said Minikin. {}``Nothing like a fair and square
drunk for making you feel real good; better than a sermon.''

In my trouble I felt the need of advice; and Minikin, though my junior,
was, I knew, far more experienced in worldly affairs than I was.

{}``That's not the worst,'' I confided to him. {}``What do you
think I've done?''

{}``Killed a policeman?''\ suggested Minikin.

{}``Got myself engaged.''

{}``No one like you quiet fellows for going it when you do begin,''
commented Minikin. {}``Nice girl?''

{}``I don't know,'' I answered. {}``I only know I don't want her.
How can I get out of it?''

Minikin removed his left eye and commenced to polish it upon his handkerchief,
a habit he had when in doubt. From looking into it he appeared to
derive inspiration.

{}``Take-her-own-part sort of a girl?''

I intimated that he had diagnosed Miss Rosina Sellars correctly.

{}``Know how much you're earning?''

{}``She knows I live up here in this attic and do my own cooking,''
I answered.

Minikin glanced round the room. {}``Must be fond of you.''

{}``She thinks I'm clever,'' I explained, {}``and that I shall
make my way.

{}``And she's willing to wait?''

I nodded.

{}``Well, I should let her wait,'' replied Minikin, replacing his
eye. {}``There's plenty of time before you.''

{}``But she's a barmaid, and she'll expect me to walk with her, to
take her out on Sundays, to go and see her friends. I can't do it.
Besides, she's right: I mean to get on. Then she'll stick to me. It's
awful!''

{}``How did it happen?''\ asked Minikin.

{}``I don't know,'' I replied. {}``I didn't know I had done it
till it was over.''

{}``Anybody present?''

{}``Half-a-dozen of them,'' I groaned.

The door opened, and Jarman entered; he never troubled to knock anywhere.
In place of his usual noisy greeting, he crossed in silence and shook
me gravely by the hand.

{}``Friend of yours?''\ he asked, indicating Minikin.

I introduced them to each other.

{}``Proud to meet you,'' said Jarman.

{}``Glad to hear it,'' said Minikin. {}``Don't look as if you'd
got much else to be stuck up about.''

{}``Don't mind him,'' I explained to Jarman. {}``He was born like
it.''

{}``Wonderful gift'' replied Jarman. {}``D'ye know what I should
do if I 'ad it?'' He did not wait for Minikin's reply.\ {} {}``'Ire
myself out to break up evening parties. Ever thought of it seriously?''

Minikin replied that he would give the idea consideration.

{}``Make your fortune going round the suburbs,'' assured him Jarman.
{}``Pity you weren't 'ere last night,'' he continued; {}``might
'\textit{ave} saved our young friend 'ere a deal of trouble. Has 'e
told you the news?''

I explained that I had already put Minikin in possession of all the
facts.

{}``Now you've got a good, steady eye,'' said Jarman, upon whom
Minikin, according to his manner, had fixed his glass orb; {}``'ow
d'ye think 'e is looking?''

{}``As well as can be expected under the circumstances, don't you
think?''\ answered Minikin.

{}``Does 'e know the circumstances? Has 'e seen the girl?''\ asked
Jarman.

I replied he had not as yet enjoyed that privilege. {}``Then 'e don't
know the worst,'' said Jarman. {}``A hundred and sixty pounds of
'\textit{er}, and still growing! Bit of a load for 'im, ain't it?''

{}``Some of 'em do have luck,'' was Minikin's rejoinder. Jarman
leant forward and took further stock for a few seconds of his new
acquaintance.

{}``That's a fine 'ead of yours,'' he remarked; {}``all your own?
No offence,'' continued Jarman, without giving Minikin time for repartee.
{}``I was merely thinking there must be room for a lot of sense in
it. Now, what do you, as a practical man, advise 'im: dose of poison,
or Waterloo Bridge and a brick?''

{}``I suppose there's no doubt,'' I interjected, {}``that we are
actually engaged?''

{}``Not a blooming shadow,'' assured me Jarman, cheerfully, {}``so
far as she's concerned.''

{}``I shall tell her plainly,'' I explained, {}``that I was drunk
at the time.''

{}``And 'ow are you going to convince '\textit{er} of it?''\ asked
Jarman. {}``You think your telling '\textit{er} you loved '\textit{er}
proves it. So it would to anybody else, but not to '\textit{er}. You
can't expect it. Besides, if every girl is going to give up '\textit{er}
catch just because the fellow 'adn't all 'is wits about 'im at the
time---well, what do you think?'' He appealed to Minikin.

To Minikin it appeared that if such contention were allowed girls
might as well shut up shop.

Jarman, who now that he had {}``got even'' with Minikin, was more
friendly disposed towards that young man, drew his chair closer to
him and entered upon a private and confidential argument, from which
I appeared to be entirely excluded.

{}``You see,'' explained Jarman, {}``this ain't an ordinary case.
This chap's going to be the future Poet Laureate. Now, when the Prince
of Wales invites him to dine at Marlborough 'ouse, 'e don't want to
go there tacked on to a girl that carries aitches with her in a bag,
and don't know which end of the spoon out of which to drink '\textit{er}
soup.''

{}``It makes a difference, of course,'' agreed Minikin.

{}``What we've got to do,'' said Jarman, {}``is to get 'im out
of it. And upon my sivvy, blessed if I see 'ow to do it!''

{}``She fancies him?''\ asked Minikin.

{}``What she fancies,'' explained Jarman, {}``is that nature intended
'\textit{er} to be a lady. And it's no good pointing out to '\textit{er}
the mistake she's making, because she ain't got sense enough to see
it.''

{}``No good talking straight to her,'' suggested Minikin, {}``telling
her that it can never be?''

{}``That's our difficulty,'' replied Jarman; {}``it can be. This
chap''---I listened as might a prisoner in the dock to the argument
of counsel, interested but impotent---{}``don't know enough to come
in out of the rain, as the saying is. 'E's just the sort of chap this
sort of thing does 'appen to.''

{}``But he don't want her,'' urged Minikin. {}``He says he don't
want her.''

{}``Yes, to you and me,'' answered Jarman; {}``and of course 'e
don't. I'm not saying 'e's a natural born idiot. But let '\textit{er}
come along and do a snivel---tell 'im that 'e's breaking '\textit{er}
'eart, and appeal to 'im to be'ave as a gentleman, and all that sort
of thing, and what do you think will be the result?''

Minikin agreed that the problem presented difficulties.

{}``Of course, if 'twas you or me, we should \textit{just} tell '\textit{er}
to put 'erself away somewhere where the moth couldn't get at '\textit{er}
and wait till we sent round for '\textit{er}; and there'd be an end
of the matter. But with 'im it's different.''

{}``He is a bit of a soft,'' agreed Minikin.

{}``'Tain't 'is fault,'' explained Jarman; {}``'twas the way 'e
was brought up. 'E fancies girls are the sort of things one sees in
plays, going about saying `Un'and me!' `Let me pass!' Maybe some of
'em are, but this ain't one of 'em.''

{}``How did it happen?''\ asked Minikin.

{}``'Ow does it 'appen nine times out of ten?''\ returned Jarman.\ {}
{}``'E was a bit misty, and she was wide awake. 'E gets a bit spoony,
and---well, you know.''

{}``Artful things, girls,'' commented Minikin.

{}``Can't blame 'em,'' returned Jarman, with generosity; {}``it's
their business. Got to dispose of themselves somehow. Oughtn't to
be binding without a written order dated the next morning; that'd
make it all right.''

{}``Couldn't prove a prior engagement?''\ suggested Minikin.

{}``She'd want to see the girl first before she'd believe it---only
natural,'' returned Jarman.

{}``Couldn't get a girl?''\ urged Minikin.

{}``Who could you trust?''\ asked the cautious Jarman. {}``Besides,
there ain't time. She's letting 'im rest to-day; to-morrow evening
she'll be down on 'im.''

{}``Don't see anything for it,'' said Minikin, {}``but for him
to do a bunk.''

{}``Not a bad idea that,'' mused Jarman; {}``only where's 'e to
bunk to?''

{}``Needn't go far,'' said Minikin.

{}``She'd find 'im out and follow 'im,'' said Jarman. {}``She can
look after herself, mind you. Don't you go doing '\textit{er} any
injustice.''

{}``He could change his name,'' suggested Minikin.

{}``'Ow could 'e get a crib?''\ asked Jarman; {}``no character,
no references.''

{}``I've got it,'' cried Jarman, starting up; {}``the stage!''

{}``Can he act?''\ asked Minikin.

{}``Can do anything,'' retorted my supporter, {}``that don't want
too much sense. That's 'is sanctuary, the stage. No questions asked,
no character wanted. Lord!\ why didn't I think of it before?''

{}``Wants a bit of getting on to, doesn't it?''\ suggested Minikin.

{}``Depends upon where you want to get,'' replied Jarman. For the
first time since the commencement of the discussion he turned to me.
{}``Can you sing?''\ he asked me.

I replied that I could a little, though I had never done so in public.

{}``Sing something now,'' demanded Jarman; {}``let's 'ear you.
Wait a minute!''\ he cried.

He slipped out of the room. I heard him pause upon the landing below
and knock at the door of the fair Rosina's room. The next minute he
returned.

{}``It's all right,'' he explained; {}``she's not in yet. Now,
sing for all you're worth. Remember, it's for life and freedom.''

I sang {}``Sally in Our Alley,'' not with much spirit, I am inclined
to think. With every mention of the lady's name there rose before
me the abundant form and features of my \textit{fiancee}, which checked
the feeling that should have trembled through my voice. But Jarman,
though not enthusiastic, was content.

{}``It isn't what I call a grand opera voice,'' he commented, {}``but
it ought to do all right for a chorus where economy is the chief point
to be considered. Now, I'll tell you what to do. You go to-morrow
straight to the O'Kelly, and put the whole thing before 'im. 'E's
a good sort; 'e'll touch you up a bit, and maybe give you a few introductions.
Lucky for you, this is just the right time. There's one or two things
comin' on, and if Fate ain't dead against you, you'll lose your amorita,
or whatever it's called, and not find '\textit{er} again till it's
too late.''

I was not in the mood that evening to feel hopeful about anything;
but I thanked both of them for their kind intentions and promised
to think the suggestion over on the morrow, when, as it was generally
agreed, I should be in a more fitting state to bring cool judgment
to bear upon the subject; and they rose to take their departure.

Leaving Minikin to descend alone, Jarman returned the next minute.
{}``Consols are down a bit this week,'' he whispered, with the door
in his hand. {}``If you want a little of the ready to carry you through,
don't go sellin' out. I can manage a few pounds. Suck a couple of
lemons and you'll be all right in the morning. So long.''

I followed his advice regarding the lemons, and finding it correct,
went to the office next morning as usual. Lott \& Co., in consideration
of my agreeing to a deduction of two shillings on the week's salary,
allowed himself to overlook the matter. I had intended acting on Jarman's
advice, to call upon the O'Kelly at his address of respectability
in Hampstead that evening, and had posted him a note saying I was
coming. Before leaving the office, however, I received a reply to
the effect that he would be out that evening, and asking me to make
it the following Friday instead. Disappointed, I returned to my lodgings
in a depressed state of mind. Jarman 's scheme, which had appeared
hopeful and even attractive during the daytime, now loomed shadowy
and impossible before me. The emptiness of the first floor parlour
as I passed its open door struck a chill upon me, reminding me of
the disappearance of a friend to whom, in spite of moral disapproval,
I had during these last few months become attached. Unable to work,
the old pain of loneliness returned upon me. I sat for awhile in the
darkness, listening to the scratching of the pen of my neighbour,
the old law-writer, and the sense of despair that its sound always
communicated to me encompassed me about this evening with heavier
weight than usual.

After all, was not the sympathy of the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia},
stimulated for personal purposes though it might be, better than nothing?
At least, here was some living creature to whom I belonged, to whom
my existence or nonexistence was of interest, who, if only for her
own sake, was bound to share my hopes, my fears.

It was in this mood that I heard a slight tap at the door. In the
dim passage stood the small slavey, holding out a note. I took it,
and returning, lighted my candle. The envelope was pink and scented.
It was addressed, in handwriting not so bad as I had expected, to
{}``Paul Kelver, Esquire.'' I opened it and read:

\begin{quotation}
{}``Dr Mr.\ Paul---I herd as how you was took hill hafter the party.
I feer you are not strong. You must not work so hard or you will be
hill and then I shall be very cros with you. I hop you are well now.
If so I am going for a wark and you may come with me if you are good.
With much love. From your affechonat

\raggedleft \textit{Rosie}.''\par{}
\end{quotation}
In spite of the spelling, a curious, tingling sensation stole over
me as I read this my first love-letter. A faint mist swam before my
eyes. Through it, glorified and softened, I saw the face of my betrothed,
pasty yet alluring, her large white fleshy arms stretched out invitingly
toward me. Moved by a sudden hot haste that seized me, I dressed myself
with trembling hands; I appeared to be anxious to act without giving
myself time for thought. Complete, with a colour in my cheeks unusual
to them, and a burning in my eyes, I descended and knocked with a
nervous hand at the door of the second floor back.

{}``Who's that?''\ came in answer Miss Sellars' sharp tones.

{}``It is I---Paul.''

{}``Oh, wait a minute, dear.'' The tone was sweeter. There followed
the sound of scurried footsteps, a rustling of clothes, a banging
of drawers, a few moments' dead silence, and then:

{}``You can come in now, dear.''

I entered. It was a small, untidy room, smelling of smoky lamp; but
all I saw distinctly at the moment was Miss Sellars with her arms
above her head, pinning her hat upon her straw-coloured hair.

With the sight of her before me in the flesh, my feelings underwent
a sudden revulsion. During the few minutes she had kept me waiting
outside the door I had suffered from an almost uncontrollable desire
to turn the handle and rush in. Now, had I acted on impulse, I should
have run out. Not that she was an unpleasant-looking girl by any means;
it was the atmosphere of coarseness, of commonness, around her that
repelled me. The fastidiousness---finikinness; if you will---that
would so often spoil my rare chop, put before me by a waitress with
dirty finger-nails, forced me to disregard the ample charms she no
doubt did possess, to fasten my eyes exclusively upon her red, rough
hands and the one or two warts that grew thereon.

{}``You're a very naughty boy,'' told me Miss Sellars, finishing
the fastening of her hat. {}``Why didn't you come in and see me in
the dinner-\textit{h}our? I've a great mind not to kiss you.''

The powder she had evidently dabbed on hastily was plainly visible
upon her face; the round, soft arms were hidden beneath ill-fitting
sleeves of some crapey material, the thought of which put my teeth
on edge. I wished her intention had been stronger. Instead, relenting,
she offered me her flowery cheek, which I saluted gingerly, the taste
of it reminding me of certain pale, thin dough-cakes manufactured
by the wife of our school porter and sold to us in playtime at four
a penny, and which, having regard to their satisfying quality, had
been popular with me in those days.

At the top of the kitchen stairs Miss Sellars paused and called down
shrilly to Mrs.\ Peedles, who in course of time appeared, panting.

{}``Oh, me and Mr.\ Kelver are going out for a short walk, Mrs.\ Peedles.
I shan't want any supper. Good night.''

{}``Oh, good night, my dear,'' replied Mrs.\ Peedles. {}``Hope
you'll enjoy yourselves. Is Mr.\ Kelver there?''

{}``He's round the corner,'' I heard Miss Sellars explain in a lower
voice; and there followed a snigger.

{}``He's a bit shy, ain't he?''\ suggested Mrs.\ Peedles in a
whisper.

{}``I've had enough of the other sort,'' was Miss Sellars' answer
in low tones.

{}``Ah, well; it's the shy ones that come out the strongest after
a bit---leastways, that's been my experience.''

{}``He'll do all right. So long.''

Miss Sellars, buttoning a burst glove, rejoined me.

{}``I suppose you've never had a sweetheart before?''\ asked Miss
Sellars, as we turned into the Blackfriars Road.

I admitted that this was my first experience.

{}``I can't a-bear a flirty man,'' explained Miss Sellars. {}``That's
why I took to you from the beginning. You was so quiet.''

I began to wish that nature had bestowed upon me a noisier temperament.

{}``Anybody could see you was a gentleman,'' continued Miss Sellars.
{}``Heaps and heaps of hoffers I've had---\textit{h}undreds you might
almost say. But what I've always told 'em is, 'I like you very much
indeed as a friend, but I'm not going to marry any one but a gentleman.'
Don't you think I was right?''

I murmured it was only what I should have expected of her.

{}``You may take my harm, if you like,'' suggested Miss Sellars,
as we crossed St.\ George's Circus; and linked, we pursued our way
along the Kennington Park Road.

Fortunately, there was not much need for me to talk. Miss Sellars
was content to supply most of the conversation herself, and all of
it was about herself.

I learned that her instincts since childhood had been toward gentility.
Nor was this to be wondered at, seeing that her family---on her mother's
side, at all events,---were connected distinctly with {}``the \textit{h}ighest
in the land.'' \textit{M\'{e}salliances}, however, are common in
all communities, and one of them, a particularly flagrant specimen---her
{}``Mar'' had, alas!\ contracted, having married---what did I think?
I should never guess---a waiter! Miss Sellars, stopping in the act
of crossing Newington Butts to shudder at the recollection of her
female parent's shame, was nearly run down by a tramcar.

Mr.\ and Mrs.\ Sellars did not appear to have {}``hit it off''
together. Could one wonder: Mrs.\ Sellars with an uncle on the Stock
Exchange, and Mr.\ Sellars with one on Peckham Rye? I gathered his
calling to have been, chiefly, {}``three shies a penny.'' Mrs.\ Sellars
was now, however, happily dead; and if no other good thing had come
out of the catastrophe, it had determined Miss Sellars to take warning
by her mother's error and avoid connection with the lowly born. She
it was who, with my help, would lift the family back again to its
proper position in society.

{}``It used to be a joke against me,'' explained Miss Sellars, {}``heven
when I was quite a child. I never could tolerate anything low. Why,
one day when I was only seven years old, what do you think happened?''

I confessed my inability to guess.

{}``Well, I'll tell you,'' said Miss Sellars; {}``it'll just show
you. Uncle Joseph---that was father's uncle, you understand?''

I assured Miss Sellars that the point was fixed in my mind.

{}``Well, one day when he came to see us he takes a cocoanut out
of his pocket and offers it to me. `Thank you,' I says; 'I don't heat
cocoanuts that have been shied at by just anybody and missed!' It
made him so wild. After that,'' explained Miss Sellars, {}``they
used to call me at home the Princess of Wales.''

I murmured it was a pretty fancy.

{}``Some people,'' replied Miss Sellars, with a giggle, {}``says
it fits me; but, of course, that's only their nonsense.''

Not knowing what to reply, I remained silent, which appeared to somewhat
disappoint Miss Sellars.

Out of the Clapham Road we turned into a by-street of two-storeyed
houses.

{}``You'll come in and have a bit of supper?''\ suggested Miss
Sellars. {}``Mar's quite hanxious to see you.''

I found sufficient courage to say I was not feeling well, and would
much rather return home.

{}``Oh, but you must just come in for five minutes, dear. It'll look
so funny if you don't. I told 'em we was coming.''

{}``I would really rather not,'' I urged; {}``some other evening.''
I felt a presentiment, I confided to her, that on this particular
evening I should not shine to advantage.

{}``Oh, you mustn't be so shy,'' said Miss Sellars. {}``I don't
like shy fellows---not too shy. That's silly.'' And Miss Sellars
took my arm with a decided grip, making it clear to me that escape
could be obtained only by an unseemly struggle in the street; not
being prepared for which, I meekly yielded.

We knocked at the door of one of the small houses, Miss Sellars retaining
her hold upon me until it had been opened to us by a lank young man
in his shirt-sleeves and closed behind us.

{}``Don't gentlemen wear coats of a hevening nowadays?''\ asked
Miss Sellars, tartly, of the lank young man. {}``New fashion just
come in?''

{}``I don't know what gentlemen wear in the evening or what they
don't,'' retorted the lank young man, who appeared to be in an aggressive
mood. {}``If I can find one in this street, I'll \textit{ast} him
and let you know.''

{}``Mother in the droaring-room?''\ enquired Miss Sellars, ignoring
the retort.

{}``They're all of 'em in the parlour, if that's what you mean,''
returned the lank young man, {}``the whole blooming shoot. If you
stand up against the wall and don't breathe, there'll just be room
for you.''

Sweeping by the lank young man, Miss Sellars opened the parlour door,
and towing me in behind her, shut it.

{}``Well, Mar, here we are,'' announced Miss Sellars. An enormously
stout lady, ornamented with a cap that appeared to have been made
out of a bandanna handkerchief, rose to greet us, thus revealing the
fact that she had been sitting upon an extremely small horsehair-covered
easy-chair, the disproportion between the lady and her support being
quite pathetic.

{}``I am charmed, Mr.---''

{}``Kelver,'' supplied Miss Sellars.

{}``Kelver, to make your \textit{ac}-quain-tance,'' recited Mrs.\ Sellars
in the tone of one repeating a lesson.

I bowed, and murmured that the honour was entirely mine.

{}``Don't mention it,'' replied Mrs.\ Sellars. {}``Pray be seated.''

Mrs.\ Sellars herself set the example by suddenly giving way and
dropping down into her chair, which thus again became invisible. It
received her with an agonised groan.

Indeed, the insistence with which this article of furniture throughout
the evening \textit{cal}1\textit{ed} \textit{attention} to its sufferings
was really quite distracting. With every breath that Mrs.\ Sellars
took it moaned wearily. There were moments when it literally shrieked.
I could not have accepted Mrs.\ Sellars' offer had I wished, there
being no chair vacant and no room for another. A young man with watery
eyes, sitting just behind me between a fat young lady and a lean one,
rose and suggested my taking his place. Miss Sellars introduced me
to him as her cousin Joseph something or other, and we shook hands.

The watery-eyed Joseph remarked that it had been a fine day between
the showers, and hoped that the morrow would be either wet or dry;
upon which the lean young lady, having slapped him, asked admiringly
of the fat young lady if he wasn't a {}``silly fool;'' to which
the fat young lady replied, with somewhat unnecessary severity, I
thought, that no one could help being what they were born. To this
the lean young lady retorted that it was with precisely similar reflection
that she herself controlled her own feelings when tempted to resent
the fat young lady's {}``nasty jealous temper.''

The threatened quarrel was nipped in the bud by the discretion of
Miss Sellars, who took the opportunity of the fat young lady's momentary
speechlessness to introduce me promptly to both of them. They also,
I learned, were cousins. The lean girl said she had {}``erd on me,''
and immediately fell into an uncontrollable fit of giggles; of which
the watery-eyed Joseph requested me to take no notice, explaining
that she always went off like that at exactly three-quarters to the
half-hour every evening, Sundays and holidays excepted; that she had
taken everything possible for it without effect, and that what he
himself advised was that she should have it off.

The fat girl, seizing the chance afforded her, remarked genteelly
that she too had {}``heard hof me,'' with emphasis upon the {}``hof.''
She also remarked it was a long walk from Blackfriars Bridge.

{}``All depends upon the company, eh? Bet they didn't find it too
long.''

This came from a loud-voiced, red-faced man sitting on the sofa beside
a somewhat melancholy-looking female dressed in bright green. These
twain I discovered to be Uncle and Aunt Gutton. From an observation
dropped later in the evening concerning government restrictions on
the sale of methylated spirit, and hastily smothered, I gathered that
their line was oil and colour.

Mr.\ Gutton's forte appeared to be badinage. He it was who, on my
explaining my heightened colour as due to the closeness of the evening,
congratulated his niece on having secured so warm a partner.

{}``Will be jolly handy,'' shouted Uncle Gutton, {}``for Rosina,
seeing she's always complaining of her cold feet.''

Here the lank young man attempted to squeeze himself into the room,
but found his entrance barred by the square, squat figure of the watery-eyed
young man.

{}``Don't push,'' advised the watery-eyed young man. {}``Walk over
me quietly.''

{}``Well, why don't yer get out of the way,'' growled the lank young
man, now coated, but still aggressive.

{}``Where am I to get to?''\ asked the watery-eyed young man, with
some reason. {}``Say the word and I'll 'ang myself up to the gas
bracket.''

{}``In my courting days,'' roared Uncle Gutton, {}``the girls used
to be able to find seats, even if there wasn't enough chairs to go
all round.''

The sentiment was received with varying degrees of approbation. The
watery-eyed young man, sitting down, put the lean young lady on his
knee, and in spite of her struggles and sounding slaps, heroically
retained her there.

{}``Now, then, Rosie,'' shouted Uncle Gutton, who appeared to have
constituted himself master of the ceremonies, {}``don't stand about,
my girl; you'll get tired.''

Left to herself, I am inclined to think my \textit{fiancee} would
have spared me; but Uncle Gutton, having been invited to a love comedy,
was not to be cheated of any part of the performance, and the audience
clearly being with him, there was nothing for it but compliance. I
seated myself, and amid plaudits accommodated the ample and heavy
Rosina upon my knee.

{}``Good-bye,'' called out to me the watery-eyed young man, as behind
the fair Rosina I disappeared from his view. {}``See you again later
on.''

{}``I used to be a plump girl myself before I married,'' observed
Aunt Gutton. {}``Plump as butter I was at one time.''

{}``It isn't what one eats,'' said the maternal Sellars. {}``I
myself don't eat enough to keep a fly, and my legs---''

{}``That'll do, Mar,'' interrupted the filial Sellars, tartly.

{}``I was only going to say, my dear---''

{}``We all know what you was going to say, Mar,'' retorted Miss
Sellars. {}``We've heard it before, and it isn't interesting.''

Mrs.\ Sellars relapsed into silence.

{}``'Ard work and plenty of it keeps you thin enough, I notice,''
remarked the lank young man, with bitterness. To him I was now introduced,
he being Mr.\ George Sellars. {}``Seen 'im before,'' was his curt
greeting.

At supper---referred to by Mrs.\ Sellars again in the tone of one
remembering a lesson, as a cold col-la-tion, with the accent on the
{}``tion''---I sat between Miss Sellars and the lean young lady,
with Aunt and Uncle Gutton opposite to us. It was remarked with approval
that I did not appear to be hungry.

{}``Had too many kisses afore he started,'' suggested Uncle Gutton,
with his mouth full of cold roast pork and pickles. {}``Wonderfully
nourishing thing, kisses, eh? Look at mother and me. That's all we
live on.''

Aunt Gutton sighed, and observed that she had always been a poor feeder.

The watery-eyed young man, observing he had never tasted them himself---at
which sally there was much laughter---said he would not mind trying
a sample if the lean young lady would kindly pass him one.

The lean young lady opined that, not being used to high living, it
might disagree with him.

{}``Just one,'' pleaded the watery-eyed young man, {}``to go with
this bit of cracklin'.''

The lean young lady, amid renewed applause, first thoughtfully wiping
her mouth, acceded to his request.

The watery-eyed young man turned it over with the air of a gourmet.

{}``Not bad,'' was his verdict. {}``Reminds me of onions.'' At
this there was another burst of laughter.

{}``Now then, ain't Paul goin' to have one?''\ shouted Uncle Gutton,
when the laughter had subsided.

Amid silence, feeling as wretched as perhaps I have ever felt in my
life before or since, I received one from the gracious Miss Sellars,
wet and sounding.

{}``Looks better for it already,'' commented the delighted Uncle
Gutton. {}``He'll soon get fat on 'em.''

{}``Not too many at first,'' advised the watery-eyed young man.
{}``Looks to me as if he's got a weak stomach.''

I think, had the meal lasted much longer, I should have made a dash
for the street; the contemplation of such step was forming in my mind.
But Miss Sellars, looking at her watch, declared we must be getting
home at once, for the which I could have kissed her voluntarily; and,
being a young lady of decision, at once rose and commenced leave-taking.
Polite protests were attempted, but these, with enthusiastic assistance
from myself, she swept aside.

{}``Don't want any one to walk home with you?''\ suggested Uncle
Gutton. {}``Sure you won't feel lonely by yourselves, eh?''

{}``We shan't come to no harm,'' assured him Miss Sellars.

{}``P'raps you're right,'' agreed Uncle Gutton. {}``There don't
seem to be much of the fiery and untamed about him, so far as I can
see.''

{}```Slow waters run deep,''' reminded us Aunt Gutton, with a waggish
shake of her head.

{}``No question about the slow,'' assented Uncle Gutton. {}``If
you don't like him---'' observed Miss Sellars, speaking with dignity.

{}``To be quite candid with you, my girl, I don't,'' answered Uncle
Gutton, whose temper, maybe as the result of too much cold pork and
whiskey, seemed to have suddenly changed.

{}``Well, he happens to be good enough for me,'' recommenced Miss
Sellars.

{}``I'm sorry to hear a niece of mine say so,'' interrupted Uncle
Gutton. {}``If you want my opinion of him---''

{}``If ever I do I'll call round some time when you're sober and
\textit{ast} you for it,'' returned Miss Sellars. {}``And as for
being your niece, you was here when I came, and I don't see very well
as how I could have got out of it. You needn't throw that in my teeth.''

The gust was dispersed by the practical remark of brother George to
the effect that the last tram for Walworth left the Oval at eleven-thirty;
to which he further added the suggestion that the Clapham Road was
wide and well adapted to a row.

{}``There ain't going to be no rows,'' replied Uncle Gutton, returning
to amiability as suddenly as he had departed from it. {}``We understand
each other, don't we, my girl?''

{}``That's all right, uncle. I know what you mean,'' returned Miss
Sellars, with equal handsomeness.

{}``Bring him round again when he's feeling better,'' added Uncle
Gutton, {}``and we'll have another look at him.''

{}``What you want,'' advised the watery-eyed young man on shaking
hands with me, {}``is complete rest and a tombstone.''

I wished at the time I could have followed his prescription.

The maternal Sellars waddled after us into the passage, which she
completely blocked. She told me she was delight-ted to have met me,
and that she was always at home on Sundays.

I said I would remember it, and thanked her warmly for a pleasant
evening, at Miss Sellars' request calling her Ma.

Outside, Miss Sellars agreed that my presentiment had proved correct---that
I had not shone to advantage. Our journey home on a tramcar was a
somewhat silent proceeding. At the door of her room she forgave me,
and kissed me good night. Had I been frank with her, I should have
thanked her for that evening's experience. It had made my course plain
to me.

The next day, which was Thursday, I wandered about the streets till
two o'clock in the morning, when I slipped in quietly, passing Miss
Sellars' door with my boots in my hand.

After Mr.\ Lott's departure on Friday, which, fortunately, was pay-day,
I set my desk in order and confided to Minikin written instructions
concerning all matters unfinished.

{}``I shall not be here to-morrow,'' I told him. {}``Going to follow
your advice.''

{}``Found anything to do?''\ he asked.

{}``Not yet,'' I answered.

{}``Suppose you can't get anything?''

{}``If the worst comes to the worst,'' I replied, {}``I can hang
myself.''

{}``Well, you know the girl. Maybe you are right,'' he agreed.

{}``Hope it won't throw much extra work on you,'' I said.

{}``Well, I shan't be catching it if it does,'' was his answer.
{}``That's all right.''

He walked with me to the {}``Angel,'' and there we parted.

{}``If you do get on to the stage,'' he said, {}``and it's anything
worth seeing, and you send me an order, and I can find the time, maybe
I'll come and see you.''

I thanked him for his promised support and jumped upon the tram.

The O'Kelly's address was in Belsize Square. I was about to ring and
knock, as requested by a highly-polished brass plate, when I became
aware of pieces of small coal falling about me on the doorstep. Looking
up, I perceived the O'Kelly leaning out of an attic window. From signs
I gathered I was to retire from the doorstep and wait. In a few minutes
the door opened and his hand beckoned me to enter.

{}``Walk quietly,'' he whispered; and on tip-toe we climbed up to
the attic from where had fallen the coal. {}``I've been waiting for
ye,'' explained the O'Kelly, speaking low. {}``Me wife---a good
woman, Paul; sure, a better woman never lived; ye'll like her when
ye know her, later on---she might not care about ye're calling. She'd
want to know where I met ye, and---ye understand? Besides,'' added
the O'Kelly, {}``we can smoke up here;'' and seating himself where
he could keep an eye upon the door, near to a small cupboard out of
which he produced a pipe still alight, the O'Kelly prepared himself
to listen.

I told him briefly the reason of my visit.

{}``It was my fault, Paul,'' he was good enough to say; {}``my
fault entirely. Between ourselves, it was a damned silly idea, that
party, the whole thing altogether. Don't ye think so?''

I replied that I was naturally prejudiced against it myself.

{}``Most unfortunate for me,'' continued the O'Kelly; {}``I know
that. Me cabman took me to Hammersmith instead of Hampstead; said
I told him Hammersmith. Didn't get home here till three o'clock in
the morning. Most unfortunate---under the circumstances.''

I could quite imagine it.

{}``But I'm glad ye've come,'' said the O'Kelly. {}``I had a notion
ye did something foolish that evening, but I couldn't remember precisely
what. It's been worrying me.''

{}``It's been worrying me also, I can assure you,'' I told him;
and I gave him an account of my Wednesday evening's experience.

{}``I'll go round to-morrow morning,'' he said, {}``and see one
or two people. It's not a bad idea, that of Jarman's. I think I may
be able to arrange something for ye.''

He fixed a time for me to call again upon him the next day, when Mrs.\ 
O'Kelly would be away from home. He instructed me to walk quietly
up and down on the opposite side of the road with my eye on the attic
window, and not to come across unless he waved a handkerchief.

Rising to go, I thanked him for his kindness. {}``Don't put it that
way, me dear Paul,'' he answered. {}``If I don't get ye out of this
scrape I shall never forgive meself. If we damned silly fools don't
help one another,'' he added, with his pleasant laugh, {}``who is
to help us?''

We crept downstairs as we had crept up. As we reached the first floor,
the drawing-room door suddenly opened.

{}``William!''\ cried a sharp voice.

{}``Me dear,'' answered the O'Kelly, snatching his pipe from his
mouth and thrusting it, still alight, into his trousers pocket. I
made the rest of the descent by myself, and slipping out, closed the
door behind me as noiselessly as possible.

Again I did not return to Nelson Square until the early hours, and
the next morning did not venture out until I had heard Miss Sellars,
who appeared to be in a bad temper, leave the house. Then running
to the top of the kitchen stairs, I called for Mrs.\ Peedles. I told
her I was going to leave her, and, judging the truth to be the simplest
explanation, I told her the reason why.

{}``My dear,'' said Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``I am only too glad to hear
it. It wasn't for me to interfere, but I couldn't help seeing you
were making a fool of yourself. I only hope you'll get clear off,
and you may depend upon me to do all I can to help you.''

{}``You don't think I'm acting dishonourably, do you, Mrs.\ Peedles?''
I asked.

{}``My dear,'' replied Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``it's a difficult world
to live in---leastways, that's been my experience of it.''

I had just completed my packing---it had not taken me long---when
I heard upon the stairs the heavy panting that always announced to
me the up-coming of Mrs.\ Peedles. She entered with a bundle of old
manuscripts under her arm, torn and tumbled booklets of various shapes
and sizes. These she plumped down upon the rickety table, and herself
upon the nearest chair.

{}``Put them in your box, my dear,'' said Mrs.\ Peedles. {}``They'll
come in useful to you later on.''

I glanced at the bundle. I saw it was a collection of old plays in
manuscript-prompt copies, scored, cut and interlined. The top one
I noticed was {}``The Bloodspot: Or the Maiden, the Miser and the
Murderer;'' the second, {}``The Female Highwayman.''

{}``Everybody's forgotten 'em,'' explained Mrs.\ Peedles, {}``but
there's some good stuff in all of them.''

{}``But what am I to do with them?''\ I enquired.

{}``Just whatever you like, my dear,'' explained Mrs.\ Peedles.
{}``It's quite safe. They're all of 'em dead, the authors of 'em.
I've picked 'em out most carefully. You just take a scene from one
and a scene from the other. With judgment and your talent you'll make
a dozen good plays out of that little lot when your time comes.''

{}``But they wouldn't be my plays, Mrs.\ Peedles,'' I suggested.

{}``They will if I give them to you,'' answered Mrs.\ Peedles.
{}``You put 'em in your box. And never mind the bit of rent,'' added
Mrs.\ Peedles; {}``you can pay me that later on.''

I kissed the kind old soul good-bye and took her gift with me to my
new lodgings in Camden Town. Many a time have I been hard put to it
for plot or scene, and more than once in weak mood have I turned with
guilty intent the torn and crumpled pages of Mrs.\ Peedles's donation
to my literary equipment. It is pleasant to be able to put my hand
upon my heart and reflect that never yet have I yielded to the temptation.
Always have I laid them back within their drawer, saying to myself,
with stern reproof:

{}``No, no, Paul. Stand or fall by your own merits. Never plagiarise---in
any case, not from this `little lot.'''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IV.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER IV}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Leads}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{to}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a
meeting}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
{}``Don't be nervous,'' said the O'Kelly, {}``and don't try to
do too much. You have a very fair voice, but it's not powerful. Keep
cool and open your mouth.''

It was eleven o'clock in the morning. We were standing at the entrance
of the narrow court leading to the stage door. For a fortnight past
the O'Kelly had been coaching me. It had been nervous work for both
of us, but especially for the O'Kelly. Mrs.\ O'Kelly, a thin, acid-looking
lady, of whom I once or twice had caught a glimpse while promenading
Belsize Square awaiting the O'Kelly's signal, was a serious-minded
lady, with a conscientious objection to all music not of a sacred
character. With the hope of winning the O'Kelly from one at least
of his sinful tendencies, the piano had been got rid of, and its place
in the drawing-room filled by an American organ of exceptionally lugubrious
tone. With this we had had to make shift, and though the O'Kelly---a
veritable musical genius---had succeeded in evolving from it an accompaniment
to {}``Sally in Our Alley'' less misleading and confusing than might
otherwise have been the case, the result had not been to lighten our
labours. My rendering of the famous ballad had, in consequence, acquired
a dolefulness not intended by the composer. Sung as I sang it, the
theme became, to employ a definition since grown hackneyed as applied
to Art, a problem ballad. Involuntarily one wondered whether the marriage
would turn out as satisfactorily as the young man appeared to anticipate.
Was there not, when one came to think of it, a melancholy, a pessimism
ingrained within the temperament of the complainful hero that would
ill assort with those instincts toward frivolity the careful observer
could not avoid discerning in the charming yet nevertheless somewhat
shallow character of Sally.

{}``Lighter, lighter. Not so soulful,'' would demand the O'Kelly,
as the solemn notes rolled jerkily from the groaning instrument beneath
his hands.

Once we were nearly caught, Mrs.\ O'Kelly returning from a district
visitors' committee meeting earlier than was expected. Hastily I was
hidden in a small conservatory adjutting from the first floor landing,
where, crouching behind flower-pots, I listened in fear and trembling
to the severe cross-examination of the O'Kelly.

{}``William, do not prevaricate. It was not a hymn.''

{}``Me dear, so much depends upon the time. Let me give ye an example
of what I mean.''

{}``William, pray in my presence not to play tricks with sacred melodies.
If you have no respect for religion, please remember that I have.
Besides, why should you be playing hymns in any time at ten o'clock
in the morning? It is not like you, William, and I do not credit your
explanation. And you were singing. I distinctly heard the word `Sally'
as I opened the door.''

{}``Salvation, me dear,'' corrected the O'Kelly.

{}``Your enunciation, William, is not usually so much at fault.''

{}``A little hoarseness, me dear,'' explained the O'Kelly.

{}``Your voice did not sound hoarse. Perhaps it will be better if
we do not pursue the subject further.''

With this the O'Kelly appeared to agree.

{}``A lady a little difficult to get on with when ye're feeling well
and strong,'' so the O'Kelly would explain her; {}``but if ye happen
to be ill, one of the kindest, most devoted of women. When I was down
with typhoid three years ago, a \textit{tenderer} nurse no man could
have had. I shall never forget it. And so she would be again to-morrow,
if there was anything serious the matter with me.''

I murmured the well-known quotation.

{}``Mrs.\ O'Kelly to a T,'' concurred the O'Kelly. {}``I sometimes
wonder if Lady Scott may not have been the same sort of woman.''

{}``The unfortunate part of it is,'' continued the O'Kelly, {}``that
I'm such a healthy beggar; it don't give her a chance. If I were only
a chronic invalid, now, there's nothing that woman would not do to
make me happy. As it is---'' The O'Kelly struck a chord. We resumed
our studies.

But to return to our conversation at the stage door.

{}``Meet me at the Cheshire Cheese at one o'clock,'' said the O'Kelly,
shaking hands. {}``If ye don't get on here, we'll try something else;
but I've spoken to Hodgson, and I think ye will. Good luck to ye!''

He went his way and I mine. In a glass box just behind the door a
curved-nose, round-eyed little man, looking like an angry bird in
a cage, demanded of me my business. I showed him my letter of appointment.

{}``Up the passage, across the stage, along the corridor, first floor,
second door on the right,'' he instructed me in one breath, and shut
the window with a snap.

I proceeded up the passage. It somewhat surprised me to discover that
I was not in the least excited at the thought of this, my first introduction
to {}``behind the scenes.''

I recall my father's asking a young soldier on his return from the
Crimea what had been his sensations at the commencement of his first
charge.

{}``Well,'' replied the young fellow, {}``I was worrying all the
time, remembering I had rushed out leaving the beer tap running in
the canteen, and I could not forget it.''

So far as the stage I found my way in safety. Pausing for a moment
and glancing round, my impression was not so much disillusionment
concerning all things theatrical as realisation of my worst forebodings.
In that one moment all glamour connected with the stage fell from
me, nor has it since ever returned to me. From the tawdry decorations
of the auditorium to the childish make-belief littered around on the
stage, I saw the Theatre a painted thing of shreds and patches---the
grown child's doll's-house. The Drama may improve us, elevate us,
interest and teach us. I am sure it does; long may it flourish! But
so likewise does the dressing and undressing of dolls, the opening
of the front of the house, and the tenderly putting of them away to
bed in rooms they completely fill, train our little dears to the duties
and the joys of motherhood. Toys!\ what wise child despises them?
Art, fiction, the musical glasses: are they not preparing us for the
time, however distant, when we shall at last be grown up?

In a maze of ways beyond the stage I lost myself, but eventually,
guided by voices, came to a large room furnished barely with many
chairs and worn settees, and here I found some twenty to thirty ladies
and gentlemen already seated. They were of varying ages, sizes and
appearance, but all of them alike in having about them that impossible-to-define
but impossible-to-mistake suggestion of theatricality. The men were
chiefly remarkable for having no hair on their faces, but a good deal
upon their heads; the ladies, one and all, were blessed with remarkably
pink and white \textit{complexions} and exceptionally bright eyes.
The conversation, carried on in subdued but penetrating voices, was
chiefly of {}``him'' and {}``her.'' Everybody appeared to be on
an affectionate footing with everybody else, the terms of address
being {}``My dear,'' {}``My love,'' {}``Old girl,'' {}``Old
chappie,'' Christian names---when name of any sort was needful---alone
being employed. I hesitated for a minute with the door in my hand,
fearing I had stumbled upon a family gathering. As, however, nobody
seemed disconcerted at my entry, I ventured to take a vacant seat
next to an extremely small and boyish-looking gentleman and to ask
him if this was the room in which I, an applicant for a place in the
chorus of the forthcoming comic opera, ought to be waiting.

He had large, fishy eyes, with which he looked me up and down. For
such a length of time he remained thus regarding me in silence that
a massive gentleman sitting near, who had overheard, took it upon
himself to reply in the affirmative, adding that from what he knew
of Butterworth we would all of us be waiting here a damned sight longer
than any gentleman should keep other ladies and gentlemen waiting
for no reason at all.

{}``I think it exceedingly bad form,'' observed the fishy-eyed gentleman,
in deep contralto tones, {}``for any gentleman to take it upon himself
to reply to a remark addressed to quite another gentleman.''

{}``I beg your pardon,'' retorted the large gentleman. {}``I thought
you were asleep.''

{}``I think it very ill manners,'' remarked the small gentlemen
in the same slow and impressive tones, {}``for any gentleman to tell
another gentleman, who happens to be wide awake, that he thought he
was asleep.''

{}``Sir,'' returned the massive gentleman, assuming with the help
of a large umbrella a quite Johnsonian attitude, {}``I decline to
alter my manners to suit your taste.''

{}``If you are satisfied with them,'' replied the small gentleman,
{}``I cannot help it. But I think you are making a mistake.''

{}``Does anybody know what the opera is about?''\ asked a bright
little woman at the other end of the room.

{}``Does anybody ever know what a comic opera is about?''\ asked
another lady, whose appearance suggested experience.

{}``I once asked the author,'' observed a weary-looking gentleman,
speaking from a corner. {}``His reply was: 'Well, if you had asked
me at the beginning of the rehearsals I might have been able to tell
you, but damned if I could now!'''

{}``It wouldn't surprise me,'' observed a good-looking gentleman
in a velvet coat, {}``if there occurred somewhere in the proceedings
a drinking chorus for male voices.''

{}``Possibly, if we are good,'' added a thin lady with golden hair,
{}``the heroine will confide to us her love troubles, which will
interest us and excite us.''

The door at the further end of the room opened and a name was called.
An elderly lady rose and went out.

{}``Poor old Gertie!''\ remarked sympathetically the thin lady
with the golden hair. {}``I'm told that she really had a voice once.''

{}``When poor young Bond first came to London,'' said the massive
gentleman who was sitting on my left, {}``I remember his telling
me he applied to Lord Barrymore's `tiger,' Alexander Lee, I mean,
of course, who was then running the Strand Theatre, for a place in
the chorus. Lee heard him sing two lines, and then jumped up. 'Thanks,
that'll do; good morning,' says Lee. Bond knew he had got a good voice,
so he asked Lee what was wrong. `What's wrong?' shouts Lee. 'Do you
think I hire a chorus to show up my principals?'''

{}``Having regard to the company present,'' commented the fishy-eyed
gentleman, {}``I consider that anecdote as distinctly lacking in
tact.''

The feeling of the company appeared to be with the fish-eyed young
man.

For the next half hour the door at the further end of the room continued
to open and close, devouring, ogre-fashion, each time some dainty
human morsel, now chorus gentleman, now chorus lady. Conversation
among our thinning ranks became more fitful, a growing anxiety making
for silence.

At length, {}``Mr.\ Horace Moncrieff'' called the voice of the
unseen Charon. In common with the rest, I glanced round languidly
to see what sort of man {}``Mr.\ Horace Moncrieff'' might be. The
door was pushed open further. Charon, now revealed as a pale-faced
young man with a drooping moustache, put his head into the room and
repeated impatiently his invitation to the apparently coy Moncrieff.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was Mr.\ Horace Moncrieff.

{}``So glad you've found yourself,'' said the pale-faced young man,
as I joined him at the door. {}``Please don't lose yourself again;
we're rather pressed for time.''

I crossed with him through a deserted refreshment bar---one of the
saddest of sights---into a room beyond. A melancholy-looking gentleman
was seated at the piano. Beside him stood a tall, handsome man, who
was opening and reading rapidly from a bundle of letters he held in
his hand. A big, burly, bored-looking gentleman was making desperate
efforts to be amused at the staccato conversation of a sharp-faced,
restless-eyed gentleman, whose peculiarity was that he never by any
chance looked at the person to whom he was talking, but always at
something or somebody else.

{}``Moncrieff?''\ enquired the tall, handsome man---whom I later
discovered to be Mr.\ Hodgson, the manager---without raising his
eyes from his letters.

The pale-faced gentleman responded for me.

{}``Fire away,'' said Mr.\ Hodgson.

{}``What is it?''\ asked of me wearily the melancholy gentleman
at the piano.

{}```Sally in Our Alley,''' I replied.

{}``What are you?''\ interrupted Mr.\ Hodgson. He had never once
looked at me, and did not now.

{}``A tenor,'' I replied. {}``Not a full tenor,'' I added, remembering
the O'Kelly's instructions.

{}``Utterly impossible to fill a tenor,'' remarked the restless-eyed
gentleman, looking at me and speaking to the worried-looking gentleman.
{}``Ever tried?''

Everybody laughed, with the exception of the melancholy gentleman
at the piano, Mr.\ Hodgson throwing in his contribution without raising
his eyes from his letters. Throughout the proceedings the restless-eyed
gentleman continued to make humorous observations of this nature,
at which everybody laughed, excepting always the melancholy pianist---a
short, sharp, mechanical laugh, devoid of the least suggestion of
amusement. The restless-eyed gentleman, it appeared, was the leading
low comedian of the theatre.

{}``Go on,'' said the melancholy gentleman, and commenced the accompaniment.

{}``Tell me when he's going to begin,'' remarked Mr.\ Hodgson at
the conclusion of the first verse.

{}``He has a fair voice,'' said my accompanist. {}``He's evidently
nervous.''

{}``There is a prejudice throughout theatrical audiences,'' observed
Mr.\ Hodgson, {}``in favour of a voice they can hear. That is all
I am trying to impress upon him.''

The second verse, so I imagined, I sang in the voice of a trumpet.
The burly gentleman---the translator of the French libretto, as he
turned out to be; the author of the English version, as he preferred
to be called---acknowledged to having distinctly detected a sound.
The restless-eyed comedian suggested an announcement from the stage
requesting strict silence during my part of the performance.

The sickness of fear was stealing over me. My voice, so it seemed
to me, disappointed at the effect it had produced, had retired, sulky,
into my boots, whence it refused to emerge.

{}``Your voice is all right---very good,'' whispered the musical
conductor. {}``They want to hear the best you can do, that's all.''

At this my voice ran up my legs and out of my mouth. {}``Thirty shillings
a week, half salary for rehearsals. If that's all right, Mr.\ Catchpole
will give you your agreement. If not, very much obliged. Good morning,''
said Mr.\ Hodgson, still absorbed in his correspondence.

With the pale-faced young man I retired to a desk in the corner, where
a few seconds sufficed for the completion of the business. Leaving,
I sought to catch the eye of my melancholy friend, but he appeared
too sunk in dejection to notice anything. The restless-eyed comedian,
looking at the author of the English version and addressing me as
Boanerges, wished me good morning, at which the everybody laughed;
and, informed as to the way out by the pale-faced Mr.\ Catchpole,
I left.

The first {}``call'' was for the following Monday at two o'clock.
I found the theatre full of life and bustle. The principals, who had
just finished their own rehearsal, were talking together in a group.
We ladies and gentlemen of the chorus filled the centre of the stage.
I noticed the lady I had heard referred to as Gertie; as also the
thin lady with the golden hair. The massive gentleman and the fishy-eyed
young man were again in close proximity; so long as I knew them they
always were together, possessed, apparently, of a sympathetic antipathy
for each other. The fishy-eyed young gentleman was explaining the
age at which he thought decayed chorus singers ought, in justice to
themselves and the public, to retire from the profession; the massive
gentleman, the age and size at which he thought parcels of boys ought
to be learning manners across their mother's knee.

Mr.\ Hodgson, still reading letters exactly as I had left him four
days ago, stood close to the footlights. My friend, the musical director,
armed with a violin and supported by about a dozen other musicians,
occupied the orchestra. The adapter and the stage manager---a Frenchman
whom I found it good policy to mistake for a born Englishman---sat
deep in confabulation at a small table underneath a temporary gas
jet. Quarter of an hour or so passed by, and then the stage manager,
becoming suddenly in a hurry, rang a small bell furiously.

{}``Clear, please; all clear,'' shouted a small boy, with important
air suggestive of a fox terrier; and, following the others, I retreated
to the wings.

The comedian and the leading lady---whom I knew well from the front,
but whom I should never have recognised---severed themselves from
their companions and joined Mr.\ Hodgson by the footlights. As a
preliminary we were sorted out, according to our sizes, into loving
couples.

{}``Ah,'' said the stage manager, casting an admiring gaze upon
the fishy-eyed young man, whose height might have been a little over
five feet two, {}``I have the very girl for you---a beauty!''\ Darting
into the group of ladies, he returned with quite the biggest specimen,
a lady of magnificent proportions, whom, with the air of the virtuous
uncle of melodrama, he bestowed upon the fishy-eyed young man. To
the massive gentleman was given a sharp-faced little lady, who at
a distance appeared quite girlish. Myself I found mated to the thin
lady with the golden hair.

At last complete, we took our places in the then approved semi-circle,
and the attenuated orchestra struck up the opening chorus. My music,
which had been sent me by post, I had gone over with the O'Kelly,
and about that I felt confident; but for the rest, ill at ease.

{}``I am afraid,'' said the thin lady, {}``I must ask you to put
your arm round my waist. It's very shocking, I know, but, you see,
our salary depends upon it. Do you think you could manage it?''

I glanced into her face. A whimsical expression of fun replied to
me and drove away my shyness. I carried out her instructions to the
best of my ability.

The indefatigable stage manager ran in and out among us while we sang,
driving this couple back a foot or so, this other forward, herding
this group closer together, throughout another making space, suggesting
the idea of a sheep-dog at work.

{}``Very good, very good indeed,'' commented Mr.\ Hodgson at the
conclusion. {}``We will go over it once more, and this time in tune.''

{}``And we will make love,'' added the stage manager; {}``not like
marionettes, but like ladies and gentlemen all alive.'' Seizing the
lady nearest to him, he explained to us by object lesson how the real
peasant invariably behaves when under influence of the grand passion,
standing gracefully with hands clasped upon heart, head inclined at
an angle of forty-five, his whole countenance eloquent with tender
adoration.

{}``If he expects'' remarked the massive gentleman \textit{sotto
voce} to an experienced-looking young lady, {}``a performance of
Romeo thrown in, I, for one, shall want an extra ten shillings a week.''

Casting the lady aside and seizing upon a gentleman, our stage manager
then proceeded to show the ladies how a village maiden should receive
affectionate advances: one shoulder a trifle higher than the other,
body from the waist upward gently waggling, roguish expression in
left eye.

{}``Ah, he's a bit new to it,'' replied the experienced young lady.
{}``He'll get over all that.''

Again we started. Whether others attempted to follow the stage manager's
directions I cannot say, my whole attention being centred upon the
fishy-eyed young man, who did, implicitly. Soon it became apparent
that the whole of us were watching the fishy-eyed young man to the
utter neglect of our own business. Mr.\ Hodgson even looked up from
his letters; the orchestra was playing out of time; the author of
the English version and the leading lady exchanged glances. Three
people only appeared not to be enjoying themselves: the chief comedian,
the stage manager and the fishy-eyed young gentleman himself, who
pursued his labours methodically and conscientiously. There was a
whispered confabulation between the leading low comedian, Mr.\ Hodgson
and the stage manager. As a result, the music ceased and the fishy-eyed
young gentleman was requested to explain what he was doing.

{}``Only making love,'' replied the fishy-eyed young gentleman.

{}``You were playing the fool, sir,'' retorted the leading low comedian,
severely.

{}``That is a very unkind remark,'' replied the fishy-eyed young
gentleman, evidently hurt, {}``to make to a gentleman who is doing
his best.''

Mr.\ Hodgson behind his letters was laughing. {}``Poor fellow,''
he murmured; {}``I suppose he can't help it. Go on.''

{}``We are not producing a pantomime, you know,'' urged our comedian.

{}``I want to give him a chance, poor devil,'' explained Mr.\ Hodgson
in a lower voice. {}``Only support of a widowed mother.''

Our comedian appeared inclined to argue; but at this point Mr.\ Hodgson's
correspondence became absorbing.

For the chorus the second act was a busy one. We opened as soldiers
and vivandieres, every warrior in this way possessing his own private
travelling bar. Our stage manager again explained to us by example
how a soldier behaves, first under stress of patriotic emotion, and
secondly under stress of cheap cognac, the difference being somewhat
subtle: patriotism displaying itself by slaps upon the chest, and
cheap cognac by slaps upon the forehead. A little later we were conspirators;
our stage manager, with the help of a tablecloth, showed us how to
conspire. Next we were a mob, led by the sentimental baritone; our
stage manager, ruffling his hair, expounded to us how a mob led by
a sentimental baritone would naturally behave itself. The act wound
up with a fight. Our stage manager, minus his coat, demonstrated to
us how to fight and die, the dying being a painful and dusty performance,
necessitating, as it did, much rolling about on the stage. The fishy-eyed
young gentleman throughout the whole of it was again the centre of
attraction. Whether he were solemnly slapping his chest and singing
about glory, or solemnly patting his head and singing about grapes,
was immaterial: he was the soldier for us. What the plot was about
did not matter, so long as he was in it. Who led the mob one did not
care; one's desire was to see him lead. How others fought and died
was matter of no moment; to see him slaughtered was sufficient. Whether
his unconsciousness was assumed or natural I cannot say; in either
case it was admirable. An earnest young man, over-anxious, if anything,
to do his duty by his employers, was the extent of the charge that
could be brought against him. Our chief comedian frowned and fumed;
our stage manager was in despair. Mr.\ Hodgson and the author of
the English version, on the contrary, appeared kindly disposed towards
the gentleman. In addition to the widowed mother, Mr.\ Hodgson had
invented for him five younger brothers and sisters utterly destitute
but for his earnings. To deprive so exemplary a son and brother of
the means of earning a livelihood for dear ones dependent upon him
was not in Mr.\ Hodgson's heart. Our chief comedian dissociated himself
from all uncharitable feelings---would subscribe towards the subsistence
of the young man out of his own pocket, his only concern being the
success of the opera. The author of the English version was convinced
the young man would not accept a charity; had known him for years---was
a most sensitive creature.

The rehearsal proceeded. In the last act it became necessary for me
to kiss the thin lady.

{}``I am very sorry,'' said the thin lady, {}``but duty is duty.
It has to be done.''

Again I followed directions. The thin lady was good enough to congratulate
me on my performance.

The last three or four rehearsals we performed in company with the
principals. Divided counsels rendered them decidedly harassing. Our
chief comedian had his views, and they were decided; the leading lady
had hers, and was generous with them. The author of the English version
possessed his also, but of these nobody took much notice. Once every
twenty minutes the stage manager washed his hands of the whole affair
and left the theatre in despair, and anybody's hat that happened to
be handy, to return a few minutes later full of renewed hope. The
sentimental baritone was sarcastic, the tenor distinctly rude to everybody.
Mr.\ Hodgson's method was to agree with all and listen to none. The
smaller fry of the company, together with the more pushing of the
chorus, supported each in turn, when the others were not looking.
Up to the dress rehearsal it was anybody's opera.

About one thing, and about one thing, only, had the principals fallen
into perfect agreement, and that was that the fishy-eyed young gentleman
was out of place in a romantic opera. The tenor would be making impassioned
love to the leading lady. Perception would come to both of them that,
though they might be occupying geographically the centre of the stage,
dramatically they were not. Without a shred of evidence, yet with
perfect justice, they would unhesitatingly blame for this the fishy-eyed
young man.

{}``I wasn't doing anything,'' he would explain meekly. {}``I was
only looking.'' It was perfectly true; that was all he was doing.

{}``Then don't look,'' would comment the tenor.

The fishy-eyed young gentleman obediently would turn his face away
from them; and in some mysterious manner the situation would thereupon
become even yet more hopelessly ridiculous.

{}``My scene, I think, sir!''\ would thunder our chief comedian,
a little later on.

{}``I am only doing what I was told to do,'' answered the fishy-eyed
young gentleman; and nobody could say that he was not.

{}``Take a circus, and run him as a side-show,'' counselled our
comedian.

{}``I am afraid he would never be any good as a side-show,'' replied
Mr.\ Hodgson, who was reading letters.

On the first night, passing the gallery entrance on my way to the
stage door, the sight of the huge crowd assembled there waiting gave
me my first taste of artistic joy. I was a part of what they had come
to see, to praise or to condemn, to listen to, to watch. Within the
theatre there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement, amounting
almost to hysteria. The bird-like gentleman in his glass cage was
fluttering, agitated. The hands of the stage carpenters putting the
finishing touches to the scenery were trembling, their voices passionate
with anxiety; the fox-terrier-like call-boy was pale with sense of
responsibility.

I made my way to the dressing-room---a long, low, wooden corridor,
furnished from end to end with a wide shelf that served as common
dressing-table, lighted by a dozen flaring gas-jets, wire-shielded.
Here awaited us gentlemen of the chorus the wigmaker's assistant,
whose duty it was to make us up. From one to another he ran, armed
with his hare's foot, his box of paints and his bundle of crepe hair.
My turn arriving, he seized me by the head, jabbed a wig upon me,
and in less than a couple of minutes I left his hands the orthodox
peasant of the stage, white of forehead and pink of cheek, with curly
moustache and lips of coral. Glancing into the glass, I could not
help feeling pleased with myself; a moustache, without doubt, suited
me.

The chorus ladies, when I met them on the stage, were a revelation
to me. Paint and powder though I knew their appearance to consist
of chiefly, yet in that hot atmosphere of the theatre, under that
artificial glare, it seemed fit and fascinating. The close approximation
to so much bare flesh, its curious, subtle odour was almost intoxicating.
Dr.\ Johnson's excuse to Garrick for the rarity of his visits to
the theatre recurred to me with understanding.

{}``How do you like my costume?''\ asked the thin lady with the
golden hair.

{}``I think you---'' We were standing apart behind a piece of projecting
scenery. She laid her hand upon my mouth, laughing.

{}``How old are you?''\ she asked me.

{}``Isn't that a rude question?''\ I answered. {}``I don't ask
your age.

{}``Mine,'' she replied, {}``entitles me to talk to you as I should
to a boy of my own---I had one once. Get out of this life if you can.
It's bad for a woman; it's worse still for a man. To you especially
it will be harmful.''

{}``Why to me in particular?''

{}``Because you are an exceedingly foolish little boy,'' she answered,
with another laugh, {}``and are rather nice.''

She slipped away and joined the others. The chorus was now entirely
assembled on the stage. The sound of the rapidly-filling house reached
us, softened through the thick baize curtain, a dull, continuous droning,
as of water pouring into some huge cistern. Suddenly there fell upon
our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage
manager---more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the
calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive
of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog---rushed into the
midst of us and worried us into our positions, where the more experienced
continued to converse in whispers, the rest of us waiting nervously,
trying to remember our words. The chorus master, taking his stand
with his back to the proscenium, held his white-gloved hand in readiness.
The curtain rushed up, the house, a nightmare of white faces, appearing
to run towards us. The chorus-master's white-gloved hand flung upward.
A roar of voices struck upon my ear, but whether my own were of them
I could not say; if I were singing at all it was unconsciously, mechanically.
Later, I found myself standing in the wings beside the thin lady;
the stage was in the occupation of the principals. On my next entrance
my senses were more with me; I was able to look about me. Here and
there a strongly-marked face among the audience stood out, but the
majority were as indistinguishable as so many blades of grass. Looked
at from the stage, the house seemed no more real than from the front
do the painted faces upon a black cloth.

The curtain fell amid the usual applause, sounding to us behind it
like the rattle of tiny stones against a window-pane. Three times
it rose and fell, like the opening and shutting of a door; and then
followed a scamper for the dressing-rooms, the long corridors being
filled with the rustling of skirts and the scurrying of feet.

It was in the second act that the fishy-eyed young gentleman came
into his own. The chorus had lingered till it was quite apparent that
the tenor and the leading lady were in love with each other; then,
with the exquisite delicacy so characteristic of a chorus, foreseeing
that its further presence might be embarrassing, it turned to go,
half to the east, the other half to the west. The fishy-eyed young
man, starting from the centre, was the last to leave the stage. In
another moment he would have disappeared from view. There came a voice
from the gallery, clear, distinct, pathetic with entreaty:

{}``Don't go. Get behind a tree.''

The request was instantly seconded by a roar of applause from every
part of the house, followed by laughter. From that point onward the
house was chiefly concerned with the fortunes of the fishy-eyed young
gentleman. At his next entrance, disguised as a conspirator, he was
welcomed with enthusiasm, his passing away regretted loudly. At the
fall of the curtain, the tenor, furious, rushed up to him, and, shaking
a fist in his face, demanded what he meant by it.

{}``I wasn't doing anything,'' explained the fishy-eyed young man.

{}``You went off sideways!''\ roared the tenor.

{}``Well, you told me not to look at you,'' explained meekly the
fishy-eyed young gentleman. {}``I must go off somehow. I regard you
as a very difficult man to please.''

At the final fall of the curtain the house appeared divided as regarded
the merits of the opera; but for {}``Goggles'' there was a unanimous
and enthusiastic call, and the while we were dressing a message came
for {}``Goggles'' that Mr.\ Hodgson wished to see him in his private
room.

{}``He can make a funny face, no doubt about it,'' commented one
gentleman, as {}``Goggles'' left the room.

{}``I defy him to make a funnier one than God Almighty's made for
him,'' responded the massive gentleman.

{}``There's a deal in luck,'' observed, with a sigh, another, a
tall, handsome young gentleman possessed of a rich bass voice.

Leaving the stage door, I encountered a group of gentlemen waiting
upon the pavement outside. Not interested in them myself, I was hurrying
past, when one laid a hand upon my shoulder. I turned. He was a big,
broad-shouldered fellow, with a dark Vandyke beard and soft, dreamy
eyes.

{}``Dan!''\ I cried.

{}``I thought it was you, young 'un, in the first act,'' he answered.
{}``In the second, when you came on without a moustache, I knew it.
Are you in a hurry?''

{}``Not at all,'' I answered. {}``Are you?''

{}``No,'' he replied; {}``we don't go to press till Thursday, so
I can write my notice to-morrow. Come and have supper with me at the
Albion and we will talk. You look tired, young 'un.''

{}``No,'' I assured him, {}``only excited---partly at meeting you.''

He laughed, and drew my arm through his.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER V.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER V}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{How}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{on}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a
sweet}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{grey}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{morning}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{future}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{came}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{to}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Over our supper Dan and I exchanged histories. They revealed points
of similarity. Leaving school some considerable time earlier than
myself, Dan had gone to Cambridge; but two years later, in consequence
of the death of his father, of a wound contracted in the Indian Mutiny
and never cured, had been compelled to bring his college career to
an untimely termination.

{}``You might not have expected that to grieve me,'' said Dan, with
a smile, {}``but, as a matter of fact, it was a severe blow to me.
At Cambridge I discovered that I was by temperament a scholar. The
reason why at school I took no interest in learning was because learning
was, of set purpose, made as uninteresting as possible. Like a Cook's
tourist party through a picture gallery, we were rushed through education;
the object being not that we should see and understand, but that we
should be able to say that we had done it. At college I chose my own
subjects, studied them in my own way. I fed on knowledge, was not
stuffed with it like a Strassburg goose.''

Returning to London, he had taken a situation in a bank, the chairman
of which had been an old friend of his father. The advantage was that
while earning a small income he had time to continue his studies;
but the deadly monotony of the work had appalled him, and upon the
death of his mother he had shaken the cloying dust of the City from
his brain and joined a small {}``fit-up'' theatrical company. On
the stage he had remained for another eighteen months; had played
all roles, from {}``Romeo'' to {}``Paul Pry,'' had helped to paint
the scenery, had assisted in the bill-posting. The latter, so he told
me, he had found one of the most difficult of accomplishments, the
paste-laden poster having an innate tendency to recoil upon the amateur's
own head, and to stick there. Wearying of the stage proper, he had
joined a circus company, had been {}``Signor Ricardo, the daring
bare-back rider,'' also one of the {}``Brothers Roscius in their
marvellous trapeze act;'' inclining again towards respectability,
had been a waiter for three months at Ostend; from that, a footman.

{}``One never knows,'' remarked Dan. {}``I may come to be a society
novelist; if so, inside knowledge of the aristocracy will give me
decided advantage over the majority of my competitors.''

Other callings he had sampled: had tramped through Ireland with a
fiddle; through Scotland with a lecture on Palestine, assisted by
dissolving views; had been a billiard-marker; next a schoolmaster.
For the last three months he had been a journalist, dramatic and musical
critic to a Sunday newspaper. Often had I dreamt of such a position
for myself.

{}``How did you obtain it?''\ I asked.

{}``The idea occurred to me,'' replied Dan, {}``late one afternoon,
sauntering down the Strand, wondering what I should do next. I was
on my beam ends, with only a few shillings in my pocket; but luck
has always been with me. I entered the first newspaper office I came
to, walked upstairs to the first floor, and opening the first door
without knocking, passed through a small, empty room into a larger
one, littered with books and papers. It was growing dark. A gentleman
of extremely youthful figure was running round and round, cursing
to himself because of three things: he had upset the ink, could not
find the matches, and had broken the bell-pull. In the gloom, assuming
him to be the office boy, I thought it would be fun to mistake him
for the editor. As a matter of fact, he turned out to be the editor.
I lit the gas for him, and found him another ink-pot. He was a slim
young man with the voice and manner of a schoolboy. I don't suppose
he is any more than five or six-and-twenty. He owes his position to
the fact of his aunt's being the proprietress. He asked me if he knew
me. Before I could tell him that he didn't, he went on talking. He
appeared to be labouring under a general sense of injury.

{}```People come into this office,' he said; 'they seem to look upon
it as a shelter from the rain---people I don't know from Adam. And
that damned fool downstairs lets them march straight up---anybody,
men with articles on safety valves, people who have merely come to
kick up a row about something or another. Half my work I have to do
on the stairs.

{}``I recommended to him that he should insist upon strangers writing
their business upon a slip of paper. He thought it a good idea.

{}```For the last three-quarters of an hour,' he said, 'have I been
trying to finish this one column, and four times have I been interrupted.'

{}``At that precise moment there came another knock at the door.

{}```I won't see him!' he cried. 'I don't care who he is; I won't
see him. Send him away! Send everybody away!'

{}``I went to the door. He was an elderly gentleman. He made to sweep
by me; but I barred his way, and closed the editorial door behind
me. He seemed surprised; but I told him it was impossible for him
to see the editor that afternoon, and suggested his writing his business
on a sheet of paper, which I handed to him for the purpose. I remained
in that ante-room for half an hour, and during that time I suppose
I must have sent away about ten or a dozen people. I don't think their
business could have been important, or I should have heard about it
afterwards. The last to come was a tired-looking gentleman, smoking
a cigarette. I asked him his name.

{}``He looked at me in surprise, and then answered, `Idiot!'

{}``I remained firm, however, and refused to let him pass.

{}```It's a bit awkward,' he retorted. 'Don't you think you could
make an exception in favour of the sub-editor on press night?'

{}``I replied that such would be contrary to my instructions.

{}```Oh, all right,' he answered. 'I'd like to know who's going to
the Royalty to-night, that's all. It's seven o'clock already.'

{}``An idea occurred to me. If the sub-editor of a paper doesn't
know whom to send to a theatre, it must mean that the post of dramatic
critic on that paper is for some reason or another vacant.

{}```Oh, that's all right,' I told him. `I shall be in time enough.'

{}``He appeared neither pleased nor displeased. 'Have you arranged
with the Guv'nor?' he asked me.

{}```I'm just waiting to see him again for a few minutes,' I returned.
`It'll be all right. Have you got the ticket?'

{}```Haven't seen it,' he replied.

{}```About a column?' I suggested.

{}```Three-quarters,' he preferred, and went.

{}``The moment he was gone, I slipped downstairs and met a printer's
boy coming up.

{}```What's the name of your sub?' I asked him. 'Tall man with a
black moustache, looks tired.'

{}```Oh, you mean Penton,' explained the boy.

{}```That's the name,' I answered; `couldn't think of it.'

{}``I walked straight into the editor; he was still irritable. 'What
is it? What is it now?' he snapped out.

{}```I only want the ticket for the Royalty Theatre,' I answered.
`Penton says you've got it.'

{}```I don't know where it is,' he growled.

{}``I found it after some little search upon his desk.

{}```Who's going?' he asked.

{}```I am,' I said. And I went.

{}``They have never discovered to this day that I appointed myself.
Penton thinks I am some relation of the proprietress, and in consequence
everybody treats me with marked respect. Mrs.\ Wallace herself, the
proprietress, thinks I am the discovery of Penton, in whose judgment
she has great faith; and with her I get on admirably. The paper I
don't think is doing too well, and the salary is small, but sufficient.
Journalism suits my temperament, and I dare say I shall keep to it.''

{}``You've been somewhat of a rolling stone hitherto,'' I commented.

He laughed. {}``From the stone's point of view,'' he answered, {}``I
never could see the advantage of being smothered in moss. I should
always prefer remaining the stone, unhidden, able to move and see
about me. But now, to speak of other matters, what are your plans
for the immediate future? Your opera, thanks to the gentlemen, the
gods have dubbed `Goggles,' will, I fancy, run through the winter.
Are you getting any salary?''

{}``Thirty shillings a week,'' I explained to him, {}``with full
salary for \textit{matin\'{e}es}.''

{}``Say two pounds,'' he replied. {}``With my three we could set
up an establishment of our own. I have an idea that is original. Shall
we work it out together?''

I assured him with fervour that nothing would please me better.

{}``There are four delightful rooms in Queen's Square,'' he continued.
{}``They are charmingly furnished: a fine sitting-room in the front,
with two bedrooms and a kitchen behind. Their last tenant was a Polish
Revolutionary, who, three months ago, poor fellow, was foolish enough
to venture back to Russia, and who is now living rent free. The landlord
of the house is an original old fellow, Deleglise the engraver. He
occupies the rest of the house himself. He has told me I can have
the rooms for anything I like to offer, and I should suggest thirty
shillings a week, though under ordinary circumstances they would be
worth three or four pounds. But he will only let us have them on the
understanding that we `do for' ourselves. He is quite an oddity. He
hates petticoats, especially elderly petticoats. He has one servant,
an old Frenchwoman, who, I believe, was housekeeper to his mother,
and he and she do the housework together, most of their time quarrelling
over it. Nothing else of the genus domestic female will he allow inside
the door; not even an occasional charwoman would be permitted to us.
On the other hand, it is a beautiful old Georgian house, with Adams
mantelpieces, a stone staircase, and oak-panelled rooms; and our portion
would be the entire second floor: no pianos and no landlady. He is
a widower with one child, a girl of about fourteen or maybe a little
older. Now, what do you say? I am a very fair cook; will you be house-and-parlour-maid?''

I needed no pressing. A week later we were installed there, and for
nearly two years we lived there. At the risk of offending an adorable
but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable
of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready
fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance
or supervision of any kind we passed through those two years, and
yet exist to tell the tale. Dan had not idly boasted. Better plain
cooking I never want to taste; so good a cup of coffee, omelette,
or devilled kidney I rarely have tasted. Had he always confined his
efforts within the boundaries of his abilities, there would be little
to record beyond continuous and monotonous success. But stirred into
dangerous ambition at the call of an occasional tea or supper party,
lured out of his depths by the example of old Deleglise, our landlord---a
man who for twenty years had made cooking his hobby---Dan would at
intervals venture upon experiment. Pastry, it became evident, was
a thing he should never have touched: his hand was heavy and his temperament
too serious. There was a thing called lemon sponge, necessitating
much beating of eggs. In the cookery-book---a remarkably fat volume,
luscious with illustrations of highly-coloured food---it appeared
an airy and graceful structure of dazzling whiteness. Served as Dan
sent it to table, it suggested rather in form and colour a miniature
earthquake. Spongy it undoubtedly was. One forced it apart with the
assistance of one's spoon and fork; it yielded with a gentle tearing
sound. Another favourite dainty of his was manna-cake. Concerning
it I would merely remark that if it in any way resembled anything
the Children of Israel were compelled to eat, then there is explanation
for that fretfulness and discontent for which they have been, perhaps,
unjustly blamed---some excuse even for their backward-flung desires
in the direction of the Egyptian fleshpots. Moses himself may have
been blessed with exceptional digestion. It was substantial, one must
say that for it. One slice of it---solid, firm, crusty on the outside,
towards the centre marshy---satisfied most people to a sense of repletion.
For supper parties Dan would essay trifles---by no means open to the
criticism of being light as air---souffle's that guests, in spite
of my admonishing kicks, would persist in alluding to as pudding;
and in winter-time, pancakes. Later, as regards these latter, he acquired
some skill; but at first the difficulty was the tossing. I think myself
a safer plan would have been to turn them by the aid of a knife and
fork; it is less showy, but more sure. At least, you avoid all danger
of catching the half-baked thing upon your head instead of in the
pan, of dropping it into the fire, or among the cinders. But {}``Thorough''
was always Dan's motto; and after all, small particles of coal or
a few hairs can always be detected by the careful feeder, and removed.

A more even-tempered man than Dan for twenty-three hours out of every
twenty-four surely never breathed. It was a revelation to me to discover
that for the other he could be uncertain, irritable, even ungrateful.
At first, in a spirit of pure good nature, I would offer him counsel
and advice; explain to him why, as it seemed to me, the custard was
pimply, the mayonnaise sauce suggestive of hair oil. What was my return?
Sneers, insult and abuse, followed, if I did not clear out quickly,
by spoilt tomatoes, cold coffee grounds---anything that happened to
be handy. Pained, saddened, I would withdraw, he would kick the door
to after me. His greatest enemy appeared to be the oven. The oven
it was that set itself to thwart his best wrought schemes. Always
it was the oven's fault that the snowy bun appeared to have been made
of red sandstone, the macaroni cheese of Cambrian clay. One might
have sympathised with him more had his language been more restrained.
As it was, the virulence of his reproaches almost inclined one to
take the part of the oven.

Concerning our house-maid, I can speak in terms of unqualified praise.
There are, alas, fussy house-maids---who has not known and suffered
them?---who overdo the thing, have no repose, no instinct telling
them when to ease up and let the place alone. I have always held the
perpetual stirring up of dust a scientific error; left to itself,
it is harmless, may even be regarded as a delicate domestic bloom,
bestowing a touch of homeliness upon objects that without it gleam
cold and unsympathetic. Let sleeping dogs lie. Why be continually
waking up the stuff, filling the air with all manner of unhealthy
germs? Nature in her infinite wisdom has ordained that upon table,
floor, or picture frame it shall sink and settle. There it remains,
quiet and inoffensive; there it will continue to remain so long as
nobody interferes with it: why worry it? So also with crumbs, odd
bits of string, particles of egg-shell, stumps of matches, ends of
cigarettes: what fitter place for such than under the nearest mat?
To sweep them up is tiresome work. They cling to the carpet, you get
cross with them, curse them for their obstinacy, and feel ashamed
of yourself for your childishness. For every one you do persuade into
the dust-pan, two jump out again. You lose your temper, feel bitter
towards the man that dropped them. Your whole character becomes deteriorated.
Under the mat they are always willing to go. Compromise is true statesmanship.
There will come a day when you will be glad of an excuse for not doing
something else that you ought to be doing. Then you can take up the
mats and feel quite industrious, contemplating the amount of work
that really must be done---some time or another.

To differentiate between the essential and the non-essential, that
is where woman fails. In the name of common sense, what is the use
of washing a cup that half an hour later is going to be made dirty
again? If the cat be willing and able to so clean a plate that not
one speck of grease remain upon it, why deprive her of pleasure to
inflict toil upon yourself? If a bed looks made and feels made, then
for all practical purposes it is made; why upset it merely to put
it straight again? It would surprise most women the amount of labour
that can be avoided in a house.

For needlework, I confess, I never acquired skill. Dan had learnt
to handle a thimble, but my own second finger was ever reluctant to
come forward when wanted. It had to be found, all other fingers removed
out of its way. Then, feebly, nervously, it would push, slip, get
itself pricked badly with the head of the needle, and, thoroughly
frightened, remain incapable of further action. More practical I found
it to push the needle through by help of the door or table.

The opera, as Dan had predicted, ran far into the following year.
When it was done with, another---in which {}``Goggles'' appeared
as one of the principals---took its place, and was even more successful.
After the experience of Nelson Square, my present salary of thirty-five
shillings, occasionally forty shillings, a week seemed to me princely.
There floated before my eyes the possibility of my becoming a great
opera singer. On six hundred pounds a week, I felt I could be content.
But the O'Kelly set himself to dispel this dream.

{}``Ye'd be making a mistake, me boy,'' explained the O'Kelly. {}``Ye'd
be just wasting ye're time. I wouldn't tell ye so if I weren't convinced
of it.''

{}``I know it is not powerful,'' I admitted.

{}``Ye might almost call it thin,'' added the O'Kelly.

{}``It might be good enough for comic opera,'' I argued. {}``People
appear to succeed in comic opera without much voice.

{}``Sure, there ye're right,'' agreed the O'Kelly, with a sigh.
{}``An' of course if ye had an exceptionally fine presence and were
strikingly handsome---''

{}``One can do a good deal with make-up,'' I suggested.

The O'Kelly shook his head. {}``It's never quite the same thing.
It would depend upon your acting.''

I dreamt of becoming a second Kean, of taking Macready's place. It
need not interfere with my literary ambition. I could combine the
two: fill Drury Lane in the evening, turn out epoch-making novels
in the morning, write my own plays.

Every day I studied in the reading-room of the British Museum. Wearying
of success in Art, I might eventually go into Parliament: a Prime
Minister with a thorough knowledge of history: why not? With Ollendorf
for guide, I continued French and German. It might be the diplomatic
service that would appeal to me in my old age. An ambassadorship!
It would be a pleasant termination to a brilliant career.

There was excuse for my optimistic mood about this period. All things
were going well with me. A story of mine had been accepted. I forget
for the moment the name of the journal: it is dead now. Most of the
papers in which my early efforts appeared are dead. My contributions
might be likened to their swan songs. Proofs had been sent me, which
I had corrected and returned. But proofs are not facts. This had happened
to me once before, and I had been lifted to the skies only to fall
the more heavily. The paper had collapsed before my story had appeared.\ 
(Ah, why had they delayed? It might have saved them!) This time I
remembered the proverb, and kept my own counsel, slipping out early
each morning on the day of publication to buy the paper, to scan eagerly
its columns. For weeks I suffered hope deferred. But at last, one
bright winter's day in January, walking down the Harrow Road, I found
myself standing still, suddenly stunned, before a bill outside a small
news-vendor's shop. It was the first time I had seen my real name
in print: {}``The Witch of Moel Sarbod: a legend of Mona, by Paul
Kelver.'' (For this I had even risked discovery by the \textit{Lady}
'\textit{Ortensia}.) My legs trembling under me, I entered the shop.
A ruffianly-looking man in dirty shirt-sleeves, who appeared astonished
that any one should want a copy, found one at length on the floor
underneath the counter. With it in my pocket, I retraced my footsteps
as in a dream. On a seat in Paddington Green I sat down and read it.
The hundred best books! I have waded through them all; they have never
charmed me as charmed me that one short story in that now forgotten
journal. Need I add it was a sad and sentimental composition. Once
upon a time there lived a mighty King; one---but with the names I
will not bore you; they are somewhat unpronounceable. Their selection
had cost me many hours of study in the British Museum reading-rooms,
surrounded by lexicons of the Welsh language, gazetteers, translations
from the early Celtic poets---with footnotes. He loved and was beloved
by a beautiful Princess, whose name, being translated, was Purity.
One day the King, hunting, lost his way, and being weary, lay down
and fell asleep. And by chance the spot whereon he lay was near to
a place which by infinite pains, with the aid of a magnifying glass,
I had discovered upon the map, and which means in English the Cave
of the Waters, where dwelt a wicked Sorceress, who, while he slept,
cast her spells upon him, so that he awoke to forget his kingly honour
and the good of all his people, his only desire being towards the
Witch of Moel Sarbod.

Now, there lived in this Kingdom by the sea a great Magician; and
Purity, who loved the King far better than herself, bethought her
of him, and of all she had heard concerning his power and wisdom;
and went to him and besought his aid that she might save the King.
There was but one way to accomplish this: with bare feet Purity must
climb the rocky path leading to the Witch's dwelling, go boldly up
to her, not fearing her sharp claws nor her strong teeth, and kiss
her upon the mouth. In this way the spirit of Purity would pass into
the Witch's soul, and she would become a woman. But the form and spirit
of the Witch would pass into Purity, transforming her, and in the
Cave of the Waters she must forever abide. Thus Purity gave herself
that the King might live. With bleeding feet she climbed the rocky
path, clasped the Witch's form within her arms, kissed her on the
mouth. And the Witch became a woman and reigned with the King over
his people, wisely and helpfully. But Purity became a hideous witch,
and to this day abides on Moel Sarbod, where is the Cave of the Waters.
And they who climb the mountain's side still hear above the roaring
of the cataract the sobbing of Purity, the King's betrothed. But many
liken it rather to a joyous song of love triumphant.

No writer worth his salt was ever satisfied with anything he ever
wrote, so I have been told, and so I try to believe. Evidently I am
not worth my salt. Candid friends, and others, to whom in my salad
days I used to show my work, asking for a frank opinion, meaning,
of course, though never would they understand me, their unadulterated
praise, would assure me for my good, that this, my first to whom the
gods gave life, was but a feeble, ill-shaped child: its attempted
early English a cross between {}``The Pilgrim's Progress'' and {}``Old
Moore's Almanac;'' its scenery---which had cost me weeks of research---an
apparent attempt to sum up in the language of a local guide book the
leading characteristics of the Garden of Eden combined with Dante's
Inferno; its pathos of the penny-plain and two-penny-coloured order.
Maybe they were right. Much have I written since that at the time
appeared to me good, that I have read later with regret, with burning
cheek, with frowning brow. But of this, my first-born, the harbinger
of all my hopes, I am no judge. Touching the yellowing, badly-printed
pages, I feel again the deep thrill of joy with which I first unfolded
them and read. Again I am a youngster, and life opens out before me---inmeasurable,
no goal too high. This child of my brain, my work: it shall spread
my name throughout the world. It shall be a household world in lands
that I shall never see. Friends whose voices I shall never hear will
speak of me. I shall die, but it shall live, yield fresh seed, bear
fruit I know not of. Generations yet unborn shall read it and remember
me. My thoughts, my words, my spirit: in it I shall live again; it
shall keep my memory green.

The long, long thoughts of boyhood! We elders smile at them. The little
world spins round; the little voices of an hour sink hushed. The crawling
generations come and go. The solar system drops from space. The eternal
mechanism reforms and shapes itself anew. Time, turning, ploughs another
furrow. So, growing sleepy, we murmur with a yawn. Is it that we see
clearer, or that our eyes are growing dim? Let the young men see their
visions, dream their dreams, hug to themselves their hopes of enduring
fame; so shall they serve the world better.

I brushed the tears from my eyes and looked up. Half-a-dozen urchins,
male and female, were gaping at me open-mouthed. They scattered shouting,
whether compliment or insult I know not: probably the latter. I flung
them a handful of coppers, which for the moment silenced them; and
went upon my way. How bright, how fair the bustling streets, golden
in the winter sunshine, thronged with life, with effort! Laughter
rang around me. Sweet music rolled from barrel-organs. The strenuous
voices of the costermongers called invitation to the fruitful earth.
Errand boys passed me whistling shrilly joyous melodies. Perspiring
tradesmen shouted generous offers to the needy. Men and women hurried
by with smiling faces. Sleek cats purred in sheltered nooks, till
merry dogs invited them to sport. The sparrows, feasting in the roadway,
chirped their hymn of praise.

At the Marble Arch I jumped upon a 'bus. I mentioned to the conductor
in mounting that it was a fine day. He replied that he had noticed
it himself. The retort struck me as a brilliant repartee. Our coachman,
all but run into by a hansom cab driven by a surly old fellow of patriarchal
appearance, remarked upon the danger of allowing horses out in charge
of bits of boys. How full the world of wit and humour!

Almost without knowing it, I found myself in earnest conversation
with a young man sitting next to me. We conversed of life, of love.
Not until afterwards, reflecting upon the matter, did it surprise
me that to a mere chance acquaintance of the moment he had spoken
of the one thing dearest to his heart: a sweet but clearly wayward
maiden, the Hebe of a small, old-fashioned coffee-shop the 'bus was
at that moment passing. Hitherto I had not been the recipient of confidences.
It occurred to me that as a rule not even my friends spoke much to
me concerning their own affairs; generally it was I who spoke to them
of mine. I sympathised with him, advised him---how, I do not recollect.
He said, however, he thought that I was right; and at Regent Street
he left me, expressing his determination to follow my counsel, whatever
it may have been.

Between Berners Street and the Circus I lent a shilling to a couple
of young ladies who had just discovered with amusement, quickly swallowed
by despair, that they neither of them had any money with them.\ 
(They returned it next day in postage stamps, with a charming note.)
The assurance with which I tendered the slight service astonished
me myself. At any other time I should have hesitated, argued with
my fears, offered it with an appearance of sulky constraint, and been
declined. For a moment they were doubtful, then, looking at me, accepted
with a delightful smile. They consulted me as to the way to Paternoster
Row. I instructed them, adding a literary anecdote, which seemed to
interest them. I even ventured on a compliment, neatly phrased, I
am inclined to think. Evidently it pleased---a result hitherto unusual
in the case of my compliments. At the corner of Southampton Row I
parted from them with regret. Why had I never noticed before how full
of pleasant people this sweet and smiling London?

At the corner of Queen's Square a decent-looking woman stopped me
to ask the way to the Children's Hospital at Chelsea, explaining she
had made a mistake, thinking it was the one in Great Ormond Street
where her child lay. I directed her, then glancing into her face,
noticed how tired she looked, and a vista of the weary pavements she
would have to tramp flashed before me. I slipped some money into her
hand and told her to take a 'bus. She flushed, then thanked me. I
turned a few yards further on; she was starting after me, amazement
on her face. I laughed and waved my hand to her. She smiled back in
return, and went her way.

A rain began to fall. I paused upon the doorstep for a minute, enjoying
the cool drops upon by upturned face, the tonic sharpness of the keen
east wind; then slipped my key into the lock and entered.

The door of old Deleglise's studio on the first floor happened to
he open. Hitherto, beyond the usual formal salutations, when by chance
we met upon the stairs, I had exchanged but few words with my eccentric
landlord; but remembering his kindly face, the desire came upon me
to tell him my good fortune. I felt sure his eyes would lighten with
delight. By instinct I knew him for a young man's man.

I tapped lightly; no answer came. Someone was talking; it sounded
like a girl's voice. I pushed the door further open and walked in;
such was the custom of the house. It was a large room, built over
the yard, lighted by one high window, before which was the engraving
desk, shaded under a screen of tissue paper. At the further end of
the room stood a \textit{large} \textit{cheval}-\textit{glass}, and
in front of this, its back towards me, was a figure that excited my
curiosity; so that remaining where I was, partly hidden behind a large
easel, I watched it for awhile in silence. Above a heavily flounced
blue skirt, which fell in creases on the floor and trailed a couple
of yards or so behind, it wore a black low-cut sleeveless bodice---much
too big for it---of the fashion early Victorian. A good deal of dark-brown
hair, fastened up by hair-pins that stuck out in all directions like
quills upon a porcupine, suggesting collapse with every movement,
was ornamented by three enormous green feathers, one of which hung
limply over the lady's left ear. Three times, while I watched, unnoticed,
the lady propped it into a more befitting attitude, and three times,
limp and intoxicated-looking, it fell back into its former foolish
position. Her long, thin arms, displaying a pair of brilliantly red
elbows, pointed to quite a dangerous degree, terminated in hands so
very sunburnt as to convey the impression of a pair of remarkably
well-fitting gloves. Her right hand grasped and waved with determination
a large lace fan, her left clutched fiercely the front of her skirt.
With a sweeping curtsey to herself in the glass, which would have
been more effective could she have avoided tying her legs together
with her skirt---a \textit{contretemps} necessitating the use of both
hands and a succession of jumps before she could disentangle herself---she
remarked so soon as she had recovered her balance:

{}``So sorry I am late. My carriage was unfortunately delayed.''

The excuse, I gathered, was accepted, for with a gracious smile and
a vigorous bow, by help of which every hairpin made distinct further
advance towards freedom, she turned, and with much dignity and head
over the right shoulder took a short walk to the left. At the end
of six short steps she stopped and began kicking. For what reason,
I, at first, could not comprehend. It dawned upon me after awhile
that her object was the adjustment of her train. Finding the manoeuvre
too difficult of accomplishment by feet alone, she stooped, and, taking
the stuff up in her hands, threw it behind her. Then, facing north,
she retraced her steps to the glass, talking to herself, as she walked,
in the high-pitched drawl, distinctive, as my stage knowledge told
me, of aristocratic society.

{}``Oh, do you think so---really? Ah, yes; you say that. Certainly
not! I shouldn't think of it.'' There followed what I am inclined
to believe was intended for a laugh, musical but tantalising. If so,
want of practice marred the effort. The performance failed to satisfy
even herself. She tried again; it was still only a giggle.

Before the glass she paused, and with a haughty inclination of her
head succeeded for the third time in displacing the intoxicated feather.

{}``Oh, bother the silly thing!''\ she said in a voice so natural
as to be, by contrast with her previous tone, quite startling.

She fixed it again with difficulty, muttering something inarticulate.
Then, her left hand resting on an imaginary coat-sleeve, her right
holding her skirt sufficiently high to enable her to move, she commenced
to majestically gyrate.

Whether, hampered as she was by excess of skirt, handicapped by the
natural clumsiness of her age, catastrophe in any case would not sooner
or later have overtaken her, I have my doubts. I have since learnt
her own view to be that but for catching sight, in turning, of my
face, staring at her through the bars of the easel, all would have
gone well and gracefully. Avoiding controversy on this point, the
facts to be recorded are, that, seeing me, she uttered a sudden exclamation
of surprise, dropped her skirt, trod on her train, felt her hair coming
down, tried to do two things at once, and sat upon the floor. I ran
to her assistance. With flaming face and flashing eyes she sprang
to her feet. There was a sound as of the rushing down of avalanches.
The blue flounced skirt lay round her on the floor. She stood above
its billowy folds, reminiscent of Venus rising from the waves---a
gawky, angular Venus in a short serge frock, reaching a little below
her knees, black stockings and a pair of prunella boots of a size
suggesting she had yet some inches to grow before reaching her full
height.

{}``I hope you haven't hurt yourself,'' I said.

The next moment I didn't care whether she had or whether she hadn't.
She did not reply to my kindly meant enquiry. Instead, her hand swept
through the air in the form of an ample semi-circle. It terminated
on my ear. It was not a small hand; it was not a soft hand; it was
not that sort of hand. The sound of the contact rang through the room
like a pistol shot; I beard it with my other ear. I sprang at her,
and catching her before she had recovered her equilibrium, kissed
her. I did not kiss her because I wanted to. I kissed her because
I could not box her ears back in return, which I should have preferred
doing. I kissed her, hoping it would make her mad. It did. If a look
could have killed me, such would have been the tragic ending of this
story. It did not kill me; it did me good.

{}``You horrid boy!''\ she cried. {}``You horrid, horrid boy!''

There, I admit, she scored. I did not in the least object to her thinking
me horrid, but at nineteen one does object to being mistaken for a
boy.

{}``I am not a boy,'' I explained.

{}``Yes, you are,'' she retorted; {}``a beast of a boy!''

{}``If you do it again,'' I warned her---a sudden movement on her
part hinting to me the possibility---{}``I'll kiss you again! I mean
it.''

{}``Leave the room!''\ she commanded, pointing with her angular
arm towards the door.

I did not wish to remain. I was about to retire with as much dignity
as circumstances permitted.

{}``Boy!''\ she added.

At that I turned. {}``Now I won't go!''\ I replied. {}``See if
I do.''

We stood glaring at each other.

{}``What right have you in here?''\ she demanded.

{}``I came to see Mr.\ Deleglise,'' I answered. {}``I suppose
you are Miss Deleglise. It doesn't seem to me that you know how to
treat a visitor.''

{}``Who are you?''\ she asked.

{}``Mr.\ Horace Moncrieff,'' I replied. I was using at the period
both my names indiscriminately, but for this occasion Horace Moncrieff
I judged the more awe-inspiring.

She snorted. {}``I know. You're the house-maid. You sweep all the
crumbs under the mats.''

Now this was a subject about which at the time I was feeling somewhat
sore. {}``Needs must when the Devil drives;'' but as matters were,
Dan and I could well have afforded domestic assistance. It rankled
in my mind that to fit in with the foolish fad of old Deleglise, I
the future Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot, Kean, Macready and
Phelps rolled into one, should be compelled to the performance of
menial duties. On this morning of all others, my brilliant literary
career just commenced, the anomaly of the thing appeared naturally
more glaring.

Besides, how came she to know I swept the crumbs under the mat---that
it was my method? Had she and Dan been discussing me, ridiculing me
behind my back? What right had Dan to reveal the secrets of our \textit{m\'{e}nage}
to this chit of a school-girl? Had he done so? or had she been prying,
poking her tilted nose into matters that did not concern her? Pity
it was she had no mother to occasionally spank her, teach her proper
behaviour.

{}``Where I sweep our crumbs is nothing to do with you,'' I replied
with some spirit. {}``That I have to sweep them at all is the fault
of your father. A sensible girl---''

{}``How dare you speak against my father!''\ she interrupted me
with blazing eyes.

{}``We will not discuss the question further,'' I answered, with
sense and dignity.

{}``I think you had better not!''\ she retorted.

Turning her back on me, she commenced to gather up her hairpins---there
must have been about a hundred of them. I assisted her to the extent
of picking up about twenty, which I handed to her with a bow: it may
have been a little stiff, but that was only to be expected. I wished
to show her that her bad example had not affected my own manners.

{}``I am sorry my presence should have annoyed you,'' I said. {}``It
was quite an accident. I entered the room thinking your father was
here.''

{}``When you saw he wasn't, you might have gone out again,'' she
replied, {}``instead of hiding yourself behind a picture.''

{}``I didn't hide myself,'' I explained. {}``The easel happened
to be in the way.''

{}``And you stopped there and watched me.''

{}``I couldn't help it.''

She looked round and our eyes met. They were frank, grey eyes. An
expression of merriment shot into them. I laughed.

Then she laughed: it was a delightful laugh, the laugh one would have
expected from her.

{}``You might at least have coughed,'' she suggested.

{}``It was so amusing,'' I pleaded.

{}``I suppose it was,'' she agreed, and held out her hand. {}``Did
I hurt you?''\ she asked.

{}``Yes, you did,'' I answered, taking it.

{}``Well, it was enough to annoy me, wasn't it?''\ she suggested.

{}``Evidently,'' I agreed.

{}``I am going to a ball next week,'' she explained, {}``a grown-up
ball, and I've got to wear a skirt. I wanted to see if I could manage
a train.''

{}``Well, to be candid, you can't,'' I assured her.

{}``It does seem difficult.''

{}``Shall I show you?''\ I asked.

{}``What do you know about it?''

{}``Well, I see it done every night.''

{}``Oh, yes; of course, you're on the stage. Yes, do.''

We readjusted the torn skirt, accommodating it better to her figure
by the help of hairpins. I showed her how to hold the train, and,
I humming a tune, we commenced to waltz.

{}``I shouldn't count my steps,'' I suggested to her. {}``It takes
your mind away from the music.''

{}``I don't waltz well,'' she admitted meekly. {}``I know I don't
do anything well---except play hockey.''

{}``And try not to tread on your partner's feet. That's a very bad
fault.''

{}``I do try not to,'' she explained.

{}``It comes with practice,'' I assured her.

{}``I'll get Tom to give me half an hour every evening,'' she said.
{}``He dances beautifully.''

{}``Who's Tom?''

{}``Oh, father.''

{}``Why do you call your father Tom? It doesn't sound respectful.''

{}``Oh, he likes it; and it suits him so much better than father.
Besides, he isn't like a real father. He does everything I want him
to.''

{}``Is that good for you?''

{}``No; it's very bad for me---everybody says so. When you come to
think of it, of course it isn't the way to bring up a girl. I tell
him, but he merely laughs---says it's the only way he knows. I do
hope I turn out all right. Am I doing it better now?''

{}``A little. Don't be too anxious about it. Don't look at your feet.''

{}``But if I don't they go all wrong. It was you who trod on mine
that time.''

{}``I know. I'm sorry. It's a little difficult not to.''

{}``Am I holding my train all right?''

{}``Well, there's no need to grip it as if you were afraid it would
run away. It will follow all right. Hold it gracefully.''

{}``I wish I wasn't a girl.''

{}``Oh, you'll get used to it.'' We concluded our dance.

{}``What do I do---say 'Thank you'?''

{}``Yes, prettily.''

{}``What does he do?''

{}``Oh, he takes you back to your chaperon, or suggests refreshment,
or you sit and talk.''

{}``I hate talking. I never know what to say.''

{}``Oh, that's his duty. He'll try and amuse you, then you must laugh.
You have a nice laugh.''

{}``But I never know when to laugh. If I laugh when I want to it
always offends people. What do you do if somebody asks you to dance
and you don't want to dance with them?''

{}``Oh, you say your programme is full.''

{}``But if it isn't?''

{}``Well, you tell a lie.''

{}``Couldn't I say I don't dance well, and that I'm sure they'd get
on better with somebody else?''

{}``It would be the truth, but they might not believe it.''

{}``I hope nobody asks me that I don't want.''

{}``Well, he won't a second time, anyhow.''

{}``You are rude.''

{}``You are only a school-girl.''

{}``I look a woman in my new frock, I really do.''

{}``I should doubt it.''

{}``You shall see me, then you'll be polite. It is because you are
a boy you are rude. Men are much nicer.''

{}``Oh, are they?''

{}``Yes. You will be, when you are a man.''

The sound of voices rose suddenly in the hall.

{}``Tom!''\ cried Miss Deleglise; and collecting her skirt in both
hands, bolted down the corkscrew staircase leading to the kitchen,
leaving me standing in the centre of the studio.

The door opened and old Deleglise entered, accompanied by a small,
slight man with red hair and beard and somewhat watery eyes.

Deleglise himself was a handsome old fellow, then a man of about fifty-five.
His massive, mobile face, illuminated by bright, restless eyes, was
crowned with a lion-like mane of iron-grey hair. Till a few years
ago he had been a painter of considerable note. But in questions of
art his temper was short. Pre-Raphaelism had gone out of fashion for
the time being; the tendency of the new age was towards impressionism,
and in disgust old Deleglise had broken his palette across his knee,
and swore never to paint again. Artistic work of some sort being necessary
to his temperament, he contented himself now with engraving. At the
moment he was engaged upon the reproduction of Memlinc's Shrine of
St.\ Ursula, with photographs of which he had just returned from
Bruges.

At sight of me his face lighted with a smile, and he advanced with
outstretched hand.

{}``Ah; my lad, so you have got over your shyness and come to visit
the old bear in his den. Good boy. I like young faces.''

He had a clear, musical voice, ever with the suggestion of a laugh
behind it. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

{}``Why, you are looking as if you had come into a fortune,'' he
added, {}``and didn't know what a piece of bad luck that can be to
a young fellow like yourself.''

{}``How could it be bad luck?''\ I asked, laughing.

{}``Takes all the sauce out of life, young man,'' answered Deleglise.
{}``What interest is there in running a race with the prize already
in your possession, tell me that?''

{}``It is not that kind of fortune,'' I answered, {}``it is another.
I have had my first story accepted. It is in print. Look.''

I handed him the paper. He spread it out upon the engraving board
before him.

{}``Ah, that's better,'' he said, {}``that's better. Charlie,''
he turned to the red-headed man, who had seated himself listlessly
in the one easy-chair the room contained, {}``come here.''

The red-headed man rose and wandered towards us. {}``Let me introduce
you to Mr.\ Paul Kelver, our new fellow servant. Our lady has accepted
him. He has just been elected; his first story is in print.''

The red-haired man stretched out his long thin hand. {}``I have thirty
years of fame,'' said the red-haired man---{}``could I say world-wide?''

He turned for confirmation to old Deleglise, who laughed. {}``I think
you can.''

{}``If I could give it you would you exchange with me---at this moment?''

{}``You would be a fool if you did,'' he went on. {}``One's first
success, one's first victory! It is the lover's first kiss. Fortune
grows old and wrinkled, frowns more often than she smiles. We become
indifferent to her, quarrel with her, make it up again. But the joy
of her first kiss after the long wooing! Burn it into your memory,
my young friend, that it may live with you always!''

He strolled away. Old Deleglise took up the parable.

{}``Ah, yes; one's first success, Paul! Laugh, my boy, cry! Shut
yourself up in your room, shout, dance! Throw your hat into the air
and cry hurrah! Make the most of it, Paul. Hug it to your heart, think
of it, dream of it. This is the finest hour of your life, my boy.
There will never come another like it---never!''

He crossed the studio, and taking from its nail a small oil painting,
brought it over and laid it on the board beside my paper. It was a
fascinating little picture, painted with that exquisite minutiae and
development of detail that a newer school was then ridiculing: as
though Art had but one note to her voice. The dead figure of an old
man lay upon a bed. A child had crept into the darkened room, and
supporting itself by clutching tightly at the sheet, was gazing with
solemn curiosity upon the white, still face.

{}``That was mine,'' said old Deleglise. {}``It was hung in the
Academy thirty-six years ago, and bought for ten guineas by a dentist
at Bury St.\ Edmunds. He went mad a few years later and died in a
lunatic asylum. I had never lost sight of it, and the executors were
quite agreeable to my having it back again for the same ten guineas.
I used to go every morning to the Academy to look at it. I thought
it the cleverest bit of work in the whole gallery, and I'm not at
all sure that it wasn't. I saw myself a second Teniers, another Millet.
Look how that light coming through the open door is treated; isn't
it good? Somebody will pay a thousand guineas for it before I have
been dead a dozen years, and it is worth it. But I wouldn't sell it
myself now for five thousand. One's first success; it is worth all
the rest of life!''

{}``All?''\ queried the red-haired man from his easy-chair. We
looked round. The lady of the skirt had entered, now her own proper
self: a young girl of about fifteen, angular, awkward-looking, but
bringing into the room with her that atmosphere of life, of hope,
that is the eternal message of youth. She was not beautiful, not then---plain
one might almost have called her but for her frank, grey eyes, her
mass of dark-brown hair now gathered into a long thick plait. A light
came into old Deleglise's eyes.

{}``You are right, not all,'' he murmured to the red-haired man.

She came forward shyly. I found it difficult to recognise in her the
flaming Fury that a few minutes before had sprung at me from the billows
of her torn blue skirt. She shook hands with the red-haired man and
kissed her father.

{}``My daughter,'' said old Deleglise, introducing me to her. {}``Mr.\ Paul
Kelver, a literary gent.''

{}``Mr.\ Kelver and I have met already,'' she explained. {}``He
has been waiting for you here in the studio.''

{}``And have you been entertaining him?''\ asked Deleglise. {}``Oh,
yes, I entertained him,'' she replied. Her voice was singularly like
her father's, with just the same suggestion of ever a laugh behind
it.

{}``We entertained each other,'' I said.

{}``That's all right,'' said old Deleglise. {}``Stop and lunch
with us. We will make ourselves a curry.''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VI.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VI}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{Of}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{glory}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{and}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{goodness}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{and}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{evil}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{that}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{go}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{to}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{making}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{love}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
During my time of struggle I had avoided all communication with old
Hasluck. He was not a man to sympathise with feelings he did not understand.
With boisterous good humour he would have insisted upon helping me.
Why I preferred half starving with Lott and Co.\ to selling my labour
for a fair wage to good-natured old Hasluck, merely because I knew
him, I cannot explain. Though the profits may not have been so large,
Lott and Co.'s dealings were not one whit more honest: I do not believe
it was that which decided me. Nor do I think it was because he was
Barbara's father. I never connected him, nor that good old soul, his
vulgar, homely wife, in any way with Barbara. To me she was a being
apart from all the world. Her true Parents! I should have sought them
rather amid the sacred groves of vanished lands, within the sky-domed
shrines of banished gods. There are instincts in us not easily analysed,
not to be explained by reason. I have always preferred the finding---sometimes
the losing---of my way according to the map, to the surer and simpler
method of vocal enquiry; working out a complicated journey, and running
the risk of never arriving at my destination, by aid of a Continental
Bradshaw, to putting myself into the hands of courteous officials
maintained and paid to assist the perplexed traveller. Possibly a
far-off progenitor of mine may have been some morose {}``rogue''
savage with untribal inclinations, living in his cave apart, fashioning
his own stone hammer, shaping his own flint arrow-heads, shunning
the merry war-dance, preferring to caper by himself.

But now, having gained my own foothold, I could stretch out my hand
without fear of the movement being mistaken for appeal. I wrote to
old Hasluck; and almost by the next post received from him the friendliest
of notes. He told me Barbara had just returned from abroad, took it
upon himself to add that she also would be delighted to see me, and,
as I knew he would, threw his doors open to me.

Of my boyish passion for Barbara never had I spoken to a living soul,
nor do I think, excepting Barbara herself, had any ever guessed it.
To my mother, though she was very fond of her, Barbara was only a
girl, with charms but also with faults, concerning which my mother
would speak freely; hurting me, as one unwittingly might hurt a neophyte
by philosophical discussion of his newly embraced religion. Often,
choosing by preference late evening or the night, I would wander round
and round the huge red-brick house standing in its ancient garden
on the top of Stamford Hill; descending again into the noisome streets
as one returning to the world from praying at a shrine, purified,
filled with peace, all noble endeavour, all unselfish aims seeming
within my grasp.

During Barbara's four years' absence my adoration had grown and strengthened.
Out of my memory of her my desire had evolved its ideal; a being of
my imagination, but by reason of that, to me the more real, the more
present. I looked forward to seeing her again, but with no impatience,
revelling rather in the anticipation than eager for the realisation.
As a creature of flesh and blood, the child I had played with, talked
with, touched, she had faded further and further into the distance;
as the vision of my dreams she stood out clearer day by day. I knew
that when next I saw her there would be a gulf between us I had no
wish to bridge. To worship her from afar was a sweeter thought to
me than would have been the hope of a passionate embrace. To live
with her, sit opposite to her while she ate and drank, see her, perhaps,
with her hair in curl-papers, know possibly that she had a corn upon
her foot, hear her speak maybe of a decayed tooth, or of a chilblain,
would have been torture to me. Into such abyss of the commonplace
there was no fear of my dragging her, and for this I was glad. In
the future she would be yet more removed from me. She was older than
I was; she must be now a woman. Instinctively I felt that in spite
of years I was not yet a man. She would marry. The thought gave me
no pain, my feeling for her was utterly devoid of appetite. No one
but myself could close the temple I had built about her, none deny
to me the right of entry there. No jealous priest could hide her from
my eyes, her altar I had reared too high. Since I have come to know
myself better, I perceive that she stood to me not as a living woman,
but as a symbol; not a fellow human being to be walked with through
life, helping and to be helped, but that impalpable religion of sex
to which we raise up idols of poor human clay, alas, not always to
our satisfaction, so that foolishly we fall into anger against them,
forgetting they were but the work of our own hands; not the body,
but the spirit of love.

I allowed a week to elapse after receiving old Hasluck's letter before
presenting myself at Stamford Hill. It was late one afternoon in early
summer. Hasluck had not returned from the City, Mrs.\ Hasluck was
out visiting, Miss Hasluck was in the garden. I told the supercilious
footman not to trouble, I would seek her there myself. I guessed where
she would be; her favourite spot had always been a sunny corner, bright
with flowers, surrounded by a thick yew hedge, cut, after the Dutch
fashion, into quaint shapes of animals and birds. She was walking
there, as I had expected, reading a book. And again, as I saw her,
came back to me the feeling that had swept across me as a boy, when
first outlined against the dusty books and papers of my father's office
she had flashed upon my eyes: that all the fairy tales had suddenly
come true, only now, instead of the Princess, she was the Queen. Taller
she was, with a dignity that formerly had been the only charm she
lacked. She did not hear my coming, my way being across the soft,
short grass, and for a little while I stood there in the shadow of
the yews, drinking in the beauty of her clear-cut profile, bent down
towards her book, the curving lines of her long neck, the wonder of
the exquisite white hand against the lilac of her dress.

I did not speak; rather would I have remained so watching; but turning
at the end of the path, she saw me, and as she came towards me held
out her hand. I knelt upon the path, and raised it to my lips. The
action was spontaneous, till afterwards I was not aware of having
done it. Her lips were smiling as I raised my eyes to them, the faintest
suggestion of contempt mingling with amusement. Yet she seemed pleased,
and her contempt, even if I were not mistaken, would not have wounded
me.

{}``So you are still in love with me? I wondered if you would be.''

{}``Did you know that I was in love with you?''

{}``I should have been blind if I had not.''

{}``But I was only a boy.''

{}``You were not the usual type of boy. You are not going to be the
usual type of man.''

{}``You do not mind my loving you?''

{}``I cannot help it, can I? Nor can you.''

She seated herself on a stone bench facing a sun-dial, and leaning
hack, her hands clasped behind her head, looked at me and laughed.

{}``I shall always love you,'' I answered, {}``but it is with a
curious sort of love. I do not understand it myself.''

{}``Tell me,'' she commanded, still with a smile about her lips,
{}``describe it to me.''

I was standing over against her, my arm resting upon the dial's stone
column. The sun was sinking, casting long shadows on the velvety grass,
illuminating with a golden light her upturned face.

{}``I would you were some great queen of olden days, and that I might
be always near you, serving you, doing your bidding. Your love in
return would spoil all; I shall never ask it, never desire it. That
I might look upon you, touch now and then at rare intervals with my
lips your hand, kiss in secret the glove you had let fall, the shoe
you had flung off, know that you knew of my love, that I was yours
to do with as you would, to live or die according to your wish. Or
that you were priestess in some temple of forgotten gods, where I
might steal at daybreak and at dusk to gaze upon your beauty; kneel
with clasped hands, watching your sandalled feet coming and going
about the altar steps; lie with pressed lips upon the stones your
trailing robes had touched.''

She laughed a light mocking laugh. {}``I should prefer to be the
queen. The r\^{o}le of priestess would not suit me. Temples are so
cold.'' A slight shiver passed through her. She made a movement with
her hand, beckoning me to her feet. {}``That is how you shall love
me, Paul,'' she said, {}``adoring me, worshipping me---blindly.
I will be your queen and treat you---as it chooses me. All I think,
all I do, I will tell you, and you shall tell me it is right. The
queen can do no wrong.''

She took my face between her hands, and bending over me, looked long
and steadfastly into my eyes. {}``You understand, Paul, the queen
can do no wrong---never, never.'' There had crept into her voice
a note of vehemence, in her face was a look almost of appeal.

{}``My queen can do no wrong,'' I repeated. And she laughed and
let her hands fall back upon her lap.

{}``Now you may sit beside me. So much honour, Paul, shall you have
to-day, but it will have to last you long. And you may tell me all
you have been doing, maybe it will amuse me; and afterwards you shall
hear what I have done, and shall say that it was right and good of
me.''

I obeyed, sketching my story briefly, yet leaving nothing untold,
not even the transit of the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}, ashamed
of the episode though I was. At that she looked a little grave.

{}``You must do nothing again, Paul,'' she commanded, {}``to make
me feel ashamed of you, or I shall dismiss you from my presence for
ever. I must be proud of you, or you shall not serve me. In dishonouring
yourself you are dishonouring me. I am angry with you, Paul. Do not
let me be angry with you again.

And so that passed; and although my love for her---as I know well
she wished and sought it should---failed to save me at all times from
the apish voices whispering ever to the beast within us, I know the
desire to be worthy of her, to honour her with all my being, helped
my life as only love can. The glory of the morning fades, the magic
veil is rent; we see all things with cold, clear eyes. My love was
a woman. She lies dead. They have mocked her white sweet limbs with
rags and tatters, but they cannot cheat love's eyes. God knows I loved
her in all purity! Only with false love we love the false. Beneath
the unclean clinging garments she sleeps fair.

My tale finished, {}``Now I will tell you mine,'' she said. {}``I
am going to be married soon. I shall be a Countess, Paul, the Countess
Huescar---I will teach you how to pronounce it---and I shall have
a real castle in Spain. You need not look so frightened, Paul; we
shall not live there. It is a half-ruined, gloomy place, among the
mountains, and he loves it even less than I do. Paris and London will
be my courts, so you will see me often. You shall know the great world,
Paul, the world I mean to conquer, where I mean to rule.''

{}``Is he very rich?''\ I asked.

{}``As poor,'' she laughed, {}``as poor as a Spanish nobleman.
The money I shall have to provide, or, rather, poor dear Dad will.
He gives me title, position. Of course I do not love him, handsome
though he is. Don't look so solemn, Paul. We shall get on together
well enough. Queens, Paul, do not make love matches, they contract
alliances. I have done well, Paul; congratulate me. Do you hear, Paul?
Say that I have acted rightly.''

{}``Does he love you?''\ I asked.

{}``He tells me so,'' she answered, with a laugh. {}``How uncourtier-like
you are, Paul! Do you suggest that any man could see me and not love
me?''

She sprang to her feet. {}``I do not want his love,'' she cried;
{}``it would bore me. Women hate love they cannot return. I don't
mean love like yours, devout little Paul,'' she added, with a laugh.
{}``That is sweet incense wafted round us that we like to scent with
our noses in the air. Give me that, Paul; I want it, I ask for it.
But the love of a hand, the love of a husband that one does not care
for---it would be horrible!''

I felt myself growing older. For the moment my goddess became a child
needing help.

{}``But have you thought---'' I commenced.

{}``Yes, yes,'' she interrupted me quickly, {}``I have thought
and thought till I can think no more. There must be some sacrifice;
it must be as little as need be, that is all. He does not love me;
he is marrying me for my money---I know that, and I am glad of it.
You do not know me, Paul. I must have rank, position. What am I? The
daughter of rich old Hasluck, who began life as a butcher in the Mile
End Road. As the Princess Huescar, society will forget, as Mrs.''---it
seemed to me she checked herself abruptly---{}``Jones or Brown it
would remember, however rich I might be. I am vain, Paul, caring for
power---ambition. I have my father's blood in me. All his nights and
days he has spent in gaining wealth; he can do no more. We upstarts
have our pride of race. He has done his share, I must do mine.''

{}``But you need not be mere Mrs.\ anybody commonplace,'' I argued.
{}``Why not wait? You will meet someone who can give you position
and whom at the same time you can love. Would that not be better?''

{}``He will never come, the man I could love,'' she answered. {}``Because,
my little Paul, he has come already. Hush, Paul, the queen can do
no wrong.''

{}``Who is he?''\ I asked. {}``May I not know?''

{}``Yes, Paul,'' she answered, {}``you shall know; I want you to
know, then you shall tell me that I have acted rightly. Do you hear
me, Paul?---quite rightly---that you still respect me and honour me.
He could not help me. As his wife, I should be less even than I am,
a mere rich nobody, giving long dinner-parties to other rich nobodies,
living amongst City men, retired trades-people; envied only by their
fat, vulgarly dressed wives, courted by seedy Bohemians for the sake
of my cook; with perhaps an opera singer or an impecunious nobleman
or two out of Dad's City list for my show-guests. Is that the court,
Paul, where you would have your queen reign?''

{}``Is he so commonplace a man,'' I answered, {}``the man you love?
I cannot believe it.''

{}``He is not commonplace,'' she answered. {}``It is I who am commonplace.
The things I desire, they are beneath him; he will never trouble himself
to secure them.''

{}``Not even for love of you?''

{}``I would not have him do so even were he willing. He is great,
with a greatness I cannot even understand. He is not the man for these
times. In old days, I should have married him, knowing he would climb
to greatness by sheer strength of manhood. But now men do not climb;
they crawl to greatness. He could not do that. I have done right,
Paul.''

{}``What does be say?''\ I asked.

{}``Shall I tell you?''\ She laughed a little bitterly. {}``I
can give you his exact words, 'You are half a woman and half a fool,
so woman-like you will follow your folly. But let your folly see to
it that your woman makes no fool of herself.'''

The words were what I could imagine his saying. I heard the strong
ring of his voice through her mocking mimicry.

{}``Hal!''\ I cried. {}``It is he.''

{}``So you never guessed even that, Paul. I thought at times it would
be sweet to cry it out aloud, that it could have made no difference,
that everyone who knew me must have read it in my eyes.''

{}``But he never seemed to take much notice of you,'' I said.

She laughed. {}``You needn't be so unkind, Paul. What did I ever
do for you much more than snub you? We boys and girls; there is not
so much difference between us: we love our masters. Yet you must not
think so poorly of me. I was only a child to him then, but we were
locked up in Paris together during the entire siege. Have not you
heard? He did take a little notice of me there, Paul, I assure you.''

Would it have been better, I wonder, had she followed the woman and
not the fool? It sounds an easy question to answer; but I am thinking
of years later, one winter's night at Tiefenkasten in the Julier Pass.
I was on my way from San Moritz to Chur. The sole passenger, I had
just climbed, half frozen, from the sledge, and was thawing myself
before the stove in the common room of the hotel when the waiter put
a pencilled note into my hand:

{}``Come up and see me. I am a prisoner in this damned hole till
the weather breaks. Hal.''

I hardly recognised him at first. Only the poor ghost he seemed of
the Hal I had known as a boy. His long privations endured during the
Paris siege, added to the superhuman work he had there put upon himself,
had commenced the ruin of even his magnificent physique---a ruin the
wild, loose life he was now leading was soon to complete. It was a
gloomy, vaulted room that once had been a chapel, lighted dimly by
a cheap, evil-smelling lamp, heated to suffocation by one of those
great green-tiled German ovens now only to be met with in rare out-of-the-way
world corners. He was sitting propped up by pillows on the bed, placed
close to one of the high windows, his deep eyes flaring like two gleaming
caverns out of his drawn, haggard face.

{}``I saw you from the window,'' he explained. {}``It is the only
excitement I get, twice a day when the sledges come in. I broke down
coming across the Pass a fortnight ago, on my way from Davos. We were
stuck in a drift for eighteen hours; it nearly finished my last lung.
And I haven't even a book to read. By God!\ lad, I was glad to see
your frosted face ten minutes ago in the light of the lantern.''

He grasped me with his long bony hand. {}``Sit down, and let me hear
my voice using again its mother tongue---you were always a good listener---for
the last eight years I have hardly spoken it. Can you stand the room?
The windows ought to be open, but what does it matter? I may as well
get accustomed to the heat before I die.''

I drew my chair close to the bed, and for awhile, between his fits
of coughing, we talked of things that were outside our thoughts, or,
rather, Hal talked, continuously, boisterously, meeting my remonstrances
with shouts of laughter, ending in wild struggles for breath, so that
I deemed it better to let him work his mad mood out.

Then suddenly: {}``What is she doing?''\ he asked. {}``Do you
ever see her?''

{}``She is playing in---'' I mentioned the name of a comic opera
then running in Paris. {}``No; I have not seen her for some time.''

He laid his white, wasted hand on mine. {}``What a pity you and I
could not have rolled ourselves into one, Paul---you, the saint, and
I, the satyr. Together we should have made her perfect lover.''

There came back to me the memory of those long nights when I had lain
awake listening to the angry voices of my father and mother soaking
through the flimsy wall. It seemed my fate to stand thus helpless
between those I loved, watching them hurting one another against their
will.

{}``Tell me,'' I asked---{}``I loved her, knowing her: I was not
blind. Whose fault was it? Yours or hers?''

He laughed. {}``Whose fault, Paul? God made us.''

Thinking of her fair, sweet face, I hated him for his mocking laugh.
But the next moment, looking into his deep eyes, seeing the pain that
dwelt there, my pity was for him. A smile came to his ugly mouth.

{}``You have been on the stage, Paul; you must have heard the saying
often: 'Ah, well, the curtain must come down, however badly things
are going.' It is only a play, Paul. We do not choose our parts. I
did not even know I was the villain, till I heard the booing of the
gallery. I even thought I was the hero, full of noble sentiment, sacrificing
myself for the happiness of the heroine. She would have married me
in the beginning had I plagued her sufficiently.''

I made to speak, but he interrupted me, continuing: {}``Ah, yes,
it might have been better. That is easy to say, not knowing. So, too,
it might have been worse---in all probability much the same. All roads
lead to the end. You know I was always a fatalist, Paul. We tried
both ways. She loved me well enough, but she loved the world also.
I thought she loved it better, so I kissed her on her brow, mumbled
a prayer for her happiness and made my exit to a choking sob. So ended
the first act. Wasn't I the hero throughout that, Paul? I thought
so; slapped myself upon the back, told myself what a fine fellow I
had been. Then---you know what followed. She was finer clay than she
had fancied. Love is woman's kingdom, not the world. Even then I thought
more of her than of myself. I could have borne my share of the burden
had I not seen her fainting under hers, shamed, degraded. So we dared
to think for ourselves, injuring nobody but ourselves, played the
man and woman, lost the world for love. Wasn't it brave, Paul? Were
we not hero and heroine? They had printed the playbill wrong, Paul,
that was all. I was really the hero, but the printing devil had made
a slip, so instead of applauding you booed. How could you know, any
of you? It was not your fault.''

{}``But that was not the end,'' I reminded him. {}``If the curtain
had fallen then, I could have forgiven you.''

He grinned. {}``That fatal last act. Even yours don't always come
right, so the critics tell me.''

The grin faded from his face. {}``We may never see each other again,
Paul,'' he went on; {}``don't think too badly of me. I found I had
made a second mistake---or thought I had. She was no happier with
me after a time than she had been with him. If all our longings were
one, life would be easy; but they are not. What is to be done but
toss for it? And if it come down head we wish it had been tail, and
if tail we think of what we have lost through its not coming down
head. Love is no more the whole of a woman's life than it is of a
man's. He did not apply for a divorce: that was smart of him. We were
shunned, ignored. To some women it might not have mattered; but she
had been used to being sought, courted, feted. She made no complaint---did
worse: made desperate effort to appear cheerful, to pretend that our
humdrum life was not boring her to death. I watched her growing more
listless, more depressed; grew angry with her, angrier with myself.
There was no bond between us except our passion; that was real enough---'grand,'
I believe, is the approved literary adjective. It is good enough for
what nature intended it, a summer season in a cave. It makes but a
poor marriage settlement in these more complicated days. We fell to
mutual recriminations, vulgar scenes. Ah, most of us look better at
a little distance from one another. The sordid, contemptible side
of life became important to us. I was never rich; by contrast with
all that she had known, miserably poor. The mere sight of the food
our twelve-pound-a-year cook put upon the table would take away her
appetite. Love does not change the palate, give you a taste for cheap
claret when you have been accustomed to dry champagne. We have bodies
to think of as well as souls; we are apt to forget that in moments
of excitement.

{}``She fell ill, and it seemed to me that I had dragged her from
the soil where she had grown only to watch her die. And then he came,
precisely at the right moment. I cannot help admiring him. Most men
take their revenge clumsily, hurting themselves; he was so neat, had
been so patient. I am not even ashamed of having fallen into his trap;
it was admirably baited. Maybe I had despised him for having seemed
to submit meekly to the blow. What cared he for me and my opinion?
It was she was all he cared for. He knew her better than I, knew that
sooner or later she would tire, not of love but of the cottage; look
back with longing eyes towards all that she had lost. Fool! Cuckold!
What was it to him that the world would laugh at him, despise him?
Love such as his made fools of men. Would I not give her back to him?

{}``By God! It was fine acting; half into the night we talked, I
leaving him every now and again to creep to the top of the stairs
and listen to her breathing. He asked me my advice, I being the hard-headed
partner of cool judgment. What would be the best way of approaching
her after I was gone? Where should he take her? How should they live
till the nine days' talk had died away? And I sat opposite to him---how
he must have longed to laugh in my silly face---advising him! We could
not quite agree as to details of a possible yachting cruise, and I
remember hunting up an atlas, and we pored over it, our heads close
together. By God! I envy him that night!''

He sank back on his pillows and laughed and coughed, and laughed and
coughed again, till I feared that wild, long, broken laugh would be
his last. But it ceased at length, and for awhile, exhausted, he lay
silent before continuing.

{}``Then came the question: how was I to go? She loved me still.
He was sure of it, and, for the matter of that, so was I.\  So long
as she thought that I loved her, she would never leave me. Only from
her despair could fresh hope arise for her. Would I not make some
sacrifice for her sake, persuade her that I had tired of her? Only
by one means could she be convinced. My going off alone would not
suffice; my reason for that she might suspect---she might follow.
It would be for her sake. Again it was the hero that I played, the
dear old chuckle-headed hero, Paul, that you ought to have cheered,
not hooted. I loved her as much as I ever loved her in my life, that
night I left her. I took my boots off in the passage and crept up
in my stockinged feet. I told him I was merely going to change my
coat and put a few things into a bag. He gripped my hand, and tears
were standing in his eyes. It is odd that suppressed laughter and
expressed grief should both display the same token, is it not? I stole
into her room. I dared not kiss her for fear of waking her; but a
stray lock of her hair---you remember how long it was---fell over
the pillow, nearly reaching to the floor. I pressed my lips against
it, where it trailed over the bedstead, till they bled. I have it
still upon my lips, the mingling of the cold iron and the warm, soft
silken hair. He told me, when I came down again, that I had been gone
three-quarters of an hour. And we went out of the house together,
he and I.\  That is the last time I ever saw her.''

I leant across and put my arms around him; I suppose it was un-English;
there are times when one forgets these points. {}``I did not know!
I did not know,'' I cried.

He pressed me to him with his feeble arms. {}``What a cad you must
have thought me, Paul,'' he said. {}``But you might have given me
credit for better taste. I was always rather a gourmet than a gourmand
where women were concerned.''

{}``You have never seen him either again?''\ I asked.

{}``No,'' he answered; {}``I swore to kill him when I learnt the
trick he had played me. He commenced the divorce proceedings against
her the very morning after I had left her. Possibly, had I succeeded
in finding him within the next six months, I should have done so.
A few newspaper proprietors would have been the only people really
benefited. Time is the cheapest Bravo; a little patience is all he
charges. All roads lead to the end, Paul.''

But I tell my tale badly, marring effects of sunlight with the memory
of shadows. At the time all promised fair. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking
man. Not every aristocrat, if without disrespect to one's betters
a humble observer may say so, suggests his title; this man would have
suggested his title, had he not possessed it. I suppose he must have
been about fifty at the time; but most men of thirty would have been
glad to exchange with him both figure and complexion. His behaviour
to his \textit{fiancee} was the essence of good taste, affectionate
devotion, carried to the exact point beyond which, having regard to
the disparity of their years, it would have appeared ridiculous. That
he sincerely admired her, was fully content with her, there could
be no doubt. I am even inclined to think he was fonder of her than,
divining her feelings towards himself, he cared to show. Knowledge
of the world must have told him that men of fifty find it easier to
be the lovers of women young enough to be their daughters, than girls
find it to desire the affection of men old enough to be their fathers;
and he was not the man to allow impulse to lead him into absurdity.

From my own peculiar point of view he appeared the ideal prince consort.
It was difficult for me to imagine my queen in love with any mere
man. This was one beside whom she could live, losing in my eyes nothing
of her dignity. My feelings for her he guessed at our first interview.
Most men in his position would have been amused, and many would have
shown it. For what reason I cannot say, but with a tact and courtesy
that left me only complimented, he drew from me, before I had met
him half-a-dozen times, more frank confession than a month previously
I should have dreamt of my yielding to anything than my own pillow.
He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

{}``I wonder if you know, my friend, how wise you are,'' he said.
{}``We all of us at your age love an image of our own carving. Ah,
if only we could be content to worship the white, changeless statute!
But we are fools. We pray the gods to give her life, and under our
hot kisses she becomes a woman. I also loved when I was your age,
Paul. Your countrymen, they are so practical, they know only one kind
of love. It is business-like, rich---how puts it your poet? 'rich
in saving common sense.' But there are many kinds, you understand
that, my friend. You are wise, do not confuse them. She was a child
of the mountains. I used to walk three leagues to Mass each day to
worship her. Had I been wise---had I so left it, the memory of her
would have coloured all my life with glory. But I was a fool, my friend;
I turned her into a woman. Ah!''---he made a gesture of disgust---{}``such
a fat, ugly woman, Paul, I turned her into. I had much difficulty
in getting rid of her. We should never touch things in life that are
beautiful; we have such clumsy hands, we spoil whatever we touch.''

Hal did not return to England till the end of the year, by which time
the Count and Countess Huescar---though I had her permission still
to call her Barbara, I never availed myself of it; the {}``Countess''
fitted my mood better---had taken up residence in the grand Paris
house old Hasluck had bought for them.

It was the high-water mark of old Hasluck's career, and, if anything,
he was a little disappointed that with the dowry he had promised her
Barbara had not done even better for herself.

{}``Foreign Counts,'' he grumbled to me laughingly, one day, {}``well,
I hope they're worth more in Society than they are in the City. A
hundred guineas is their price there, and they're not worth that.
Who was that American girl that married a Russian Prince only last
week? A million dollars was all she gave for him, and she a wholesale
boot-maker's daughter into the bargain! Our girls are not half as
smart.''

But that was before he had seen his future son-in-law. After, he was
content enough, and up to the day of the wedding, childishly elated.
Under the Count's tuition he studied with reverential awe the Huescar
history. Princes, statesmen, warriors, glittered, golden apples, from
the spreading branches of its genealogical tree. Why not again!\ its
attenuated blue sap strengthened with the rich, red blood, brewed
by toil and effort in the grim laboratories of the under world. In
imagination, old Hasluck saw himself the grandfather of Chancellors,
the great-grandfather of Kings.

{}``I have laid the foundation, you shall raise the edifice,'' so
he told her one evening I was spending with them, caressing her golden
hair with his blunt, fat fingers. {}``I am glad you were not a boy.
A boy, in all probability, would have squandered the money, let the
name sink back again into the gutter. And even had he been the other
sort, he could only have been another business man, keeping where
I had left him. You will call your first boy Hasluck, won't you? It
must always be the first-born's name. It shall be famous in the world
yet, and for something else than mere money.

I began to understand the influences that had gone towards the making---or
marring---of Barbara's character. I had never guessed he had cared
for anything beyond money and the making of money.

It was, of course, a wedding as ostentatious as possible. Old Hasluck
knew how to advertise, and spared neither expense nor labour, with
the result that it was the event of the season, at least according
to the Society papers. Mrs.\ Hasluck was the type of woman to have
escaped observation, even had the wedding been her own; that she was
present at her daughter's, {}``becomingly dressed in grey veiling
spotted white, with an encrustation of \textit{mousseline} \textit{de}
\textit{soie},'' I learnt the next day from the \textit{Morning Post}.
Old Hasluck himself had to be fetched every time he was wanted. At
the conclusion of the ceremony, seeking him, I found him sitting on
the stairs leading to the crypt.

{}``Is it over?''\ he asked. He was mopping his face on a huge
handkerchief, and had a small looking-glass in his hand.

{}``All over,'' I answered, {}``they are waiting for you to start.''

{}``I always perspire so when I'm excited,'' he explained. {}``Keep
me out of it as much as possible.''

But the next time I saw him, which was two or three days later, the
reaction had set in. He was sitting in his great library, surrounded
by books he would no more have thought of disturbing than he would
of strumming on the gorgeous grand piano inlaid with silver that ornamented
his drawing-room. A change had passed over him. His swelling rotundity,
suggestive generally of a bladder inflated to its extremest limits
by excess of self-importance, appeared to be shrinking. I put the
idea aside as mere fancy at the time, but it was fact; he became a
mere bag of bones before he died. He was wearing an old pair of carpet
slippers and smoking a short clay pipe.

{}``Well,'' I said, {}``everything went off all right.''

{}``Everybody's gone off all right, so far,'' he grunted. He was
crouching over the fire, though the weather was still warm, one hand
spread out towards the blaze. {}``Now I've got to go off, that's
the only thing they're waiting for. Then everything will be in order.''

{}``I don't think they are wanting you to go off,'' I answered,
with a laugh.

{}``You mean,'' he answered, {}``I'm the goose that lays the golden
eggs. Ah, but you see, so many of the eggs break, and so many of them
are bad.''

{}``Some of them hatch all right,'' I replied. The simile was becoming
somewhat confused: in conversation similes are apt to.

{}``If I were to die this week,'' he said---he paused, completing
mental calculations, {}``I should be worth, roughly speaking, a couple
of million. This time next year I may be owing a million.''

I sat down opposite to him. {}``Why run risks?''\ I suggested.
{}``Surely you have enough. Why not give it up---retire?''

He laughed. {}``Do you think I haven't said that to myself, lad---sworn
I would a dozen times a year? I can't do it; I'm a gambler. It's the
earliest thing I can recollect doing, gambling with brace buttons.
There are men, Paul, now dying in the workhouse---men I once knew
well; I think of them sometimes, and wish I didn't---who any time
during half their life might have retired on twenty thousand a year.
If I were to go to any one of them, and settle an annuity of a hundred
a year upon him, the moment my back was turned he'd sell it out and
totter up to Threadneedle Street with the proceeds. It's in our blood.
I shall gamble on my death-bed, die with the tape in my hand.''

He kicked the fire into a blaze. A roaring flame made the room light
again.

{}``But that won't be just yet awhile,'' he laughed, {}``and before
it does, I'll be the richest man in Europe. I keep my head cool---that's
the great secret.'' Leaning over towards me, he sunk his voice to
a whisper, {}``Drink, Paul---so many of them drink. They get worried;
fifty things dancing round and round at the same time in their heads.
Fifty questions to be answered in five minutes. Tick, tick, tick,
taps the little devil at their elbow. This going down, that going
up. Rumor of this, report of that. A fortune to be lost here, a fortune
to be snatched there. Everything in a whirl! Tick, tick, tick, like
nails into a coffin. God!\ for five minutes' peace to think. Shut
the door, turn the key. Out comes the bottle. That's the end. All
right so long as you keep away from that. Cool, quick brain, clear
judgment---that's the secret.''

{}``But is it worth it all?''\ I suggested. {}``Surely you have
enough?''

{}``It means power, Paul.'' He slapped his trousers pocket, making
the handful of gold and silver he always carried there jingle musically.
{}``It is this that rules the world. My children shall be big pots,
hobnob with kings and princes, slap them on the back and call them
by their Christian names, be kings themselves---why not? It's happened
before. My children, the children of old Noel Hasluck, son of a Whitechapel
butcher! Here's my pedigree!'' Again be slapped his tuneful pocket.
{}``It's an older one than theirs! It's coming into its own at last!
It's money---we men of money---that are the true kings now. It's our
family that rules the world---the great money family; I mean to be
its head.''

The blaze died out, leaving the room almost in darkness, and for awhile
we sat in silence.

{}``Quiet, isn't it?''\ said old Hasluck, raising his head.

The settling of the falling embers was the only sound about us.

{}``Guess we'll always be like this, now,'' continued old Hasluck.
{}``Old woman goes to bed, you see, immediately after dinner. It
used to be different when \textit{she} was about. Somehow, the house
and the lackeys and all the rest of it seemed to be a more natural
sort of thing when \textit{she} was the centre of it. It frightens
the old woman now she's gone. She likes to get away from it. Poor
old Susan! A little country inn with herself as landlady and me fussing
about behind the bar; that was always her ambition, poor old girl!''

{}``You will he visiting them,'' I suggested, {}``and they will
be coming to stop with you.''

He shook his head. {}``They won't want me, and it isn't my game to
hamper them. I never mix out of my class. I've always had sense enough
for that.''

I laughed, wishing to cheer him, though I knew he was right. {}``Surely
your daughter belongs to your own class,'' I replied.

{}``Do you think so?''\ he asked, with a grin. {}``That's not
a pretty compliment to her. She was my child when she used to cling
round my neck, while I made the sausages, calling me her dear old
pig. It didn't trouble her then that I dropped my aitches and had
a greasy skin. I was a Whitechapel butcher, and she was a Whitechapel
brat. I could have kept her if I'd liked, but I was set upon making
a lady of her, and I did it. But I lost my child. Every time she came
back from school I could see she despised me a little more. I'm not
blaming her; how could she help it? I was making a lady of her, teaching
her to do it; though there were moments when I almost hated her, felt
tempted to snatch her back to me, drag her down again to my level,
make her my child again, before it was too late. Oh, it wasn't all
unselfishness; I could have done it. She would have remained my class
then, would have married my class, and her children would have been
my class. I didn't want that. Everything's got to be paid for. I got
what I asked for; I'm not grumbling at the price. But it ain't cheap.''

He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe. {}``Ring the bell, Paul,
will you?''\ he said. {}``Let's have some light and something to
drink. Don't take any notice of me. I've got the hump to-night.''

It was a minute or two before the lamp came. He put his arm upon my
shoulder, leaning upon me somewhat heavily.

{}``I used to fancy sometimes, Paul,'' he said, {}``that you and
she might have made a match of it. I should have been disappointed
for some things. But you'd have been a bit nearer to me, you two.
It never occurred to you, that, I suppose?''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VII}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{How}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{set}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{forth}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{upon}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a
Quest}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Of old Deleglise's Sunday suppers, which, costumed from head to foot
in spotless linen, he cooked himself in his great kitchen, moving
with flushed, earnest face about the gleaming stove, while behind
him his guests waited, ranged round the massive oaken table glittering
with cut glass and silver, among which fluttered the deft hands of
Madeline, his ancient whitecapped Bonne, much has been already recorded,
and by those possessed of greater knowledge. They who sat there talking
in whispers until such time as old Deleglise turned towards them again,
radiant with consciousness of success, the savoury triumph steaming
between his hands, when, like the sudden swell of the Moonlight Sonata,
the talk would rush once more into a roar, were men whose names were
then---and some are still---more or less household words throughout
the English-speaking world. Artists, musicians, actors, writers, scholars,
\textit{dr\^{o}les}, their wit and wisdom, their sayings and their
doings must be tolerably familiar to readers of memoir and biography;
and if to such their epigrams appear less brilliant, their jests less
laughable than to us who heard them spoken, that is merely because
fashion in humour and in understanding changes as in all else.

You, gentle reader of my book, I shall not trouble with second-hand
record of that which you can read elsewhere. For me it will be but
to write briefly of my own brief glimpse into that charmed circle.
Concerning this story more are the afternoon At Homes held by Dan
and myself upon the second floor of the old Georgian house in pleasant,
quiet Queen Square. For cook and house-maid on these days it would
be a busy morning. Failing other supervision, Dan and I agreed that
to secure success on these important occasions each of us should criticise
the work of the other. I passed judgment on Dan's cooking, he upon
my house-work.

{}``Too much soda,'' I would declare, sampling the cake.

{}``You silly Juggins! It's meant to taste of soda---it's a soda
cake.''

{}``I know that. It isn't meant to taste of nothing but soda. There
wants to be some cake about it also. This thing, so far as flavour
is concerned, is nothing but a Seidlitz powder. You can't give people
solidified Seidlitz powders for tea!''

Dan would fume, but I would remain firm. The soda cake would be laid
aside, and something else attempted. His cookery was the one thing
Dan was obstinate about. He would never admit that anything could
possibly be wrong with it. His most ghastly failures he would devour
himself later on with pretended enjoyment. I have known him finish
a sponge cake, the centre of which had to be eaten with a teaspoon,
declaring it was delicious; that eating a dry sponge cake was like
eating dust; that a sponge cake ought to be a trifle syrupy towards
the centre. Afterwards he would be strangely silent and drink brandy
out of a wine-glass.

{}``Call these knives clean?'' It would be Dan's turn.

{}``Yes, I do.''

Dan would draw his finger across one, producing \textit{chiaro}-\textit{oscuro}.

{}``Not if you go fingering them. Why don't you leave them alone
and go on with your own work?''

{}``You've just wiped them, that's all.''

{}``Well, there isn't any knife-powder.''

{}``Yes, there is.''

{}``Besides, it ruins knives, over-cleaning them---takes all the
edge off. We shall want them pretty sharp to cut those lemon buns
of yours.''

{}``Over-cleaning them! You don't take any pride in the place.''

{}``Good Lord! Don't I work from morning to night?''

{}``You lazy young devil!''

{}``Makes one lazy, your cooking. How can a man work when he is suffering
all day long from indigestion?''

But Dan would not be content until I had found the board and cleaned
the knives to his complete satisfaction. Perhaps it was as well that
in this way all things once a week were set in order. After lunch
house-maid and cook would vanish, two carefully dressed gentlemen
being left alone to receive their guests.

These would be gathered generally from among Dan's journalistic acquaintances
and my companions of the theatre. Occasionally, Minikin and Jarman
would be of the number, Mrs.\ Peedles even once or twice arriving
breathless on our landing. Left to myself, I perhaps should not have
invited them, deeming them hardly fitting company to mingle with our
other visitors; but Dan, having once been introduced to them, overrode
such objection.

{}``My dear Lord Chamberlain,'' Dan would reply, {}``an ounce of
originality is worth a ton of convention. Little tin ladies and gentlemen
all made to pattern! One can find them everywhere. Your friends would
be an acquisition to any society.''

{}``But are they quite good form?''\ I hinted.

{}``I'll tell you what we will do,'' replied Dan. {}``We'll forget
that Mrs.\ Peedles keeps a lodging-house in Blackfriars. We will
speak of her as our friend, `that dear, quaint old creature, Lady
P.' A title that is an oddity, whose costume always suggests the wardrobe
of a provincial actress! My dear Paul, your society novelist would
make a fortune out of such a character. The personages of her amusing
anecdotes, instead of being third-rate theatrical folk, shall be Earl
Blank and the Baroness de Dash. The editors of society journals shall
pay me a shilling a line for them. Jarman---yes, Jarman shall be the
son of a South American millionaire. Vulgar? Nonsense!\ you mean
racy. Minikin---he looks much more like forty than twenty---he shall
be an eminent scientist. His head will then appear the natural size;
his glass eye, the result of a chemical experiment, a touch of distinction;
his uncompromising rudeness, a lovable characteristic. We will make
him buy a yard of red ribbon and wear it across his shirt-front, and
address him as Herr Professor. It will explain slight errors of English
grammar and all peculiarities of accent. They shall be our lions.
You leave it to me. We will invite commonplace, middle-class folk
to meet them.''

And this, to my terror and alarm, Dan persisted in doing. Jarman entered
into the spirit of the joke with gusto. So far as he was concerned,
our guests, from the beginning to the end, were one and all, I am
confident, deceived. The more he swaggered, the more he boasted, the
more he talked about himself---and it was a failing he was prone to---the
greater was his success. At the persistent endeavours of Dan's journalistic
acquaintances to excite his cupidity by visions of new journals, to
be started with a mere couple of thousand pounds and by the inherent
merit of their ideas to command at once a circulation of hundreds
of thousands, I could afford to laugh. But watching the tremendous
efforts of my actress friends to fascinate him---luring him into corners,
gazing at him with languishing eyes, trotting out all their little
tricks for his exclusive benefit, quarrelling about him among themselves---my
conscience would prick me, lest our jest should end in a contretemps.
Fortunately, Jarman himself, was a gentleman of uncommon sense, or
my fears might have been realised. I should have been sorry myself
to have been asked to remain stone under the blandishments of girls
young and old, of women handsome and once, no doubt, good looking,
showered upon him during that winter. But Jarman, as I think I have
explained, was no slave to female charms. He enjoyed his good time
while it lasted, and eventually married the eldest daughter of a small
blacking factory. She was a plain girl, but pleasant, and later brought
to Jarman possession of the factory. When I meet him---he is now stout
and rubicund---he gives me the idea of a man who has attained to his
ideals.

With Minikin we had more trouble. People turned up possessed of scientific
smattering. We had to explain that the Professor never talked shop.
Others were owners of unexpected knowledge of German, which they insisted
upon airing. We had to explain that the Herr Professor was in London
to learn English, and had taken a vow during his residence neither
to speak nor listen to his native tongue. It was remarked that his
acquaintance with colloquial English slang, for a foreigner, was quite
unusual. Occasionally he was too rude, even for a scientist, informing
ladies, clamouring to know how he liked English women, that he didn't
like them silly; telling one gentleman, a friend of Dan, a rather
important man who once asked him, referring to his yard of ribbon,
what he got it for, that he got it for fourpence. We had to explain
him as a gentleman who had been soured by a love disappointment. The
ladies forgave him; the gentlemen said it was a damned lucky thing
for the girl. Altogether, Minikin took a good deal of explaining.

Lady Peedles, our guests decided among themselves, must be the widow
of some one in the City who had been knighted in a crowd. They made
fun of her behind her back, but to her face were most effusive. {}``My
dear Lady Peedles'' was the phrase most often heard in our rooms
whenever she was present. At the theatre {}``my friend Lady Peedles''
became a person much spoken of---generally in loud tones. My own social
position I found decidedly improved by reason of her ladyship's evident
liking for myself. It went abroad that I was her presumptive heir.
I was courted as a gentleman of expectations.

The fishy-eyed young man became one of our regular guests. Dan won
his heart by never laughing at him.

{}``I like talking to you,'' said the fishy-eyed young man one afternoon
to Dan. {}``You don't go into fits of laughter when I remark that
it has been a fine day; most people do. Of course, on the stage I
don't mind. I know I am a funny little devil. I get my living by being
a funny little devil. There is a photograph of me hanging in the theatre
lobby. I saw a workman stop and look at it the other day as he passed;
I was just behind him. He burst into a roar of laughter. `Little---!
He makes me laugh to look at him!' he cluttered to himself. Well,
that's all right; I want the man in the gallery to think me funny,
but it annoys me when people laugh at me off the stage. If I am out
to dinner anywhere and ask somebody to pass the mustard, I never get
it; instead, they burst out laughing. I don't want people to laugh
at me when I am having my dinner. I want my dinner. It makes me very
angry sometimes.''

{}``I know,'' agreed Dan, sympathetically. {}``The world never
grasps the fact that man is a collection, not a single exhibit. I
remember being at a house once where the chief guest happened to be
a great Hebrew scholar. One tea time, a Miss Henman, passing the butter
to some one in a hurry, let it slip out of her hand. 'Why is Miss
Henman like a caterpillar?' asked our learned guest in a sepulchral
voice. Nobody appeared to know. `Because she makes the butter fly.'
It never occurred to any one of us that the Doctor could possibly
joke. There was dead silence for about a minute. Then our hostess,
looking grave, remarked: `Oh, do you really think so?'''

{}``If I were to enter a room full of people,'' said the fishy-eyed
young man, {}``and tell them that my mother had been run over by
an omnibus, they would think it the funniest story they had heard
in years.''

He was playing a principal part now in the opera, and it was he undoubtedly
who was drawing the house. But he was not happy.

{}``I am not a comic actor, really,'' he explained. {}``I could
play Romeo, so far as feeling is concerned, and play it damned well.
There is a fine vein of poetry in me. But of course it's no good to
me with this face of mine.''

{}``But are you not sinning your mercies, you fellows?''\ Dan replied.
{}``There is young Kelver here. At school it was always his trouble
that he could give us a good time and make us laugh, which nobody
else in the whole school could do. His ambition was to kick a ball
as well as a hundred other fellows could kick it. He could tell us
a good story now if he would only write what the Almighty intended
him to write, instead of gloomy rigmaroles about suffering Princesses
in Welsh caves. I don't say it's bad, but a hundred others could write
the same sort of thing better.''

{}``Can't you understand,'' answered the little man; {}``the poorest
tragedian that ever lived never wished himself the best of low comedians.
The court fool had an excellent salary, no doubt; and, likely enough,
had got two-thirds of all the brain there was in the palace. But not
a wooden-headed man-at-arms but looked down upon him. Every gallery
boy who pays a shilling to laugh at me regards himself as my intellectual
superior; while to a fourth-rate spouter of blank verse he looks up
in admiration.''

{}``Does it so very much matter,'' suggested Dan, {}``how the wooden-headed
man-at-arms or the shilling gallery boy happens to regard you?''

{}``Yes, it does,'' retorted Goggles, {}``because we happen to
agree with them. If I could earn five pounds a week as juvenile lead,
I would never play a comic part again.''

{}``There I cannot follow you,'' returned Dan. {}``I can understand
the artist who would rather be the man of action, the poet who would
rather be the statesman or the warrior; though personally my sympathies
are precisely the other way---with Wolfe who thought it a more glorious
work, the writing of a great poem, than the burning of so many cities
and the killing of so many men. We all serve the community. It is
difficult, looking at the matter from the inside, to say who serves
it best. Some feed it, some clothe it. The churchman and the policeman
between them look after its morals, keep it in order. The doctor mends
it when it injures itself; the lawyer helps it to quarrel, the soldier
teaches it to fight. We Bohemians amuse it, instruct it. We can argue
that we are the most important. The others cater for its body, we
for its mind. But their work is more showy than ours and attracts
more attention; and to attract attention is the aim and object of
most of us. But for Bohemians to worry among themselves which is the
greatest, is utterly without reason. The story-teller, the musician,
the artist, the clown, we are members of a sharing troupe; one, with
the ambition of the fat boy in Pickwick, makes the people's flesh
creep; another makes them hold their sides with laughter. The tragedian,
soliloquising on his crimes, shows us how wicked we are; you, looking
at a pair of lovers from under a scratch wig, show us how ridiculous
we are. Both lessons are necessary: who shall say which is the superior
teacher?''

{}``Ah, I am not a philosopher,'' replied the little man, with a
sigh.

{}``Ah,'' returned Dan, with another, {}``and I am not a comic
actor on my way to a salary of a hundred a week. We all of us want
the other boy's cake.''

The O'Kelly was another frequent visitor of ours. The attic in Belsize
Square had been closed. In vain had the O'Kelly wafted incense, burned
pastilles and sprinkled \textit{eau}-\textit{de}-Cologne. In vain
had he talked of rats, hinted at drains.

{}``A wonderful woman,'' groaned the O'Kelly in tones of sorrowful
admiration. {}``There's no deceiving her.''

{}``But why submit?''\ was our natural argument. {}``Why not say
you are going to smoke, and do it?''

{}``It's her theory, me boy,'' explained the O'Kelly, {}``that
the home should be kept pure---a sort of a temple, ye know. She's
convinced that in time it is bound to exercise an influence upon me.
It's a beautiful idea, when ye come to think of it.''

Meanwhile, in the rooms of half-a-dozen sinful men the O'Kelly kept
his own particular pipe, together with his own particular smoking
mixture; and one such pipe and one such tobacco jar stood always on
our mantelpiece.

In the spring the forces of temptation raged round that feeble but
most excellently intentioned citadel, the O'Kelly's conscience. The
Signora had returned to England, was performing then at Ashley's Theatre.
The O'Kelly would remain under long spells of silence, puffing vigorously
at his pipe. Or would fortify himself with paeans in praise of Mrs.\ O'Kelly.

{}``If anything could ever make a model man of me''---he spoke in
the tones of one whose doubts are stronger than his hopes---{}``it
would he the example of that woman.''

It was one Saturday afternoon. I had just returned from the matinee.

{}``I don't believe,'' continued the O'Kelly, {}``I don't really
believe she has ever done one single thing she oughtn't to, or left
undone one single thing she ought, in the whole course of her life.''

{}``Maybe she has, and you don't know of it,'' I suggested, perceiving
the idea might comfort him.

{}``I wish I could think so,'' returned the O'Kelly. {}``I don't
mean anything really wrong,'' he corrected himself quickly, {}``but
something just a little wrong. I feel---I really feel I should like
her better if she had.''

{}``Not that I mean I don't like her as it is, ye understand,''
corrected himself the O'Kelly a second time. {}``I respect that woman---I
cannot tell ye, me boy, how much I respect her. Ye don't know her.
There was one morning, about a month ago. That womanshe's down at
six every morning, summer and winter; we have prayers at half-past.
I was a trifle late meself: it was never me strong point, as ye know,
early rising. Seven o'clock struck; she didn't appear, and I thought
she had overslept herself. I won't say I didn't feel pleased for the
moment; it was an unworthy sentiment, but I almost wished she had.
I ran up to her room. The door was open, the bedclothes folded down
as she always leaves them. She came in five minutes later. She had
got up at four that morning to welcome a troupe of native missionaries
from East Africa on their arrival at Waterloo Station. She's a saint,
that woman; I am not worthy of her.''

{}``I shouldn't dwell too much on that phase of the subject,'' I
suggested.

{}``I can't help it, me boy,'' replied the O'Kelly. {}``I feel
I am not.''

{}``I don't for a moment say you are,'' I returned; {}``but I shouldn't
harp upon the idea. I don't think it good for you.''

{}``I never will be,'' he persisted gloomily, {}``never!''

Evidently he was started on a dangerous train of reflection. With
the idea of luring him away from it, I led the conversation to the
subject of champagne.

{}``Most people like it dry,'' admitted the O'Kelly. {}``Meself,
I have always preferred it with just a suggestion of fruitiness.''

{}``There was a champagne,'' I said, {}``you used to be rather
fond of when we---years ago.''

{}``I think I know the one ye mean,'' said the O'Kelly. {}``It
wasn't at all bad, considering the price.''

{}``You don't happen to remember where you got it?''\ I asked.

{}``It was in Bridge Street,'' remembered the O'Kelly, {}``not
so very far from the Circus.''

{}``It is a pleasant evening,'' I remarked; {}``let us take a walk.''

We found the place, half wine-shop, half office.

{}``Just the same,'' commented the O'Kelly as we pushed open the
door and entered. {}``Not altered a bit.''

As in all probability barely twelve months had elapsed since his last
visit, the fact in itself was not surprising. Clearly the O'Kelly
had been calculating time rather by sensation. I ordered a bottle;
and we sat down. Myself, being prejudiced against the brand, I called
for a glass of claret. The O'Kelly finished the bottle. I was glad
to notice my ruse had been successful. The virtue of that wine had
not departed from it. With every glass the O'Kelly became morally
more elevated. He left the place, determined that he would be worthy
of Mrs.\ O'Kelly. Walking down the Embankment, he asserted his determination
of buying an alarm-clock that very evening. At the corner of Westminster
Bridge he became suddenly absorbed in his own thoughts. Looking to
discover the cause of his silence, I saw that his eyes were resting
on a poster representing a charming lady standing on one leg upon
a wire; below her---at some distance---appeared the peaks of mountains;
the artist had even caught the likeness. I cursed the luck that had
directed our footsteps, but the next moment, lacking experience, was
inclined to be reassured.

{}``Me dear Paul,'' said the O'Kelly---he laid a fatherly hand upon
my shoulder---{}``there are fair-faced, laughing women---sweet creatures,
that ye want to put yer arm around and dance with.'' He shook his
head disapprovingly. {}``There are the sainted women, who lead us
up, Paul---up, always up.''

A look, such as the young man with the banner might have borne with
him to the fields of snow and ice, suffused the O'Kelly's handsome
face. Without another word he crossed the road and entered an American
store, where for six-and-elevenpence he purchased an alarm-clock the
man assured us would awake an Egyptian mummy. With this in his hand
he waved me a good-bye, and jumped upon a Hampstead 'bus, and alone
I strolled on to the theatre.

Hal returned a little after Christmas and started himself in chambers
in the City. It was the nearest he dared venture, so he said, to civilisation.

{}``I'd be no good in the West End,'' he explained. {}``For a season
I might attract as an eccentricity, but your swells would never stand
me for longer---no more would any respectable folk, anywhere: we don't
get on together. I commenced at Richmond. It was a fashionable suburb
then, and I thought I was going to do wonders. I had everything in
my favour, except myself. I do know my work, nobody can deny that
of me. My father spent every penny he had, poor gentleman, in buying
me an old-established practice: fine house, carriage and pair, white-haired
butler---everything correct, except myself. It was of no use. I can
hold myself in for a month or two; then I break out, the old original
savage that I am under my frock coat. I feel I must run amuck, stabbing,
hacking at the prim, smiling Lies mincing round about me. I can fool
a silly woman for half-a-dozen visits; bow and rub my hands, purr
round her sympathetically. All the while I am longing to tell her
the truth:

{}``'Go home. Wash your face; don't block up the pores of your skin
with paint. Let out your corsets. You are thirty-three round the abdomen
if you are an inch: how can you expect your digestion to do its work
when you're squeezing it into twenty-one? Give up gadding about half
your day and most of your night; you are old enough to have done with
that sort of thing. Let the children come, and suckle them yourself.
You'll be all the better for them. Don't loll in bed all the morning.
Get up like a decent animal and do something for your living. Use
your brain, what there is of it, and your body. At that price you
can have health to-morrow, and at no other. I can do nothing for you.'

{}``And sooner or later I blurt it out.'' He laughed his great roar.
{}``Lord!\ you should see the real face coming out of the simpering
mask.

{}``Pompous old fools, strutting into me like turkey-cocks! By Jove,
it was worth it! They would dribble out, looking half their proper
size after I had done telling them what was the matter with them.

{}```Do you want to know what you are really suffering from?' I would
shout at them, when I could contain myself no longer. 'Gluttony, my
dear sir; gluttony and drunkenness, and over-indulgence in other vices
that shall be nameless. Live like a man; get a little self-respect
from somewhere; give up being an ape. Treat your body properly and
it will treat you properly. That's the only prescription that will
do you any good.'''

He laughed again.\ {} {}```Tell the truth, you shame the Devil.'
But the Devil replies by starving you. It's a fairly effective retort.
I am not the stuff successful family physicians are made of. In the
City I may manage to rub along. One doesn't see so much of one's patients;
they come and go. Clerks and warehousemen my practice will be among
chiefly. The poor man does not so much mind being told the truth about
himself; it is a blessing to which he is accustomed.''

We spoke but once of Barbara. A photograph of her in her bride's dress
stood upon my desk. Occasionally, first fitting the room for the ceremony,
sweeping away all impurity even from under the mats, and dressing
myself with care, I would centre it amid flowers, and kneeling, kiss
her hand where it rested on the back of the top-heavy looking chair
without which no photographic studio is complete.

One day he took it up, and looked at it long and hard.

{}``The forehead denotes intellectuality; the eyes tenderness and
courage. The lower part of the face, on the other hand, suggests a
good deal of animalism: the finely cut nostrils show egotism---another
word for selfishness; the nose itself, vanity; the lips, sensuousness
and love of luxury. I wonder what sort of woman she really is.''
He laid the photograph back upon the desk.

{}``I did not know you were so firm a believer in Lavater,'' I said.

{}``Only when he agrees with what I know,'' he answered. {}``Have
I not described her rightly?''

{}``I do not care to discuss her in that vein,'' I replied, feeling
the blood mounting to my cheeks.

{}``Too sacred a subject?''\ he laughed. {}``It is the one ingredient
of manhood I lack, ideality---an unfortunate deficiency for me. I
must probe, analyse, dissect, see the thing as it really is, know
it for what it is.''

{}``Well, she is the Countess Huescar now,'' I said. {}``For God's
sake, leave her alone.''

He turned to me with the snarl of a beast. {}``How do you know she
is the Countess Huescar? Is it a special breed of woman made on purpose?
How do you know she isn't my wife---brain and heart, flesh and blood,
mine? If she was, do you think I should give her up because some fool
has stuck his label on her?''

I felt the anger burning in my eyes. {}``Yours, his! She is no man's
property. She is herself,'' I cried.

The wrinkles round his nose and mouth smoothed themselves out. {}``You
need not be afraid,'' he sneered. {}``As you say, she is the Countess
Huescar. Can you imagine her as Mrs.\ Doctor Washburn? I can't.''
He took her photograph in his hand again. {}``The lower part of the
face is the true index to the character. It shows the animal, and
it is the animal that rules. The soul, the intellect, it comes and
goes; the animal remains always. Sensuousness, love of luxury, vanity,
those are the strings to which she dances. To be a Countess is of
more importance to her than to be a woman. She is his, not mine. Let
him keep her.''

{}``You do not know her,'' I answered; {}``you never have. You
listen to what she says. She does not know herself.''

He looked at me queerly. {}``What do you think her to be?''\ he
asked me. {}``A true woman, not the shallow thing she seems?''

{}``A true woman,'' I persisted stoutly, {}``that you have not
eyes enough to see.''

{}``You little fool!''\ he muttered, with the same queer look---{}``you
little fool. But let us hope you are wrong, Paul. Let us hope, for
her sake, you are wrong.''

It was at one of Deleglise's Sunday suppers that I first met Urban
Vane. The position, nor even the character, I fear it must be confessed,
of his guests was never enquired into by old Deleglise. A simple-minded,
kindly old fellow himself, it was his fate to be occasionally surprised
and grieved at the discovery that even the most entertaining of supper
companions could fall short of the highest standard of conventional
morality.

{}``Dear, dear me!''\ he would complain, pacing up and down his
studio with puzzled visage. {}``The last man in the world of whom
I should have expected to hear it. So original in all his ideas. Are
you quite sure?''

{}``I am afraid there can he no doubt about it.''

{}``I can't believe it! I really can't believe it! One of the most
amusing men I ever met!''

I remember a well-known artist one evening telling us with much sense
of humour how he had just completed the sale of an old Spanish cabinet
to two distinct and separate purchasers.

{}``I sold it first,'' recounted the little gentleman with glee,
{}``to old Jong, the dealer. He has been worrying me about it for
the last three months, and on Saturday afternoon, hearing that I was
clearing out and going abroad, he came round again. 'Well, I am not
sure I am in a position to sell it,' I told him. `Who'll know?' he
asked. 'They are not in, are they?' `Not yet,' I answered, 'but I
expect they will be some time on Monday.' 'Tell your man to open the
door to me at eight o'clock on Monday morning,' he replied, 'we'll
have it away without any fuss. There needn't he any receipt. I'm lending
you a hundred pounds, in cash.' I worked him up to a hundred and twenty,
and he paid me. Upon my word, I should never have thought of it, if
he hadn't put the idea into my head. But turning round at the door:
`You won't go and sell it to some one else,' he suggested, 'between
now and Monday?' It serves him right for his damned impertinence.
`Send and take it away to-day if you are at all nervous,' I told him.
He looked at the thing, it is about twelve feet high altogether. 'I
would if I could get a cart,' he muttered. Then an idea struck him.
`Does the top come off?' `See for yourself,' I answered; 'it's your
cabinet, not mine.' I was feeling rather annoyed with him. He examined
it. `That's all right,' he said; 'merely a couple of screws. I'll
take the top with me now on my cab.' He got a man in, and they took
the upper cupboard away, leaving me the bottom. Two hours later old
Sir George called to see me about his wife's portrait. The first thing
he set eyes on was the remains of the cabinet: he had always admired
it. `Hallo,' he asked, 'are you breaking up the studio literally?
What have you done with the other half?' 'I've sent it round to Jong's---'
He didn't give me time to finish. 'Save Jong's commission and sell
it to me direct,' he said. 'We won't argue about the price and I'll
pay you in cash.'

{}``Well, if Providence comes forward and insists on taking charge
of a man, it is hardly good manners to flout her. Besides, his wife's
portrait is worth twice as much as he is paying for it. He handed
me over the money in notes. 'Things not going quite smoothly with
you just at the moment?' he asked me. `Oh, about the same as usual,'
I told him. 'You won't be offended at my taking it away with me this
evening?' he asked. `Not in the least,' I answered; 'you'll get it
on the top of a four-wheeled cab.' We called in a couple of men, and
I helped them down with it, and confoundedly heavy it was. 'I shall
send round to Jong's for the other half on Monday morning,' he said,
speaking with his head through the cab window, 'and explain it to
him.' `Do,' I answered; `he'll understand.'

{}``I'm sorry I'm going away so early in the morning,'' concluded
the little gentleman. {}``I'd give back Jong ten per cent.\ of his
money to see his face when he enters the studio.''

Everybody laughed; but after the little gentleman was gone, the subject
cropped up again.

{}``If I wake sufficiently early,'' remarked one, {}``I shall find
an excuse to look in myself at eight o'clock. Jong's face will certainly
be worth seeing.''

{}``Rather rough both on him and Sir George,'' observed another.

{}``Oh, he hasn't really done anything of the kind,'' chimed in
old Deleglise in his rich, sweet voice. {}``He made that all up.
It's just his fun; he's full of humour.''

{}``I am inclined to think that would be his idea of a joke,'' asserted
the first speaker.

Old Deleglise would not hear of it; but a week or two later I noticed
an addition to old Deleglise's studio furniture in the shape of a
handsome old carved cabinet twelve feet high.

{}``He really had done it,'' explained old Deleglise, speaking in
a whisper, though only he and I were present. {}``Of course, it was
only his fun; but it might have been misunderstood. I thought it better
to put the thing straight. I shall get the money back from him when
he returns. A most amusing little man!''

Old Deleglise possessed a house in Gower Street which fell vacant.
One of his guests, a writer of poetical drama, was a man who three
months after he had earned a thousand pounds never had a penny with
which to bless himself. They are dying out, these careless, good-natured,
conscienceless Bohemians; but quarter of a century ago they still
lingered in Alsatian London. Turned out of his lodgings by a Philistine
landlord, his sole possession in the wide world, two acts of a drama,
for which he had already been paid, the problem of his future, though
it troubled him but little, became acute to his friends. Old Deleglise,
treating the matter as a joke, pretending not to know who was the
landlord, suggested he should apply to the agents for position as
caretaker. Some furniture was found for him, and the empty house in
Gower Street became his shelter. The immediate present thus provided
for, kindly old Deleglise worried himself a good deal concerning what
would become of his friend when the house was let. There appeared
to be no need for worry. Weeks, months went by. Applications were
received by the agents in fair number, view cards signed by the dozen;
but prospective tenants were never seen again. One Sunday evening
our poet, warmed by old Deleglise's Burgundy, forgetful whose recommendation
had secured him the lowly but timely appointment, himself revealed
the secret.

{}``Most convenient place I've got,'' so he told old Deleglise.
{}``Whole house to myself. I wander about; it just suits me.''

{}``I'm glad to hear that,'' murmured old Deleglise.

{}``Come and see me, and I'll cook you a chop,'' continued the other.
{}``I've had the kitchen range brought up into the back drawing-room;
saves going up and down stairs.''

{}``The devil you have!''\ growled old Deleglise. {}``What do
you think the owner of the house will say?''

{}``Haven't the least idea who the poor old duffer is myself. They've
put me in as caretaker---an excellent arrangement: avoids all argument
about rent.''

{}``Afraid it will soon come to an end, that excellent arrangement;''
remarked old Deleglise, drily.

{}``Why? Why should it?''

{}``A house in Gower Street oughtn't to remain vacant long.''

{}``This one will.''

{}``You might tell me,'' asked old Deleglise, with a grim smile;
{}``how do you manage it? What happens when people come to look over
the house---don't you let them in?''

{}``I tried that at first,'' explained the poet, {}``but they would
go on knocking, and boys and policemen passing would stop and help
them. It got to be a nuisance; so now I have them in, and get the
thing over. I show them the room where the murder was committed. If
it's a nervous-looking party, I let them off with a brief summary.
If that doesn't do, I go into details and show them the blood-spots
on the floor. It's an interesting story of the gruesome order. Come
round one morning and I'll tell it to you. I'm rather proud of it.
With the blinds down and a clock in the next room that ticks loudly,
it goes well.''

Yet this was a man who, were the merest acquaintance to call upon
him and ask for his assistance, would at once take him by the arm
and lead him upstairs. All notes and cheques that came into his hands
he changed at once into gold. Into some attic half filled with lumber
he would fling it by the handful; then, locking the door, leave it
there. On their hands and knees he and his friends, when they wanted
any, would grovel for it, poking into corners, hunting under boxes,
groping among broken furniture, feeling between cracks and crevices.
Nothing gave him greater delight than an expedition of this nature
to what he termed his gold-field; it had for him, as he would explain,
all the excitements of mining without the inconvenience and the distance.
He never knew how much was there. For a certain period a pocketful
could be picked up in five minutes. Then he would entertain a dozen
men at one of the best restaurants in London, tip cabmen and waiters
with half-sovereigns, shower half-crowns as he walked through the
streets, lend or give to anybody for the asking. Later, half-an-hour's
dusty search would be rewarded with a single coin. It made no difference
to him; he would dine in Soho for eighteenpence, smoke shag, and run
into debt.

The red-haired man, to whom Deleglise had introduced me on the day
of my first meeting with the Lady of the train, was another of his
most constant visitors. It flattered my vanity that the red-haired
man, whose name was famous throughout Europe and America, should condescend
to confide to me---as he did and at some length---the deepest secrets
of his bosom. Awed---at all events at first---I would sit and listen
while by the hour he would talk to me in corners, telling me of the
women he had loved. They formed a somewhat large collection. \textit{Julias},
\textit{Marias}, Janets, even Janes---he had madly worshipped, deliriously
adored so many it grew bewildering. With a far-away look in his eyes,
pain trembling through each note of his musical, soft voice, he would
with bitter jest, with passionate outburst, recount how he had sobbed
beneath the stars for love of Isabel, bitten his own flesh in frenzied
yearning for Lenore. He appeared from his own account---if in connection
with a theme so poetical I may be allowed a commonplace expression---to
have had no luck with any of them. Of the remainder, an appreciable
percentage had been mere passing visions, seen at a distance in the
dawn, at twilight---generally speaking, when the light must have been
uncertain. Never again, though he had wandered in the neighbourhood
for months, had he succeeded in meeting them. It would occur to me
that enquiries among the neighbours, applications to the local police,
might possibly have been efficacious; but to have broken in upon his
exalted mood with such suggestions would have demanded more nerve
than at the time I possessed. In consequence, my thoughts I kept to
myself.

{}``My God, boy!''\ he would conclude, {}``may you never love
as I loved that woman Miriam''---or Henrietta, or Irene, as the case
might be.

For my sympathetic attitude towards the red-haired man I received
one evening commendation from old Deleglise.

{}``Good boy,'' said old Deleglise, laying his hand on my shoulder.
We were standing in the passage. We had just shaken hands with the
red-haired man, who, as usual, had been the last to leave. {}``None
of the others will listen to him. He used to stop and confide it all
to me after everybody else had gone. Sometimes I have dropped asleep,
to wake an hour later and find him still talking. He gets it over
early now. Good boy!''

Soon I learnt it was characteristic of the artist to be willing---nay,
anxious, to confide his private affairs to any one and every one who
would only listen. Another characteristic appeared to be determination
not to listen to anybody else's. As attentive recipient of other people's
troubles and emotions I was subjected to practically no competition
whatever. One gentleman, a leading actor of that day, I remember,
immediately took me aside on my being introduced to him, and consulted
me as to his best course of procedure under the extremely painful
conditions that had lately arisen between himself and his wife. We
discussed the unfortunate position at some length, and I did my best
to counsel fairly and impartially.

{}``I wish you would lunch with me at White's to-morrow,'' he said.
{}``We can talk it over quietly. Say half-past one. By the bye, I
didn't catch your name.''

I spelt it to him: he wrote the appointment down on his shirt-cuff.
I went to White's the next day and waited an hour, but he did not
turn up. I met him three weeks later at a garden-party with his wife.
But he appeared to have forgotten me.

Observing old Deleglise's guests, comparing them with their names,
it surprised me the disconnection between the worker and the work.
Writers of noble sentiment, of elevated ideality, I found contained
in men of commonplace appearance, of gross appetites, of conventional
ideas. It seemed doubtful whether they fully comprehended their own
work; certainly it had no effect upon their own lives. On the other
hand, an innocent, boyish young man, who lived the most correct of
lives with a girlish-looking wife in an ivy-covered cottage near Barnes
Common, I discovered to be the writer of decadent stories at which
the Empress Theodora might have blushed. The men whose names were
widest known were not the men who shone the brightest in Deleglise's
kitchen; more often they appeared the dull dogs, listening enviously,
or failing pathetically when they tried to compete with others who
to the public were comparatively unknown. After a time I ceased to
confound the artist with the man, thought no more of judging the one
by the other than of evolving a tenant from the house to which circumstances
or carelessness might have directed him. Clearly they were two creations
originally independent of each other, settling down into a working
partnership for purposes merely of mutual accommodation; the spirit
evidently indifferent as to the particular body into which he crept,
anxious only for a place to work in, easily contented.

Varied were these guests that gathered round old Deleglise's oak.
Cabinet Ministers reported to be in Homburg; Russian Nihilists escaped
from Siberia; Italian revolutionaries; high church dignitaries disguised
in grey suitings; ex-errand boys, who had discovered that with six
strokes of the pen they could set half London laughing at whom they
would; raw laddies with the burr yet clinging to their tongues, but
who we knew would one day have the people dancing to the music of
their words. Neither wealth, nor birth, nor age, nor position counted.
Was a man interesting, amusing; had he ideas and thoughts of his own?
Then he was welcome. Men who had come, men who were coming, met there
on equal footing. Among them, as years ago among my schoolmates, I
found my place---somewhat to my dissatisfaction. I amused. Much rather
would I have shocked them by the originality of my views, impressed
them with the depth of my judgments. They declined to be startled,
refused to be impressed; instead, they laughed. Nor from these men
could I obtain sympathy in my disappointment.

{}``What do you mean, you villain!''\ roared Deleglise's caretaker
at me one evening on entering the kitchen. {}``How dare you waste
your time writing this sort of stuff?''

He had a copy of the paper containing my {}``Witch of Moel Sarbod''
in his hand---then some months old. He screwed it up into a ball and
flung it in my face. {}``I've only just read it. What did you get
for it?''

{}``Nothing,'' I answered.

{}``Nothing!''\ he screamed. {}``You got off for nothing? You
ought to have been whipped at the cart's tail!''

{}``Oh, come, it's not as bad as that,'' suggested old Deleglise.

{}``Not bad! There isn't a laugh in it from beginning to end.''

{}``There wasn't intended to be,'' I interrupted.

{}``Why not, you swindler? What were you sent into the world to do?
To make it laugh.''

{}``I want to make it think,'' I told him.

{}``Make it think! Hasn't it got enough to think about? Aren't there
ten thousand penny-a-liners, poets, tragedians, tub-thumpers, long-eared
philosophers, boring it to death? Who are you to turn up your nose
at your work and tell the Almighty His own business? You are here
to make us laugh. Get on with your work, you confounded young idiot!''

Urban Vane was the only one among them who understood me, who agreed
with me that I was fitted for higher things than merely to minister
to the world's need of laughter. He alone it was who would listen
with approval to my dreams of becoming a famous tragedian, a writer
of soul-searching books, of passion-analysing plays. I never saw him
laugh himself, certainly not at anything funny. {}``Humour!''\ he
would explain in his languid drawl, {}``personally it doesn't amuse
me.'' One felt its introduction into the scheme of life had been
an error. He was a large, fleshy man, with a dreamy, caressing voice
and strangely impassive face. Where he came from, who he was, nobody
knew. Without ever passing a remark himself that was worth listening
to, he, nevertheless, by some mysterious trick of manner I am unable
to explain, soon established himself, even throughout that company,
where as a rule men found their proper level, as a silent authority
in all contests of wit or argument. Stories at which he listened,
bored, fell flat. The \textit{bon mot} at which some faint suggestion
of a smile quivered round his clean-shaven lips was felt to be the
crown of the discussion. I can only conclude his secret to have been
his magnificent assumption of superiority, added to a sphinx-like
impenetrability behind which he could always retire from any danger
of exposure. Subjects about which he knew nothing---and I have come
to the conclusion they were more numerous than was suspected---became
in his presence topics outside the radius of cultivated consideration:
one felt ashamed of having introduced them. His own subjects---they
were few but exclusive---he had the knack of elevating into intellectual
tests: one felt ashamed, reflecting how little one knew about them.
Whether he really did possess a charm of manner, or whether the sense
of his superiority with which he had imbued me it was that made any
condescension he paid me a thing to grasp at, I am unable to say.
Certain it is that when he suggested I should throw up chorus singing
and accompany him into the provinces as manager of a theatrical company
he was then engaging to run a wonderful drama that was going to revolutionise
the English stage and educate the English public, I allowed myself
not a moment for consideration, but accepted his proposal with grateful
delight.

{}``Who is he?''\ asked Dan. Somehow he had never impressed Dan;
but then Dan was a fellow to impress whom was slow work. As he himself
confessed, he had no instinct for character. {}``I judge,'' he would
explain, {}``purely by observation.''

{}``What does that matter?''\ was my reply.

{}``What does he know about the business?''

{}``That's why he wants me.''

{}``What do you know about it?''

{}``There's not much to know. I can find out.''

{}``Take care you don't find out that there's more to know than you
think. What is this wonderful play of his?''

{}``I haven't seen it yet; I don't think it's finished. It's something
from the Spanish or the Russian, I'm not sure. I'm to put it into
shape when he's done the translation. He wants me to put my name to
it as the adaptor.''

{}``Wonder he hasn't asked you to wear his clothes. Has he got any
money?''

{}``Of course he has money. How can you run a theatrical company
without money?''

{}``Have you seen the money?''

{}``He doesn't carry it about with him in a bag.''

{}``I should have thought your ambition to be to act, not to manage.
Managers are to be had cheap enough. Why should he want some one who
knows nothing about it?''

{}``I'm going to act. I'm going to play a leading part.''

{}``Great Scott!''

{}``He'll do the management really himself; I shall simply advise
him. But he doesn't want his own name to appear.

{}``Why not?''

{}``His people might object.''

{}``Who are his people?''

{}``How do I know? What a suspicious chap you are.''

Dan shrugged his shoulders. {}``You are not an actor, you never will
be; you are not a business man. You've made a start at writing, that's
your proper work. Why not go on with it?''

{}``I can't get on with it. That one thing was accepted, and never
paid for; everything else comes back regularly, just as before. Besides,
I can go on writing wherever I am.''

{}``You've got friends here to help you.''

{}``They don't believe I can do anything but write nonsense.''

{}``Well, clever nonsense is worth writing. It's better than stodgy
sense: literature is blocked up with that. Why not follow their advice?''

{}``Because I don't believe they are right. I'm not a clown; I don't
mean to be. Because a man has a sense of humour it doesn't follow
he has nothing else. That is only one of my gifts, and by no means
the highest. I have knowledge of human nature, poetry, dramatic instinct.
I mean to prove it to you all. Vane's the only man that understands
me.''

Dan lit his pipe. {}``Have you made up your mind to go?''

{}``Of course I have. It's an opportunity that doesn't occur twice.
'There's a tide in the affairs''

{}``Thanks,'' interrupted Dan; {}``I've heard it before. Well,
if you've made up your mind, there's an end of the matter. Good luck
to you! You are young, and it's easier to learn things then than later.''

{}``You talk,'' I answered, {}``as if you were old enough to be
my grandfather.''

He smiled and laid both hands upon my shoulders. {}``So I am,''
he said, {}``quite old enough, little boy Paul. Don't be angry; you'll
always be little Paul to me.'' He put his hands in his pockets and
strolled to the window.

{}``What'll you do?''\ I enquired. {}``Will you keep on these
rooms?''

{}``No,'' he replied. {}``I shall accept an offer that has been
made to me to take the sub-editorship of a big Yorkshire paper. It
is an important position and will give me experience.''

{}``You'll never be happy mewed up in a provincial town,'' I told
him. {}``I shall want a London address, and I can easily afford it.
Let's keep them on together.''

He shook his head. {}``It wouldn't be the same thing,'' he said.

So there came a morning when we said good-bye. Before Dan returned
from the office I should be gone. They had been pleasant months that
we had spent together in these pretty rooms. Though my life was calling
to me full of hope, I felt the pain of leaving them. Two years is
a long period in a young man's life, when the sap is running swiftly.
My affections had already taken root there. The green leaves in summer,
in winter the bare branches of the square, the sparrows that chirped
about the window-sills, the quiet peace of the great house, Dan, kindly
old Deleglise: around them my fibres clung, closer than I had known.
The Lady of the train: she managed it now less clumsily. Her hands
and feet had grown smaller, her elbows rounder. I found myself smiling
as I thought of her---one always did smile when one thought of Norah,
everybody did;---of her tomboy ways, her ringing laugh---there were
those who termed it noisy; her irrepressible frankness---there were
times when it was inconvenient. Would she ever become lady-like, sedate,
proper? One doubted it. I tried to picture her a wife, the mistress
of a house. I found the smile deepening round my mouth. What a jolly
wife she would make! I could see her bustling, full of importance;
flying into tempers, lasting possibly for thirty seconds; then calling
herself names, saving all argument by undertaking her own scolding,
and doing it well. I followed her to motherhood. What a joke it would
be! What would she do with them? She would just let them do what they
liked with her. She and they would be a parcel of children together,
she the most excited of them all. No; on second thoughts I could detect
in her a strong vein of common sense. They would have to mind their
p's and q's. I could see her romping with them, helping them to tear
their clothes; but likewise I could see her flying after them, bringing
back an armful struggling, bathing it, physicking it. Perhaps she
would grow stout, grow grey; but she would still laugh more often
than sigh, speak her mind, be quick, good-tempered Norah to the end.
Her character precluded all hope of surprise. That, as I told myself,
was its defect. About her were none of those glorious possibilities
that make of some girls charming mysteries. A woman, said I to myself,
should be a wondrous jewel, hiding unknown lights and shadows. You,
my dear Norah---I spoke my thoughts aloud, as had become a habit with
me: those who live much alone fall into this way---you are merely
a crystal, not shallow---no, I should not call you shallow by any
mans, but transparent.

What would he be, her lover? Some plain, matter-of-fact, business-like
young fellow, a good player of cricket and football, fond of his dinner.
What a very uninteresting affair the love-making would be! If she
liked him---well, she would probably tell him so; if she didn't, he
would know it in five minutes.

As for inducing her to change her mind, wooing her, cajoling her---I
heard myself laughing at the idea.

There came a quick rap at the door. {}``Come in,'' I cried; and
she entered.

{}``I came to say good-bye to you,'' she explained. {}``I'm just
going out. What were you laughing at?''

{}``Oh, at an idea that occurred to me.''

{}``A funny one?''

{}``Yes.''

{}``Tell it me.''

{}``Well, it was something in connection with yourself. It might
offend you.''

{}``It wouldn't trouble you much if it did, would it?''

{}``No, I don't suppose it would,''

{}``Then why not tell me?''

{}``I was thinking of your lover.''

It did offend her; I thought it would. But she looked really interesting
when she was cross. Her grey eyes would flash, and her whole body
quiver. There was a charming spice of danger always about making her
cross.

{}``I suppose you think I shall never have one.''

{}``On the contrary, I think you will have a good many.'' I had
not thought so before then. I formed the idea for the first time in
that moment, while looking straight into her angry face. It was still
a childish face.

The anger died out of it as it always did within the minute, and she
laughed. {}``It would be fun, wouldn't it. I wonder what I should
do with him? It makes you feel very serious being in love, doesn't
it?''

{}``Very.''

{}``Have you ever been in love?''

I hesitated for a moment. Then the delight of talking about it overcame
my fear of being chaffed. Besides, when she felt it, nobody could
be more delightfully sympathetic. I determined to adventure it.

{}``Yes,'' I answered, {}``ever since I was a boy. If you are going
to be foolish,'' I added, for I saw the laugh before it came, {}``I
shan't talk to you about it.''

{}``I'm not---I won't, really,'' she pleaded, making her face serious
again. {}``What is she like?''

I took from my breast pocket Barbara's photograph, and handed it to
her in silence.

{}``Is she really as beautiful as that?''\ she asked, gazing at
it evidently fascinated.

{}``More so,'' I assured her. {}``Her expression is the most beautiful
part of her. Those are only her features.''

She sighed. {}``I wish I was beautiful.''

{}``You are at an awkward age,'' I told her. {}``It is impossible
to say what you are going to be like.''

{}``Mamma was a lovely woman, everybody says so; and Tom I call awfully
handsome. Perhaps I'll be better when I'm filled out a bit more.''
A small Venetian mirror hung between the two windows; she glanced
up into it. {}``It's my nose that irritates me,'' she said. She
rubbed it viciously, as if she would rub it out.

{}``Some people admire snub noses,'' I explained to her.

{}``No, really?''

{}``Tennyson speaks of them as `tip-tilted like the petals of a rose.'''

{}``How nice of him! Do you think he meant my sort?''\ She rubbed
it again, but in a kinder fashion; then looked again at Barbara's
photograph. {}``Who is she?''

{}``She was Miss Hasluck,'' I answered; {}``she is the Countess
Huescar now. She was married last summer.''

{}``Oh, yes, I remember; you told us about her. You were children
together. But what's the good of your being in love with her if she's
married?''

{}``It makes my whole life beautiful.''

{}``Wanting somebody you can't have?''

{}``I don't want her.''

{}``You said you were in love with her.''

{}``So I am.''

She handed me back the photograph, and I replaced it in my pocket.

{}``I don't understand that sort of love,'' she said. {}``If I
loved anybody I should want to have them with me always.

{}``She is with me always,'' I answered, {}``in my thoughts.''
She looked at me with her clear grey eyes. I found myself blinking.
Something seemed to be slipping from me, something I did not want
to lose. I remember a similar sensation once at the moment of waking
from a strange, delicious dream to find the sunlight pouring in upon
me through an open window.

{}``That isn't being in love,'' she said. {}``That's being in love
with the idea of being in love. That's the way I used to go to balls''---she
laughed---{}``in front of the glass. You caught me once, do you remember?''

{}``And was it not sweeter,'' I argued, {}``the imagination? You
were the belle of the evening; you danced divinely every dance, were
taken in to supper by the Lion. In reality you trod upon your partner's
toes, bumped and were bumped, were left a wallflower more than half
the time, had a headache the next day. Were not the dream balls the
more delightful?''

{}``No, they weren't,'' she answered without the slightest hesitation.
{}``One real dance, when at last it came, was worth the whole of
them. Oh, I know, I've heard you talking, all of you---of the faces
that you see in dreams and that are ever so much more beautiful than
the faces that you see when you're awake; of the wonderful songs that
nobody ever sings, the wonderful pictures that nobody ever paints,
and all the rest of it. I don't believe a word of it. It's tommyrot!''

{}``I wish you wouldn't use slang.''

{}``Well, you know what I mean. What is the proper word? Give it
me.''

{}``I suppose you mean cant,'' I suggested.

{}``No, I don't. Cant is something that you don't believe in yourself.
It's tommyrot: there isn't any other word. When I'm in love it will
be with something that is real.''

I was feeling angry with her. {}``I know just what he will be like.
He will be a good-natured, commonplace---''

{}``Whatever he is,'' she interrupted, {}``he'll be alive, and
he'll want me and I shall want him. Dreams are silly. I prefer being
up.'' She clapped her hands. {}``That's it.'' Then, silent, she
looked at me with an expression of new interest. {}``I've been wondering
and wondering what it was: you are not really awake yet. You've never
got up.''

I laughed at her whimsical way of putting it; but at the back of my
brain was a troubled idea that perhaps she was revealing to me the
truth. And if so, what would {}``waking up,'' as she termed it,
be like? A flash of memory recalled to me that summer evening upon
Barking Bridge, when, as it had seemed to me, the little childish
Paul had slipped away from me, leaving me lonely and bewildered to
find another Self. Was my boyhood in like manner now falling from
me? I found myself clinging to it with vague terror. Its thoughts,
its feelings---dreams: they had grown sweet to me; must I lose them?
This cold, unknown, new Self, waiting to receive me: I shrank away
from it with fear.

{}``Do you know, I think you will be rather nice when you wake up.''

Her words recalled me to myself. {}``Perhaps I never shall wake up,''
I said. {}``I don't want to wake up.''

{}``Oh, but one can't go on dreaming all one's life,'' she laughed.
{}``You'll wake up, and fall in love with somebody real.'' She came
across to me, and taking the lapels of my coat in both her hands,
gave me a vigorous shake. {}``I hope she'll be somebody nice. I am
rather afraid.''

{}``You seem to think me a fool!'' I was still angry with her, without
quite knowing why.

She shook me again. {}``You know I don't. But it isn't the nice people
that take best care of themselves. Tom can't. I have to take care
of him.''

I laughed.

{}``I do, really. You should hear me scold him. I like taking care
of people. Good-bye.''

She held out her hand. It was white now and shapely, but one could
not have called it small. Strong it felt and firm as it gripped mine.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VIII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER VIII}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{And}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{how}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{came}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{back}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{again}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
I left London, the drums beating in my heart, the flags waving in
my brain. Somewhat more than a year later, one foggy wet December
evening, I sneaked back to it defeated---ah, that is a small thing,
capable of redress---disgraced. I returned to it as to a hiding-place
where, lost in the crowd, I might waste my days unnoticed until such
time as I could summon up sufficient resolution to put an end to my
dead life. I had been ambitious---dwelling again amid the bitterness
of the months that followed my return, I write in the past tense.
I had been eager to make a name, a position for myself. But were I
to claim no higher aim, I should be doing injustice to my blood---to
the great-souled gentleman whose whole life had been an ode to honour,
to her of simple faith who had known no other prayer to teach me than
the childish cry, {}``God help me to be good!'' I had wished to
be a great man, but it was to have been a great good man. The world
was to have admired me, but to have respected me also. I was to have
been the knight without fear, but, rarer yet, without reproach---Galahad,
not Launcelot. I had learnt myself to be a feeble, backboneless fighter,
conquered by the first serious assault of evil, a creature of mean
fears, slave to every crack of the devil's whip, a feeder with swine.

Urban Vane I had discovered to be a common swindler. His play he had
stolen from the desk of a well-known dramatist whose acquaintance
he had made in Deleglise's kitchen. The man had fallen ill, and Vane
had been constant in his visits. Partly recovering, the man had gone
abroad to Italy. Had he died there, as at the time was expected, the
robbery might never have come to light. News reached us in a small
northern town that he had taken a fresh lease of life and was on his
way back to England. Then it was that Vane with calm indifference,
smoking his cigar over a bottle of wine to which he had invited me,
told me the bald truth, adorning it with some touches of wit. Had
the recital come upon me sooner, I might have acted differently; but
six months' companionship with Urban Vane, if it had not, by grace
of the Lord, destroyed the roots of whatever flower of manhood might
have been implanted in me, had most certainly withered its leaves.

The man was clever. That he was not clever enough to perceive from
the beginning what he has learnt since: that honesty is the best policy---at
least, for men with brains---remains somewhat of a mystery to me.
Where once he made his hundreds among shady ways, he now, I suppose,
makes his thousands in the broad daylight of legitimate enterprise.
Chicanery in the blood, one might imagine, has to be worked out. Urban
Vanes are to be found in all callings. They commence as scamps; years
later, to one's astonishment, one finds them ornaments to their profession.
Wild oats are of various quality, according to the soil from which
they are preserved. We sow them in our various ways.

At first I stormed. Vane sat with an amused smile upon his lips and
listened.

{}``Your language, my dear Kelver,'' he replied, my vocabulary exhausted,
{}``might wound me were I able to accept you as an authority upon
this vexed question of morals. With the rest of the world you preach
one thing and practise another. I have noticed it so often. It is
perhaps sad, but the preaching has ceased to interest me. You profess
to be very indignant with me for making use of another man's ideas.
It is done every day. You yourself were quite ready to take credit
not due to you. For months we have been travelling with this play:
`Drama, in five acts, by Mr.\ Horace Moncrieff.' Not more than two
hundred lines of it are your own---excellent lines, I admit, but they
do not constitute the play.''

This aspect of the affair had not occurred to me. {}``But you asked
me to put my name to it,'' I stammered. {}``You said you did not
want your own to appear---for private reasons. You made a point of
it.''

He waved away the smoke from his cigar. {}``The man you are posing
as would never have put his name to work not his own. You never hesitated;
on the contrary, you jumped at the chance of so easy an opening to
your career as playwright. My need, as you imagined it, was your opportunity.''

{}``But you said it was from the French,'' I argued; {}``you had
merely translated it, I adapted it. I don't defend the custom, but
it is the custom: the man who adapts a play calls himself the author.
They all do it.''

{}``I know,'' he answered. {}``It has always amused me. Our sick
friend himself, whom I am sure we are both delighted to welcome back
to life, has done it more than once, and made a very fair profit on
the transaction. Indeed, from internal evidence, I am strongly of
opinion that this present play is a case in point. Well, chickens
come home to roost: I adapt from him. What is the difference?''

{}``Simply this,'' he continued, pouring himself out another glass
of wine, {}``that whereas, owing to the anomalous state of the copyright
laws, stealing from the foreign author is legal and commendable, against
stealing from the living English author there is a certain prejudice.''

{}``And the consequences, I am afraid, you will find somewhat unpleasant,''
I suggested.

He laughed: it was not a frivolity to which he was prone. {}``You
mean, my dear Kelver that you will.''

{}``Don't look so dumbfounded,'' he went on. {}``You cannot be
so stupid as you are pretending to be. The original manuscript at
the Lord Chamberlain's office is in your handwriting. You knew our
friend as well as I did, and visited him. Why, the whole tour has
been under your management. You have arranged everything---most excellently;
I have been quite surprised.''

My anger came later. For the moment, the sudden light blinded me to
everything but fear.

{}``But you told me,'' I cried, {}``it was only a matter of form,
that you wanted to keep your name out of it because---''

He was looking at me with an expression of genuine astonishment. My
words began to appear humorous even to myself. I found it difficult
to believe I had been the fool I was now seeing myself to have been.

{}``I am sorry,'' he said, {}``I am really sorry. I took you for
a man of the world. I thought you merely did not wish to know anything.''

Still, to my shame, fear was the thing uppermost in my heart. {}``You
are not going to put it all on to me?''\ I pleaded.

He had risen. He laid his hand upon my shoulder. Instead of flinging
it off, I was glad of its kindly pressure. He was the only man to
whom I could look for help.

{}``Don't take it so seriously,'' he said. {}``He will merely think
the manuscript has been lost. As likely as not, he will be unable
to remember whether he wrote it or merely thought of writing it. No
one in the company will say anything: it isn't their business. We
must set to work. I had altered it a good deal before you saw it,
and changed all the names of the characters. We will retain the third
act: it is the only thing of real value in the play. The situation
is not original; you have as much right to dish it up as he had. In
a fortnight we will have the whole thing so different that if he saw
it himself he would only imagine we had got hold of the idea and had
forestalled him.''

There were moments during the next few weeks when I listened to the
voice of my good angel, when I saw clearly that even from the lowest
point of view he was giving me sound advice. I would go to the man,
tell him frankly the whole truth.

But Vane never left my elbow. Suspecting, I suppose, he gave me clearly
to understand that if I did so, I must expect no mercy from him. My
story, denounced by him as an outrageous lie, would be regarded as
the funk-inspired subterfuge of a young rogue. At the best I should
handicap myself with suspicion that would last me throughout my career.
On the other hand, what harm had we done? Presented in some twenty
or so small towns, where it would soon be forgotten, a play something
like. Most plays were something like. Our friend would produce his
version and reap a rich harvest; ours would disappear. If by any unlikely
chance discussion should arise, the advertisement would he to his
advantage. So soon as possible we would replace it by a new piece
altogether. A young man of my genius could surely write something
better than hotch-potch such as this; experience was all that I had
lacked. As regarded one's own conscience, was not the world's honesty
a mere question of convention? Had he been a young man, and had we
diddled him out of his play for a ten-pound note, we should have been
applauded as sharp men of business. The one commandment of the world
was: Don't get found out. The whole trouble, left alone, would sink
and fade. Later, we should tell it as a good joke---and be laughed
with.

So I fell from mine own esteem. Vane helping me---and he had brains---I
set feverishly to work. I am glad to remember that every line I wrote
was born in misery. I tried to persuade Vane to let me make a new
play altogether, which I offered to give him for nothing. He expressed
himself as grateful, but his frequently declared belief in my dramatic
talent failed to induce his acceptance.

{}``Later on, my dear Kelver,'' was his reply. {}``For the present
this is doing very well. Going on as we are, we shall soon improve
it out of all recognition, while at the same time losing nothing that
is essential. All your ideas are excellent.''

By the end of about three weeks we had got together a concoction that,
so far as dialogue and characters were concerned, might be said to
be our own. There was good work in it, here and there. Under other
conditions I might have been proud of much that I had written. As
it was, I experienced only the terror of the thief dodging the constable:
my cleverness might save me; it afforded me no further satisfaction.
My humour, when I heard the people laughing at it, I remembered I
had forged listening in vague fear to every creak upon the stairs,
wondering in what form discovery might come upon me. There was one
speech, addressed by the hero to the villain: {}``Yes, I admit it;
I do love her. But there is that which I love better---my self-respect!''
Stepping down to the footlights and slapping his chest (which according
to stage convention would appear to be a sort of moral jewel-box bursting
with assorted virtues), our juvenile lead-a gentleman who led a somewhat
rabbit-like existence, perpetually diving down openings to avoid service
of writs, at the instance of his wife, for alimony---would invariably
bring down the house upon this sentiment. Every night, listening to
the applause, I would shudder, recalling how I had written it with
burning cheeks.

There was a character in the piece, a vicious old man, that from the
beginning Vane had wanted me to play. I had disliked the part and
had refused, choosing instead to act a high-souled countryman, in
the portrayal of whose irreproachable emotions I had taken pleasure.
Vane now renewed his arguments, and my power of resistance seeming
to have departed from me, I accepted the exchange. Certainly the old
gentleman's scenes went with more snap, but at a cost of further degradation
to myself. Upon an older actor the effect might have been harmless,
but the growing tree springs back less surely; I found myself taking
pleasure in the coarse laughter that rewarded my suggestive leers,
calling up all the evil in my nature to help me in the development
of fresh {}``business.'' Vane was enthusiastic in his praises, generous
with his assistance. Under his tuition I succeeded in making the part
as unpleasant as we dared. I had genius, so Vane told me; I understood
so much of human nature. One proof of the moral deterioration creeping
over me was that I was beginning to like Vane.

Looking back at the man as I see him plainly now, a very ordinary
scamp, his pretension not even amusing, I find it difficult to present
him as he appeared to my boyish eyes. He was well educated and well
read. He gave himself the airs of a superior being by freak of fate
compelled to abide in a world of inferior creatures. To live among
them in comfort it was necessary for him to outwardly conform to their
conventions but to respect their reasoning would have been beneath
him. To accept their laws as binding on one's own conscience was,
using the common expression, to give oneself away, to confess oneself
commonplace. Every decent instinct a man might own to was proof in
Vane's eyes of his being {}``suburban,'' {}``bourgeois''---everything
that was unintellectual. It was the first time I had heard this sort
of talk. Vane was one of the pioneers of the movement, which has since
become somewhat tiresome. To laugh at it is easy to a man of the world;
boys are impressed by it. From him I first heard the now familiar
advocacy of pure Hedonism. Pan, enticed from his dark groves, was
to sit upon Olympus.

My lower nature rose within me to proclaim the foolish chatterer as
a prophet. So life was not as I had been taught---a painful struggle
between good and evil. There was no such thing as evil; the senseless
epithet was a libel upon Nature. Not through wearisome repression,
but rather through joyous expression of the animal lay advancement.

Villains---workers in wrong for aesthetic pleasure of the art---are
useful characters in fiction; in real life they do not exist. I am
convinced the man believed most of the rubbish he talked. Since the
time of which I write he has done some service to the world. I understand
he is an excellent husband and father, a considerate master, a delightful
host. He intended, I have no doubt, to improve me, to enlarge my understanding,
to free me from soul-stifling bondage of convention. Not to credit
him with this well-meaning intention would be to assume him something
quite inhuman, to bestow upon him a dignity beyond his deserts. I
find it easier to regard him merely as a fool.

Our leading lady was a handsome but coarse woman, somewhat over-developed.
Starting life as a music-hall singer, she had married a small tradesman
in the south of London. Some three or four years previous, her Juno-like
charms had turned the head of a youthful novelist---a refined, sensitive
man, of whom great things in literature had been expected, and, judging
from his earlier work, not unreasonably. He had run away with her,
and eventually married her; the scandal was still fresh. Already she
had repented of her bargain. These women regard their infatuated lovers
merely as steps in the social ladder, and he had failed to appreciably
advance her. Under her demoralising spell his ambition had died in
him. He no longer wrote, no longer took interest in anything beyond
his own debasement. He was with us in the company, playing small parts,
and playing them badly; he would have remained with us as bill-poster
rather than have been sent away.

Vane planned to bring this woman and myself together. To her he pictured
me a young gentleman of means, a coming author, who would soon be
earning an income sufficient to keep her in every luxury. To me he
hinted that she had fallen in love with me. I was never attracted
to her by any feeling stronger than the admiration with which one
views a handsome animal. It was my vanity upon which he worked. He
envied me; any man would envy me; experience of life was what I needed
to complete my genius. The great intellects of this earth must learn
all lessons, even at the cost of suffering to themselves and others.

As years before I had laboured to acquire a liking for cigars and
whiskey, deeming it an accomplishment necessary to a literary career,
so painstakingly I now applied myself to the cultivation of a pretty
taste in passion. According to the literature, fictional and historical,
Vane was kind enough to supply me with, men of note were invariably
sad dogs. That my temperament was not that of the sad dog, that I
lacked instinct and inclination for the part, appeared to this young
idiot of whom I am writing in the light of a defect. That her languishing
glances irritated rather than maddened me, that the occasional covert
pressure of her hot, thick hand left me cold, I felt a reproach to
my manhood. I would fall in love with her. Surely my blood was red
like other men's. Besides, was I not an artist, and was not profligacy
the hall-mark of the artist?

But one grows tired of the confessional. Fate saved me from playing
the part Vane had assigned me in this vulgar comedy, dragged me from
my entanglement, flung me on my feet again. She was a little brusque
in the process; but I do not feel inclined to blame the kind lady
for that. The mud was creeping upward fast, and a quick hand must
needs be rough.

Our dramatic friend produced his play sooner than we had expected.
It crept out that something very like it had been seen in the Provinces.
Argument followed, enquiries were set on foot. {}``It will blow over,''
said Vane. But it seemed to be blowing our way.

The salaries, as a rule, were paid by me on Friday night. Vane, in
the course of the evening, would bring me the money for me to distribute
after the performance. We were playing in the north of Ireland. I
had not seen Vane all that day. So soon as I had changed my clothes
I left my dressing-room to seek him. The box-office keeper, meeting
me, put a note into my hand. It was short and to the point. Vane had
pocketed the evening's takings, and had left by the seven-fifty train!
He regretted causing inconvenience, but life was replete with small
comedies; the wise man attached no seriousness to them. We should
probably meet again and enjoy a laugh over our experiences.

Some rumour had got about. I looked up from the letter to find myself
surrounded by suspicious faces. With dry lips I told them the truth.
Only they happened not to regard it as the truth. Vane throughout
had contrived cleverly to them I was the manager, the sole person
responsible. My wearily spoken explanations were to them incomprehensible
lies. The quarter of an hour might have been worse for me had I been
sufficiently alive to understand or care what they were saying. A
dull, listless apathy had come over me. I felt the scene only stupid,
ridiculous, tiresome. There was some talk of giving me {}``a damned
good hiding.'' I doubt whether I should have known till the next
morning whether the suggestion had been carried out or not. I gathered
that the true history of the play, the reason for the sudden alterations,
had been known to them all along. They appeared to have reserved their
virtuous indignation till this evening. As explanation of my apparent
sleepiness, somebody, whether in kindness to me or not I cannot say,
suggested I was drunk. Fortunately, it carried conviction. No further
trains left the town that night; I was allowed to depart. A deputation
promised to be round at my lodgings early in the morning.

Our leading lady had left the theatre immediately on the fall of the
curtain; it was not necessary for her to wait, her husband acting
as her business man. On reaching my rooms, I found her sitting by
the fire. It reminded me that our agent in advance having fallen ill,
her husband had, at her suggestion, been appointed in his place, and
had left us on the Wednesday to make the necessary preparations in
the next town on our list. I thought that perhaps she had come round
for her money, and the idea amused me.

{}``Well?''\ she said, with her one smile. I had been doing my
best for some months to regard it as soul-consuming, but without any
real success.

{}``Well,'' I answered. It bored me, her being there. I wanted to
be alone.

{}``You don't seem overjoyed to see me. What's the matter with you?
What's happened?''

I laughed. {}``Vane's bolted and taken the week's money with him.''

{}``The beast!''\ she said. {}``I knew he was that sort. What
ever made you take up with him? Will it make much difference to you?''

{}``It makes a difference all round,'' I replied. {}``There's no
money to pay any of you. There's nothing to pay your fares back to
London.''

She had risen. {}``Here, let me understand this,'' she said. {}``Are
you the rich mug Vane's been representing you to be, or only his accomplice?''

{}``The mug and the accomplice both,'' I answered, {}``without
the rich. It's his tour. He put my name to it because he didn't want
his own to appear---for family reasons. It's his play; he stole it---''

She interrupted me with a whistle. {}``I thought it looked a bit
fishy, all those alterations. But such funny things do happen in this
profession! Stole it, did he?''

{}``The whole thing in manuscript. I put my name to it for the same
reason---he didn't want his own to appear.''

She dropped into her chair and laughed---a good-tempered laugh, loud
and long. {}``Well, I'm damned!''\ she said. {}``The first man
who has ever taken me in. I should never have signed if I had thought
it was his show. I could see the sort he was with half an eye.''
She jumped up from the chair. {}``Here, let me get out of this,''
she said. {}``I just looked in to know what time to-morrow; I'd forgotten.
You needn't say I came.''

Her hand upon the door, laughter seized her again, so that for support
she had to lean against the wall.

{}``Do you know why I really did come?''\ she said. {}``You'll
guess when you come to think it over, so I may as well tell you. It's
a bit of a joke. I came to say `yes' to what you asked me last night.
Have you forgotten?''

I stared at her. Last night! It seemed a long while ago---so very
unimportant what I might have said.

She laughed again. {}``So help me!\ if you haven't. Well, you asked
me to run away with you---that's all, to let our two souls unite.
Damned lucky I took a day to think it over! Good-night.''

{}``Good-night,'' I answered, without moving. I was gripping a chair
to prevent myself from rushing at her, pushing her out of the room,
and locking the door. I wanted to be alone.

I heard her turn the handle. {}``Got a pound or two to carry you
over?'' It was a woman's voice.

I put my hand into my pocket. {}``One pound seventeen,'' I answered,
counting it. {}``It will pay my fare to London---or buy me a dinner
and a second-hand revolver. I haven't quite decided yet.''

{}``Oh, you get back and pull yourself together,'' she said. {}``You're
only a kid. Good-night.''

I put a few things into a small bag and walked thirty miles that night
into Belfast. Arrived in London, I took a lodging in Deptford, where
I was least likely to come in contact with any face I had ever seen
before. I maintained myself by giving singing lessons at sixpence
the half-hour, evening lessons in French and German (the Lord forgive
me!) to ambitious shop-boys at eighteen pence a week, making up tradesmen's
books. A few articles of jewellery I had retained enabled me to tide
over bad periods. For some four months I existed there, never going
outside the neighbourhood. Occasionally, wandering listlessly about
the streets, some object, some vista, would strike me by reason of
its familiarity. Then I would turn and hasten back into my grave of
dim, weltering streets.

Of thoughts, emotions, during these dead days I was unconscious. Somewhere
in my brain they may have been stirring, contending; but myself I
lived as in a long, dull dream. I ate, and drank, and woke, and slept,
and walked and walked, and lounged by corners; staring by the hour
together, seeing nothing.

It has suprised me since to find the scenes I must then have witnessed
photographed so clearly on my mind. Tragedies, dramas, farces, played
before me in that teeming underworld---the scenes present themselves
to me distinct, complete; yet I have no recollection of ever having
seen them.

I fell ill. It must have been some time in April, but I kept no count
of days. Nobody came near me, nobody knew of me. I occupied a room
at the top of a huge block of workmen's dwellings. A woman who kept
a second-hand store had lent me for a shilling a week a few articles
of furniture. Lying upon my chair-bedstead, I listened to the shrill
sounds around me, that through the light and darkness never ceased.
A pint of milk, left each morning on the stone landing, kept me alive.
I would wait for the man's descending footsteps, then crawl to the
door. I hoped I was going to die, regretting my returning strength,
the desire for food that drove me out into the streets again.

One night, a week or two after my partial recovery, I had wandered
on and on for hour after hour. The breaking dawn recalled me to myself.
I was outside the palings of a park. In the faint shadowy light it
looked strange and unfamiliar. I was too tired to walk further. I
scrambled over the low wooden fencing, and reaching a seat, dropped
down and fell asleep.

I was sitting in a sunny avenue; birds were singing joyously, bright
flowers were all around me. Norah was beside me, her frank, sweet
eyes were looking into mine; they were full of tenderness, mingled
with wonder. It was a delightful dream: I felt myself smiling.

Suddenly I started to my feet. Norah's strong hand drew me down again.

I was in the broad walk, Regent's Park, where, I remembered, Norah
often walked before breakfast. A park-keeper, the only other human
creature within sight, was eyeing me suspiciously. I saw myself---without
a looking-glass---unkempt, ragged. My intention was to run, but Norah
was holding me by the arm. Savagely I tried to shake her off. I was
weak from my recent illness, and, I suppose, half starved; it angered
me to learn she was the stronger of the two. In spite of my efforts,
she dragged me back.

Ashamed of my weakness, ashamed of everything about me, I burst into
tears; and that of course made me still more ashamed. To add to my
discomfort, I had no handkerchief. Holding me with one hand---it was
quite sufficient---Norah produced her own, and wiped my eyes. The
park-keeper, satisfied, I suppose, that at all events I was not dangerous,
with a grin passed on.

{}``Where have you been, and what have you been doing?''\ asked
Norah. She still retained her grip upon me, and in her grey eyes was
quiet determination.

So, with my face turned away from her, I told her the whole miserable
story, taking strange satisfaction in exaggerating, if anything, my
own share of the disgrace. My recital ended, I sat staring down the
long, shadow-freckled way, and for awhile there was no sound but the
chirping of the sparrows.

Then behind me I beard a smothered laugh. It was impossible to imagine
it could come from Norah. I turned quickly to see who had stolen upon
us. It was Norah who was laughing; though to do her justice she was
trying to suppress it, holding her handkerchief to her face. It was
of no use, it would out; she abandoned the struggle, and gave way
to it. It astonished the sparrows into silence; they stood in a row
upon the low iron border and looked at one another.

{}``I am glad you think it funny,'' I said.

{}``But it is funny,'' she persisted. {}``Don't say you have lost
your sense of humour, Paul; it was the one real thing you possessed.
You were so cocky---you don't know how cocky you were! Everybody was
a fool but Vane; nobody else but he appreciated you at your true worth.
You and he between you were going to reform the stage, to educate
the public, to put everything and everybody to rights. I am awfully
sorry for all you've gone through; but now that it is over, can't
you see yourself that it is funny?''

Faintly, dimly, this aspect of the case, for the very first time,
began to present itself to me; but I should have preferred Norah to
have been impressed by its tragedy.

{}``That is not all,'' I said. {}``I nearly ran away with another
man's wife.''

I was glad to notice that sobered her somewhat. {}``Nearly? Why not
quite?''\ she asked more seriously.

{}``She thought I was some young idiot with money,'' I replied bitterly,
pleased with the effect I had produced. {}``Vane had told her a pack
of lies. When she found out I was only a poor devil, ruined, disgraced,
without a sixpence---'' I made a gesture expressive of eloquent contempt
for female nature generally.

{}``I am sorry,'' said Norah; {}``I told you you would fall in
love with something real.''

Her words irritated me, unreasonably, I confess. {}``In love!''\ 
I replied; {}``good God, I was never in love with her!''

{}``Then why did you nearly run away with her?''

I was wishing now I had not mentioned the matter; it promised to be
difficult of explanation. {}``I don't know,'' I replied irritably.
{}``I thought she was in love with me. She was very beautiful---at
least, other people seemed to think she was. Artists are not like
ordinary men. You must live---understand life, before you can teach
it to others. When a beautiful woman is in love with you---or pretends
to be, you---you must say something. You can't stand like a fool and---''

Again her laughter interrupted me; this time she made no attempt to
hide it. The sparrows chirped angrily, and flew off to continue their
conversation somewhere where there would be less noise.

{}``You are the biggest baby, Paul,'' she said, so soon as she could
speak, {}``I ever heard of.'' She seized me by the shoulders, and
turned me round. {}``If you weren't looking so ill and miserable,
I would shake you, Paul, till there wasn't a bit of breath left in
your body.''

{}``How much money do you owe?''\ she asked---{}``to the people
in the company and anybody else, I mean---roughly?''

{}``About a hundred and fifty pounds,'' I answered.

{}``Then if you rest day or night, Paul, till you have paid that
hundred and fifty---every penny of it---I'll think you the meanest
cad in London!''

Her grey eyes were flashing quite alarmingly. I felt almost afraid
of her. She could be so vehement at times.

{}``But how can I?''\ I asked.

{}``Go straight home,'' she commanded, {}``and write something
funny: an article, story---anything you like; only mind that it is
funny. Post it to me to-morrow, at the latest. Dan is in London, editing
a new weekly. I'll have it copied out and sent to him. I shan't say
who it is from. I shall merely ask him to read it and reply, at once.
If you've a grain of grit left in you, you'll write something that
he will be glad to have and to pay for. Pawn that ring on your finger
and get yourself a good breakfast''---it was my mother's wedding-ring,
the only piece of dispensable property I had not parted with---{}``\textit{she}
won't mind helping you. But nobody else is going to---except yourself.''

She looked at her watch. {}``I must be off.'' She turned again.
{}``There is something I was forgetting. B---''---she mentioned
the name of the dramatist whose play Vane had stolen---{}``has been
looking for you for the last three months. If you hadn't been an idiot
you might have saved yourself a good deal of trouble. He is quite
certain it was Vane stole the manuscript. He asked the nurse to bring
it to him an hour after Vane had left the house, and it couldn't be
found. Besides, the man's character is well known. And so is yours.
I won't tell it you,'' she laughed; {}``anyhow, it isn't that of
a knave.''

She made a step towards me, then changed her mind. {}``No,'' she
said, {}``I shan't shake hands with you till you have paid the last
penny that you owe. Then I shall know that you are a man.''

She did not look back. I watched her, till the sunlight, streaming
in my eyes, raised a golden mist between us.

Then I went to my work.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER IX}

\begin{quote}
\textit{\noun{The}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{princess}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{of}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{the}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{golden}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{locks}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{sends}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{Paul}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{a
ring}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
It took me three years to win that handshake. For the first six months
I remained in Deptford. There was excellent material to be found there
for humorous articles, essays, stories; likewise for stories tragic
and pathetic. But I owed a hundred and fifty pounds---a little over
two hundred it reached to, I found, when I came to add up the actual
figures. So I paid strict attention to business, left the tears to
be garnered by others---better fitted maybe for the task; kept to
my own patch, reaped and took to market only the laughter.

At the beginning I sent each manuscript to Norah; she had it copied
out, debited me with the cost received payment, and sent me the balance.
At first my earnings were small; but Norah was an excellent agent;
rapidly they increased. Dan grew quite cross with her, wrote in pained
surprise at her greed. The {}``matter'' was fair, but in no way
remarkable. Any friend of hers, of course, he was anxious to assist;
but business was business. In justice to his proprietors, he could
not and would not pay more than the market value. Miss Deleglise,
replying curtly in the third person, found herself in perfect accord
with Mr.\ Brian as to business being business. If Mr.\ Brian could
not afford to pay her price for material so excellent, other editors
with whom Miss Deleglise was equally well acquainted could and would.
Answer by return would greatly oblige, pending which the manuscript
then in her hands she retained. Mr.\ Brian, understanding he had
found his match, grumbled but paid. Whether he had any suspicion who
{}``Jack Homer'' might be, he never confessed; but he would have
played the game, pulled his end of the rope, in either case. Nor was
he allowed to decide the question for himself. Competition was introduced
into the argument. Of purpose a certain proportion of my work my agent
sent elsewhere. {}``Jack Homer'' grew to be a commodity in demand.
For, seated at my rickety table, I laughed as I wrote, the fourth
wall of the dismal room fading before my eyes revealing vistas beyond.

Still, it was slow work. Humour is not an industrious maid; declines
to be bustled, will work only when she feels inclined---does not often
feel inclined; gives herself a good many unnecessary airs; if worried,
packs up and goes off, Heaven knows where!\ comes back when she thinks
she will: a somewhat unreliable young person. To my literary labours
I found it necessary to add journalism. I lacked Dan's magnificent
assurance. Fate never befriends the nervous. Had I burst into the
editorial sanctum, the editor most surely would have been out if in,
would have been a man of short ways, would have seen to it that I
went out quickly. But the idea was not to be thought of; Robert Macaire
himself in my one coat would have been diffident, apologetic. I joined
the ranks of the penny-a-liners---to be literally exact, three halfpence
a liners. In company with half a dozen other shabby outsiders---some
of them young men like myself seeking to climb; others, older men
who had sunk---I attended inquests, police courts; flew after fire
engines; rejoiced in street accidents; yearned for murders. Somewhat
vulture-like we lived precariously upon the misfortunes of others.
We made occasional half crowns by providing the public with scandal,
occasional crowns by keeping our information to ourselves.

{}``I think, gentlemen,'' would explain our spokesman in a hoarse
whisper, on returning to the table, {}``I think the corpse's brother-in-law
is anxious that the affair, if possible, should be kept out of the
papers.''

The closeness and attention with which we would follow that particular
case, the fulness and completeness of our notes, would be quite remarkable.
Our spokesman would rise, drift carelessly away, to return five minutes
later, wiping his mouth.

{}``Not a very interesting case, gentlemen, I don't think. Shall
we say five shillings apiece?'' Sometimes a sense of the dignity
of our calling would induce us to stand out for ten.

And here also my sense of humour came to my aid; gave me perhaps an
undue advantage over my competitors. Twelve good men and true had
been asked to say how a Lascar sailor had met his death. It was perfectly
clear how he had met his death. A plumber, working on the roof of
a small two-storeyed house, had slipped and fallen on him. The plumber
had escaped with a few bruises; the unfortunate sailor had been picked
up dead. Some blame attached to the plumber. His mate, an excellent
witness, told us the whole story.

{}``I was fixing a gas-pipe on the first floor,'' said the man.
{}``The prisoner was on the roof.''

{}``We won't call him `the prisoner,''' interrupted the coroner,
{}``at least, not yet. Refer to him, if you please, as the `last
witness.'''

{}``The last witness,'' corrected himself the man. {}``He shouts
down the chimney to know if I was ready for him.''

{}```Ready and waiting,' I says.

{}```Right,' he says; `I'm coming in through the window.'

{}```Wait a bit,' I says; 'I'll go down and move the ladder for you.

{}```It's all right,' he says; `I can reach it.'

{}```No, you can't,' I says. `It's the other side of the chimney.'

{}```I can get round,' he says.

{}``Well, before I knew what had happened, I hears him go, smack!
I rushes to the window and looks out: I see him on the pavement, sitting
up like.

{}```Hullo, Jim,' I says. `Have you hurt yourself?'

{}```I think I'm all right,' he says, 'as far as I can tell. But
I wish you'd come down. This bloke I've fallen on looks a bit sick.'''

The others headed their flimsy {}``Sad Accident,'' a title truthful
but not alluring. I altered mine to {}``Plumber in a Hurry---Fatal
Result.'' Saying as little as possible about the unfortunate sailor,
I called the attention of plumbers generally to the coroner's very
just remarks upon the folly of undue haste; pointed out to them, as
a body, the trouble that would arise if somehow they could not cure
themselves of this tendency to rush through their work without a moment's
loss of time.

It established for me a useful reputation. The sub-editor of one evening
paper condescended so far as to come out in his shirt-sleeves and
shake hands with me.

{}``That's the sort of thing we want,'' he told me; {}``a light
touch, a bit of humour.''

I snatched fun from fires (I sincerely trust the insurance premiums
were not overdue); culled quaintness from street rows; extracted merriment
from catastrophes the most painful, and prospered.

Though often within a stone's throw of the street, I unremittingly
avoided the old house at Poplar. I was suffering inconvenience at
this period by reason of finding myself two distinct individuals,
contending with each other. My object was to encourage the new Paul---the
sensible, practical, pushful Paul, whose career began to look promising;
to drive away from interfering with me his strangely unlike twin---the
old childish Paul of the sad, far-seeing eyes. Sometimes out of the
cracked looking-glass his wistful, yearning face would plead to me;
but I would sternly shake my head. I knew well his cunning. Had I
let him have his way, he would have led me through the maze of streets
he knew so well, past the broken railings (outside which be would
have left my body standing), along the weedy pathway, through the
cracked and dented door, up the creaking staircase to the dismal little
chamber where we once---he and I together---had sat dreaming foolish
dreams.

{}``Come,'' he would whisper; {}``it is so near. Let us push aside
the chest of drawers very quietly, softly raise the broken sash, prop
it open with the Latin dictionary, lean our elbows on the sill, listen
to the voices of the weary city, voices calling to us from the darkness.''

But I was too wary to be caught. {}``Later on,'' I would reply to
him; {}``when I have made my way, when I am stronger to withstand
your wheedling. Then I will go with you, if you are still in existence,
my sentimental little friend. We will dream again the old impractical,
foolish dreams---and laugh at them.''

So he would fade away, and in his place would nod to me approvingly
a businesslike-looking, wide-awake young fellow.

But to one sentimental temptation I succumbed. My position was by
now assured; there was no longer any reason for my hiding myself.
I determined to move westward. I had not intended to soar so high,
but passing through Guildford Street one day, the creeper-covered
corner house that my father had once thought of taking recalled itself
to me. A card was in the fanlight. I knocked and made enquiries. A
bed-sitting-room upon the third floor was vacant. I remembered it
well the moment the loquacious landlady opened its door.

{}``This shall be your room, Paul,'' said my father. So clearly
his voice sounded behind me that I turned, forgetting for the moment
it was but a memory. {}``You will be quiet here, and we can shut
out the bed and washstand with a screen.''

So my father had his way. It was a pleasant, sunny little room, overlooking
the gardens of the hospital. I followed my father's suggestion, shut
out the bed and washstand with a screen. And sometimes of an evening
it would amuse me to hear my father turn the handle of the door.

{}``How are you getting on---all right?''

{}``Famously.''

Often there came back to me the words he had once used. {}``You must
be the practical man, Paul, and get on. Myself, I have always been
somewhat of a dreamer. I meant to do such great things in the world,
and somehow I suppose I aimed too high. I wasn't---practical.''

{}``But ought not one to aim high?''\ I had asked.

My father had fidgeted in his chair. {}``It is very difficult to
say. It is all so---so very ununderstandable. You aim high and you
don't hit anything---at least, it seems as if you didn't. Perhaps,
after all, it is better to aim at something low, and---and hit it.
Yet it seems a pity---one's ideals, all the best part of one---I don't
know why it is. Perhaps we do not understand.''

For some months I had been writing over my own name. One day a letter
was forwarded to me by an editor to whose care it had been addressed.
It was a short, formal note from the maternal Sellars, inviting me
to the wedding of her daughter with a Mr.\ Reginald Clapper. I had
almost forgotten the incident of the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia},
but it was not unsatisfactory to learn that it had terminated pleasantly.
Also, I judged from an invitation having been sent me, that the lady
wished me to be witness of the fact that my desertion had not left
her disconsolate. So much gratification I felt I owed her, and accordingly,
purchasing a present as expensive as my means would permit, I made
my way on the following Thursday, clad in frock coat and light grey
trousers, to Kennington Church.

The ceremony was already in progress. Creeping on tiptoe up the aisle,
I was about to slip into an empty pew, when a hand was laid upon my
sleeve.

{}``We're all here,'' whispered the O'Kelly; {}``just room for
ye.''

Squeezing his hand as I passed, I sat down between the Signora and
Mrs.\ Peedles. Both ladies were weeping; the Signora silently, one
tear at a time clinging fondly to her pretty face as though loath
to fall from it; Mrs.\ Peedles copiously, with explosive gurgles,
as of water from a bottle.

{}``It is such a beautiful service,'' murmured the Signora, pressing
my hand as I settled myself down. {}``I should so---so love to be
married.''

{}``Me darling,'' whispered the O'Kelly, seizing her other hand
and kissing it covertly behind his open Prayer Book, {}``perhaps
ye will be---one day.''

The Signora through her tears smiled at him, but with a sigh shook
her head.

Mrs.\ Peedles, clad, so far as the dim November light enabled me
to judge, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth---nothing regal; the sort
of thing one might assume to have been Her Majesty's second best,
say third best, frock---explained that weddings always reminded her
how fleeting a thing was love.

{}``The poor dears!''\ she sobbed. {}``But there, there's no telling.
Perhaps they'll be happy. I'm sure I hope they may be. He looks harmless.''

Jarman, stretching out a hand to me from the other side of Mrs.\ Peedles,
urged me to cheer up. {}``Don't wear your 'eart upon your sleeve,''
he advised. {}``Try and smile.''

In the vestry I met old friends. The maternal Sellars, stouter than
ever, had been accommodated with a chair---at least, I assumed so,
she being in a sitting posture; the chair itself was not in evidence.
She greeted me with more graciousness than I had expected, enquiring
after my health with pointedness and an amount of tender solicitude
that, until the explanation broke upon me, somewhat puzzled me.

Mr.\ Reginald Clapper was a small but energetic gentleman, much impressed,
I was glad to notice, with a conviction of his own good fortune. He
expressed the greatest delight at being introduced to me, shook me
heartily by the hand, and hoped we should always be friends.

{}``Won't be my fault if we're not,'' he added. {}``Come and see
us whenever you like.'' He repeated this three times. I gathered
the general sentiment to be that he was acting, if anything, with
excess of generosity.

Mrs.\ Reginald Clapper, as I was relieved to know she now was, received
my salute to a subdued murmur of applause. She looked to my eyes handsomer
than when I had last seen her, or maybe my taste was growing less
exacting. She also trusted she might always regard me as a friend.
I replied that it would be my hope to deserve the honour; whereupon
she kissed me of her own accord, and embracing her mother, shed some
tears, explaining the reason to be that everybody was so good to her.

Brother George, less lank than formerly, hampered by a pair of enormous
white kid gloves, superintended my signing of the register, whispering
to me sympathetically: {}``Better luck next time, old cock.''

The fat young lady---or, maybe, the lean young lady, grown stouter,
I cannot say for certain---who feared I had forgotten her, a thing
I assured her utterly impossible, was good enough to say that, in
her opinion, I was worth all the others put together.

{}``And so I told her,'' added the fat young lady---or the lean
one grown stouter, {}``a dozen times if I told her once. But there!''

I murmured my obligations.

Cousin Joseph, 'whom I found no difficulty in recognising by reason
of his watery eyes, appeared not so chirpy as of yore.

{}``You take my tip,'' advised Cousin Joseph, drawing me aside,
{}``and keep out of it.''

{}``You speak from experience?''\ I suggested.

{}``I'm as fond of a joke,'' said the watery-eyed Joseph, {}``as
any man. But when it comes to buckets of water---''

A reminder from the maternal Sellars that breakfast had been ordered
for eleven o'clock caused a general movement and arrested Joseph's
revelations.

{}``See you again, perhaps,'' he murmured, and pushed past me.

What Mrs.\ Sellars, I suppose, would have alluded to as a cold col-la-shon
had been arranged for at a restaurant near by. I walked there in company
with Uncle and Aunt Gutton; not because I particularly desired their
companionship, but because Uncle Gutton, seizing me by the arm, left
me no alternative.

{}``Now then, young man,'' commenced Uncle Gutton kindly, but boisterously
so soon as we were in the street, at some little distance behind the
others, {}``if you want to pitch into me, you pitch away. I shan't
mind, and maybe it'll do you good.''

I informed him that nothing was further from my desire.

{}``Oh, all right,'' returned Uncle Gutton, seemingly disappointed.
{}``If you're willing to forgive and forget, so am I.\  I never
liked you, as I daresay you saw, and so I told Rosie. 'He may be cleverer
than he looks,' I says, 'or be may be a bigger fool than I think him,
though that's hardly likely. You take my advice and get a full-grown
article, then you'll know what you're doing.'

I told him I thought his advice had been admirable.

{}``I'm glad you think so,'' he returned, somewhat puzzled; {}``though
if you wanted to call me names I shouldn't have blamed you. Anyhow,
you've took it like a sensible chap. You've got over it, as I always
told her you would. Young men out of story-books don't die of broken
hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their
head in the water-butt.''

{}``Why, I was in love myself three times,'' explained Uncle Gutton,
{}``before I married the old woman.''

Aunt Gutton sighed and said she was afraid gentlemen didn't feel these
things as much as they ought to.

{}``They've got their living to earn,'' retorted Uncle Gutton.

I agreed with Uncle Gutton that life could not be wasted in vain regret.

{}``As for the rest,'' admitted Uncle Gutton, handsomely, {}``I
was wrong. You've turned out better than I expected you would.''

I thanked him for his improved opinion, and as we entered the restaurant
we shook hands.

Minikin we found there waiting for us. He explained that having been
able to obtain only limited leave of absence from business, he had
concluded the time would be better employed at the restaurant than
at the church. Others were there also with whom I was unacquainted,
young sparks, admirers, I presume, of the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}
in her professional capacity, fellow-clerks of Mr.\ Clapper, who
was something in the City. Altogether we must have numbered a score.

Breakfast was laid in a large room on the first floor. The wedding
presents stood displayed upon a side-table. My own, with my card attached,
had not been seen by Mrs.\ Clapper till that moment. She and her
mother lingered, examining it.

{}``Real silver!''\ I heard the maternal Sellars whisper, {}``Must
have paid a ten pound note for it.''

{}``I hope you'll find it useful,'' I said.

The maternal Sellars, drifting away, joined the others gathered together
at the opposite end of the room.

{}``I suppose you think I set my cap at you merely because you were
a gentleman,'' said the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}.

{}``Don't let's talk about it,'' I answered. {}``We were both foolish.''

{}``I don't want you to think it was merely that,'' continued the
\textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia}. {}``I did like you. And I wouldn't
have disgraced you---at least, I'd have tried not to. We women are
quick to learn. You never gave me time.''

{}``Believe me, things are much better as they are,'' I said.

{}``I suppose so,'' she answered. {}``I was a fool.'' She glanced
round; we still had the corner to ourselves. {}``I told a rare pack
of lies,'' she said; {}``I didn't seem able to help it; I was feeling
sore all over. But I have always been ashamed of myself. I'll tell
them the truth, if you like.''

I thought I saw a way of making her mind easy. {}``My dear girl,''
I said, {}``you have taken the blame upon yourself, and let me go
scot-free. It was generous of you.''

{}``You mean that?''\ she asked.

{}``The truth,'' I answered, {}``would shift all the shame on to
me. It was I who broke my word, acted shabbily from beginning to end.''

{}``I hadn't looked at it in that light,'' she replied. {}``Very
well, I'll hold my tongue.''

My place at breakfast was to the left of the maternal Sellars, the
Signora next to me, and the O'Kelly opposite. Uncle Gutton faced the
bride and bridegroom. The disillusioned Joseph was hidden from me
by flowers, so that his voice, raised from time to time, fell upon
my ears, embellished with the mysterious significance of the unseen
oracle.

For the first quarter of an hour or so the meal proceeded almost in
silence. The maternal Sellars when not engaged in whispered argument
with the perspiring waiter, was furtively occupied in working sums
upon the table-cloth by aid of a blunt pencil. The Signora, strangely
unlike her usual self, was not in talkative mood.

{}``It was so kind of them to invite me,'' said the Signora, speaking
low. {}``But I feel I ought not to have come.

{}``Why not?''\ I asked

{}``I'm not fit to be here,'' murmured the Signora in a broken voice.
{}``What right have I at wedding breakfasts? Of course, for dear
Willie it is different. He has been married.''

The O'Kelly, who never when the Signora was present seemed to care
much for conversation in which she was unable to participate, took
advantage of his neighbour's being somewhat deaf to lapse into abstraction.
Jarman essayed a few witticisms of a general character, of which nobody
took any notice. The professional admirers of the \textit{Lady} '\textit{Ortensia},
seated together at a corner of the table, appeared to be enjoying
a small joke among themselves. Occasionally, one or another of them
would laugh nervously. But for the most part the only sounds to be
heard were the clatter of the knives and forks, the energetic shuffling
of the waiter, and a curious hissing noise as of escaping gas, caused
by Uncle Gutton drinking champagne.

With the cutting, or, rather, the smashing into a hundred fragments,
of the wedding cake---a work that taxed the united strength of bride
and bridegroom to the utmost---the atmosphere lost something of its
sombreness. The company, warmed by food, displaying indications of
being nearly done, commenced to simmer. The maternal Sellars, putting
away with her blunt pencil considerations of material nature, embraced
the table with a smile.

{}``But it is a sad thing,'' sighed the maternal Sellars the next
moment, with a shake of her huge head, {}``when your daughter marries,
and goes away and leaves you.''

{}``Damned sight sadder,'' commented Uncle Gutton, {}``when she
don't go off, but hangs on at home year after year and expects you
to keep her.''

I credit Uncle Gutton with intending this as an aside for the exclusive
benefit of the maternal Sellars; but his voice was not of the timbre
that lends itself to secrecy. One of the bridesmaids, a plain, elderly
girl, bending over her plate, flushed scarlet. I concluded her to
be Miss Gutton.

{}``It doesn't seem to me,'' said Aunt Gutton from the other end
of the table, {}``that gentlemen are as keen on marrying nowadays
as they used to be.''

{}``Got to know a bit about it, I expect,'' sounded the small, shrill
voice of the unseen Joseph.

{}``To my thinking,'' exclaimed a hatchet-faced gentleman, {}``one
of the evils crying most loudly for redress at the present moment
is the utterly needless and monstrous expense of legal proceedings.''
He spoke rapidly and with warmth. {}``Take divorce. At present, what
is it? The rich man's luxury.''

Conversation appeared to be drifting in a direction unsuitable to
the occasion; but Jarman was fortunately there to seize the helm.

{}``The plain fact of the matter is,'' said Jarman, {}``girls have
gone up in value. Time was, so I've heard, when they used to be given
away with a useful bit of household linen, maybe a chair or two. Nowadays---well,
it's only chaps wallowing in wealth like Clapper there as can afford
a really first-class article.''

Mr.\ Clapper, not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy,
possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him:
the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct
with all the characteristics of genuine delight.

{}``Give and take,'' observed the maternal Sellars, so soon as Mr.\ 
Clapper's roar had died away; {}``that's what you've got to do when
you're married.''

{}``Give a deal more than you bargained for and take what you don't
want---that sums it up,'' came the bitter voice of the unseen.

{}``Oh, do be quiet, Joe,'' advised the stout young lady, from which
I concluded she had once been the lean young lady. {}``You talk enough
for a man.''

{}``Can't I open my mouth?''\ demanded the indignant oracle.

{}``You look less foolish when you keep it shut,'' returned the
stout young lady.

{}``We'll show them how to get on,'' observed the \textit{Lady}
'\textit{Ortensia} to her bridegroom, with a smile.

Mr.\ Clapper responded with a gurgle.

{}``When me and the old girl there fixed things up,'' said Uncle
Gutton, {}``we didn't talk no nonsense, and we didn't start with
no misunderstandings. `I'm not a duke,' I says---''

{}``Had she been mistaking you for one?''\ enquired Minikin.

Mr.\ Clapper commented, not tactfully, but with appreciative laugh.
I feared for a moment lest Uncle Gutton's little eyes should leave
his head.

{}``Not being a natural-born, one-eyed fool,'' replied Uncle Gutton,
glaring at the unabashed Minikin, {}``she did not. `I'm not a duke,'
I says, and \textit{she} had sense enough to know as I was talking
sarcastic like. 'I'm not offering you a life of luxury and ease. I'm
offering you myself, just what you see, and nothing more.'

{}``She took it?''\ asked Minikin, who was mopping up his gravy
with his bread.

{}``She accepted me, sir,'' returned Uncle Gutton, in a voice that
would have awed any one but Minikin. {}``Can you give me any good
reason for her not doing so?''

{}``No need to get mad with me,'' explained Minikin. {}``I'm not
blaming the poor woman. We all have our moments of despair.''

The unfortunate Clapper again exploded. Uncle Gutton rose to his feet.
The ready Jarman saved the situation.

{}``'Ear!\ 'ear!''\ cried Jarman, banging the table with the handles
of two knives. {}``Silence for Uncle Gutton! 'E's going to propose
a toast. 'Ear, 'ear!''

Mrs.\ Clapper, seconding his efforts, the whole table broke into
applause.

{}``What, as a matter of fact, I did get up to say---'' began Uncle
Gutton.

{}``Good old Uncle Gutton!''\ persisted the determined Jarman.
{}``Bride and bridegroom---long life to 'em!''

Uncle Sutton, evidently pleased, allowed his indignation against Minikin
to evaporate.

{}``Well,'' said Uncle Gutton, {}``if you think I'm the one to
do it---''

The response was unmistakable. In our enthusiasm we broke two glasses
and upset a cruet; a small, thin lady was unfortunate enough to shed
her chignon. Thus encouraged, Uncle Sutton launched himself upon his
task. Personally, I should have been better pleased had Fate not interposed
to assign to him the duty.

Starting with a somewhat uninstructive history of his own career,
he suddenly, and for no reason at all obvious, branched off into fierce
censure of the Adulteration Act. Reminded of the time by the maternal
Sellars, he got in his first sensible remark by observing that with
such questions, he took it, the present company was not particularly
interested, and directed himself to the main argument. To his, Uncle
Gutton's, foresight, wisdom and instinctive understanding of humanity,
Mr.\ Clapper, it appeared, owed his present happiness. Uncle Gutton
it was who had divined from the outset the sort of husband the fair
Rosina would come eventually to desire---a plain, simple, hard-working,
level-headed sort of chap, with no hity-tity nonsense about him: such
an one, in short, as Mr.\ Clapper himself---(at this Mr.\ Clapper
expressed approval by a lengthy laugh)---a gentleman who, so far as
Uncle Gutton's knowledge went, had but one fault: a silly habit of
laughing when there was nothing whatever to laugh at; of which, it
was to be hoped, the cares and responsibilities of married life would
cure him.\  (To the rest of the discourse Mr.\ Clapper listened
with a gravity painfully maintained.) There had been moments, Uncle
Gutton was compelled to admit, when the fair Rosina had shown inclination
to make a fool of herself---to desire in place of honest worth mere
painted baubles. He used the term in no offensive sense. Speaking
for himself, what a man wanted beyond his weekly newspaper, he, Uncle
Gutton, was unable to understand; but if there were fools in the world
who wanted to read rubbish written by other fools, then the other
fools would of course write it; Uncle Gutton did not blame them. He
mentioned no names, but what he would say was: a plain man for a sensible
girl, and no painted baubles.

The waiter here entering with a message from the cabman to the effect
that if he was to catch the twelve-forty-five from Charing Cross,
it was about full time he started, Uncle Gutton was compelled to bring
his speech to a premature conclusion. The bride and bridegroom were
hustled into their clothes. There followed much female embracing and
male hand-shaking. The rice having been forgotten, the waiter was
almost thrown downstairs, with directions to at once procure some.
There appearing danger of his not returning in time, the resourceful
Jarman suggested cold semolina pudding as a substitute. But the idea
was discouraged by the bride. A slipper of remarkable antiquity, discovered
on the floor and regarded as a gift from Providence, was flung from
the window by brother George, with admirable aim, and alighted on
the roof of the cab. The waiter, on his return, not being able to
find it, seemed surprised.

I walked back as far as the Obelisk with the O'Kelly and the Signora,
who were then living together in Lambeth. Till that morning I had
not seen the O'Kelly since my departure from London, nearly two years
before, so that we had much to tell each other. For the third time
now had the O'Kelly proved his utter unworthiness to be the husband
of the lady to whom he still referred as his {}``dear good wife.''

{}``But, under the circumstances, would it not be better,'' I suggested,
{}``for her to obtain a divorce? Then you and the Signora could marry
and there would be an end to the whole trouble.''

{}``From a strictly worldly point of view,'' replied the O'Kelly,
{}``it certainly would be; but Mrs.\ O'Kelly''---his voice took
to itself unconsciously a tone of reverence---is not an ordinary woman.
You can have no conception, my dear Kelver, of her goodness. I had
a letter from her only two months ago, a few weeks after the---the
last occurrence. Not one word of reproach, only that if I trespassed
against her even unto seven times seven she would still consider it
her duty to forgive me; that the `home' would always be there for
me to return to and repent.''

A tear stood in the O'Kelly's eye. {}``A beautiful nature,'' he
commented. {}``There are not many women like her.''

{}``Not one in a million!''\ added the Signora, with enthusiasm.

{}``Well, to me it seems like pure obstinacy,'' I said.

The O'Kelly spoke quite angrily. {}``Don't ye say a word against
her! I won't listen to it. Ye don't understand her. She never will
despair of reforming me.''

{}``You see, Mr.\ Kelver,'' explained the Signora, {}``the whole
difficulty arises from my unfortunate profession. It is impossible
for me to keep out of dear Willie's way. If I could earn my living
by any other means, I would; but I can't. And when he sees my name
upon the posters, it's all over with him.''

{}``I do wish, Willie, dear,'' added the Signora in tones of gentle
reproof, {}``that you were not quite so weak.''

{}``Me dear,'' replied the O'Kelly, {}``ye don't know how attractive
ye are or ye wouldn't blame me.''

I laughed. {}``Why don't you be firm,'' I suggested to the Signora,
{}``send him packing about his business?''

{}``I ought to,'' admitted the Signora. {}``I always mean to, until
I see him. Then I don't seem able to say anything---not anything I
ought to.''

{}``Ye do say it,'' contradicted the O'Kelly. {}``Ye're an angel,
only I won't listen to ye.''

{}``I don't say it as if I meant it,'' persisted the Signora. {}``It's
evident I don't.''

{}``I still think it a pity,'' I said, {}``someone does not explain
to Mrs.\ O'Kelly that a divorce would be the truer kindness.''

{}``It is difficult to decide,'' argued the Signora. {}``If ever
you should want to leave me---''

{}``Me darling!''\ exclaimed the O'Kelly.

{}``But you may,'' insisted the Signora. {}``Something may happen
to help you, to show you how wicked it all is. I shall be glad then
to think that you will go back to her. Because she is a good woman,
Willie, you know she is.''

{}``She's a saint,'' agreed Willie.

At the Obelisk I shook hands with them, and alone pursued my way towards
Fleet Street.

The next friend whose acquaintance I renewed was Dan. He occupied
chambers in the Temple, and one evening a week or two after the '\textit{Ortensia}
marriage, I called upon him. Nothing in his manner of greeting me
suggested the necessity of explanation. Dan never demanded anything
of his friends beyond their need of him. Shaking hands with me, he
pushed me down into the easy-chair, and standing with his back to
the fire, filled and lighted his pipe.

{}``I left you alone,'' he said. {}``You had to go through it,
your slough of despond. It lies across every path---that leads to
anywhere. Clear of it?''

{}``I think so,'' I replied, smiling.

{}``You are on the high road,'' he continued. {}``You have only
to walk steadily. Sure you have left nothing behind you---in the slough?''

{}``Nothing worth bringing out of it,'' I said. {}``Why do you
ask so seriously?''

He laid his hand upon my head, rumpling my hair, as in the old days.

{}``Don't leave him behind you,'' he said; {}``the little boy Paul---Paul
the dreamer.''

I laughed. {}``Oh, he! He was only in my way.''

{}``Yes, here,'' answered Dan. {}``This is not his world. He is
of no use to you here; won't help you to bread and cheese---no, nor
kisses either. But keep him near you. Later, you will find, perhaps,
that all along he has been the real Paul---the living, growing Paul;
the other---the active, worldly, pushful Paul, only the stuff that
dreams are made of, his fretful life a troubled night rounded by a
sleep.''

{}``I have been driving him away,'' I said. {}``He is so---so impracticable.''

Dan shook his head gravely. {}``It is not his world,'' he repeated.
{}``We must eat, drink---be husbands, fathers. He does not understand.
Here he is the child. Take care of him.''

We sat in silence for a little while---for longer, perhaps, than it
seemed to us---Dan in the chair opposite to me, each of us occupied
with his own thoughts.

{}``You have an excellent agent,'' said Dan; {}``retain her services
as long as you can. She possesses the great advantage of having no
conscience, as regards your affairs. Women never have where they---''

He broke off to stir the fire.

{}``You like her?''\ I asked. The words sounded feeble. It is only
the writer who fits the language to the emotion; the living man more
often selects by contrast.

{}``She is my ideal woman,'' returned Dan; {}``true and strong
and tender; clear as crystal, pure as dawn. Like her!''

He knocked the ashes from his pipe. {}``We do not marry our ideals,''
he went on. {}``We love with our hearts, not with our souls. The
woman I shall marry''---he sat gazing into the fire, a smile upon
his face---{}``she will be some sweet, clinging, childish woman,
David Copperfield's Dora. Only I am not Doady, who always seems to
me to have been somewhat of a--- He reminds me of you, Paul, a little.
Dickens was right; her helplessness, as time went on, would have bored
him more and more instead of appealing to him.''

{}``And the women,'' I suggested, {}``do they marry their ideals?''

He laughed. {}``Ask them.''

{}``The difference between men and women,'' he continued, {}``is
very slight; we exaggerate it for purposes of art. What sort of man
do you suppose he is, Norah's ideal? Can't you imagine him?---But
I can tell you the type of man she will marry, \textit{ay}, and love
with all her heart.''

He looked at me from under his strong brows drawn down, a twinkle
in his eye.

{}``A nice enough fellow---clever, perhaps, but someone---well, someone
who will want looking after, taking care of, managing; someone who
will appeal to the mother side of her---not her ideal man, but the
man for whom nature intended her.''

{}``Perhaps with her help,'' I said, {}``he may in time become
her ideal.''

{}``There's a long road before him,'' growled Dan.

It was Norah herself who broke to me the news of Barbara's elopment
with Hal. I had seen neither of them since my return to London. Old
Hasluck a month or so before I had met in the City one day by chance,
and he had insisted on my lunching with him. I had found him greatly
changed. His buoyant self-assurance had deserted him; in its place
a fretful eagerness had become his motive force. At first he had talked
boastingly: Had I seen the \textit{Post} for last Monday, the \textit{Court
Circular} for the week before? Had I read that Barbara had danced
with the Crown Prince, that the Count and Countess Huescar had been
entertaining a Grand Duke? What I think of that!\ and such like.
Was not money master of the world? \textit{Ay}, and the nobs should
be made to acknowledge it!

But as he had gulped down glass after glass the brag had died away.

{}``No children,'' he had whispered to me across the table; {}``that's
what I can't understand. Nearly four years and no children! What'll
be the good of it all? Where do I come in? What do I get? Damn these
rotten popinjays! What do they think we buy them for?''

It was in the studio on a Monday morning that Norah told me. It was
the talk of the town for the next day---and the following eight. She
had heard it the evening before at supper, and had written to me to
come and see her.

{}``I thought you would rather hear it quietly,'' said Norah, {}``than
learn it from a newspaper paragraph. Besides, I wanted to tell you
this. She did wrong when she married, putting aside love for position.
Now she has done right. She has put aside her shame with all the advantages
she derived from it. She has proved herself a woman: I respect her.''

Norah would not have said that to please me had she not really thought
it. I could see it from that light; but it brought me no comfort.
My goddess had a heart, passions, was a mere human creature like myself.
From her cold throne she had stepped down to mingle with the world.
So some youthful page of Arthur's court may have felt, learning the
Great Queen was but a woman.

I never spoke with her again but once. That was an evening three years
later in Brussels. Strolling idly after dinner the bright lights of
a theatre invited me to enter. It was somewhat late; the second act
had commenced. I slipped quietly into my seat, the only one vacant
at the extreme end of the front row of the first range; then, looking
down upon the stage, met her eyes. A little later an attendant whispered
to me that Madame G--- would like to see me; so at the fall of the
curtain I went round. Two men were in the dressing-room smoking, and
on the table were some bottles of champagne. She was standing before
her glass, a loose shawl about her shoulders.

{}``Excuse my shaking hands,'' she said. {}``This damned hole is
like a furnace; I have to make up fresh after each act.''

She held them up for my inspection with a laugh; they were smeared
with grease.

{}``D'you know my husband?''\ she continued. {}``Baron G---; Mr.\ Paul
Kelver.''

The Baron rose. He was a red-faced, pot-bellied little man. {}``Delighted
to meet Mr.\ Kelver,'' he said, speaking in excellent English. {}``Any
friend of my wife's is always a friend of mine.''

He held out his fat, perspiring hand. I was not in the mood to attach
much importance to ceremony. I bowed and turned away, careless whether
he was offended or not.

{}``I am glad I saw you,'' she continued. {}``Do you remember a
girl called Barbara? You and she were rather chums, years ago.

{}``Yes,'' I answered, {}``I remember her.''

{}``Well, she died, poor girl, three years ago.'' She was rubbing
paint into her cheeks as she spoke. {}``She asked me if ever I saw
you to give you this. I have been carrying it about with me ever since.''

She took a ring from her finger. It was the one ring Barbara had worn
as a girl, a chrysolite set plainly in a band of gold. I had noticed
it upon her hand the first time I had seen her, sitting in my father's
office framed by the dusty books and papers. She dropped it into my
outstretched palm.

{}``Quite a pretty little romance,'' laughed the Baron.

{}``That's all,'' added the woman at the glass. {}``She said you
would understand.''

From under her painted lashes she flashed a glance at me. I hope never
to see again that look upon a woman's face.

{}``Thank you,'' I said. {}``Yes, I understand. It was very kind
of you. I shall always wear it.''

Placing the ring upon my finger, I left the room.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER X.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X.}

\markboth{PAUL KELVER}{CHAPTER X}

\begin{quote}
\noindent \textit{\noun{Paul}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{finds}}
\noun{}\textit{\noun{his}} \noun{}\textit{\noun{way}}\noun{.}
\end{quote}
Slowly, surely, steadily I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying
strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of
the sad eyes, would seek to lure me from my work. But for my vehement
determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back
my honesty, my desire---growing day by day, till it became almost
a physical hunger---to feel again the pressure of Norah's strong white
hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows
what then he might have made of me: politician, minor poet, more or
less able editor, hampered by convictions---something most surely
of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare---my
humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its
return---I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark;
but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted---but
there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid,
I had established a reputation.

{}``Madness!''\ argued practical friends. {}``You would be throwing
away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence. The
one you know you can do, the other---it would be beginning your career
all over again.''

{}``You would find it almost impossible now,'' explained those who
spoke, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. {}``The world would
never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well
might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best
Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh---or
stop away.''

Drawn by our mutual need of sympathy, {}``Goggles'' and I, seeking
some quiet corner in the Club, would pour out our souls to each other.
He would lay before me, at some length, his conception of Romeo---an
excellent conception, I have no doubt, though I confess it failed
to interest me. Somehow I could not picture him to myself as Romeo.
But I listened with every sign of encouragement. It was the price
I paid him for, in turn, listening to me while I unfolded to him my
ideas how monumental literature, helpful to mankind, should be imagined
and built up.

{}``Perhaps in a future existence,'' laughed Goggles, one evening,
rising as the clock struck seven, {}``I shall be a great tragedian,
and you a famous poet. Meanwhile, I suppose, as your friend Brian
puts it, we are both sinning our mercies. After all, to live is the
most important thing in life.''

I had strolled with him so far as the cloak-room and was helping him
to get into his coat.

{}``Take my advice''---tapping me on the chest, he fixed his funny,
fishy eyes upon me. Had I not known his intention to be serious, I
should have laughed, his expression was so comical. {}``Marry some
dear little woman (he was married himself to a placid lady of about
twice his own weight); {}``one never understands life properly till
the babies come to explain it to one.''

I returned to my easy-chair before the fire. Wife, children, home!
After all, was not that the true work of man---of the live man, not
the dreamer? I saw them round me, giving to my life dignity, responsibility.
The fair, sweet woman, helper, comrade, comforter, the little faces
fashioned in our image, their questioning voices teaching us the answers
to life's riddles. All other hopes, ambitions, dreams, what were they?
Phantoms of the morning mist fading in the sunlight.

Hodgson came to me one evening. {}``I want you to write me a comic
opera,'' he said. He had an open letter in his hand which he was
reading. {}``The public seem to be getting tired of these eternal
translations from the French. I want something English, something
new and original.''

{}``The English is easy enough,'' I replied; {}``but I shouldn't
clamour for anything new and original if I were you.''

{}``Why not?''\ he asked, looking up from his letter.

{}``You might get it,'' I answered. {}``Then you would be disappointed.''

He laughed. {}``Well, you know what I mean---something we could refer
to as `new and original' on the programme. What do you say? It will
be a big chance for you, and I'm willing to risk it. I'm sure you
can do it. People are beginning to talk about you.''

I had written a few farces, comediettas, and they had been successful.
But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A
young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it
can mar him. A comic opera above all other forms of art---if I may
be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject---demands
experience.

I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act
drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my
hope---growing each day fainter---to take the theatrical public by
storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright.

{}``It's very simple,'' urged Hodgson. {}``Provide Atherton plenty
of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give
Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which
she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing
is done.''

{}``I'll tell you what,'' continued Hodgson, {}``I'll take the
whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We'll have a coach, and leave
the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to
study them. You'll be able to have a talk with them and get to know
just what they can do. Atherton has ideas in his head; he'll explain
them to you. Then, next week, we'll draw up a contract and set to
work.''

It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if
successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my
r\^{o}le of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic
opera.

A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start.

{}``Nothing wrong, is there?''\ enquired the leading lady, in a
tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her
cab. {}``It isn't a fire, is it?''

{}``Merely assembled to see you,'' explained Mr.\ Hodgson, without
raising his eyes from his letters.

{}``Oh, good gracious!''\ cried the leading lady, {}``do let us
get away quickly.''

{}``Box seat, my dear,'' returned Mr.\ Hodgson.

The leading lady, accepting the proffered assistance of myself and
three other gentlemen, mounted the ladder with charming hesitation.
Some delay in getting off was caused by our low comedian, who twice,
making believe to miss his footing, slid down again into the arms
of the stolid door-keeper. The crowd, composed for the most part of
small boys approving the endeavour to amuse them, laughed and applauded.
Our low comedian thus encouraged, made a third attempt upon his hands
and knees, and, gaining the roof, sat down upon the tenor, who smiled
somewhat mechanically.

The first dozen or so 'busses we passed our low comedian greeted by
rising to his feet and bowing profoundly.\  afterwards falling back
upon either the tenor or myself. Except by the tenor and myself his
performance appeared to be much appreciated. Charing Cross passed,
and nobody seeming to be interested in our progress, to the relief
of the tenor and myself, he settled down.

{}``People sometimes ask me,'' said the low comedian, brushing the
dust off his knees, {}``why I do this sort of thing off the stage.
It amuses me.''

{}``I was coming up to London the other day from Birmingham,'' he
continued. {}``At Willesden, when the ticket collector opened the
door, I sprang out of the carriage and ran off down the platform.
Of course, he ran after me, shouting to all the others to stop me.
I dodged them for about a minute. You wouldn't believe the excitement
there was. Quite fifty people left their seats to see what it was
all about. I explained to them when they caught me that I had been
travelling second with a first-class ticket, which was the fact. People
think I do it to attract attention. I do it for my own pleasure.''

{}``It must be a troublesome way of amusing oneself,'' I suggested.

{}``Exactly what my wife says,'' he replied; {}``she can never
understand the desire that comes over us all, I suppose, at times,
to play the fool. As a rule, when she is with me I don't do it.''

{}``She's not here today?''\ I asked, glancing round.

{}``She suffers so from headaches,'' he answered, {}``she hardly
ever goes anywhere.''

{}``I'm sorry.'' I spoke not out of mere politeness; I really did
feel sorry.

During the drive to Richmond this irrepressible desire to amuse himself
got the better of him more than once or twice. Through Kensington
he attracted a certain amount of attention by balancing the horn upon
his nose. At Kew he stopped the coach to request of a young ladies'
boarding school change for sixpence. At the foot of Richmond Hill
he caused a crowd to assemble while trying to persuade a deaf old
gentleman in a Bath-chair to allow his man to race us up the hill
for a shilling.

At these antics and such like our party laughed uproariously, with
the exception of Hodgson, who had his correspondence to attend to,
and an elegant young lady of some social standing who had lately emerged
from the Divorce Court with a reputation worth to her in cash a hundred
pounds a week.

Arriving at the hotel quarter of an hour or so before lunch time,
we strolled into the garden. Our low comedian, observing an elderly
gentleman of dignified appearance sipping a glass of Vermouth at a
small table, stood for a moment rooted to the earth with astonishment,
then, making a bee-line for the stranger, seized and shook him warmly
by the hand. We exchanged admiring glances with one another.

{}``Charlie is in good form to-day,'' we told one another, and followed
at his heels.

The elderly gentleman had risen; he looked puzzled. {}``And how's
Aunt Martha?''\ asked him our low comedian. {}``Dear old Aunt Martha!
Well, I am glad! You do look bonny! How is she?''

{}``I'm afraid---'' commenced the elderly gentleman. Our low comedian
started back. Other visitors had gathered round.

{}``Don't tell me anything has happened to her! Not dead? Don't tell
me that!''

He seized the bewildered gentleman by the shoulders and presented
to him a face distorted by terror.

{}``I really have not the faintest notion what you are talking about,''
returned the gentleman, who seemed annoyed. {}``I don't know you.''

{}``Not know me? Do you mean to tell me you've forgotten---? Isn't
your name Steggles?''

{}``No, it isn't,'' returned the stranger, somewhat shortly.

{}``My mistake,'' replied our low comedian. He tossed off at one
gulp what remained of the stranger's Vermouth and walked away rapidly.

The elderly gentleman, not seeing the humour of the joke, one of our
party to soothe him explained to him that it was Atherton, \textit{the}
Atherton---Charlie Atherton.

{}``Oh, is it,'' growled the elderly gentleman. {}``Then will you
tell him from me that when I want his damned tomfoolery I'll come
to the theatre and pay for it.''

{}``What a disagreeable man,'' we said, as, following our low comedian,
we made our way into the hotel.

During lunch he continued in excellent spirits; kissed the bald back
of the waiter's head, pretending to mistake it for a face, called
for hot mustard and water, made believe to steal the silver, and when
the finger-bowls arrived, took off his coat and requested the ladies
to look the other way.

After lunch he became suddenly serious, and slipping his arm through
mine, led me by unfrequented paths.

{}``Now, about this new opera,'' he said; {}``we don't want any
of the old stale business. Give us something new.''

I suggested that to do so might be difficult.

{}``Not at all,'' he answered. {}``Now, my idea is this. I am a
young fellow, and I'm in love with a girl.''

I promised to make a note of it.

{}``Her father, apopletic old idiot---make him comic: 'Damme, sir!
By gad!' all that sort of thing.''

By persuading him that I understood what he meant, I rose in his estimation.

{}``He won't have anything to say to me---thinks I'm an ass. I'm
a simple sort of fellow---on the outside. But I'm not such a fool
as I look.''

{}``You don't think we are getting too much out of the groove?''
I enquired.

His opinion was that the more so the better.

{}``Very well. Then, in the second act I disguise myself. I'll come
on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman,
or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that's
the great thing---opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don't
want any of the old stale tricks.''

I promised him my support.

{}``Put a little pathos in it,'' he added, {}``give me a scene
where I can show them I've something else in me besides merely humour.
We don't want to make them howl, but just to feel a little. Let's
send them out of the theatre saying: 'Well, Charlie's often made me
laugh, but I'm damned if I knew he could make me cry before!' See
what I mean?''

I told him I thought I did.

The leading lady, meeting us on our return, requested, with pretty
tone of authority, everybody else to go away and leave us. There were
cries of 'Naughty!'' The leading lady, laughing girlishly, took me
by the hand and ran away with me.

{}``I want to talk to you,'' said the leading lady, as soon as we
had reached a secluded seat overlooking the river, {}``about my part
in the new opera. Now, can't you give me something original? Do.''

Her pleading was so pretty, there was nothing for it but to pledge
compliance.

{}``I am so tired of being the simple village maiden,'' said the
leading lady; {}``what I want is a part with some opportunity in
it---a coquettish part. I can flirt,'' assured me the leading lady,
archly. {}``Try me.''

I satisfied her of my perfect faith.

{}``You might,'' said the leading lady, {}``see your way to making
the plot depend upon me. It always seems to me that the woman's part
is never made enough of in comic opera. I am sure a comic opera built
round a woman would be a really great success. Don't you agree with
me, Mr.\ Kelver,'' pouted the leading lady, laying her pretty hand
on mine. {}``We are much more interesting than the men---now, aren't
we?''

Personally, as I told her, I agreed with her.

The tenor, sipping tea with me on the balcony, beckoned me aside.

{}``About this new opera,'' said the tenor; {}``doesn't it seem
to you the time has come to make more of the story---that the public
might prefer a little more human interest and a little less clowning?''

I admitted that a good plot was essential.

{}``It seems to me,'' said the tenor, {}``that if you could write
an opera round an interesting love story, you would score a success.
Of course, let there be plenty of humour, but reduce it to its proper
place. As a support, it is excellent; when it is made the entire structure,
it is apt to be tiresome---at least, that is my view.''

I replied with sincerity that there seemed to me much truth in what
he said.

{}``Of course, so far as I am personally concerned,'' went on the
tenor, {}``it is immaterial. I draw the same salary whether I'm on
the stage five minutes or an hour. But when you have a man of my position
in the cast, and give him next to nothing to do---well, the public
are disappointed.''

{}``Most naturally,'' I commented.

{}``The lover,'' whispered the tenor, noticing the careless approach
towards us of the low comedian, {}``that's the character they are
thinking about all the time---men and women both. It's human nature.
Make your lover interesting---that's the secret.''

Waiting for the horses to be put to, I became aware of the fact that
I was standing some distance from the others in company with a tall,
thin, somewhat oldish-looking man. He spoke in low, hurried tones,
fearful evidently of being overheard and interrupted.

{}``You'll forgive me, Mr.\ Kelver,'' he said---{}``Trevor, Marmaduke
Trevor. I play the Duke of Bayswater in the second act.''

I was unable to recall him for the moment; there were quite a number
of small parts in the second act. But glancing into his sensitive
face, I shrank from wounding him.

{}``A capital performance,'' I lied. {}``It has always amused me.

He flushed with pleasure. {}``I made a great success some years ago,''
he said, {}``in America with a soda-water syphon, and it occurred
to me that if you could, Mr.\ Kelver, in a natural sort of way, drop
in a small part leading up to a little business with a soda-water
syphon, it might help the piece.''

I wrote him his soda-water scene, I am glad to remember, and insisted
upon it, in spite of a good deal of opposition. Some of the critics
found fault with the incident, as lacking in originality. But Marmaduke
Trevor was quite right, it did help a little.

Our return journey was an exaggerated repetition of our morning drive.
Our low comedian produced hideous noises from the horn, and entered
into contests of running wit with 'bus drivers---a decided mistake
from his point of view, the score generally remaining with the 'bus
driver. At Hammersmith, seizing the opportunity of a block in the
traffic, he assumed the r\^{o}le of Cheap Jack, and, standing up
on the back seat, offered all our hats for sale at temptingly low
prices.

{}``Got any ideas out of them?''\ asked Hodgson, when the time
came for us to say good-night.

{}``I'm thinking, if you don't mind,'' I answered, {}``of going
down into the country and writing the piece quietly, away from everybody.''

{}``Perhaps you are right,'' agreed Hodgson. {}``Too many cooks---
Be sure and have it ready for the autumn.''

I wrote it with some pleasure to myself amid the Yorkshire Wolds,
and was able to read it to the whole company assembled before the
close of the season. My turning of the last page was followed by a
dead silence. The leading lady was the first to speak. She asked if
the clock upon the mantelpiece could be relied upon; because, if so,
by leaving at once, she could just catch her train. Hodgson, consulting
his watch, thought, if anything, it was a little fast. The leading
lady said she hoped it was, and went. The only comforting words were
spoken by the tenor. He recalled to our mind a successful comic opera
produced some years before at the Philharmonic. He distinctly remembered
that up to five minutes before the raising of the curtain everybody
had regarded it as rubbish. He also had a train to catch. Marmaduke
Trevor, with a covert shake of the hand, urged me not to despair.
The low comedian, the last to go, told Hodgson he thought he might
be able to do something with parts of it, if given a free hand. Hodgson
and I left alone, looked at each other.

{}``It's no good,'' said Hodgson, {}``from a box-office point of
view. Very clever.''

{}``How do you know it is no good from a box-office point of view?''
I ventured to enquire.

{}``I never made a mistake in my life,'' replied Hodgson.

{}``You have produced one or two failures,'' I reminded him.

{}``And shall again,'' he laughed. {}``The right thing isn't easy
to get.''

{}``Cheer up,'' he added kindly, {}``this is only your first attempt.
We must try and knock it into shape at rehearsal.''

Their notion of {}``knocking it into shape'' was knocking it to
pieces.

{}``I'll tell you what we'll do,'' would say the low comedian; {}``we'll
cut that scene out altogether.'' Joyously he would draw his pencil
through some four or five pages of my manuscript.

{}``But it is essential to the story,'' I would argue.

{}``Not at all.''

{}``But it is. It is the scene in which Roderick escapes from prison
and falls in love with the gipsy.''

{}``My dear boy, half-a-dozen words will do all that. I meet Roderick
at the ball. `Hallo, what are you doing here?' 'Oh, I have escaped
from prison.' `Good business. And how's Miriam?' 'Well and happy---she
is going to be my wife!' What more do you want?''

{}``I have been speaking to Mr.\ Hodgson,'' would observe the leading
lady, {}``and he agrees with me, that if instead of falling in love
with Peter, I fell in love with John---''

{}``But John is in love with Arabella.''

{}``Oh, we've cut out Arabella. I can sing all her songs.

The tenor would lead me into a corner. {}``I want you to write in
a little scene for myself and Miss Duncan at the beginning of the
first act. I'll talk to her about it. I think it will be rather pretty.
I want her---the second time I see her---to have come out of her room
on to a balcony, and to be standing there bathed in moonlight.''

{}``But the first act takes place in the early morning.''

{}``I've thought of that. We must alter it to the evening.''

{}``But the opera opens with a hunting scene. People don't go hunting
by moonlight.''

{}``It will be a novelty. That's what's wanted for comic opera. The
ordinary hunting scene! My dear boy, it has been done to death.''

I stood this sort of thing for a week. {}``They are people of experience,''
I argued to myself; {}``they must know more about it than I do.''
By the end of the week I had arrived at the conclusion that anyhow
they didn't. Added to which I lost my temper. It is a thing I should
advise any lady or gentleman thinking of entering the ranks or dramatic
authorship to lose as soon as possible. I took both manuscripts with
me, and, entering Mr.\ Hodgson's private room, closed the door behind
me. One parcel was the opera as I had originally written it, a neat,
intelligible manuscript, whatever its other merits. The second, scored,
interlined, altered, cut, interleaved, rewritten, reversed, turned
inside out and topsy-turvy---one long, hopeless confusion from beginning
to end---was the opera, as, everybody helping, we had {}``knocked
it into shape.''

{}``That's your opera,'' I said, pushing across to him the bulkier
bundle. {}``If you can understand it, if you can make head or tail
of it, if you care to produce it, it is yours, and you are welcome
to it. This is mine!'' I laid it on the table beside the other. {}``It
may be good, it may be bad. If it is played at all it is played as
it is written. Regard the contract as cancelled, and make up your
mind.''

He argued with force, and he argued with eloquence. He appealed to
my self-interest, he appealed to my better nature. It occupied him
forty minutes by the clock. Then he called me an obstinate young fool,
flung the opera as {}``knocked into shape'' into the waste-paper
basket---which was the only proper place for it, and, striding into
the middle of the company, gave curt directions that the damned opera
was to be played as it was written, and be damned to it!

The company shrugged its shoulders, and for the next month kept them
shrugged. For awhile Hodgson remained away from the rehearsals, then
returning, developed by degrees a melancholy interest in the somewhat
gloomy proceedings.

So far I had won, but my difficulty was to maintain the position.
The low comedian, reciting his lines with meaningless monotony, would
pause occasionally to ask of me politely, whether this or that passage
was intended to be serious or funny.

{}``You think,'' the leading lady would enquire, more in sorrow
than in anger, {}``that any girl would behave in this way---any real
girl, I mean?''

{}``Perhaps the audience will understand it,'' would console himself
hopefully the tenor. {}``Myself, I confess I don't.''

With a sinking heart concealed beneath an aggressively disagreeable
manner, I remained firm in my {}``pigheaded conceit,'' as it was
regarded, Hodgson generously supporting me against his own judgment.

{}``It's bound to be a failure,'' he told me. {}``I am spending
some twelve to fifteen hundred pounds to teach you a lesson. When
you have learnt it we'll square accounts by your writing me an opera
that will pay.''

{}``And if it does succeed?''\ I suggested.

{}``My dear boy,'' replied Hodgson, {}``I never make mistakes.''

From all which a dramatic author of more experience would have gathered
cheerfulness and hope, knowing that the time to be depressed is when
the manager and company unanimously and unhesitatingly predict a six
months' run. But new to the business, I regarded my literary career
as already at an end. Belief in oneself is merely the match with which
one lights oneself. The oil is supplied by the belief in one of others;
if that be not forthcoming, one goes out. Later on I might try to
light myself again, but for the present I felt myself dark and dismal.
My desire was to get away from my own smoke and smell. The final dress
rehearsal over, I took my leave of all concerned. The next morning
I would pack a knapsack and start upon a walking tour through Holland.
The English papers would not reach me. No human being should know
my address. In a month or so I would return, the piece would have
disappeared---would be forgotten. With courage, I might be able to
forget it myself.

{}``I shall run it for three weeks,'' said Hodgson, {}``then we'll
withdraw it quietly, `owing to previous arrangements'; or Duncan can
suddenly fall ill---she's done it often enough to suit herself; she
can do it this once to suit me. Don't be upset. There's nothing to
be ashamed of in the piece; indeed, there is a good deal that will
be praised. The idea is distinctly original. As a matter of fact,
that's the fault with it,'' added Hodgson, {}``it's too original.''

{}``You said you wanted it original,'' I reminded him.

He laughed. {}``Yes, but original for the stage, I meant---the old
dolls in new frocks.''

I thanked him for all his kindness, and went home and packed my knapsack.

For two months I wandered, avoiding beaten tracks, my only comrades
a few books, belonging to no age, no country. My worries fell from
me, the personal affairs of Paul Kelver ceasing to appear the be all
and the end all of the universe. But for a chance meeting with Wellbourne,
Deleglise's amateur caretaker of Gower Street fame, I should have
delayed yet longer my return. It was in one of the dead cities of
the Zuyder Zee. I was sitting under the lindens on the grass-grown
quay, awaiting a slow, crawling boat that, four miles off, I watched
a moving speck across the level pastures. I heard his footsteps in
the empty market-place behind me, and turned my head. I did not rise,
felt even no astonishment; anything might come to pass in that still
land of dreams. He seated himself beside me with a nod, and for awhile
we smoked in silence.

{}``All well with you?''\ I asked.

{}``I am afraid not,'' he answered; {}``the poor fellow is in great
trouble.''

{}``I'm not Wellbourne himself,'' he went on, in answer to my look;
{}``I am only his spirit. Have you ever tested that belief the Hindoos
hold: that a man may leave his body, wander at will for a certain
period, remembering only to return ere the thread connecting him with
flesh and blood be stretched to breaking point? It is quite correct.
I often lock the door of my lodging, leave myself behind, wander a
free Spirit.''

He pulled from his pocket a handful of loose coins and looked at them.
{}``The thread that connects us, I am sorrow to say, is wearing somewhat
thin,'' he sighed; {}``I shall have to be getting back to him before
long---concern myself again with his troubles, follies. It is somewhat
vexing. Life is really beautiful, when one is dead.''

{}``What was the trouble?''\ I enquired.

{}``Haven't you heard?''\ he replied. {}``Tom died five weeks
ago, quite suddenly, of syncope. We had none of us any idea.''

So Norah was alone in the world. I rose to my feet. The slowly moving
speck had grown into a thin, dark streak; minute by minute it took
shape and form.

{}``By the way, I have to congratulate you,'' said Wellbourne. {}``Your
opera looked like being a big thing when I left London. You didn't
sell outright, I hope?''

{}``No,'' I answered. {}``Hodgson never expressed any desire to
buy.''

{}``Lucky for you,'' said Wellbourne.

I reached London the next evening. Passing the theatre on my way to
Queen's Square, it occurred to me to stop my cab for a few minutes
and look in.

I met the low comedian on his way to his dressing-room. He shook me
warmly by the hand.

{}``Well,'' he said, {}``we're pulling them in. I was right, you
see, Give me plenty of opportunity.' That's what I told you, didn't
I? Come and see the piece. I think you will agree with me that I have
done you justice.''

I thanked him.

{}``Not at all,'' he returned; {}``it's a pleasure to work, when
you've got something good to work on.''

I paid my respects to the leading lady.

{}``I am so grateful to you,'' said the leading lady. {}``It is
so delightful to play a real live woman, for a change.''

The tenor was quite fatherly.

{}``It is what I have been telling Hodgson for years,'' he said,
{}``give them a simple human story.''

Crossing the stage, I ran against Marmaduke Trevor.

{}``You will stay for my scene,'' he urged.

{}``Another night,'' I answered. {}``I have only just returned.''

He sank his voice to a whisper. {}``I want to talk to you on business,
when you have the time. I am thinking of taking a theatre myself---not
just now, but later on. Of course, I don't want it to get about.''

I assured him of my secrecy.

{}``If it comes off, I want you to write for me. You understand the
public. We will talk it over.''

He passed onward with stealthy tread.

I found Hodgson in the front of the house.

{}``Two stalls not sold and six seats in the upper circle,'' he
informed me; {}``not bad for a Thursday night.''

I expressed my gratification.

{}``I knew you could do it,'' said Hodgson, {}``I felt sure of
it merely from seeing that comedietta of yours at the Queen's. I never
make a mistake.''

Correction under the circumstances would have been unkind. Promising
to see him again in the morning, I left him with his customary good
conceit of himself unimpaired, and went on to the Square. I rang twice,
but there was no response. I was about to sound a third and final
summons, when Norah joined me on the step. She had been out shopping
and was laden with parcels.

{}``We must wait to shake hands,'' she laughed, as she opened the
door. {}``I hope you have not been kept long. Poor Annette grows
deafer every day.''

{}``Have you nobody in the house with you but Annette?''\ I asked.

{}``No one. You know it was a whim of his. I used to get quite cross
with him at times. But I should not like to go against his wishes---now.''

{}``Was there any reason for it?''\ I asked.

{}``No,'' she answered; {}``if there had been I could have argued
him out of it.'' She paused at the door of the studio. {}``I'll
just get rid of these,'' she said, {}``and then I will be with you.''

A wood fire was burning on the open hearth, flashing alternate beams
of light and shadow down the long bare room. The high oak stool stood
in its usual place beside the engraving desk, upon which lay old Deleglise's
last unfinished plate, emitting a dull red glow. I paced the creaking
boards with halting steps, as through some ghostly gallery hung with
dim portraits of the dead and living. In a little while Norah entered
and came to me with outstretched hand.

{}``We will not light the lamp,'' she said, {}``the firelight is
so pleasant.''

{}``But I want to see you,'' I replied.

She had seated herself upon the broad stone kerb. With her hand she
stirred the logs; they shot into a clear white flame. Thus, the light
upon her face, she raised it gravely towards mine. It spoke to me
with fuller voice. The clear grey eyes were frank and steadfast as
ever, but shadow had passed into them, deepening them, illuminating
them.

For a space we talked of our two selves, our trivial plans and doings.

{}``Tom left something to you,'' said Norah, rising, {}``not in
his will, that was only a few lines. He told me to give it to you,
with his love.''

She brought it to me. It was the picture he had always treasured,
his first success; a child looking on death; {}``The Riddle'' he
had named it.

We spoke of him, of his work, which since had come to be appraised
at truer value, for it was out of fashion while he lived.

{}``Was he a disappointed man, do you think?''\ I asked.

{}``No,'' answered Norah. {}``I am sure not. He was too fond of
his work.''

{}``But he dreamt of becoming a second Millet. He confessed it to
me once. And he died an engraver.''

{}``But they were good engravings,'' smiled Norah.

{}``I remember a favourite saying of his,'' continued Norah, after
a pause; {}``I do not know whether it was original or not. 'The stars
guide us. They are not our goal.'''

{}``Ah, yes, we aim at the moon and---hit the currant bush.''

{}``It is necessary always to allow for deflection,'' laughed Norah.
{}``Apparently it takes a would-be poet to write a successful comic
opera.''

{}``Ah, you do not understand!''\ I cried. {}``It was not mere
ambition; cap and bells or laurel wreath!\ that is small matter.
I wanted to help. The world's cry of pain, I used to hear it as a
boy. I hear it yet. I meant to help. They that are heavy laden. I
hear their cry. They cry from dawn to dawn and none heed them: we
pass upon the other side. Man and woman, child and beast. I hear their
dumb cry in the night. The child's sob in the silence, the man's fierce
curse of wrong. The dog beneath the vivisector's knife, the overdriven
brute, the creature tortured for an hour that a gourmet may enjoy
an instant's pleasure; they cried to me. The wrong and the sorrow
and the pain, the long, low, endless moan God's ears are weary of;
I hear it day and night. I thought to help.''

I had risen. She took my face between her quiet, cool hands.

{}``What do we know? We see but a corner of the scheme. This fortress
of laughter that a few of you have been set apart to guard---this
rallying-point for all the forces of joy and gladness!\ how do you
know it may not be the key to the whole battle! It is far removed
from the grand charges and you think yourself forgotten. Trust your
leader, be true to your post.''

I looked into her sweet grey eyes.

{}``You always help me,'' I said.

{}``Do I?''\ she answered. {}``I am so glad.''

She put her firm white hand in mine. 
\end{document}
