09 Not George Washington

by Unknown

  Evicted from No. 93A, it seemed to me that I had better abandon Bohemia; postpone my connection with that land of lotus-eaters for the moment, while I provided myself with the means of paying rent and buying dinners. Farther down the King’s Road there were comfortable rooms to be had for a moderate sum per week. They were prosaic, but inexpensive. I chose Walpole Street. A fairly large bed-sitting room was vacant at No. 23. I took it, and settled down seriously to make my writing pay.

  There were advantages in Walpole Street which Manresa Road had lacked. For one thing, there was more air, and it smelt less than the Manresa Road air. Walpole Street is bounded by Burton Court, where the Household Brigade plays cricket, and the breezes from the river come to it without much interruption. There was also more quiet. No. 23 is the last house in the street, and, even when I sat with my window open, the noise of traffic from the King’s Road was faint and rather pleasant. It was an excellent spot for a man who meant to work. Except for a certain difficulty in getting my landlady and her daughters out of the room when they came to clear away my meals and talk about the better days they had seen, and a few imbroglios with the eight cats which infested the house, it was the best spot, I think, that I could have chosen.

  Living a life ruled by the strictest economy, I gradually forged ahead. Verse, light and serious, continued my long suit. I generally managed to place two of each brand a week; and that meant two guineas, sometimes more. One particularly pleasing thing about this verse-writing was that there was no delay, as there was with my prose. I would write a set of verses for a daily paper after tea, walk to Fleet Street with them at half-past six, thus getting a little exercise; leave them at the office; and I would see them in print in the next morning’s issue. Payment was equally prompt. The rule was, Send in your bill before five on Wednesday, and call for payment on Friday at seven. Thus I had always enough money to keep me going during the week.

  In addition to verses, I kept turning out a great quantity of prose, fiction, and otherwise, but without much success. The visits of the postmen were the big events of the day at that time. Before I had been in Walpole Street a week I could tell by ear the difference between a rejected manuscript and an ordinary letter. There is a certain solid plop about the fall of the former which not even a long envelope full of proofs can imitate successfully.

  I worked extraordinarily hard at that time. All day, sometimes. The thought of Margie waiting in Guernsey kept me writing when I should have done better to have taken a rest. My earnings were small in proportion to my labour. The guineas I made, except from verse, were like the ounce of gold to the ton of ore. I no longer papered the walls with rejection forms; but this was from choice, not from necessity. I had plenty of material, had I cared to use it.

  I made a little money, of course. My takings for the first month amounted to Ł9 10s. I notched double figures in the next with Łll 1s. 6d. Then I dropped to Ł7 0s. 6d. It was not starvation, but it was still more unlike matrimony.

  But at the end of the sixth month there happened to me what, looking back, I consider to be the greatest piece of good fortune of my life. I received a literary introduction. Some authorities scoff at literary introductions. They say that editors read everything, whether they know the author or not. So they do; and, if the work is not good, a letter to the editor from a man who once met his cousin at a garden-party is not likely to induce him to print it. There is no journalistic “ring” in the sense in which the word is generally used; but there are undoubtedly a certain number of men who know the ropes, and can act as pilots in a strange sea; and an introduction brings one into touch with them. There is a world of difference between contributing blindly work which seems suitable to the style of a paper and sending in matter designed to attract the editor personally.

  Mr. Macrae, whose pupil I had been at Cambridge, was the author of my letter of introduction. At St. Gabriel’s, Mr. Macrae had been a man for whom I entertained awe and respect. Likes and dislikes in connection with one’s tutor seemed outside the question. Only a chance episode had shown me that my tutor was a mortal with a mortal’s limitations. We were bicycling together one day along the Trumpington Road, when a form appeared, coming to meet us. My tutor’s speech grew more and more halting as the form came nearer. At last he stopped talking altogether, and wobbled in his saddle. The man bowed to him, and, as if he had won through some fiery ordeal, he shot ahead like a gay professional rider. When I drew level with him, he said, “That, Mr. Cloyster, is my tailor.”

  Mr. Macrae was typical of the University don who is Scotch. He had married the senior historian of Newnham. He lived (and still lives) by proxy. His publishers order his existence. His honeymoon had been placed at the disposal of these gentlemen, and they had allotted to that period an edition of Aristotle’s Ethics. Aristotle, accordingly, received the most scholarly attention from the recently united couple somewhere on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. All the reviews were satisfactory.

  In my third year at St. Gabriel’s it was popularly supposed that Master Pericles Aeschylus, Mr. Macrae’s infant son, was turned to correct my Latin prose, though my Iambics were withheld from him at the request of the family doctor.

  The letter which Pericles Aeschylus’s father had addressed to me was one of the pleasantest surprises I have ever had. It ran as follows:

  St. Gabriel’s College, Cambridge.

  MY DEAR CLOYSTER,—The divergence of our duties and pleasures during your residence here caused us to see but little of each other. Would it had been otherwise! And too often our intercourse had—on my side—a distinctly professional flavour. Your attitude towards your religious obligations was, I fear, something to seek. Indeed, the line, “Pastor deorum cultor et infrequens,” might have been directly inspired by your views on the keeping of Chapels. On the other hand, your contributions to our musical festivities had the true Aristophanes panache.

  I hear you are devoting yourself to literature, and I beg that you will avail yourself of the enclosed note, which is addressed to a personal friend of mine.

  Believe me, Your well-wisher, David Ossian Macrae.

  The enclosure bore this inscription:

  CHARLES FERMIN, ESQ., Offices of the Orb, Strand, London.

  I had received the letter at breakfast. I took a cab, and drove straight to the Orb.

  A painted hand, marked “Editorial,” indicated a flight of stairs. At the top of these I was confronted by a glass door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with a paroxysm of suppressed hysteria.

  My letter was taken down a mysterious stone passage. After some waiting the messenger returned with the request that I would come back at eleven, as Mr. Fermin would be very busy till then.

  I went out into the Strand, and sought a neighbouring hostelry. It was essential that I should be brilliant at the coming interview, if only spirituously brilliant; and I wished to remove a sensation of stomachic emptiness, such as I had been wont to feel at school when approaching the headmaster’s study.

  At eleven I returned, and asked again for Mr. Fermin; and presently he appeared—a tall, thin man, who gave one the impression of being in a hurry. I knew him by reputation as a famous quarter-miler. He had been president of the O.U.A.C. some years back. He looked as if at any moment he might dash off in any direction at quarter-mile pace.

  We shook hands, and I tried to look intelligent.

  “Sorry to have to keep you waiting,” he said, as we walked to his club; “but we are always rather busy between ten and eleven, putting the column through. Gresham and I do ‘On Your Way,’ you know. The last copy has to be down by half-past ten.”

  We arrived at the Club, and sat in a corner of the lower smoking-room.

  “Macrae says that you are g
oing in for writing. Of course, I’ll do anything I can, but it isn’t easy to help a man. As it happens, though, I can put you in the way of something, if it’s your style of work. Do you ever do verse?”

  I felt like a batsman who sees a slow full-toss sailing through the air.

  “It’s the only thing I can get taken,” I said. “I’ve had quite a lot in the Chronicle and occasional bits in other papers.”

  He seemed relieved.

  “Oh, that’s all right, then,” he said. “You know ‘On Your Way.’ Perhaps you’d care to come in and do that for a bit? It’s only holiday work, but it’ll last five weeks. And if you do it all right I can get you the whole of the holiday work on the column. That comes to a good lot in the year. We’re always taking odd days off. Can you come up at a moment’s notice?”

  “Easily,” I said.

  “Then, you see, if you did that you would drop into the next vacancy on the column. There’s no saying when one may occur. It’s like the General Election. It may happen tomorrow, or not for years. Still, you’d be on the spot in case.”

  “It’s awfully good of you.”

  “Not at all. As a matter of fact, I was rather in difficulties about getting a holiday man. I’m off to Scotland the day after tomorrow, and I had to find a sub. Well, then, will you come in on Monday?”

  “All right.”

  “You’ve had no experience of newspaper work, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, all the work at the Orb’s done between nine and eleven. You must be there at nine sharp. Literally sharp, I mean. Not half-past. And you’d better do some stuff overnight for the first week or so. You’ll find working in the office difficult till you get used to it. Of course, though, you’ll always have Gresham there, so there’s no need to get worried. He can fill the column himself, if he’s pushed. Four or five really good paragraphs a day and an occasional set of verses are all he’ll want from you.”

  “I see.”

  “On Monday, then. Nine sharp. Good-bye.”

  I walked home along Piccadilly with almost a cake-walk stride. At last I was in the inner circle.

  An Orb cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He was one of Us.

  Chapter 4

  JULIAN EVERSLEIGH (James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)

  I determined to celebrate the occasion by dining out, going to a theatre, and having supper afterwards, none of which things were ordinarily within my means. I had not been to a theatre since I had arrived in town; and, except on Saturday nights, I always cooked my own dinner, a process which was cheap, and which appealed to the passion for Bohemianism which I had not wholly cast out of me.

  The morning paper informed me that there were eleven musical comedies, three Shakespeare plays, a blank verse drama, and two comedies (“last weeks”) for me to choose from. I bought a stall at the Briggs Theatre. Stanley Briggs, who afterwards came to bulk large in my small world, was playing there in a musical comedy which had had even more than the customary musical-comedy success.

  London by night had always had an immense fascination for me. Coming out of the restaurant after supper, I felt no inclination to return to my lodgings, and end the greatest night of my life tamely with a book and a pipe. Here was I, a young man, fortified by an excellent supper, in the heart of Stevenson’s London. Why should I have no New Arabian Night adventure? I would stroll about for half an hour, and give London a chance of living up to its reputation.

  I walked slowly along Piccadilly, and turned up Rupert Street. A magic name. Prince Florizel of Bohemia had ended his days there in his tobacconist’s divan. Mr. Gilbert’s Policeman Forth had been discovered there by the men of London at the end of his long wanderings through Soho. Probably, if the truth were known, Rudolf Rassendyl had spent part of his time there. It could not be that Rupert Street would send me empty away.

  My confidence was not abused. Turning into Rupert Court, a dark and suggestive passage some short distance up the street on the right, I found a curious little comedy being played.

  A door gave on to the deserted passageway, and on each side of it stood a man—the lurcher type of man that is bred of London streets. The door opened inwards. Another man stepped out. The hands of one of the lurchers flew to the newcomer’s mouth. The hands of the other lurcher flew to the newcomer’s pockets.

  At that moment I advanced.

  The lurchers vanished noiselessly and instantaneously.

  Their victim held out his hand.

  “Come in, won’t you?” he said, smiling sleepily at me.

  I followed him in, murmuring something about “caught in the act.”

  He repeated the phrase as we went upstairs.

  “‘Caught in the act.’ Yes, they are ingenious creatures. Let me introduce myself. My name is Julian Eversleigh. Sit down, won’t you? Excuse me for a moment.”

  He crossed to a writing-table.

  Julian Eversleigh inhabited a single room of irregular shape. It was small, and situated immediately under the roof. One side had a window which overlooked Rupert Court. The view from it was, however, restricted, because the window was inset, so that the walls projecting on either side prevented one seeing more than a yard or two of the court.

  The room contained a hammock, a large tin bath, propped up against the wall, a big wardrobe, a couple of bookcases, a deal writing-table—at which the proprietor was now sitting with a pen in his mouth, gazing at the ceiling—and a divan-like formation of rugs and cube sugar boxes.

  The owner of this mixed lot of furniture wore a very faded blue serge suit, the trousers baggy at the knees and the coat threadbare at the elbows. He had the odd expression which green eyes combined with red hair give a man.

  “Caught in the act,” he was murmuring. “Caught in the act.”

  The phrase seemed to fascinate him.

  I had established myself on the divan, and was puffing at a cigar, which I had bought by way of setting the coping-stone on my night’s extravagance, before he got up from his writing.

  “Those fellows,” he said, producing a bottle of whisky and a syphon from one of the lower drawers of the wardrobe, “did me a double service. They introduced me to you—say when—and they gave me–-“

  “When.”

  “—an idea.”

  “But how did it happen?” I asked.

  “Quite simple,” he answered. “You see, my friends, when they call on me late at night, can’t get in by knocking at the front door. It is a shop-door, and is locked early. Vancott, my landlord, is a baker, and, as he has to be up making muffins somewhere about five in the morning—we all have our troubles—he does not stop up late. So people who want me go into the court, and see whether my lamp is burning by the window. If it is, they stand below and shout, ‘Julian,’ till I open the door into the court. That’s what happened tonight. I heard my name called, went down, and walked into the arms of the enterprising gentlemen whom you chanced to notice. They must have been very hungry, for even if they had carried the job through they could not have expected to make their fortunes. In point of fact, they would have cleared one-and-threepence. But when you’re hungry you can see no further than the pit of your stomach. Do you know, I almost sympathise with the poor brutes. People sometimes say to me, ‘What are you?’ I have often half a mind to reply, ‘I have been hungry.’ My stars, be hungry once, and you’re educated, if you don’t die of it, for a lifetime.”

  This sort of talk from a stranger might have been the prelude to an appeal for financial assistance.

  He dissipated that half-born thought.

  “Don’t be uneasy,” he said; “you have not been lured up here by the ruse of a clever borrower. I can do a bit of touching when in the mood, mind you, but you’re safe. You are here because I see that you are a pleasant fellow.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I am not hungry at present. In fact, I shall never be hungry again.”

  “You
’re lucky,” I remarked.

  “I am. I am the fortunate possessor of the knack of writing advertisements.”

  “Indeed,” I said, feeling awkward, for I saw that I ought to be impressed.

  “Ah!” he said, laughing outright. “You’re not impressed in the least, really. But I’ll ask you to consider what advertisements mean. First, they are the life-essence of every newspaper, every periodical, and every book.”

  “Every book?”

  “Practically, yes. Most books contain some latent support of a fashion in clothes or food or drink, or of some pleasant spot or phase of benevolence or vice, all of which form the interest of one or other of the sections of society, which sections require publicity at all costs for their respective interests.”

  I was about to probe searchingly into so optimistic a view of modern authorship, but he stalled me off by proceeding rapidly with his discourse.

  “Apart, however, from the less obvious modes of advertising, you’ll agree that this is the age of all ages for the man who can write puffs. ‘Good wine needs no bush’ has become a trade paradox, ‘Judge by appearances,’ a commercial platitude. The man who is ambitious and industrious turns his trick of writing into purely literary channels, and becomes a novelist. The man who is not ambitious and not industrious, and who does not relish the prospect of becoming a loafer in Strand wine-shops, writes advertisements. The gold-bearing area is always growing. It’s a Tom Tiddler’s ground. It is simply a question of picking up the gold and silver. The industrious man picks up as much as he wants. Personally, I am easily content. An occasional nugget satisfies me. Here’s tonight’s nugget, for instance.”

  I took the paper he handed to me. It bore the words:

  CAUGHT IN THE ACT

  CAUGHT IN THE ACT of drinking Skeffington’s Sloe Gin, a man will always present a happy and smiling appearance. Skeffington’s Sloe Gin adds a crowning pleasure to prosperity, and is a consolation in adversity. Of all Grocers.