CHAPTER 8
I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_
I saw a great deal of Malim after that. He and Julian became my twochief mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man ofdelicate literary skill, a genuine lover of books, a severe critic ofmodern fiction. Our tastes were in the main identical, though it wasalways a blow to me that he could see nothing humorous in Mr. GeorgeAde, whose Fables I knew nearly by heart. The more robust type ofhumour left him cold.
In all other respects we agreed.
There is a never-failing fascination in a man with a secret. It gaveme a pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes, to watch Malim,sitting in his armchair, the essence of everything that wasconventional and respectable, with Eton and Oxford written all overhim, and to think that he was married all the while to an employee in aTottenham Court Road fried-fish shop.
Kit never appeared in the flat: but Malim went nearly every evening tothe little villa. Sometimes he took Julian and myself, more oftenmyself alone, Julian being ever disinclined to move far from hishammock. The more I saw of Kit the more thoroughly I realized howeminently fitted she was to be Malim's wife. It was a union ofopposites. Except for the type of fiction provided by "penny librariesof powerful stories." Kit had probably not read more than half a dozenbooks in her life. Grimm's fairy stories she recollected dimly, and shebetrayed a surprising acquaintance with at least three of Ouida'snovels. I fancy that Malim appeared to her as a sort of combination offairy prince and Ouida guardsman. He exhibited the Oxford manner attimes rather noticeably. Kit loved it.
Till I saw them together I had thought Kit's accent and her incessantmangling of the King's English would have jarred upon Malim. But I soonfound that I was wrong. He did not appear to notice.
I learned from Kit, in the course of my first visit to the villa, somefurther particulars respecting her brother Tom, the potato-thrower ofCovent Garden Market. Mr. Thomas Blake, it seemed, was the proprietorand skipper of a barge. A pleasant enough fellow when sober, but toomuch given to what Kit described as "his drop." He had apparently lefthome under something of a cloud, though whether this had anything to dowith "father's trousers" I never knew. Kit said she had not seen himfor some years, though each had known the other's address. It seemedthat the Blake family were not great correspondents.
"Have you ever met John Hatton?" asked Malim one night after dinner athis flat.
"John Hatton?" I answered. "No. Who is he?"
"A parson. A very good fellow. You ought to know him. He's a man with anumber of widely different interests. We were at Trinity together. Hejumps from one thing to another, but he's frightfully keen aboutwhatever he does. Someone was saying that he was running a boys' clubin the thickest part of Lambeth."
"There might be copy in it," I said.
"Or ideas for advertisements for Julian," said Malim. "Anyway, I'llintroduce you to him. Have you ever been in the Barrel?"
"What's the Barrel?"
"The Barrel is a club. It gets the name from the fact that it's theonly club in England that allows, and indeed urges, its members to siton a barrel. John Hatton is sometimes to be found there. Come round toit tomorrow night."
"All right," I replied. "Where is it?"
"A hundred and fifty-three, York Street, Covent Garden. First floor."
"Very well," I said. "I'll meet you there at twelve o'clock. I can'tcome sooner because I've got a story to write."
Twelve had just struck when I walked up York Street looking for No.153.
The house was brilliantly lighted on the first floor. The street dooropened on to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano anda singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight ofa waiter loaded with glasses. I called to him.
"Mr. Cloyster, sir? Yessir. I'll find out whether Mr. Malim can seeyou, sir."
Malim came out to me. "Hatton's not here," he said, "but come in.There's a smoking concert going on."
He took me into the room, the windows of which I had seen from thestreet.
There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song wasfinished, and there was a movement among the audience. "It's theinterval," said Malim.
Men surged out of the packed front room into the passage, and then intoa sort of bar parlour. Malim and I also made our way there. "That's thefetish of the club," said Malim, pointing to a barrel standing on end;"and I'll introduce you to the man who is sitting on it. He's littleMichael, the musical critic. They once put on an operetta of his at theCourt. It ran about two nights, but he reckons all the events of theworld from the date of its production."
"Mr. Cloyster--Mr. Michael."
The musician hopped down from the barrel and shook hands. He was adapper little person, and had a trick of punctuating every sentencewith a snigger.
"Cheer-o," he said genially. "Is this your first visit?"
I said it was.
"Then sit on the barrel. We are the only club in London who can offeryou the privilege." Accordingly I sat on the barrel, and through amurmur of applause I could hear Michael telling someone that he'd firstseen that barrel five years before his operetta came out at the Court.
At that moment a venerable figure strode with dignity into the bar.
"Maundrell," said Malim to me. "The last of the old Bohemians. An oldactor. Always wears the steeple hat and a long coat with skirts."
The survivor of the days of Kean uttered a bellow for whisky-and-water."That barrel," he said, "reminds me of Buckstone's days at theHaymarket. After the performance we used to meet at the Cafe del'Europe, a few yards from the theatre. Our secret society sat there."
"What was the society called, Mr. Maundrell?" asked a new member withunusual intrepidity.
"Its name," replied the white-headed actor simply, "I shall notdivulge. It was not, however, altogether unconnected with the Pink Menof the Blue Mountains. We used to sit, we who were initiated, in acircle. We met to discuss the business of the society. Oh, we were theobserved of all observers, I can assure you. Our society was extensive.It had its offshoots in foreign lands. Well, we at these meetings usedto sit round a barrel--a great big barrel, which had a hole in the top.The barrel was not merely an ornament, for through the hole in the topwe threw any scraps and odds and ends we did not want. Bits of tobacco,bread, marrow bones, the dregs of our glasses--anything and everythingwent into the barrel. And so it happened, as the barrel became fullerand fuller, strange animals made their appearance--animals of peculiarshape and form crawled out of the barrel and would attempt to escapeacross the floor. But we were on their tracks. We saw them. We headedthem off with our sticks, and we chased them back again to the placewhere they had been born and bred. We poked them in, sir, with oursticks."
Mr. Maundrell emitted a placid chuckle at this reminiscence.
"A good many members of this club," whispered Malim to me, "would havegone back into that barrel."
A bell sounded. "That's for the second part to begin," said Malim.
We herded back along the passage. A voice cried, "Be seated, please,gentlemen."
At the far end of the room was a table for the chairman and thecommittee, and to the left stood a piano. Everyone had now sat downexcept the chairman, who was apparently not in the room. There was apause. Then a man from the audience whooped sharply and clambered overthe table and into the place of the chairman. He tapped twice with themallet. "Get out of that chair," yelled various voices.
"Gentlemen," said the man in the chair. A howl of execration went up,and simultaneously the door was flung open. A double file ofwhite-robed Druids came, chanting, into the room.
The Druids carried in with them a small portable tree which theyproceeded to set upright. The chant now became extremely topical. EachDruid sang a verse in turn, while his fellow Druids danced a statelymeasure round the tree. As the verse was being sung, an imitationgranite altar was hastily erected.
The man in the chair, who had so far smoked a cigarett
e in silence, nowtapped again with his mallet. "Gentlemen," he observed.
The Druids ended their song abruptly, and made a dash at the occupantof the chair. The audience stood up. "A victim for our ancient rites!"screamed the Druids, falling upon the man and dragging him towards theproperty altar.
The victim showed every sign of objection to early English rites; buthe was dislodged, and after being dragged, struggling, across thetable, subsided quickly on the floor. The mob surged about and aroundhim. He was hidden from view. His position, however, could be locatedby a series of piercing shrieks.
The door again opened. Mr. Maundrell, the real chairman of the evening,stood on the threshold. "Chair!" was now the word that arose on everyside, and at this signal the Druids disappeared at a trot past thelong-bearded, impassive Mr. Maundrell. Their victim followed them, butbefore he did so he picked up his trousers which were lying on thecarpet.
All the time this scene had been going on, I fancied I recognised theman in the chair. In a flash I remembered. It was Dawkins who hadcoached First Trinity, and whom I, as a visitor once at the crew'straining dinner, had last seen going through the ancient and honourableprocess of de-bagging at the hands of his light-hearted boat.
"Come on," said Malim. "Godfrey Lane's going to sing a patriotic song.They _will_ let him do it. We'll go down to the Temple and findJohn Hatton."
We left the Barrel at about one o'clock. It was a typical London lateautumn night. Quiet with the peace of a humming top; warm with the heatgenerated from mellow asphalt and resinous wood-paving.
We turned from Bedford Street eastwards along the Strand.
Between one and two the Strand is as empty as it ever is. It is givenover to lurchers and policemen. Fleet Street reproduces for this onehour the Sahara.
"When I knock at the Temple gate late at night," said Malim, "and amadmitted by the night porter, I always feel a pleasantly archaictouch."
I agreed with him. The process seemed a quaint admixture of an Oxfordor Cambridge college, Gottingen, and a feudal keep. And after the gatehad been closed behind one, it was difficult to realise that within afew yards of an academic system of lawns and buildings full of livingtraditions and associations which wainscoting and winding stairsengender, lay the modern world, its American invaders, its new humour,its women's clubs, its long firms, its musical comedies, its Park Lane,and its Strand with the hub of the universe projecting from the roadwayat Charing Cross, plain for Englishmen to gloat over and for foreignersto envy.
Sixty-two Harcourt Buildings is emblazoned with many names, includingthat of the Rev. John Hatton. The oak was not sported, and our rap atthe inner door was immediately answered by a shout of "Come in!" As weopened it we heard a peculiar whirring sound. "Road skates," saidHatton, gracefully circling the table and then coming to a standstill.I was introduced. "I'm very glad to see you both," he said. "The twoother men I share these rooms with have gone away, so I'm killing timeby training for my road-skate tour abroad. It's trying for one'sankles."
"Could you go downstairs on them?" said Malim.
"Certainly," he replied, "I'll do so now. And when we're down, I'llhave a little practice in the open."
Whereupon he skated to the landing, scrambled down the stairs, sped upMiddle Temple Lane, and called the porter to let us out into FleetStreet. He struck me as a man who differed in some respects from thepopular conception of a curate.
"I'll race you to Ludgate Circus and back," said the clergyman.
"You're too fast," said Malim; "it must be a handicap."
"We might do it level in a cab," said I, for I saw a hansom crawlingtowards us.
"Done," said the Rev. John Hatton. "Done, for half-a-crown!"
I climbed into the hansom, and Malim, about to follow me, found that aconstable, to whom the soil of the City had given spontaneous birth,was standing at his shoulder. "Wot's the game?" inquired the officer,with tender solicitude.
"A fine night, Perkins," remarked Hatton.
"A fine morning, beggin' your pardon, sir," said the policemanfacetiously. He seemed to be an acquaintance of the skater.
"Reliability trials," continued Hatton. "Be good enough to start us,Perkins."
"Very good, sir," said Perkins.
"Drive to Ludgate Circus and back, and beat the gentleman on theskates," said Malim to our driver, who was taking the race as though heassisted at such events in the course of his daily duty.
"Hi shall say, 'Are you ready? Horf!'"
"We shall have Perkins applying to the Jockey Club for ErnestWilloughby's job," whispered Malim.
"Are you ready? Horf!"
Hatton was first off the mark. He raced down the incline to the Circusat a tremendous speed. He was just in sight as he swung laboriouslyround and headed for home. But meeting him on our outward journey, wenoticed that the upward slope was distressing him. "Shall we do it?" weasked.
"Yessir," said our driver. And now we, too, were on the up grade. Wewent up the hill at a gallop: were equal with Hatton at Fetter Lane,and reached the Temple Gate yards to the good.
The ancient driver of a four-wheeler had been the witness of thefinish.
He gazed with displeasure upon us.
"This 'ere's a nice use ter put Fleet Street to, I don't think," hesaid coldly.
This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malimhis half-crown, and had invited me to visit him, we departed.
"Queer chap, Hatton," said Malim as we walked up the Strand.
I was to discover at no distant date that he was distinctly amany-sided man. I have met a good many clergymen in my time, but I havenever come across one quite like the Rev. John Hatton.
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