I
When the King of the Cannibal Islands made faces at Queen Victoria, and
a European monarch set the cables tingling with his compliments on the
exploit, the indignation in England was not less than the surprise, for
the thing was not so common as it has since become. But when it
transpired that a gift of peculiar significance was to follow the
congratulations, to give them weight, the inference prevailed that the
white potentate and the black had taken simultaneous leave of their
fourteen senses. For the gift was a pearl of price unparalleled,
picked aforetime by British cutlasses from a Polynesian setting, and
presented by British royalty to the sovereign who seized this
opportunity of restoring it to its original possessor.
The incident would have been a godsend to the Press a few weeks later.
Even in June there were leaders, letters, large headlines, leaded type;
the Daily Chronicle devoting half its literary page to a charming
drawing of the island capital which the new Pall Mall, in a leading
article headed by a pun, advised the Government to blow to flinders. I
was myself driving a poor but not dishonest quill at the time, and the
topic of the hour goaded me into satiric verse which obtained a better
place than anything I had yet turned out. I had let my flat in town,
and taken inexpensive quarters at Thames Ditton, on the plea of a
disinterested passion for the river.
"First-rate, old boy!" said Raffles (who must needs come and see me
there), lying back in the boat while I sculled and steered. "I suppose
they pay you pretty well for these, eh?"
"Not a penny."
"Nonsense, Bunny! I thought they paid so well? Give them time, and
you'll get your check."
"Oh, no, I sha'n't," said I gloomily. "I've got to be content with the
honor of getting in; the editor wrote to say so, in so many words," I
added. But I gave the gentleman his distinguished name.
"You don't mean to say you've written for payment already?"
No; it was the last thing I had intended to admit. But I had done it.
The murder was out; there was no sense in further concealment. I had
written for my money because I really needed it; if he must know, I was
cursedly hard up. Raffles nodded as though he knew already. I warmed
to my woes. It was no easy matter to keep your end up as a raw
freelance of letters; for my part, I was afraid I wrote neither well
enough nor ill enough for success. I suffered from a persistent
ineffectual feeling after style. Verse I could manage; but it did not
pay. To personal paragraphs and the baser journalism I could not and I
would not stoop.
Raffles nodded again, this time with a smile that stayed in his eyes as
he leant back watching me. I knew that he was thinking of other things
I had stooped to, and I thought I knew what he was going to say. He
had said it before so often; he was sure to say it again. I had my
answer ready, but evidently he was tired of asking the same question.
His lids fell, he took up the paper he had dropped, and I sculled the
length of the old red wall of Hampton Court before he spoke again.
"And they gave you nothing for these! My dear Bunny, they're capital,
not only qua verses but for crystallizing your subject and putting it
in a nutshell. Certainly you've taught ME more about it than I knew
before. But is it really worth fifty thousand pounds--a single pearl?"
"A hundred, I believe; but that wouldn't scan."
"A hundred thousand pounds!" said Raffles, with his eyes shut. And
again I made certain what was coming, but again I was mistaken. "If
it's worth all that," he cried at last, "there would be no getting rid
of it at all; it's not like a diamond that you can subdivide. But I
beg your pardon, Bunny. I was forgetting!"
And we said no more about the emperor's gift; for pride thrives on an
empty pocket, and no privation would have drawn from me the proposal
which I had expected Raffles to make. My expectation had been half a
hope, though I only knew it now. But neither did we touch again on
what Raffles professed to have forgotten--my "apostasy," my "lapse into
virtue," as he had been pleased to call it. We were both a little
silent, a little constrained, each preoccupied with his own thoughts.
It was months since we had met, and, as I saw him off towards eleven
o'clock that Sunday night, I fancied it was for more months that we
were saying good-by.
But as we waited for the train I saw those clear eyes peering at me
under the station lamps, and when I met their glance Raffles shook his
head.
"You don't look well on it, Bunny," said he. "I never did believe in
this Thames Valley. You want a change of air."