"Mr. Garnet," he said, "we parted recently in anger. I hope that
bygones will be bygones"
"I did think Mr. Garnet would have fainted when the best man said, 'I
can't find it, old horse'"
* * * * *
_A LETTER with a
POSTSCRIPT_
I
Mr. Jeremy Garnet stood with his back to the empty grate--for the time
was summer--watching with a jaundiced eye the removal of his breakfast
things.
"Mrs. Medley," he said.
"Sir?"
"Would it bore you if I became auto-biographical?"
"Sir?"
"Never mind. I merely wish to sketch for your benefit a portion of my
life's history. At eleven o'clock last night I went to bed, and at
once sank into a dreamless sleep. About four hours later there was a
clattering on the stairs which shook the house like a jelly. It was
the gentleman in the top room--I forget his name--returning to roost.
He was humming a patriotic song. A little while later there were a
couple of loud crashes. He had removed his boots. All this while
snatches of the patriotic song came to me through the ceiling of my
bedroom. At about four-thirty there was a lull, and I managed to get
to sleep again. I wish when you see that gentleman, Mrs. Medley, you
would give him my compliments, and ask him if he could shorten his
program another night. He might cut out the song, for a start."
"He's a very young gentleman, sir," said Mrs. Medley, in vague defense
of her top room.
"And it's highly improbable," said Garnet, "that he will ever grow
old, if he repeats his last night's performance. I have no wish to
shed blood wantonly, but there are moments when one must lay aside
one's personal prejudices, and act for the good of the race. A man who
hums patriotic songs at four o'clock in the morning doesn't seem to me
to fit into the scheme of universal happiness. So you will mention it
to him, won't you?"
"Very well, sir," said Mrs. Medley, placidly.
On the strength of the fact that he wrote for the newspapers and had
published two novels, Mrs. Medley regarded Mr. Garnet as an eccentric
individual who had to be humored. Whatever he did or said filled her
with a mild amusement. She received his daily harangues in the same
spirit as that in which a nurse listens to the outpourings of the
family baby. She was surprised when he said anything sensible enough
for her to understand.
His table being clear of breakfast and his room free from disturbing
influences, the exhilaration caused by his chat with his landlady
left Mr. Garnet. Life seemed very gray to him. He was a conscientious
young man, and he knew that he ought to sit down and do some work. On
the other hand, his brain felt like a cauliflower, and he could not
think what to write about. This is one of the things which sour the
young author even more than do those long envelopes which so
tastefully decorate his table of a morning.
He felt particularly unfitted for writing at that moment. The morning
is not the time for inventive work. An article may be polished then,
or a half-finished story completed, but 11 A.M. is not the hour at
which to invent.
Jerry Garnet wandered restlessly about his sitting room. Rarely had it
seemed so dull and depressing to him as it did then. The photographs
on the mantelpiece irritated him. There was no change in them. They
struck him as the concrete expression of monotony. His eye was caught
by a picture hanging out of the straight. He jerked it to one side,
and the effect became worse. He jerked it back again, and the thing
looked as if it had been hung in a dim light by an astigmatic
drunkard. Five minutes' pulling and hauling brought it back to a
position only a shade less crooked than that in which he had found it,
and by that time his restlessness had grown like a mushroom.
He looked out of the window. The sunlight was playing on the house
opposite. He looked at his boots. At this point conscience prodded him
sharply.
"I won't," he muttered fiercely, "I will work. I'll turn out
something, even if it's the worst rot ever written."
With which admirable sentiment he tracked his blotting pad to its
hiding place (Mrs. Medley found a fresh one every day), collected ink
and pens, and sat down.
There was a distant thud from above, and shortly afterwards a thin
tenor voice made itself heard above a vigorous splashing. The young
gentleman on the top floor was starting another day.
"Oi'll--er--sing thee saw-ongs"--brief pause, then in a triumphant
burst, as if the singer had just remembered the name--"ovarraby."
Mr. Garnet breathed a prayer and glared at the ceiling.
The voice continued:
"Ahnd--er--ta-ales of fa-arr Cahsh-meerer."
Sudden and grewsome pause. The splashing ceased. The singer could
hardly have been drowned in a hip bath, but Mr. Garnet hoped for the
best.
His hopes were shattered.
"Come," resumed the young gentleman persuasively, "into the garden,
Maud, for ther black batter nah-eet hath--er--florn."
Jerry Garnet sprang from his seat and paced the room.
"This is getting perfectly impossible," he said to himself. "I must
get out of this. A fellow can't work in London. I'll go down to some
farmhouse in the country. I can't think here. You might just as well
try to work at a musical 'At Home.'"
Here followed certain remarks about the young man upstairs, who was
now, in lighter vein, putting in a spell at a popular melody from the
Gaiety Theater.
He resumed his seat and set himself resolutely to hammer out something
which, though it might not be literature, would at least be capable of
being printed. A search through his commonplace book brought no balm.
A commonplace book is the author's rag bag. In it he places all the
insane ideas that come to him, in the groundless hope that some day he
will be able to convert them with magic touch into marketable plots.
This was the luminous item which first met Mr. Garnet's eye:
_Mem._ Dead body found in railway carriage under seat. Only one living
occupant of carriage. He is suspected of being the murderer, but
proves that he only entered carriage at twelve o'clock in the morning,
while the body has been dead since the previous night.
To this bright scheme were appended the words:
This will want some working up.