Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a
limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemed
good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn out novels
year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers would acquire
the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the libraries and
bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he had discarded the
baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of Mark.
“Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able but
unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle splendour,
but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjures
up a vision of some one strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend of
Georges Carpentier and the Reverend What’s-his-name.”
One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on the
third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some length, for
the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a rectory garden
looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing at greater length
the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long line of rectors and
archdeacons, when she discovers for the first time that the postman is
attractive.
“Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars and
the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the _East Essex News_. Their eyes met, for
the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same
again. Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break the
intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. ‘How is your
mother’s rheumatism?’ she said.”
The author’s labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a
maidservant.
“A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the maid, handing a card with the
name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; “says it’s important.”
Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor’s mission
was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the name
Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience.
Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, cold
grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching purpose. He had
a large book under his arm, and there seemed every probability that he
had left a package of similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat before
it had been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began to
address Mellowkent in the manner of an “open letter.”
“You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books—”
“I am engaged on a book at the present moment—rather busily engaged,”
said Mellowkent, pointedly.
“Exactly,” said the intruder; “time with you is a commodity of
considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value.”
“They have,” agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch.
“That,” said Caiaphas, “is why this book that I am introducing to your
notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. _Right Here_ is
indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopædia, or I
should not trouble to show it to you. It is an inexhaustible mine of
concise information—”
“On a shelf at my elbow,” said the author, “I have a row of reference
books that supply me with all the information I am likely to require.”
“Here,” persisted the would-be salesman, “you have it all in one compact
volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to look up, or
the fact you desire to verify, _Right Here_ gives you all that you want
to know in the briefest and most enlightening form. Historical
reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us say. Here we are:
‘Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. Born 1369, burned at
Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund universally blamed.’”
“If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected the
Suffragettes,” observed Mellowkent.
“Poultry-keeping, now,” resumed Caiaphas, “that’s a subject that might
crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have all
about it: ‘The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in the
Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the early
market, how fattened.’ There, you see, there it all is, nothing
lacking.”
“Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could hardly
be expected to supply.”
“Sporting records, that’s important, too; now how many men, sporting men
even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in any
particular year? Now it’s just a little thing of that sort—”
“My dear sir,” interrupted Mellowkent, “there are at least four men in my
club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given year, but what
horse ought to have won and why it didn’t. If your book could supply a
method for protecting one from information of that sort it would do more
than anything you have yet claimed for it.”
“Geography,” said Caiaphas, imperturbably; “that’s a thing that a busy
man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only the
other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Sea
instead of the Caspian; now, with this book—”
“On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable and
up-to-date atlas,” said Mellowkent; “and now I must really ask you to be
going.”
“An atlas,” said Caiaphas, “gives merely the chart of the river’s course,
and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now _Right Here_ gives
you the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the prevalent types of
fish, boatmen’s slang terms, and hours of sailing of the principal river
steamers. If gives you—”
Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitiless
salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installed
himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares. A
spirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why could he
not live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why must he sit here
weakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing tirade, why could he not be
Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, and meet this man on level
terms?
A sudden inspiration flashed across his.
“Have you read my last book, _The Cageless Linnet_?” he asked.
“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas tersely.
“Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to,” exclaimed
Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; “published at six
shillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in chapter
five that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in the birch
copse waiting for Harold Huntingdon—that is the man her family want her
to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but she does not discover
that till chapter fifteen. Listen: ‘Far as the eye could stretch rolled
the mauve and purple billows of heather, lit up here and there with the
glowing yellow of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicate
greys and silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown
butterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, revelling in the
sunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as only larks can sing. It
was a day when all Nature—”
“In _Right Here_ you have full information on all branches of Nature
study,” broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voice
for the first time; “forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation
of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the varied
interests of life—”
“I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, _The Reluctance
of Lady Cullumpton_,” said Mellowkent, hunting again through the
bookshelf; “some people consider it my best novel. Ah, here it is. I
see there are one or two spots on the cover, so I won’t ask more than
three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you how it opens:
“‘Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, her
eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her lips
trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand she
carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Something
snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozen
pieces.’
“There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at once
that there’s something afoot.”
“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas sullenly.
“But just think what a resource they are,” exclaimed the author, “on long
winter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a strained ankle—a
thing that might happen to any one; or if you were staying in a
house-party with persistent wet weather and a stupid hostess and
insufferably dull fellow-guests, you would just make an excuse that you
had letters to write, go to your room, light a cigarette, and for
three-and-ninepence you could plunge into the society of Beatrice Lady
Cullumpton and her set. No one ought to travel without one or two of my
novels in their luggage as a stand-by. A friend of mine said only the
other day that he would as soon think of going into the tropics without
quinine as of going on a visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in
his kit-bag. Perhaps sensation is more in your line. I wonder if I’ve
got a copy of _The Python’s Kiss_.”
Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that thrilling
work of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no time to waste on
monkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and departed. He made no
audible reply to Mellowkent’s cheerful “Good morning,” but the latter
fancied that a look of respectful hatred flickered in the cold grey eyes.