THE MASTERFOLK
New 6s. Novels
PIGS IN CLOVER
By FRANK DANBY
THE CALL OF THE WILD
By JACK LONDON
SPENDTHRIFT SUMMER
By MARGREY WILLIAMS
IN THE GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD
By FLORA ANNIE STEEL
BEGGAR’S MANOR
By R. MURRAY GILCHRIST
GORDON KEITH
By THOMAS NELSON PAGE
THE LUCK OF BARERAKES
By CAROLINE MARRIAGE
SIR JULIAN THE APOSTATE
By Mrs. CLEMENT PARSONS
TYPHOON
By JOSEPH CONRAD
JERUSALEM
By SELMA LAGERLÖF
’TWIXT GOD AND MAMMON
By WILLIAM EDWARDS TIREBUCK
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
20 & 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE MASTERFOLK
Wherein is attempted the unravelling
of the Strange Affair of my Lord
Wyntwarde of Cavil and Miss
Betty Modeyne
by
HALDANE MACFALL
Author of ‘The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer,’ etc.
[Illustration]
London
William Heinemann
1903
_All rights reserved_
TO
GEORGE MEREDITH
ESQUIRE
TO GIVE YOU THE SALUTE OF SOVEREIGNTY, SIR, CAN ADD NO TITTLE TO YOUR
STATURE; BUT THERE IS SOLDIER’S DELIGHT IN SALUTING A CONQUEROR--AND
TO YOUR BAYS THERE IS NO PRETENCE OF A PRETENDER
CONTENTS
OF THE BUDDING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
_Chapter_ _Page_
_I._ _Which shows some of the Gods in their Machinery, with
but a Shadowy Hint of the Printer’s Devil_ 3
_II._ _Wherein it is discovered that, likely enough from an
Ancestor who was Master of the Horse to King
Harry the Eighth, Master Oliver had inherited some
Gift of Horseplay, together with a Keen Eye for a
Fine Leg on a Woman_ 13
_III._ _Wherein Master Oliver comes to the Conclusion that, to
complete the Dramatic Picture, Greatness should have
known the Hair-Shirt and the Makeshifts of Adversity_ 20
_IV._ _Wherein it would appear that the most respectable Stucco
Architecture may be but a Screen for Gnawing Secrets_ 30
_V._ _Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne is introduced to the Study
of Nature_ 36
_VI._ _Wherein it is hinted that to be Famous is not
necessarily to be Great_ 41
_VII._ _Wherein Ambition shrinks from looking down the Ladder_ 51
_VIII._ _Wherein it is discovered that the Strength of Genius may
lie in the Hair_ 55
_IX._ _Wherein Master Oliver is convinced that it is Difficult
to play the Man’s Part on a Weak Stomach_ 71
_X._ _Wherein Master Oliver entertains Guests_ 77
_XI._ _Wherein Egoism begins to suspect that there is a
Bottom to the Pint Pot_ 82
_ XII._ _Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne wins more Hearts_ 88
_XIII._ _Which contains Some Hints towards the Making of a
Baronet_ 93
_XIV._ _Which has to do with the Fascination of Naughtiness_ 97
_XV._ _Which tells of a Poet that offered Himself for
Sacrifice, and was rejected of the Gods_ 100
_XVI._ _Which hints at an Age of Gold_ 105
OF THE BUDDING OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
_XVII._ _Which has to do with the Awakening of Youth_ 111
_XVIII._ _Of the Coming of Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin
Myre upon the Town_ 115
_XIX._ _Wherein a Strutting Cock comes near to losing a
Feather upon his Own Dunghill_ 118
_XX._ _Wherein Master Devlin throws a Fierce Sidelight
upon the Genius of Poetry_ 121
_XXI._ _Which discovers a Great Man in the Hour of his
Triumph_ 124
_XXII._ _Wherein we are obliged to spend a Brief Moment in
the Company of the Titled Aristocracy_ 128
_XXIII._ _Wherein the Major fights a Brilliant Rearguard
Action; and beats off a Pressing Attack_ 133
_XXIV._ _Which tells, with quite Unnecessary Frankness, of
what chanced at the Tavern of_ The Cock and
Bull _in Fleet Street_ 138
_XXV._ _Wherein the Major takes to his Bed_ 142
_XXVI._ _Wherein Tom Folly blunders along in his Self-centred
Gig--and drags a Dainty Little Lady’s Skirts
into the Wheel_ 144
_XXVII._ _Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the
Window of a Shabby Home at a Shabbier
Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces
pass in the Street, drifting towards the Strange
Riot of Living_ 147
_XXVIII._ _Wherein Dawning Womanhood whispers that Dolls
are Dolls_ 150
_XXIX._ _Wherein Mr. Pompey Malahide loses his Breath in
the Midst of a Boast_ 155
_XXX._ _Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne posts a Letter_ 157
_XXXI._ _Wherein a Great Financier is satisfied with his
Bargain_ 159
_XXXII._ _Wherein the Gallant Major rises from the Dead_ 162
_XXXIII._ _Which has to do with one of those Emotional Crises
that change the Whole Tenor of a Man’s Political
Convictions_ 165
_XXXIV._ _Which, to some extent, discloses the Incident of the
Sentimental Tea-cups_ 170
_XXXV._ _Wherein we are bewildered by the Cooings of
Chivalry_ 175
_XXXVI._ _Which touches upon the Pains of enjoying the Glow
of Self-Abasement whilst maintaining a Position
of Dignity_ 177
_XXXVII._ _Which is Uneasy with the Restlessness of Youth_ 182
_XXXVIII._ _Which has to do with the Breaking of a Pretty
Lady’s Picture_ 186
_XXXIX._ _Wherein, the Barber letting the Cat out of the Bag,
we give Chase_ 189
_XL._ _Which, in Somewhat Indelicate Eavesdropping
Fashion, hovers about a Trysting-Place, and
Scandalously Repeats a Private Conversation_ 194
_XLI._ _Which discovers Something of Despised Poetry in a
Waste-paper Basket_ 197
_XLII._ _Wherein we are shown an Emotional Hairdresser at
Loggerheads with Destiny_ 199
_XLIII._ _Wherein we catch a Glimpse of the Benefits that accrue
to a Sound Commercial Education_ 203
_XLIV._ _Wherein a Palace of Art disappears in the Night_ 207
_XLV._ _Wherein a Poet burns his Verse to keep his Feet Warm_ 211
OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
_XLVI._ _Wherein the Husband of the Concierge fears that he
is growing Blind_ 217
_XLVII._ _Which introduces us to the First Lady of France_ 220
_XLVIII._ _Which has to do with the Motherhood of the World_ 223
_XLIX._ _Wherein the Rich Man’s Son seeks the Sweets of
Poverty--not Wholly without Success_ 225
_L._ _Wherein the Spring comes a-frolic into the Court_ 229
_LI._ _Wherein it is hinted that it were Best to “Touch not
the Catte botte a Glove”_ 234
_LII._ _Wherein Yankee Doodle is bugled--with a Strong
Foreign Accent_ 238
_LIII._ _Wherein we skip down the Highway of Youth_ 242
_LIV._ _Wherein the Widow Snacheur separates the Milk from
Human Kindness_ 249
_LV._ _Wherein is Some Worship of the Moon_ 252
_LVI._ _Wherein it is suspected that there has been Peeping
through Windows_ 256
_LVII._ _Which treats of what chanced at the Tavern of_
The Scarlet Jackass 261
_LVIII._ _Wherein the Tears of Compassion heal the Bleeding
Feet of a Straying Woman_ 271
_LIX._ _Wherein it is suspect that our Betty has the Healing
Touch_ 275
_LX._ _Wherein Betty feels the Keen Breath of Winter_ 277
_LXI._ _Wherein the Landlord of_ The Scarlet Jackass _is
unable to sing his Song_ 279
_LXII._ _Wherein a Comely Young Woman waits at a Window
all Night, watching for Sir Tom Fool--listening
for his Step_ 281
_LXIII._ _Wherein the Ceiling of the Tavern that is called_
The Scarlet Jackass _is stained with Blood_ 283
_LXIV._ _Wherein the Angel of the Annunciation enters into a
Garret_ 285
_LXV._ _Wherein Betty walks into the Desert_ 288
_LXVI._ _Which has to do with the Great Orgy of Youth_ 293
_LXVII._ _Wherein Youth finds the Cap and Bells to be but a
Bizarre Crown_ 300
_LXVIII._ _Wherein it is seen that a Man is More or Less
Responsible for his Father_ 301
_LXIX._ _Which treats of a Farewell Banquet to Departing
Youth--whereat Gaston Latour glitters with a
Hectic Glitter_ 305
_LXX._ _Wherein a Comely Young Woman broods upon the
Years_ 309
_LXXI._ _Which treats of a Harmless Riot amongst Such as
Dwell on Mount Parnassus_ 313
_LXXII._ _Wherein our Hero is ill at ease with his own
Shadow_ 315
_LXXIII._ _Wherein our Hero dabbles his Hands in the Turgid
Waters of Philosophy, and brings up Some Grains
of Truth from a Pebbly Bottom. A Chapter
that the Frivolous would do well to skip--the
Ironies being infrequent, if not wholly wanting,
and the Humours lacking in the Comic Interest_ 317
_LXXIV._ _Which sees the Day break in the Tavern of_ The
Golden Sun 323
_LXXV._ _Wherein our Hero goes out into the Night_ 329
_LXXVI._ _Wherein our Hero sets Foot upon the Road to
Rome_ 332
_LXXVII._ _Wherein Foul Things are plotted with Some
Glamour of Romance_ 336
_LXXVIII._ _Wherein our Hero scatters Some Pages of the
Indifferent Wisdom of the Ages to the even more
Indifferent Gulls_ 340
_LXXIX._ _Wherein the Honourable Rupert Greppel shows
Hidalgic_ 344
_LXXX._ _Which treats of the Masterfolk_ 349
_LXXXI._ _Wherein the Widow Snacheur comes into her
Fortune_ 351
_LXXXII._ _Wherein Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre
struts airily towards the Goal of Freedom_ 355
_LXXXIII._ _Which essays the High Epic Note_ 358
_LXXXIV._ _Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled
Cane_ 360
_LXXXV._ _Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion
of putting his Experiences into Writing_ 363
_LXXXVI._ _Wherein our Hero, and Another, go Home_ 366
OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
_LXXXVII._ _Which has to do with the Binding of Books in
Half-calf and the Whimsies of Calf Love_ 375
_LXXXVIII._ _Wherein it is suspected that, on Occasion, the
Trumpet of Fame is not Wholly Immaculate
of the Hiccup_ 381
_LXXXIX._ _Wherein Andrew Blotte draws aside the Arras that
hangs Across the Unknown and joins the Company
at a Larger Banquet_ 396
_XC._ _Wherein Hereditary Greatness fails to Glitter
Hidalgic_ 400
_XCI._ _Wherein the Heir of the Ffolliotts falls the Victim
to a Limited Badinage_ 403
_XCII._ _Wherein it is seen that the Blood of the Oldest
Families may run to Inconsequence and Mere
Vulgar Stains_ 407
_XCIII._ _Wherein our Hero comes into a Wide Heritage_ 411
_XCIV._ _Wherein it is suspected that the Garden of Eden was
Well Lost_ 413
OF THE BUDDING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
CHAPTER I
_Which shows Some of the Gods in their Machinery, with but a Shadowy
Hint of the Printer’s Devil_
Amidst the untidy litter of torn paper that strewed the bare plank
floor there stood a large double writing-table, spread with proofs and
manuscript and pamphlets; and, with his feet in the litter of the floor
and his elbows in the litter of the table, sat a gaunt yellow-haired
youth, solemnly writing.
Netherby Gomme peered at his work in the waning light of the departing
November afternoon; and the deepening dusk that took possession of the
shabby room, turning all things to the colour of shadows, strained
his attention, drawing long lines about his mouth and pronouncing
the pallor of his serious face--the grim mask of the humorist. The
slips of paper that were set into the sleeve-ends of his well-brushed
threadbare coat to save the soiling of his shirt-cuffs, and the long
reach of yellow sock that showed his feet thrust a wrinkled span beyond
the original intention of his much-knee’d trousers, marked the ordered
untidiness of the literary habit.
Everything in the room--the overflowed waste-paper basket at his feet;
the severe academic comfort of the polished wooden armchair that stood
yawning augustly vacant opposite to him; the shut door at his right
hand, with its curt announcement of “Editor” in stiff, forbidding
letters; the low bookshelves about the room with their rows of books of
reference, stacks of journals and literary scraps piled a-top of them;
the walls with their irregular array of calendars, advertisements,
notices, and printed and pictured odds and ends; the atmosphere of the
scrap-gathering paste-pot and of clippings from the knowledge of the
world; the sepulchral, monotonous clock that ticked its aggressive
statement of the passage of time as though with a cough of admonition
that, whatever journalism might be, life was short and art was long;
the naked mantel beneath it, which held the shabby soul of the
jerrybuilder turned to stone--for it is the hearth that is haunted by
the spirit of the architect, and this one had been a vulgar fellow--the
bare fireplace that did not even go through the feeble pretence of
giving comfort, for it had no fender, no hearthrug, but gaped, bored
and empty and black, upon the making of literature--everything marked
the room to be one of those scanty workshops where opinions are made,
the dingy editorial office of a struggling weekly review; and the
extent of the dinginess showed it to be a very struggling affair indeed.
The young man blotted his writing, and flipped through some pages of
manuscript:
“Oliver,” said he, without looking up, “a light, I think!... We have
here lying before us a most caustic literary criticism; but the
light is so far gone that we can scarce see the dogmatic gentleman’s
own literary infelicities--nay, can scarce see even his most split
infinitives.”
He spoke like a leading article, with a slight cockney accent.
In the gloom of a dark corner by the window, at a high desk that stood
against the wall, where he sat perched on a tall office stool with
his feet curled round its long legs, a small boy ceased reading, and,
fumbling about in the breast-pocket of his short Eton jacket, lugged
out a tin box, struck a match, and, leaning forward, set a flame to the
gas-jet. The place leaped into light. The youngster flung the matchbox
across the room, and went on with his reading. It fell at the feet of
the yellow-haired youth.
“Ah, Noll,” said he, stooping over and searching for it amongst the
torn fragments of paper, “like those of even greater genius, our aims
are only too often lost in the sea of wasted endeavour.”
He found the box; lit the gas at his right hand; coughed:
“Are you putting that down?” he asked drily of the grim unanswering
silence.
The boy took no notice. The yellow-haired youth chuckled, and the
deep-furrowed lines about his mouth broadened into a quizzical smile.
The boy Oliver could scarcely have been fourteen years of age, and had
he not been son of the editor, and that editor the thriftless owner of
but a very broken-winged Muse, and of a steadily diminishing literary
property, the boy must still have been at school. He sighed heavily,
rousing from his reading:
“I say, Netherby,” said he, “here’s a poem by that fellow with the
hair.”
He held out the manuscript.
Netherby Gomme looked up:
“A lyric?” he asked.
“No. Drivel.”
Netherby Gomme sighed, and sat back in his chair:
“With what candid brutality the sub-editorial mind treats the most
ecstatic flights of the imagination!” said he.
The boy Oliver shifted impatiently on his high stool:
“Shall I reject the ponderous rot?” he asked.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“_We_--if you please, Oliver--_we_. It is always better to adopt the
editorial _we_ in matters of weight; and it throws the responsibility
upon the irresponsible gods of journalism.”
Noll sighed, stretched himself, and yawned.
“All right. We’ll reject it, eh?... No good troubling the governor”--he
jerked his thumb towards the editor’s room--“he’s so beastly short
this afternoon. But I had better _write_ the rejection, I suppose--the
father doesn’t like poets to be rejected on the printed form--they’re
so sensitive.”
He settled himself to write a letter, tongue in cheek, head down, and
quoting for the other’s approval as he wrote:
“_The--editor--regrets--that--whilst--he--appreciates--the--beauty
of--the--lines--herewith--returned--he--is--unable--to--make--use
of--them--owing--to----_”
He came to a halt and invited the prompt. None coming, he glanced over
his shoulder:
“What is it owing to, Netherby? I’m such a beastly poor liar. You’ve
been on the press so much longer. Hustle your vivid imagination and
chuck us an excuse.”
Netherby Gomme shook his head:
“I am only a humorist, Oliver--humour must walk knee-deep in truth. I
do not travel on Romance----”
“Oh, shut up!... No good chucking the idiot roughly.... It’s beastly
long.... We’ll chuck it for length, eh?”
Netherby Gomme smiled at him:
“Noll,” said he, “you are possessed of the magnificent carelessness of
the gods--and I never interfere with religious bodies.”
Noll turned to his writing again, and there was a steady scratching of
pen on paper.
Netherby Gomme sat for awhile, his face seamed with comic lines of grim
amusement:
“I suppose,” he said at last--“I suppose we have read the poem, Oliver?”
“No, _I_ haven’t. But _you_ can.”
Netherby Gomme moved uneasily in his seat:
“N-no. No thanks, Oliver. We’ll take it as read.”
He coughed:
“By the way, Oliver, have you got the dummy for next week’s issue over
there?”
Noll licked, sealed, and thumped the letter on the desk:
“Oh, ah, yes--I’m sitting on it and a bunch of keys to remind me.”
He took a bunch of keys from under him, and put them in his trousers
pocket, then lugged out from beneath him the dummy form of the review
in its brown-paper cover. He opened it, and wetting his finger on his
lip, he flipped through the leaves with their proofs pasted in position
for guidance to the printer.
“Look here, Netherby.” He held up the booklet, pointing to a blank
space. “The governor said I was to tell you we had better complete
this column with a poem--says verse gives a pleasant appearance to
the page.” He dropped the dummy on the desk in front of him. “It’s an
awful bore, Netherby,” said he, “but that bundle of poems he gave me
the other day took up such a lot of space on my desk that I flung them
into the waste-paper basket. Can’t you knock up about twenty lines of
amorous matter? I promise not to whistle.”
Netherby Gomme smiled grimly, sighed, took up a pen, and, drawing a
sheet of paper to him, prepared to write....
The yellow-haired youth had been with this literary venture from the
start. He had begun as office-boy; and as each member of the original
staff had fallen out, at the stern prunings of necessity, he had
been promoted to their places, until he sat alone, as leader-writer,
humorist, topical poet, sentimentalist, sub-editor, office lad, and
general usefulness. Scrupulous to the smallest detail, reliable in
the performance of the minutest fraction of his bond, he got through
his work with the facility of a man of affairs; and, like all busy
men, finding time for everything, he had spent his hours of leisure
outside the office in the humane atmosphere of the theatre, in the
tragic fellowship of the street, in the eternal fresh comedy of the
city’s by-ways, and in the company of the mighty masters of his tongue;
in this, the best school of education in all the round world, he had
acquired such a knowledge of letters, such a taste for the niceties
of the written word, and such a mastery in its use, as would have
astounded, as indeed it was destined to astound, even them that thought
they knew him to his fullest powers.
The other, the editor’s son, Oliver Baddlesmere, had come to the
office to complete establishment straight out of the schoolroom some
months back. He had been brought in to reduce the pressure of clerking
work, and, owing to extreme youth and inexperience, had been given the
simpler duties to perform, so that he came naturally and as a matter
of course to preside over the destinies of the poet’s corner and to
impart information to a hungry world from the battered volumes of an
encyclopædia, and suchlike heavy books of reference, the weight of
which, in the intervals of airily relieving the world’s thirst for
knowledge, the boy used for the purpose of pressing prints--of which
he was gathering a collection from the illustrated papers of the day,
pasting them into brown paper scrap-books of his own making.
Netherby Gomme had scarcely got under fair way with the writing of his
amorous matter when the boy whipped round on his office-stool.
“I say, Netherby,” said he; “your book _is_ making a splash all along
the Thames. The bookstalls are covered with it--the whole blessed town
is saffron with it.”
The yellow-haired youth smiled complacently; sitting back in his chair,
he nodded:
“Indeed?” he said.
Noll slipped down off the stool, took it up, and carried it over to the
fireplace:
“You were a chunk-head not to put your name to it!” he said. “But all
the same, you know, it’s been roaring funny to hear the father and
mother talk about it.”
He vaulted to the top of the high stool, scrambled on to his feet, and,
reaching up, opened the glass face of the clock:
“It almost bursts me sometimes that I can’t tell ’em you wrote it,” he
said. He got on tip-toe and put forward the large hand twenty minutes,
shut the face with a click, turned where he stood, and, thrusting his
hands into his trouser-pockets, he added confidentially:
“D’you know, Netherby, between you and me and the office ink-pot, I
never thought myself that you could be so uncommon funny.”
The yellow-haired youth blushed.
Clambering down off the stool, Noll carried it back to his desk, took
down a tall silk hat, ran his coat-sleeve round it, and put it on his
head.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“Oliver,” said he--hesitated--made a pause--then added nervously:
“Oliver, I am going to confide in you. In fact, if I don’t I shall get
some sort of low malarial fever. Now, don’t treat the confidence with
the giggle of childishness.”
Noll sighed. He turned, leaped on to his office-stool, swung round, set
his feet on the bar, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his palms,
and, peering at the other out of the shadow from under the brim of his
hat, said gloomily:
“O lor! the little typewriter girl!... Why the dickens you don’t kiss
Julia and have done with it, Netherby, I can’t make out. Hang it, _I_
have!... It was very nice whilst it lasted, and all that, but there was
nothing in it to write poetry about!”
Netherby Gomme flushed.
“Oliver,” said he, with biting distinctness, “we have not yet shown the
resentment that your vulgarity courts; but we would remind you that we
may be goaded into flinging the office ink-pot----” He stretched out
his long arm towards the large zinc well of ink before him.
Noll slid off the stool, putting it between them with the swift and
calculated strategy of experience, guarding his head with his raised
elbow:
“Chuck it, Netherby!” he bawled, dodging under cover of his desk
warily; and he added in a hoarse aside, jerking his thumb towards the
editor’s door: “Chuck it! I withdraw.”
The yellow-haired youth put down the heavy ink-pot.
Noll saw out of the corner of his alert eye that honour was satisfied,
and as he ran his finger pensively down a large splash of ink that had
dried on the wall beside his desk, he asked:
“Well?... About that confidence!”
Netherby Gomme cleared his throat:
“Now, Oliver, don’t say anything about this to anyone. It might make
me so ridiculous, and--professional humorists are keenly sensitive to
ridicule----”
“Lor!” said Noll, leaving the patch on the wall. “Get on.”
“This is in strict confidence, Noll.”
“Oh, it’s Julia all right enough,” growled Noll.
Gomme went on, ignoring the comment:
“Noll, it is one of the penalties of fame that its victims must appear
in the brilliant world of fashion.” He coughed. “Come here, Noll.” He
unlocked and pulled open the drawer before him, and Noll, aroused to
sudden interest, sidled over to him as he brought out from the drawer a
very carefully folded dress-coat. “Oliver, I’ve got a dress-coat. You
see, I may have to go into society at any moment, now that my book has
caught the public eye.”
Noll put out his hand:
“Let’s look at the thing,” said he eagerly.
Gomme caught his arm and kept him off it:
“Careful, Noll!” he gasped anxiously--“gently! or we shan’t get it
back into its folds.”
He put it away carefully, locked it up, and, sitting back in his chair,
he added gravely:
“Now, Noll, as one who has knowledge of the usages of polite
society----”
“Eh?” said Noll.
Gomme touched him on the shoulder nervously.
“No, no, Noll--I’m not accusing you of practising them. But as one
born within the pale of good society--from no fault of your own, I
admit--ought one to put scent on the coat?”
Noll whistled:
“Je--hoshaphat!” said he, “I never noticed.” He pushed his hat back on
his head, thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and fixed a
searching eye on experience: “I’m not sure. N-no--I don’t think so. The
governor doesn’t.”
The yellow-haired youth shook his head solemnly:
“It’s a most awkward point, Oliver--a most awkward point--and somewhat
momentous.... One’s first step at the threshold of a career should not
be a stumble.”
Noll’s face lighted up with a suggestion:
“Tell you what I should do, Netherby. Just scent your handkerchief; and
if it kicks up a beastly lot of notice and makes you uncomfortable, you
can always get rid of it----”
“Indeed, Oliver!”
“Rather. Hand it to a lady and ask her if it is hers. Gives you a sort
of introduction, too.”
Netherby Gomme stared aghast:
“B-but, Oliver, surely one is introduced in society!”
“Rather not--it ain’t form.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know; it’s the new hospitality. But about that scent,
Netherby--let us try some on me, and I’ll see if it worries the mother.
The father’ll soon be nasty about it if it’s bad form.”
Gomme shook his head, and sighed heavily:
“Ah, Oliver, one has to be very careful in one’s pose on entering a new
world.”
Noll nodded:
“Rather!... Do you know, Netherby, it’s a rummy thing how one begins to
wash one’s self and think about ornaments and things when one becomes a
man, eh?”
“A most rummy thing indeed, Noll.”
Netherby Gomme sighed.
Noll looked at him with interest:
“It must be wonderful to feel famous,” he said.
“It is,” said Gomme gloomily. “Wonderful.”
“But I don’t see why you should be so beastly miserable about it,
Netherby. It don’t hurt, does it?”
“Not exactly, Noll.” The yellow-haired youth sighed. “I am only
suffering from the mood of the time.... Pessimism is on the town.... A
clerk with any claim to culture must affect Decadence this season--and
it gives me the hump.” He coughed. “Causes me acute mental discomfort.”
Noll snorted:
“Then I should chuck it,” he said. “When I was a kid I used to worry if
I were not the same as the other kids; but--hullo!” He looked up at the
clock. “It seems to me it’s about time to go and get tea.”
He winked an eye solemnly at Gomme, and whistled his way airily out of
the office. The door swung open, revealing a dingy stair-landing, shut
with a bang, and swallowed him.
The sound of Noll’s retreating footsteps on the stair had scarce faded
away into the distant echoes of the street, when the door that led to
the editor’s room opened, and a well-groomed man of about thirty-five
entered the office. Anthony Baddlesmere was a handsome, well-set-up
fellow--indeed, it was as much from his father as from his mother that
Noll inherited his good looks. He was handsome to the degree of beauty;
and this it was, perhaps, which, in spite of the easy carriage of the
body and the subtle air of good-breeding, gave the impression of some
indecision of character in the man. Or it may have been that this
indecision was increased by a certain embarrassment as he endeavoured
to get a firm note into his voice:
“Oh, Gomme--have you completed the dummy yet--for this week’s issue?”
Gomme got up from his chair and searched for the dummy amongst the
papers on Noll’s desk. But Anthony Baddlesmere had seated himself on
the corner of the desk, and, fingering a paper-knife, he said:
“Oh--er--never mind. There’s another matter, Netherby.... It’s some
years since I started this sorry venture in this office.” He sighed,
and passed his hand over his forehead wearily--“more years than I care
to remember. You, the office-boy, were a lank lad of thirteen--I a
young man, full of literary enthusiasms.... I tried to sell the public
artistic wares”--he shrugged his shoulders--“tried to show them vital
things--real things, instead of sham--tried to encourage promising
youth”--he laughed sadly--“and a nice waste-paper basket we’ve made of
it!”
He swung his foot and kicked the waste-paper basket into the middle of
the room, sending its contents flying over the floor.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“Yes, sir,” said he, “a great deal of the promise of youth goes into
the waste-paper basket.”
Anthony Baddlesmere laughed uncomfortably; the laugh died out of his
eyes, obliterated by a frown:
“Downstairs,” he went on, as though repeating an unpleasant task he had
set himself--“downstairs they have given the public trash--cheap. And I
have lost.... In me the literary enthusiasm, a little chilled, perhaps,
remains; but the youth has gone. As for you--you are office-boy still,
to all purposes, and lank still--but, lord! how you have grown!”
Netherby Gomme looked down at his scanty trousers and sighed:
“Yes, sir, I _have_ grown.”
“H’m! like a scandal,” said Baddlesmere; and a gleam of merriment
shot into his eyes, ran round the corners of his mouth, and vanished.
“Gomme,” said he, “we are at the end of our resources. This is our
last week in these rooms.... The office is bare--my home is bare. All
my money--all my wife’s literary success--all have gone to feed the
printing machine. It’s great inky maw has swallowed everything....
However, there is no debt--except to you. But that is a heavy one. My
conscience tells me that you ought not to have been allowed to remain
here and share in the collapse; you ought to have been promoted--to
have been sent to--to----”
He hesitated--stopped.
“Where, sir?” asked the yellow-haired youth.
The bald fact was that Baddlesmere had never given the matter a thought
until this disaster was upon him. He smiled sadly, and added vaguely:
“No place would have been good enough for you, Gomme.... You should
have been promoted long ago....” He roused and faced the position
boldly: “But you have been such a good friend to me and to the boy--so
useful a part of this office, that I am afraid I have treated you like
a part of myself, and have come by habit to think the hat that covered
my head covered yours.... Dame Fortune has knocked the hat off--and I
find there were two heads inside it.”
“Well, sir, we can look her in the face without the hat.”
“Yes, yes, Gomme--but I have looked over your head.”
“It has saved your eyes from the commonplace, sir, and my heart from a
bad chill. I wouldn’t have missed the past years in this office for a
fortune.”
“No, no, Gomme; nor I--nor I.”
“They have made a man of me,” the youth added hoarsely.
Baddlesmere put his hand on the other’s shoulder:
“But you should have been promoted--you should have been promoted....
And I could so easily have sent you to a better billet.” He sat down,
and, fidgeting with the paper-knife again, he added, after a pause: “By
the way, Gomme, I wish you did not write such a shocking bad hand.” He
smiled, half jesting, half serious. “Why don’t you practise writing?”
Gomme’s face became a dull, expressionless mask:
“I have, sir,” he said grimly.
“How? You have!”
“I’ve written a book,” he said.
Baddlesmere whistled:
“The devil you have!... Ah, Gomme, everybody writes books nowadays.”
“But they read mine, sir,” said Netherby Gomme. He dived his hand
into the breast-pocket of his coat, and, taking out a bundle of
press-cuttings, drew a much-thumbed one from the others. “Listen to the
mighty Thrumsby Burrage in _The Discriminator_, sir.” He read out the
paragraph:
“_We have here a refined humorist, whose work is stamped with the
hall-mark of genius._”
Baddlesmere nodded; he was only half listening.
“Oh yes,” said he--“_hall-mark of genius_ is Thrumsby Burrage.”
Gomme went on with a yawning travesty of the pulpit manner:
“_In the present day it is indeed a veritable intellectual treat to
come upon the subtle workmanship of a man of large experience of
life--workmanship marked by that delicate wit which grows only to
perfection in the cloistered atmosphere of scholarship._”
“Yes--_cloistered atmosphere_ is Thrumsby Burrage.”
Gomme’s eyes twinkled:
“_We rejoice that a new man of genius has risen amongst us, and we do
not hesitate to say that the anonymous writer of_ ‘The Tragedy of the
Ridiculous’ _is that man_.”
Anthony Baddlesmere shook off boredom, stood up slowly, stared at the
gaunt yellow-haired youth before him in frank tribute of bewilderment,
and said at last with hoarse surprise:
“_You_ wrote this book, Gomme?”
“Yes, sir,” said Netherby Gomme simply; “but when I write my
tragedy----”
Baddlesmere clapped a hand on his shoulder, and pleasure danced in his
eyes.
“But, good God! you are famous, man--famous!... And you must be making
a fortune.”
“No, sir--I sold the thing for a few pounds.”
Anthony Baddlesmere strode up and down the room.
“But, man,” said he--“I have been trying all my life, and with every
advantage, to create a work of art such as this; and here are you, a
mere stripling--damn it, scarcely out of knickerbockers--though, on
my soul, you are nearly as old as your trousers--here are you, a mere
stripling, famous!” He came to him, gripped him affectionately by the
shoulder. “Of all men that I know, I would rather this thing had come
to you than to any.” He turned and got to striding up and down the room
again. “Famous!--at least you will be as soon as you give out your own
name.”
Gomme’s face had flushed a little with the praise:
“But,” said he, “when I write my tragedy----”
Baddlesmere turned on him sharply:
“Tragedy be hanged!” said he. “My dear Gomme, you’ve got to recognise
that the world never takes its humorists seriously. It’s always looking
for the joke in their tragedies.... Which reminds me, Gomme, I’m afraid
to-morrow must see us out of this.”
Gomme’s face lost its mask:
“But, sir!” he faltered--fidgeting nervously with the papers
by his hand--“what are _you_ going to do? and Noll?--and Mrs.
Baddlesmere--when the blinds are pulled down?”
Baddlesmere strode over to the window, and, gazing down into the dusk
of the chilly street below, made no answer. He stood so for a long
while, and wondered.
He wondered if he _had_ given the public vital things!
His mind ran rapidly over the failure of his scheme--a scheme that, as
he now saw, had been inherent with failure at its very inception. He
saw now, as he stood there ruined by it, that it was folly to expect
a public to buy literature built up on the mere brilliant literary
exercises in technical skill of a smart group of young fellows who had
really had no claim upon the consideration of the world, nothing to
say, no gift but a capacity to use the machinery of letters prettily;
who had had positively nothing to offer to the world but old idioms
freshly arrayed in pretty clothes--make-believe kings at a calico-ball.
These had been but smart mediocrities--not an ounce of wisdom amongst
them all. It came to him now with grim irony, as he stood there in
confession to the clear-eyed judge of Self, that for all their cackle
of literary style and their contempt for everyone else, these men
had uttered no single thought worth preserving--that they had left
their youth behind and were growing bald a-top, and full-blown and
ordinary--except----
Yes, the work of this Netherby Gomme. He knew now as he ran over the
years, that all the best work had come from this youth’s pen--about
the only one of them all who had not given himself airs, who had put
down the absolute truth as he whimsically saw it, who had worked and
wrought amid bare walls and in hours snatched from toil-won leisure,
whilst they all sat and prated of what they intended to do, and of how
it should be done.
He turned from the window into the lighted office, and his glance
fell on his son Noll’s desk. It was the only artistic corner in the
room--the prints, mounted on brown paper, which the boy had tacked to
the wall, had a decorative effect that showed rare artistic taste in
one so young.
A touch of pride came into the man’s eyes, and went out in a frown.
Netherby Gomme, watching him in alert silence, with delicate tact
uttered no word.
As Baddlesmere moved towards the editor’s room he asked abruptly:
“Where’s Noll?”
“Heaven knows, sir,” said Netherby Gomme airily.
The door closed on the editor, and Gomme heard the slam of the outer
door, which told that Baddlesmere had begun to descend the stair.
“Heaven knows!” Gomme shook his head. “Playing with a sewer, most
like.... But God is very good to boys.”