THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE.
The _Moon_-man's name was Wilkins, and he did nine-tenths of the
interviews in that model of the new journalism. Wilkins was the man to
catch the weasel asleep, hit off his features with a kodak, and badger
him the moment he awoke as to why he popped. Wilkins lived in a flat in
Chancery Lane, and had his whiskey and his feet on the table when
Silverdale turned the handle of the door in the gloaming.
"What do you want?" said Wilkins gruffly.
"I have come to ask you a few questions," said Silverdale politely.
"But I don't know you, sir," said Wilkins stiffly. "Don't you see I'm
busy?"
"It is true I am a stranger, but remember, sir, I shall not be so when I
leave. I just want to interview you about that paragraph in the _Moon_,
stating----"
"Look here!" roared Wilkins, letting his feet slide from the table with
a crash. "Let me tell you, sir, I have no time to listen to your
impertinence. My leisure is scant and valuable. I am a hard-worked man.
I can't be pestered with questions from inquisitive busybodies. What
next, sir? What I write in the _Moon_ is my business and nobody else's.
Damn it all, sir, is there to be nothing private? Are you going to poke
and pry into the concerns of the very journalist? No, sir, you have
wasted your time as well as mine. We never allow the public to go behind
what appears in our paper."
"But this is a mere private curiosity--what you tell me shall never be
published."
"If it could be, I wouldn't tell it you. I never waste copy."
"Tell me--I am willing to pay for the information--who wrote the
paragraph about Clorinda Bell and the Old Maids' Club."
"Go to the devil!" roared Wilkins.
"I thought you would know more than he," said Silverdale, and left.
Wilkins came downstairs on his heels, in a huff, and walked towards
Ludgate Hill. Silverdale thought he would have another shot, and
followed him unseen. The two men jumped into a train, and after an
endless-seeming journey arrived at the Crystal Palace. A monster balloon
was going off from the grounds. Herr Nickeldorf, the great aeronaut, was
making in solitude an experimental night excursion to Calais, as if
anxious to meet his fate by moonlight alone. Wilkins rushed up to
Nickeldorf, who was standing among the ropes giving directions.
"Go avay!" said Nickeldorf, when he saw him. "I hafe nodings to say to
you. You makes me _schwitzen_." He jumped into the car and bade the men
let go.
Ordinarily Wilkins would have been satisfied with this ample material
for half a column, but he was still in a bad temper, and, as the car was
sailing slowly upwards, he jumped in, and the aeronaut gave himself up
for pumped. In an instant, moved by an irresistible impulse, Silverdale
gave a great leap and stood by the _Moon_-man's side. The balloon shot
up and the roar of the crowd became a faint murmur as the planet flew
from beneath their feet.
"Good-evening, Mr. Wilkins," said Lord Silverdale. "I should just like
to interview you about----"
"You jackanapes!" cried the _Moon_-man, pale with anger, "If you don't
go away at once, I'll kick you down stairs."
[Illustration: _Go away, or I'll kick you Down Stairs._]
"My dear Mr. Wilkins," suavely replied Lord Silverdale, "I will
willingly go down, provided you accompany me. I am sure Herr Nickeldorf
is anxious to drop both of us."
"_Wirklich_," replied the aeronaut
"Well, lend us a parachute," said Silverdale.
"No, danks. Beobles never return barachutes."
"Well, we won't go without one. I forgot to bring mine with me. I didn't
know I was going to have such a high old time."
"By what right, sir," said Mr. Wilkins, who had been struggling with an
attack of speechlessness, "do you persecute me like this? _You_ are not
a member of the Fourth Estate."
"No, I belong merely to the Second."
"Eh? What? A Peer!"
"I am Lord Silverdale."
"No, indeed! Lord Silverdale!"
"Lord Silverdale!" echoed the aeronaut, letting two sand-bags fall into
the clouds. Most people lose their ballast in the presence of the
aristocracy.
"Oh, I am so glad! I have long been anxious to meet your lordship," said
the _Moon_-man, taking out his notebook. "What is your lordship's
opinion of the best fifty books for the working man's library?"
"I have not yet written fifty books."
"Ah!" said the _Moon_-man, carefully noting down the reply. "And when is
your lordship's next book coming out?"
"I cannot say."
"Thank you," said the _Moon_-man, writing it down. "Will it be poetry or
prose?"
"That is as the critics shall decide."
"Is it true that your lordship has been converted to Catholicism?"
"I believe not."
"Then how does your lordship account for the rumor?"
"I have an indirect connection with a sort of new nunnery, which it is
proposed to found--the Old Maids' Club."
"Oh, yes, the one that Clorinda Bell is going to join."
"Nonsense! who told you she was going to join?"
The _Moon_-man winced perceptibly at the question, as he replied
indignantly: "Herself!"
"Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. You may contradict it on the
authority of the president. She only said so to get an advertisement."
"Then why give her two by contradicting it?"
"That is the woman's cleverness. Let her have the advertisement, rather
than that her name should be connected with Miss Dulcimer's."
"Very well. Tell me something, please, about the Club."
"It is not organized yet. It is to consist of young and beautiful women,
vowed to celibacy to remove the reproach of the term 'Old Maid.'"
"It is a noble idea!" said the _Moon_-man, enthusiastically. "Oh, what a
humanitarian time we are having!"
"Lord Silverdale," said Herr Nickeldorf, who had been listening with all
his ears, "I hafe to you give de hospitality of my balloon. Vill you, in
return, take _mein frau_ into de Old Maids' Club?"
"As a visitor? With pleasure, as she is a married woman."
"_Nein, nein._ I mean as an old maid. _Ich habe sic nicht nöthig._ I do
not require her any longer."
"Ah, then, I am afraid we can't. You see she _isn't_ an old maid!"
"But she haf been."
"Ah, yes, but we do not recognize past services."
"Oh, _warum_ wasn't the Club founded before I married?" groaned the old
German. "_Himmel_, vat a terrible mistake! It is to her I owe it that I
am de most celebrated aeronaut in _der ganzeu welt_. It is the only
profession in wich I escape her _gewiss_. She haf de _kopf_ too veak to
rise mit me. Ah, when I come oop here, it is _Himmel_."
"Rather taking an unfair rise out of your partner, isn't it?" queried
the _Moon_-man with a sickly smile.
"And vat vould you haf done in--_was sagt man_--in my shoes?"
The _Moon_-man winced.
"Not put them on."
"You are not yourself married?"
The _Moon_-man winced.
"No, I'm only engaged."
"_Mein herr_," said the old German solemnly, "I haf nodings but drouble
from you. You make to me mein life von burden. But I cannot see you
going to de altar widout putting out de hand to safe you. It was stupid
to yourself engage at all--but, now dat you haf committed de mistake,
shtick to it!"
"How do you mean?"
"Keep yourself engaged. Do not change your gondition any more."
"What do you say, Lord Silverdale?" said the _Moon_-man, anxiously.
"I am hardly an authority. You see I have so rarely been married. It
depends on the character of your betrothed. Does she long to be of
service in the world?"
The _Moon_-man winced.
"Yes, that's why she fell in love with me. Thought a _Moon_-man must be
all noble sentiment like the _Moon_ itself!"
"She is, then, young," said Silverdale, musingly. "Is she also
beautiful?"
The _Moon_-man winced.
"Bewitching. Why does your lordship ask?"
"Because her services might be valuable as an Old Maid."
"Oh, if you could only get Diana to see it in that light!"
"You seem anxious to be rid of her."
"I do. I confess it. It has been growing on me for some time. You see
hers is a soul perpetually seeking more light. She is always asking
questions. This thirst for information would be made only more raging by
marriage. You know what Stevenson says:--'To marry is to domesticate the
Recording Angel.' At present my occupations keep me away from her--but
she answers my letters with as many queries as a 'Constant Reader.' She
wants to know all I say, do, or feel, and I never see her without having
to submit to a string of inquiries. It's like having to fill up a census
paper once a week. If I don't see her for a fortnight she wants to know
how I am the moment we meet. If this is so before marriage, what will it
be after, when her opportunities of buttonholing me will be necessarily
more frequent?"
"But I see nothing to complain of in that!" said Lord Silverdale.
"Tender solicitude for one's betrothed is the usual thing with those
really in love. You wouldn't like her to be indifferent to what you were
doing, saying, feeling?"
The _Moon_-man winced.
"No, that's just the dilemma of it, Lord Silverdale. I am afraid your
lordship does not catch my drift. You see, with another man, it wouldn't
matter; as your lordship says, he would be glad of it. But to me all
that sort of thing's 'shop.' And I hate 'shop.' It's hard enough to be
out interviewing all day, without being reminded of its when you get
home and want to put your slippers on the fender and your feet inside
them and be happy. No, if there's one thing in this world I can't put up
with, it's 'shop' after business hours. I want to forget that I get my
gold in exchange for notes of interrogation. I shudder to be reminded
that there are such things in the world as questions--I tremble if I
hear a person invert the subject and predicate of a sentence. I can
hardly bear to read poetry because the frequent inversions make the
lines look as if they were going to be inquisitive. Now you understand
why I was so discourteous to your lordship, and I trust that you will
pardon the curt expression of my hyper-sensitive feelings. Now, too, you
understand why I shrink from the prospect of marriage, to the brink of
which I once bounded so heedlessly. No, it is evident a life of solitude
must be my portion. If I am ever to steep my wearied spirit in
forgetfulness of my daily grind, if my nervous system is to be preserved
from premature break-down, I must have no one about me who has a right
of interrogation, and my housekeeper must prepare my meals without even
the preliminary 'Chop or Steak, sir?' My home-life must be restful,
peaceful, balsamic--it must exhale a papaverous aroma of categorical
proposition."
"But is there no way of getting a wife with a gift of categorical
conversation?"
"Please say, 'There is no way, etc.,' for unless you yourself speak
categorically, the sentences grate upon my ear. I can ask questions
myself, without experiencing the slightest inconvenience, but the moment
I am myself interrogated, every nerve in me quivers with torture. No, I
am afraid it is impossible to find a woman who will eschew the
interrogative form of proposition, and limit herself to the affirmative
and negative varieties; who will, for mere love of me, invariably place
the verb after the noun, and unalterably give the subject the precedence
over the predicate. Often and often, when my Diana, in all her dazzling
charms, looks up pleadingly into my face, I feel towards her as
Ahasuerus felt towards the suppliant Queen Esther, and I yearn to
stretch out my reporter's pencil towards her, and to say: 'Ask me what
you will--even if it be half my income--so long as you do not ask me a
question.'"
"But isn't there--I mean there is--such a thing obtainable as a dumb
wife?"
"Mutes are for funerals, and not for marriages. Besides, then, everybody
would be asking me why I married her. No, the more I think of it, the
more I see the futility of my dream of matrimonial felicity. Why, a
question lies at the very threshold of marriage--'Wilt thou have this
woman to be thy wedded wife?'--and to put up the banns is to loose upon
yourself an interviewer in a white-tie! No, leave me to my unhappy
destiny. I must dree my weird. And anything your lordship can do in the
way of enabling me to dree it by soliciting my Diana into the Old Maids'
Club, shall be received with the warmest thanksgiving and will allow me
to remain your lordship's most grateful and obedient servant, Daniel
Wilkins."
"Enough!" said Lord Silverdale, deeply moved, "I will send her a
circular. But do you really think you would be happy if you lost her?"
"If," said the _Moon_-man moodily. "It would require a great many 'ifs'
to make me happy. As I once wrote:
If cash were always present,
And business always paid;
If skies were always pleasant,
And pipes were never laid;
If toothache emigrated,
Dyspepsia disappeared,
And babies were cremated,
And boys and girls were speared;
If shirts were always creamy,
And buttons never broke;
If eyes were always beamy,
And all could see a joke;
If ladies never fumbled
At railway pigeon holes;
New villas never crumbled,
And lawyers boasted souls;
If beer was never swallowed,
And cooks were never drunk,
And trades were never followed,
And thoughts were never thunk;
If sorrow never troubled,
And pleasure never cloyed,
And animals were doubled,
And humans all destroyed;
_Then_--if there were no papers,
And more words rhymed with "giving"--
Existence would be capers,
And life be worth the living.
Your lordship might give me a poem in exchange," concluded the
_Moon_-man conceitedly. "An advance quote from your next volume, say."
"Very well," and the peer good-naturedly began to recite the first fytte
of an old English romance.
Ye white moon sailed o'er ye dark-blue vault,
And safely steered mid ye fleet of starres,
And threw down smiles to ye antient salt,
While Venus flyrtede with wynkynge Mars.
Along ye sea-washed slipperie slabbes
Ye whelkes were stretchynge their weary limbs,
While prior to going to bedde ye crabbes
Were softlie chaunting their evenynge hymnes."
At this point a sudden shock threw both bards off their feet, inverting
them in a manner most disagreeable to the _Moon_-man. While they were
dropping into poetry, the balloon had been dropping into a wood, and the
aeronaut had thrown his grapnel into the branches of a tree.
"What's the matter?" they cried.
"Change here for London!" said the Herr, phlegmatically, "unless you
want to go mit me to Calais. In five more minutes I shall be crossing de
Channel."
"No, no, put us down," said the _Moon_-man. "I never _could_ cross the
Channel. Oh, when are they going to make that tunnel?" Thereupon he
lowered himself into the tree, and Lord Silverdale followed his example.
[Illustration: _Coming Down from the Clouds._]
"_Guten nacht!_" said the Herr. "Folkestone should be someveres about.
Fordunately, de moon is out, and you may be able to find it!"
"I say!" shrieked the _Moon_-man, as the balloon began to free itself on
its upward flight, "How far off is it?"
"I vill not be--_was heist es?_--interviewed. _Guten nacht._"
Soon the great sphere was no bigger than a star in the heavens.
"This is a nice go," said the _Moon_-man, when they had climbed down.
"Oh, don't trouble. I know the Southeast coast well. There is sure to be
a town within a four mile radius."
"Then let us take a hansom," said the _Moon_-man.
"Wilkins, are you--I mean you are--losing your head," said Lord
Silverdale. And linking the interviewer's arm in his, he fared forth
into the darkness.
"Do you know what I thought," said Wilkins, as they undressed in the
lonely roadside inn (for ballooning makes us acquainted with strange
bedfellows), "when I was sliding down the trunk with you on the branches
above?"
"No--what did you--I mean you did think what?"
"Well, I'm a bit superstitious, and I saw in the situation a forecast of
my future. That tree typifies my genealogical tree, for when I have
grown rich and prosperous by my trade, there will be a peer perched
somewhere on the upper branches. Debrett will discover him."
"Indeed I hope so," said the peer fervently, "for in the happy time when
you shall have retired from business you will be able to make Diana
happy."