Taggart sat up. The scoop under the ranger’s fence, cannily selected
for his sleeping place, was overhung by branches, and the birds of Hyde
Park were at matins already. His watch had gone the way of his other
belongings during the last three months, and he could only assume from
the meagre light that it was but little after dawn. He was not grateful
to the birds; he would be hungry long before a breakfast coming from he
hardly knew where. But he listened to them with interest. This was the
first night he had passed in the open, and, like all amateurs, he felt
a kind of triumph at having achieved vagrancy in spite of the law, the
ranger, and the dew. He was a Northumbrian, too, and his ‘tail still
up,’ as he expressed it. Born in a town, Taggart had not much country
lore--at sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, his knowledge stopped; but he
enjoyed the bobbery the little beggars were kicking up, and, though a
trifle stiff perhaps, he felt ‘fine.’
He lit his pipe, and almost at once his brain began to revolve the
daily problem of how to get a job, and of why he had lost the one he
had.
Walking, three months ago, burly, upright, secure and jolly, into the
room of his chief at the offices of ‘Conglomerated Journals, Ltd.,’ he
had been greeted with:
“Morning, Taggart. Georgie Grebe is to give us an article for the
_Lighthouse_. He won’t be able to write it, of course. Just do me a
column he could sign--something Grebeish. I want a feature of that sort
every week now in the _Lighthouse_; got half a dozen really good names.
We simply must get it on its legs with the big Public.”
Taggart smiled. Georgie Grebe! The name was a household word--tophole
idea to get him!
“Did he ever write a line in his life, sir?”
“Don’t suppose so--but you know the sort of thing he _would_ write;
he gets nothing for it but the Ad. The week after I’ve got Sir Cutman
Kane--you’ll want to be a bit careful there; but you can get his manner
from that book of his on murder trials. He hasn’t got a minute--must
have it devilled; but he’ll sign anything decently done. I’m going to
_make_ ’em buy the _Lighthouse_, Taggart. Get on to the Grebe article
at once, will you.”
Taggart nodded, and, drawing from his pocket some typewritten sheets
of paper, laid them on the bureau.
“Here’s your signed leader, sir; I’ve gingered it a bit too much,
perhaps.”
“Haven’t time to look at it; got to catch a train.”
“Shall I tone it down a little?”
“Better perhaps; use your judgment. Sit here, and do it now. Good-bye;
back on Friday.”
Reaching for his soft hat, assisted into his coat by Taggart, the chief
was gone.
Taggart sat down to pencil the signed leader.
‘Good leader,’ he thought; ‘pity nobody knows I write ’em!’
This devilling was quite an art, and, not unlike art, poorly enough
paid. Still, not bad fun feeling you were the pea and the chief only
the shell--the chief, with his great name and controlling influence. He
finished pencilling, O.K.’d the sheets, thought, ‘Georgie Grebe! what
the deuce shall I write about?’ and went back to his room.
It was not much of a room, and there was not much in it except Jimmy
Counter, smoking a pipe and writing furiously.
Taggart sat down too, lit his own pipe, took a sheet of paper and
scrawled the words ‘Georgie Grebe Article’ across the top.
Georgie Grebe! It _was_ a scoop! The chief had a wonderful flair
for just the names that got the Public. There was something rather
beautifully simple about writing an article for a man who had never
written a line--something virginal in the conception. And when you
came to think of it, something virginal in the Public’s buying of the
article to read the thoughts of their idol, Georgie Grebe. Yes, and
what were their idol’s thoughts? If he, Taggart, didn’t know, nobody
would, not even the idol! Taggart smiled, then felt a little nervous.
Georgie Grebe--celebrated clown--probably he hadn’t any thoughts!
Really, there was something very trustful about the Public! He dipped
his pen in ink and sat staring at the nib. Trustful! The word had
disturbed the transparency of his mental process, as a crystal of
peroxide will disturb and colour a basinful of water. Trustful! The
Public would pay their pennies to read what they thought were the
thoughts of Georgie Grebe. But----! Taggart bit into the pipe stem.
Steady! He was getting on too fast. Of course Georgie Grebe had
thoughts if he signed them--hadn’t he? His name would be reproduced in
autograph, with the indispensable portrait. People would see by his
features that he must have had them. Was the Public so very trustful
then? The evidence was there all right. Fraudulent? This was just
devilling, there was nothing fraudulent about ‘devilling’--everybody
did it. You might as well say those signed leaders written for the
chief were fraudulent. Of course they weren’t--only devilled! The
Public paid for the thoughts of the chief, and there they were since he
signed them. Devilled thoughts! And yet! Would the public pay if those
leaders were signed A. P. Taggart? The thoughts would be the same--and
very good. They ought to pay--but--would they? He struck another match,
and wrote:
“I am no writer, ladies and gentlemen. I am--believe me--a simple
clown. In balancing this new pole upon my nose I am conscious of a
certain sense of fraud----”
He crossed out the paragraph. That word again--must keep it from
buzzing senselessly round his brain like this! He was only devilling;
hold on to ‘devilling’; it was his living to devil--more or less--just
earning his living--getting nothing out of it! Neither was Georgie
Grebe--only the Ad.! Then who was getting something out of it?
‘Conglomerated Journals’! Out of Georgie Grebe’s name; out of the
chief’s name below the devilled leaders--a pretty penny! Well, what
harm in making the most of a big name? Taggart frowned. Suppose a man
went into a shop and bought a box of pills, marked ‘Holloway,’ made
up from a recipe of ‘Tompkins’--did it matter that the man thought
they were Holloway’s, if they were just as good pills, perhaps better?
Taggart laid down his pen and took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Gosh!’
he thought, ‘never looked at it this way before! I believe it does
matter. A man ought to get the exact article he pays for. If not, any
fraud is possible. New Zealand mutton can be sold as English. Jaeger
stuffs can have cotton in them. This Grebe article’s a fraud.’ He relit
his pipe. With the first puff his English hatred of a moral attitude
or ‘swank’ of any sort beset him. Who was he to take stand against
a custom? Didn’t secretaries write the speeches of Parliamentary
‘big-bugs’? Weren’t the opinions of eminent lawyers often written by
their juniors, read over and signed? Weren’t briefs and pleadings
devilled? Yes; but all that was different. In such cases the Public
weren’t paying for expression, they were paying for knowledge; the big
lawyer put his imprimatur on the knowledge, not on the expression of
it; the Cabinet Minister endorsed his views, whether he had written
them out or not, and it was his views the Public paid for, not the
expression of them. But in this Grebe article the Public would not be
paying for any knowledge it contained, nor for any serious views; it
would pay for a peep into the mind of their idol. ‘And his mind will be
mine!’ thought Taggart; ‘but who’d pay a penny to peep into that?’ He
got up, and sat down again.
With a Public so gullible--what did it matter? They lapped up anything
and asked for more. Yes! But weren’t the gullible the very people who
oughtn’t to be gulled? He rose again, and toured the dishevelled room.
The man at the other table raised his head.
“You seem a bit on your toes.”
Taggart stared down at him.
“I’ve got to write some drivel in the _Lighthouse_ for Georgie Grebe to
sign. It’s just struck me that it’s a fraud on the Public. What do you
say, Jimmy?”
“In a way. What about it?”
“If it is, I don’t want to do it--that’s all.”
His colleague whistled.
“My dear chap, here am I writing a racing article ‘From the Man in the
Paddock’--I haven’t been on a racecourse for years.”
“Oh! well--that’s venial.”
“All’s venial in our game. Shut your eyes, and swallow. You’re only
devilling.”
“Ga!” said Taggart. “Give a thing a decent label, and it is decent.”
“I say, old man, what did you have for breakfast?”
“Look here, Jimmy, I’m inclined to think I’ve struck a snag. It never
occurred to me before.”
“Well, don’t let it occur to you again. Think of old Dumas; I’ve heard
he put his name to sixty volumes in one year. Has that done him any
harm?”
Taggart rumpled his hair, reddish and rather stiff.
“Damn!” he said.
Counter laughed.
“You get a fixed screw for doing what you’re told. Why worry? Papers
must be sold. Georgie Grebe--that’s some stunt.”
“Blast Georgie Grebe!”
He took his hat and went out; a prolonged whistle followed him. All
next day he spent doing other jobs, trying to persuade himself that he
was a crank, and gingerly feeling the mouths of journalists. All he
got was: Fuss about nothing! What was the matter with devilling? With
life at such pressure, what else could you have? But with the best
intentions he could not persuade himself to go on with the thoughts
of Georgie Grebe. And he remembered suddenly that his father had
changed the dogmas of his religion at forty-five, and thereby lost a
cure of souls. He was very unhappy; it was like discovering that he had
inherited tuberculosis. On Friday he was sent for by the chief.
“Morning, Taggart; I’m just back. Look here, this leader for
to-morrow--it’s nothing but a string of statements. Where’s my style?”
Taggart shifted his considerable weight from foot to foot.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I thought perhaps you’d like to put that in
yourself, for a change. The facts are all right.”
The chief stared.
“My good fellow, do you suppose I’ve got time for that? Anybody could
have written this; I can’t sign it as it stands. Tone it up.”
Taggart took the article from the chief’s hand.
“I don’t know that I can,” he said; “I’m----” and stopped.
The chief said kindly:
“Ill?”
Taggart disclaimed.
“Private trouble?”
“No.”
“Well, get on with it, then. How’s the Grebe article turned out?”
“It hasn’t.”
“How do you mean?”
Taggart felt his body stiffening.
“Fact is, I can’t write it.”
“Good gracious, man, any drivel will do, so long as it’s got a flavour
of some sort to carry the name.”
Taggart swallowed.
“That’s it. Is it quite playing the game with the Public, sir?”
The chief seemed to loom larger suddenly.
“I don’t follow you, Taggart.”
Taggart blurted out: “I don’t want to write anyone else’s stuff in
future, unless it’s just news or facts.”
The chief’s face grew very red.
“I pay you to do certain work. If you don’t care to carry out
instructions, we can dispense with your services. What’s the matter
with you, Taggart?”
Taggart replied with a wry smile:
“Suffering from a fit of conscience, sir. Isn’t it a matter of
commercial honesty?”
The chief sat back in his swivel chair and gazed at him for quite
twenty seconds.
“Well,” he said at last in an icy voice, “I have never been so
insulted. Good-morning! You are at liberty.”
Taggart laid down the sheets of paper, walked stiffly to the door, and
turned.
“Awfully sorry, sir, can’t help it.”
The chief bowed distantly, and Taggart went out.
For three months he had enjoyed liberty. Journalism was overstocked;
his name not well known. Too shy and proud to ask for recommendation
from ‘Conglomerated Journals,’ he could never bring himself to explain
why he had ‘got the hoof.’ Claim a higher standard of morality than his
fellows--not he! For two months he had carried on pretty well, but the
last few weeks had brought him low indeed. Yet the more he brooded,
the more he felt that he had been right, and the less inclined he was
to speak of it. Loyalty to the chief he had insulted by taking such
an attitude, dislike of being thought a fool, beyond all, dread of
‘swanking’ kept him silent. When asked why he had left ‘Conglomerated
Journals’ he returned the answer always: “Disagreement on a point
of principle,” and refused to enter into details. But a feeling
had got about that he was a bit of a crank; for, though no one at
‘Conglomerated Journals’ knew exactly why he had vanished, Counter had
spread the news that he had blasted Georgie Grebe, and refused to write
his article. Someone else had done it. Taggart read the production with
irritation. It was jolly bad. Inefficient devilling still hurt one who
had devilled long and efficiently without a qualm. When the article
which had not been written by Sir Cutman Kane appeared--he swore aloud.
It was no more like the one Sir Cutman would have signed if Taggart had
written it than the boots of Taggart were like the boots of the chief,
who seemed to wear a fresh pair every day, with cloth tops. He read the
chief’s new leaders with melancholy, spotting the many deficiencies of
style supplied to the chief by the poor devil who now wrote them. His
square, red, cheerful face had a bitter look while he was reading; and
when he had finished, he would rumple his stiff hair. He was sturdy,
and never got so far as calling himself a fool for his pains; but, week
by week, he felt more certain that his protest had been in vain.
Sitting against the ranger’s palings, listening to the birds, he had a
dreamy feeling about it all. Queer creatures, human beings! So damned
uncritical! Had he not been like that himself for years and years? The
power of a label--that was what struck him, sitting there. Label a
thing decently, and it _was_ decent! Ah! but, ‘Rue by any other name
would smell as sour!’ Conscience!--it was the deuce!
1922.