THE EPISODE OF THE LIVE WEEKLY
Fourth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial
Review_, August 1916]
It was with a start that Roland Bleke realized that the girl at the
other end of the bench was crying. For the last few minutes, as far
as his preoccupation allowed him to notice them at all, he had been
attributing the subdued sniffs to a summer cold, having just recovered
from one himself.
He was embarrassed. He blamed the fate that had led him to this
particular bench, but he wished to give himself up to quiet deliberation
on the question of what on earth he was to do with two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds, to which figure his fortune had now risen.
The sniffs continued. Roland's discomfort increased. Chivalry had always
been his weakness. In the old days, on a hundred and forty pounds
a year, he had had few opportunities of indulging himself in this
direction; but now it seemed to him sometimes that the whole world was
crying out for assistance.
Should he speak to her? He wanted to; but only a few days ago his eyes
had been caught by the placard of a weekly paper bearing the title of
'Squibs,' on which in large letters was the legend “Men Who Speak
to Girls,” and he had gathered that the accompanying article was a
denunciation rather than a eulogy of these individuals. On the other
hand, she was obviously in distress.
Another sniff decided him.
“I say, you know,” he said.
The girl looked at him. She was small, and at the present moment had
that air of the floweret surprized while shrinking, which adds a good
thirty-three per cent. to a girl's attractions. Her nose, he noted, was
delicately tip-tilted. A certain pallor added to her beauty. Roland's
heart executed the opening steps of a buck-and-wing dance.
“Pardon me,” he went on, “but you appear to be in trouble. Is there
anything I can do for you?”
She looked at him again--a keen look which seemed to get into Roland's
soul and walk about it with a searchlight. Then, as if satisfied by the
inspection, she spoke.
“No, I don't think there is,” she said. “Unless you happen to be the
proprietor of a weekly paper with a Woman's Page, and need an editress
for it.”
“I don't understand.”
“Well, that's all any one could do for me--give me back my work or give
me something else of the same sort.”
“Oh, have you lost your job?”
“I have. So would you mind going away, because I want to go on crying,
and I do it better alone. You won't mind my turning you out, I hope, but
I was here first, and there are heaps of other benches.”
“No, but wait a minute. I want to hear about this. I might be able--what
I mean is--think of something. Tell me all about it.”
There is no doubt that the possession of two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds tones down a diffident man's diffidence. Roland began to feel
almost masterful.
“Why should I?”
“Why shouldn't you?”
“There's something in that,” said the girl reflectively. “After all,
you might know somebody. Well, as you want to know, I have just been
discharged from a paper called 'Squibs.' I used to edit the Woman's
Page.”
“By Jove, did you write that article on 'Men Who Speak----'?”
The hard manner in which she had wrapped herself as in a garment
vanished instantly. Her eyes softened. She even blushed. Just a becoming
pink, you know!
“You don't mean to say you read it? I didn't think that any one ever
really read 'Squibs.'”
“Read it!” cried Roland, recklessly abandoning truth. “I should jolly
well think so. I know it by heart. Do you mean to say that, after
an article like that, they actually sacked you? Threw you out as a
failure?”
“Oh, they didn't send me away for incompetence. It was simply because
they couldn't afford to keep me on. Mr. Petheram was very nice about
it.”
“Who's Mr. Petheram?”
“Mr. Petheram's everything. He calls himself the editor, but he's really
everything except office-boy, and I expect he'll be that next week.
When I started with the paper, there was quite a large staff. But it got
whittled down by degrees till there was only Mr. Petheram and myself. It
was like the crew of the 'Nancy Bell.' They got eaten one by one, till
I was the only one left. And now I've gone. Mr. Petheram is doing the
whole paper now.”
“How is it that he can't get anything better to do?” Roland said.
“He has done lots of better things. He used to be at Carmelite House,
but they thought he was too old.”
Roland felt relieved. He conjured up a picture of a white-haired elder
with a fatherly manner.
“Oh, he's old, is he?”
“Twenty-four.”
There was a brief silence. Something in the girl's expression stung
Roland. She wore a rapt look, as if she were dreaming of the absent
Petheram, confound him. He would show her that Petheram was not the only
man worth looking rapt about.
He rose.
“Would you mind giving me your address?” he said.
“Why?”
“In order,” said Roland carefully, “that I may offer you your former
employment on 'Squibs.' I am going to buy it.”
After all, your man of dash and enterprise, your Napoleon, does have
his moments. Without looking at her, he perceived that he had bowled
her over completely. Something told him that she was staring at him,
open-mouthed. Meanwhile, a voice within him was muttering anxiously, “I
wonder how much this is going to cost.”
“You're going to buy 'Squibs!'”
Her voice had fallen away to an awestruck whisper.
“I am.”
She gulped.
“Well, I think you're wonderful.”
So did Roland.
“Where will a letter find you?” he asked.
“My name is March. Bessie March. I'm living at twenty-seven Guildford
Street.”
“Twenty-seven. Thank you. Good morning. I will communicate with you in
due course.”
He raised his hat and walked away. He had only gone a few steps, when
there was a patter of feet behind him. He turned.
“I--I just wanted to thank you,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Roland. “Not at all.”
He went on his way, tingling with just triumph. Petheram? Who was
Petheram? Who, in the name of goodness, was Petheram? He had put
Petheram in his proper place, he rather fancied. Petheram, forsooth.
Laughable.
A copy of the current number of 'Squibs,' purchased at a book-stall,
informed him, after a minute search to find the editorial page, that the
offices of the paper were in Fetter Lane. It was evidence of his exalted
state of mind that he proceeded thither in a cab.
Fetter Lane is one of those streets in which rooms that have only just
escaped being cupboards by a few feet achieve the dignity of offices.
There might have been space to swing a cat in the editorial sanctum of
'Squibs,' but it would have been a near thing. As for the outer office,
in which a vacant-faced lad of fifteen received Roland and instructed
him to wait while he took his card in to Mr. Petheram, it was a mere
box. Roland was afraid to expand his chest for fear of bruising it.
The boy returned to say that Mr. Petheram would see him.
Mr. Petheram was a young man with a mop of hair, and an air of almost
painful restraint. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the table before
him was heaped high with papers. Opposite him, evidently in the act of
taking his leave was a comfortable-looking man of middle age with a
red face and a short beard. He left as Roland entered and Roland was
surprized to see Mr. Petheram spring to his feet, shake his fist at
the closing door, and kick the wall with a vehemence which brought down
several inches of discolored plaster.
“Take a seat,” he said, when he had finished this performance. “What can
I do for you?”
Roland had always imagined that editors in their private offices were
less easily approached and, when approached, more brusk. The fact was
that Mr. Petheram, whose optimism nothing could quench, had mistaken him
for a prospective advertiser.
“I want to buy the paper,” said Roland. He was aware that this was an
abrupt way of approaching the subject, but, after all, he did want to
buy the paper, so why not say so?
Mr. Petheram fizzed in his chair. He glowed with excitement.
“Do you mean to tell me there's a single book-stall in London which has
sold out? Great Scott, perhaps they've all sold out! How many did you
try?”
“I mean buy the whole paper. Become proprietor, you know.”
Roland felt that he was blushing, and hated himself for it. He ought to
be carrying this thing through with an air. Mr. Petheram looked at him
blankly.
“Why?” he asked.
“Oh, I don't know,” said Roland. He felt the interview was going all
wrong. It lacked a stateliness which this kind of interview should have
had.
“Honestly?” said Mr. Petheram. “You aren't pulling my leg?”
Roland nodded. Mr. Petheram appeared to struggle with his conscience,
and finally to be worsted by it, for his next remarks were limpidly
honest.
“Don't you be an ass,” he said. “You don't know what you're letting
yourself in for. Did you see that blighter who went out just now? Do you
know who he is? That's the fellow we've got to pay five pounds a week to
for life.”
“Why?”
“We can't get rid of him. When the paper started, the proprietors--not
the present ones--thought it would give the thing a boom if they had
a football competition with a first prize of a fiver a week for life.
Well, that's the man who won it. He's been handed down as a legacy from
proprietor to proprietor, till now we've got him. Ages ago they tried
to get him to compromise for a lump sum down, but he wouldn't. Said he
would only spend it, and preferred to get it by the week. Well, by the
time we've paid that vampire, there isn't much left out of our profits.
That's why we are at the present moment a little understaffed.”
A frown clouded Mr. Petheram's brow. Roland wondered if he was thinking
of Bessie March.
“I know all about that,” he said.
“And you still want to buy the thing?”
“Yes.”
“But what on earth for? Mind you, I ought not to be crabbing my own
paper like this, but you seem a good chap, and I don't want to see you
landed. Why are you doing it?”
“Oh, just for fun.”
“Ah, now you're talking. If you can afford expensive amusements, go
ahead.”
He put his feet on the table, and lit a short pipe. His gloomy views on
the subject of 'Squibs' gave way to a wave of optimism.
“You know,” he said, “there's really a lot of life in the old rag yet.
If it were properly run. What has hampered us has been lack of capital.
We haven't been able to advertise. I'm bursting with ideas for booming
the paper, only naturally you can't do it for nothing. As for editing,
what I don't know about editing--but perhaps you had got somebody else
in your mind?”
“No, no,” said Roland, who would not have known an editor from an
office-boy. The thought of interviewing prospective editors appalled
him.
“Very well, then,” resumed Mr. Petheram, reassured, kicking over a heap
of papers to give more room for his feet. “Take it that I continue as
editor. We can discuss terms later. Under the present regime I have been
doing all the work in exchange for a happy home. I suppose you won't
want to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar? In other words, you would
sooner have a happy, well-fed editor running about the place than a
broken-down wreck who might swoon from starvation?”
“But one moment,” said Roland. “Are you sure that the present
proprietors will want to sell?”
“Want to sell,” cried Mr. Petheram enthusiastically. “Why, if they know
you want to buy, you've as much chance of getting away from them without
the paper as--as--well, I can't think of anything that has such a poor
chance of anything. If you aren't quick on your feet, they'll cry on
your shoulder. Come along, and we'll round them up now.”
He struggled into his coat, and gave his hair an impatient brush with a
note-book.
“There's just one other thing,” said Roland. “I have been a regular
reader of 'Squibs' for some time, and I particularly admire the way in
which the Woman's Page----”
“You mean you want to reengage the editress? Rather. You couldn't do
better. I was going to suggest it myself. Now, come along quick before
you change your mind or wake up.”
Within a very few days of becoming sole proprietor of 'Squibs,' Roland
began to feel much as a man might who, a novice at the art of steering
cars, should find himself at the wheel of a runaway motor. Young Mr.
Petheram had spoken nothing less than the truth when he had said that
he was full of ideas for booming the paper. The infusion of capital into
the business acted on him like a powerful stimulant. He exuded ideas at
every pore.
Roland's first notion had been to engage a staff of contributors. He was
under the impression that contributors were the life-blood of a weekly
journal. Mr. Petheram corrected this view. He consented to the purchase
of a lurid serial story, but that was the last concession he made.
Nobody could accuse Mr. Petheram of lack of energy. He was willing, even
anxious, to write the whole paper himself, with the exception of the
Woman's Page, now brightly conducted once more by Miss March. What he
wanted Roland to concentrate himself upon was the supplying of capital
for ingenious advertising schemes.
“How would it be,” he asked one morning--he always began his remarks
with, “How would it be?”--“if we paid a man to walk down Piccadilly in
white skin-tights with the word 'Squibs' painted in red letters across
his chest?”
Roland thought it would certainly not be.
“Good sound advertising stunt,” urged Mr. Petheram. “You don't like it?
All right. You're the boss. Well, how would it be to have a squad of
men dressed as Zulus with white shields bearing the legend 'Squibs?' See
what I mean? Have them sprinting along the Strand shouting, 'Wah! Wah!
Wah! Buy it! Buy it!' It would make people talk.”
Roland emerged from these interviews with his skin crawling with modest
apprehension. His was a retiring nature, and the thought of Zulus
sprinting down the Strand shouting “Wah! Wah! Wah! Buy it! Buy it!” with
reference to his personal property appalled him.
He was beginning now heartily to regret having bought the paper, as
he generally regretted every definite step which he took. The glow of
romance which had sustained him during the preliminary negotiations had
faded entirely. A girl has to be possessed of unusual charm to continue
to captivate B, when she makes it plain daily that her heart is the
exclusive property of A; and Roland had long since ceased to cherish any
delusion that Bessie March was ever likely to feel anything but a
mild liking for him. Young Mr. Petheram had obviously staked out an
indisputable claim. Her attitude toward him was that of an affectionate
devotee toward a high priest. One morning, entering the office
unexpectedly, Roland found her kissing the top of Mr. Petheram's head;
and from that moment his interest in the fortunes of 'Squibs' sank to
zero. It amazed him that he could ever have been idiot enough to have
allowed himself to be entangled in this insane venture for the sake
of an insignificant-looking bit of a girl with a snub-nose and a poor
complexion.
What particularly galled him was the fact that he was throwing away good
cash for nothing. It was true that his capital was more than equal to
the, on the whole, modest demands of the paper, but that did not alter
the fact that he was wasting money. Mr. Petheram always talked buoyantly
about turning the corner, but the corner always seemed just as far off.
The old idea of flight, to which he invariably had recourse in any
crisis, came upon Roland with irresistible force. He packed a bag, and
went to Paris. There, in the discomforts of life in a foreign country,
he contrived for a month to forget his white elephant.
He returned by the evening train which deposits the traveler in London
in time for dinner.
Strangely enough, nothing was farther from Roland's mind than his
bright weekly paper, as he sat down to dine in a crowded grill-room near
Piccadilly Circus. Four weeks of acute torment in a city where nobody
seemed to understand the simplest English sentence had driven 'Squibs'
completely from his mind for the time being.
The fact that such a paper existed was brought home to him with the
coffee. A note was placed upon his table by the attentive waiter.
“What's this?” he asked.
“The lady, sare,” said the waiter vaguely.
Roland looked round the room excitedly. The spirit of romance gripped
him. There were many ladies present, for this particular restaurant
was a favorite with artistes who were permitted to “look in” at their
theaters as late as eight-thirty. None of them looked particularly
self-conscious, yet one of them had sent him this quite unsolicited
tribute. He tore open the envelope.
The message, written in a flowing feminine hand, was brief, and Mrs.
Grundy herself could have taken no exception to it.
“'Squibs,' one penny weekly, buy it,” it ran. All the mellowing effects
of a good dinner passed away from Roland. He was feverishly irritated.
He paid his bill and left the place.
A visit to a neighboring music-hall occurred to him as a suitable
sedative. Hardly had his nerves ceased to quiver sufficiently to allow
him to begin to enjoy the performance, when, in the interval between two
of the turns, a man rose in one of the side boxes.
“Is there a doctor in the house?”
There was a hush in the audience. All eyes were directed toward the box.
A man in the stalls rose, blushing, and cleared his throat.
“My wife has fainted,” continued the speaker. “She has just discovered
that she has lost her copy of 'Squibs.'”
The audience received the statement with the bovine stolidity of an
English audience in the presence of the unusual.
Not so Roland. Even as the purposeful-looking chuckers-out wended their
leopard-like steps toward the box, he was rushing out into the street.
As he stood cooling his indignation in the pleasant breeze which had
sprung up, he was aware of a dense crowd proceeding toward him. It was
headed by an individual who shone out against the drab background like a
good deed in a naughty world. Nature hath framed strange fellows in her
time, and this was one of the strangest that Roland's bulging eyes had
ever rested upon. He was a large, stout man, comfortably clad in a suit
of white linen, relieved by a scarlet 'Squibs' across the bosom. His
top-hat, at least four sizes larger than any top-hat worn out of a
pantomime, flaunted the same word in letters of flame. His umbrella,
which, tho the weather was fine, he carried open above his head, bore
the device “One penny weekly”.
The arrest of this person by a vigilant policeman and Roland's dive into
a taxicab occurred simultaneously. Roland was blushing all over. His
head was in a whirl. He took the evening paper handed in through
the window of the cab quite mechanically, and it was only the strong
exhortations of the vendor which eventually induced him to pay for it.
This he did with a sovereign, and the cab drove off.
He was just thinking of going to bed several hours later, when it
occurred to him that he had not read his paper. He glanced at the
first page. The middle column was devoted to a really capitally written
account of the proceedings at Bow Street consequent upon the arrest
of six men who, it was alleged, had caused a crowd to collect to the
disturbance of the peace by parading the Strand in the undress of Zulu
warriors, shouting in unison the words “Wah! Wah! Wah! Buy 'Squibs.'”
* * * * *
Young Mr. Petheram greeted Roland with a joyous enthusiasm which the
hound Argus, on the return of Ulysses, might have equalled but could
scarcely have surpassed.
It seemed to be Mr. Petheram's considered opinion that God was in His
Heaven and all was right with the world. Roland's attempts to correct
this belief fell on deaf ears.
“Have I seen the advertisements?” he cried, echoing his editor's first
question. “I've seen nothing else.”
“There!” said Mr. Petheram proudly.
“It can't go on.”
“Yes, it can. Don't you worry. I know they're arrested as fast as we
send them out, but, bless you, the supply's endless. Ever since the
Revue boom started and actors were expected to do six different parts in
seven minutes, there are platoons of music-hall 'pros' hanging about
the Strand, ready to take on any sort of job you offer them. I have a
special staff flushing the Bodegas. These fellows love it. It's meat and
drink to them to be right in the public eye like that. Makes them feel
ten years younger. It's wonderful the talent knocking about. Those
Zulus used to have a steady job as the Six Brothers Biff, Society
Contortionists. The Revue craze killed them professionally. They cried
like children when we took them on.
“By the way, could you put through an expenses cheque before you go?
The fines mount up a bit. But don't you worry about that either. We're
coining money. I'll show you the returns in a minute. I told you we
should turn the corner. Turned it! Blame me, we've whizzed round it on
two wheels. Have you had time to see the paper since you got back? No?
Then you haven't seen our new Scandal Page--'We Just Want to Know, You
Know.' It's a corker, and it's sent the circulation up like a rocket.
Everybody reads 'Squibs' now. I was hoping you would come back soon. I
wanted to ask you about taking new offices. We're a bit above this sort
of thing now.”
Roland, meanwhile, was reading with horrified eyes the alleged corking
Scandal Page. It seemed to him without exception the most frightful
production he had ever seen. It appalled him.
“This is awful,” he moaned. “We shall have a hundred libel actions.”
“Oh, no, that's all right. It's all fake stuff, tho the public doesn't
know it. If you stuck to real scandals you wouldn't get a par. a week.
A more moral set of blameless wasters than the blighters who constitute
modern society you never struck. But it reads all right, doesn't it? Of
course, every now and then one does hear something genuine, and then it
goes in. For instance, have you ever heard of Percy Pook, the bookie? I
have got a real ripe thing in about Percy this week, the absolute limpid
truth. It will make him sit up a bit. There, just under your thumb.”
Roland removed his thumb, and, having read the paragraph in question,
started as if he had removed it from a snake.
“But this is bound to mean a libel action!” he cried.
“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Petheram comfortably. “You don't know Percy.
I won't bore you with his life-history, but take it from me he doesn't
rush into a court of law from sheer love of it. You're safe enough.”
* * * * *
But it appeared that Mr. Pook, tho coy in the matter of cleansing his
scutcheon before a judge and jury, was not wholly without weapons of
defense and offense. Arriving at the office next day, Roland found a
scene of desolation, in the middle of which, like Marius among the ruins
of Carthage, sat Jimmy, the vacant-faced office boy. Jimmy was
reading an illustrated comic paper, and appeared undisturbed by his
surroundings.
“He's gorn,” he observed, looking up as Roland entered.
“What do you mean?” Roland snapped at him. “Who's gone and where did he
go? And besides that, when you speak to your superiors you will rise and
stop chewing that infernal gum. It gets on my nerves.”
Jimmy neither rose nor relinquished his gum. He took his time and
answered.
“Mr. Petheram. A couple of fellers come in and went through, and there
was a uproar inside there, and presently out they come running, and I
went in, and there was Mr. Petheram on the floor knocked silly and the
furniture all broke, and now 'e's gorn to 'orspital. Those fellers 'ad
been putting 'im froo it proper,” concluded Jimmy with moody relish.
Roland sat down weakly. Jimmy, his tale told, resumed the study of his
illustrated paper. Silence reigned in the offices of 'Squibs.'
It was broken by the arrival of Miss March. Her exclamation of
astonishment at the sight of the wrecked room led to a repetition of
Jimmy's story.
She vanished on hearing the name of the hospital to which the stricken
editor had been removed, and returned an hour later with flashing eyes
and a set jaw.
“Aubrey,” she said--it was news to Roland that Mr. Petheram's name was
Aubrey--“is very much knocked about, but he is conscious and sitting up
and taking nourishment.”
“That's good.”
“In a spoon only.”
“Ah!” said Roland.