THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES
Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as
Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively
with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into
some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours
take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings.
Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of
house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of
repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen
face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with
which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive
amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never
seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some
question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which
I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular
favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling
from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that
always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying
slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest
to his life for days.
Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves,
with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own
private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was
a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very
mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of
great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately
with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him
important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of
themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over
some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins
seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he
would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to
clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a
plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud
master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind,
carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot.
Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and
wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he
mattered all that?
These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and
as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were
unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so
desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One
day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb.
It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in
literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he
exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in
that office.
Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove
very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to
pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those
missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the
firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr.
Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate
wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he
began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity.
Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will
force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little
humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By
degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures
about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise;
that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before
them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case
with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they
still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests,
and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed
in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and
prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and
unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born
pleasures of the glass and the pipe.
As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the
characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that
there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and
that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company.
They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found
himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many
secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days.
Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked
as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its
iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of
pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew
accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were
able skilfully to avail yourself.
The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on
each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such
private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at
both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious
occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it,
would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of
five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader
calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was;
but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right
of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage,
where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic
conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise
too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity
where they could.
Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a
question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of
twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in
the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink
too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that
old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale
to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly
consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish
of the escape.
By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a
certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his
business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome
sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there
seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic
influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring
clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the
penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some
mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate
upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after
such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress
of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest
compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your
son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so
idle that he is demoralising the whole office."
It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had
been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it
at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying
"humanise."