George makes a point of refusing to be interviewed. He hates it, unless
it is for one of the best papers. Then he says that it is a sheer
kindness, and that a successful man has no right to refuse some poor
devil or other the chance of making an honest pound or two. So he
suffers him gladly. He even is good enough to work on the thing a little
in the proof: just to give the poor fellow a lift, and prevent him
making a fool of himself and getting his facts all wrong. In the end
George writes the whole thing entirely from beginning to end, and makes
the man a present of a complete magazine article, and a very fine one
too!
"I have been generous," he tells us. "I have offered myself up as a
burnt sacrifice. I have given myself all, without reservation. I have
nothing extenuated, everything set down in malice. I have owned to
strange sins that I never committed, to idiosyncrasies that took me all
my time to invent, and all to bump out an article by some one else. I
have been butchered to make a journalistic holiday!"
This is all very nice and self-sacrificing of George, but this
particular interview read very well when it came out, and made George
seem a very interesting sort of man with some quaint habits, not half so
funny as his real ones, though, and I think the interviewer might just
as well have given those.
So, when I got a chance of telling the truth, I did, meaning to act for
the best, and give Papa a good show and save him the trouble of telling
it all himself, but nobody gave me credit for my good intentions, and
kind heart.
In the first place, how dared I put myself forward and offer to see
George's visitors! But the young man asked for me--at least, when he was
told that George was out, he said might he see one of the young ladies?
Of course I don't suppose that would have occurred to him, only I was
leaning over the new aluminium bannisters, and caught his eye. Then an
idea seemed to come into his head. The look of disappointment that had
come over him when he was told that George was out changed to a little
happy perky look, as if he had just thought of something amusing. He
crooked his little finger at me as I slid down the bannister, and said
would I do? and would he come in? Kate is a cheeky girl, but even the
cook admits that Kate is not a patch upon me. Kate evidently didn't
think it quite right, but she slunk away into the back premises, and
left me to deal with the young man.
He handed me a card. I thought that very polite of him, and "_Mr.
Frederick Cook_," and Representative of _The Bittern_ down in the
corner, explained it all to me. We take in about a hundred rags, and
that's the name of one of them. It's called _The Bittern_ because it
booms people, so George says.
"I suppose you have come to interview my Father," I said. "I'm sorry,
but he is out. Did you have an appointment?"
"No, I didn't," said the young man right out.
I liked his nice bold way of speaking; he was the least shy young man I
ever met.
"I don't believe in appointments. The subject is conscious, primed,
braced up, ready with a series of cards, so to speak, which he wishes to
force on the patient public--a collection of least characteristic facts
which he would like dragged into prominence. It is as if a man should go
to the dentist with his mind made up as to the number of teeth that he
is to have pulled out, a decision which should always rest with any
dentist who respects himself."
He went running on like that, not a bit shy, or anything, and amused me
very much.
"But then the worst of that is, you've got no appointment with George,
and he is not here to have his teeth pulled out."
I really so far wasn't quite sure if he was an interviewer or a dentist,
but I kept calm.
"All the better, my dear young lady, that is if you are willing to aid
and abet me a little. Then we shall have a thundering good interview, I
can promise you. You see, in my theory of interviewing, the actual
collaboration of the patient--shall we call him?--is unnecessary.
Indeed, it is more in the nature of an impediment. My method, which of
course I have very few opportunities of practising, is to seek out his
nearest and dearest, those who have the privilege--or annoyance--of
seeing him at all hours, at all seasons, unawares. If a painter, 'tis
the wife of his brush that I would question; if an author, the partner
of his pen--do you take me?"
Yes, I "took" him, and as George had called me a cockatrice--a very
favourite term of abuse with him--only that morning, and remembering how
she swaggers about being George's Egeria, I said, "You'll have to go to
Lady Scilly for that!"
"Quite so!" he said very naturally. "Your distinguished parent dedicated
his last book to her, did he not? Did you approve, may I ask?"
"No," I said. "People should always dedicate all their works to their
wife, whether they love her or not, that's what I think!"
"Quite so," he said again. "I see we agree famously, and between us we
shall concoct a splendid interview. But now, if you would be so very
good, and happen to have a small portion of leisure at your
disposal----"
"I'll do what I can for you," I said, delighted at his nice polite way
of putting things. "I'll take you round the house, shall I? Have you a
Kodak with you? Would you like to take a snapshot at George's
typewriter?"
"Certainly, if she is pretty," said the silly man, and I explained that
Miss Mander was out, and that it was the machine I meant. He said one
machine was very like another, but that if he might see the study,
where so many beautiful thoughts had taken shape? He said it quite
gravely, but I felt he was laughing in his jacket all the time.
"We'll take it all _seriam_!" I said, not wishing him to have all the
fine words. "And we will begin at the beginning--I mean the atrium."
He had a little pocket-book in his hand, and he said, as I led the way
through the hall, "You won't mind my writing things down as they occur
to me?"
"Not at all!" I said. "If you will let me look at what you have written.
I see you have put a lot already."
He laughed and handed me his book, and I read--
"_Through dusky suites, lit by stained glass windows, whose dim
cloistral light, falling on lurid hangings and gorgeous masses of
Titianesque drapery, and antique ebon panelling, irresistibly suggest
the languorous mysteries of a mediæval palace...._ Do you think your
father will like this style?"
"You have made it rather stuffy--piled it on a good deal, the drapery
and hangings, I mean!" I said. "Now that I know the sort of thing you
write, I shan't want to read any more."
"I thought you wouldn't," he said, taking it back. "I'll read it to you.
'_Behind this arras might lurk Benvenuto and his dagger----_'"
"Not Ben's dagger, but Papa's bicycle."
"We'll leave it there and keep it out of the interview," he said. "It
would spoil the unity of the effect. '_On, on, through softly-carpeted
ante-rooms where the footstep softer falls, than petals of blown roses
on the grass...._'"
"I hate poetry!" I said. "And we mayn't walk on that part of the carpet
for fear of blurring the Magellanic clouds in the pattern. Do you know
anything about Magellanic clouds in carpets?"
"No, I confess I have never trod them before," he said, becoming all at
once respectful to me. I expect he lives in a garret, and has no carpet
at all, and I thought I would be good to him, and help him to bump out
his article, and not cram him, but tell him where things really came
from. So I drew his attention particularly to the aluminium eagle, and
the pinchbeck serpent George picked up in Wardour Street. I left out
George's famous yarn about the sack of our ancestral Palace in Turin in
the fifteenth century, when the Veros were finally disseminated or
dissipated, whichever it is. I don't believe it myself, but George
always accounts for his swarthy complexion by his Italian grandmother.
Aunt Gerty says it is all his grandmother, or in other words, all liver!
We went down-stairs into the study, which is the largest room in the
house.
"Your father has realized the wish of the Psalmist," said _The Bittern_
man. "_Set my feet in a large room!_"
"He likes to have room to spread himself," I said, "and to swing
cats--books in, I mean."
"So your father uses missiles in the fury of composition?"
"Sometimes; but oftenest he swears, and that saves the books. He mostly
swears. Look here!"
I had just found a piece of paper in Miss Mander's handwriting, and on
it was written, "Selections from the nervous vocabulary of Mr.
Vero-Taylor during the last hour."
_The Bittern_ man looked at them, and, "By Jove! these are corkers!" he
said. Then I thought perhaps I ought not to have let him see them. There
was Drayton, the ironmonger's bill lying about too, and I saw him raise
his eyebrows at the last item, "_To one chased brass handle for
coal-cellar door_."
"That's what I call being thorough!" said _The Bittern_ man. "I'm
thorough myself. See this interview when it is done!"
He was thorough. He looked at everything, and particularly asked to see
the pen George uses. "Or perhaps he uses a stylograph?" he asked.
"Mercy, no!" I screamed out. "He would have an indigestion! This is his
pen--at least, it is this week's pen. George is wasteful of pens; he
eats one a week."
"Very interesting!" said he. "Most authors have a fetish, but I never
heard of their eating their fetish before. This will make a nice fat
paragraph. Come on!"
You see what friends we had become! We went into the dining-room, and I
showed him the dresser, with all the blue china on, and the Turkey
carpet spread on it, instead of a white one--that was how they had it
in the Middle Ages. He sympathized with me about how uncomfortable
Mediæval was, and if it wasn't for the honour and glory of it, how much
we preferred Early Victoria, when the drawers draw, and the mirrors
reflect--there's not one looking-glass in the house that poor Ariadne
can see herself in when she's dressing to go out to a party--or chairs
that will bear sitting on. Why, there are four in one room that we are
forbidden to sit upon on pain of sudden death!
"Very hard lines!" said _The Bittern_ man. "I confess that this point of
view had not occurred to me. I shall give prominence to it in my
article. Art, like the car of some fanatical Juggernaut, crushing its
votaries----"
"Yes," I said. "Mother draped a flower-pot once, and sneaked Ariadne's
photograph into a plush frame. You should have heard George! 'To think
that any wife of his--' 'Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion!' And as
for Ariadne, he had rather see her dead at his feet than folded in blue
plush."
"Capital!" said _The Bittern_ man. "All good grist for the interview!
And now, will you show me the famous metal stairs of which I have heard
so much? There are no penalties attached to that, I trust?"
"Except that we are not allowed to go up them--Ariadne and me--without
taking our boots off first, for fear of scratching the polish. We have
to strip our feet in the housemaid's pantry, and carry them up in our
hands. That's rather a bore, you will admit!"
"And your father? Does he bow to his own decrees?"
"Oh, no!" I said. "Papa is the exception that proves the rule."
"Capital!" again remarked _The Bittern_ man. "I am getting to know all
about the great Mr. Vero-Taylor in the fierce light that beats upon the
domestic hearth! But, by the way," he said, with a little crooked look
at me, "it is usual--shall I say something about Mrs. Vero-Taylor?
People generally like an allusion--just a hint of feminine presence--say
the mistress of the house flitting about, tending her ferns, or what
not?"
"You must put her in the kitchen, then," I said, "tending her servants.
Would you like to see her?"
"I should not like to disturb her," he said politely. "Will you describe
her for me?"
"Oh, mother's nice and thin--a good figure--I should hate to have one of
those feather-beddy mothers, don't you know? But I don't really think
you need describe her. I don't think she cares about being in the
interview, thank you, but you may say that my sister Ariadne is
ravishingly beautiful, if you like?"
"And what about you, Miss----?" he asked, looking at me.
"Tempe Vero-Taylor," I said. "But whatever you do, don't put me in!
George would have a fit! He won't much like your mentioning Ariadne,
but I don't see why she shouldn't have a show, if I can give her one."
"Very well," he said. "Your ladyship shall be obeyed. Now I really think
I have got enough, unless----" I saw his eyes straying up-stairs.
"There's nothing much to see up those stairs, except George's bedroom,
and I daren't take you in there. It is quite commonplace, too; not like
the rest of the house, but very, _very_ comfortable."
"Oho! Your father reminds me of the man who plays Othello, and doesn't
trouble to black more than his face and arms," said _The Bittern_ man.
"And _your_ rooms?"
"Oh, our rooms are cupboards. Bowers, George calls them, and says we
have more room to keep our clothes in than the lady of a mediæval castle
would have. Now that's all, and----"
The truth was, I wanted him to go before George came home, for I thought
it might be awkward for me if I were found entertaining a newspaper man.
George might have preferred to do his own interview, who knows? This
reflection only just occurred to me, as all reflections do, too late.
_The Bittern_ man was very quick, however, and understood me. He thanked
me very much, far more than he need, for on reflection I did not see how
he was going to make an interview out of all the scrappy things I had
told him, and I said so. He assured me I need be under no uneasiness on
that score, that this particular interview would be unique of its kind,
and would gain him great credit with his editor, and increase the
circulation of the paper. If it had nothing else, he said, it would at
least have a _succès de scandale_, at least I think that is what he
said, for I don't understand French very well. While he was making all
those pretty speeches we stood in the hall, and I heard the little
grating noise in the lock that meant that George was fitting his key in,
and oh, how I just longed to run away! But I didn't. George opened the
door, and came in and shook off his big fur coat. Then he saw _The
Bittern_ man and came forward, and _The Bittern_ man came forward too,
with his funny little smile on his face that somehow reminds me of the
Pied Piper we used to read of when we were little.
"I came from _The Bittern_," he said, and George nodded, to show he knew
what for. "To ask you to grant me the favour of an interview----"
"I am sorry I happened to be out!" began George, and then I knew, by the
sound of his voice, that _The Bittern_ was a _good_ paper. "But if it is
not too late, I shall be happy----"
"No need, no need to trouble you now, my dear sir," the interviewer
said, waving his hand a little. "I came, and I go not empty away, but
with the material of a dozen articles of sovereign interest in my
pocket. You left an admirable _locum tenens_ in the person of your
daughter here, who kindly consented to be my cicerone and relieved me of
the necessity of troubling _you_. You will doubtless be relieved also. I
shall have the pleasure of sending you a proof to-morrow. Good-day!"
And before George could say what he wanted to say, Mr. Cook had opened
the door for himself and had gone. I said he had plenty of cheek. George
said so, too, and a great deal worse. I was black and blue for a week,
and _The Bittern_ man never sent a proof after all, so when the article
came out--"_Interviewing, New Style. A Talk with Miss Tempe
Vero-Taylor_,"--I got some more. That is the first and last time I was
ever interviewed. George has peculiar theories about interviewing, I
see, and I shall not interfere with them in future. I should think Mr.
Frederick Cook would get on, making tools of honest children to serve
his ambition like that. George didn't punish him, of course, he is a
power on a paper; while I am but a child in the nursery.