MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE
TEN days had passed, and the new assistant was more than ever at a loss
to understand how a business so laxly conducted and apparently so
unremunerative could provide a living for Mr. Griggs, Pemble, and Jenks.
Henry knew that he, at least, was no burden on his employer's finances;
but he was not yet aware that Mr. Pemble was there on a similar footing,
while Jenks's labours were rewarded weekly with half-a-crown.
But this morning a bright and new star swung into his ambit, when a
young man of about twenty years of age sauntered jauntily into the shop,
his hat stuck on one side of his head and a cigarette drooping from his
lips, where grew a moustache which must have struck envy into the soul
of Mr. Pemble. The new-comer winked cheerily to Jenks, nodded a "How
d'you do?" to the senior assistant, and then, to Henry's surprise, he
said:
"I suppose you're the chap that Mrs. Filbert's been telling me about.
We're both in the same digs."
"I beg your pardon!" Henry stammered.
"Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know."
"Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert always talks about,"
answered Henry, brightening.
"That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor Smith--with the accent on
the Trev. There's such a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's
got to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to be buried in
the crowd."
"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor Smith," replied Henry, who, it
will be seen, was beginning to know something of the social graces.
"Right you are, young 'un," said the breezy one. "I'm just back from my
fortnight's holidays. Been to London, don't you know. Jolly time.
Thought I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See you later, and
tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off. Big case on at the police court
this morning."
Mr. Smith--Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please--was indeed a person who had
assumed considerable importance in Henry's mind before he met him face
to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom good Mrs. Filbert set much
store.
"'E's that smart," she told Henry the first night he had stayed beneath
her roof "there's no sayin' what he don't know. He writes a many fine
things in the _Guardian_, specially 'is story of the Mop, which my Tommy
read out quite easy-like last October."
"He'll be a journalist, then," Henry suggested.
"Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways, e's a heditor or a reporter
or somethink. The _Guardian_ pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must be
clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody likes Mr. Trevor."
It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune that had brought him to the
very house where one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and although
keenly disappointed at the melancholy falling off in his actual
experience of life under the aegis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his
vision of what that was to be, he now looked forward to meeting Mr.
Trevor Smith with the hope that he might point the way to better things.
The exact position of that local representative of the Fourth Estate is
best defined as district reporter. The paper which employed him was
published in the busy industrial centre of Wheelton, some twenty-five
miles distant, where it maintained a struggling existence as the
_Wheelton Guardian_.
It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column of notes on men and
affairs in the Stratford district every week, to supply reports of the
local police court proceedings, municipal meetings, and so forth, and
also to canvass for advertisements, the few hundred copies of the paper
sold in Stratford every week, thanks to these attractions, being
mendaciously headed _Stratford Guardian_.
What the district reporter--who occasionally hinted that he was really
the editor when he saw a chance to impress a stranger thereby--called
"the office," was a desk in the back premises of the news-agent and
fancy-goods-shop whence the _Guardian_ was distributed weekly.
Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of his business to be well
liked, and if there was a good deal of humbug about him, he was still
excellent value to the _Guardian_ for the twenty-one shillings which the
proprietors of that journal paid him each week. One does not expect
genius for a guinea a week; not even the ability to write English. But
it is a mistake to suppose the latter is ever required of a district
reporter. The essential qualifications are a working knowledge of
shorthand and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor Smith was deficient
in neither; certainly not in the latter quality. He was generously
impressed with the magnitude of his importance, and had chosen the
Miltonic motto for his "Stratford Notes and Comments":
"GIVE ME THE LIBERTY TO KNOW, TO THINK, AND TO UTTER FREELY ABOVE
ALL OTHER LIBERTIES."
He took this liberty whenever he knew that the weight of local opinion
tended in a certain direction. At other times he was lavish in his use
of complimentary adjectives concerning every one he wrote about, from
the Mayor to the town crier. No wonder he was popular.
The notes which appeared in the _Guardian_ during its reporter's holiday
were from another hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to
reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty pen was at work again. It
is one of the strangest experiences that comes to the writing man--this
interest of the layman in anyone who writes words that are printed. We
seldom feel interested in the personality of the man who made our watch,
but the fellow who wrote the report of the tea-meeting we attended last
week--ah, there's something to stir the blood!
Now that they had met, these two, Henry was throbbing with excitement to
hear what his new friend had to tell him of life and its wonders. Nor
was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the youth.
"By Jove, London's the place," he observed to Henry as he dug his teeth
into a juicy tart--one of many received that day in Henry's weekly
hamper from home. "London's the place! Just fancy, I saw the huge
building of the _Morning Sunburst_, Johnnies at the door in livery,
hundreds of people running out and in; and the chap that edits that
paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week reporter on that rag the
_Stratford Times_, which isn't a patch on the _Guardian_."
"He must be very clever."
"Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty small beer in Stratford,"
pursued the lively Trevor, helping himself to a third tart from Henry's
store. "Then there's Wilkins of the _Pictorial Globe_, a glorious
crib--fifteen hundred a year, I'll bet. He used to run that rocky little
rag-bag the _Arden Advertiser_. You should see his office in the Strand.
By gum--a palace, my boy, a palace!"
"But perhaps he knows all about pictures."
"Pictures! He doesn't know a wall-poster from a Joshua Reynolds!"
"Then how do they get these grand situations?"
"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But, I say, your mater knows how to
make ripping good fruit-cakes."
"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his thoughts were far away,
where Luck the Goddess reigned. "And do you intend to go to London some
day--to stay, I mean?"
"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha! as the heavy villain hath
it. Everybody gets his chance, don't you know. For all that, there's
many a jolly good journalist never gets a show in Fleet Street. But
what's the row?" he exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet
and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out in the evening quiet.
Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump and hose being wheeled
along the street from the police station across the way, and a crowd of
youngsters running after it.
"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy, by Jingo! Come along with
me. There's ten bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot, and
it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near the station."
He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him,
intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a
brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the
excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to
point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure
present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the _Times_ reporter; his ten
shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely
enough. They were as good as spent already--a new hat for one thing, and
some new neckties for another.
The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present
throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued
from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of
twenty lines in next morning's _Birmingham Gazette_--twenty glowing
lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith--twenty lines in which the
"conflagration" burned again.
He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with
Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment.
Here was Life.