THE GREAT GOD PAN.
Late as he went to bed, sleep did not long detain him, for, in his own
happy-go-lucky, troubadour sort of life, he was one of the most occupied
of men even in this great, hurrying, bustling capital of the world. As
soon as he had donned his dressing-gown and come into the sitting-room,
he swallowed a cup of coffee that was waiting for him, and then, to make
sure that unholy hours and cigarettes had not hurt his voice, he dabbed
a note on the piano, and began to practise, in the open-throated Italian
fashion, those _vocalises_ which sound so strangely to the
uninstructed ear. He rang for breakfast. He glanced in a despairing way
at the pile of letters and parcels awaiting him, the former, no doubt,
mostly invitations, the latter, as he could guess, proofs of his latest
sittings to the photographers, albums and birth-day books sent for his
autograph, music beseeching commendation, even manuscript plays
accompanied by pathetic appeals from unknown authors. Then there was a
long row of potted scarlet geraniums and large white daisies which the
house-porter had ranged by the window; and when he opened the note that
had been forwarded with these he found that the wife of a famous
statesman had observed as she drove along Piccadilly that the flowers in
his balcony wanted renewal and begged his acceptance of this graceful
little tribute. He took up a pair of dumb-bells, and had some exercise
with them, to keep his arms and chest in good condition. He looked at
himself in the mirror: no, he did not seem to have smoked inordinately;
nevertheless, he made sundry solemn vows about those insidious
cigarettes. Then he began to open the envelopes. Here was an imposing
card, "To have the honor of meeting their royal highnesses the king and
queen of ----;" here was a more modest bit of pasteboard with
"_R.S.V.P._ to mess president" at the lower corner; here were
invitations to breakfasts, to luncheons, to afternoon squawks, to
Sunday dinners, to dances and crushes, in short, to every possible kind
of diversion and frivolity that the gay world of London could devise. He
went steadily on with his letters. More photographers wanted him to sit
to them. Would he accept the dedication of "The Squire's Daughter
Fantasia"? The composer of "The Starry Night Valses" would like a
lithographic portrait of Mr. Lionel Moore to appear on the cover. A
humble admirer of Mr. Lionel Moore's great impersonation of Harry
Thornhill begged to forward the enclosed acrostic, and might he be
allowed to print it in the _Mudborough Young Men's Mutual Improvement
Magazine_? Messrs. Smith & Smith would be extremely obliged if Mr.
Lionel Moore would honor them with his opinion of the accompanying pair
of their patent silver-mounted automatic self-adjusting braces.
"If I don't get a secretary," he muttered to himself, "I shall soon be
in a mad-house."
Nor did he pay much attention to his breakfast when it was put on the
table, for there were newspapers to be opened and glanced
through--country journals, most of them, with marked paragraphs
conveying the most unexpected, and even startling, intelligence
regarding himself, his occupations, and forthcoming engagements. Then
there were the book packets and the rolls of music to be examined; but
by this time he had lit an after-breakfast cigarette, and was proceeding
with something of indifference. Occasionally he strolled about the room,
or went to the window and looked down into the roaring highway of
Piccadilly, or across to the sunny foliage and pale-blue mists of the
Green Park. And then, in the midst of his vague meditations, the
following note was brought to him; it had been delivered by hand:
"MY DEAR MR. MOORE,--I do so _awfully_ want to see you,
about a matter of _urgent importance_. Do be good-natured
and come and lunch with us--any time before half-past two, if
possible. It will be _so_ kind of you. I hope the _morning
performance_ has done you no harm.
Yours, sincerely, ADELA CUNYNGHAM."
Well, luncheon was not much in his way, for he usually dined at five;
nevertheless, Lady Adela was an especial friend of his and had been very
kind to him, and here was some serious business. So he hurried through
what correspondence was absolutely necessary; he sent word to Green's
stables that he should not ride that morning; he walked round to a
certain gymnasium and had three quarters of an hour with the
fencing-master (this was an appointment which he invariably held
sacred); on his way back to his rooms he called in at Solomon's for a
buttonhole; and then, having got home and made certain alterations in
his toilet, he went out again, jumped into a hansom, and was driven up
to the top of Campden Hill, arriving there shortly after one o'clock.
He found Lady Adela and Miss Georgie Lestrange in the drawing-room, or
rather just outside, on the little balcony overlooking the garden, and
neither of them seemed any the worse for that masquerading in the early
dawn; indeed, Miss Georgie's naturally fresh and bright complexion
flushed a little more than usual when she saw who this new-comer was,
for perhaps she was thinking of the very frank manner in which Damon had
expressed his admiration for Pastora but a few short hours ago.
"I have been telling Georgie all about the dresses at the drawing-room,"
said the tall young matron, as she gave him her hand and regarded him
with a friendly look; "but that won't interest you, Mr. Moore. We shall
have to talk about the new beauties, rather, to interest _you_."
He was a little puzzled.
"I thought, Lady Adela, you said there was something--something of
importance--"
"That depends," said she, with a pleasant smile in her clear, gray-blue
eyes. "I think it of importance; but it remains to be seen whether the
world is of the same opinion. Well, I won't keep you in suspense."
She went to the piano, and brought back three volumes plainly bound in
green cloth.
"Behold!"
He took them from her, and glanced at the title-page: "Kathleen's
Sweethearts, a Novel, by Lady Arthur Castletown," was what he found
there.
"So it is out at last," said he, for he had more than once heard of this
great work while it was still in progress.
"Yes," said she, eagerly, "though it isn't issued to the public yet. The
fact is, Mr. Moore, I want you to help me. You know all about
professional people, and the newspapers, and so on--who better?--and, of
course, I'm very anxious about my first book--my first big book, that
is--and I don't want it to get just thrown aside without ever being
glanced at. Now, what am I to do? You may speak quite freely before
Georgie--she's just as anxious as I am, every bit, I believe--only what
to do we can't tell."
"All that I can think of," said the ruddy-haired young damsel, with a
laugh, "is to have little advertisements printed, and I will leave them
behind me wherever I go--in the stalls of a theatre, or at a concert, or
anywhere. You know, Adela, you can _not_ expect me to turn myself
into a sandwich-man, and go about the streets between boards."
"Georgie, you're frivolous," said Lady Adela, and she again turned to
Lionel Moore, who was still holding the three green volumes in his hands
in a helpless sort of fashion. "You know, Mr. Moore, there are such a
lot of books published nowadays--crowds!--shoals!--and, unless there is
a little attention drawn beforehand, what chance have you? I want a
friend in court--I want several friends in court--and that's the truth;
now, how am I to get them?"
This was plain speaking; but he was none the less bewildered.
"You see, Lady Adela, the theatre is so different from the world of
letters. I've met one or two newspaper men now and again, but they were
dramatic critics--I never heard that they reviewed books."
"But they were connected with newspapers?--then they must know the men
who do," said this alert and intelligent lady. "Oh, I don't ask for
anything unfair! I only ask for a chance. I don't want to be thrown into
a corner unread or sold to the second-hand bookseller uncut. Now, Mr.
Moore, think. You must know _lots_ of newspaper men if you would
only _think_: why, they're always coming about theatres. And they
would do anything for you, for you are such a popular favorite; and a
word from you would be of such value to a beginner like me. Now, Mr.
Moore, be good-natured, and consider. But first of all come away and
have some lunch, and then we'll talk it over."
When they had gone into the dining-room and sat down at table, he said,
"Well, if it comes to that, I certainly know one newspaper man; in
fact, I have known him all my life; he is my oldest friend. But then
he is merely the head of the Parliamentary reporting staff of the
_Morning Mirror_--he's in the gallery of the House of Commons, you
know, every night--and I'm afraid he couldn't do much about a book."
"Couldn't he do a little, Mr. Moore?" said Lady Adela, insidiously.
"Couldn't he get it hinted in the papers that 'Lady Arthur Castletown'
is only a _nom de plume_?"
"Then you don't object to your own name being mentioned?" asked this
simple young man.
"No, no, not at all," said she, frankly. "People are sure to get to
know. There are some sketches of character in the book that I think will
make a little stir--I mean people will be asking questions; and then you
know how a pseudonym whets curiosity--they will certainly find out--and
they will talk all the more then. That ought to do the book some good.
And then you understand, Mr. Moore," continued this remarkably naive
person, "if your friend happened to know any of the reviewers, and could
suggest how some little polite attention might be paid them, there would
be nothing wrong in that, would there? I am told that they are quite
gentlemen nowadays--they go everywhere--and--and indeed I should like to
make their acquaintance, since I've come into the writing fraternity
myself."
Lionel Moore was silent; he was considering how he should approach the
fastidious, whimsical, sardonic Maurice Mangan on this extremely
difficult subject.
"Let me see," he said, presently. "This is Wednesday; my friend Mangan
won't be at the House; I will send a message to his rooms, and ask him
to come down to the theatre: then we can have a consultation about it.
May I take this copy of the book with me, Lady Adela?"
"Certainly, certainly!" said she, with promptitude. "And if you know of
any one to whom I should send a copy, with the author's name in it--my
own name, I mean--it would be extremely kind of you to let me know. It's
so awfully hard for us poor outsiders to get a hearing. You professional
folk are in a very different position--the public just worship you--you
have it all your own way--you don't need to care what the critics
say--but look at _me_! I may knock and knock at the door of the
Temple of Fame until my knuckles are sore, and who will take any
notice--unless, perhaps, some friendly ear begins to listen? Do you
think Mr. Mangan--did you say Mangan?--do you think he would come and
dine with us some evening?"
The artless ingenuousness of her speech was almost embarrassing.
"He is a very busy man," he said, doubtfully, "very busy. He has his
gallery work to do, of course; and then I believe he is engaged on some
important philosophical treatise--he has been at it for years, indeed--"
"Oh, he writes books too?" Lady Adela cried. "Then certainly you must
bring him to dinner. Shall I write a note now, Mr. Moore--a Sunday
evening, of course, so that we may secure you as well--"
"I think I would wait a little, Lady Adela," he said, "until I see how
the land lies. He's a most curious fellow, Mangan: difficult to please
and capricious. I fancy he is rather disappointed with himself; he ought
to have done something great, for he knows everything--at least he knows
what is fine in everything, in painting, in poetry, in music; and yet,
with all his sympathy, he seems to be forever grumbling--and mostly at
himself. He is a difficult fellow to deal with--"
"I suppose he eats his dinner like anybody else," said Lady Adela,
somewhat sharply: she was not used to having her invitations scorned.
"Yes, but I think he would prefer to eat it in a village ale-house,"
Lionel said, with a smile, "where he could make 'the violet of a legend
blow, among the chops and steaks.' However, I will take him your book,
Lady Adela; and I have no doubt he will be able to give you some good
advice."
It was late that evening when, in obedience to the summons of a sixpenny
telegram, Maurice Mangan called at the stage-door of the New Theatre and
was passed in. Lionel Moore was on the stage, as any one could tell, for
the resonant baritone voice was ringing clear above the multitudinous
music of the orchestra; but Mangan, not wishing to be in the way, did
not linger in the wings--he made straight for his friend's room, which
he knew. And in the dusk of the long corridor he was fortunate enough to
behold a beautiful apparition, in the person of a young French officer
in the gayest of uniforms, who, apparently to maintain the character he
bore in the piece (it was that of a young prisoner of war liberated on
parole, who played sad havoc with the hearts of the village maidens by
reason of his fascinating ways and pretty broken English), had just
facetiously chucked two of the women dressers under the chin; and these
damsels were simpering at this mark of condescension, and evidently much
impressed by the swagger and braggadocio of the miniature warrior.
However, Mlle. Girond (the boy-officer in question) no sooner caught
sight of the new-comer than she instantly and demurely altered her
demeanor; and as she passed him in the corridor she favored him with a
grave and courteous little bow, for she had met him more than once in
Miss Burgoyne's sitting-room. Mangan returned the salutation most
respectfully; and then he went on and entered the apartment in which
Lionel Moore dressed.
It was empty; so this tall, thin man with the slightly stooping
shoulders threw himself into a wicker-work easy-chair, and let his
eyes--which were much keener than was properly compatible with the
half-affected expression of indolence that had become habitual to
him--roam over the heterogeneous collection of articles around. These
were abundantly familiar to him--the long dressing-table, with all its
appliances for making-up, the mirrors, the wigs on blocks, the
gay-colored garments, the fencing-foils and swords, the framed series of
portraits from "Vanity Fair," the innumerable photographs stuck
everywhere about. Indeed, it was something not immediately connected
with these paraphernalia of an actor's existence that seemed to be
occupying his mind, even as he idly regarded the various pastes and
colors, the powder-puffs and pencils, the pots of vaseline. His eyes
grew absent as he sat there. Was he thinking of the Linn Moore of years
and years ago who used to reveal to the companion of his boyhood all his
high aims and strenuous ambitions--how he was resolved to become a
Mendelssohn, a Mozart, a Beethoven? Whither had fled all those wistful
dreams and ardent aspirations? What was Linn Moore now?--why, a singer
in comic opera, his face beplastered almost out of recognition; a pet of
the frivolous-fashionable side of London society; the chief adornment of
photographers' windows.
"'Half a beast is the great god Pan,'" this tall, languid-looking man
murmured to himself, as he was vacuously staring at those paints and
brushes and cosmetics; and then he got up and began to walk
indeterminately about the room, his hands behind his back.
Presently the door was opened, and in came Lionel Moore, followed by his
dresser.
"Hallo, Maurice!--you're late," said Harry Thornhill, as he surrendered
himself to his factotum, who forthwith began to strip him of his
travelling costume of cocked hat, frogged coat, white leather breeches,
and shining black boots in order to make way for the more brilliant
attire of the last act.
"Now that I am here, what are your highness's commands?" Mangan asked.
"There's a book there--written by a friend of mine," Lionel said, as he
was helping his dresser to get off the glittering top-boots. "She wants
me to do what I can for her with the press. What do I know about that?
Still, she is a very particular friend--and you must advise me."
Mangan rose and went to the mantelpiece and took down Volume I.
"Lady Arthur Castletown--" said he.
"But that is not her real name," the other interposed. "Her real name is
Lady Adela Cunyngham--of course you know who she is."
"I have been permitted to hear the echo of her name from those rare
altitudes in which you dwell now," the other said, lazily. "So she is
one of your fashionable acquaintances; and she wants to secure the puff
preliminary, and a number of favorable reviews, I suppose; and then you
send for me. But what can I do for you except ask one or two of the
gallery men to mention the book in their London Correspondent's letter?"
"But that's the very thing, my dear fellow!" Lionel Moore cried, as he
was getting on his white silk stockings. "The very thing! She wants
attention drawn to the book. She doesn't want to be passed over. She
wants to have the name of the book and the name of the author brought
before the public--"
"Her real name?"
"Yes, certainly, if that is advisable."
"Oh, well, there's not much trouble about that. You can always minister
to a mind diseased by a morbid craving for notoriety if a paragraph in
a country newspaper will suffice. So this is part of what your
fashionable friends expect from you, Linn, in return for their
patronage?"
"It's nothing of the kind; she would do as much for me, if she knew how,
or if there were any occasion."
"Oh, well, it is no great thing," said Mangan, who was really a very
good-natured sort of person, despite his supercilious talk. "In fact,
you might do her ladyship a more substantial service than that."
"How?"
"I thought you knew Quirk--Octavius Quirk?"
"But you have always spoken so disparagingly of him!" the other
exclaimed.
"What has that to do with it?" Mangan asked; and then he continued, in
his indolent fashion: "Why, I thought you knew all about Quirk. Quirk
belongs to a band of literary weaklings, not any one of whom can do
anything worth speaking of; but they try their best to write up one
another; and sometimes they take it into their heads to help an
acquaintance--and then their cry is like that of a pack of beagles? you
would think the press of London, or a considerable section of it,
had but one voice. Why don't you take Lady Arthur's--Lady
Constance's--what's her name?--why don't you take her book to the noble
association of log-rollers? I presume the novel is trash; they'll
welcome it all the more. She is a woman--she is not to be feared; she
hasn't as yet committed the crime of being successful--she isn't to be
envied and anonymously attacked. That's the ticket for you, Linn. They
mayn't convince the public that Lady What's-her-name is a wonderful
person; but they will convince her that she is; and what more does she
want?"
"I don't understand you, Maurice!" the young baritone cried, almost
angrily. "Again and again you've spoken of Octavius Quirk as if he were
beneath contempt."
"What has that to do with it?" the other repeated, placidly. "As an
independent writer, Quirk is quite beneath contempt--quite. There is no
backbone in his writing at all, and he knows his own weakness; and he
thinks he can conceal it by the use of furious adjectives. He is always
in a frantic rush and flurry, that produces no impression on anybody. A
whirlwind of feathers, that's about it. He goes out into the highway
and brandishes a double-handed sword--in order to sweep off the head of
a buttercup. And I suppose he expects the public to believe that his
wild language, all about nothing, means strength; just as he hopes that
they will take his noisy horse-laugh for humor. That's Octavius Quirk as
a writer--a nobody, a nothing, a wisp of straw in convulsions; but as a
puffer--ah, there you have him!--as a puffer, magnificent, glorious, a
Greek hero, invincible, invulnerable. My good man, it's Octavius Quirk
you should go to! Get him to call on his pack of beagles to give tongue;
and then, my goodness, you'll hear a cry--for a while at least. Is there
anything at all in the book?"
"I don't know," said Harry Thornhill, who had changed quickly, and was
now regaling himself with a little of Miss Burgoyne's lemonade, with
which the prima-donna was so kind as to keep him supplied. "Well, now, I
shall be on the stage some time; what do you say to looking over Lady
Adela's novel?"
"All right."
There was a tapping at the door; it was the call-boy.
But Lionel Moore did not immediately answer the summons.
"Look here, Maurice; if you should find anything in the book--anything
you could say a word in favor of--I wish you'd come round to the Garden
Club with me, after the performance, and have a bit of supper. Octavius
Quirk is almost sure to be there."
"What, Quirk? I thought the Garden was given over to dukes and comic
actors?"
"There's a sprinkling of everybody in it," the young baritone said; "and
Quirk likes it because it is an all-night club--he never seems to go to
bed at all. Will you do that?"
"Oh, yes," Maurice Mangan said; and forthwith, as his friend left the
dressing-room, he plunged into Lady Adela's novel.
The last act of "The Squire's Daughter" is longer than its predecessors;
so that Mangan had plenty of time to acquire some general knowledge of
the character and contents of these three volumes. Indeed, he had more
than time for all the brief scrutiny he deemed necessary; when Lionel
Moore reappeared, to get finally quit of his theatrical trappings for
the night, his friend was standing at the fireplace, looking at a sketch
in brown chalk of Miss Burgoyne, which that amiable young lady had
herself presented to Harry Thornhill.
"Well, what's the verdict?"
Mangan turned round, rather bewildered; and then he recollected that he
had been glancing at the novel.
"Oh, _that_!" he said, regarding the three volumes with no very
favorable air, "Mighty poor stuff, I should say; just about as weak as
they make it. But harmless. Some of the conversation--between the
women--is natural; trivial, but natural. The plain truth is, my dear
Linn, it is a very foolish, stupid book, which should never have been
printed at all; but I suppose your fashionable friend could afford to
pay for having it printed."
"But, look here, Maurice," Lionel said, in considerable surprise, "I
don't see how it can be so very stupid, when Lady Adela herself is one
of the brightest, cleverest, shrewdest, most intelligent women you could
meet with anywhere--quite unusually so."
"That may be; but she is not the first clever woman who has made the
mistake of imagining that because she is socially popular she must
therefore be able to write a book."
"And what am I to say to Octavius Quirk?"
"What are you to say to the log-rollers? Don't say anything. Get Lady
Adela to ask one or two of them to dinner. You'll fetch Quirk that way
easily; they say Gargantua was a fool compared to him."
"I've seen him do pretty well at the Garden, especially about two in the
morning," was the young baritone's comment; and then, as he began to get
into his ordinary attire, he said, "To tell you the truth, Maurice, Lady
Adela rather hinted that she would be pleased to make the acquaintance
of any--of any literary man--"
"Who could do her book a good turn?"
"No, you needn't put it as rudely as that. She rather feels that, in
becoming an authoress, she has allied herself with literary people--and
would naturally like to make acquaintances; so, if it came to that, I
should consider myself empowered to ask Quirk whether he would accept an
invitation to dinner--I mean, at Cunyngham Lodge. It's no use asking
you, Maurice?" he added, with a little hesitation.
Maurice Mangan laughed.
"No, no, Linn, my boy; thank you all the same, I say," he continued, as
he took up his hat and stick, seeing that Lionel was about ready to go,
"do you ever hear from Miss Francie Wright, or have you forgotten her
among all your fine friends?"
"Oh, I hear from Francie sometimes," he answered, carelessly, "or about
her, anyway, whenever I get a letter from home. She's very well.
Boarding out pauper sick children is her new fad; and I believe she's
very busy and very happy over it. Come along, Maurice; we'll walk up to
the Garden, and get something of an appetite for supper."
When they arrived at the Garden Club (so named from its proximity to
Covent Garden) they went forthwith into the spacious apartment on the
ground floor which served at once as dining-room, newspaper-room, and
smoking-room. There was hardly anybody in it. Four young men in evening
dress were playing cards at a side-table; at another table a solitary
member was writing; but at the long supper-table--which was prettily lit
up with crimson-shaded lamps, and the appointments of which seemed very
trim and clean and neat--all the chairs were empty, and the only other
occupants of the place were the servants, who wore a simple livery of
white linen.
"What for supper, Maurice?" the younger of the two friends asked.
"Anything--with salad," Mangan answered; he was examining a series of
old engravings that hung around the walls.
"On a warm night like this what do you say to cold lamb, salad, and some
hock and iced soda-water?"
"All right."
Supper was speedily forthcoming, and, as they took their places, Mangan
said,
"You don't often go down to see the old people, Linn?"
"I'm so frightfully busy!"
"Has Miss Francie ever been up to the theatre--to see 'The Squire's
Daughter,' I mean?"--this question he seemed to put rather diffidently.
"No. I've asked her often enough; but she always laughs and puts it off.
She seems to be as busy down there as I am up here."
"What does she think of the great name and fame you have made for
yourself?"
"How should I know?"
Then there was silence for a second or two.
"I wish you'd run down to see them some Sunday, Linn; I'd go down with
you."
"Why not go down by yourself?--they'd be tremendously glad to see you."
"I should be more welcome if I took you with me. You know your cousin
likes you to pay a little attention to the old people. Come! Say Sunday
week."
"My dear fellow, Sunday is my busiest day. Sunday night is the only
night I have out of the seven. And I fancy that it is for that very
Sunday evening that Lord Rockminster has engaged the Lansdowne Gallery;
he gives a little dinner-party, and his sisters have a big concert
afterwards--we've all got to sing the chorus of the new marching-song
Lady Sybil has composed for the army."
"Who is Lady Sybil?"
"The sister of the authoress whose novel you were reading."
"My gracious! is there another genius in the family?"
"There's a third," said Lionel, with a bit of a smile. "What would you
say if Lady Rosamund Bourne were to paint a portrait of me as Harry
Thornhill for the Royal Academy?"
"I should say the betting was fifty to one against its getting in."
"Ah, you're unjust, Maurice; you don't know them. I dare say you judged
that novel by some high literary standard that it doesn't pretend to
reach. I am sure of this, that if it's half as clever as Lady Adela
Cunyngham herself, it will do very well."
"It will do very well for the kind of people who will read it," said the
other, indifferently.
This was a free-and-easy place; when they had finished supper, Lionel
Moore lit a cigarette, and his friend a briar-root pipe, without moving
from the table; and Mangan's prayer was still that his companion should
fix Sunday week for a visit to the little Surrey village where they had
been boys together, and where Lionel's father and mother (to say nothing
of a certain Miss Francie Wright, whose name cropped up more than once
in Mangan's talk) were still living. But during this entreaty Lionel's
attention happened to be attracted to the glass door communicating with
the hall; and instantly he said, in an undertone:
"Here's a stroke of luck, Maurice; Quirk has just come in. How am I to
sound him? What should I do?"
"Haven't I told you?" said Mangan, curtly. "Get your swell friends to
feed him."
Nevertheless, this short, fat man, who now strode into the room and
nodded briefly to these two acquaintances, speedily showed that on
occasion he knew how to feed himself. He called a waiter, and ordered an
underdone beefsteak with Spanish onions, toasted cheese to follow, and a
large bottle of stout to begin with; then he took the chair at the head
of the table, thus placing himself next to Lionel Moore.
"A very empty den to-night," observed this new-comer, whose heavy face,
watery blue eyes, lank hair plentifully streaked with gray, and
unwholesome complexion would not have produced a too-favorable
impression on any one unacquainted with his literary gifts and graces.
Lionel agreed; and then followed a desultory conversation about nothing
in particular, though Mr. Octavius Quirk was doing his best to say
clever things and show off his boisterous humor. Indeed, it was not
until that gentleman's very substantial supper was being brought in that
Lionel got an opportunity of artfully asking him whether he had heard
anything of Lady Adela Cunyngham's forthcoming novel. He was about to
proceed to explain that "Lady Arthur Castletown" was only a pseudonym,
when he was interrupted by Octavius Quirk bursting into a roar--a
somewhat affected roar--of scornful laughter.
"Well, of all the phenomena of the day, that is the most ludicrous," he
cried, "--the so-called aristocracy thinking that they can produce
anything in the shape of art or literature. The aristocracy--the most
exhausted of all our exhausted social strata--what can be expected from
_it_? Why, we haven't anywhere nowadays either art or literature or
drama that is worthy of the name--not anywhere--it is all a ghastly,
spurious make-believe--a mechanical manufactory of paintings and books
and plays without a spark of life in them--"
[Illustration: "_When they had finished supper, Lionel Moore lit a
cigarette, and his friend a brier-root pipe._"]
Lionel Moore resentfully thought to himself that if Mr. Quirk had been
able to do anything in any one of these directions he might have held
less despairing views; but, of course, he did not interrupt this feebly
tempestuous monologue.
"--We are all played out, that is the fact--the soil is exhausted--we
want a great national upheaval--a new condition of things--a social
revolution, in short. And we're going to get it" he continued, in a sort
of triumphant way; "there's no mistake about that; the social revolution
is in the air, it is under our feet, it is pressing in upon us from
every side; and yet at the very moment that the aristocracy have got
notice to quit their deer-forests and their salmon-rivers and
grouse-moors, they so far mistake the signs of the times that they think
they should be devoting themselves to art and going on the stage! Was
there ever such incomprehensible madness?"
"I hope they won't sweep away deer-forests and grouse-moors just all at
once," the young baritone said, modestly, "for I am asked to go to the
Highlands at the beginning of next August."
"Make haste, then, and see the last of these doomed institutions"
observed Mr. Quirk, with dark significance, as he looked up from his
steak and onions. "I tell you deer-forests are doomed; grouse-moors are
doomed; salmon-rivers are doomed. They are a survival of feudal rights
and privileges which the new democracy--the new ruling power--will make
short work of. The time has gone by for all these absurd restrictions
and reservations! There is no defence for them; there never was; they
were conceived in an iniquity of logic which modern common-sense will no
longer suffer. _Bona vacantia_ can't belong to anybody--therefore
they belong to the king; that's a pretty piece of reasoning, isn't it?
And if the crofter or the laborer says, '_Bona vacantia_ can't
belong to anybody--therefore they belong to me'--isn't the reasoning as
good? But it is not merely game-laws that must be abolished, it is game
itself."
"If you abolish the one, you'll soon get rid of the other," Maurice
Mangan said, with a kind of half-contemptuous indifference; he was
examining this person in a curious way, as he might have looked through
the wires of a cage in the Zoological Gardens.
"Both must be abolished," Mr. Octavius Quirk continued, with windy
vehemence. "The very distinction that takes any animal _feræ
naturæ_ and constitutes it game is a relic of class privilege and
must go--"
"Then Irish landlords will no longer be considered _feræ naturæ_?"
Mangan asked, incidentally.
"We must be free from these feudal tyrannies, these mediæval chains and
manacles that the Norman kings imposed on a conquered people. We must be
as free as the United States of America--"
"America!" Mangan said; and he was rude enough to laugh. "The State of
New York has more stringent game-laws than any European country that I
know of; and why not? They wanted to preserve certain wild animals, for
the general good; and they took the only possible way."
Quirk was disconcerted only for a moment; presently he had resumed, in
his reckless, _mouton-enragé_ fashion,
"That may be; but the Democracy of Great Britain has pronounced against
game; and game must go; there is no disputing the fact. Hunting in any
civilized community is a relic of barbarism; it is worse in this
country--it is an infringement of the natural rights of the tiller of
the soil. What is the use of talking about it?--the whole thing is
doomed; if you're going to Scotland this autumn, Mr. Moore, if you are
to be shown all those exclusive pastimes of the rich and privileged
classes, well, I'd advise you to keep your eyes open, and write as clear
an account of what you see as you can; and, by Jove, twenty years hence
your book will be read with amazement by the new generation!"
Here the pot of foaming stout claimed his attention; he buried his head
in it; and thereafter, sitting back in his chair, sighed forth his
satisfaction. The time was come for a large cigar.
And how, in the face of this fierce denunciation of the wealthy classes
and all their ways, could Lionel Moore put in a word for Lady Adela's
poor little literary infant? It would be shrivelled into nothing by a
blast of this simulated simoom. It would be trodden under foot by the
log-roller's elephantine jocosity. In a sort of despair he turned to
Maurice Mangan, and would have entered into conversation with him but
that Mangan now rose and said he must be going, nor could he be
prevailed on to stay. Lionel accompanied him into the hall.
"That Jabberwock makes me sick; he's such an ugly devil," Mangan said,
as he put on his hat; and surely that was strange language coming from
a grave philosopher who was about to publish a volume on the
"Fundamental Fallacies of M. Comte."
"But what am I to do, Maurice?" Lionel said, as his friend was leaving.
"It's no use asking for his intervention at present; he's simply running
amuck."
"If your friend--Lady What's-her-name--is as clever as you say, she'll
just twist that fellow round her finger," the other observed, briefly.
"Good-night, Linn."
And indeed it was not of Octavius Little, nor yet of Lady Adela's novel,
that Maurice Mangan was thinking as he carelessly walked away through
the dark London thoroughfares, towards his rooms in Victoria Street. He
was thinking of that quiet little Surrey village; and of two boys there
who had a great belief in each other--and in themselves, too, for the
matter of that; and of all the beautiful and wonderful dreams they
dreamed while as yet the far-reaching future was veiled from them. And
then he thought of Linn Moore's dressing-room at the theatre; and of the
paints and powder and vulgar tinsel that had to fit him out for
exhibition before the footlights; and of the feverish whirl of life and
the bedazzlement of popularity and fashionable petting; and somehow or
other the closing lines of Mrs. Browning's poem would come ever and anon
into his head as a sort of unceasing refrain:
"The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,--
For the reed that grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river."