of Mr. Square, whose front door faces ours on the Third Floor. Mr.
Square is under no necessity of assuming an air of superiority, so
patent to everybody in the house is his right to it. If anything, he
shrinks from asserting himself. He had been in his chambers a year,
coming a few months "after the fire," before I knew him by sight, though
by reputation he is known to everybody from one end of the country to
the other. Not only is there excitement in our house when the police
officer appears on our staircase with a warrant for his arrest for
murder, but the United Kingdom thrills and waits with us for the
afternoon's Police Report. In the neighbourhood I am treated with almost
as much respect as when I played a leading part in the Law Courts
myself. The milkman and the postman stop me in the street, the little
fruiterer round the corner and the young ladies at the Temple of Pomona
in the Strand detain me in giving me my change as if I were an accessory
to the crime. What if the murder is only technical, Mr. Square's arrest
a matter of form, his discharge immediate? The glory is in his position
which makes the technical murder an achievement to be envied by every
true-born Briton. For he is Referee at the Imperial Boxing Club, and
therefore the most important person in the Empire, except, perhaps, the
winning jockey at the Derby or the Captain of the winning Football Team.
The Prime Minister, Royalty itself, would not shed a brighter lustre on
our ancient house, and there could be no event of greater interest than
the fatal "accident" in the ring for which Mr. Square has been so many
times held technically responsible.
In his private capacity Mr. Square strikes me as in no way remarkable.
He is a medium-sized man with sandy hair and moustache, as like as two
peas to the other men of medium height with sandy hair and moustache
who are met by the thousand in the Strand. He shares his chambers with
Mr. Savage, who is something in the Bankruptcy Court. Both are retiring
and modest, they never obtrude themselves, and either their domestic
life is quiet beyond reproach, or else the old builders had the secret
of soundless walls, for no sound from their chambers disturbs us. With
them we have not so much as the undesirable intimacy that comes from
mutual complaint, and such is their amiability that William, in his most
outrageous intrusions, never roused from them a remonstrance.
I am forced to admit that William was at times ill-advised in the hours
and places he chose for his adventures. He often beguiled me at midnight
upon the leads that he might enjoy my vain endeavours to entice him home
with the furry monkey tied to the end of a string, which during the day
never failed to bring him captive to my feet. By his mysterious
disappearances he often drove J., whose heart is tender and who adored
him, out of his bed at unseemly hours and down into the street where, in
pyjamas and slippers, and the door banged to behind him, he became an
object of suspicion. On one of these occasions, a policeman
materializing suddenly from nowhere and turning a bull's-eye on him,--
"Have you seen a cat about?" J. asked.
"Seen a cat? Oi've seen millions on 'em," said the policeman. "Wot sort
o' cat?" he added.
"A common tabby cat," said J.
"Look 'ere," said the policeman, "where do you live any'ow?"
"Here," said J., who had retained his presence of mind with his
latch-key.
"Aoh, Oi begs your parding, sir," said the policeman. "Oi didn't see
you, sir, in the dim light, sir, but you know, sir, there's billions o'
tabby cats about 'ere of a night, sir. But if Oi find yours, sir, Oi'll
fetch 'im 'ome to you, sir. S'noight, sir. Thank e' sir."
When the kitchen door was opened the next morning, William was
discovered innocently curled up in his blanket. And yet, when he again
disappeared at bedtime a week or two later, J. was again up before
daybreak, sure that he was on the doorstep breaking his heart because
he could not get in. This time I followed into our little hall, and
Augustine after me. She was not then as used to our ways as she is now,
and I still remember her sleepy bewilderment when she looked at J., who
had varied his costume for the search by putting on knickerbockers and
long stockings, and her appeal to me: "_Mais pourquoi en bicyclette?_"
Why indeed? But there was no time for explanation. We were interrupted
by an angry but welcome wail from behind the opposite door, and we
understood that William was holding us responsible for having got
himself locked up in Mr. Square's chambers. We had to wake up Mr.
Square's old servant before he could be released, but it was not until
the next morning that the full extent of his iniquity was revealed. A
brand-new, pale-pink silk quilt on Mr. Square's bed having appealed to
him as more luxurious than his own blanket, he had profited by Mr.
Square's absence to spend half the night on it, leaving behind him a
faint impression of his dear grimy little body. Even then, Mr. Square
remained as magnanimously silent as if he shared our love for William
and pride in his performances.
All we know of Mr. Square and Mr. Savage, in addition to their fame and
modesty, we have learned from their old man, Tom. He is a sailor by
profession, and for long steward on Mr. Savage's yacht. He clings to his
uniform in town, and when we see him pottering about in his blue reefer
and brass buttons, Mr. Savage's little top floor that adjoins ours and
opens out on the leads we share between us looks more than ever like a
ship's quarter-deck. He is sociable by nature, and overflows with
kindliness for everybody. He is always smiling, whatever he may be doing
or wherever I may meet him, and he has a child's fondness for sweet
things. He is never without a lemon-drop in his mouth, and he keeps his
pockets full of candy. As often as the opportunity presents itself, he
presses handfuls upon Augustine, whom he and his wife ceremoniously call
"Madam," and to whom he confides the secrets of the household.
It is through him, by way of Augustine, that we follow the movements of
the yacht, and know what "his gentlemen" have for dinner and how many
people come to see them. At times I have feared that his confidences to
Augustine and the tenderness of his attentions were too marked, and that
his old wife, who is less liberal with her smiles, disapproved. Over the
_grille_ that separates our leads from his, he gossips by the hour with
Augustine, when she lets him, and once or twice, meeting her in the
street, he has gallantly invited her into a near public to "'ave a
drink," an invitation which she, with French scorn for the British
substitute of the cafe, would disdain to accept. To other tributes of
his affection, however, she does not object. On summer evenings he
sometimes lays a plate of salad or stewed fruit at our door, rings,
runs, and then from out a porthole of a window by his front door,
watches the effect when she finds it, and is horribly embarrassed if I
find it by mistake. In winter his offering takes the shape of a British
mince-pie or a slice of plum pudding, and, on a foggy morning when she
comes home from market, he will bring her a glass of port from Mr.
Square's cellar. He is always ready to lend her a little oil, or milk,
or sugar, in an emergency. Often he is useful in a more urgent crisis.
In a sudden thunder-storm he will leap over the _grille_, shut our door
on the leads, and make everything ship-shape almost before I know it is
raining. He has even broken in for me when I have come home late without
a key, and by my knocking and ringing have roused up everybody in the
whole house except Augustine. Mrs. Tom, much as she may disapprove, is
as kindly in her own fashion; she is quite learned in medicine, and
knows an old-fashioned remedy for every ailment. She has seen Augustine
triumphantly through an accident, she has cured Marcel, Augustine's
husband, of a quinsy, and she rather likes to be called upon for advice.
She is full of little amiabilities. She never gets a supply of eggs
fresh from the country at a reasonable price without giving me a chance
to secure a dozen or so, and when her son, a fisherman, comes up to
London, she always reserves a portion of his present of fish for me. I
could not ask for kindlier neighbours, and they are the only friends I
have made in the house.
I was very near having friendship thrust upon me, however, by the First
Floor Back, Mrs. Eliza Short. She is an elderly lady of generous
proportions and flamboyant tastes, "gowned" elaborately by Jay and as
elaborately "wigged" by Truefitt. The latest fashions and golden hair
cannot conceal the ravages of time, and, as a result of her labours, she
looks tragically like the unwilling wreck of a Lydia Thompson Blonde. I
may be wrong; she may never have trod the boards, and yet I know of
nothing save the theatre that could account for her appearance. The most
assiduous of her visitors, as I meet them on the stairs, is an old
gentleman as carefully made up in his way, an amazing little dandy, whom
I fancy as somebody in the front row applauding rapturously when Mrs.
Eliza Short, in tights and golden locks, came pirouetting down the
stage. I should have been inclined to weave a pretty romance about them
as the modern edition of Philemon and Baucis if, knowing Mrs. Short, it
did not become impossible to associate romance of any kind with her.
Our acquaintance was begun by my drinking tea in her chambers the
morning "after the fire," of which she profited unfairly by putting me
on her visiting-list. She was not at all of Montaigne's opinion that
"incuriosity" is a soft and sound pillow to rest a well-composed head
upon. On the contrary, it was evident that for hers to rest in comfort
she must first see every room in our chambers and examine into all my
domestic arrangements. I have never been exposed to such a battery of
questions. I must say for her that she was more than ready to pay me in
kind. Between her questions she gave me a vast amount of information for
which I had no possible use. She told me the exact amount of her income
and the manner of its investment. She explained her objection to
servants and her preference for having "somebody in" to do the rough
work. She confided to me that she dealt at the Stores where she could
always get a cold chicken and a bit of ham at a pinch, and the "pinch"
at once presented itself to my mind as an occasion when the old dandy
was to be her guest. She edified me by her habit of going to bed with
the lambs, and getting up with the larks to do her own dusting. The one
ray of hope she allowed me was the fact that her winters were spent at
Monte Carlo. She could not pass me on the stairs, or in the hall, or on
the street, where much of her time was lost, without buttonholing me to
ask on what amount of rent I was rated, or how much milk I took in of a
morning, or if the butcher sent me tough meat, or other things that were
as little her business. I positively dreaded to go out or to come home,
and the situation was already strained when Jimmy rushed to the rescue.
Elia regretted the agreeable intimacies broken off by the dogs whom he
loved less than their owners, but I found it useful to have a cat Mrs.
Short could not endure, to break off my intimacy with her, and he did it
so effectually that I could never believe it was not done on purpose.
One day, when she had been out since ten o'clock in the morning, she
returned to find Jimmy locked up in her chambers alone with her bird.
That the bird was still hopping about its cage was to me the most
mysterious feature in the whole affair, for Jimmy was a splendid
sportsman. After his prowls in the garden he only too often left behind
him a trail of feathers and blood-stains all the way up the three
flights of our stairs. But if the bird had not escaped, Mrs. Short could
hardly have been more furious. She demanded Jimmy's life, and when it
was refused, insisted on his banishment. She threatened him with poison
and me with exposure to the Landlord. For days the Housekeeper was sent
flying backwards and forwards between Mrs. Short's chambers and ours,
bearing threats and defiances. Jimmy, who knew as well as I did what was
going on, rejoiced, and from then until his untimely death never ran
downstairs or up--and he was always running down or up--without stopping
in front of her door, giving one unearthly howl, and then flying; and
never by chance did he pay the same little attention to any one of the
other tenants.
Mrs. Short does not allow me to forget her. As her voice is deep and
harsh and thunders through the house when she buttonholes somebody else,
or says good-bye to a friend at her door, I hear her far more
frequently than I care to; as she has a passion for strong scent, I
often smell her when I do not see her at all; and as in the Quarter we
all patronize the same tradesmen, I am apt to run into her not only on
our stairs, but in the dairy, or the Temple of Pomona, or further afield
at the Post Office. Then, however, we both stare stonily into vacancy,
failing to see each other, and during the sixteen years since that first
burst of confidence, we have exchanged not a word, not as much as a
glance: an admirable arrangement which I owe wholly to Jimmy.
With her neighbours on the other side of the hall, Mrs. Short has
nothing in common except permanency as tenant. Her name and the sign of
the Church League faced each other on the First Floor when we came to
our chambers; they face each other still. Her golden wig is not oftener
seen on our stairs than the gaiters and aprons of the Bishops who rely
upon the League for a periodical cup of tea; her voice is not oftener
heard than the discreet whispers of the ladies who attend the Bishops in
adoring crowds. But Jimmy's intervention was not required to maintain
the impersonality of my relations with the League. It has never shown an
interest in my affairs nor a desire to confide its own to me. Save for
one encounter we have kept between us the distance which it should be
the object of all tenants to cultivate, and I might never have looked
upon it as more than a name had I not witnessed its power to attract
some of the clergy and to enrage others. Nothing has happened in our
house to astound me more than the angry passions it kindled in two of
our friends who are clergymen. One vows that he will never come to see
us again so long as to reach our chambers he must pass the League's
door; the second reproaches us for having invited him, his mere presence
in the same house being sufficient to ruin his clerical reputation. As
the League is diligently working for the Church of which both my friends
are distinguished lights, I feel that in these matters there are fine
shades beyond my unorthodox intelligence. It is also astounding that the
League should inflame laymen of no religious tendencies whatever to
more violent antagonism. Friends altogether without the pale have taken
offence at what they call the League's arrogance in hanging up its signs
not only at its front door, but downstairs in the vestibule, and again
on the railings without, and they destroyed promptly the poster it once
ventured to put upon the stairs, assuring us that theirs was righteous
wrath, and then, in the manner of friends, leaving us to face the
consequences.
For myself I bear no ill-will to the League. I may object to the success
with which it fills our stairs on the days of its meetings and
tea-parties, but I cannot turn this into a pretext for quarrelling,
while I can only admire the spirit of progress that has made it the
first in the house to do its spring-cleaning by a vacuum cleaner and to
set up a private letter-box. I can only congratulate it on the
prosperity that has caused the overflow of its offices into the next
house, and so led indirectly to the one personal encounter I have
referred to. A few of the rooms were to let, and J.'s proposal to set up
his printing-press in one of them involved us in a correspondence with
the Secretary. Then I called, as by letter we were unable to agree upon
details. The League, with a display of hospitality that should put the
Architect to shame, bids everybody enter without knocking. But when I
accepted this Christian invitation, I was confronted by a tall,
solemn-faced young man, who informed me that the Secretary was "engaged
in prayer," and I got no further than the inner hall. As I failed to
catch the Secretary in his less professional moments, and as his
devotions did not soften his heart to the extent of meeting us halfway,
we quickly resumed the usual impersonality of our relations.
I cannot imagine our house without the Church League and Mrs. Eliza
Short, the Architect and Mr. Square. Were their names to vanish from the
doors where I have seen them for the last sixteen years, it would give
me the same sense of insecurity as if I suddenly looked out of my window
to a Thames run dry, or to a domeless city in the distance. With this
older group of tenants, who show their respect for a house of venerable
age and traditions by staying in it, I think we are to be included and
also the Solicitor of the Ground Floor Front. He has been with us a
short time, it is true, but he succeeded our old Insurance Agent whom
nothing save death could have removed, and for years before he lived no
further away than Peter the Great's house across the street, where he
would be still, had it not been torn down over his head to make way for
the gaudy, new, grey stone building which foretells the beginning of the
end of our ancient street. The Solicitor cloisters himself in his
chambers more successfully even than the Architect or the Church League,
and I have never yet laid eyes on him or detected a client at his door.
I wish the same could be said of our other newcomers who, with rare
exceptions, exhibit a restlessness singularly unbecoming in a house that
has stood for centuries. In the Ground Floor Back change for long was
continued. It was the home of a Theatrical Agent and his family, and
babyish prattle filled our once silent halls; it was the office of a
Music Hall Syndicate, and strange noises from stranger instruments came
floating out and up our stairs, and blonde young ladies in towering
hats blocked the door. Then a Newspaper Correspondent drifted in and
drifted out again; and next a publisher piled his books in the windows,
and made it look so like the shop which is against the rules of the
house that his disappearance seemed his just reward.
After this a Steamship Company took possession, bringing suggestions of
sunshine and spice with the exotic names of its vessels and the far-away
Southern ports for which they sailed,--bringing, too, the spirit of
youth, for it employed many young men and women whom I would meet in
couples whispering on the stairs or going home at dusk hand in hand.
Tender little idyls sprang up in our sober midst. But the staff of young
lovers hit upon the roof as trysting-place at the luncheon hour, running
races and playing tag up there, and almost tumbling through our
skylight. Cupid, sporting overhead with wings exchanged for hob-nailed
boots, was unendurable, and I had to call in the Landlord's Agent. He is
the unfortunate go-between in all the tenants' differences and
difficulties: a kind, weary, sympathetic man, designed by Nature for
amiable, good-natured communication with his fellow men, and decreed by
Fate and his calling to communicate with them constantly in their most
disagreeable moods and phases. Half my fury evaporated at sight of his
troubled face, and I might have endured the races and games of tag could
I have foreseen that, almost as soon as he put a stop to them, the
Steamship Company would take its departure.
The Professor who then came in is so exemplary a tenant that I hope
there will be no more changes in the Ground Floor Back. He is a tall,
ruddy, well-built man of the type supposed to be essentially British by
those who have never seen the other type far more general in the
provincial town or, nearer still, in the East of London. He is of
middle-age and should therefore have out-grown the idyllic stage, and
his position as Professor at the University is a guarantee of sobriety
and decorum. I do not know what he professes, but I can answer for his
conscientiousness in professing it by the regularity with which, from
our windows, I see him of a morning crossing the garden below on his
way to his classes. His household is a model of British propriety. He is
cared for by a motherly housekeeper, an eminently correct man-servant,
and a large hound of dignified demeanour and a sense of duty that leads
him to suspect an enemy in everybody who passes his master's door. His
violence in protesting against unobjectionable tenants like ourselves
reconciles me to dispensing with a dog, especially as it ends with his
bark. It was in his master's chambers that our only burglar was
discovered,--a forlorn makeshift of a burglar who got away with nothing,
and was in such an agony of fright when, in the small hours of the
morning, he was pulled out from under the dining-room table, that the
Professor let him go as he might have set free a fly found straying in
his jam-pot.
The Professor, as is to be expected of anybody so unmistakably British,
cultivates a love for sport. I suspect him of making his amusements his
chief business in life, as it is said a man should and as the Briton
certainly does. He hunts in the season, and, as he motors down to the
meet, he is apt to put on his red coat and white breeches before he
starts, and they give the last touch of respectability to our
respectable house. He is an ardent automobilist, and his big motor at
our door suggests wealth as well as respectability. This would have
brought us into close acquaintance had he had his way. Sport is supposed
to make brothers of all men who believe in it, but from this category I
must except J. at those anxious moments which sport does not spare its
followers. He was preparing to start somewhere on his fiery motor
bicycle, and the Professor, who had never seen one before, wanted to
know all about it. J., deeper than he cared to be in carburettors and
other mysterious matters, was not disposed to be instructive, and I
think the Professor was ashamed of having been beaten in the game of
reserve by an American, for he has made no further advances. His most
ambitious achievement is ballooning, to which he owes a fame in the
Quarter only less than Mr. Square's. We all watch eagerly, with a
feeling of proprietorship, for the balloons on the afternoons when
balloon races and trials start from the Crystal Palace or Ranelagh. I
have caught our little fruiterer in the act of pointing out the
Professor's windows to chance customers; and on those days I am absorbed
in the sporting columns of the afternoon paper, which, at other times, I
pass over unread. He has now but to fly to complete his triumph and the
pride of our house in him.
Restlessness also prevails in the Second Floor Back, and as we are
immediately above, we suffer the more. Hardly a tenant has remained
there over a year, or a couple of years at most, and all in succession
have developed a talent for interfering with our comfort. First, an
Honourable occupied the chambers. His title was an unfailing
satisfaction to Mrs. Haines, the Housekeeper, who dwelt upon it
unctuously every time she mentioned him. I am not learned in Debrett and
Burke and may not have appreciated its value, but he might have been
Honourable ten times over and it would not have reconciled me to him as
neighbour. He was quite sure, if I was not, that he was a great deal
better than anybody else, and he had the Briton's independent way of
asserting it. He slammed behind him every door he opened, and when the
stairs were barricaded by himself, his friends, or his parcels, and we
wanted to pass, he failed to see us as completely as if we had been Mr.
Wells's Invisible Man. He went to the City in the morning and was away
all day, even an Honourable being sometimes compelled to pretend to
work. But this was no relief. During his absence his servants availed
themselves of the opportunity to assert their independence, which they
did with much vigour. When they were not slamming doors they were
singing hymns, until Mrs. Eliza Short from her chambers below and we
from ours above, in accord the first and only time for years, joined in
protest, and drove Mrs. Haines to the unpleasant task of remonstrating
with an Honourable.