There are, as everybody knows, many ways of measuring time: and right
through the ages learned men have argued heatedly in favour of their
different systems. Hipparchus of Rhodes sneered every time anybody
mentioned Marinus of Tyre to him: and the views of Ahmed Ibn Abdallah
of Baghdad gave Purbach and Regiomontanus the laugh of their lives.
Purbach in his bluff way said the man must be a perfect ass: and when
Regiomontanus, whose motto was Live and let live, urged that Ahmed Ibn
was just a young fellow trying to get along and ought not to be treated
too harshly, Purbach said Was that so? and Regiomontanus said Yes, that
was so, and Purbach said that Regiomontanus made him sick.
Tycho Brahe measured time by means of altitudes, quadrants, azimuths,
cross-staves, armillary spheres and parallactic rules: and, as he
often said to his wife when winding up the azimuth and putting the
cat out for the night, nothing could be fairer than that. And then
in 1863 along came Dollen with his _Die Zeitbestimmung vermittelst
des tragbaren Durchgangsinstruments im Verticale des Polarsterns_
(a best-seller in its day, subsequently filmed under the title Purple
Sins), and proved that Tycho, by mistaking an armillary sphere for a
quadrant one night after a bump-supper at Copenhagen University, had
got his calculations all wrong.
The truth is that time cannot be measured. To George Finch, basking
in the society of Molly Waddington, the next three weeks seemed but a
flash. Whereas to Hamilton Beamish, with the girl he loved miles away
in East Gilead, Idaho, it appeared incredible that any sensible person
could suppose that a day contained only twenty-four hours. There were
moments when Hamilton Beamish thought that something must have happened
to the sidereal moon and that time was standing still.
But now the three weeks were up, and at any minute he might hear that
she was back in the metropolis. All day long he had been going about
with a happy smile on his face, and it was with a heart that leaped and
sang from pure exuberance that he now turned to greet Officer Garroway,
who had just presented himself at his apartment.
"Ah, Garroway!" said Hamilton Beamish. "How goes it? What brings you
here?"
"I understood you to say, sir," replied the policeman, "that I was to
bring you my poem when I had completed it."
"Of course, of course. I had forgotten all about it. Something seems to
have happened to my memory these days. So you have written your first
poem, eh? All about love and youth and springtime, I suppose?... Excuse
me."
The telephone-bell had rung: and Hamilton Beamish, though the
instrument had disappointed him over and over again in the past few
days, leaped excitedly to snatch up the receiver.
"Hello?"
This time there was no disappointment. The voice that spoke was the
voice he had heard so often in his dreams.
"Mr. Beamish. I mean, Jimmy?"
Hamilton Beamish drew a deep breath. And so overcome was he with sudden
joy that for the first time since he had reached years of discretion he
drew it through the mouth.
"At last!" he cried.
"What did you say?"
"I said 'At last!' Since you went away every minute has seemed an hour."
"So it has to me."
"Do you mean that?" breathed Hamilton Beamish fervently.
"Yes. That's the way minutes do seem in East Gilead."
"Oh, ah, yes," said Mr. Beamish, a little damped. "When did you get
back?"
"A quarter of an hour ago."
Hamilton Beamish's spirits soared once more.
"And you called me up at once!" he said emotionally.
"Yes. I wanted to know Mrs. Waddington's telephone number at Hempstead."
"Was that the only reason?"
"Of course not. I wanted to hear how you were...."
"Did you? Did you?"
"... and if you had missed me."
"Missed you!"
"Did you?"
"Did I!"
"How sweet of you. I should have thought you would have forgotten my
very existence."
"Guk!" said Hamilton Beamish, completely overcome.
"Well, shall I tell you something? I missed you, too."
Hamilton Beamish drew another completely unscientific deep breath,
and was about to pour his whole soul into the instrument in a manner
that would probably have fused the wire, when a breezy masculine voice
suddenly smote his ear-drum.
"Is that Ed?" inquired the voice.
"No," thundered Hamilton Beamish.
"This is Charley, Ed. Is it all right for Friday?"
"It is not!" boomed Hamilton Beamish. "Get off the wire, you blot! Go
away, curse you!"
"Certainly, if you want me to," said a sweet, feminine voice. "But...."
"I beg your pardon! I am sorry, sorry, sorry. A fiend in human shape
got on the wire," explained Mr. Beamish hastily.
"Oh! Well, what were we saying?"
"I was just going to...."
"I remember. Mrs. Waddington's telephone number. I was looking through
my mail just now, and I found an invitation from Miss Waddington to her
wedding. I see it's to-morrow. Fancy that!"
Hamilton Beamish would have preferred to speak of other things than
trivialities like George Finch's wedding, but he found it difficult to
change the subject.
"Yes. It is to take place at Hempstead to-morrow. George is staying
down there at the inn."
"It's going to be a quiet country wedding, then?"
"Yes. I think Mrs. Waddington wants to hush George up as much as
possible."
"Poor George!"
"I am going down by the one-thirty train. Couldn't we travel together?"
"I am not sure that I shall be able to go. I have an awful lot of
things to see to here, after being away so long. Shall we leave it
open?"
"Very well," said Hamilton Beamish resignedly. "But, in any case, can
you dine with me to-morrow night?"
"I should love it."
Hamilton Beamish's eyes closed, and he snuffled for awhile.
"And what is Mrs. Waddington's number?"
"Hempstead 4076."
"Thanks."
"We'll dine at the Purple Chicken, shall we?"
"Splendid."
"You can always get it there, if they know you."
"Do they know you?"
"Intimately."
"Fine! Well, good-bye."
Hamilton Beamish stood for a few moments in deep thought: then, turning
away from the instrument, was astonished to perceive Officer Garroway.
"I'd forgotten all about you," he said. "Let me see, what did you say
you had come for?"
"To read you my poem, sir."
"Ah, yes, of course."
The policeman coughed modestly.
"It is just a little thing, Mr. Beamish--a sort of study, you might
say, of the streets of New York as they appear to a policeman on his
beat. I would like to read it to you, if you will permit me."
Officer Garroway shifted his Adam's apple up and down once or twice:
and, closing his eyes, began to recite in the special voice which he as
a rule reserved for giving evidence before magistrates.
"Streets!"
"That is the title, eh?"
"Yes, sir. And also the first line."
Hamilton Beamish started.
"Is it _vers libre_?"
"Sir?"
"Doesn't it rhyme?"
"No, sir. I understood you to say that rhymes were an outworn
convention."
"Did I really say that?"
"You did, indeed, sir. And a great convenience I found it. It seems to
make poetry quite easy."
Hamilton Beamish looked at him perplexedly. He supposed he must have
spoken the words which the other had quoted, and yet that he should
deliberately have wished to exclude a fellow-creature from the pure joy
of rhyming "heart" with "Cupid's dart" seemed to him in his present
uplifted state inconceivable.
"Odd!" he said. "Very odd. However, go on."
Officer Garroway went once more through the motions of swallowing
something large and sharp, and shut his eyes again.
"Streets!
Grim, relentless, sordid streets!
Miles of poignant streets,
East, West, North,
And stretching starkly South;
Sad, hopeless, dismal, cheerless, chilling
Streets!"
Hamilton Beamish raised his eyebrows.
"I pace the mournful streets
With aching heart."
"Why?" asked Hamilton Beamish.
"It is part of my duties, sir. Each patrolman is assigned a certain
portion of the city as a beat."
"I mean, why do you pace with aching heart?"
"Because it is bleeding, sir."
"Bleeding? You mean your heart?"
"Yes, sir. My heart is bleeding. I look at all the sordid gloom and
sorrow and my heart bleeds."
"Well, go on. It all seems very peculiar to me, but go on."
"I watch grey men slink past
With shifty, sidelong eyes
That gleam with murderous hate;
Lepers that prowl the streets."
Hamilton Beamish seemed about to speak, but checked himself.
"Men who once were men,
Women that once were women,
Children like wizened apes,
And dogs that snarl and snap and growl and hate.
Streets!
Loathsome, festering streets!
I pace the scabrous streets
And long for death."
Officer Garroway stopped, and opened his eyes: and Hamilton Beamish,
crossing the room to where he stood, slapped him briskly on the
shoulder.
"I see it all," he said. "What's wrong with you is liver. Tell me, have
you any local pain and tenderness?"
"No, sir."
"High temperature accompanied by shiverings and occasional rigours?"
"No, sir."
"Then you have not a hepatic abscess. All that is the matter, I
imagine, is a slight sluggishness in the oesophageal groove, which can
be set right with calomel. My dear Garroway, it surely must be obvious
to you that this poem of yours is all wrong. It is absurd for you to
pretend that you do not see a number of pleasant and attractive people
on your beat. The streets of New York are full of the most delightful
persons. I have noticed them on all sides. The trouble is that you have
been looking on them with a bilious eye."
"But I thought you told me to be stark and poignant, Mr. Beamish."
"Nothing of the kind. You must have misunderstood me. Starkness is
quite out of place in poetry. A poem should be a thing of beauty and
charm and sentiment, and have as its theme the sweetest and divinest
of all human emotions--Love. Only Love can inspire the genuine bard.
Love, Garroway, is a fire that glows and enlarges, until it warms
and beams upon multitudes, upon the universal heart of all, and so
lights up the whole world and all Nature with its generous flames.
Shakespeare speaks of the ecstasy of love, and Shakespeare knew what he
was talking about. Ah, better to live in the lowliest cot, Garroway,
than pine in a palace alone. In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed:
in war he mounts the warrior's steed. In halls, in gay attire is seen;
in hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the
grove, and men below and saints above; for love is heaven and heaven is
love. Get these simple facts into your silly fat head, Garroway, and
you may turn out a poem worth reading. If, however, you are going to
take this absurd attitude about festering streets and scabrous dogs and
the rest of it, you are simply wasting your time and would be better
employed writing sub-titles for the motion-pictures."
Officer Garroway was not a man of forceful character. He bowed his head
meekly before the storm.
"I see what you mean, Mr. Beamish."
"I should hope you did. I have put it plainly enough. I dislike
intensely this modern tendency on the part of young writers to
concentrate on corpses and sewers and despair. They should be writing
about Love. I tell thee Love is nature's second sun, Garroway, causing
a spring of virtues where he shines. All love is sweet, given or
returned. Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not
ever. True love's the gift which God has given to man alone beneath the
heaven. It is not--mark this, Garroway--it is not fantasy's hot fire,
whose wishes soon as granted die. It liveth not in fierce desire, with
fierce desire it does not die. It is the secret sympathy, the silver
link, the silken tie, which heart to heart and mind to mind in body
and in soul can bind."
"Yes, sir. Exactly, Mr. Beamish. I quite see that."
"Then go away and rewrite your poem on the lines I have indicated."
"Yes, Mr. Beamish." The policeman paused. "Before I go, there is just
one other thing...."
"There is no other thing in the world that matters except love."
"Well, sir, there are the motion-pictures, to which you made a brief
allusion just now, and...."
"Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish, "I trust that you are not going to
tell me that, after all I have done to try to make you a poet, you wish
to sink to writing motion-picture scenarios?"
"No, sir. No, indeed. But some little time ago I happened to purchase
a block of stock in a picture company, and so far all my efforts
to dispose of it have proved fruitless. I have begun to entertain
misgivings as to the value of these shares, and I thought that, while I
was here, I would ask you if you knew anything about them."
"What is the company?"
"The Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, California,
Mr. Beamish."
"How many shares did you buy?"
"Fifty thousand dollars worth."
"How much did you pay?"
"Three hundred dollars."
"You were stung," said Hamilton Beamish. "The stock is so much waste
paper. Who sold it to you?"
"I have unfortunately forgotten his name. He was a man with a red face
and grey hair. And if I'd got him here now," said Officer Garroway with
honest warmth, "I'd soak him so hard it would jolt his grandchildren.
The smooth, salve-slinging crocodile!"
"It is a curious thing," said Hamilton Beamish musingly, "there seems
to be floating at the back of my consciousness a sort of nebulous
memory having to do with this very stock you mention. I seem to recall
somebody at some time and place consulting me about it. No, it's no
good, it won't come back. I have been much preoccupied of late, and
things slip my mind. Well, run along, Garroway, and set about rewriting
that poem of yours."
The policeman's brow was dark. There was a rebellious look in his
usually mild eyes.
"Rewrite it nothing! It's the goods."
"Garroway!"
"I said New York was full of lepers, and so it is. Nasty, oily,
lop-eared lepers that creep up to a fellow and sell him scabrous stock
that's not worth the paper it's printed on. That poem is right, and I
don't alter a word of it. No, sir!"
Hamilton Beamish shook his head.
"One of these days, Garroway, love will awaken in your heart and you
will change your views."
"One of these days," replied the policeman frigidly, "I shall meet that
red-faced guy again, and I'll change his face. It won't be only my
heart that'll be aching by the time I've finished with him."