_In which Professor Higginson gets those sweets
by the wagon-load, and also hears how Men
are Made._
Professor Higginson stared at the pile of letters. He remembered that
it was a Saturday—a free day! He groaned at such freedom.
Fame is like the trumpet she bears. The trumpet has for the civilian an
exhilarating sound; for the house near barracks, too familiar with it,
a mechanical one; for the mounted trooper at reveillée it has nothing
but a hideous blare.
Fame had come to Professor Higginson under her less pleasing aspect. He
marvelled that so much fame had already risen. He trembled at what _The
Howl_ might now raise. A paltry lapse of memory! A thing that might
happen to anyone! And now all this!
Professor Higginson had under-estimated his position in the scientific
world of guess-work.
There are not many Professors of Psychology. Only three have written
books. That his own should have been translated into several languages
had in the past given him pleasure, for he was a provincial man, and in
that curious mixture which makes your academic fellow the funny thing
he is, the enormity of false pride jostles a very real simplicity.
He opened one letter, then another, then another: he intended to answer
each laboriously at some length with his own hand. He had said nothing
of confidence or of privacy to any man, and these letters were the
firstfruits of what might be to come!
_The Howl_ is read by all England before nine. There is a post comes
into Ormeston at three in the afternoon. By that post, amid a mass of
material which it appalled him to observe, and which included every
kind of advertisement from every sort of tout, there was shot at the
Philosopher over two hundred letters of more material kind.
He purposed an attempt to answer even these in as much detail as his
first batch and with his own hand. His Great Adventure was becoming a
matter of appreciable interest to himself, and half to conquer, in some
moments, his anxiety and dread. There came interludes—as he sat that
afternoon opening envelope after envelope, and scribbling notes for
replies—when he really felt as though what he were writing was true,
and could describe with glowing precision all that strange psychic
phase in which the Sub-Conscious self kicks up its heels and gambols at
random unrestrained by the burden of objectivity.
Two letters in particular he wrote with the utmost care. One to a
Cabinet Minister—an inveterate meddler who dabbled in such things in
the intervals of his enormous occupations—the other to an ex-Cabinet
Minister—another inveterate meddler who also dabbled in such things in
the intervals of his.
Professor Higginson had never written to such great men before.
He worked really hard, and he composed two masterpieces. Upon the
addressing of his first ten envelopes he spent the best part of twenty
minutes with books of reference at his side. He wrote courteously and
at enormous length to a Great Lady whose coronet stood out upon the
paper like a mountain, and whose signature he could yet hardly accept
as real, so tremendous a thing did it seem to him that such an one as
She should have entered his life.
He wrote in extraordinary French to the great Specialist at Nancy
who had written to him in English. He wrote in English to the great
Specialist of Leipsic who had written to him in a German he did not
understand, but whose signature and European name warranted the nature
of the reply. So passed all Saturday’s leisure.
Then came Sunday morning—and a perfect ocean of post!
It was a mass of correspondence which no two secretaries could have
dealt with in thirty-six hours, and which he left hopelessly upon his
table until some expert friend might tell him how such heaps were
cleared.
His immense work of the day and of the night before in answering the
Great had left him weary and already disgusted with his new public
position. His terrors returned.
He had overstrained himself. The room was blurred before him. He rose
from his breakfast and thought to take the air—but the empty Sabbath
streets brought him no relief.
The Sunday Popular Papers were hot on his trail. Their great flaring
placards stood outside the news shops.
“Is there a Heaven?” in letters a foot long, and underneath,
“Professor Higginson says ‘Yes,’” almost knocked him down as they
stared at him from one hoarding. In the loud bill outside a chapel he
saw his name set forth as the “subject of the discourse,” and before
he could snatch away his eyes he had caught the phrase: “The First
Witness.” All were welcome.... _He_ was the First Witness!... Oh, God!
He could not pursue his walk. He felt (quite unnecessarily) that the
mass of the people whom he passed noted him, and spoke of him among
themselves as the Author of the Great Revelation. He wished again for
the hundredth time that he had never meddled with a lie. Then Satan
jerked the bit: Professor Higginson remembered what the truth would
have brought him; he thought of the dock. And then he ceased to wish
for anything at all.
Just as he was turning back from that _via dolorosa_ of newspaper
placards and sermon-notices in the public street, he remembered the
mass of correspondence, and at that moment Heaven sent him a friend—it
was Babcock. The set face and hard, bepuffed eyes seemed to shine on
him like a light of doom; the great loose mouth seemed eager and
hungry to devour a victim of such eminence.
Professor Higginson did not let him take the offensive.
“Babcock,” he almost shouted in his agony, “you know about letters and
things?”
Babcock never looked bewildered. He nodded his head determinedly and
said—
“Go on.”
“Well,” continued Professor Higginson, fiercely determined that the
great subject should not turn up, and talking as though by steam,
“letters, you know about letters, letters, hundreds and hundreds of
them. Must deal with them, must deal with them this morning—now!” he
almost screamed.
The heavy Babcock rapidly diagnosed the case within his mind. He
forbore to exasperate the patient.
“That’s all right,” he said about as soothingly as ogres can. “That’s
all right. What you want is a shorthand writer.”
“Two!” shouted Higginson, still dragging his companion along.
But the heavy Babcock had organising power.
“What’s the good of two?” he said contemptuously. “You haven’t got two
mouths—nor two brains either,” he added unnecessarily.
“I want help!” said Professor Higginson wildly. “Help!”
“What you want,” said the heavy Babcock, with a solid mental grip that
mastered his victim, “is someone to open all those letters, and sort
’em out, one from the other, and see what ought to be said, eh? Kind of
thing that ought to be said. Got a telephone?”
“No—yes—no,” said Professor Higginson as he reached his door.
“You ought to have—a man of your position,” said Babcock. They had
reached the door. “I’ll come in and _help_ you,” he added.
He did so. He set to work at once did Babcock—strongly and well. He
reproved his unhappy colleague again for not having a telephone, sent
out a servant in a cab with the address of a shorthand writer and of
a typist, newspaper people obtainable of a Sunday, and he ordered a
machine. Then he proceeded with tremendous rapidity to slice open the
great heap of envelopes with a butter knife.
He sorted out their contents at a pace that appalled and yet
fascinated the Professor of Psychology. By the time the assistants had
come he had them in four heaps:—
(1) Big-Wigs,
(2) Money,
(3) Refusals, and
(4) (largest of all) Trash.
Then did he take it upon himself without leave to call out to the
shorthand writer—
“First sentence—I hope you will excuse my dictating this letter—The
pressure of my correspondence during the last few days has been as you
may imagine far too great, etc., etc.”
It was a noble, rotund, convenient sentence. It had done work in its
time. Higginson listened, more fascinated than ever.
“Thirty copies of that, please,” said Babcock sharply. Then he
condescended to explain.
“That’ll come after the ‘Dear Sir or Madam.’”
Higginson nodded and added faintly—
“Or ‘My Lady,’ or whatever it may be.”
“Yes,” said Babcock, suddenly glancing at him with a gimlet look,
“after the opening thing whatever it is, ‘My Lord Duke, or My Lord
Cardinal, Excellence, or My Lord Hell-to-Pay.’”
He busied himself again with the papers.
“Those,” he said, shuffling rapidly a body of over forty and suddenly
tearing them across, “that’s trash; principally lunatics. I can tell
’em by the hand.”
Higginson gazed on helplessly; he thought such destruction imprudent,
but he said nothing.
“These,” went on Babcock, groaning with intelligent interest, and
licking his forefinger to deal with the papers, “these are refusals.”
He turned leaf after leaf as though he were counting Bank-Notes, and
decided upon the lot.
“Yes; all refusals.”
“May I look?” said Professor Higginson a little weakly.
“Yes, if you like,” said Babcock, throwing over the pile without
looking up, and turning to the next.
The Professor discovered that his colleague was right enough. They were
invitations all of them, and not invitations to accept. Over a third
were from money-lenders. He made a plaintive appeal to keep certain of
these last, whose gorgeous crests, ancient names, and scented paper
fascinated him. Babcock merely grunted and said, putting his hand upon
another much smaller pile—
“These are _money_, Higginson, _money_.”
He read them out. An offer to write for a magazine; a much more
lucrative offer to write for The Only Daily Paper—but to write
exclusively—and so forth.
“That’s the one to take,” said Babcock, he pulled out a note with an
American heading, ticked it, and tossing it to the Professor, said—
“Shall I answer it for you?”
“No,” said Higginson, trying to be firm.
“Oh, very well then,” said Babcock, “dictate it yourself.”
And the Professor with infinite verbiage gratefully accepted an
exclusive article of three thousand words for the sum of £250.
It was the turn of the Big-Wigs, and the learned Babcock with unerring
eye skipped an actor and a Duchess of equal prominence, and fished out
The Great Invitation.
It was the first document upon which he had condescended to linger, and
though it was short, he spent some moments over it. His face grew grave.
“That’s a big thing!” he said solemnly, handing it over almost with
reverence to the Professor of Psychology.
The Professor read a good London address simply stamped upon a good
piece of note-paper. He saw a signature, “Leonard Barclay,” which he
vaguely remembered in some connection or other. He read an invitation
to deliver an address for the Research Club upon any day he might
choose, but if possible during the next week. The Research Club would
take for the occasion the large room at Gorton’s. That was all.
“Lucky beast!” murmured Babcock, not quite loud enough for the typist
to hear, as he fixed the reading Higginson with his eye.
The reading Higginson laid down the letter, nodded inanely, and said—
“Well, ought I to take that, Babcock? Who _are_ the Research Club?”
“Who are the Research Club? Wuff! What a man! They _make_ men!” said
Babcock bitterly, “that’s what they are! Do you mean to say you don’t
_know_?” he went on, leaning over and talking earnestly in a low tone.
“Do you mean to say you haven’t _heard_ of the Research Club?”
“Somewhere, I dare say,” said Professor Higginson confusedly.
But he hadn’t. It was a great moment for Babcock. He had not been among
the “nuts” for nothing.
[Illustration: _He read an invitation to deliver an address for the
Research Club._]
“Come,” said he, like a man who is leading up to a great business,
“you know who Leonard Barclay is?”
“No—yes,” said Professor Higginson.
“Just like your telephone,” sneered Babcock. “You _don’t_ know. Well,
I’ll tell you. Leonard Barclay’s the private secretary of Mrs. Camp,
and _he’s_ the man who started the Connoisseurs in Bond Street, and who
wrote the book about Colombo. _Now_ do you understand?”
Professor Higginson dared not say he didn’t. But he still looked
helpless.
“Good God, man!” Babcock went at him again, “_he’s in the very middle
of it_. I’ve known invitations from the R.C. sent by lots of people,
but never by _him_!”
“Oh!” said Higginson, with an appearance of comprehension, though in
truth the mysteries of our plutocracy were for him mysteries indeed.
“Is he in Parliament?”
“Parliament!” sneered Babcock. “You’ll be asking me if he’s the Lord
Mayor next. He’s Leonard Barclay.... Oh, curse it! He’s _it_! He’s in
the middle of the pudding. Why, man alive, he made” (and Babcock with
glorious indiscretion quoted right off the reel) “the Under-Secretary
for the Post Office, the General in command of the 5th Army Corps, the
Permanent Commissioner of Fine Arts, and a Bishop—a Bishop who really
counted.”
He paused for breath, and he emphasised his words slowly as he leant
back again.
“Do you know, Higginson, that Leonard Barclay was the man who let Lord
Cowfold leave the country?”
“What!” said the astonished and provincial Professor. “What do you
mean?... Lord Cowfold?—why, he was at Ormeston only last May opening
the Bulldog Club.”
“Well, he’s in Assisi now,” said Babcock grimly, “Assisi in Italy; and
he can thank Leonard Barclay that he’s not in Dartmoor—Dartmoor in
Devonshire. Lord, man, you’re in luck!”
“But I don’t understand,” began Professor Higginson, and then he was
silent.
“Well, then, I’ll tell you,” said Babcock, gloating in triumph, “though
it’s difficult to believe you! The Research Club is Bakewell and the
Prime Minister and Fittleworth and Capley and about twenty more like
that, and when you talk before it, you don’t _only_ talk before it,
Higginson, you talk before anything that counts in Europe and happens
to be in England at the time.”
“But I never heard of it,” said his colleague impotently, with the
feeling as he said it that _that_ was no great proof of anything.
“No,” answered Babcock grimly, “one doesn’t always hear of those
things.”
He jotted down a few words in pencil on a bit of paper and shoved it
over to the Professor.
“There,” he said, “copy that out in your own hand. I wouldn’t
type-write a thing of that sort if I were you—and write it on the
University paper.”
Professor Higginson peered at the note and read—
“MY DEAR MR. BARCLAY,
“I shall really be very happy. I think
Wednesday a very good night. Shall we call
it Wednesday? Unless I hear from you I
shall take it for granted; and at Gorton’s.
The usual hour, I suppose?”
Professor Higginson gasped.
“But isn’t that very familiar, Babcock,” he said doubtfully.
“Yes, it is,” said Babcock, “that’s the point.”
“And I don’t know the hour,” said Higginson, still hesitating.
“But I do,” said Babcock. “It’s half-past five. Listen, Higginson, and
don’t be a fool. That’s how men are _made_ in this country. Do as I
tell you.”
Professor Higginson, wondering vaguely how he could be “made,” and what
happened when a man was so dealt with by those that govern us, took a
sheet of the University paper, and wrote out carefully that horribly
familiar note. He hesitated at the superscription.
“What is he?” he asked.
“Who?” said Babcock.
“Why, this Mr. ——, this something Barclay.”
“You’ve got it there, you fool,” said Babcock without courtesy.
“Leonard Barclay, Leonard Barclay, Esq. Simple enough, isn’t it?”
“I thought,” murmured Professor Higginson, “I didn’t know—er it was
possible that he might have had a——”
“Father?” blurted out Babcock. “Not that I know of. No one knows where
he comes from, ’xcept Mrs. Camp, and _she_ comes from Chicago.”
With which words Babcock, the fallen angel, stared before him in
reverie, and saw rising upon the background of that dull provincial
room all his old lost paradise: the glories of the Merschauer’s house
in Capon Street, and the big day at Cowfold House, and the crowds, and
the lights that surround our masters and his.
Thus it was that there fell upon this worthy, stilted and hitherto
rather obscure provincial pedant the Great Chance of English life: to
receive a note from the private secretary of the widow of Mr. Camp, of
Chicago, and to speak before the Research Club, where, as it seems, Men
are Made!