JULIAN’S IDEA
_(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)_
I had been relating, on the morning after the Blake affair, the
stirring episode of the previous night to Julian. He agreed with me
that it was curious that our potato-thrower of Covent Garden market
should have crossed my path again. But I noticed that, though he
listened intently enough, he lay flat on his back in his hammock, not
looking at me, but blinking at the ceiling; and when I had finished he
turned his face towards the wall—which was unusual, since I generally
lunched on his breakfast, as I was doing then, to the accompaniment of
quite a flow of languid abuse.
I was in particularly high spirits that morning, for I fancied that I
had found a way out of my difficulty about Margaret. That subject being
uppermost in my mind, I guessed at once what Julian’s trouble was.
“I think you’d like to know, Julian,” I said, “whether I’d written to
Guernsey.”
“Well?”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“You’ve told her to come?”
“No; but I’m able to take my respite without wounding her. That’s as
good as writing, isn’t it? We agreed on that.”
“Yes; that was the idea. If you could find a way of keeping her from
knowing how well you were getting on with your writing, you were to
take it. What’s your idea?”
“I’ve hit on a very simple way out of the difficulty,” I said. “It came
to me only this morning. All I need do is to sign my stuff with a
pseudonym.”
“You only thought of that this morning?”
“Yes. Why?”
“My dear chap, I thought of it as soon as you told me of the fix you
were in.”
“You might have suggested it.”
Julian slid to the floor, drained the almost empty teapot, rescued the
last kidney, and began his breakfast.
“I would have suggested it,” he said, “if the idea had been worth
anything.”
“What! What’s wrong with it?”
“My dear man, it’s too risky. It’s not as though you kept to one form
of literary work. You’re so confoundedly versatile. Let’s suppose you
did sign your work with a _nom de plume_.”
“Say, George Chandos.”
“All right. George Chandos. Well, how long would it be, do you think,
before paragraphs appeared, announcing to the public, not only of
England but of the Channel Islands, that George Chandos was really
Jimmy Cloyster?”
“What rot!” I said. “Why the deuce should they want to write paragraphs
about me? I’m not a celebrity. You’re talking through your hat,
Julian.”
Julian lit his pipe.
“Not at all,” he said. “Count the number of people who must necessarily
be in the secret from the beginning. There are your publishers, Prodder
and Way. Then there are the editors of the magazine which publishes
your Society dialogue bilge, and of all the newspapers, other than the
_Orb_, in which your serious verse appears. My dear Jimmy, the news
that you and George Chandos were the same man would go up and down
Fleet Street and into the Barrel like wildfire. And after that the
paragraphs.”
I saw the truth of his reasoning before he had finished speaking. Once
more my spirits fell to the point where they had been before I hit upon
what I thought was such a bright scheme.
Julian’s pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again, and
spoke through the smoke:
“The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandos
are a single individual.”
“But why should the editors know that? Why shouldn’t I simply send in
my stuff, typed, by post, and never appear myself at all?”
“My dear Jimmy, you know as well as I do that that wouldn’t work. It
would do all right for a bit. Then one morning: ‘Dear Mr. Chandos,—I
should be glad if you could make it convenient to call here some time
between Tuesday and Thursday.—Yours faithfully. Editor of
Something-or-other.’ Sooner or later a man who writes at all regularly
for the papers is bound to meet the editors of them. A successful
author can’t conduct all his business through the post. Of course, if
you chucked London and went to live in the country——”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “I simply couldn’t do it. London’s got into my
bones.”
“It does,” said Julian.
“I like the country, but I couldn’t live there. Besides, I don’t
believe I could write there—not for long. All my ideas would go.”
Julian nodded.
“Just so,” he said. “Then exit George Chandos.”
“My scheme is worthless, you think, then?”
“As you state it, yes.”
“You mean——?” I prompted quickly, clutching at something in his tone
which seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirely
hopeless.
“I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you
and George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to
provide George with separate flesh and blood of his own, there’s no
reason——”
“By Jove! you’ve hit it. Go on.”
“Listen. Here is my rough draft of what I think might be a sound,
working system. How many divisions does your work fall into, not
counting the _Orb_?”
I reflected.
“Well, of course, I do a certain amount of odd work, but lately I’ve
rather narrowed it down, and concentrated my output. It seemed to me a
better plan than sowing stuff indiscriminately through all the papers
in London.”
“Well, how many stunts have you got? There’s your serious verse—one.
And your Society stuff—two. Any more?”
“Novels and short stories.”
“Class them together—three. Any more?
“No; that’s all.”
“Very well, then. What you must do is to look about you, and pick
carefully three men on whom you can rely. Divide your signed stuff
between these three men. They will receive your copy, sign it with
their own names, and see that it gets to wherever you want to send it.
As far as the editorial world is concerned, and as far as the public is
concerned, they will become actually the authors of the manuscripts
which you have prepared for them to sign. They will forward you the
cheques when they arrive, and keep accounts to which you will have
access. I suppose you will have to pay them a commission on a scale to
be fixed by mutual arrangement. As regards your unsigned work, there is
nothing to prevent your doing that yourself—‘On Your Way,’ I mean,
whenever there’s any holiday work going: general articles, and light
verse. I say, though, half a moment.”
“Why, what?”
“I’ve thought of a difficulty. The editors who have been taking your
stuff hitherto may have a respect for the name of James Orlebar
Cloyster which they may not extend to the name of John Smith or George
Chandos, or whoever it is. I mean, it’s quite likely the withdrawal of
the name will lead to the rejection of the manuscript.”
“Oh no; that’s all right,” I said. “It’s the stuff they want, not the
name. I don’t say that names don’t matter. They do. But only if they’re
big names. Kipling might get a story rejected if he sent it in under a
false name, which they’d have taken otherwise just because he was
Kipling. What they want from me is the goods. I can shove any label on
them I like. The editor will read my ghosts’ stuff, see it’s what he
wants, and put it in. He may say, ‘It’s rather like Cloyster’s style,’
but he’ll certainly add, ‘Anyhow, it’s what I want.’ You can scratch
that difficulty, Julian. Any more?”
“I think not. Of course, there’s the objection that you’ll lose any
celebrity you might have got. No one’ll say, ‘Oh, Mr. Cloyster, I
enjoyed your last book so much!’”
“And no one’ll say, ‘Oh, do you _write_, Mr. Cloyster? How interesting!
What have you written? You must send me a copy.’”
“That’s true. In any case, it’s celebrity against the respite,
obscurity against Miss Goodwin. While the system is in operation you
will be free but inglorious. You choose freedom? All right, then. Pass
the matches.”