CHAPTER I

THE MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF

_By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE_

THE BEACH OF DREAMS

THE GHOST GIRL

THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF

THE GOLD TRAIL

SEA PLUNDER

THE PEARL FISHERS

THE PRESENTATION

THE NEW OPTIMISM

POPPYLAND

THE POEMS OF FRANÇOIS VILLON

_Translated by H. De Vere Stacpoole_

The Man Who Found Himself

(Uncle Simon)

_By_

MARGARET AND H. DE VERE STACPOOLE

NEW YORK

JOHN LANE COMPANY

MCMXX

Copyright, 1920,

BY STREET & SMITH

Copyright, 1920,

BY JOHN LANE COMPANY

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. SIMON 9

II. MUDD 12

III. DR. OPPENSHAW 20

IV. DR. OPPENSHAW--_continued_ 30

V. I WILL NOT BE HIM 34

VI. TIDD AND RENSHAW 42

VII. THE WALLET 46

PART II

I. THE SOUL'S AWAKENING 51

II. MOXON AND MUDD 60

III. SIMON'S OLD-FASHIONED NIGHT IN TOWN 73

PART III

I. THE LAST SOVEREIGN 87

II. UNCLE SIMON 105

III. THE HUNDRED-POUND NOTE 121

IV. THE HUNDRED-POUND NOTE--_continued_ 129

V. THE HOME OF THE NIGHTINGALES 144

VI. THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGONFLY 154

VII. NINE HUNDRED POUNDS 164

III. PALL MALL PLACE 173

IX. JULIA 181

PART IV

I. THE GARDEN-PARTY 191

II. HORN 200

III. JULIA--_continued_ 209

IV. HORN--_continued_ 216

V. TIDD _versus_ RENSHAW 221

VI. WHAT HAPPENED TO SIMON 234

VII. TIDD _versus_ BROWNLOW 238

VIII. IN THE ARBOUR 240

IX. CHAPTER THE LAST 243

PART I

THE MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF

CHAPTER I

SIMON

King Charles Street lies in Westminster; you turn a corner and find

yourself in Charles Street as one might turn a corner and find oneself

in History. The cheap, the nasty, and the new vanish, and fine old

comfortable houses of red brick, darkened by weather and fog, take you

into their keeping, tell you that Queen Anne is not dead, amuse you with

pictures of Sedan chairs and running footmen and discharge you at the

other end into the twentieth century from whence you came.

Simon Pettigrew lived at No. 12, where his father, his grandfather, and

his great-grandfather had lived before him--lawyers all of them. So

respected, so rooted in the soil of the Courts as to be less a family of

lawyers than a minor English Institution. Divorce your mind entirely

from all petty matters of litigation in connection with the Pettigrews,

Simon or any of his forebears would have appeared just as readily in

their shirt-sleeves in Fleet Street as in County or Police Court for or

against the defendant; they were old family lawyers and they had a fair

proportion of the old English families in their keeping--deed-boxes

stuffed with papers, secrets to make one's hair curl.

To the general public this great and potent firm was almost unknown, yet

Pettigrew and Pettigrew had cut off enough heirs to furnish material for

a dozen Braddon novels, had smothered numerous screaming tragedies in

high life and buried them at dead of night, and all without a wrinkle on

the brow of the placid old firm that drove its curricle through the

reigns of the Georges, took snuff in the days of Palmerston, and in the

days of Edward Rex still refused to employ the typewriter.

Simon, the last of the firm, unmarried and without near relation, was at

the time of this story turned sixty--a clean-shaven, bright-eyed,

old-fashioned type of man, sedate, famed for his cellar, and a member of

the Athenæum. A man you never, never would have imagined to possess such

a thing as a Past. Never would have imagined to have been filled with

that semi-diabolical, semi-angelical joy of life which leads to the

follies of youth.

All the same, Simon, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two, had

raked the town vigorously more than viciously, haunted Evans'

supper-rooms, fallen madly in love with an actress, enjoyed life as only

the young can enjoy life in the gorgeous, dazzling, deceitful country of

Youth.

Driving in hansom cabs was then a pleasure! New clothes and outrageous

shirts and ties a delight, actresses goddesses. Then, one day his

actress turned out an actress, and the following night he came out of

the Cocoa Tree owing a gambling debt of a thousand pounds that he could

not pay. His father paid on his promising to turn over a new leaf, which

he did. But his youth was checked, his brightness eclipsed, and

arm-in-arm with common sense he set out on the long journey that led him

at last to the high position of a joyless, loveless, desolate, wealthy

solicitor of sixty--respected, very much respected. In fact, less a man

than a firm. Yet there still remained to him as a legacy of his youth, a

very pretty wit of his own, an irresponsible turn of talk when he gave

himself away--as at dinner-parties.

CHAPTER II

MUDD

Mudd was Simon's factotum, butler, and minister of inferior affairs.

Mudd was sixty-five and a bit; he had been in the services of the

Pettigrew family forty-five years, and had grown up, so to say, side by

side with Simon. For the last twenty years every morning Mudd had

brought up his master's tea, drawn up his blinds and set out his

clothes--seven thousand times or thereabouts, allowing for holidays and

illnesses. He was a clean-shaven old man, with rounded shoulders and a

way that had become blunt with long use; he only "sirred" Simon in the

presence of guests and servants, and had an open way of speaking on

matters of everyday affairs verging on the conjugal in its occasional

frankness.

This morning, the third of June, Mudd, having drawn up his master's

blinds and set out his boots and shaving things, vanished and returned

with his clothes, brushed and folded, and a jug of shaving water which

he placed on the wash-handstand.

"The arms will be out of this old coat if you go on wearing it much

longer," grumbled Mudd, as he placed the things on a chair. "It's been

in wear nearly a year and a half; you're heavy on the left elbow--it's

the desk does it."

"I'll see," said Simon.

He knew quite well the suggestion that lay in the tone and the words of

Mudd, but a visit to his tailors was almost on a par with a visit to his

dentists, and new clothes were an abhorrence. It took him a fortnight to

get used to a new coat, and as to being shabby, why, a decent shabbiness

was part of his personality and, vaguely perhaps, of his pride in life.

He could afford to be shabby.

Mudd having vanished, Simon rose and began his toilet, tubbing in a tin

bath--a flat Victorian tin bath--and shaving with a razor taken from a

case of seven, each marked with a day of the week.

This razor was marked "Tuesday."

Having carefully dried "Tuesday" and put it back between "Monday" and

"Wednesday," Simon closed the case with the care and precision that

marked all his actions, finished dressing, and looked out of the window

to see what sort of day it was.

A peep of glorious blue sky caught across the roofs of the opposite

houses informed him, leaving him unenthusiastic, and then, having wound

up his watch, he came downstairs to the Jacobean dining-room, where tea,

toast, frizzled bacon, and a well-aired _Times_ were awaiting him.

At a quarter to ten precisely Mudd opened the hall door, verified the

fact that the brougham was in waiting and informed his master, helped

him into his overcoat--a light summer overcoat--and closed the carriage

door on him.

A little after ten Simon reached Old Serjeants' Inn and entered his

office.

Brownlow, the chief clerk, had just arrived, and Simon, nodding to him,

passed into his private room, where his letters were laid out, hung up

his hat and coat, and set to business.

It was a sight to watch his face as he read letter after letter, laying

each in order under a marble paper-weight. One might have fancied

oneself watching Law at work, in seclusion and unadorned with robes. He

did not need glasses--his eyes were still the eyes of a young man.

Having finished his letters, he rang for his stenographer and began

dictating replies, sending out now and again for Brownlow to consult

upon details; then, this business finished and alone again, he sat

resting for a moment, leaning back in his chair and trimming his nails

with the little penknife that lay on the table. It was his custom at

twelve o'clock precisely to have a glass of old brown sherry. It was a

custom of the firm; Andrew Pettigrew had done the same in his day and

had handed on the habit to his son. If a favoured client were present

the client would be asked to have a glass, and the bottle and two

glasses were kept in the John Tann safe in the corner of the room. Ye

gods! Fancy in your modern solicitor's office a wine-bottle in the

principal safe and the solicitor asking a client to "have a drink"! Yet

the green-seal sherry, famous amidst the _cognoscenti_, and the safe and

the atmosphere of the room and the other-day figure of Simon, all were

in keeping, part of a unique and Georgian whole, like the component

parts of a Toby jug.

The old silver-faced clock on the mantel, having placed its finger on

midday, set up its silvery lisp, and Simon, rousing himself from his

reverie, rose, drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the safe.

Then he stood looking at what was to be seen inside.

The safe contained two deed-boxes, one on top of the other, on the iron

fire-and-burglar-proof floor, and by the deed-boxes stood the sherry

bottle and the cut-glass satellite wine-glasses, whilst upon the topmost

deed-box reposed a black leather wallet.

Simon's eyes were fixed on the wallet, the thing seemed to hold him

spellbound; one might have fancied him gazing into the devilish-diamond

eyes of a coiled snake. The wallet had not been there when he closed the

safe last; there had been nothing in the safe but the boxes, the bottle

and the glasses, and of the safe there were but two keys, one at the

bank, one in his pocket. The manager of Cumber's Bank, a bald-headed

magnate with side-whiskers, even if he had means of access to the safe,

could not have been the author of this little trick, simply because the

key at the bank was out of his reach, being safely locked away in the

Pettigrew private deed-chest, and the key of the Pettigrew private

deed-chest was on the same bunch as that now hanging from the safe door.

The lock was unpickable.

Yet the look on Simon's face was less that of surprise at the thing

found than terror of the thing seen. Brownlow's head on a charger could

not have affected him much more.

Then, stretching out his hand, he took the wallet, brought it to the

table and opened it.

It contained bank-notes, beautiful, new, crisp Bank of England notes;

but the joy of the ordinary man in discovering a great unexpected wad of

bank-notes was not apparent in the face of Simon, unless beads of

perspiration are indications of joy. He turned to the sherry-bottle,

filled two glasses with a shaky hand and drained them; then he turned

again to the notes.

He sat down and, pushing the wallet aside, began to count them. Began to

count them feverishly, as though the result of the tally were a matter

of vast importance. There were four notes of a thousand, the rest were

hundreds and a few tens. Ten thousand pounds, that was the total.

He put the notes back in the case, buckled it, jumped up like a released

spring, flung the wallet on top of the deed-box and closed the safe with

a snap.

Then he stood, hands in pockets, examining the pattern of the Turkey

carpet.

At this moment a knock came to the door and a junior clerk appeared.

"What the devil do you want?" asked Simon.

The clerk stated his case. A Mr. Smith had called, craving an

interview.

"Ask Mr. Brownlow to see him," replied Simon; "but ask Mr. Brownlow to

step in here first."

In a moment Brownlow appeared.

"Brownlow," said Simon, "look up Dr. Oppenshaw's telephone number and

ask him can he give me ten minutes' interview before luncheon. Say it is

most urgently important. 110A, Harley Street, is his address--and, see

here, have a taxicab called--that's all."

Whilst Brownlow was away on his mission Simon put on his overcoat, put

on his hat, blew his nose lustily in the red bandanna handkerchief that

was part of his personality, opened the safe and took another peep at

the wallet, as if to make sure that the fairy hand that had placed it

there had not spirited it away again, and was in the act of locking the

safe when the senior clerk entered to say that Dr. Oppenshaw would be

visible at a quarter to one, and that Morgan, the office-boy, had

procured the cab.

Brownlow, though he managed to conceal his feelings, was disturbed by

the manner of his chief and by the telephone message to the doctor; by

the whole affair, in fact, for Simon never left the office till the

stroke of one, when the brougham called to take him to Simpson's in the

Strand for luncheon.

Was Simon ill? He ventured to put the question and nearly had his head

snapped off.

Ill! No, of course he wasn't ill, never better in his life; what on

earth put that idea into Brownlow's head?

Then the testy one departed in search of the taxi, and Brownlow returned

to his room and his duties.

CHAPTER III

DR. OPPENSHAW

Just as rabbit-burrows on the Arizona plain give shelter to a mixed

tenantry, a rabbit, an owl, and a snake often occupying the same hole,

so the Harley Street houses are, as a rule, divided up between dentists,

oculists, surgeons, and physicians, so that under the same roof you can,

if you are so minded, have your teeth extracted, your lungs percussed,

your eyes put right, and your surgical ailment seen to, each on a

different floor. Number 110A, Harley Street, however, contained only one

occupant--Dr. Otto Oppenshaw. Dr. Oppenshaw had no need of a sharer in

his rent burdens; a neurologist in the most nerve-ridden city of Europe,

he was making an income of some twenty-five thousand a year.

People were turned away from his door as from a theatre where a wildly

successful play is running. The main craving of fashionable neurotics, a

craving beyond, though often inspired by the craving for, the opium

alkaloids and cocaine, was to see Oppenshaw. Yet he was not much to

see: a little bald man like a turnip, with the manners of a butcher, and

gold-rimmed spectacles.

Dukes inspired with the desire to see Oppenshaw had to wait their turn

often behind tradesmen, yet he was at Simon Pettigrew's command. Simon

was his sometime lawyer. It was half-past twelve, or maybe a bit more,

when the taxi drew up at 110A and the lawyer, after a sharp legal

discussion over tuppence with the driver, mounted the steps and pressed

the bell.

The door was at once opened by a pale-faced man in black, who conducted

the visitor to the waiting-room, where a single patient was seated

reading a last year's volume of _Punch_ and not seeming to realise the

jokes.

This person was called out presently, and then came Simon's turn.

Oppenshaw got up from his desk and came forward to meet him.

"I'm sorry to bother you," said Simon, when they had exchanged

greetings. "It's a difficult matter I have come to consult you about,

and an important one, else I would not have cut into your time like

this."

"State your case," said the other jovially, retaking his seat and

pointing out a chair.

"That's the devil of it," replied Simon; "it's a case that lies out of

the jurisdiction of common sense and common knowledge. Look at me. Do I

look as though I were a dreamer or creature of fancies?"

"You certainly don't," said Oppenshaw frankly.

"Yet what I have to tell you disgusts me--will disgust you."

"I'm used to that, I'm used to that," said the other. "Nothing you can

say will alarm, disgust, or leave me incredulous."

"Well, here it is," said the patient, plunging into the matter as a man

into cold water. "A year ago--a year and four weeks, for it was on the

third of May--I went down to my office one morning and transacted my

business as usual. At twelve o'clock I--er--had occasion to open my

safe, a safe of which I alone possess the key. On the top of a deed-box

in that safe I found a brown-paper parcel tied with red tape. I was

astonished, for I had put no parcel in."

"You might have forgotten," said Oppenshaw.

"I never forget," replied Simon.

"Go on," said Oppenshaw.

"I opened the parcel. It contained bank-notes to the amount of ten

thousand pounds."

"H'm--h'm."

"Ten thousand pounds. I could not believe my eyes. I sent for my chief

clerk, Brownlow. He could not believe his eyes, and I fear he even

doubted the statement of the whole case. Now listen. I determined to go

to my bank, Cumber's, and make enquiries as to my balance, ridden by the

seemingly absurd idea that I myself had drawn this amount and forgotten

the fact. I may say at once this was the truth, I _had_ drawn it,

unknown to myself. Well, that was the third of May, and when and where

do you think I found myself next?"

"Go on," said Oppenshaw.

"In Paris on the third of June."

"Ah--ah."

"Everything between those dates was a blank."

"Your case is not absolutely common," said Oppenshaw. "Rare, but not

without precedent--read the papers. Why, only yesterday a woman was

found on a seat at Brighton. She had left London a week ago; the

interval was to her a complete blank, yet she had travelled about and

lived like an ordinary mortal in possession of her ordinary senses."

"Wait a bit," said Simon. "I was not found on a seat in Paris. I found

myself in a gorgeously-furnished sitting-room of the Bristol Hotel, and

I was dressed in clothes that might have suited a young man--a fool of

twenty, and I very soon found that I had been acting--acting like a

fool. Of the ten thousand only five thousand remained."

"Five thousand in a month," said Oppenshaw. "Well, you paid the price of

your temporary youth. Tell me," said he, "and be quite frank. What were

you like when you were young? I mean in mind and conduct?"

Simon moved wearily.

"I was a fool for a while," said he. "Then I suddenly checked myself and

became sensible."

Oppenshaw rapped twice with his fingers on his desk as if in triumph

over his own perception.

"That clears matters," said he. "You were undoubtedly suffering from

Lethmann's disease."

"Good Lord!" said Simon. "What's that?"

"It's a form of aberration--most interesting. You have heard of double

personalities, of which a great deal of nonsense has been written? Well,

Lethmann's disease is just this: a man, say, of twenty, suddenly checked

in the course of his youth, becomes practically another person. You,

for instance, became, or fancied you became, another person; you

suddenly 'checked yourself and became sensible,' as you put it, but you

did not destroy that old foolish self. Nothing is destructible in mind

as long as the brain-tissue is normal; you put it in prison, and after

the lapse of many years, owing, perhaps, to some slight declension in

brain power, it broke out, dominated you, and lived again. Youth must be

served.

"It would have been perhaps better for you to have let your youth run

its course and expend itself normally. You have paid the price of your

own will-power. I am very much interested in this. Tell me as faithfully

as you can what you did in Paris, or at least what you gathered that you

did. When you came to, did you remember your actions during the month of

aberration?"

"When I came to," said Simon, speaking almost with his teeth set, "I was

like a person stunned. Then I remembered, bit by bit, what I had been

doing, but it was like vaguely remembering what another man had been

doing."

"Right," said Oppenshaw, "that tallies with your case. Go on."

"I had been doing foolish things. I had been living, so to say, on the

surface of life, without a thought of anything but pleasure, without the

slightest recollection of myself as I am. I had been doing things that I

might have done at twenty--extravagant follies; yet I believe not any

really vicious acts. I had been drinking too much champagne, for one

thing, and there were several ladies.... Good Lord! Oppenshaw, I'd blush

to confess it to anyone else, but I'd been going on like a boy, picking

flowers at Fontainebleau--writing verses to one of these hussies. I

could remember that. Me!--verses about blue skies and streams and

things! Me! It's horrible!"

"Used you to write verses when you were young?"

"Yes," said Simon, "I believe I used to make that sort of fool of

myself."

"You were full of the joy of living?"

"I suppose so."

"You see, everything tallies. Yes, without any manner of doubt it's a

case of Lethmann's disease rounded and complete. Now, tell me, when you

came to, you could remember all your actions in Paris; how far back did

that memory go?"

"I could remember dimly right back to when I was leaving the office in

Old Serjeants' Inn with the bundle of bank-notes to go to the bank.

Then all of a sudden it would seem I forgot all about my past and

became, as you insist, myself at twenty. I went to the Charing Cross

Hotel, where I had already, it would seem, hired rooms for myself, and

where I had directed new clothes to be sent, and then I went to Paris."

"This is most important," said Oppenshaw. "You had already hired rooms

for yourself and ordered clothes. Those acts must have been committed

before the great change came on you, and of course without your

knowledge."

"They must. Also the act of drawing the ten thousand from the bank."

"The concealed other self must have been working like a mole in the dark

for some days at least," said Oppenshaw, "utterly without your

knowledge."

"Utterly."

"Then having prepared in a vague sort of way a means for enjoying

itself, it burst out; it was like a butterfly coming out of a

chrysalis--excuse the simile."

"Something like that."

"So far so good. Well, now, when you came to your old self in Paris,

what did you do?"

"I came back to London, of course."

"But surely your sudden disappearance must have caused alarm? Why, it

would have been in the papers."

"Not a bit," said Simon grimly. "My other self, as you call it, had

prepared for that. It seems the night before the thing happened I told

Mudd--you know Mudd, the butler--that I might be called away suddenly

and be absent a considerable time, that I would buy clothes and

nightshirts and things, if that was so, at the place I was going to, and

that he was to tell the office if I went away, and to tell Brownlow to

carry on. Infernal, isn't it?"

"Infernally ingenious," said Oppenshaw; "but if you had ever studied the

subject of duplex personality you would not be surprised. I have seen a

young religious girl make most complex preparations for a journey as a

missionary to China, utterly without her own knowledge. We caught her at

the station, fortunately, just in time--but how did you find out that

you gave Mudd those instructions?"

"The whole way back from Paris," said Simon, "I was preparing to meet

all sorts of enquiry and bother as to my absence. Then, when I reached

home, Mudd did not seem to think it out of the way; he told me he had

followed my directions and notified the office when I did not return,

and told them that I might be some time away. Then I got out of him

what I had said about the clothes and so on."

"Tell me," said Oppenshaw suddenly, "why did you come to me to-day to

tell me all this?"

"Because," said Simon, "on opening my safe this morning I found in a

wallet on the top of the deed-box another bundle of notes for exactly

the same amount."

CHAPTER IV

DR. OPPENSHAW--_continued_

Oppenshaw whistled.

"A bundle of notes amounting to ten thousand pounds," said Simon;

"exactly the same amount."

Oppenshaw looked at his nails carefully without speaking. Simon watched

him.

"Tell me," said Simon, "is this confounded disease, or whatever it is,

recurrent?"

"You mean is there any fear that your old self--or, rather, your young

self--is preparing for another outbreak?"

"Precisely."

"That this drawing of another ten thousand, unknown to yourself, is only

the first act in a similar drama, or shall we say comedy?"

"Yes."

"Well, I can't say for certain, for the disease, or the ailment, if you

like the term better, has not been long enough before the eyes of

science to make quite definite statements. But, as far as I can judge,

I'm afraid it is."

Simon swallowed.

"Leaving aside the fact of the similarity of the action and the amount

of money drawn, we have the similarity in time. It is true that last

year it was in May you started the business."

"The third of May, a month's difference," said Simon.

"True, but it is less a question of a month more or less than of season.

Last early May and April end were abnormally fine. I remember that, for

I had to go to Switzerland. This May has been wretched. Then during the

last week we have had this burst of splendid weather--weather that makes

me feel young again."

"It doesn't me," said Simon.

"No, but it has evidently--at least probably--had that effect on your

other 'me.' The something that urges the return of the swallow has acted

in your subconsciousness with the coming of springlike weather just as

last year."

"Damn swallows!" cried Simon, rising up and pacing the floor. "Suppose

this thing lets me in for another five thousand, and Lord knows what

else? Oppenshaw," wheeling suddenly, "is nothing to be done? How can I

stop it?"

"Well," said Oppenshaw, "quite frankly, I think that the best means is

the exercise of your own will-power. You might, of course, take the

notes back to the bank and instruct them not to allow you to draw any

more money for, say, a month--but that would be unpleasant."

"Impossible!"

"You might, again, put yourself under restraint. I could do that for

you."

"Put myself in a mad-house?"

"No, no--a nursing home."

"Never!"

"You might, again, instruct your butler to follow you and, as a matter

of fact, keep his eye on you for the next month."

"Mudd!"

"Yes."

"Sooner die. Never could look him in the face again."

"Have you any near and trustworthy relatives?"

"Only a nephew, utterly wild and untrustworthy; a chap I've cut out of

my will and had to stop his allowance."

"And you are not married--that's a pity. A wife----"

"Hang wives!" cried Simon. "What's the good of talking of the

impracticable?"

"Well, there we are," continued Oppenshaw, perfectly unruffled. "I have

suggested everything; there is only will left. The greatest friend of a

man is his will. Determine in your own mind that this change will _not_

take place. I believe that will be your safest plan. The others I have

suggested are all impossible to your sense of _amour propre_, and,

besides that, there is the grave objection that they savour of force. It

might have bad consequences to use force to what would be practically

the subconscious mind. Your will is quite different. Will can never

unbalance mind. In fact, as a famous English neurologist has put it,

'Most cases of mental disturbances are due to an inflated ego--a

deflated will.'"

"Oh, my will's all right," said Simon.

"Well, then, use it and don't trouble. Say to yourself definitely--'This

shall not be.'"

"And that money in the safe?"

"Leave it there; dare your other self to take it. To remove it and place

it in other keeping would be a weakness."

"Thanks," said Simon. "I grasp what you mean." He took out his purse and

laid five guineas on the desk. Oppenshaw did not seem to see the money.

He accompanied his patient to the door. It was half-past one.

CHAPTER V

I WILL NOT BE HIM

Out in Harley Street Simon walked hurriedly and without goal. It was

getting past luncheon-time; he had forgotten the fact.

Oppenshaw was one of those men who carry conviction. You will have

noticed in life that quite a lot of people don't convince; they may be

good, they may be earnest, but they don't convince. Selling a full-grown

dog in the world's market, they have little chance against a convincing

competitor selling a pup.

Oppenshaw's twenty-five thousand a year came, in good part, from this

quality. He had convinced Simon of the fact that inside Simon lay Youth

that was once Simon--Youth that, though unseen and unknown to the world,

could still dominate its container even to the extent of meddling with

his bank balance.

That for Simon was at this moment the main fact in the situation. It was

sufficiently bad that this old imperious youth should be able to make

him act foolishly, but that was nothing to the fact that it was able to

tamper with his money.

Simon's money was the solid ground under his feet, and he recognised,

now, that it was everything to him--everything. He could have sacrificed

at a pinch all else; he could have sacrificed Mudd, his furniture, his

old prints, his cellar, but his money was even more than the ground

under his feet--it was himself.

Suppose this disease were to recur often and at shorter intervals, or

become chronic?

He calculated furiously that at the rate of five thousand a month his

fortune would last, roughly, a year and a half. He saw his securities

being sold, his property in Hertfordshire, his furniture, his pictures.

He had a remedy, it is true: to put himself under restraint. A nice sort

of remedy!

In Weymouth Street, the home of nursing homes and doctors, into which he

had wandered, his mind tension became so acute that the impulse came on

him to hurry back to Oppenshaw in the vague hope that something else

might be done--some operation, for instance. He knew little of medicine

and less of surgery, but he had heard of people being operated on for

brain mischief, and he remembered, now, having read of an old admiral

who had lost consciousness owing to an injury at the battle of the Nile,

and had remained unconscious till an operation cured him some months

later.

He was saved from bothering Oppenshaw again by an instinctive feeling

that it would be useless. You cannot extract the follies of youth by an

operation. He went on trending towards Oxford Street, but still without

object.

What made his position worse was his instinct as a solicitor. For forty

years he had, amongst other work, been engaged in tying up Youth so that

it could not get at Property, extracting Youth from pitfalls it had

tumbled into whilst carrying Property in its arms. The very words

"youth" and "property," innocent in themselves, were obnoxious to Simon

when combined. He had always held that no young man ought to inherit

till he was twenty-five, and, heaven knows, that opinion had a firm

basis in experience. He had always in law looked askance on youth and

its doings. In practice he had been tolerant enough, though, indeed,

youth comes little in the way of a hard-working and prominent elderly

solicitor, but in law, and he was mostly law, he had little tolerance,

no respect.

And here was youth with _his_ property in its arms, or what was,

perhaps, even worse, the imminent dread of that unholy alliance.

In Oxford Street he stopped at a shop window and inspected ladies'

blouses--that was his condition of mind; jewellers' windows held him,

not by the excellence of their goods, but by the necessity to turn his

back to the crowd and think--think--think.

His mind was in a turmoil, and he could no more control his thoughts

than he could have controlled the traffic; the wares of the merchants

exposed to view seemed to do the thinking. Gold alberts only held his

eye to explain that his lands in Hertfordshire flung on the market in

the present state of agriculture would not fetch a tithe of their worth,

but that his green-seal sherry and all the treasures of his cellar would

bring half the West End to their sale--Old Pettigrew's cellar.

Other things in other shops spoke to him in a like manner, and then he

found himself at Oxford Circus with the sudden consciousness that _this_

was not fighting Lethmann's disease by the exercise of will. His will

had, in fact, been in abeyance, his imagination master of him.

But a refuge in the middle of Oxford Circus was not exactly the place

for the re-equipment of will-power; the effort nearly cost him his life

from a motor-lorry as he crossed. Then, when he had reached the other

side and could resume work free of danger, he found that he had

apparently no will to re-equip.

He found himself repeating over and over the words, "I will not be

him--I will not be him." That seemed all right for a moment, and he

would have satisfied himself that his will-power was working splendidly,

had not a sudden cold doubt sprung up in his heart as to whether the

proper formula ought not to be, "He will not be me."

Ah! that was the crux of the business. It was quite easy to determine,

"I will not be him," but when it came to the declaration, "He will not

be me," Simon found that he had no will-power in the matter. It was

quite easy to determine that he would not do foolish things, impossible

to determine that another should not do them.

Then it came to his mind like a flash that the other one was not a

personality so much as a combination of foolish actions, old desires,

and alien motives let loose on the world without governance.

He turned mechanically into Verreys' and had a chop. At Simpson's in the

Strand he always had a chop or a cut from the saddle, or a cut from the

sirloin--like the razors, the daily menus following one another in

rotation. This was a chop day, just as it was a "Tuesday" day, and habit

prevented him from forgetting the fact. The chop and a half-bottle of

St. Estéphe made him feel a stronger man. He suddenly became cheerful

and valiant.

"If worst comes to worst," said he to himself, "I _can put_ myself under

restraint; nobody need know. Yes, begad! I have always that. I can put

myself under surveillance. Why, dash it! I can tie up my money so that I

can't touch it; it's quite easy."

The chop and St. Estéphe, hauling him out of the slough of despond, told

him this. It was a sure way of escape from losing his money. He had

furiously rejected the idea at Oppenshaw's, but at Oppenshaw's his

Property had not had time to talk fully to him, but in that awful

journey from Harley Street to Verreys' he had walked arm-in-arm with his

Property chattering on one side and dumb Bankruptcy on the other.

Restraint would have been almost as odious as bankruptcy to him, yet

now, as a sure means of escape from the other, it seemed almost a

pleasant prospect.

He left Verreys' and walked along feeling brighter and better. He turned

into the Athenæum. It was turning-in time at the Athenæum, and the big

armchairs were full of somnolent ones, bald heads drooping, whiskers

hidden by the sheets of the _Times_. Here he met Sir Ralph Puttick, Hon.

Physician to His Majesty, stiff, urbane, stately, seeming ever supported

on either side by a lion and a unicorn.

Sir Ralph and Simon were known one to the other and had much in common,

including anti-socialism.

In armchairs, they talked of Lloyd George--at least, Sir Ralph did,

Simon had other considerations on his mind. Leaning forward in his

chair, he suddenly asked, apropos of nothing:

"Did you ever hear of a disease called Lethmann's disease?"

Now Sir Ralph was Chest and Heart, nothing else. He was also nettled at

"shop" being suddenly thrust upon him by a damned attorney, for Simon

was "Simon Pettigrew, quite a character, one of our old-fashioned,

first-class English lawyers," when Sir Ralph was in a good temper and

happened to consider Simon; nettled, Simon was a "damned attorney."

"Never," said Sir Ralph. "What disease did you say?"

"Lethmann's. It's a new disease, it seems."

Another horrid blunder, as though the lion and unicorn man were only

acquainted with old diseases--out of date, in fact.

"Never," replied the other. "There's no such thing. Who told you about

it?"

"I read about it," said Simon. He tried to give a picture of the

symptoms and failed to convince, but he managed to irritate. The

semi-royal one listened with a specious appearance of attention and even

interest; then, the other having finished, he opened his batteries.

Simon left the Club with the feeling that he had been put upon the stand

beside charlatans, quacks, and the purveyor of crank theories; also that

he had been snubbed.

CHAPTER VI

TIDD AND RENSHAW

Did he mind? Not a bit; he enjoyed it.

If Sir Ralph had kicked him out of the Athenæum for airing false science

there he would have enjoyed it. He would have enjoyed anything casting

odium and discredit on the theory of double personality in the form of

Lethmann's disease.

For now his hunted soul, that had taken momentary refuge in the thought

of nursing homes and restraint, had left that burrow and was taking

refuge in doubt.

The whole thing was surely absurd. The affair of last year _must_ have

been a temporary aberration due to overwork, despite the fact that he

had, indeed, drawn another ten thousand unconsciously from the bank; it

was patently foolish to think that a man could be under the dominion of

a story-book disease. He had read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--that wild

fiction! Why, if this thing were true, it would be a fiction just as

wild. Oceans of comfort suddenly came to him. It gave him a new grip on

the situation, pointing out that the whole of this business as suggested

by Oppenshaw was on a level with a "silly sensational story," that is to

say with the impossible--therefore impossible.

He made one grave mistake--the mistake of reckoning Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde as a "silly sensational story."

Anyhow, he got comfort from what he considered fact, and at dinner that

night he was so restored that he was able to grumble because the mutton

"was done to rags."

He dined alone.

As he had not returned to the office in the afternoon, Brownlow had sent

some papers relative to a law case then pending for his consideration.

It often happened that Simon took business home with him, or, if he were

not able to attend at the office, important papers would be sent to his

house.

To-night, according to custom, he retired to his library, drank his

coffee, spread open the documents, and, comfortably seated in a huge

leathern armchair, plunged into work.

It was a difficult case, the case of Tidd _v._ Renshaw, complicated by

all sorts of cross-issues and currents. In its dry legal jargon it

involved the title to London house property, the credit of a woman, the

happiness of a family, and a few other things, all absolutely of no

account to Simon, engaged on the law of the case, and to whom the human

beings involved were simply as the chessmen in the hands of the player;

and necessarily, for a lawyer who allowed human considerations to colour

his view would be an untrustworthy lawyer.

At ten o'clock Simon, suddenly laying the documents on the floor beside

him, rose up, rang the bell, and stood on the hearthrug with his hands

linked behind him.

Mudd appeared.

"Mudd," said Simon, "I may be called away to-morrow and be absent some

time. If I am not at the office when the brougham comes to fetch me for

luncheon, you can notify the office that I have been called away. You

needn't bother about packing things for me; I will buy anything I want

where I am going."

"I could easily pack a bag for you," said Mudd, "and you could take it

with you to the office."

"I want no bag. I have given you your directions," said Simon, and Mudd

went off grumbling and snubbed.

Then the lawyer sat down and plunged into law again, folding up the

documents at eleven o'clock and putting them carefully in his bureau.

Then he switched off the electric light, examined the hall door to see

that it was properly bolted, and went up to bed carrying the case of

Tidd _v._ Renshaw with him as a nightcap.

It hung about his intellect like a penumbra as he undressed, warding

off, or partly warding off, thoughts about Oppenshaw and his own

condition that were trying to get into his mind.

Then he popped into bed, and, still pursuing Tidd _v._ Renshaw through

the labyrinths of the law, and holding tight on to their tails, fell

asleep.

CHAPTER VII

THE WALLET

He awoke to Mudd drawing the blinds and to another perfect day--a summer

morning, luxurious and warm, beautiful even in London. He had lost

clutch of Tidd and Renshaw in the land of sleep, but he had found his

strength and self-confidence again.

The terror of Lethmann's disease had vanished; the thing was absurd, he

had been frightened by a bogey. Oppenshaw was a clever man, but he was a

specialist, always thinking of nerve diseases, living in an atmosphere

of them. Sir Ralph Puttick, on the contrary, was a man of solid

understanding and wider views--a sane man.

So he told himself as he took "Wednesday" from its case and shaved

himself. Then he came down to the same frizzled bacon and the same aired

_Times_, put on the same overcoat and hat, and got into the same old

brougham and started for the office.

He went into his room, where his usual morning letters were laid out

for him. But he did not take off his coat and hat. He had come to a

determination. Oppenshaw had told him to leave the wallet where it was

and not take the notes back to the bank, as that would be a weakness.

Sir Ralph Puttick was telling him now that Oppenshaw was a fool. The

real weakness would be to follow the advice of Oppenshaw. To follow that

advice would be to play with this business and confess that there was

reality in it; besides, with those notes in the safe behind him he could

never do his morning's work.

No; back those notes should go to the bank. He opened the safe, and

there was the wallet seated like an evil genius on the deed-box. He took

it out and put it under his arm, locked the safe and left the room.

In the outer office all the clerks were busy, and Brownlow was in his

room with the door shut.

Simon, with the wallet under his arm, walked out and passed through the

precincts of Old Serjeants' Inn to Fleet Street, where a waft of warm

summer, yet springlike, wind met him in the face.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE SOUL'S AWAKENING

He raised his head, sniffed as if inhaling something, and quickened his

step.

What a glorious day it was; even Fleet Street had a touch of youth about

it.

A flower-woman and her wares caught his eye; he bought a bunch of late

violets and, with his hat tilted back, dived in his trousers' pocket and

produced a handful of silver. He gave her a shilling and, without asking

for change, walked on, the violets in his buttonhole.

He was making west like a homing pigeon. He walked like a man in a hurry

but with no purpose, his glance skimmed things and seemed to rest only

on things coloured or pleasant to look on, his eyes showed no

speculation. He seemed like a person with no more past than a dreamer.

The present seemed to him everything--just as it is to the dreamer.

In the Strand he stopped here and there to glance at the contents of

shops; neckties attracted him. Then Fuller's drew him in by its colour.

He had a vanilla-and-strawberry ice and chatted to the girls, who did

not receive his advances, however, with much favour.

Then he came to Romanos'; it attracted him, and he went in. Gilded

youths were drinking at the bar, and a cocktail being mixed by the

bar-tender fascinated Simon by its colour; he had one like it, chatted

to the man, paid, and walked out.

It was now eleven.

Still walking gaily and lightly, as one walks in a happy dream, he

reached the Charing Cross Hotel, asked the porter to show him the rooms

he had reserved, and enquired if his luggage had come.

The luggage had come and was deposited in the bedroom of the suite: two

large brand-new portmanteaux and a hat-box, also a band-box from Lincoln

Bennett's.

The portmanteaux and hat-box were locked, but in the band-box were the

keys, gummed up in an envelope; there was also a straw hat in the

band-box--a boater.

The porter, having unstrapped the portmanteaux, departed with a tip, and

our gentleman began to unpack swiftly and with the eagerness of a child

going to a party.

O Youth! What a star thou art, yet what a folly! And yet can all wisdom

give one the pleasure of one's first ball-dress, of the young man's

brand-new suit? And there were brand-new suits and to spare, check

tweed, blue serge, boating flannels; shoes, too, and boots from the

Burlington Arcade, ties and socks from Beale and Inman's.

It was like a trousseau.

As he unpacked he whistled. Whistled a tune that was young in the

sixties--"Champagne Charley," no less.

Then he dressed, vigorously digging his head into a striped shirt,

donning a purple tie, purple socks, and a grey tweed suit of excellent

cut.

All his movements were feverish, light, rapid. He did not seem to notice

the details of the room around him; he seemed skimming along the surface

of things in a hurry to get to some goal of pleasure. Flushed and

bright-eyed, he scarcely looked fifty now, yet, despite this reduction

in age, his general get-up had a touch of the raffish. Purple socks and

ties are a bit off at fifty; a straw "boater" does not reduce the

effect, nor do tan shoes.

But Simon was quite satisfied with himself.

Still whistling, he bundled his old things away in a drawer and left the

other things lying about for the servants to put away, and sat down on

the side of the bed with the wallet in his hands.

He opened it and turned the notes out on the quilt. The gorgeous bundle

to "bust" or do what he liked with held him in its thrall as he turned

over the contents, not counting the amount, but just reviewing the notes

and the huge sums on most of them.

Heavens! What a delight even in a dream! To be young and absolutely free

from all restraint, free from all ties, unconscious of relatives,

unconscious of everything but immediate surroundings, with virginal

appetites and desires and countless sovereigns to meet them with.

Dangling his heels, and with his straw hat beside him, he gloated on his

treasure; then, picking out three ten-pound notes and putting the

remainder in the wallet, he locked the wallet away in his portmanteau

and put the key under the wardrobe.

Then, leaving his room, he came downstairs with his straw hat on the

back of his head and a smile for a pretty chambermaid who passed him

coming up.

The girl laughed and glanced back, but whether she was laughing at or

with him it would be hard to say. Chambermaids have strange tastes.

It was in the hall that he met Moxon, senior partner in Plunder's, the

great bill-discounting firm; a tall man, serious of face and manner.

"Why, God bless my soul, Pettigrew!" cried Moxon, "I scarcely knew you."

"You have the advantage of me, old cock," replied Simon airily, "for I'm

---- if I ever met you before."

"My mistake," said Moxon.

It was Pettigrew's face and voice, but all the rest was not Pettigrew,

and the discounter of bills hurried off, feeling as though he had come

across the uncanny--which he had.

Simon paused at the office, holding a lady clerk in light conversation

about the weather and turning upon her that sprightly wit already

mentioned. She was busy and stiff, and the weather and his wit didn't

seem to interest her. Then he asked for change of a ten-pound note, and

she gave it to him in sovereigns; then he asked for change of a

sovereign--she gave it to him; then he asked, with a grin, for change of

a shilling. She was outraged now; that which ought to have made her

laugh seemed to incense her. Do what he could, he couldn't warm her.

She was colder than the ice-cream girls. What the devil was the matter

with them all? She slapped the change for the shilling down and turned

away to her books.

Tilting his hat further back, he rapped with a penny on the ledge.

She got up.

"Well, what is it now?"

"Can you change me a penny, please?" said Simon.

"Mrs. Jones!" called the girl.

A stout lady manageress in black appeared.

"I don't know what this gentleman means."

The manageress raised her eyebrows at the jester.

"I asked the young lady for change of a penny. Can you let me have two

halfpence for a penny, please?"

The manageress opened the till and gave the change. The gay one

departed, chuckling. He had had the best of the girl, silly creature,

that could not take a joke in good part--but he had enjoyed himself.

Moving in the line of least resistance towards the phantom of pleasure,

he made for the hotel entrance and the sunlight showing through the

door, bought a cigar at the kiosk outside, and then bundled into a taxi.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.

"First bar," replied Simon. "First decent one, and look sharp."

The surly driver--Heavens, how the old hansom cabby of the sixties would

have hailed such a fare, and with what joy!--closed the door without a

word and started winding up the engine. He had difficulties, and as he

went on winding the occupant put his head out of the window and

addressed the station policeman who was looking on.

"Has the chap a licence for a barrel-organ?" asked Simon. "If he hasn't,

ask him to drive on."

He shut the window. They started, and stopped at a bar in Leicester

Square. Simon paid and entered.

It was a long bar, a glittering, loathsome, noxious place where, behind

a long counter, six barmaids were serving all sorts of men with all

sorts of drinks.

Simon seemed to find it all right. Puffing his cigar, he ordered a

brandy cold--a brandy cold! And sipping his brandy cold, he took stock

of the men around.

Even his innocence and newness--despite the crave for companionship now

on him--recognised that there were undesirables, and as for the bar

girls, they were frozen images--for him.

They were laughing and changing words with all sorts of young

men--counter-jumpers and horsey men--but for him they had nothing but

brandy cold and monosyllables. He was beginning to get irritated with

woman; but the sunlight outside and two cold brandies inside restored

his happy humour, and the idea of lunch was now moving before him,

luring him on.

Thinking thus, he was advancing not towards luncheon but towards Fate.

At Piccadilly Circus there was a crowd round an omnibus. There generally

are crowds round omnibuses just here, but this was a special crowd,

having for its core an irate bus conductor and a pretty girl.

Oh, such a pretty girl! Spring itself, dark-haired, dark-eyed, well

dressed, but with just that touch which tells of want of affluence. She

fascinated Simon as a flower fascinates a bee.

"But, sir, I tell you I have lost my purse; some pocket-picker has taken

it. I shall be pleased to tell you where I live and reward you if you

come for the money. My name is Cerise Rossignol." This, with just a

trace of foreign accent.

"I've been done twice this week by that game," said the brutal

conductor, speaking, however, the truth. "Come, search in your glove,

you'll find it."

Simon broke in.

"How much?" said he.

"Tuppence," said the conductor. Then the gods that preside over youth

might have observed this new Andromeda, released at the charge of

Tuppence, wandering off with her saviour and turning to him a face

filled with gratitude.

They were going in the direction of Leicester Square.

CHAPTER II

MOXON AND MUDD

Now, Moxon had come up that morning from Framlingham in Kent, where he

was taking a holiday, to transact some business. Amongst other things he

had to see Simon Pettigrew on a question about some bills.

The apparition he had encountered in the hall of the Charing Cross Hotel

pursued him to Plunder's office, where he first went, and, when he left

Plunder's for luncheon at Prosser's, in Chancery Lane, it still pursued

him.

Though he knew it could not be Pettigrew, some uneasy spirit in his

subconsciousness kept insisting that it was Pettigrew.

At two o'clock he called at Old Serjeants' Inn. He saw Brownlow, who had

just returned from lunch.

No, Mr. Pettigrew was not in. He had gone out that morning early and had

not returned.

"I must see him," said Moxon. "When do you think he will be in?"

Brownlow couldn't say.

"Would he be at his house, do you think?"

"Hardly," said Brownlow; "he might have gone home, but I think it's

improbable."

"I must see him," said Moxon again. "It's extraordinary. Why, I wrote to

him telling him I was coming this afternoon and he knows the importance

of my business."

"Mr. Pettigrew hasn't opened his morning letters yet," said Brownlow.

"Good Lord!" said Moxon.

Then, after a pause:

"Will you telephone to his house to see?"

"Mr. Pettigrew has no telephone," said Brownlow; "he dislikes them,

except in business."

Moxon remembered this and other old-fashioned traits in Pettigrew; the

remembrance did not ease his irritation.

"Then I'll go to his house myself," said he.

When he arrived at King Charles Street, Mudd opened the door.

Mudd and Moxon were mutually known one to the other, Moxon having often

dined there.

"Is your master in, Mudd?" asked Moxon.

"No, sir," answered Mudd; "he's not at home, and mayn't be at home for

some time."

"What do you mean?"

"He left me directions that if he wasn't at the office when the

brougham called to take him to luncheon I was to tell the office he was

called away; the coachman has just come back to say he wasn't there, so

I am sending him back to the office to tell them."

"Called away! For how long?"

"Well, it might be a month," said Mudd, remembering.

"Extraordinary!" said Moxon. "Well, I can't help it, and I can't wait; I

must take my business elsewhere. I thought I saw Mr. Pettigrew in the

Charing Cross Hotel, but he was dressed differently and seemed strange.

Well, this is a great nuisance, but it can't be helped, I suppose.... A

month...."

Off he went in a huff.

Mudd watched him as he went, then he closed the hall door. Then he sat

down on one of the hall chairs.

"Dressed differently and seemed strange." It only wanted those words to

start alarm in the mind of Mudd.

The affair of a year ago had always perplexed him, and now this!

"Seemed strange."

Could it be?... H'm.... He got up and went downstairs.

"Why, what's the matter with you, Mr. Mudd?" asked the

cook-housekeeper. "Why, you're all of a shake."

"It's my stomach," said Mudd.

He took a glass of ginger wine, then he fetched his hat.

"I'm going out to get the air," said Mudd. "I mayn't be back for some

time; don't bother about me if I aren't, and be sure to lock up the

plate."

"God bless my soul, what's the matter with the man?" murmured the

astonished housekeeper as Mudd vanished. "Blest if he isn't getting as

queer as his master!"

Out in the street Mudd paused to blow his nose in a bandanna

handkerchief just like Simon's. Then, as though this act had started his

mechanism, off he went, hailed an omnibus in the next street, and got

off at Charing Cross.

He entered the Charing Cross Hotel.

"Is a Mr. Pettigrew here?" asked Mudd of the hall porter.

The hall porter grinned.

"Yes, there's a Mr. Pettigrew staying here, but he's out."

"Well, I'm his servant," said Mudd.

"Staying here with him?" asked the porter.

"Yes. I've followed him on. What's the number of his room?"

"The office will know," replied the other.

"Well, just go to the office and get his key," said Mudd, "and send a

messenger boy to No. 12, King Charles Street--that's our address--to

tell Mrs. Jukes, the housekeeper, I won't be able to get back to-night

maybe. Here's a shilling for him--but show me his room first."

Mudd carried conviction.

The hall porter went to the office.

"Key of Mr. Pettigrew's room," said he; "his servant has just come."

The superior damsel detached herself from book-keeping, looked up the

number and gave the key.

Mudd took it and went up in the lift. He opened the door of the room and

went in. The place had not been tidied, clothes lay everywhere.

Mudd, like a cat in a strange house, looked around. Then he shut the

door.

Then he took up a coat and looked at the maker's name on the tab.

"Holland and Woolson"--Simon's tailors!

Then he examined all the garments. Such garments! Boating flannels,

serge suits! Then the shoes, the patent leather boots. He opened the

chest of drawers and found the bundle of discarded clothes--the old coat

with the left elbow "going," and the rest. He held them up, examined

them, folded them and put them back.

Then he sat down to recover himself, blew his nose, wondered whether he

or Simon were crazy, and then, rising up, began to fold and put away the

new things in the wardrobe and chest-of-drawers.

He noticed that one of the portmanteaux was locked. Yet there was

something in it that slid up and down as he tilted and lowered it.

Having looked round the room once again, he went downstairs, gave up the

key, made arrangements for his room, and started out.

He made for Sackville Street. Meyer, the foreman of Holland and

Woolson's, was known to him. He had sometimes called regarding Simon's

clothes with directions for this or that.

"That blue serge suit you've just sent for Mr. Pettigrew don't quite

rightly fit, Mr. Meyer," said the cunning Mudd. "I had the coat done up

in a parcel to bring back to you for the sleeves to be shortened half an

inch, but I forgot it; only remembered I'd forgot it at your door."

"We'll send for it," said Meyer.

"Right," said Mudd. Then, "No--on second thoughts, I'll fetch it myself

when I have a moment to spare, for we're going from home for a few

days. Mr. Pettigrew has had a good lot of clothes lately, Mr. Meyer."

"He has," said Meyer, with a twinkle in his eye; "suits and suits,

almost as if he were going to be married."

"Married!" cried the other. "What put that into your head, Mr. Meyer?

He's not a marrying man. Why, I've never seen him as much as glance an

eye at a female."

"Oh, it was only my joke," said Meyer.

Now, in Mudd's soul there had lain for years an uneasiness, a crumpled

rose-leaf of thought that touched him sometimes as he turned at night in

bed. It was the fear that some day Simon might ruin Mudd's life with a

mistress. He couldn't stand a mistress. He had always sworn that to

himself; the experience of fellow butlers whose lives were made

loathsome by mistresses would have been enough without his own

deep-rooted antipathy to females, except as spectacular objects. Mrs.

Jukes was a relation of his, and he could stand her; the maid-servants

were automata beneath his notice--but a mistress!

Mad alarm filled his mind, for his heart told him that the words of

Meyer had foundation in probability.

That affair of last year, when Simon had departed and returned in new

strange clothes, might have been the courting, this the real thing?

He left the tailor's, called a taxi and drove to the office.

Brownlow was in.

"What is it, Mudd?" asked Brownlow, as the latter was shown into his

room.

"Did you get my message, Mr. Brownlow?" asked Mudd.

"Yes."

"Oh, that's all right," said Mudd. "I just thought I'd call and ask. The

master told me to send the message; he's going away for a bit. Wants a

change, too. I think he's been overworking lately, Mr. Brownlow."

"He's always overworking," said Brownlow. "I think he's been suffering

from brain-fag, Mudd; he's very reticent about himself, but I'm glad he

saw a doctor."

"Saw a doctor! Why, he never told me."

"Didn't he? Well, he did--Dr. Oppenshaw, of Harley Street. This is

between you and me. Try and make him rest more, Mudd."

"I will," said Mudd. "He wants rest. I've been uneasy about him a long

while. What's the doctor's number in Harley Street, Mr. Brownlow?"

"110A," said Brownlow, picking the number out of his marvellous memory;

"but don't let Mr. Pettigrew know I told you. He's very touchy about

himself."

"I won't."

Off he went.

"Faithful old servitor," thought Brownlow.

The faithful old servitor got into a taxi. "110A, Harley Street," said

he to the driver; "and drive quick and I'll give you an extra tuppence."

Oppenshaw was in.

When he was informed that Pettigrew's servant had called to see him, he

turned over a duchess he was engaged on, gave her a harmless

prescription, bowed her out and rang the bell.

Mudd was shown in.

"I've come to ask----" said Mudd.

"Sit down," said Oppenshaw.

"I've come to speak----"

"I know; about your master. How is he?"

"Well, I've come to ask you, sir; he's at the Charing Cross Hotel at

present."

"Has he gone there to live?"

"Well, he's there."

"I saw him some time ago about the state of his health, and, frankly,

Mr. Mudd, it's serious."

Mudd nodded.

"Tell me," said Oppenshaw, "has he been buying new clothes?"

"Heaps; no end," said Mudd. "And such clothes--things he's never worn

before."

"So? Well, it's fortunate you found him. What is his conversation like?

Have you talked to him much?"

"I haven't seen him yet," Mudd explained.

"Well, stay close to him, and be very careful. He is suffering from a

form of mental upset. You must cross him as little as possible, use

persuasion, gentle persuasion. The thing will run its course. It mustn't

be suddenly checked."

"Is he mad?" asked the other.

"No, but he is not himself--or rather, he is himself--in a different

way; but a sudden check might make him mad. You have heard of people

walking in their sleep--well, this is something akin to that. You know

it is highly dangerous to awaken a sleep-walker suddenly. Well, it's

just the same with Mr. Pettigrew; it might imbalance his mind for good."

"What am I to do?"

"Just keep watch on him."

"But suppose he don't know me?"

"He won't know you, but if you are kind to him he will accept you into

his environment, and then you will link on to his mental state."

"He's out now, and God knows where, or doing what," said Mudd; "but I'll

be on the watch for him coming in--if he ever comes."

"Oh, he will come home right enough."

"Is there any fear of those women getting hold of him?" asked Mudd,

returning to his old dread.

"That's just what there is--every fear; but you must be very careful not

to interpose your will violently. Get gently between, gently between.

You understand me. Suggestion does a lot in these cases. Another thing,

you must treat him as one treats a boy. You must imagine to yourself

that your master is only twenty, for that, in truth, is what he is. He

has gone back to a younger state--or rather, a younger state has come to

meet him, having lain dormant, just as a wisdom tooth lies dormant, then

grows."

"Oh, Lord!" said Mudd. "I never did think I'd live to see this day."

"Oh, it might be worse."

"I don't see."

"Well, from what I can make out of his youth, it was not a vicious one,

only foolish; had he been vicious when young he might be terrible now."

"The first solicitor in London," said Mudd in a dreary voice.

"Well, he's not the first solicitor in London to make a fool of himself,

nor will he be the last. Cheer up and keep your eyes open and do your

duty; no man can do more than that."

"Shall I send for you, doctor, if he gets worse?"

"Well," said Oppenshaw; "from what you tell me he couldn't be much

worse. Oh no, don't bother to send--unless, of course, the thing took a

different course, and he were to become violent without reason; but that

won't happen, you can take my word for it."

Mudd departed.

He walked all the way back to the Charing Cross Hotel, but instead of

entering, he suddenly took a taxi, and returned to Charles Street. Here

he packed some things in a handbag, and having again given directions to

Mrs. Jukes to lock up the plate, he told her he might be some time gone.

"I'm going with the master on some law business," said Mudd. "Make sure

and bolt the front door--and lock up the plate."

It was the third or fourth time he had given her these instructions.

"He's out of his mind," said Mrs. Jukes, as she watched him go. She

wasn't far wrong.

Mudd had been used to a rut--a rut forty years deep. His light and

pleasant duties carried him easily through the day. Of evenings when

Simon was dining out he would join a social circle in the private room

of a highly respectable tavern close by, smoke his pipe, drink two hot

gins, and depart for home at ten-thirty. When Simon was in he could

smoke his pipe and read his paper in his own private room. He had five

hundred pounds laid by in the bank--no stocks and shares for Mudd--and

he would vary his evening amusements by counting the toll of his money.

It is easy to be seen that this jolt out of the rut was, literally, a

jolt.

At the Charing Cross Hotel he found the room allotted to him, deposited

his things and, disdaining the servants' quarters, went out to a tavern

to read the paper.

He reckoned Simon might not return till late, and he reckoned right.

CHAPTER III

SIMON'S OLD-FASHIONED NIGHT IN TOWN

Madame Rossignol was a charming old lady of sixty, a production of

France--no other country could have produced her. She lived in Duke

Street, Leicester Square, supporting herself and her daughter Cerise by

translating English books into French. Cerise did millinery. Madame

combined absolute innocence with absolute instinct. She knew all about

things; her innocence was not ignorance, it was purity--rising above a

knowledge of the world, and disdaining to look at evil.

She was dreadfully poor.

Her love for Cerise was like a disease always preying upon her. Should

she die, what would happen to Cerise?

Behold these together clasped in each other's arms. Set in the shabby

sitting-room, it might have been a scene at the Port St. Martin.

"Oh, mother," murmured the girl, "is he not good!"

"He is more than good," said Madame. "Most surely the _bon Dieu_ sent

him to be your guardian angel."

"Is he not charming?" went on Cerise, unlinking herself from the

maternal embrace and touching her hair into order again with a little

laugh. "So different from the leaden-faced English, so gay and yet

so--so----"

"There is a something--I do not know what--about him," said the old

lady; "something of Romance. Is it not like a little tale of Madame

Perichon's or a little play of Monsieur Baree? Might he not just have

come in as in one of those? You go out, lose your purse, are lost. I sit

waiting for you at your non-return in this wilderness of London; you

return, but not alone. With you comes the Marquis de Grandcourt, who

bows and says, 'Madame, I return you your daughter; I ask in return your

friendship. I am alone, like you; let us then be friends.' I reply,

'Monsieur, you behold our poverty, but you cannot behold our hearts or

the gratitude in my mind.' What a little story!"

"And how he laughed, and said, 'Hang monee!'" cut in Cerise. "What means

that 'hang monee!' maman? And how he pulled out all the gold pieces like

a boy, saying, 'I am rich!'--just as a little boy might say, 'I am

rich! I am rich!' No bourgeois could have done that without offending,

without giving one a shiver of the skin."

"You have said it," replied Madame. "A little boy--a great and good man,

yet a little boy. He is not in his first youth, but there are people,

like Pierre Pan, who never lose youth. It is so; I have seen it."

"Simon Pattigrew," murmured Cerise, with a little laugh.

A knock came to the door and a little maid-of-all-work, and down at

heel, entered with a huge bouquet, one of those bouquets youth flings at

_prima donnas_.

Simon, after leaving the Rossignols, had struck a flower shop--this was

the result. A piece of paper accompanied the bouquet, and on the paper,

written in a handwriting that hitherto had only appeared on letters of

business and documents of law, were the words: "From your Friend."

Simon, having struck the flower shop, might have struck a fruit shop and

a bonnet shop, only that the joy of love, the love that comes at first

sight, the love of dreams, made him incapable of any more business--even

the business of buying presents for his fascinator.

It was now five o'clock, and, pursuing his way West, he found

Piccadilly. He passed girls without looking at them--he saw only the

vision of Cerise. She led him as far as St. George's Hospital, as though

leading him away from the temptations of the West, but the gloomy

prospect of Knightsbridge headed him off, and, turning, he came back.

Big houses, signs of wealth and prosperity, seemed to hold him in a

charm, just as he was held by all things pretty, coloured, or dazzling.

A glittering restaurant drew him in presently, and here he had a jovial

dinner; all alone, it is true, but with plenty to look at.

He had also a half-bottle of champagne and a maraschino.

He had already consumed that day a cocktail coloured, two glasses of

brandy-and-water cold and a half-bottle of champagne. His ordinary

consumption of alcohol was moderate. A glass of green-seal sherry at

twelve, and a half-bottle of St. Estéphe at lunch, and, shall we say, a

small whisky-and-soda at dinner, or, if dining out or with guests, a

couple of glasses of Pommery.

And to-day he had been drinking restaurant champagne "_tres sec_"--and

two half-bottles of it! The excess was beginning to tell. It told in the

slight flush on his cheeks, which, strange to say, did not make him

look younger; it told in the tip he gave the waiter, and in the way he

put on his hat. He had bought a walking-stick during his peregrinations,

a dandy stick with a tassel--the passing fashion had just come in--and

with this under his arm he left the café in search of pleasures new.

The West End was now ablaze, and the theatres filling. Simon, like Poe's

man of the crowd, kept with the crowd; a blaze of lights attracted him

as a lamp a moth.

The Pallaceum sucked him in. Here, in a blue haze of tobacco-smoke and

to the tune of a band, he sat for awhile watching the show, roaring with

laughter at the comic turns, pleased with the conjuring business, and

fascinated--despite Cerise--with the girl in tights who did acrobatic

tricks aided by two poodles and a monkey.

Then he found the bar, and there he stood adding fuel to pleasure, his

stick under his arm, his hat tilted back, a new cigar in his mouth, and

a smile on his face--a smile with a suggestion of fixity. Alas! if

Cerise could have seen the Marquis de Grandcourt now!--or was it Madame

who raised him to the peerage of France? If she could have been by to

just raise her eyebrows at him! Yet she was there, in a way, for the

ladies of the _foyer_ who glanced at him not unkindly, taken perhaps by

his _bonhomie_, and smiling demeanour and atmosphere of wealth and

enjoyment, found no response. Yet he found momentary acquaintances, of a

sort. A couple of University men up in town for a lark seemed to find

him part of the lark; they all drank together, exchanged views, and then

the University men vanished, giving place to a gentleman in a very

polished hat, with diamond studs, and a face like a hawk, who suggested

"fizz," a small bottle of which was consumed mostly by the hawk, who

then vanished, leaving Simon to pay.

Simon ordered another, paid for it, forgot it, and found himself in the

entrance hall calling in a loud voice for a hansom.

A taxi was procured for him and the door opened. He got inside and said,

"Wait a moment--one moment."

Then he began paying half-crowns to the commissionaire who had opened

the taxi door for him. "That's for your trouble," said Simon. "That's

for your trouble. That's for your trouble. Where am I? Oh yes--shut that

confounded door, will you, and tell the chap to drive on!"

"Where to, sir?"

Oppenshaw would have been interested in the fact that champagne beyond

a certain amount had the effect of wakening Simon's remote past. He

answered:

"Evans'."

Consultation outside.

"Evans's? Which Evans's? There ain't no such 'otel, there ain't no such

bar. Ask him which Evans's?"

"Which Evanses did you say, sir?" asked the commissionaire, putting his

head in. "The driver don't know which you mean. Where does it lay?"

He got a chuck under the chin that nearly drove his head to the roof of

the taxi.

Then Simon's head popped out of the window. It looked up and down the

street.

"Where's that chap that put his head through the window?" asked Simon.

A small crowd and a policeman drew round. "What is it, sir?" asked the

policeman.

Simon seemed calculating the distance with a view to the bonneting of

the enquirer. Then he seemed to find the distance too far.

"Tell him to drive me to the Argyle Rooms," said he. Then he vanished.

Another council outside, the commissionaire presiding.

"Take him to the Leicester 'Otel. Why, Lord bless me! the Argyle Rooms

has been closed this forty years. Take him round about and let him have

a snooze."

The taximan started with the full intention of robbery--not by force,

but by strategy. Robbery on the dock. It was not theatre turning-out

time yet, and he would have the chance of earning a few dishonest

shillings. He turned every corner he could, for every time a taxi turns

a corner the "clock" increases in speed. He drove here and there, but he

never reached the Leicester 'Otel, for in Full Moon Street, the home of

bishops and earls, the noise inside the vehicle made him halt. He opened

the door and Simon burst out, radiant with humour and now much steadier

on his legs.

"How much?" said Simon, and then, without waiting for a reply, thrust

half a handful of coppers and silver into the fist of the taximan, hit

him a slap on the top of his flat cap that made him see stars, and

walked off.

The man did not pursue, he was counting his takings:

eleven-and-fivepence, no less.

"Crazy," said he; then he started his engine and went off, utterly

unconscious of the fact that he had entertained and driven something

worthy to be preserved in the British Museum--a real live reveller of

the sixties.

The full moon was shining on Full Moon Street, an old street that still

preserves in front of its houses the sockets for the torches of the

linkmen. It does not require much imagination to see phantom sedan

chairs in Full Moon Street on a night like this, or the watchman on his

rounds, and to-night the old street--if old streets have memories--must

surely have stirred in its dreams, for, as Simon went on his way, the

night began suddenly to be filled with cat-calls.

A lady airing a Pom whisked her treasure into the house as Simon passed,

and shut the door with a bang; such a bang that the knocker gave a jump

and Simon a hint.

Ten yards further on he went up steps, paused before a hall door that,

in daylight, would have been green, and took the knocker.

Just a few turns of his wrist and the knocker was his, a glorious brass

knocker, weighing half a pound. No other young man in London that night

could have done the business like that or shown such dexterity in an art

lost as the art of pinchbeck-making.

He collected two more knockers in that street, retaining only one as a

trophy. He threw the others into an area, pulled the house doorbell

violently, and ran.

In Berkeley Square he was just beginning to deal with another knocker,

when the door opened to an elderly woman of the housekeeper type and a

dachshund.

"What do you want?" asked the housekeeper.

"Does the Duke of Cu-cu-cumberland live here?" hiccupped Simon.

"No, sir, he does not."

"Sorry--sorry--sorry," said Simon. "My mistake--entirely my mistake.

Very sorry to trouble you indeed. What a pretty little dog! What's his

name?"

He was entirely affable now, and, forgetful of knockers, wished to

strike up a friendship, a desire unshared evidently by the lady.

"I think you had better go away," said she, recognising a gentleman and

mourning the fact.

He considered this proposition deeply for a moment.

"That's all very well," said he, "but where am I to go? That's the

question."

"You had better go home."

This seemed slightly to irritate him.

"_I'm_ not going home--_this_ time of night--not likely." He began to

descend the steps as if to get away from admonition. "Not me; you can go

home yourself."

Off he went.

He walked three times round Berkeley Square. He met a constable,

enquired where that street ended and when, found sympathy in return for

half-crowns, and was mothered into a straighter street.

Half-way down the straighter street he remembered he hadn't shown the

sympathetic constable his door-knocker, but the policeman, fortunately,

had passed out of sight.

Then he stood for awhile remembering Cerise. Her vision had suddenly

appeared before him; it threw him into deep melancholy--profound

melancholy. He went on till the lights and noise of Piccadilly restored

him. Then, further on, he entered a flaming doorway through which came

the music of a band.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE LAST SOVEREIGN

On the morning of the fourth of June, the same morning on which Simon

had broken like a butterfly from his chrysalis of long-moulded custom

and stiff routine, Mr. Bobby Ravenshaw, nephew and only near relation of

Simon Pettigrew, awoke in his chambers in Pactolus Mansions, Piccadilly,

yawned, rang for his tea, and, picking up the book he had put beside him

on dropping to sleep, began to read.

The book was _Monte Cristo_. Now Pactolus Mansions, Piccadilly, sounds a

very grand address, and, as a matter of fact, it is a grand address, but

the address is grander than the place. For one thing, it is not in

Piccadilly, the approach is up a dubious side street; the word

"Pactolus" bears little relationship to it, nor the word "Mansions," and

the rents are moderate. Downstairs there is a restaurant and a lounge

with cosy corners.

People take chambers in Pactolus Mansions and vanish. The fact is never

reported to the Society for Psychical Research, the levitation being

always accountable for by solid reasons. To stop them from vanishing

before their rent is paid they have to pay their rent in advance. No

credit is given under any circumstances. This seems hard, yet there are

the compensating advantages that the rent is low, the service good, and

the address taking.

Bobby Ravenshaw had chosen to live in Pactolus Mansions because it was

the cheapest place he could get near the gayest place in town.

Bobby was an orphan, an Oxford man without a degree, and with a taste

for literature and fine clothes. Absolutely irresponsible. Five hundred

a year, derived from Simon, of whose only sister he was the son, and an

instinct for bridge that was worth another two hundred and fifty

supported Bobby in a lame sort of way, assisted by friends, confiding

tailors and bootmakers, and a genial moneylender who was also a cigar

merchant.

Bobby had started in life a year or two ago with cleverness of no mean

order and the backing of money, but Fate had dealt him out two bad

cards: a nature that was charming and irresponsible, and good looks.

Girls worshipped Bobby, and if his talents had only cast him on the

stage their worship might have helped. As it was, it hindered, for Bobby

was a literary man, and no girl has ever bought a book on the strength

of the good looks of the author.

His tea having arrived, Bobby drank it, finished the chapter in _Monte

Cristo_ and then rose and dressed.

He was leaving Pactolus Mansions that day for the very good reason that,

if he wished to stay beyond twelve o'clock, he would have to pay a

month's rent in advance, and he only had thirty shillings.

Uncle Simon had "foreclosed." That was Bobby's expression, a month ago.

For a month Bobby had watched the sands running down; no more money to

come in and all the time money running out. Absolutely unalarmed, and

only noticing the fact as he might have noticed a change in the weather,

he had made no provision, trusting to chance, to bridge that betrayed

him, and to friends. Literature could not help. He had got into a wrong

groove as far as moneymaking went. Little articles for literary papers

of limited circulation and a really cultivated taste are not the

immediate means to financial support in a world that devours its

fictional literature like ham sandwiches, forgotten as soon as

eaten--and only fictional literature pays.

He was thinking more of _Monte Cristo_ than of his own position as he

dressed. The fact that he had to look out for other rooms worried him as

an uncomfortable business to be performed, but not much. If he couldn't

get other rooms that day he could always stay with Tozer. Tozer was an

Oxford man with chambers in the Albany--chambers always open to Bobby at

any hour. A sure stand-by in trouble.

Then, having dressed, he took his hat and stick and the sovereign and

half-sovereign lying on the mantel, tipped the servant the

half-sovereign, and ordered that his things should be packed and his

luggage taken to the office to be left till he called for it.

"I'm going to the country," said Bobby, "and I'll send my address for

letters to be forwarded."

Then he started.

He called first at the Albany.

Tozer, the son of a big, defunct Manchester cotton merchant, was a man

of some twenty-three years, red-haired, with a taste for the good things

of life, a taste for boxing, a taste for music, and a hard common sense

that never deserted him even in his gayest and most frivolous moods.

His chambers were newly furnished, the walls of the sitting-room adorned

with old prints, mostly proofs before letter; boxing gloves and

single-sticks hinted of themselves, and a violoncello stood in the

corner.

He was at breakfast when Bobby arrived. Tozer rang for another cup and

plate.

"Tozer," said Bobby, "I'm bust."

"Aren't surprised to hear it," replied Tozer. "Try these kippers."

"One single sovereign in the world, my boy, and I'm hunting for new

rooms."

"What's the matter with your old rooms? Have they kicked you out?"

Bobby explained.

"Good Lord!" said Tozer. "You've cut the ground from under your feet,

staying at a place like that."

"It's not all my fault, it's my relative. I always boasted to him that I

paid my rent in advance; he took it as a sign of wisdom."

"What made him go back on you?"

"A girl."

"Which way?"

"Well, it was this way. I was staying with the Huntingdons, you know,

the Warwickshire lot."

"I know--bridge and brandy crowd."

"Oh, they're all right. Well, I was staying with them when I met her."

"What's her name?"

"Alice Carruthers."

"Heave ahead."

"I got engaged to her; she hadn't a penny."

"Just like you."

"And her people haven't a penny, and I wrote like a fool telling the

relative. He gave me the option of cutting her off or being cut off. It

seems her people were the real obstacle. He wrote quite libellous things

about them. I refused."

"Of course."

"And he cut me off. Well, the funny thing was she cut me off a week

later, and she's engaged now to a chap called Harkness."

"Well, why don't you tell the relative and make it up?"

"Tell him she'd fired me! Besides, it's no use, he'd just go on to other

things--what he calls extravagances and irresponsibilities."

"I see."

"That's just how it is."

"Look here, Bobby," said Tozer, "you've just got to cut all this

nonsense and get to work. You've been making a fool of yourself."

"I have," said Bobby, helping himself to marmalade.

"There's no use saying, 'I have,' and then forgetting. I know you.

You're a good sort, Bobby, but you are in the wrong set; you couldn't

keep the pace. You've loads of cleverness and you're going to rot.

Work!"

"How?"

"Write," said Tozer, who believed in Bobby and hated to see him going to

waste. "Write. I've always been urging you to settle down and write."

"I made five pounds ten last year writing," said Bobby.

"I know--articles on old French poetry and so on. You've got to write

fiction. You can do it. That little story you wrote for Tillson's was

ripping."

"The devil of it is," said Bobby, "I can't find plots. I can write all

right if I have only something to write about, but I can't find plots."

"That's rubbish, and pure laziness. Can't find plots, with your

experience of London and life! You've got to find plots, and find them

sharp; it's the only trade open to you. You can do it, and it pays. Now

look here, B. R. I'll finance you----"

"Thanks awfully," said Bobby, helping himself to a cigarette from a box

on a little table near by.

"Reserve your thanks. I'm not going to finance a slacker, which you are

at present, but a hard-working literary man, which you will be when I

have done with you. I will give you a room here on the strict conditions

that you keep early hours five days a week."

"Yes."

"That you give up bridge."

"Yes."

"And fooling after girls."

"Yes."

"And this day set out and find a plot for a good, honest, payable piece

of fiction, novel length. I'm not going to let you off with short-story

writing."

"Yes."

"I know a good publisher, and I will assure you that the thing shall be

published in the best form, that I will back the advertising and

pushing--see? And I will promise you that, however the thing turns out,

you shall have two hundred pounds. You will get all profits if it is a

success, understand me?"

"Yes."

"You shall have five pounds a week pocket-money whilst you are writing,

to be repaid out of profits if the profits exceed two hundred, not to be

repaid if they don't."

"I don't like taking money for nothing," said Bobby.

"You won't get it, only for hard work. Besides, it's for my amusement

and interest. I believe in you, and I want to see my belief justified.

You need never bother about taking money from me. First, I have plenty;

secondly, I never give it without a _quid pro quo_, the trading instinct

is too strong in me."

"Well," said Bobby, "it's jolly good of you, and I'll pay you the lot

back, if----"

Tozer was lighting a cigarette; he flung the match down impatiently.

"If! You'll do nothing if you begin with an 'if.' Now, make up your mind

quick without any 'ifs.' Will you, or won't you?"

"I will," said Bobby, suddenly catching on to the idea and taking fire.

"I believe I can do it if----"

"If!" shouted Tozer.

"I _will_ do it. I'll find a plot. I'll dig in my brains right

away--I'll hunt round."

"Off with you, then," said Tozer, "and send your luggage here and come

back to-night with your plot. You can work in your bedroom and you can

have all your meals here--I forgot to include that. Now I'm going to

have a tune on the 'cello."

Bobby departed with a light heart. His position, before calling on

Tozer, had really begun to weigh on him. Tozer had given him even more

than the promise of financial support, he had given him the backing of

his common sense. He had "jawed" him mildly, and Bobby felt all the

better for it. It was like a tonic. His high spirits as he descended the

stairs increased with every step taken.

Bobby was no sponge. Bridge and the relative had kept him going, and he

had always managed to meet his debts, with the exception, perhaps, of a

tradesman or two; nor would he have taken this favour from any other man

than Tozer, and perhaps not even from Tozer had it not been accompanied

by the "jawing."

So he set out, light of heart, young, good-looking, well-dressed, yet

with only a sovereign, to hunt through the summer landscape of London

for the plot for a novel.

Why, he was the plot for a novel, or at least the beginning of one, had

he known!

He did not, but he had an intimate knowledge of Tozer's fictional

proclivities and a fine understanding of exactly what Tozer wanted.

Bones, ribs, and vertebra, construction--or, in other words, story.

Tozer could not be fubbed off with fine writing, with long

introspective chapters dealing with the boyhood of the author, with sham

psychology masquerading as Fiction; nor, indeed, could Bobby have

supplied the two latter features. Tozer wanted action, people moving on

their feet under the dominion of the author's purpose, through

situations, towards a definite goal.

Out in Vigo Street, and despite the aura of inspiration around the

Bodley Head, Bobby's high spirits came slightly under eclipse; it all at

once seemed to him that he had undertaken a task. In Cork Street, as he

stood for a moment looking at the rare editions exposed in the windows

of Elkin Mathews, this feeling grew and put on horns.

A task to Bobby meant a thing disagreeable to do, and the elegant

volumes of minor poets, copies of the Yellow Book, and vellum-bound

editions of belles lettres were saying to him, "You've got to write a

novel, my boy, a good Mudie novel, the sort of novel the Tozers of life

will pay for; no little essays written with the little finger turned up.

No modern verses like your 'Harmonies and Discords,' that cost you

twenty-five pounds to produce and sold sixteen copies of itself,

according to last returns. You have got to be the harmonious blacksmith

now; get into your apron, get under your spreading chestnut-tree, and

produce."

In Bond Street he met Lord Billy Tottenham, a fellow Oxonian, who met

his death in a mud-hole in Flanders the other year.

Lord Billy, with a boyish, smug, but immovable face adorned with a

tortoiseshell-rimmed eyeglass.

"Hello, Bobby!" said Billy.

"Hello, Billy!" said Bobby.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Billy.

"Broke to the world, my dear chap."

"What was the horse?" asked Billy.

"'Twasn't a horse--a girl, mostly."

"Well, you're not the first chap that's been broke by a girl," said

Billy. "Walk along a bit--but it might have been worse."

"How so?"

"She might have married you."

"Maybe; but the worst of it is I've got to work--tuck up my sleeves and

work."

"What at?"

"Novel-writing."

"Well, that's easy enough," said Billy cheerfully. "You can easily get

some literary cove to do the writing and stick your name to it, and

we'll all buy your books, my boy, we'll all buy your books; not that I

ever read books much, but I'll buy 'em if you write 'em. Come into

Jubber's."

Arm-in-arm they entered Long's Hotel, where Billy resided, and over a

mutual whisky-and-soda they forgot books and discussed horses; they

lunched together and discussed dogs, girls, and mutual friends. It was

like old times again, but over the liqueurs and over the cigarette-smoke

suddenly appeared to Bobby the vision of Tozer. He said good-bye to the

affluent one, and departed. "I've got to work," said Bobby.

His momentary lapse from the direction of the target only served to pull

him together, and it seemed, now, as though the luncheon and the lapse

had made things easier. He told himself if he hadn't brains enough to

scare up some sort of plot for a six-shilling novel he had better drown

himself. If he couldn't do what hundreds of people with half his

knowledge of the world and ability were doing he would be a mug of the

very first water.

If anything depressed him it was the horrible and futile assurance of

Billy that "his friends would buy his books." He went to Pactolus

Mansions and ordered his luggage to be sent to the Albany, then he

changed his sovereign and bought a cigar, then an omnibus gave him an

inspiration. He would get on top of an omnibus and in that cool and airy

position do a bit of thinking.

It was not an original idea; he had read, or heard, of a famous author

who thought out his plots on the tops of omnibuses--but it was an idea.

He clambered on to the top of an eastward-going bus, and, behind a fat

lady with bugles on her bonnet, tried to compose his mind.

Why not make a story about--Billy? People liked reading of the

aristocracy, and Billy was a character in his way and had many stories

attached to him. He could start the book grandly, simply out of

remembered visions of Lord William Tottenham in his gayest moods. L. W.

T. emptying bottles of cliquot into a grand piano at Oxford. Oxford--ay,

grander and grander--the book should begin at Oxford with a fresh and

vigorous picture of University life. Tozer would come in, and a host of

others; then, after Oxford, there was the rub.

The story that had begun so brightly suddenly ceased.

A character and a situation do not make a story.

They had reached the Bank--as if by derision, when he told himself this.

He got off the omnibus and got on a westward-bound one harking back to

the land he knew. He remembered the expression, "racking one's brains to

find a plot." He knew the meaning of it now.

At Piccadilly Circus, where all the things meet, a lanky, wild-looking,

red-haired girl in a picture hat and a fit of abstraction--that was the

impression she gave--caught his eye. In a moment he was after her.

Here was salvation. Julia Delyse, the last catch-on, whose books were

selling by the hundred thousand. He had met her at the Three Arts Ball

and once since. She had called him Bobby the second time. He had flirted

with her, as he flirted with everything with skirts on, and forgotten

her. She was very modern; modern enough to raise the hair on a

grandmother's scalp. Her looks were to match.

"Hello," said he.

"Hello, Bobby," said Julia.

"You are just the person I want to see," said Bobby.

"How's that?" said Julia.

"I'm in a fix."

"What sort of fix?"

"I've got to write a novel."

"What's the hurry?" asked Julia.

"Money," said Bobby.

"Make money?"

"Yes."

"If you write for money you're lost," said Julia.

"I'm lost anyway," replied Bobby. "Where are you going to?"

"Home; my flat's close by. Come and have some tea."

"I don't mind. Well now, see here; I've got to do it and I can't find

anything to write about."

"With all London before you?"

"I know, but when I start to think it all gets behind me. I want you to

start me with some idea; you're full of ideas and you know the ropes."

They had reached the flat, and the lady with ideas ushered him in.

The sitting-room was in a scheme of black with Japanese effects; she

offered cigarettes, lit one herself, and tea was brought in.

Then the hypnotism began.

The fact that she was a "famous authoress" would not have mattered a

button to Bobby yesterday; to-day, on his new strange road, it lent her

a charm that completed the fascination of her wondrous eyes. They seemed

wild in the street, but when she looked at one intensively they were

wonderful. Plots were forgotten, and in the twilight Bobby's full,

musical voice might have been heard discussing literature--with long

pauses.

"Dear old thing.... Is that cushion comfy?... Oh, bother the girl and

the tea-things!... Just put your head so--so...."

He had been hooked twenty times by girls and pulled off the hook by

parents or been thrown back by the fisherwoman on inspecting his bank

balance, but he had never been hooked like this before, for Julia had no

parents to speak of; she was above bank balances, and her grip was of

iron where passion was concerned, and publishers. Her publishers could

have told you that by the way she gripped her rights when they tried to

cheat her of them, for, despite her wondrous eyes and wild air and the

fact that she was a genius, she was practical as well as tenacious in

hold.

Then, at the end of the _séance_, Bobby found himself leaving the flat a

semi-tied-up man. He couldn't remember whether he had proposed to her or

she to him, or whether either of them had proposed or actually accepted,

but there was a tie between them, a tie slight enough and not binding in

any court; less an engagement than an attachment formed, so he told

himself.

He remembered in the street, however, that a tie between him and an

authoress was not what Tozer wanted; he had received no plot or even

literary hint. Had he retained his clear senses during the _séance_, and

had he possessed a knowledge of Julia Delyse's brilliant and cynical

books, he might have wondered where the brilliancy and cynicism came

from. In love, Julia was absolutely unliterary--and a bit

heavy--clinging, as it were.

The momentary idea of running back to ask for the forgotten plot, as for

a hat left behind, was dispelled by this sudden feeling that she was

heavy.

Under the fascination of her eyes and in that weird room she seemed

light; in St. James's Street, where he now was, she seemed heavy. And he

would have to go on with the attachment for awhile or be a brute. That

recognition, with the remembrance of Tozer and a recognition of his

failure in his search for the one essential thing, depressed him for a

moment. Then he determined to forget about everything and go and have

dinner. In other words, failing in his search for the thing he wanted,

he stopped searching, leaving the matter in the hands of blind chance.