All this time I studied the profile of the editor, while he leisurely discussed, perhaps, half a sovereign's worth of luncheon. I hoped—and again feared—he might presently recognise me; but he only looked blandly through me once or twice to more important objects beyond. And just as I had concluded that it was not humanly possible to spend any longer over one spoonful of practically cold soup, he rose, gracefully disguised a yawn, and strolled away to an Elysian hall in which, no doubt, liqueurs, coffee, and cigars of great price were dispensed. This was not for me, of course.

They managed somehow to make my bill half a crown, and, as a trifling mark of my esteem, I gave the waiter the price of two of my ordinary dinners, for himself. I badly wanted to give him sixpence, but lacked the requisite moral courage, though I do not suppose he would have wasted a thought upon it either way, and if he had—but, as I say, I gave him a shilling. After all I do not suppose the poor fellow earned much more in a day than I earned in a week. And then (still with prudent thought for my gouty tendency, no doubt) I loftily waved aside all suggestions of coffee in the lounge, and made my way to the street, with the air of one who found luncheon a rather annoying interruption in his management of great affairs.

'Now if you had as much enterprise and resourcefulness as—as a bandicoot,' I told myself, passing down the Thames Embankment, 'you would have entered into conversation with A——, and by this time he would be pressing you to write articles for him. Instead of that, you'll have to content yourself with dry bread to-night and to-morrow, my friend.'

But I did not altogether regret that bread and soup luncheon, after all. It was an adventure of sorts, and quite a streak of colour in its way, across the drab background of South Tottenham days.

There were times when the spirit of revolt filled my very soul, and all life seemed black or red in my eyes. But I do not recall any day of panic or suggested surrender. On one day of revolt, when I told myself that this slum life in London was too horrible for a self-respecting dingo, let alone a man, I buttoned up my coat and walked with angry haste all the way to Epping Forest. In that noble breathing-place I raged to and fro under trees and through scrub, delighting in the prickly caress of brambles, and pausing in breathless ecstasy to watch rabbits at play in a dim, leafy glade. Fully twelve miles I must have walked, and then, healed and tamed, but somewhat faint from unwonted exercise and wonted lack of good food, I sat down in a little arbour and wolfishly devoured just as much as I could get in the form of a ninepenny tea. I fear there can have been no margin of profit for the good woman who served me.

At that period my digestive faculties still were holding up miraculously, or my sufferings on the homeward tramp would have been acute. As a fact I reached home in rare spirits, and almost—so cheery was I—cancelled the notice I had given that morning of my intention to vacate the current garret. But the smell of the house smiting my forest freshness as I stepped over the boards, jammed in its threshold to keep crawling children in, saved me from that indiscretion. There were fewer drunkards, less fighting, and not many more insects in that house than in most of my places of residence; but the smell of it I shall never, never forget. In that respect it was the vilest in a vile series of slum dwellings, and many and many a time had caused me to revile my naturally keen olfactory organs. I had endured it for almost a month, and would suffer its unmanning horrors no more. Indeed, I would suffer nothing like it again. Why should I? My earnings were increasing. I would escape from the whole district, its miseries, its smells, its infamies, and its thousand dehumanising degradations. I would emigrate.

Yes, that tramp in Epping Forest was quite epoch-making. It came after more than two years of struggle in London. I had made fully five pounds in the past month. I had actually laid aside a couple of sovereigns, and doubtless that salient fact emboldened me. Also, I had had a number of quite meaty meals of late. But the wild stamping to and fro under trees, the sight of the bonny, white-sterned rabbits at play, the copious tea in a pleached arbour, the clean forest air—these I am sure had been as a fiery stimulant to my drooping manhood. I went to bed full of the most reckless resolves, and astonishingly light-hearted.

In the morning, having feasted (as well as the prevailing smell permitted) upon an apple, brown bread, and tea—butter was 'off' that day, I remember—I set forth upon a prospecting tour, working westward from my north-easterly abode, through Holloway, Finsbury, the Camden Road, and such places, into the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. The park, which was strange to me, pleased me greatly; as did also certain minor streets in its neighbourhood, a mews which I found quaint and quite rural in its suggestions, and sundry white houses with green shutters which, for some reason, I remember I called 'discreet.' There was nothing here that looked poor enough for me, but none the less I inquired at one or two of the smaller houses whose windows held cards indicating that rooms were to let in them.

At length, in a quiet and decent thoroughfare called Howard Street, I happened upon Mrs. Pelly's house—No. 37. The girl who answered my knock had a pleasant little face, and a soft, kindly tone in speaking. I supposed she was not more than one-and-twenty, perhaps less. Her mother was out, she said, but she would show me the only vacant room they had. Indeed—with a little smile—she really did more for the lodgers than her mother did.

The room was at the back of the house on the first floor, and there was but one other floor above it. It had a French window, with a tiny iron balcony, three feet by eighteen inches. The furnishings were greatly superior to any I had had in London. There was actually a little writing-table with drawers, and from the window one could see distinctly the waving green tops of trees in the park. The rent was eleven shillings. Whereat I sighed heavily. But the writing-table, and, above all, the actual view of tree-tops in the distance! I sighed again, and explained regretfully that I feared my limit was eight shillings. Then the young woman sighed too, and mentioned, with apparent irrelevance, that her mother might be in any moment now.

I had earned five pounds in the previous month. With reasonable care my food need not cost more than seven to ten shillings a week. Of course I had managed on considerably less. I knew very well that that sort of semi-starvation was in every way bad; but, when I thought of that quiet back room, the distant tree-tops, the absence of smells, the fact that I had seen no filthy or drunken people in the neighbourhood, the soft-spoken girl at my side—'By heavens! It's worth it,' I said to myself.

And just then—we were in the narrow ground floor passage—the mother arrived, bringing with her an unmistakable whiff of a public-house bar. This stiffened my relaxing prudence considerably. I had no kindly feeling left for taverns, especially where women were concerned. But, by an odd chance, it happened that Mrs. Pelly was not only in a talkative mood, but also in higher spirits than I ever saw her afterwards. She insisted on reinspection of the room, a sufficiently dangerous thing in itself for me. And then, standing beside its open window, with arms folded over the place in which her waist once had been, she avowed that she thought the room would suit me, and that I should suit the room.

'There's a writing-table in it, an' all, ye see,' she said, having received a hint as to my working habits.

There was indeed. I was little likely to forget it. It now seemed the charge for the room was eleven shillings weekly, without 'attendance.' But Mrs. Pelly had never been a woman to stick out over trifles, that she hadn't; and, right or wrong, though she hoped she might never live to rue the day, she would let the gentleman this room for nine shillings a week, and include 'attendance' in that merely nominal rate—'So there, Miss!' This, to her daughter Fanny, and in apparent forgetfulness of my presence.

It was a thrilling moment for me, standing there with one hand on the writing-table, my gaze fixed over the scantily covered top of Mrs. Pelly's head—she wore no hat—upon the trees in the distance. Prudence gabbled at me: 'You can't afford it. You must eat. You'll be sold up, and serve you right.' But, of course, the table and the window won. After all, had I not earned five pounds in the past month? And, excepting boots, my outfit was still pretty good!

I could not wait for Monday. The window and the table pulled too hard. So I installed myself at No. 37 on the Saturday afternoon, and thanked God sincerely that I was no longer in a slum.

VII

On fine mornings I used to leave door and window blocked open in my room, and take half an hour's walk in the park before breakfast. The weather was sometimes unkind, of course, but Fanny never, and she would neglect the rooms of other lodgers in order to hasten the straightening of mine. The other lodgers were all folk whose business took them away from Howard Street as soon as breakfast was dispatched, and kept them away till evening.

It often happened that I would work at my little writing-table until the small hours of the morning; and in such cases, more often than not, I would leave the house directly after breakfast, walk down Tottenham Court Road, and tack through Bloomsbury to Gray's Inn and Fleet Street, or wherever else the office might lie for which the manuscript I carried was destined. Where possible, I preferred this method of disposing of manuscripts. Not only did it save stamps—a considerable item with me—but it seemed quicker and safer than the post. I had a dishonest little formula for porters and bell boys in these offices, from the enunciation of which I derived a comforting sense of security and dispatch.

'You might let the editor have this directly he comes in,' I would say as I handed over my envelope; 'promised for to-day, without fail.'

Well, I had promised—myself. And this little formula, in addition to making for prompt delivery, I thought, gave one a sense of actual relationship with the editor. Save for the trifling fact that the manuscript would, probably, in due course be returned, or even consigned to the waste-paper basket, my method seemed to put me on the footing of one who had written a commissioned article. The dramatic value of the formula was greatly enhanced where one happened to know the editor's name, and could say in a tone of urgent intimacy: 'You might let Mr. —— have this directly he comes in,' etc. In those cases one walked down the office stairway humming an air. It was next door to being one of the Olympians, and that without sacrificing one's romantic liberty as a free-lance.

As my earnings rose—and they did rise with agreeable rapidity after my establishment in Howard Street—I wrote less and thought more. I also walked more, and saw more of London, But I was still writing a great deal; more probably than any salaried journalist in the town, though a large proportion of my writings never saw the light of print. When I had been living for five or six months in Howard Street, my earnings were averaging from ten pounds to fifteen pounds each month. For a long time I seemed able to maintain something like this average, but not to improve upon it. It may be that my efforts slackened at that point, and that I gave more time to reading and walking. This is the more likely, because I know I felt no interest whatever in the progress of the account I opened in the Post Office savings bank.

It was about this time, I fancy, though only in my twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year, that I began seeking advice from chemists and their assistants, under whose guidance I tapped the fascinating but deadly field of patent medicines. The fact was I had completely disorganised my digestive system during two years and more of catering for myself upon an average outlay of six or seven shillings weekly (sometimes much less, of course), whilst living an insanely sedentary life in which the allowance of sleep, exercise, and fresh air had been as inadequate as my dietary. A wise physician might possibly have been able to steer me into smooth waters now, especially if he had driven me out of London. But the obstinate energy and conceit of youth was still strong in my veins. I had no money to waste on doctors, I told myself. And so I held desultory consultations across the counters of chemist's shops, and, supremely ignorant as to causes, attacked symptoms with trustful energy, consuming great quantities of mostly valueless and frequently harmful nostrums.

Another step I took at this time, after quaintly earnest discussion with Fanny, was to arrange an additional payment of eight shillings a week to Mrs. Pelly, in return for the provision of my very simple breakfast and a bread and cheese luncheon each day. This relieved me of a task for which I had never had much patience, and very likely it was also an economy. My evening meal I preferred, as a general thing, to obtain elsewhere. It was one of my few entertainments this foraging after inexpensive dinners, and watching and listening to other diners. At that time my prejudices were the exact antithesis of those that came later on, and I preferred foreign restaurants and foreign service and cooking, quite apart from the fact that I found them nearly always cheaper and more entertaining than the native varieties.

It was in a dingy little French eating-house near Wardour Street (where I must say the cooking at that time really was skilful, though I dare say the material used was villainously bad, since the prices charged were low, even judged by my scale in such matters) that I first made the acquaintance of Sidney Heron. I felt sure that Heron must be a remarkable man, even before I spoke to him, or heard him speak, for he lived with a monocle fixed in his right eye, and never moved it, even when he blew his nose and gesticulated violently, as he so often did. The monocle was attached to a broad black ribbon which, in some way, seemed grotesque as contrasted with the dingy greyish-white flannel cricketing shirts which Heron always wore, with a red tie under the collar. Linen in any guise he clearly scorned. I do not think his boots were ever cleaned, and he appeared to spend even less upon clothing than I did. I do not know just how he disposed of his money, but he earned two hundred or three hundred a year as a writer, and he was invariably short of funds. I think it quite conceivable that he may have maintained some poor relation or relations, but in all the years of our acquaintance I never heard him mention a relative. He certainly lived poorly himself.

Our acquaintance resulted from his tipping a rum omelette into my lap. The tables at this little restaurant were exceptionally narrow, and I suppose Heron was exceptionally cross, even for him. The omelette was burnt, he said, and after pishing and tushing over it for a moment or two he shouted to the overworked waiter, giving his plate so angry a thrust at the same time that it collided violently with mine, and the offending omelette ricochetted into my lap.

Heron's apologies indicated far more of anger than contrition, I thought; but they led to conversation, at all events, and as he lived in the Hampstead Road we walked a mile or more together after leaving the restaurant. It was the beginning of companionship of a sort for me, and if we did not ever become very close friends, at all events our intimacy endured without rupture for many years.

At the outset I was given an inkling of the irascibility of his temper, and my subsequent method, in all our intercourse, was simply to leave him whenever he became quarrelsome, and to take up our relations when next we met at the point immediately preceding that at which temper had overcome him. At heart an honourable and I am sure kindly man, Heron had a temper of remarkable susceptibility to irritation. The stomachic causes which, as time went on, produced melancholy and dense, black depression in me, probably accounted for his eruptions of violent irascibility. And I fancy we were equally ignorant and brutal in our treatment of our own physical weaknesses.

Heron certainly became one of my distractions, one of my human interests outside work, at this time. But there was another, and the other came closer home to me.

I suppose I spent seven or eight months in discovering that Mrs. Pelly was a singularly unpleasant woman. But the thing did eventually become plain to me, so plain indeed that it would have caused me to give up my French window and writing-table and migrate once more, but for certain considerations outside my own personal comfort. That Mrs. Pelly consumed far more gin than was good for her became apparent to me during my first week, if not my first day, in Howard Street. But as she rarely entered my room, and our encounters were merely accidental and momentary, this weakness would never have affected me much.

What did affect me was my very gradual discovery of the fact that this woman treated her own daughter with systematic cruelty—a thing happily unusual in her class, as it is also, I think, among the very poor of London. At the end of eight or nine months my increasing knowledge of Mrs. Pelly's harsh unkindness to Fanny had begun to weigh on my mind a good deal. It was a singular case, in many ways. Here was a girl, a young woman rather, in her twenty-first year, who to all intents and purposes might be said to be carrying on with her own hands the entire work of a house which sheltered five lodgers; and, as a fact, it was rarely that a day passed without her suffering actual physical violence at the hands of that gin-soaked termagant, her mother.

The woman positively used to pinch Fanny in such a way as to leave blue bruises on her arm. She used to pull her hair violently, slap her face, and strike at her with any sort of weapon that happened to be within reach. Further, when the vicious fit took her, she would lock up pantry and kitchen, and make this hard-working girl go hungry to bed at night, by way of punishment for some pretended misdeed. And the astounding thing was that, with all this and more, Fanny retained a very real affection for her unnatural parent; and used to plead that, but for the effect of liquor upon her, Mrs. Pelly would be and was a good mother.

It appeared that Fanny had lost her father when she was about twelve years old, and ever since that time her mother's extraordinary attitude towards her had become increasingly harsh and cruel. She never had a penny of her own, though she did the work of two servants, and her clothes were mostly home-made make-shifts from discarded garments of her mother's. When necessity caused her to ask for new boots, for example, the penalty would be perhaps a week of vile abuse and bullying, of slaps, pinches, docked meals and other humiliations, all of which must be endured before the wretched woman would buy a pair of the cheapest and ugliest shoes obtainable, and fling them to her daughter from out her market-basket. If they were a misfit, Fanny would have to suffer them as best she could. Or, in other cases, new shoes would be refused altogether, and she would be ordered to make shift with a pair her mother had worn out.

It was only very gradually that I came to know these things. Once, when I knew no more than that Fanny worked very hard and seldom stirred out of the house, I chanced to encounter mother and daughter together on the stairs early on a Sunday evening. The girl looked pinched and unhappy, and something moved me to make a suggestion I should hardly have ventured upon then, if the mother had not happened to be present.

'You look tired, Fanny,' I said. 'Why not come out for a walk in the park with me? The air would do you good, and perhaps you will have a bit of dinner somewhere with me before getting back. Do! It would be quite a charity to a lonely man.'

I saw her tired brown eyes brighten at the thought, and then she turned timidly in Mrs. Pelly's direction.

'Oh!' said I, on a rather happy inspiration, 'I believe you're one of the vain people who fancy they are indispensable. I am sure Mrs. Pelly would be delighted for you to come; wouldn't you, Mrs. Pelly? There will be no lodgers home till late this fine evening.'

Mrs. Pelly simpered at me, with a rather forbidding light in her eye, I thought. But I had struck the right note in that word 'indispensable.'

'Oh, she's very welcome to go, for me, Mr. Freydon; and I'm sure it's very kind of you to ask her. Girls nowadays don't do so much when they are at work but what it's easy enough to spare 'em. But, haven't you got a tongue, miss? Why don't you thank Mr. Freydon?'

'No, indeed,' I laughed. 'The thanks are coming from me. I'll just go back to my room and write a letter, and you will let me know as soon as you're ready, won't you, Fanny?'

Well, I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed that little outing. I thought there never had been any one who was so easily pleased and entertained. Doubtless her worshipful attitude flattered my youthful vanity. But, apart from this, it was a real delight to see the flush of enjoyment come and go in her pale, pretty face, when we rode on the top of an omnibus, examined flowers in the park, and sat down to a meal with the preparation and removal of which she was to have no concern whatever. It was a pretty and touching sight, I say, to see how these very simple pleasures delighted her. But I very soon learned that this experience must not be repeated. Indeed, it was in this wise that I obtained my first inklings of the real wretchedness of Fanny's life. She had to suffer constant humiliations for a week or more, as the price of the little jaunt she had with me. Her mother found it hard to forget or forgive the fact that her daughter had had an hour or two of freedom and enjoyment. Realisation of this made me detest the woman.

And then, it may have been three months after this little outing, there came another Sunday incident that moved me. I returned to my room unexpectedly about six o'clock, having forgotten to take out with me a certain paper. The house was very silent, and perhaps that made me walk more softly than usual up the stairs. As I opened my door the warm, yellow light of the setting sun was slanting across my writing-table, and in the chair before it sat Fanny, reading a magazine.

My first thought was of irritation. I did not like to see any one sitting at my writing-table. I was touchy regarding that one spot—the table, my papers, and so forth. In the same instant irritation gave place to some quite other feeling, as the sunlight showed me that tears were rolling down Fanny's pale face.

She sprang to her feet in great confusion, murmuring almost passionate apologies in her habitually soft, small voice.

'Oh, please forgive me, Mr. Freydon! I know it was a liberty. Please do forgive me. I will never do it again. Please say you will overlook it, and—and not tell my mother.'

She unmistakably shrank, trembling, almost cowering before me, so that I was made to feel a dreadful brute.

'My dear Fanny,' I said, touching her arm with my fingers, 'there's nothing to forgive. How absurd! I hope you will always sit there whenever you like. As though I should mind! But what were you reading?'

The question had no point for me, and was designed merely to relieve the tension.

'Oh, your story, Mr. Freydon. It's—it's too beautiful. That was what made me forget where I was, and sit on here. I just glanced at it—like; and then—and I couldn't leave it. Oh!'

And she drew up her apron and dabbed her eyes. I don't believe the poor soul possessed a handkerchief. Here was a pretty pass then! I had forgotten for the moment that one of the three magazines on the table contained a short story of which, upon its appearance, I had been inordinately proud. I was young, and no one else flattered me. Literally nobody had shared my gratification in the publication of this story. Here was somebody from whom it drew indubitable tears; some one who was deeply moved by its beauty....

I patted her shoulder. I drew confidences from her regarding the wretchedness of her home life. I laid down emphatic instructions that she was to regard my room as her sanctuary; to use it whenever and howsoever she might choose, irrespective of my presence or absence. I bade her make free with my few books—as though the poor soul had abundance of leisure—comforted her to the best of my ability; and— Yes, let me evade nothing. I stroked her hair, and in leaving her, with reiterated instructions to remain there and rest, I touched her cool white cheek with my lips, and was strangely thrilled by the touch.

A warm wave of what I thought pity and sympathy passed over me as I walked from her.

VIII

It is rather a matter of regret with me now that I never kept a diary. Mine has been upon the whole a somewhat lonely life, and lonely men often do keep diaries. But, in my case, I suppose writing was too much the daily business of life to permit of leisure being given to the same task.

However, the dates of certain volumes of short stories, which appeared long ago with my name upon their covers, are for me evidence that, after the first six months of my stay in Howard Street, my work began to tend more and more towards fiction, and away from newspaper articles. My dealings at this time brought me more closely into touch with magazines than with newspapers. I became more concerned with human emotions and character, but especially with emotions, than with those more abstract or again more matter-of-fact themes which had served me in the writing of newspaper articles.

This may have helped me in some ways, since it meant that my name was fairly frequently seen in print now. But the point I have in mind is, that I take this tendency in my work to have been an indication of the particular phase of character development through which I was passing at the time. It was at this period that I indulged myself in occasional dreams of fame. I do not know that my conceit made me offensive in any way. I hardly think it went so far. But, in my inmost heart, I believe I judged myself to be a creative artist of note. I certainly had a lively imagination, a good deal of fluency—too much, indeed—as a writer, and a considerable amount of emotional capacity and sympathy.

Later in life I often wondered, not without depression, why I no longer seemed able to move people, to influence them in a given direction, or to arouse their enthusiasm, with the same facility which I had known in my twenties. I see now the reasons of this. My emotional capacity spent itself rapidly in writing and living; and with its exhaustion (and the development of my critical faculties) came an attenuation, a drying up, so to say, of the quality of facile emotional sympathy, which in earlier years had made it easy for me to attract, prepossess, or influence people at will.

Given some practical organising qualities which I certainly did not possess, I apprehend that at this period I might have engineered myself into a considerable vogue of popularity as a writer of fiction. A little later I might almost have slid into the same position, even in the absence of the practical qualities aforesaid, but for the trend of circumstances which then became highly antagonistic to that sort of development.

But I note with some interest that the stories I took to writing at this period were highly emotional in tone, and somewhat exotic in their setting. The exotic settings may have been due in part to the fact that I had travelled, and yet more I fancy to revulsion from the material background of my early life in London. And the emotionalism must be attributed, I apprehend, in part to my age and temperament, and in part to my comparative solitude.

I find it extremely difficult justly to appraise or analyse my relations with Fanny. In one mood I see merely youth, folly, vanity, and romantic emotionalism, directing my conduct; and again I fancy I discern some loftier motive, such as sincerely chivalrous generosity, humanity, unselfish desire to help and uplift, etc. Doubtless, in this as in most matters, a variety of motives and influences played their part in shaping one's conduct. Single and entirely unmixed motives are much more rare than most people believe, I fancy. Pride and vanity have a way of dogging generosity's footsteps very closely; steadfast endurance and selfish obstinacy are nearly related; and I dare say real kindness of heart often has a place where we most of us see only reckless self-indulgence.

I remember very well a cold, clear moonlight night in the Hampstead Road, when reaction from solitary reflection made me unbosom myself a good deal to Sidney Heron, in the form of seeking his advice. On previous occasions I had told him something of Fanny and her dismal position, and he had seen her once or twice at my lodging.

'H'm! Yes. Precisely. So I inferred.'

It was with such ejaculations, rather sardonic in tone, I thought, that he listened to me as we walked.

'Well, what shall I do?' I said at length as we reached his gate.

'What will you do?' he echoed. 'Well, my friend, since you are an inspired ass, and a confirmed sentimentalist, I imagine you——'

'What would you advise in the circumstances, I mean?' I interpolated hurriedly.

'My advice. Oh, that's another matter altogether, and of absolutely no value.'

'But, on the contrary, you are older than I.'

'I am indeed—centuries.'

'And your advice should be very helpful to me.'

'So it should. But it won't be, because you won't follow it.'

'How can you know that?'

'From my knowledge of human nature, sir; and, in particular, my observation of your sub-species.'

'Try me, anyhow.'

'Very well. Change your lodging to-morrow, and never set foot in Howard Street again. There's my advice, and it's the best you'll ever get—and the last you'd ever think of following. Give me a cigarette if you want to continue this perfectly useless conversation.'

'But, my dear Heron, I'm anxious to do the wisest thing——'

'Not you!'

'But consider the plight of that poor girl.'

'Oh, come! This opens new ground. I thought I was engaged to advise you.'

'Certainly. But in relation to—to what we've been talking about.'

'H'm! In relation, you mean, to Fanny Pelly? Phoebus, what a name! I wonder if you know what you mean, Freydon! Let's assume you mean having equal regard to your own interests and those of your gin-drinking landlady's daughter. Hey?'

'Well, yes. Always remembering, of course, that I am only a man, and she——'

'Oh, Lord! Excuse me. Yes; you are only a man, as you so truly say; and she is—your landlady's daughter. Well, well, upon the whole, and giving her interests a fair show, I think my advice would be precisely the same—clear out to-morrow.'

'And what about her future?'

'My dear man, am I a reasoning human being, or a novelette-reading jelly-fish? Did I not say that having regard to the interests of both, that is my advice? Kindly credit me with the modicum of intelligence required for adequate consideration of both sides. It isn't an international complication, you know; neither is it a situation entirely without precedent in history. But, mind you, I'm perfectly well aware that no advice, however good, is ever of any practical use; least of all in circumstances of this order. It does, I believe, occasionally impel its victim in the direction opposite to the one indicated. Yes, and especially in such cases. Well, my friend, upon reconsideration then, my advice is that first thing to-morrow morning you proceed to Doctors' Commons, wherever and whatever that may be, procure a special licence, and many the girl. Only—don't you dare to ask me to have anything to do with it.'

The suggestion has a fantastic look, but I am more than half inclined to think Heron's final piece of advice did have its bearing upon my subsequent actions. For it started a train of thought in my mind regarding marriage. It gave a practical shape to mere vague imaginings. It set me looking into details. For example, I distinctly remember murmuring to myself as I turned the corner of Heron's street:

'Yes, after all, I suppose getting married is quite a simple job, really. There are registrar's offices, aren't there? I suppose it's pretty well as simple, really, as getting a new coat.'

How Heron would have grinned if he had been able to follow this soliloquy!

Fanny was on her knees before my hearth when I reached my room. The lamp burned clear and soft beside my blotting-pad. The fire glowed cheerily, and Fanny had just swept the hearth, so that no speck showed upon it. And my slippers were in the fender. Less than a year earlier my homecomings had been singularly different; a dark, cold room in a malodorous house, with very possibly a drunken couple brawling on the landing outside.

But there were tears in Fanny's eyes. The mother was in one of her vicious tempers, it seemed, and had gone to bed in her basement room with the keys of larder and kitchen, and a bottle of gin. The daughter's last meal had been whatever she could get for midday dinner. And it was now nine o'clock in the evening.

'Just you wait there. Don't stir from where you arc. I'll be back in three minutes,' I told her.

There was a ham and beef shop at the junction of Howard and Albany Street. Thither I hastened. Leaving this convenient repository of ready-cooked comestibles, I bethought me of the question of something to drink. I was bent on doing this thing well, according to my lights. Presently I reached my room again, armed with pressed beef, cold chicken, bread, butter, mustard, salt, plates, cutlery, a segment of vividly yellow cake, and, crowning triumph, a half bottle of Macon.

The Dickensian tradition rather suggests that the ripe experience of a middle-aged bon vivant is desirable in the host at such occasions. Well, in that master's time youth may have lasted longer in life than it does with us. My own notion is that mine was the ideal age for such a part. I think of that little supper—Fanny's tremulous sips of Burgundy from my wash-stand tumbler, the warm flush in her pale cheeks, and the sparkle in her brown eyes—as crystallising a good deal of the phase in which I was living just then. I am quite sure I did it well, very well.

In buying those viands I knew I should keenly enjoy our little supper. I pictured very clearly how delightful it would all seem to poor Fanny; her flushed enjoyment; just what a rare treat the whole episode would be for her. I knew how pleasantly that spectacle would thrill me. I thought too, in a way, what a devilish romantic chap I was, rushing out at night to purchase supper—and Burgundy; that was important; claret would not have served—for a forlorn and unhappy girl, who, but for my resourcefulness, would have gone starving to bed. How oddly mixed the motives! The Burgundy, now; I believed it a more generous and feeding wine than any other. Also, for some reason, it was for me a more romantic wine; more closely associated with, say, the Three Musketeers and with Burgundian Denys, comrade of Reade's Gerard.

I quite genuinely wanted to help Fanny, to do her good, to brighten her dull life. The contemplation of her pleasure gave me what some would call the most unselfish delight. Withal, as I say, how oddly various are one's motive springs, especially in youth! And, in some respects, what a blind young fool I was! That wine, now.... Who knows? ... I took but a sip or two, for ceremony's sake, and insisted on fragile Fanny finishing the half bottle. And I kissed her lips, not her cheek, as I held the lamp high to light her on her way to the garret where she slept.

* * * * *

I have not the smallest desire to make excuses for such foolishness as I displayed, at this or any other period. But I think it just to remind myself that there are worse things than foolishness, and that my relations with Fanny might conceivably have formed a darker page for me to look back upon than they actually did form. We both were young, both lonely; neither of us had found much tenderness in life, and I—I was passing through an extremely emotional phase of life, as my work of that period clearly shows.

Within a month of that evening of the supper in my room, Fanny and I were married in a registrar's office in St. Pancras, and set up housekeeping in one tiny bedroom and a sitting-room in Camden Town. I had convinced Fanny that this was the only way out of her troubles, and goodness knows I believed it. Heron refused point blank to witness the ceremony, such as it was; but he shared our table at his favourite little French restaurant that evening, and even consented to prolong the festive occasion by spending a further hour with us in our new quarters.

I think Fanny was pretty much preoccupied in wondering what her mother would make of the joint note we had left for her. (I had removed all my belongings from No. 37 several days before.) But I thought she made a pretty little figure as a bride—gentle, clinging, tender, and no more than agreeably shy. And Heron, what a revelation to me his manner was! Throughout the evening there appeared not one faintest hint of his habitual acidulated brusqueness. Not one sharp word did he speak that night, and his manner toward my wife was the perfection of gentle and considerate courtesy. I was dumbfounded and deeply moved by his really startling behaviour. He was so incredibly gentle. His parting words, such words as I had never thought to hear upon his lips, were:

'Heaven bless you both!' And then, as I could have sworn, with moisture in his eyes, he added: 'You are both good souls, and—after all, some are happy!'

For so convinced and angry a cynic and pessimist, his behaviour had been remarkable. When I returned to Fanny she was admiring her pretty, new, dove-coloured frock in the fly-blown mirror of our sitting-room. Poor child, her experience of new frocks had not been extensive.

'He's a real gentleman, is Mr. Heron,' she said with a little welcoming smile to me. I liked the smile; but, almost for the first time I think, on that day at all events, her words jarred on me a little. But what jarred more perhaps was the fact that these words, so apparently innocent and harmless, sent a vagrant thought through my mind that filled me with harsh self-contempt. The thought will doubtless appear even more paltry than it was if put into words, but it was something to the effect that— Of course, Heron was a gentleman! Why else would he be a friend of mine?

Perhaps the thought was hardly so absurd as my solemn self-contempt over it! ...

IX

I have sometimes thought that, in its early days at all events, and before the more serious trouble arose, our married life might have been a little brighter if we had quarrelled occasionally. It would perhaps have shown a more agreeable disposition in me. But we did not quarrel. I felt, and probably showed, displeasure and dissatisfaction; and Fanny— But how shall I presume to tell what Fanny felt? She showed occasional tears, and what I grew to think rather frequent sulks and peevishness.

Our first difficulties began within a day or two of our marriage. Chief among them I would place what I regarded as my wife's altogether unaccountable and quite unreasonable determination to keep up relations with her mother. I thought I was unfairly treated here, and I made no allowance for filial feelings, or the influence of Fanny's life-long tutelage. I only saw that she had very gladly allowed me to rescue her from the tyranny of a spiteful, gin-drinking, old woman; and that, within forty-eight hours, she was for visiting her mother as a regular thing, and even proposed that I should join her in this.

That was one of the early difficulties; and another, more distressing in its way, was my discovery of the fact that it was apparently impossible for me to think consecutively, or to write when I had thought, in a room which was my wife's living place. It was strange that I should never have given a thought before marriage to a practical point so intimately touching my peace of mind and means of livelihood.

At present it did not seem to me that I could possibly afford to rent another room. I certainly was not prepared to banish Fanny to our tiny bedroom, separated from the other room by folding doors. She had no notion as yet that her presence or doings constituted any sort of interruption in my work. The change from carrying on the whole work of a lodging-house to living in lodgings with practically no domestic work to do was one which, in my foolish ignorance, I had thought would prove immensely beneficial to overworked Fanny. As a fact I think it bored her terribly after the first week. She sometimes liked to read, but never, I think, for more than half an hour at a stretch. She never wrote a letter, and did not care for thinking.

I have found very few people in any class of life who like to sit and think; very few, even among educated people, who showed any sympathy or comprehension in the matter of my own lifelong desire for leisure in which to think. To do this or that, yes; but just to think! That seems to be a lamentable and most boring kind of futility, as most folk see it. It has for many years figured as the most desirable thing in life to me.

Looking back upon my married life, I believe I may say with truth that for two years I did not relax in my sincere efforts to make it a success. It would be more exact perhaps to say that for one year I tried hard to make it a success, and for another year I tried hard to make it tolerable. Yes, I did my best through that period, though my efforts were quite unsuccessful. I realise that this does not justify or excuse the fact that, to all intents and purposes, I then gave up trying. In that, of course, I was to blame; very much to blame. Well, I did not go unpunished.

It would not be easy for a literary man who had never tried it to understand what it means to live practically in one room (with a sleeping cubicle opening out of it) with a woman. I suppose a woman would never forgive or see much excuse for the man who makes a failure of married life. I wonder how it would strike a literary woman if she tried life in these circumstances with an unliterary man who, whilst clinging to leisure and having no inclination to forfeit an hour of it in a day, yet was bored extremely from lack of occupation and resource.

The horrid intimacy of urban life for all poor and needy people must be very wearing. Its lack of privacy is most distressing. But this becomes enormously aggravated, of course, where the bread-winner must do his work within the walls of the cramped home. And that aggravation of difficulties is multiplied tenfold if the bread-winner's work must not only be done inside the home, but must also be the product of sustained and concentrated thought; if it be work of that sort which lends itself readily to interruption, in which a moment's break may mean an hour's delay, and an hour's delay may mean for the worker a fit of hot disgust in which his unfinished task finds its way into fireplace or waste-paper basket.

The year which I gave to trying to make a success of our married life appears to me in the retrospect as a monotonous series of abortive honeymoons, separated by interludes of terribly hard and unfruitful labour for me (more exhausting than any long sustained working effort I ever made), throughout which, out of respect for my praiseworthy resolutions as a would-be good husband, my exacerbated temper was cloaked in a sort of waxy fixative, even as some men discipline their moustaches. I see myself in these periods as a man acutely tired, miserably conscious of the barren nature of his exhausting daily toil, and wearing a horrible set smile of connubial amiability; the sort of smile which, in time, produces a kind of facial cramp.

My wife, poor little soul, was not, I think, burdened by any self-imposed task touching the set of her lips. And it may be this was so much the worse for her. In the absence of any recognised duty she knew of no distraction save her visits to her mother, regarding which she felt a certain furtiveness to be necessary, by reason of my ill-judged show of impatience in this matter, and my refusal to open my own arms to the woman who, for years, had made Fanny's life a burden to her.

'Confound it!' I thought. 'My part was to release her from this harridan's clutches, not to go round and mix tears and gin with the woman.'

But I was wrong. I should have gone much farther, or not near so far. (How often that has been my fault!) Either I should have prevented those visits, or sterilised them by taking part in them.

By the time that a spell of the set smile and the barren labours had brought me near to breaking point, Fanny would be frequently tearful and desperately peevish from her boredom, and from poor health; for I fancy she was in little better case than I as regards the penalties of a faulty and inadequate dietary, combined with long confinement within doors. These conditions would produce in me a day or two (and a sleepless night or two) of black, dyspeptic melancholy, and quite hopeless depression. Then, as like as not, I would try a long tramp, probably in Epping Forest, and after that—another abortive honeymoon. In other words, full of wise resolutions and determined hopefulness, I would apply the fixative to my domestic circle smile and amiability, and make an entirely fresh start, with a little jaunt of some kind as a send off.

I fancy Fanny's faith in these foredoomed attempts remained permanently unsullied. I know she used to resolve to discontinue the long gossipy afternoons with her mother in Howard Street—in some mysterious way the mother had lain aside all her old pretensions as a tyrannical autocrat, and they met now, I gathered, as friendly gossips—and to become an ideal wife for a literary man. She would even tell our landlady not to clean or tidy our rooms any more, since she, Fanny, intended to do this in future. And she would do it—for a week or so; just as I would keep up my sickening grin, and the attempt to make myself believe that I really liked doing my work in public libraries, reading-rooms, waiting-rooms, and other such inspiring places. Not even on the first day of a new honeymoon could I force myself to fancy I liked the attempt to work in our joint sitting-room. That affected me like a neuralgia.

The point, and perhaps the only point I can make in extenuation of my admitted failure to conduct my married life to a successful issue, I have made already; for one year I did, according to my poor lights, strive consistently and hard for success. Throughout another year I did strive as hardly, and almost equally consistently to make our joint life tolerable for us both. More than that I cannot claim, and, in the light of all that happened, I feel that this much is rather pitifully little.

X

It may very well be that during the first years after my marriage some of the chickens I had hatched out in the preceding years of slum life and incessant scribbling came home to roost. In the case of my reckless sins against hygiene and my digestion, I know they did. But also, I fancy, as touching work, and its monetary reward; for my earnings increased somewhat, while my work suffered deterioration, both in quality and quantity.

If it had not chanced to reach me in the black fit which preceded one of my make-believe new honeymoons, I should doubtless have been a good deal more elated than I was by the letter I received from Mr. Sylvanus Creed, the well-known connoisseur and arbiter of literary taste, who presided over the fortunes of the publishing house that bore his name. This letter—written with distinction and a quill pen upon beautifully embossed deckle-edged paper, which seemed to me to have a subtle perfume about it—requested the pleasure of my company at luncheon with the great Sylvanus; the place his favourite club—the Court, in Piccadilly.

He received me with beautiful urbanity, if a thought languidly. It was clearly a point of honour with him to refer to nothing so prosaic as any kind of work until he had plied me with the best which his luxurious club had to offer; and I gladly record that our luncheon was by far the most ambitious meal I had ever made, or even dreamed of, up to that day. And then, over the delicate Havannahs and fragrant coffee and liqueurs—the enterprise of youth was still mine in these matters, and in those days I accepted any such delicacies as the gods sent my way with never a thought of question, or of consequence—I was informed, with truly regal complaisance, that a certain bundle of manuscript short stories of mine (which by this time had been the round of quite a number of publishers' readers without making any perceptible progress towards germination and print) had been chosen for the honour of inclusion in the new Fin de siecle Library of Fiction, which, as all the world knows—or knew, at all events, during that season—represented the last word, both in literary excellence and artistic publishing.

I was perhaps less overpowered than I might, and no doubt ought to have been, by reason of the fact that I had at least been shrewd enough to know in advance that it was hardly for my bright eyes the famous publisher was entertaining me. However, I assumed a decent amount of ecstasy, and was genuinely glad of the prospect of seeing my first book handsomely published. After a proper interval I ventured upon a delicate inquiry as to terms; whereupon the deprecatory wave of Sylvanus Creed's white and jewelled hand made me feel (or pretend to feel) a low fellow for my pains. I gathered that on our return to the sumptuously appointed studio from which my host directed the destinies of his publishing house, one of his secretaries of state would submit to me a specimen of the regulation agreement for the publication of first books.

That airy mention of 'first books' caused a chill presentiment to pierce the ambrosial fumes by which I was surrounded. The transaction was to bring me no particular profit, I thought. Well, the luncheon had been superfine. The format of Sylvanus Creed's books was indubitably pleasing to hand and eye. And, true enough, it was a 'first book.' Money, after all—and particularly after such a luncheon ...

But I will say that in subsequently signing the daintily embossed agreement (subtly perfumed, I thought, like the letter paper) I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that it also gave Mr. Sylvanus Creed my second book, whatever that might prove to be, upon the same exiguous terms. The fault was wholly mine, of course. There was the agreement (in the most elegant sort of copper-plate script) quite open for my perusal. I fancy, perhaps, the Court Club's liqueurs were even more agreeably potent than its wines. I know it seemed absurdly curmudgeonly that I should think of wading through the document, and while Sylvanus's own fair hand held a pen waiting for me, too. And, indeed, I do not in the least grudge that signature now.

And thus, with every circumstance of artistic fitness and ease, I was committed to authorship. The second floor back in Camden Town looked a shade dingy after my publisher's sanctum; but I carried a couple of gift copies of the Fin de siecle books in my hand, and my own effusions were to form the fifth volume of the series. With such news I clearly was justified in bidding Sidney Heron take his dinner with us that night. Fanny rather cooled about the great event, when its monetary insignificance was made partially clear to her. But she enjoyed the little dinner with Heron; and, as a matter of fact, we were doing rather well in the monetary way just then, though hardly well enough to enable me to rent a third room for use as study.

I found that sovereigns had somehow shrunken and lost much of their magic in Fanny's hands with the passage of time. At the time of our marriage, I had been agreeably surprised to learn that Fanny was a cleverer economist than I, with all my grim learning in South Tottenham. The few pounds I was able to give her on the eve of our marriage had been made to work miracles I thought. But lately it had seemed a little different. Fanny had, of course, changed in many small ways; and one result, as I gathered, was that our sovereigns had become less powerful. Their purchasing power was notably reduced, it seemed. Fortunately, I was earning more. But it was clear the increase in my earnings would not as yet permit of any increase in our expenditure upon rent. Sometimes in the Cimmerian intervals immediately preceding one of our fresh starts, my reflections upon such a point were very bitter. There was no sort of doubt that the quality of my work was suffering seriously from lack of a private workshop....

On the day my second book was published—the first, while favourably reviewed, had not precisely taken the world by storm; its successor was my first novel—I had said that I should not get back to our rooms before about seven o'clock, in time for the evening meal. A dizzy headache, combined with a series of interruptions in the public reading-room where I had been at work, brought me to Camden Town between four and five, determined to take a couple of hours' rest, to sleep if possible on our bed. It happened that I met our landlady on the steps of the house, and asked her casually if my wife had returned yet. Fanny had said in the morning that she had promised to go and see her mother that day. The landlady looked at me a little oddly, I thought. Her reply was normal, and, characteristically enough, more wordy than informing:

'Oh, I couldn't sye, Mr. Fr'ydon; I reely couldn't sye. I know Mrs. Fr'ydon went art early this mornin', because she 'appened to speak to me in passin', an' she said she was goin' to see 'er mother, "Oh, are yer?" I says. "An' I 'ope you'll find 'er well," I says.'

I passed on indoors and upstairs, thinking dizzily about Cockney dialect—I had the worst kind of dyspeptic headache—and feeling rather glad my wife was away. 'An hour's sleep will set me right,' I muttered to myself as I entered our tiny bedroom.

But Fanny was lying on the bed, fully dressed, even to her hat, and with muddy boots. She was maundering over to herself the silly words of some inane song of the day. She was horribly flushed, and— But let me make an end of it. My wife was grossly and quite unmistakably drunk, and the stuffy little room reeked of gin.

As it happened I never had been drunk. It was not one of my weaknesses. But if it had been, I dare say I should have been no whit the less horrified and alarmed and disgusted by this lamentable spectacle of my wife—stupid, maundering, helpless, and looking like ... But I need not labour the point.

In a flash I recalled a host of tiny incidents. It was extraordinary how recollection of the series rattled through my aching brain like bullets from a machine gun.

'This has been going on for some time,' I thought. And then, 'I suppose this is hereditary.' And then, 'This comes of the visits to Howard Street.' And then, curiously, recollection of those wedding night words of Heron's which had so touched me: 'Heaven bless you! You are both good souls, and—after all, some are happy!'

'Perhaps some are,' I thought bitterly. 'I wonder how much chance there is for us!'

In just the same way that I think the beginning of our married life might have been more agreeable, less strained, if we had had occasional quarrels, so I dare say at this critical juncture, when I discovered that my wife had taken to drinking gin, my right cue would have been that of open anger, or, at all events, of very serious remonstrance. It is easy to be wise after the event. I did not seem to be capable just then of talk or remonstrance. All I did actually say was commonplace and unhelpful enough. I said as I remember very well:

'Good God, Fanny! I never thought to see you in this state.' And then—the futility of it—I added, 'You'd better take your hat and boots off.'

With that I walked into the sitting-room, closing the dividing door after me, and subsided, utterly despondent, into the chair beside the empty grate. A man could hardly have been more wretched; but after a minute or two I could not help noticing, as something singular, the fact that my sick, dizzy headache had disappeared. The pain had been horridly severe, or I should hardly have noticed its cessation. But now, with my spirits at their lowest and blackest, my head was clear again; not by a gradual recovery, but in one minute.

XI

Fanny had spoken no word to me, and I wondered greatly at that. She had only smiled and laughed in a foolish way. And a few minutes later I knew by her breathing—even through the closed doors, so much was unmistakable—that she slept.

I may have sat there for an hour, nursing the bitterest kind of reflections. Then I decided to go out, and found I had left my hat in the bedroom. Very cautiously I opened one leaf of the folding doors, tip-toed into the small room, and took my hat from the chair on which it lay. My gaze fell for one instant across the recumbent figure of my wife, and was withdrawn sharply. I went out with anger and revulsion in my heart, and walked rather quickly for an hour, conscious of no relief from bitterness, no softening of my feelings.

Then I happened to pass a familiar restaurant, and told myself I would have some dinner. 'She must go her own way,' I muttered savagely.

I entered the place, found a seat, and consulted the bill of fare. A greasily smiling Italian came to take my order.

'Madame is not wiz you, sare?' the fellow said.

We had not been there for a month, but he remembered; and, on the instant, I recalled our last visit—the beginning of one of our fresh starts. And this was the end of it. Well!

Suddenly I found myself reaching for my hat.

'No,' I said, 'madam is late. I will go and look for her.' And out I went. In that moment I had seen pictures: Fanny, before our marriage, on her knees at my hearth in the room in Howard Street; in her dove-coloured frock on our marriage night, clinging to my arm when she was fresh from the excitement of leaving Howard Street. There were other scenes. What an immature and helpless child she was! And how much help had I given her? After all, food and clothing and so forth, freedom from tyranny—well, these were not everything. She needed more intimate care and guidance. The responsibility was mine.

In the end I went to a shop and bought the materials for a meal, even as on an evening which seemed very long ago, when I had given her supper in my bedroom. Only, on this occasion, with a sigh which contained considerable self-reproach, I omitted Burgundy, or any equivalent thereto. We had the wherewithal for brewing tea in our rooms. And so, carrying a supper for us both, I returned to the lodging. And there was Fanny on her knees before the hearth in the sitting-room, just as she had been on that previous occasion. And now she was crying. Her nerveless fingers held no brush. The hearth was far from speckless, and the grate held only dead grey ashes, and some scraps of torn paper—my own wasted manuscript.

Fanny was weeping, weakly and quietly. She knew, then. She had not forgotten that I had seen her. But her hair had been brushed. She wore a different gown. She looked shrinkingly and fearfully up at me as I came in.

'You better, little woman?' I said as I began to put down my parcels. I had tried hard to make the words sound careless and normal, kindly and cheerful. But I thought as I heard them that a man with a quinsy might have managed a better tone.

In another moment she was clinging to me somehow, without having risen to her feet, and sobbing out an incoherent expression of her penitence and shame. I was tremendously moved. And, while seeking to console her, my real sympathy for this sobbing child was shot through and illumined by the most fatuous sort of optimism.

'I've been making a tragedy out of a disagreeable mishap,' I told myself. 'She is only a child who has made herself ill. The thing won't happen again, one may be sure. This is a lesson she will never forget. No one could possibly mistake the genuineness of all this.' By which I meant her heaving shoulders, streaming eyes, and penitent self-abasement.

In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. Fanny dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But the vows, protestations, resolves for the future—these were all most solemn and impressive.

And they all held good, too,—for a week and a half. And then our landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon Fanny had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake.

The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to escape, I thought her Cockney dialect the basest and vilest ever evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper, corrodes and embitters every one it touches.

On the third morning after our instalment in new lodgings—two almost exactly similar rooms, a little farther away from Mrs. Pelly and Howard Street, in a turning off the lower Hampstead Road—I received a letter, forwarded on from our first lodging, from Arncliffe, the editor to whom, some four years before this time, I had taken a letter of introduction. At intervals Arncliffe had accepted and published quite a number of articles from my pen, but we had not again met, unless one counts the occasion upon which I followed him into an expensive restaurant at luncheon time, on the off-chance of being noticed by him. The letter ran thus:

'Dear Mr. Freydon,—As you are probably aware, I am now in the chair of the Advocate, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other. Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this week, if you are not too busy.—Yours sincerely, Henry Arncliffe.'

The letter gave me rather a thrill. Sylvanus Creed had published two books of mine, and my work had recently appeared in several of the leading journals. But the Advocate was certainly one of the oldest and most famous of London's daily newspapers—I vaguely recalled having read somewhere that it had changed its proprietors during the past week or so—and I had never before received a summons from the editor of such a journal. Fanny had a headache and was cross that morning; but I told her of the letter, and explained that it might easily mean some increase in my earnings.

'If he would commission me for a series of articles, we might afford to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather selfishly perhaps.

'Groceries seem to be dearer every week,' said Fanny, 'and Mrs. Heaps charges sevenpence for every scuttle of coal. I never heard of such a price. Mother never charges more than sixpence, no matter if coal goes up ever so.'

This touched a sore spot between us. It seemed Mrs. Pelly had two rooms empty, and Fanny did not find it easy to forgive me for my refusal to go and live in Howard Street.

If Arncliffe found his editorial chair an uneasy seat, it was not the chair's fault. A more dignified and withal more ingeniously contrived and padded resting-place for mortal limbs I never saw. And the editorial apartment, how spacious, silent, and admirably adapted, in the dignity of its lines and furnishings, for the reception of Cabinet Ministers, and the excogitation of thunderbolts for the chancelleries of Europe! It was currently reported in Fleet Street that Lord Beaconsfield had been particularly familiar with the interior of that apartment.

I found the great man in cheerful spirits, and looking fresher than ordinary mortals, I suppose because his day had only just begun. From him I learned how, some eight days previously, the Advocate had been purchased, lock, stock, and barrel (from the family whose members had inherited possession of it), by Sir William Bartram, M.P., head of the great engineering and contracting firm which bore his name. It seemed Sir William had been advised by a very great statesman indeed to secure the editorial services of Mr. Arncliffe; and he had managed to do it in forty-eight hours by dint of the exercise of a certain amount of political and social influence in various quarters, and by entering into a contract which, for some years, at all events, would make Arncliffe a tolerably rich man.

A good deal was left to my imagination, of course. It was assumed, very kindly, that I understood the relations existing between this nobleman and the other, as touching Sir William's precise influence and sphere in the world of politics. Naturally, when the Party Whip heard so and so, he went to Mr. ——, and the result, of course, was pressure from Lord ——, which settled the matter in five minutes. I nodded very intelligently at intervals, to show my recognition of the inevitableness of it all; and so an end was reached of that stage in our conversation.

In the slight pause which followed Arncliffe touched a spring releasing the door of a cabinet apparently designed to hold State Papers of the highest importance, and disclosed some beautiful boxes of cigars and other creature comforts. It became clear to me, as I thanked Arncliffe for the match he handed me, that he must have forgotten the first impressions he had formed of me some years earlier. Perhaps he had confused me in his mind with some other more important and affluent person. And yet he did remember some of my articles. His remarks proved that. I wondered if he could also remember that they had reached him, some of them, from South Tottenham. Probably not. And, if he did, his editorial omniscience could hardly have given him knowledge of any of my slum garrets. On the other hand, he clearly assumed that I was familiar with the life of the House of Commons and the clubs of London, if not with that of the other august and crimson-benched Chamber.

'You know L——,' he said, casually mentioning a leader in literary journalism so prominent that I could not but be familiar with his reputation.

'By name, of course,' I agreed.

'Ah! To be sure. And T——, and R——, and, I think, J——; yes, I've got 'em all. So we ought to make the Advocate move things along, if the most brilliant staff in London can accomplish it.'

I nodded sympathetically, and presently gathered that over and above all this the kindly and intimate relations subsisting between Arncliffe and the principal occupants of the Treasury Bench (not to mention a certain moiety of influence which might conceivably be exercised by the new proprietor, Sir William) were such as to ensure brilliant success and greatly increased prestige to the Advocate, under the new regime.

All this was very pleasant hearing, of course, and at suitable intervals I offered congratulatory movements of the head and eyebrows, with murmured ejaculations to similar effect. But, as touching myself and my obscure problems (of which such an Olympian as Arncliffe could, naturally, have no conception), it was all somewhat insubstantial and remote; rather of the stuff of which dreams are compounded. And so, watching my opportunity, I presently ventured a tentative inquiry as to the direction in which I might hope to justify the terms of Mr. Arncliffe's letter, and be of any service.

'Oh! Well, of course, that's for you to say,' said the editor, with a suggestion of having been suddenly curbed in full career. 'I may be quite wrong in supposing such things would have any interest for you. But I—I have followed—er—your work, you know; followed your work and, in fact, it struck me you might like to join us here, you know. It is a staff worth joining, I think, and— But, of course, you are the best judge of your own affairs.'

'It's extremely kind of you, extremely kind.'

'Not at all. I think you could do good work for the Advocate.'

'There's nothing I'd like better. But— Do I understand that you mean me to join your permanent staff, and come and work here in the building every day?'

'Why, yes; yes, to be sure.'

'I see.'

It meant an end to my free-lancing then. But, after all, what had this free-lancing meant, since my marriage? It would provide a place to work in. The hours might not be excessive. The pay ... Fanny was for ever talking of the increase in prices. My earnings, though on the up grade, had seemed very insufficient of late. There certainly was nothing to make me cling to our home as a place in which to carry on my work.

'And in the matter of salary?' I said, as who should say that in such a business it is well to glance at even the most trivial of details.

'Ah!' replied Arncliffe. 'Yes; that's a point now, isn't it? You see the fact is I had a bit of a scene with the business side here yesterday. We are new to each other as yet, you know—the manager and myself. But he's a very decent fellow, and I shall soon have him properly in hand, I'm sure of that. Meantime, of course, I have been rather going it, you know, from his point of view. You can't get L——, and T——, and R——, for tuppence-ha'penny, you know.'

'No, indeed, that's true,' said I, with the air of one who had tried this game and proved its impossibility.

'No. And so, in the matter of pay I must go gently, you know, at first. I must ca' canny for a while. I shall be able to make things all right a little later on, you know, but just to begin with I'm afraid I couldn't manage more than three or four hundred a year.'

I did not think it necessary to mention that my London record so far was little more than half the lower sum mentioned. On the contrary, I pinched my chin and said: 'Oh!' rather blankly, and without really knowing what I said, or why I said it. I wanted to think, as a matter of fact. But what I said was well enough.

'H'm! Yes, I see what you mean. It is poor, I know,' said Arncliffe, in his quick, burbling way. 'But, as I say, I should hope to improve it a little later on, you know. And, meantime, you may probably continue to earn something outside, you know; so that two or three hundred—say three hundred—but of course you're the best judge.'

Perhaps I was. I wonder! At all events, my mind was made up. The life of the last few months had made it clear that I needed more money.

'Oh, I'll be very glad,' I said. 'By the way, you did mention at first three or four, not two or three hundred.'

'Did I? Ah! Well, say three to begin with.'

I gathered it was rather difficult for the real Olympian to think at all in figures so absurdly low. So we let it go at that, and, this being a Friday, I agreed to start work at the office on the following Monday.

'I shall be able to get a room here, shall I not?' I asked with some anxiety.

'A room? Oh, surely, surely. Yes, yes, that's all right. Ask for me. Come and see me before doing anything, and I'll see to it. So glad we've fixed it. Good-bye!'

And so, very affably, I was bowed out of my free-lance life, the which I had entered by way of the north-eastern slums.

XII

My first Monday in the Advocate office was not a pleasant day. Arriving there about ten o'clock in the morning, I learned that the editor was never expected before three in the afternoon. I knew no other person in the building, and so no place was open to me except the waiting-room. However, I whiled away the morning in that apartment by making a pretty thorough study of a file of the Advocate, in the course of which I took notes and made memoranda of suggestions which would have kept an editor busy for a week or two had he acted upon one half of them.

The time thus spent was far from wasted, since it gave me more of an insight into current politics (as reflected in the pages of this particular organ) than I had obtained during my whole life in England up till then, and it gave me a thorough grasp of the policy of the Advocate. After a somewhat Barmecidal feast in a Fleet Street eating-house (domestic expenditure left me very short of funds at this time), I returned to my post and wrote a political leading article which I ventured to think at least the equal in persuasive force and profundity of anything I had read that morning. At three o'clock precisely, my name, written on a slip of paper, was placed on the editorial table. There were then nine other people in the waiting-room. At four I began a second leading article, which was finished at half-past five. At a quarter to six the manuscript of both effusions was sent in to the editor. At a quarter to seven inquiry elicited the information that the editor had left the building almost an hour since, with Sir William Bartram, after a crowded afternoon which had brought disappointment to many beside myself who had wished to see him.

Unused as I was now to salary earning I felt uneasy. It seemed to me rather dreadful that any institution should be mulcted to the extent of a guinea in the day, by way of payment to a man who spent that day in a waiting-room. I looked anxiously for my leading articles next morning. But, no; the editorial space was occupied by other (much less edifying) contributions upon topics which had not occurred to me. During that morning I began to fancy that the very bell-boys were suspicious, and might be contemplating the desirability of laying a complaint against me for not earning my princely salary.

However, at a few minutes after three o'clock, I was escorted by the head messenger—who had rather the air of a seneschal or chamberlain—to the editorial apartment, where I found Arncliffe giving audience to his news editor, Mr. Pink, and one of his leader-writers, a very old Advocate identity, Mr. Samuel Harbottle—-a white-whiskered and rubicund gentleman, who was entitled to use most of the letters of the alphabet after his name should he so choose. I was presented to both these gentlemen, and in a few minutes they took their departure.

'Poor old Harbottle!' said Arncliffe, when the door had closed behind the leader-writer. 'An able man, mind you, in his prehistoric way; but— Well, he can hardly expect to live our pace, you know. He has had a very fair innings. Still, we must move gradually. The change has to be made, but we don't want to upset these patriarchs more than is absolutely necessary. Have a cigar? Sure? Well, I dare say you're right. I'll have a cigarette. Sorry I couldn't see you yesterday. Now I'll tell you what I want you to tackle for me, first of all: Correspondence.'

For a moment I had a vision of almost forgotten days in Sussex Street, Sydney: 'Dear Mr. Gubbins,—With regard to your last consignment of butter,' etc.

'The correspondence of this paper has been disgracefully neglected. And, mind you, that's a serious mistake. Nothing people like better than seeing their names in the paper. They make their relatives read it, and for each time you print their rubbish, they'll be content to scan your every column for a fortnight. I mean to do it properly. We'll give two or three columns a day to our Letters to the Editor. But, the point is, they must be handled intelligently, both with regard to which letters should be used and which should not; and also in the matter of condensation. We can't let 'em ramble indefinitely, or they'd fill the paper. Now that's what I want you to tackle for me for a start. I can't possibly get time to wade through them myself; but if you once get the thing licked into proper shape, it will make a good permanent feature, and—er—you will gradually drop into other things, you know.'

'Yes. I've made notes of a few suggestions,' I began.

'Quite so. That's what I want. That's where I hope we shall be really successful. There's no good in having a brilliant editorial staff if one doesn't get suggestions from them, and act on 'em.'

I drew some memoranda from my pocket. But the editor swept on.

'I'm a thorough believer in suggestions. The moment I have got things running a little more smoothly, I shall have a round table conference every afternoon to deal with suggestions for the day. Meantime, I'll tell my secretary to have all letters for publication passed straight on to you, so that you can sift and prepare a correspondence feature every day. They may want helping out a bit occasionally, of course. A friendly lead, you know, from "An Old Reader," or "Paterfamilias," to keep 'em to their muttons. You'll see.'

'And where can I work?' I asked.

'Ah, to be sure. Yes. You want a room. Come with me now. I'll introduce you to Hutchens, the manager, and he'll fix you up.'

Mr. Hutchens proved to be a miracle of correctness. I never knew much of Lombard Street, Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, and their purlieus; but I felt instinctively that Mr. Hutchens, in his dress, tone, and general deportment, had attained as closely as mortal might to the highest city standards of what a leading city man should be. I never saw a speck of dust on his immaculately shining boots or hat. His manner would have been almost priceless, I should suppose, in the board room of a bank. His close-clipped whiskers—resembling some costly fur—his large, perfectly white hands and frozen facial expression were alike eloquent of massive dividends, of balance sheets of sacred propriety, of gravely cordial votes of thanks to noble chairmen, of gilt-edged security and success.

There was something, too, of the headmaster in the way in which he shook hands with me, and in the automatic geniality of the smile with which he favoured Arncliffe. (In this connection, of course, Arncliffe was a parent, and I a future incumbent of the swishing block.)

'Another star in our costly galaxy,' he said; and, having reduced me by one glance to the proportions of a performing flea, rather poorly trained, he gave his attention indulgently to the editor.

'With regard to that question of the extra twenty minutes for the last forme,' he began.

'Yes, I know,' said Arncliffe. 'Drop in and see me about it later, will you?' (I marvelled at his temerity. As soon would I have thought of inviting the Lord Mayor to forsake his Mansion House and turtles to 'drop in and see me later!') 'Meantime, I want you to find a home for Freydon, will you? He's going to tackle the—a new feature, you know, and must have a room.'

'There's not a vacant room in the building, Mr. Arncliffe—hardly a chair, I should suppose. We now have a staff, you know, which——'

'Yes, I know, I know; there's got to be a good deal of sifting, but we must go gently. We don't want to set Fleet Street humming. Look here! What about old Harbottle? He has a room, hasn't he?'

'Mr. Harbottle has had his room here, Mr. Arncliffe, for just upon twenty-seven years.'

'Yes; I thought so. Where is it?'

'Mr. Harbottle's room is immediately overhead.'

'Let's have a look at it. Do you mind? Can you spare a minute?'

'Oh, I am quite at your service, of course, Mr. Arncliffe.'

A minion from the messenger's office walked processionally before us bearing a key, and presently we were in Mr. Harbottle's sanctuary. Two well-worn saddle-bag chairs stood before the hearth, and between them a chastely designed little table. On the rug was a pair of roomy slippers. In a glass-fronted cabinet one saw decanters and tumblers. Against one wall stood a large and comfortable couch. The writing-table was supplied with virgin blotting-paper, new pens, works of reference, ash-tray, matches, and the like; and over the mantel hung a full-length portrait of Lord Beaconsfield. There was also an ivory-handled copper kettle, and a patent coffee-making apparatus.

'H'm! The old boy makes himself comfortable,' said Arncliffe. 'He has written one short leader note since—since the change. And where does the other old gentleman work, Hutchens? The one with gout, you know. What's his name? The very old chap, I mean.'

'Dr. Powell? Dr. Powell's room is the next one to this.'

A key was brought to us, and we inspected another very similar apartment, which had a green baize-covered leg-rest on its hearth-rug.

'H'm! Dr. Powell is not quite so busy, of course. We haven't had a line from him yet. Well, Hutchens, you might have Dr. Powell's things put in Mr. Harbottle's room at once, will you? or the other way about, you know. It doesn't matter which. Then Freydon here can have one of these rooms. He will want to start in at once.'

'As you like, of course, Mr. Arncliffe,' said the manager, with portentous suavity. 'These gentlemen are of your staff, not mine. But, really! Well, it is for you to say, but I greatly fear that one or both of these gentlemen will be quite likely to resign if we treat them in so very summary a fashion.'

'No! Do you really think that?' asked Arncliffe, so earnestly that I felt my chance of having a room to myself was irretrievably lost.

'I do indeed, Mr. Arncliffe. You see, these gentlemen have been accustomed for very many years to—well, to a considerable amount of deference, and——'

'Well, then, in that case, I'll tell you what, Hutchens; put 'em both in the other old gentleman's room upstairs, will you? Mr. Thingummy's, you know, who specialises on Egyptology. I know he's got a nice room, because he insisted on my drinking a glass of port there the other night. Port always upsets me. Put 'em both in there, will you? Then we'll give one of these rooms to L——, and you might let Freydon here start work in the other right away, will you? By Jove! If you're only right, you know, that will simplify matters immensely. An excellent idea of yours, Hutchens. I'm no end obliged to you.'

'But, Mr. Arncliffe, I really——'

'Right you are! I'll see you later about that last forme question. Look in in about an hour, will you? I must bolt now—half a dozen people waiting. You'll get the letters from my secretary, Freydon, won't you? Come and see me whenever you've got any suggestions. Always ready for suggestions, any time!'

His last words reached us faintly from the staircase.

'Tut, tut!' said Mr. Hutchens. 'I am afraid these violent upheavals will make for a good deal of trouble; a good deal of trouble. However!' And then he glared formidably upon me, as who should say: 'At least, you cannot give me any orders. Let me see you open your mouth, you confounded newcomer, and I will smite you to the earth with a managerial thunderbolt!'

'Well,' said I cheerfully, 'I'd better go and fetch those letters. And which of these rooms would you prefer me to take?'

'I would prefer, sir, that you took neither of them. But as Dr. Powell's gout is very bad, and he is therefore not likely to be here this week, you had better occupy this room—for the present.'

The emphasis he laid on these last words seemed meant to convey to me a sense of the extreme precariousness of my tenure of any room in that building, if not of existence in the same city.