Chapter XV: Part III: I (2)

"Ah! poor gentleman," said one grimy soul. "Well I remember the night he come. I knocked at the door to arst 'im if 'e wouldn't take somethin' 'eartenin' with 'is tea--a bloater, or a rasher--and there 'e wos, settin' with 'is 'ead down on the table. Money? Oh, a trifle of rent, sir. Wanted to leave 'is trunk be'ind; but there, live and let live's my motter. It went to my 'eart to 'ave 'im go--wanted care, 'e did--but you see, sir, me bein' only a workin' woman, and 'avin' a 'usband at 'ome with bronickal trouble----Thank you kindly, sir, sence you orfer it. You won't think no worst of me for takin' it, will you?"

At the very next stopping place--I had almost said stumbling place--the trunk came to hand. Strangely enough, he owed nothing here. I suppose at a certain point in misfortune a man flings his possessions from him as a swimmer flings his clothes.

"Took 'is things away in a bundle, wot there wos," said the mistress of this house, who was nursing and rocking a child as she spoke. "I ain't techt nothink," with a slight shiver. "If so be you're a friend of the party, you'd prabst better open it. The keys is upstairs. No: nothin' owin,' but I wasn't sorry w'en 'e went. Too strange in 'is manner. It goes agenst a 'ouse w'en things--you know wot I mean--'appens in it."

To Mrs. Purvis's secret disappointment, I believe, there was nothing in the trunk but a mass of torn paper and a queer brown-paper parcel that I seemed to recognize. It was addressed to the house near Golden Square, and the label was headed with the name of some legal firm in the West End. It was the manuscript of "Sad Company."

For a long while after Mrs. Purvis had left me to attend to the shrill wants of some of her elder children, I sat with it in my lap, looking out of the rain-spotted window upon the mouldering back gardens beneath, where string after string of intimate household linen dried or stiffened in the sooty air. I thought of the tender, mournful wisdom, the sad insight into life which that despised bundle contained, bought with the blood and sweat, and tears maybe, of thirty years: jotted down--for I knew its history--in cattle camps, by Algerian bivouac fires, in hotel lobbies of roaring Western cities. And I thought of the little luxurious house beside the Park, filled with all that ministers to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. A pretty face and figure, an aptitude for bodily movement, a few shallow tricks of manner, had earned that in a year for a woman whom I had already occasion to know couldn't spell. Well, the world knows what it wants. The world had chosen. Was there to be no appeal? Is failure here failure forever? Or is there, beyond this world, with its stark denials of justice, another where such things count still, and where the reward so insolently and capriciously withheld shall be bestowed, the hungerer after justice, even artistic justice, have his fill? Sad questions that no religion cares to answer.

And here my search ended. He had left no address: no letters had followed him. I took the manuscript away with me and locked it into a drawer. I was not sure yet what I would do with it. Show the world what manner of man it had despised, perhaps. Or perhaps tie a stone around it and sink it in mid-channel. I must think which Paul would have chosen.

Nearly six months afterward in late summer, I was sitting at my desk and beginning to think of turning in, when Mrs. McNaughten rapped at the door. A "vairy rough body" was asking for me. Should she show him up or bid him state the natur-re of his business?

"Doesn't he say what he wants?"

"He'll say nothing but that he wants Mister-r-r P. He says ye'll understand fine. _Mister 'P.'_ I think the body's daft."

The advertisement. My heart jumped. "Show him up, please. At once!"

A short thick-set man in soiled working clothes and with a colored handkerchief round his neck came in, tossed a cap on the table with a gesture full of natural grace, stretched his neck two or three times, as if to intimate that he was ready for any manner of reception, and began to beat a limy dust with the back of his hand out of as much of his corduroys as was within easy reach.

"Nime of Palamount," he said, oracularly and rather hoarsely. "Builder's mite, my tride is."

I indicated a chair. "And what can I do for you, Mr. Palamount? I am not contemplating any repairs or additions to my quarters at present."

All this time the man had kept one hand in his pocket. He drew it out, holding a newspaper, folded very small and very tight.

"In conneckshun wiv two advertysements," said he. "Fifteen Darlaston Crescent is the address wot's on one. 'Ere y'are. Marked in blue it is. Initial of 'P.'"

He unfolded the journal and handed it to me. It was the paragraph which heads this chapter, and which, having been paid for a year in advance, would reiterate its useless appeal for another six months to come unless----Somehow Mr. Palamount did not impress me as a bearer of glad tidings.

"Well," I asked, without much hope. "What news can you give?"

"'Old 'ard," said my visitor, who was feeling through various pockets, as if in search of fresh documents.

"You needn't bother," I said, irritably. "I know it's in more than one."

The horny-handed one smiled, a powdery and superior smile, as of foresight justified.

"Ah!" said he. "That's wot I thought you'd be in the dark abaht. Two parties there is. Complickitions--that's wot I calls it. 'Ere y'are. Sund'y _'Erald_. Twenty-first July. 'Work'ahse Marster, depitties _and_ uvvers.'"

I snatched the paper from his hand and devoured the salient paragraph. It was a very superior article; far more calculated to strike a reader's imagination than the feeble little effort we had concocted between us. I read it aloud.

"£200 Reward. To workhouse masters, lodging-house deputies and others....

"The above reward will be paid for information that shall lead to the discovery or certify the death of PAUL INGRAM, native of Lilburn, Massachusetts, U. S. A. He was discharged from the French Foreign Legion in March 19--. Was subsequently correspondent in Morocco for the Federated Press, and is known to have been living in London in very reduced circumstances as recently as last September.

"Communications are to be made to the American Consulate, St. Helens Place, Bishopsgate, or to Messrs. Pollexfen, Allport and Pollexfen, Solicitors, 52a, Bedford Row, W. C."

A description of my hapless friend followed, remarkable, or perhaps not remarkable, for conveying the very haziest notion of his appearance.

Mr. Palamount was regarding my amazed face meanwhile with excited relish, somewhat tempered by his surroundings which were ill adapted to its natural relief by expectoration.

"Wotcher mike of it?"

I stared helplessly. "It's--money, I suppose."

The builder of houses was now approaching his supreme effect. He half rose from his chair, made an ineffectual attempt to rid his voice of cobwebs, and pointed an accusing finger, about the shape and size of a banana, at the two papers in my lap. At last he spoke.

"'Ue and cry: that's wot that is."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Wot I ses. 'Ue and cry. There's lot of blokes, mind you as won't tike blood-money as'll give evidence of w'ereabahts if they thinks it's all stright. Money? yus--I _don't_ fink. Certify 'is deaf? It'll be certified all right if 'e puts 'is nose inter that loryer's orfice or if any bloomin' copper's nark as knows 'im gets 'is eyes on that parrygraft. Tike it aht, guv'nor. Git 'im aw'y somew're w'ere there ain't no extry-edition treaties. Shive 'is beard, too, 'e'd better, less 'e growed it since."

To say that I was dazed by Mr. Palamount's mental processes is to state bare truth.

"You think he's done something, then, and is in hiding?"

"Yus. Cut a bloke in hot blood, I fink."

"And that my advertisement will help put the police on his track?"

"Yus," said Mr. Palamount succinctly and without any implied respect for my superior lucidity. "Watch the 'ahse, they will, and pinch 'im w'en 'e calls."

"But--my dear obfuscated friend----"

"'Ere, guv'nor; no langwidge please."

"Well, my dear friend, Paul Ingram's an old friend of mine. He's a highly respectable citizen. It's true he's got no money, but you and I know that isn't a crime. One advertisement is put in by his friends who want to help him, and as for the other--it's too late to-night, but I shall find out all about it first thing to-morrow."

My new friend made a repressive gesture. "'Ere guv'nor--none o' that. I seen it fust. If it's all right, them two 'undred quids is prop'ly mine."

"Well, do you know where he is?"

"I know w'ere 'e wos a week ago. To fink," catching up his cap and dashing it to the ground, "to fink as I showed 'im that one o' yours four munfs ago."

"You'd better tell me all you know," I said, losing patience. "Will you have some beer first?" The cobwebs were getting on my nerves.

"Beer!" echoed my visitor. He had, indeed, a generally unslaked appearance that rendered the question an impertinence. "Beer!" he said again, giving the word this time its full diapason or organ sound. The rest was vigorous action.

Unfortunately he had not an equal talent for connected narrative, and I was too anxious about Paul to welcome the light upon dark places which his discursiveness incidentally threw. One day, late in the previous autumn, I made out, his own trade being slack, he was working on the tramway extension to one of the northern suburbs. About midday the fog came on so thickly that the road-making gang were laid off for the day, and wended their way home after the riotously sociable manner of their class, with frequent calls at favored houses of refreshment. When evening fell, he was drinking in a bar the other side of Blackfriars with a neighbor and fellow-workman, whose patronymic of Barker had been long abandoned in familiar discourse for the more recondite one of "Flying Fox." ("Put two tanners on the 'orse 'e did, at odds on, an' won fruppence.") The backer of certainties had only been taken on that morning by the foreman after a week's waiting, and was probably in ill-humor at his enforced leisure. Either for this reason or some other a dispute arose in the bar of the George and Cushion, which was ended by Mr. Barker's shouldering his way out, with the expressed intention of pursuing his homeward way unaccompanied by any "bleedin' skrim-shanker." Mr. Palamount was eager to detail the misunderstanding that had led to this cruel charge, but I checked him, and from this point the story took quite a leap forward.

"Parsin' Thomases 'Orsepittel, I see'd a crahd rahnd the cas'alty door, an' arst 'oo was 'urt. 'Bloke on the Embankmint,' they ses, 'knocked over by a motor-keb near Blackfriars: come aht of the fog like a cannon-ball,' they ses. I arst the nime, 'cos I was feelin' anxious 'baht Foxie; not drunk 'e wasn't, but I give you my word 'e'd 'ad some, and 'e wasn't a man as could 'old the booze. 'That's 'im, they ses--'that's the party. Ginger-'aired wiv freckles; arnswers to nime of Barker.' 'I'm a pal,' I ses, ''oo's in wiv 'im?' 'Man that fahnd 'im,' they ses--'eddigicated bloke: give 'im fust ide, and 'eld 'is 'ead in 'is lap in the tramcar.'

"They let me in w'en they 'eard I was a friend of the party wot was 'urt. Big room wiv benches: young tawfs in long w'ite coats--sawboneses I calls 'em--nurses too (my word, not 'alf givin' 'em the tale): blue jars, an' a smell wot mikes yer fice crack. 'Wotcher want?' the mitron ses to me. 'I fink I can identify the party, sister,' I ses, 'I'm a nighbor.' 'Wite 'ere,' she ses. 'They'll be bringin' 'im through in a minute.' So I sets dahn. A tall furrin' lookin' bloke was a settin' on a bench nigh me, wiv a beard. Werry thin an' fierce 'e wos and eyes a blazin' like coals. 'Crool business over there,' I ses, pointin' to the screen. 'Wife near 'er time, four nippers, an' only took on yesterday. Fust job since the spring.' 'I know abaht it,' 'e ses. I was a-goin' to arst 'im ow 'e knew, w'en the row begins from be'ind the screen. Just told 'im they 'ad as 'e was a free munfs' kise. 'I carn't do wiv it. I carn't do wiv it,' 'e was 'ollerin' over and over ag'in as they carries 'im through. 'My wife's near 'er time, and there ain't five shillin's in the 'ouse.' Tryin' to git up 'e was, and arstin' Gawd to strike 'im dead. ''Oo knows this man?' ses one of the doctors as was 'olding 'is arms. I was a-goin' to speak w'en the tall bloke jumps up and goin' over to the stretcher, bends dahn and w'ispers somethin' quick. Foxie stops strugglin' an' looks rahnd at 'im. ''Ow will yer?' 'e ses, and looks rahnd at 'im. 'Never you mind' ses the man. 'I didn't promust without knowin' 'ow. You wite,' 'e ses, 'and there'll be good news termorrer.' I fink Foxie was stunned like and let 'em carry 'im aw'y quiet. I was a wonderin' too w'ile they filled up 'is card for 'is missus, 'cos I never see destitootion so pline as on 'im.

"W'en we was ahtside: 'Nah then,' he ses, and 'e couldn't 'ave spoke brisker not if 'ed bin one of the doctors. 'Somethin's got to be done.' 'Yus,' I ses, lookin' at 'im 'ard. '_Done_' I ses, like that. 'Tike me to 'is 'ome fust of all,' 'e ses. 'You know the w'y.' I'd mide up me mind be now as 'e was balmy, and I was a bit ashimed of 'im on the tram. But 'e pide 'is own fare and 'eld 'is jor. On'y w'en we wos gittin' near Camberwell: 'Wot sort of woman is this Mrs. Barker?' 'e arst me. 'I don't know much of 'er,' I told 'im. 'Keeps 'erself to 'erself she does. But sence she's bin doin' laundery work, my missus looks in and gives the kids their meals and a bit of a wash. Gimekeeper's daughter, she wos, in the country.' 'E looks dahn on to the Walworth Road w'ere some gels was a-dancin' to a organ. 'Gimekeeper's daughter!' 'e ses. 'In the country! My Gawd! 'Ow many kids?' 'Four,' I ses. 'Eldest is a van-boy earnin' five bob a week. T'other three's little gels. Don't see 'em in the street much. Mother keeps 'em indoors. Un'ealthy, I calls it.'

"Mrs. Barker must 'ave been listenin' for 'er man, 'cos she comes aht 'fore we'd got to the landin'. Tall, dark, 'an'some woman, wiv a diffrunt voice to most of the wimmin' dahn our w'y. Not so 'igh. 'Oh, Jim,' she ses. 'Wot mikes you so lite. 'Ave you forgot--?' and then stops short, seein' us two. 'You tell 'er,' I ses, keeping aht o' sight and nudgin' 'im. 'That's wot I come for,' 'e ses, and goes in and shets the door in me fice. I listened, expectin' to 'ear screaming, but there wos only talkin'--fust 'im very low, then 'er, and then more talkin', like prayin'. 'You can come in now,' 'e ses, throwin' open the door. She was settin' by the fire, cryin' to 'erself and young Ern, in 'is blue coat and brass buttons, blubbering into 'is coker, and two plites under the 'arth, one on top of the other, and grivy bubbling between the edges. The little gels wos in bed. On'y one room they 'ad.

"'Wot was Barker's job,' 'e asks. 'Road-making gang.' 'My old job,' 'e ses wiv a larf. 'Yus, I don't fink,' I ses, with a sidewise look at 'im. 'That'd be a better tale, matey, if there was a little more meat on your ribs.' 'I've mide roads,' 'e ses, 'under a sun as'd melt you like a taller candle.' 'Wot kinder roads?' 'Millitery roads.' 'Oh,' I ses. 'You bin a soljer?' 'Yus,' 'e ses, 'the only real sort as is left. I never enlisted at eighteen to 'ave my 'ealth built up wiv 'ealthy food an' Swedish gymnastics, so be the time I was twenty I c'd go to Injer and sit in a verander durin' the 'eat of the d'y, flappin' the flies awf me fice w'ile a brown bag o 'bones shined me buttons and kep' me rifle clean. I never bin a luxury seven years and a problem all the rest of me life. Gimme that poker!'

"Young Ern giv it 'im, staring like 'is eyes would drop aht. 'E took it up be the two ends and bent it double, then 'anded it to me. 'Staighten it out,' 'e ses, wipin' 'is forehead. 'It's a knack,' I ses. 'E took it agen' and laid it out true, wiv a kind of a 'eave of 'is chest an' a groan. Next thing 'e did wos to put 'is 'ands over 'is fice and tumble in a 'eap on the floor.

"Wot a ter-do there was! Missis Barker bithing 'is 'ead wiv cold water, old Mrs. Conder from the nex' room tryin' to pour gin down 'is teef--'See wot it is,' she ses, 'to never be wivout a bottle'--young Ern 'ollering out to loosen 'is neck w'en there wasn't nothin' to loosen. 'Oh! is 'e dying?' ses Mrs. Barker to me. 'Dyin'!' I ses; 'not 'im. Acceleration is wot's the matter with 'im and nothing else.' "

Here my curiosity got the better of my anxiety. "What do you mean by acceleration?"

He shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, guv'nor, it's a word us people has got. 'Aven't you read in the pipers w'ere it ses, 'Vital Statistics. In London ten persons was found dead of starvition during the past year?' That's ten w'ere the coroner couldn't think o' nothin' else. All the others is only 'acceleration.' Pneumonia accelerated be insufficient nourishment, brownchitis accelerated, 'ousemaid's knee, tennis elber--wotcher like, so long as it's on'y accelerated. Looks better and keeps the charitable people comfortabler in their minds. 'Acceleration,' I ses to 'er; 'and that's the meddicine 'e wants,' pointing to the plites under the fire. 'And, 'e wants it sharp.'

"'E come to 'isself presently, and seemed quite ashimed. Sed it wos 'is own fault, and that that poker trick didn't oughter be done on less than a 'ole roll once a d'y. We give 'im the tommy, and at first 'e tried to eat slow. But it wasn't no use. 'E just seemed to in'ale them beef and taters an' a 'ousehold loaf and four cups o' coker. Mrs. Barker ackcherally larfed as she cut the slices. Women is funny, guv'nor. She seemed to fergit 'er own trouble. Wouldn't 'ear of 'im goin' away that night, but mide 'im up a bed in the passidge.

"Before I come aw'y it was arranged wot we was to do. I was to call for 'im in the morning and bring a suit of corduroys. We wos to go dahn togevver and apply for Foxie's job fer 'im.

"There wasn't no trouble over that. I got dahn early and give my mites the tile, and though the foreman wagged 'is mahth a bit, 'e saw there was trouble comin' unless 'e give in. 'E went a bit slow the fust d'y or so; but arter that there wasn't a better 'and, and in three weeks' time the foreman give 'im charge of a gang on a job up Finchley w'y."

"And you became great friends, I suppose."

"Well, guv'nor, I won't s'y that. 'E wasn't a bloke you could tike lib'ties wiv. Not enough wot I calls give an' tike abaht 'im. One 'er two tried calling 'im 'the lodger' and was sorry. But we went 'ome togevver and dahn to 'orsepittle of a Sund'y, and after Mrs. Barker gone to Queen Charlotte my missus useter look in reglar. But I give you my word there wasn't much as she could do. 'Owever early she come round, there was the floor swep' an' the kids dressed and barfed--great on barfs, 'e was: fussy I calls it--and 'avin' their breakfast and 'im sluicin' 'isself in the passidge. Wonderful 'ow 'e could cook too. Useter mike soup outer milk and vegitables. Never seed sich a thing, nor my missus neither."

"When did he tell you his name?"

"I'm a-comin' to that. Fust night I arst 'im and 'e said 's nime was 'Bruvverhood.' Well, it might be; 'cos I worked for a firm 'o that nime at Deptford--engineers they was. But one night soon after Barker's missus gone aw'y, I got a letter from 'im askin' me to call. Funny, I thought it, 'cos we'd come home togevver that evening. 'Owever, I cleaned up and went rahnd. There 'e was in what 'e called the buzzum of 'is fam'ly. Pretty sight it was. Young Ern was gone to the cawfy concert at Syviour's Schools. There was 'im smokin' 'is pipe an' little Effel wiv 'er curls brushed out recitin' a pome 'baht the night afore Christmas, and anuvver little gel on 'is knee, and Gertie on the floor pl'yin' wiv piper chickens wot 'e'd cut out. Schools was shut on accahnt o' scarlet fever, and 'e'd bin teachin' them their lessons.

"'E jumped up and called in Mrs. Conder to put the kids to bed. ''Ammertoe,' 'e ses, w'en we was in the street--that's my nime with my mites--''Ammertoe, I got to trust some one, and it's goin' ter be you.' 'E pulls a bit o' piper out of 'is wescutt pocket. 'This 'ere's a cheque,' 'e ses, 'an' I want you to go down termorrer and cash it at the bank.' Well, remembering 'ow I'd met 'im, you c'ud a knocked me over wiv a canary's wing fevver. 'You ain't done bad, matey,' I ses, 'out of two munfs' navvyin',' 'No, I 'aven't bin long putting a nest-egg by,' 'e ses, quietly. 'That's a fact,' I ses, very serious. 'What's your gime?' 'E 'anded me the bit o' piper and I read the nime at the bottom. 'Ullo,' I ses, 'you're the bloke they're advertisn' for--spoilin' some one's 'appiness--in the _Sund'y 'Erald_.' 'Yus,' 'e ses.' 'And that's wot I'm trustin' you with. Not the money--that's nothin'.' 'But wot abaht it?' I ses. 'Will they give it me?' 'They may arst questions,' 'e ses. 'But you ain't to know too much. Say you've give consideration, and a workin' man ain't to be kep' out of 'is due. There's no one can give that talk better'n you, 'Ammertoe', 'e ses, smilin'. 'And besides, I'll p'y you for your trouble.' ''Ere, guv'nor,' I ses, 'old lard! You're a eddigicated bloke, but don't think a artesian ain't got feelin's. You 'ave pide me,' I ses. 'I'm pide by wot I jest see up in Barker's 'ome.'

"There wasn't no real trouble at the bank. 'E'd give me annuvver letter to put into the envelope 'e'd sent me, signed wiv the same name as was on the cheque. The cashier looked pretty 'ard at me, and two or three clurks puts their 'eads togevver. 'Don't 'urry,' I ses. 'I'm pide be the year, and it don't matter w'ere I spend me time.' Cahnted the five quids free times, they did, to be sure two wasn't stuck togevver. Non-prejoocers, that's wot I calls them.

"This 'appened so often that the clurks got to know me. One night, jest before Foxie comes 'ome, I couldn't 'elp openin' my mahth a bit, jest to 'im. 'Wotcher goin' to do wiv all the money I drawed to-d'y? Give Barker a surprise be gettin' their stuff out o' pawn? Rare lot's bin up the spaht,' I ses. 'No,' 'e ses. 'It ain't wuth while now.' 'W'y not?' 'Cos they ain't 'ere for long. I'm a goin' to emmygrite them, 'Ammertoe.' I was 'avin a drink at the time, an' I nearly choked. 'Yus,' 'e goes on, afore I could speak, lookin' at the ceilin', 'they're a goin' to God's promust land. Them kids is a goin' to grow up somew'eres they don't 'ave to be shut in a room for fear of wot they may see and 'ear. It's full of tigers and wolves, that street is,' 'e ses, pointin' aht the winder, w'ere Bill Shannon was a tryin' to git 'is missus 'ome wiv all her clothes on. 'They're a goin' to be woke up on the trine some mornin' to see the blessed sun come up under the prairie as big and red as the dome of Paul's. It ain't spoiled sence I seed it fust, nigh on to twenty-five years ago. I've fallen from there to 'ell,' 'e ses, 'and there ain't no return ticket the w'y I come. But if I can't go back meself, I can show uvvers the w'y to escape.'

"'And ain't you a-goin' now'eres?' I ses, noticin' for the fust time 'ow w'ite and ill 'e was lookin'. 'Oh, yus,' 'e ses. 'I got my journey to go too.' 'Crost the sea?' I arst 'im. 'Just a short w'y,' 'e ses. 'Crost the sea to a big white furrin town I knows of, w'ere there's a tramcar w'itin', as'll tike me 'alf-w'y. Full of women in wi'te caps it'll be, goin' 'ome from marketin' wiv baskets in their laps, and maybe there'll be some like meself as found there wasn't no sale for the wares wot they carried in. And w'ere it stops there's a road up a 'ill that turns through a field w'ere they're stackin' 'ay this minnit, wiv steep clay banks on bofe sides, and a old farm w'ere ducks is a swimmin' in a pond and pigeons a slippin' and slidin' dahn the roof. And w'en I've reached that,' 'e ses, 'I'll rest a bit and look down on a gray village and miles and miles of sand, wiv the sea a-crawlin' and a-crinklin' beyond; 'cos I'll know,' 'e ses, 'as I've reached my journey's end at last. Think of it,' 'e ses, grippin' my shoulder 'ard. 'Think of it,' 'e ses, 'man! Clean, soft, dry sand, warm from a 'ole day's sun, and the grass a-wavin' and the sea w'isperin' and the gulls mewin'. There's worse ends to a journey than that, and you and me's seen 'em.' I looks at 'im very 'ard indeed. 'If you tike my advice,' I ses, 'before you goes on any of them journeys you'll 'ave a rest and some one to look arter you.' 'I shall 'ave some one,' 'e ses. 'She'll be a w'itin' for me in that town I telled you of. She'll tike my 'and and won't never let go until----Tell me, 'Ammertoe,' 'e ses, breakin' off sudden, 'wotcher think of me? Man to man. Think I'm a good man, dontcher?' 'Yus,' I ses. 'Bit balmy all the sime.' 'I ain't balmy,' 'e ses, 'and I ain't good. I'm a very crooil man, 'Ammertoe, and the reason is I'm too sine; too clear in me ed. W'en a man's too clear in 'is mind, it's death and ruin for 'em as 'as to do wiv 'im.... And nah, drink yer beer up. We're talkin' nonsense, and I must git back to my bybies."

"Did you never talk to him again about this plan of his?" It was curious how our voices had dropped. We had both risen, and were standing opposite one another with a curious effect of being on different sides of an open grave.

"Never, guv'nor. Flyin' Fox come 'ome nex' day, and wot with explainin' everything to 'im, and wot with n'ighbors droppin' in, some s'yin', 'It's the best thing could 'a 'appened,' and uvvers, 'mark my words, you'll rue the d'y.' There wasn't no chanst again not for private talk. Foxie was dized in 'is manner. Mrs. Barker and the kids they 'ad it all cut an' dried. It was too lite for 'im like to 'ave any s'y in the matter. 'Let 'im alone,' Mr. Bruvver'ood says--still called 'im that afore stringers, I did--'let 'im alone. 'E'll come to 'isself on the steamer. With wot you got and wot a woman can earn cookin' and cleanin' w'ere you're goin', 'e can 'ave the fust year to git well and strong. It'll be a convalescent 'ome to 'm, Canada will.'

"I took a mornin' off to see 'em start. Wonderful sight it was! Near four 'undred on the one trine, singin' 'Old Lang Syne' and 'Gawd Sive the King,' and shykin' 'ands all rahnd, and the people left be'ind s'yin': 'Leave us in your will.' The nippers was very smart, all in new warm togs, and little Gladys wiv a Teddy bear wot my missus giv' 'er. Thought 'e was coming with 'em up to the end they did. Didn't dare to tell'm no different. And at the end, as the guard was a-wavin' 'is flag, Mrs. Barker broke dahn and frows 'er arms round 'is neck and kisses 'im like 'e was another woman or praps more, cryin' like 'er 'eart would break. 'Good job for you, Foxie,' my missus ses,'as you're leavin' the lodger behind.' We all larft at that, and then the w'istle blew and the trine went awf wiv 'ankerchiffs at all the winders. 'E stood a long time lookin' after it. W'en it was gone,' e turns to me. 'Let's 'ave one more drink,' 'e ses. 'Wot ho,' I ses. 'But ain't you comin' to work? 'Cos we was on a job togevver. 'Not to-d'y,' 'e ses. 'Tell the foreman I ain't up to the mark.' So we 'ad one drink and I goes off, ignorant as a blessed byby wot was in 'is 'ead. And w'en I got home in the evenin'----"

"Well----?"

"Gawn, guv'nor. Took all 'is fings--not as there was much--and left no address. And I ain't set eyes on 'im from that day to this."

"Can you suggest anything?"

"Yus, I can. That's w'y I come here. I fink 'e's done something 'fore you knowed 'im or I knowed 'im, and is a-goin' to give 'isself up. You don't? Well, no matter. Wotever it is, I don't fink 'e'll likely tike any steps before 'e 'ears a word from the parties as is in Canada to know 'ow they gets on at fust. They 'ave 'is address, I'm sure o' that. Wotcher think? Don't that 'elp us a bit?"

"Can you give me theirs?"

Mr. Palamount had come well provided with documentary evidence. He drew a soiled and crumpled piece of print from another waistcoat pocket. It was only the name of the Canadian Pacific agent in Alberta. The straw was a very slender one.

"I'll cable them to-morrow, prepaid. And I'll see the lawyers first thing in the morning. Don't be afraid," for I thought I detected a slight look of anxiety on Mr. Palamount's battered face. "I'm after something better even than two hundred pounds."

VI

GENEALOGICAL

The first thing I did the next morning, after a sleepless night besieged by possibilities, was to send a prepaid cable to Alberta; rather for the relief of my own feelings than because my promptitude could effect any possible good. Indeed, as the telegraph clerk was at pains to inform me, eight o'clock in England is three o'clock in western Canada, and the very earliest of alarm clocks had not yet delivered its nerve-racking message there. Also I was pacing up and down the passage outside Pollexfen and Allport's offices fully three quarters of an hour before their managing clerk ascended the linoleum-covered stairs, rattling his keys and warbling a morning carol, to open them for the day.

Mr. Pollexfen, the senior partner, was a spruce, well-preserved man, with white hair and moustache, but as little of parchment in his manner as in his florid, supple skin. He swung round in his chair and listened to my story attentively, with the tips of his fingers joined, and clicking his well-groomed nails as I talked.

"Well! well! well!" said he, with a commentary sigh, when I had ended. "It's a strange case: the strangest, I verily believe, that I've had to deal with in the whole course of my practice."

He pulled a drawer open and tossed something to me across the table.

"Do you know anything of this?"

"This" was a little book sumptuously bound in blue roan, and bearing upon its cover, embossed and gilt, a coat-of-arms, and the following legend in old English lettering.

"Pedigree of the Ingram or Ingraham family of Lilburn, Mass."

It was the very pamphlet over which, more than two years ago now, Paul had joined me in rather shamefaced laughter.

"Oh, yes," I replied. "I saw it at his rooms. Look! there's his name at the bottom."

"It seems so strange to us," the lawyer mused. "So contrary to all preconceived notions of America. Here, in peer-governed, class-beridden England, we take these things so much more as a matter of course. Myself, as an instance. I believe we are a highly respectable landed family, somewhere in the Eastern Counties, but I'd be bothered to say what my great-grandmother's maiden name was, and, I assure you, except for some tangible reason, I would regard time spent in finding out as time sadly wasted. The very crest on my spoons and carriage is a matter of tradition. It's never occurred to me to regard it with any degree of complacency. But, indeed, I must own to a rather complete ignorance of America, though we manage a good deal of business for clients over there. My ignorance extended, until lately, to the very name of the city where all this money was made. Oshkosh? You're a journalist, I see. Can you truthfully say the name stirs any latent geographical idea."

"Yes. I've heard Ingram mention it. It's a big grain-shipping place on the Lakes."

"Grain?--grain? Yes. That's how the dollars were made, I remember. Three quarters of a million of them. Over sixty thousand pounds. We had no idea of it. The plainest, driest little man. Stayed at one of those cheap Bloomsbury hotels, and lunched on an apple and a wheat biscuit."

"Do you mean to say all this money is left to my friend unconditionally?"

"Absolutely, sir. Lester Ingraham--he'd even gone back to the old spelling--seems to have spent the evening of his days in compiling the little book you hold in your hand. That's how he came to be sent to us by our New York correspondents. They are big people, and seemed to think him very small fry indeed. It had become an absolute obsession with him. Used to bore Allport to death talking of the senior and the junior branches, and sometimes it was all I could do to keep a straight face. His dream had been to buy the old homestead and die there, and he told me the discovery it had been pulled down robbed him of ten years' life. Then the idea occurred to him, since it had vanished and he had no near relatives, to leave his money to the last Ingram born within the old walls, the walls which, as he told me impressively, had had an Indian arrow-head sticking in them for two hundred and fifty years. He had seen that in the museum. Well, well--who says romance is dead?"

"Sixty thousand pounds!" All the time Mr. Pollexfen was speaking I kept writing the sum on the Ingram pedigree with my finger nail, calculating interest at, say, four per cent, and thinking of Paul as I had last seen him.

"I've told you everything, Mr. Pollexfen. What do you think of our chance of finding him again within the year that is stipulated?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "Very slight indeed, I fear, even if the advertisement reaches his eye. You say he had over two hundred pounds in a bank at his disposal, and chose to run after cabs. Now, to me, that looks very like hallucination. No. If I was the reversionary legatee, I'd feel pretty comfortable."

I said I had told him everything, but, as a matter of fact, I had not told him what I had every reason to believe I knew, and that is, the source whence the money came which Ingram had been loath to touch. I wonder, if I had, whether he would have changed his estimate of my poor quixotic friend. Codes of honor must seem shadowy things to a man who has been instructing counsel for thirty years.

VII

THE WAITING-ROOM

And, after all, it happened so simply in the end. A brief note, lying on my table, when I got back, with an address at the top that was strange to me, asking me to call "when convenient, for a chat." Imagine if I found it convenient. Is there in all the world a cleaner, purer joy than to be the bearer of such tidings as mine?

The house proved to be one of some shabby mouldering little stucco "gardens" near Chalk Farm. It suggested seediness rather than great poverty, and, with my abominable journalist's _flair_ for the dramatic, I was almost sorry the contrast was not to be a more startling one. Perhaps I hardly realized how much misery a decorous exterior can conceal in modern London, until an old woman, bent, deaf and short-sighted almost to blindness, opened the door. The hall was more than bare; it was naked. Not a picture on the walls, not a strip of oilcloth on the boards. On the bottom stair a cheap glass lamp without a shade had been set down and filled the passage with wavering, smoky shadows. The air was penetrated with the raw smell of paraffin, the "_triple bouquet_" of poverty.

If the nakedness had repelled in the hall, its persistence in the room to which I was let find my way was shocking. No curtains nor blinds at the window; a low truckle bed, rather felt than seen in the shadow at one side; upon the uncarpeted floor a great, crooked parallelogram of moonlight. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I made out further a chair by the bedside, with a flat candlestick and a paper-covered book turned face downward, and a big china wash-basin close to the bedside. I don't know what made me look more curiously at this than at anything else, and shudder when I saw how dark its contents were. Next moment I had felt for his hand and grasped it in mine, Thank God! it was not cold and heavy as I had half dreaded. Life--feverish, parched, burning life, it is true, but still life, was in its contact.

He must have been sleeping, and it is eloquent of his utter abandonment that, before I uttered a word, he guessed who had awakened him.

"Clear away that candle and sit down," he said, in a drowsy, muffled voice. "No! don't light it please."

I sat down obediently, and looked around me again. Gradually, as I gazed, the full significance of the stripped room came home to me. It was the bareness of the station waiting-room--the room in which one chafes and frets, watching the hand crawl over the clock-face, with an ear strained to catch the faint whistle of the train that is to bear us away to where we would or should be. That was it. He had come here to wait. The poor faint voice spoke again.

"I'd been lying here a long time," it said, "watching the moon, and it must have sent me to sleep. Don't ride rough, old man," feeling clumsily for the hand that was at my eyes. "It's easier for me than it would be for almost any one else. I often wonder what it was gave me such a conviction of the utter unreality of the world. I think it was the years I spent, month after month, alone on the great wastes. I used to come into the cities and see the people swarming under the arc-lights round the hotels and theatres, and think that's what they'd been doing all the while, night after night. One can't take a world seriously that can mean two such different things to different men. Hold that basin a minute, will you, Prentice? I've got to cough. I can't put it off any longer. Thanks! Yes, it was that last winter in London that broke the bowl and loosed the golden cord. I thought I'd been through a lot and knew all life could do; but, by God! I never imagined anything like that. Stop snivelling, man. I tell you there's no pain at all now. Just something like a big yawn that gets worse while I speak. And I had a lot to say. Do you know, what you said rankled a bit: I mean about my not understanding the ethics of friendship. Why, old man, I've often said to myself that there'd have to be a God if only to thank Him for a friend like you. Now I'm going to discharge the debt. Where shall I begin?"

I told him what I knew already. I forget exactly what words I used. Poor broken ones, no doubt. I told him he was a hero, a saint: that just to have lived a life like his to the end was to have won the bays and gained the victory. He stopped me halfway.

"Nonsense, you sentimental old penny-a-liner! Any one would have done the same. You'd have done it yourself, and you'd have done it far better, because you'd have loved while you worked. That's where I break down. Try to see me as I am, Prentice. I like to have you sorry for me; but don't let illusion mingle with the regret. I hated them! yes, yes, I did. Hated them as a man like me hates anything warm and human that encumbers him and tangles his feet upon his own ruinous tragic course. Even while those angels sat on my knee and ate their bread and jam and asked for more fairy stories I was straining for escape--thinking out ways by which I could rid myself of them, once and for all. You know the way I took. I had to sell my honor for it--handle money that you'd have died before you touched. For I'd given my word to them, fool that I was. I'd eaten their bread, and there's only the one law among white men. Fumble round, Prentice--there's a tumbler full of water somewhere near your feet."

He drank and went on, at first in a calmer voice:

"It began by my going to the theatre where she was dancing. I'd gone to the door again and again, taken my place in the queue and come away at the last moment. And one night I went on and sat up in the gallery, jammed tight, waiting for her. People were talking. I won't say what I heard. It may be true. They didn't know that what they were heaping up was only more damnation for the shabby, shame-faced brute that sat among them, biting his tongue, and keeping his fists deep in his pockets for fear he should curse them suddenly and strike them over their unclean mouths. And then--she came on the stage, Prentice, and kissed her hands, and the whole house got up and roared and cheered. But I hung my head. I didn't dare look at her for a long, long time. At last, when I knew the dance was over, I found the courage. She was curtseying and smiling up at us, and it happened my first glance went straight into her eyes."

He gripped my wrist.

"There's the shadow there, Prentice, what I told you of the night we walked home: the look I was afraid of when I sent you to meet her. None of you see it, because you didn't know her before. God! how it shocked me. I couldn't stand it. I jumped up and climbed out. Some of the men hit out at me. There's some sort of a chapel on the other side of the Circus. The door was open, and there were about twenty people listening to a man gabbling in a language that's like nothing in heaven or earth. I knelt down on a bench at the bottom of the church and prayed, the first time since I swore off--oh! twenty years ago. 'Don't let it touch her!' I kept on saying. 'It's up to my neck, it's over my mouth and down my loathing throat, but don't let it touch the hem of her dress! I give in, God! You have me beaten, eternal Father, all in, down and out. But oh, Jehovah, Jahveh! Shining One! don't hurt a slip of a girl.' A man touched me on the shoulder. Said I'd better go out and come back on an evidence night.

"So you see, Prentice, for all my cleverness, I've had to come to it at last. I've had to whine for mercy to the God that made the tiger and the cancer microbe. I am only an old Puritan, after all. One lifetime's too short to get two centuries and a half of Massachusetts out of your blood. The only time a real codfish Yankee's out of mischief is when he's making the dollars. A hundred years ago I should have been a great preacher of the word, Prentice. One of the sort that the sight of a man rejoicing in his strength or a woman in her beauty goads to cruel madness. And wherever I'd have gone I'd have left bowed heads and chilled hearts and minds half-crazed with the fear of judgment to come. What joy I'd have taken in it! I'd have been so busy seeing death got its due, it never would have occurred to me life had any rights. But it's a hundred years too late for that. The world's grown wiser. It never will let that sort of deviltry get the upper hand again. They saw it in my work, Prentice. That's why they've kept me bottled up and let me kill myself inch by inch with my own poison. But if a man can't do ill broadcast, there's always a quiet place where mischief can be done. You can always take your revenge for the world's common sense on some trustful soul that's laid itself bare in your hands...."

Then I think he ceased to talk coherently.

"----and so I said to myself: I'll go down to the sea, where I had my darling all my own, pure and loving, before the stain of the world reached her or evil tongues made busy with her name. She's there still, I know. She's haunting those lonely sands, crying and wringing her hands and kissing the old letters because I won't write her any new. But she must forgive me when I ask her pardon and show her my punishment, and when it's all told, we'll sit hand in hand and knee to knee and watch the sun foundering out at sea and when the last little red streak has gone----"

He broke off suddenly, and sat up in bed.

"Where are my clothes? Haven't they sent them yet? I _can't_--I can't be found like this, you know! It's a wretched little piece of vanity, but I can't. And now I'm getting so weak, I can't go into town again. Perhaps I didn't tell them where to--send--the right number."...

His voice died away in his throat, and he lay back, quite exhausted.

It was nearly two hours afterward before I left the house for the last time. A doctor had seen him, and a nurse was settling in an arm-chair to watch him for the night. We'd done what we could to that awful room. That wasn't much, but the train was nearly due now, so it didn't really matter. There was a lot of work before me on the morrow.

And it wasn't until I was halfway home that I remembered the sixty thousand pounds!

VIII

'TWIXT SHINE AND SHADE

To be young, to be beautiful, to be free; to radiate a charm which it is felt not ungracious alone but ridiculous to pretend to withstand, and to be paid for its exercise in the tangible form that renders all else possible; to wake one morning and discover that pleasure, change of scene, and gracious surroundings have become the anxious concern of good genii whose motives are too evident to make any demands upon gratitude: to find each day a fairy vista wherein, by a happy perversion of the gray old rule, fulfilment waits upon desire: in one word, to be "the vogue." Has life ever offered more than this? and is it not a mere question of time how long any memory of old defeat, any regret for a lost Eden, can resist an assault by happiness made from so many quarters?

I think, if the whole truth could be known, Fenella's state of mind during her two years of furore would be a curious psychological study. I have just been looking through a pile of _Sceptres_ and _Prattlers_, the issue of those enchanted years. It is hardly an exaggeration to say her photograph appeared in one or the other every week.--Fenella at Ascot--"The Secret of Success. One favorite whispers it to another."--"Look pleasant, please! A recent snapshot of Lord Lulford's popular niece." (I forget who invented this phrase. It was rather done to death.) Here are more: "Commons idol among the 'backwoodsmen' at the Burbery point-to-point. Names from left to right: Miss Barbour, Sir Bryan Lumsden, et cetera, et cetera." "Will 'No. 8' go up to-night? After a strenuous day with the North Herts, Miss Barbour has to hustle to catch the London train." I say, take out all the palpable poses, all the profitable winsomeness of poster or postcard--there must be one or two where she was taken off her guard--and then try to trace the shadow poor Paul fancied he saw. I can only say I have failed. Complete absorption in the business of the moment--that is all I ever found.

Of course I know that people in the world do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves, and that there are all sorts of dodges whereby if not happiness, at any rate the peace of mind necessary for due enjoyment of life, can be secured. The sad thought can be kept moving on a day ahead, an hour ahead; always in sight, as it were, but always out of one's mental reach. Even so, the question remains whether such a shifty process can be continued indefinitely, and if a day does not come when the harassed ghost, weary, like poor Joe, of incessant moving on, takes wing, once and for all, for the land of oblivion.

I was years making up my mind about Fenella. I sometimes fancied the dear lady knew it, and that that was the reason my brooding glances were never surprised. It would have been so easy to look up and catch them. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Prentice." And then--remember I'm a journalist, and used to seeing truth sold at the price--"I was wondering whether I wasn't only just in time, after all."

She did catch me at last. It was on that night, I fancy, that I passed once and for all from the sober status of "my husband's great friend" to the more vertiginous one of "my own." Paul was out at some committee meeting or another--he leaves her a good deal alone--and would not be in till late. I had been sitting silent a long while, watching the busy slender fingers and the sweet puckered brow. Knitting is rather a rite with Fenella, but I pity the naked she clothes if they had to wait on the work of her own hands. She had dropped a stitch. "One--two--three," she was counting under her breath--"_one_ and _two_ and _three_!" and then----Oh, I protest, madam! it was an unfair advantage that you took. I forget what answer I stammered out. She stuck her needles into the wool, glanced at the clock and told me everything.

* * * * *

A long electric launch, whose stern was covered by a white awning lined with green, skimmed its way through the lines of moored yachts, and across the blue Solent, its prow held high like the breast of a diving sea-bird. Over the bows, from which two sheets of water spurted away, clear and convex as blown glass, a seaman sat, dressed in ducks, and holding a long boat-hook in his hand. Round the ribbon of his glazed hat, in letters of gold, the legend ran--

S.Y. _Castadiva_, R.Y.C.

Amidships a tall, broad-shouldered man in blue serge, very sunburnt, and wearing a peaked cap, sat, or rather sprawled, in conversation, probably technical, with the driver of the dynamo, whose head and shoulders only appeared above the half-deck. Under the awning a girl was sitting alone. Her furled parasol made a vivid splash of scarlet against her snowy dress.