Chapter VIII (1)

On a certain day that summer when the sun was at its highest in the heavens, Sir Septimus Letter stood by the bureau in his cool library and conversed with his private secretary.

Sir Septimus was wearing what appeared to be a ready-made navy serge suit and a low collar. His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets. The sallow face was heavily marked, the strangely restless eyes peered searchingly beneath dark brows which almost met in one continuous line. The chin was finely modelled, but not too strong. It was not indeed what is usually known as a strong face. It had power, but of the kind which has been mellowed by the friction of every human experience. It had alert intelligence, a penetrating absorption, above all things it indicated vision. The speech and the movements were incisive; the short wiry body a compact tissue of nervous energy. He listened with the watchful intensity of a dog at a rabbit-hole. Through the door at the end of the room could be heard the distant click of many typewriters.

The secretary was saying:

“The third reading of the Nationalization of Paper Industries Bill comes on at five-thirty, sir. Boneham will be up, and I do not think you will be called till seven. You will, of course, however, wish to hear what he has to say.”

“I know what he’ll say. You can cut that out, Roberts. Get Libby to give me a précis at six forty-five.”

“Very good, sir. Then there will be time after the Associated News Service Board at four to see the minister with regard to this question of packing meetings in East Riding. Lord Lampreys said he would be pleased if I could fix an appointment. He has some information.”

“Right. What line are Jennins and Castwell taking over this?”

“They’re trying to side-track the issue. They have every un-associated newspaper in the North against you.”

“H’m, h’m. Well, we’ve fought them before.”

“Yes, sir. The pressure is going to be greater this time, but everyone has confidence you will get them down.”

The little man’s eyes sparkled. “Roberts, get through on the private wire to--Lambe; no, get through to all of them, and make it quite clear. This is not to be a party question. They’re to work the unctious rectitude stuff, you know--liberty of the subject and so on.”

“Very good, sir. The car comes at one-fifteen. You are lunching with Cranmer at Shorn Towers, the Canadian paper interests will be strongly represented there. I will be at Whitehall Court at three with the despatches. It would be advisable, if possible, to get Loeb of the finance committee. Oh, by the way, sir, I had to advise you from Loeb. They have received a cabled report of the expert’s opinion from Labrador. There are two distinct seams of coal on that land you bought in ’07. A syndicate from Buffalo have made an offer. They offer a million and a quarter dollars down.”

“What did we pay?”

“One hundred and twenty thousand.”

“Don’t sell.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Have you seen my wife, lately?”

“I have not seen Lady Letter for some days, sir. I believe she is at Harrogate.”

The little man sighed, and drew out a cigarette case, opened it and offered one to Roberts, who accepted it with an elegant gesture. Then he snapped it to, and replaced it in his pocket.

“Damn it, Roberts, Reeves says I mustn’t smoke.”

“Oh, dear!--only a temporary disability I trust, sir.”

“Everything is temporary, Roberts.”

With his hands still in his pockets, he walked abstractedly out of the room. A little ormolu clock in the outer corridor indicated twenty minutes to one. The car was due at one-fifteen. Thirty-five minutes: oh, to escape for only that brief period! Through the glass doors he could see his sister, talking to two men in golfing clothes, some of the house party. The house party was a perpetual condition at Crawshay. He turned sharply to the right, and went through a corridor leading out to the rear of the garage. He hurried along and escaped to a path between two tomato houses. In a few moments he was lost to sight. He passed through a shrubbery, and came to a clearing. Without slackening his pace, he walked across it, and got amongst some trees. The trees of Crawshay Park--his trees!... He looked up at the towering oaks and elms. Were they his trees--because he had bought them? They were there years before he was born. They would be there years after his death. He was only passing through them--a fugitive. “Everything is temporary, Roberts----” Yes, even life itself. Jennins and Castwell! Of course they wanted to get him down! Were they the only ones? Does one struggle to the top without hurting others to get there? Does one get to the top without making enemies? Does one get to the top without suffering, and bitterness, and remorse? The park sloped down to a low stone wall, with an opening where one could obtain a glorious view across the weald of Sussex. The white ribbon of a road stretched away into infinity.

As he stood there, he saw a dark swarthy figure clamber down a bank, and stand hesitating in the middle of the road. He was a tramp with a stubbly red beard nearly concealing his face, and a filthy black green suit. In his hand he carried a red handkerchief containing his worldly belongings--a door-knob, a portion of a foot-rule, a tin mug stolen from a workhouse, some date stones, an onion, the shutter of a camera, and two empty match boxes.

Sir Septimus did not know this fact; he merely regarded the tramp as an abstraction. He observed him hesitate, exchange a word with a field labourer, look up at the sky, hunch his shoulders, and suddenly set out with long swinging strides down the white road. Whither? There stirred within the breast of the millionaire a curious wistful longing. Oh, to be free! To be free! To walk across those hills without a care, without a responsibility. The figure, with its easy gait, fascinated him. The dark form became smaller and smaller, swallowed up in the immensity of nature. With a groan, Sir Septimus Letter buried his face in his hands and murmured:

“Lucky devil!... lucky devil! O God! If I could die....”

THE FUNNY MAN’S DAY

His round fat little face appeared seraphic in sleep. If only the hair were not graying at the temples and getting very, very thin on top, and the lines about the eyes and mouth becoming rather too accentuated, it might have been the head of one of Donatello’s _bambini_. It was not until Mrs. Lamb, his ancient housekeeper, bustled into the room with a can and said: “Your water, Mr. Basingstoke”--the intrusion causing him to open his eyes--that it became apparent that he was a man past middle-age. His eyes were very large--“goose-gog eyes” the children called them. As elderly people will, it took him some few moments to focus his mentality. A child will wake up, and carry on from the exact instant it went to sleep; but it takes a middle-aged man or woman a moment or so to realize where they are, what day in the week it is, what happened yesterday, what is going to happen to-day, whether they are happy or not. Certainly with regard to the latter query there is always a sub-conscious pressure which warns them. Almost before they have decided which day in the week it is, a voice is whispering: “Something occurred yesterday to make you unhappy,” or “Things are going well. You are happy just now,” and then the true realization of their affairs, and loves, and passions unfolds itself. They continue yesterday’s story.

As to James Jasper Basingstoke, it was not his business to indulge in the slightest apprehension with regard to his condition of happiness or unhappiness. He was a funny man. It was his profession, his mission, his natural gift. From early morning, when his housekeeper awakened him, till, playing with the children--all the children adored him--practising, interviewing managers and costumiers, dropping into the club and exchanging stories with some of the other “dear old boys,” right on until he had finished his second show at night it was his mission to leave behind him a long trail of smiles and laughter. Consequently, he merely sat up in bed, blinked and called out:

“I am deeply indebted to your Lambship.”

“Nibby’s got hiccups,” replied that lady, who was not unused to this term of address. Nibby was Mrs. Lamb’s grandson. His real name was Percy Alexander. The granddaughter’s name was Violetta Gladys, and she was known as Tibby. They lived next door. These names, of course, had been invented by the Funny Man, who lived in a world of make-believe, where no one at all was known by their real name. He himself was known in the theatrical profession as “Willy Nilly.”

“I am distressed to hear that,” exclaimed Willy Nilly. “Hiccoughs at nine o’clock in the morning! You don’t say so! I always looked upon it as a nocturnal disease. The result of too many hic, hæc, hock cups.”

“You must have your fun, Mr. Basingstoke, but the pore little feller has been very bad ever since he woke up.”

Willy Nilly leapt out of bed and rolled across to the chest of drawers. He there produced a bottle containing little white capsules, two of which he handed to Mrs. Lamb.

“Crunch these up and swallow with a little milk, then lie on his back and think of emerald green parrots flying above a dark forest, where monkeys are hanging by their tails. In our profession the distress of hiccoughs is quite prevalent and we always cure it in this way. A man who can’t conquer hiccoughs can never expect to top the bill. Now tell Master Nibby that, dear lady.”

Mrs. Lamb looked at the white capsules interestedly.

“Do you really mean that, Mr. Basingstoke?”

The little fat man struck a dramatic situation.

“Did you ever find me not a man of my word, Lady Lamb?”

“You are a ONE,” replied the housekeeper, and retired, holding the capsules carefully balanced in the centre of her right palm, as though they contained some secret charm which she was fearful of dispelling by her contact.

The little fat man thrust out his arms in the similitude of some long-forgotten clumsy exercise. Then he regarded himself in the mirror.

“Not too thumbs up, old boy, not too thumbs up. It’s going, you know. All the Apollo beauty--Oh, you little depraved ruffian, go and hold your head under the tap.”

No, no, it was not the business of Willy Nilly to be depressed by these reflections either in the mirror or upon the mind. He seized the strop suspended from a hook on the architrave of the window and began to flash his razor backward and forward whilst he sang:

“Oh, what care I for a new feather bed,
And a sheet turned down so bravely--O.”

The raggle-taggle gypsies accompanied him intermittently throughout the whole operation of shaving, including the slight cut just beneath the lobe of his left ear. The business of washing and dressing was no perfunctory performance with the Funny Man. He had a personality to sustain. Moreover, among the programme of activities for the day included attendance at a wedding. There is nothing at which a funny man can be so really funny as at a wedding. One funny man at least is almost essential for the success of this time-honoured ritual. And this was a very, very special wedding; the wedding of his two dearest and greatest friends, Katie Easebrook, the pretty comedienne, and Charlie Derrick, that most brilliant writer of ballads. A swell affair it was to be in Clapham Parish Church, with afterward a reception at the Hautboy Hotel--everything to be done “in the best slap-up style, old boy.”

No wonder Willy Nilly took an unconscionable time folding his voluminous black stock, adorned with the heavy gold pin, removing the bold check trousers from withunder the mattress, tugging at the crisp white waistcoat till it adapted itself indulgently to the curves of his figure, and hesitating for fully five minutes between the claims of seven different kinds of kid gloves. A man who tops the bill at even a suburban music hall cannot afford to neglect these things. It was fully three quarters of an hour before he presented himself in the dining-room below. Mrs. Lamb appeared automatically with the teapot and his one boiled egg.

“You’d hardly believe it,” she said, “but Nibby took them white pills and his hiccups is abated.”

“Ah! What did you expect, my good woman? Was Willy Nilly likely to deceive an innocent child? Did he think of emerald green parrots and a dark forest?”

“I told him what you said, Mr. Basingstoke. Here’s the letters and the newspaper.”

The Funny Man’s correspondence was always rather extensive, consisting for the most part of letters from unknown people commencing: “Dear Sir,--I wrote the enclosed words for a comic song last Sunday afternoon. I should think set to music you would make them very funny----” or “Dear Sir,--I had a good idea for a funny stunt for you. Why not sing a song dressed up as a curate called: ‘The higher I aspire I espy her,’ and every time you come to the word higher, you trip up over a piece of orange peel. I leave it to you about payment for this idea, but I may say I am in straitened circumstances, and my wife is expecting another next March.”

There was a certain surprising orderliness about the Funny Man’s methods. Receipts were filed, accounts kept together and paid fairly regularly, suggestions and ideas were carefully considered, begging letters placed together, with a sigh, “in case anything could be done a little later on, old boy.” Occasionally would come a chatty letter from some old friend “on the road,” or from his married sister in Yorkshire. But for the most part his correspondence was not of an intimate nature.

His newspaper this morning remained unopened. The contemplation of his own programme for the day was too absorbing to fritter away nervous energy on public affairs. Whilst cracking the egg, he visualized his time-table. At ten o’clock, Chris Read was coming to try over new songs and stunts. At eleven-fifteen, he had an appointment with Albus, the costumier in Long Acre, to set the stamp of his approval upon the wig and nose for his new song: “I’m one of the Goo-goo boys.” Kate and Charlie’s was at twelve-thirty and the wedding breakfast at “the Hautboy” at one-forty-five. In the meantime, he must write two letters and manage to call on old Mrs. Labbory, his former landlady, who was very, very ill. Poor old soul! She’d been a brick to him in the old days, when he was sometimes “out” for seven months in the year, out and penniless. It was only fair now that he should help her a bit with the rent, and see that she had everything she needed.

Willy Nilly’s life had been passed through an avenue of landladies, but the position of Mrs. Labbory was unique. He had been with her fifteen years and she was intimate with all his intimates.

At three-forty-five was a rehearsal with the Railham Empire orchestra. He must get that gag right where he bluffs the trombone player in his song: “Oh, my in-laws, my in-laws, why don’t you leave me be.” Perhaps a cup of tea somewhere, and then an appointment at five-fifteen with Welsh, to arrange terms about the renewal of contract. Knotty and difficult problems--contracts. Everyone trying to do you down--must have a clear head at five-fifteen. If there’s time, perhaps pop into the club for half an hour, exchange stories with Jimmy Landish, or old Blakeney. A chop at six-thirty--giving him an hour before making-up for the first house. On at eight-twenty. Three songs and an encore--mustn’t forget to speak to Hignet about that spotlight, the operator must have been drunk last night. Between shows interview a local pressman, and a young man who “wants to go on the stage, but has had no experience.” Dash round for a sandwich and a refresher. On again at ten-twenty-five. Same three songs, same encore, same bluff on the trombone player. Ten-fifty, all clear. Clean up and escape from the theatre if possible.

A last nightcap at the club, perhaps? Oh, but Bird Craft wanted him to toddle along to his rooms and hear a new song he had just acquired, “a real winner,” Bird had said it was, about “The girl and the empty pram.” Must stand by an old pal. Sometime during the day he must send two suits to be cleaned, and order some new underlinen. A beastly boring business, ordering vests and pants. He knew nothing about the qualities of materials--hosiers surely did him over that. Really a woman’s business, women knew about these things. Mrs. Lamb! No, not exactly Mrs. Lamb. He couldn’t ask Mrs. Lamb to go and buy him vests and pants. A woman’s business, a woman----

Heigho! Nearly ten o’clock already. Chris Read might arrive any minute. The Funny Man dashed downstairs and ran into the house next door. Tibby had already gone off to school, but Nibby had escaped, because at the moment of departure his attack of hiccoughs had reached its apotheosis. Now he was in trouble because it had left off, and his mother now declared he had been pretending. It took the Funny Man fifteen minutes to calm this family trouble. Nibby, putting it on! Nibby, playing the wag! Oh, come! Fie and for shame! Besides, did Nibby’s mother think that he, Dr. Willy Nilly, the eminent specialist of Harley Street, was a quack? Were his remedies spurious remedies?

“Did you think of emerald green parrots in a dark wood, Nibby?”

“Yes.”

“And monkeys hanging by their tails?”

“Yes.”

“There, you see, Mrs. Munro! It was a genuine case, and a genuine cure.”

“If he really had it, Mr. Basingstoke, I don’t believe it was thinking about monkeys what cured him; it was them little white tabloids, and we thank you kindly.”

“Mrs. Munro, here are two tickets for the Railham Empire for the first house to-morrow night. Come, and bring your husband, and then you will see that there are more people cured by thinking of monkeys hanging by their tails than there are by swallowing tabloids. That is my business. I am a monkey hanging by its tail, and now I must be off. Good-bye, Nibby old boy. Why, if this isn’t a sixpence under the mat. Well, well, this is an age of miracles. No, you keep it, old boy. Good-bye, Mrs. Munro. Come round and see me after the show to-morrow. Toot-a-loo, my dear.”

Chris was waiting on the doorstep, a fresh-complexioned young man inclined to corpulence. His face glowed with a kind of vacant geniality.

“Well, old boy, how goes it?”

“I’ve got a peach this morning, Willy old boy; I think you’ll like it.”

“Good boy, come on in.”

The Funny Man’s drawing-room was comfortably furnished with imitation Carolian furniture, a draped ottoman, and an upright Collard piano. The walls were covered with enlarged photographs of actors and actresses in gold and walnut frames, the majority of them were autographed and contained such inscriptions as: “To my dear old Willy, from yours devotedly, Cora.” “To Uncle Nilly, one of the best, Jimmy Cotswold (The Blue Girl Company, Aug. 1899),” “To Willy Nilly, ‘my heart’s afire,’ Queenie,” and so on.

“Now, let’s see what you’ve got, old boy.”

Chris sat at the piano, and unwrapped a manuscript score.

“I think this ought to win out, old boy,” he said. “It’s by Bert Shore. It’s called ‘The Desert Island.’ You see the point is this. You’re a bit squiffy, old boy. You see, red nose and battered top hat and your trousers turned up to the knees. You know how when it’s been raining on a tarred road it looks like water. Well, we have a set like that. It’s really a street island--in Piccadilly, or somewhere. You’re on it, and seeing all this shining water, you think you’re on a desert island and the lamppost’s a palm tree. You take off your shoes and stockings and there’s some good business touching the wet road with your bare toes. See, old boy? There’s a thunderin’ good tune. Listen to this--tum-te-too-te tum-te-tum, rum-te-too-te-tum-te--works up, you see to a kind of nautical air--then gets back to the plaintive desert stuff--rum-tum-tum-rum-te-tum. Then here’s the chorus. Listen to this, old boy:

“Lost in the jungle,
Oh, what a bungle,
Eaten by spiders and ants.
Where is my happy home?
Why did they let me roam?
Where are my Sunday pants?

“Good, eh? What do you think? Make something of it, old boy? Eh?”

The little man’s eyes glowed with excitement. Oh, yes, this might assuredly be a winner. It was the kind of song that had made his reputation. The tune of the chorus was distinctly catchy, and his mind was already conceiving various business.

“Let’s have a go at it, old boy,” he said.

He leant over the other’s shoulder and began to sing. He threw back his head and thrust out his fat little stomach, his eyes rolled, and perspiration streamed down his face. He was really enjoying himself. He had just got to

Lost in a jungle,
Oh, what a bungle,
Eaten by spiders and ants,

when there was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Lamb thrust her head in and said: “A telegram for you, Mr. Basingstoke.”

“Eh? Oh! Well--er, never mind. Yes, thank you, my dear, give it to me.”

He opened the telegram absently, his mind still occupied with the song. When he had read it, he exclaimed:

“Good God! Poor old Joe! Yes, no, there’s no answer, my dear. I must go out.”

Mrs. Lamb retired.

“Poor old Joe! Stranded, eh?”

“What is it, old boy?” said Chris.

“Telegram from Joe Bloom. He says: ‘Can you wire me tenner, very urgent, stranded at Dundee?’ Poor old Joe! He has no luck. He was out with ‘The Queen of the Sea’ company. They must have failed. Excuse me Chris, old boy.”

The Funny Man hurried out of the room and ran downstairs. He snatched up his hat and went out. When he got round the corner, he ran. He ran as fast as he could to the High Street till he came to the London, City and Midland Bank. He filled up a cheque for fifteen pounds and cashed it. Then he ran out of the bank and trotted puffily across the road to the post office.

“I want to telegraph fifteen pounds, old girl,” he said to the fair-haired lady behind the wires. Filling up the forms took an unconscionable time, and there all the while was poor old Joe stranded in Dundee, perhaps without food! Dundee! Dundee of all places, a bleak unsympathetic town, hundreds of miles from civilization. Well, that would help him out, anyway. True, he had had to do this twice before for Joe, and Joe had not, so far, paid him back, but Joe was a notoriously unlucky devil, and he, Willy Nilly, topping the bill at the Railham Empire, couldn’t let a pal in.

When he got back to his own drawing-room, Chris was stretched at full length on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and drinking whiskey and soda.

“Sorry to have kept you, Chris, old boy.”

“It’s all right. I’ve just helped myself to a tot from the sideboard.”

“That’s right. That’s right. Now let’s see, it’s a quarter to eleven. I’ll have to wash out this trial, old boy. I shall be late for Albus. I like that song. I’d like to have another go at it. Have another tot, Chris, old boy. I’ll join you, then I must be off.”

But he didn’t get to Albus that morning, because on leaving the house he remembered that he hadn’t called on old Mrs. Labbory. He _must_ just pop in for a few moments. It was only ten minutes’ walk away. He purchased a fowl and a bottle of Madeira and hurried to 27, Radnor Street. He found his old landlady propped up on the pillows, looking gaunt and distant, as though she were already regarding the manifestations of social life from a long way off and would never participate in them again.

“Well, Martha, old girl, how goes it? Merry and bright, eh? Oh, you’re looking fine. More colour than last week, eh? ... eating better, old girl?”

A voice came across the years.

“I’m not so well, Jim. God bless you for coming.”

“Of course I come. I come because I’m a selfish old rascal. I come because I want to, I know where I’m appreciated, eh? Ha, ha, ha, now don’t you think you’re getting worse. You’re getting on fine. We’ll soon have you about again, turning out cupboards, hanging wallpapers. Jemimy! Do you remember hanging that convolvulus wallpaper in my bedroom in the Gosport Road, eh?” The Funny Man slapped his leg, and the tears rolled down his cheeks with laughter at the recollection of the episode.

“Do you remember how I helped you? And all I did was to step into a pail of size, nearly broke my leg, and spoilt the only pair of trousers I had! Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! I had to go to bed for four hours while you washed them out and aired ’em. O dear!”

Old Mrs. Labbory began to laugh, too, in a feeble, distant manner. Then she stopped and looked at him wistfully.

“You going to Katie Easebrook’s wedding, Jim?”

“Eh? Oh, yes, I’m going, old girl. I’m going straight on now.”

He hadn’t meant to mention this. There’s something a little crude in talking about a wedding to a dying woman. He paused and looked uncomfortably at his feet. The voice from the past reached him again.

“You ought to have married Katie Easebrook.”

“Eh? What’s that? Me? Oh, no, old girl, what are you talking about? Me marry Katie Easebrook? Why, I wouldn’t have had the face to ask her. Not when there’s a good fellow like Charlie about.”

Like some discerning oracle came the reply:

“Charlie’s a good feller, a good-looking feller, too--but you would have made her a better husband, Jim.”

With some curious twist of chivalry and affection the little man gripped the old woman’s hand and kissed it.

“You’ve always thought too much of me, Martha, old girl.”

“I’ve had good cause to, Jim.... Good-bye.”

He walked a little unsteadily down Radnor Street. A pale October sun filtered through a light mist, and gave to the meagre front gardens a certain glamour. Fat spiders hung in glistening webs between the shrubs and Japanese anemones. Children were playing absorbing games with chalk and stones upon the pavement. Cats looked down sleepily from the security of narrow walls. He had to pat a little girl’s head and arbitrate in a dispute between two girls and a boy regarding the laws of a game called “Snowball.”

“Life is a lovely thing,” he thought as he hurried on. “Poor old Martha!... She’s going out.”

He was, of course, late for the service in the church. In some way he did not regret this. He slipped quietly into a seat at the back, unobserved. A hymn was being sung, or was it a psalm? He didn’t know. There was something about a church service he didn’t like. It disturbed him at some uncomfortable level. Charlie was standing by the altar, looking self-conscious and impatient. Katie was a ghostly unrecognizable figure, like a fly bound up in a spool in a spider’s web. Thirty or forty people were scattered on either side of the central aisle. He could only see their backs. The parson began to drone the service, slowly enunciating the prescribed purposes of the married state. Willy Nilly felt a flush of discomfort. It somehow didn’t seem right that Katie should have to stand there before all these people and have things put to her quite so straight.

“Rather detailed, old boy,” he thought. “Perhaps that’s why a bride wears a veil.”

When it was over, he walked boldly up the aisle and followed a few intimates into the vestry. He was conscious of people indicating him with nudges and whispering: “Look! That’s Willy Nilly!”

In the vestry, Katie’s mother was weeping, and Katie appeared to be weeping with one eye and laughing with the other. A few relatives were shaking hands, kissing and talking excitedly. Someone said: “Here’s Willy Nilly.”

Charlie gripped his hand and whispered:

“Come on Willie, old boy, kiss the bride.”

The bride looked up at him with her glorious eyes, and held out her arms.

“Dear old Willie ... so glad you came, old boy.”

He kissed the bride all right, and held her from him.

“God bless you, dear old girl. God bless you. May you ... may all your dreams come true, old girl.”

In most weddings there is a streak of pathos, but in theatrical weddings the note is predominant. It is as though the lookers-on realize that these people whose life is passed in make-believe are bound to burn their fingers when they begin to touch reality. Perhaps their reactions are too violent to be bound within the four walls of a contract.

Katie’s wedding certainly contained a large element of sadness.

“She looks so sweet and fragile. I hope he’ll be good to her,” women whispered.

The lunch at the Hautboy Hotel was hilarious to an almost artificial degree. A great deal of champagne was drunk, and toasts were prolific. It was here that Willy Nilly came in. The Funny Man excelled himself. He was among the people who knew him and loved him. He made goo-goo eyes at the bridesmaids, he told stories, he imitated all the denizens of a farmyard, he gave a mock conjuring display, and his speech in proposing the health of the bride’s father and mother was the hit of the afternoon. (He was not allowed the principal toast as that had been allocated to Charlie’s father, who was a stockbroker.) To the waiter who hovered behind chairs with napkined magnums of champagne, he kept on saying:

“Not too much, old boy. I’ve a rehearsal at three-forty.”

Nevertheless, he drained his glass every time it was filled. The craving to be funny exceeded every other craving. Willy Nilly had knocked about the world in every kind of company. It took a lot to go to his head. It was almost impossible to make him drunk. When at three o’clock it was time for the bride and bridegroom to depart he was not by any means drunk, certainly not so drunk as Charlie, but he was in a slightly detached comatose state of mind. He kissed the bride once more, and to Charlie he said:

“God bless you, old boy. Be good to her. You’ve got the dearest woman in the world.”

And Charlie replied:

“I know, old boy. You’ve been a brick to us. You oughtn’t to have sent the cheque as well as all that silver. Good luck, old boy.”

“O my in-laws, my in-laws, why don’t you leave me be.” It seemed but a flash from one experience to another, from pressing the girl’s dainty shoulders in a parting embrace to stamping about on the draughty stage and calling into the void:

“Now, Mr. Prescott, I want a little more slowing down of this passage. Do you see what I mean, old boy? It gives me more time for the business.”

The gag with the trombone player was considerably improved. Must keep going, doing things--a contract to sign at five-fifteen. He was feeling tired when the rehearsal was over--mustn’t get tired before the two shows to-night. Perhaps he could get half an hour’s nap after seeing the agent before it was time to feed. Someone gave him a cup of tea in the theatre, and a dresser told him a long story about a disease which his wife’s father got through sitting on a churchyard wall, waiting for the village pub. to open at six.

There appeared no interval of time between this and sitting in front of the suave furtive-looking gentleman named Welsh who “handled” him on behalf of the United Varieties Agency. He was conscious of not being at his best with Welsh. He believed that he could have got much better terms in his new contract, but somehow the matter did not appear to him to be of great importance. He changed the subject and told Welsh the story about the sea captain and the Irish stewardess. Welsh laughed immoderately. After all, quite a good fellow--Welsh. He was anxious to get away and see some boys at the club. Jimmy would certainly have a new story ready. He hadn’t seen Jimmy for four days.

Jimmy was certainly there, and not only Jimmy, but old Barrow, and Sam Lenning, and a host of others. He had a double Scotch whisky and proceeded to take a hand in the game of swopping improper stories. At one time something seemed to jog at his consciousness and say: “Do you really think much of this kind of thing, old boy?” And another voice replied: “What does it matter?... They’ve just arrived at Brighton railway station. In another ten minutes they’ll be at ‘The Ship.’”

“I thought you were going to have a chop at six-thirty, Willy,” someone remarked to him suddenly.

“So I am, old boy.”

“It’s seven-fifteen now.”

Good gracious! So it was! Well, he didn’t particularly want a chop. He would have a couple of sandwiches and another double Scotch. He was quite himself again in his dressing room at the theatre. He loved the smell of grease paint and spirit gum, the contact of fantastic whiskers and clothes, the rather shabby mirror under a strong light. His first song was going to be “Old Fags,” the feckless ruffian who picks up cigarette ends. The dresser, whose name was Flood and who always called him Mr. Nilly, was ready with his three changes.

“Number five’s on,” came the message down the corridors. Good! There was only “Charlemayne,” the equilibrist, between him and “his people.”

Willy Nilly had got to love “his people” as he mentally designated them. He knew them, and they knew him--the reward of many years’ hard work. He loved stumbling down the corridors, through the iron doors, and groping his way amidst the dim medley of the wings, where gorgeous unreal women, and men in bowler hats patted him as he passed and whispered:

“Hullo, Willy, old boy! Good luck!”

He loved to wait there and hear his number go up; the roar of welcome which greeted it was music to his soul.

“Number seven!”

The orchestra played the opening bars and then with a queer shuffle he was before them, a preposterous figure with a bright red nose, a miniature bowler hat, and a fearful old suit with ferns growing out of the seams, and a heavy sack slung across his back.

“Old Fags! Old Fags!
See my collection of fine old fags.
If you want to be happy,
If you want to be gay,
Empty your sack
At the fag-end of the day.”

Oh, yes, you ought to see Willy Nilly in “Old Fags.” The habitués at the Railham Empire will tell you all about him. The doleful wheezy voice, the quaint antics, and then the screamingly funny business when he empties the sack of cigarette ends all over the stage and, of course, at the bottom is a bottle of gin and a complete set of ladies’ undies (apparently new and trimmed in pink). Then the business of finding innumerable cigarette ends in his unmanageable beard.

On that night, Willy Nilly was at his best. A lightning change and he came on as “The Carpet Salesman” in which he brought on a roll of carpet, the opportunities concerning which are obvious. Then followed “The lady who works for the lady next door.” The inevitable encore--prepared for and expected--followed. A terrible Russian--more whiskers, red this time--singing:

“O Mary-vitch,
O Ada-vitch
I don’t know which
Ich lieber ditch;
I told your pa
I’d got the itch;
He promptly hit me
On the snitch.”

It was difficult for Willy to escape after this valiant satirical digression.

He fled perspiring to his dressing-room.

“Give me a drink, old boy,” he gasped to the lugubrious Flood.

He had smothered his face in cocoa-butter, when there was a knock on the door.

“Mr. Peter Wilberforce, representing the _Railham Mercury_.”

“Ah, yes, come in, old boy.”

Mr. Wilberforce was in no hurry to depart. He had a spot--“just a couple of fingers, old boy” of whisky. He wanted a column of bright stuff for the next issue of the weekly. “Is Railham behind the other suburbs in humour? Interview with the famous Willy Nilly--our local product.”

“You just give me a lead,” said Mr. Wilberforce, “I’ll fill in the padding.”

Willy Nilly found turning out the bright stuff immediately after his performance the most exhausting experience of the day. He was quite relieved when, at the end of forty minutes, there was a knock at the door, and a woman with a lanky son was shown in. This was the young man who wanted to go on the stage. The pressman departed and the mother started forth on a long harangue about what people said about her son’s remarkable genius for acting. Before Willy Nilly knew where he was, he was listening to the boy giving imitations of Beerbohm Tree and Henry Ainley. It was quite easy to tell which was meant to be which, and so Willy grasped the young man’s hand and said:

“Very good, old boy! Very good.”

He promised to do what he could, but by the time the mother had gone all over the same ground three times he found it was too late to pop round to the club again. It was nearly time to make up for the second show. He dozed in the chair for a few moments. Suddenly he thought:

“They’ve had dinner. They’re probably taking a stroll on the front before turning in.”

He poured himself out another tot of whisky and picked up his red nose.

“O God! How tired I feel!... Not quite the man you were, old boy.”

He found it a terrible effort to go on that second time. “Old Fags” seemed flat. He began to be subtly aware that the audience knew that he knew that the song wasn’t really funny at all. At the end the applause was mild. “The Carpet Salesman” went even worse.

“Pull yourself together, old boy,” he muttered as he staggered off. It wouldn’t do. A man who tops the bill can’t afford not to bring the house down with every song. He made a superhuman effort with “The lady who works for the lady next door.” It certainly went better than the others, just well enough to take an encore rather quickly. On this occasion he altered his encore. Instead of “Mary-vitch,” he sang a hilarious song with the refrain:

“O my! Hold me down!
My wife’s gone away till Monday!”

At the end of the first verse he felt that he had got them. Success excited him. He went for it for all he was worth. Willy Nilly was himself again. The house roared at him. He had the greatest difficulty in escaping without giving a further encore. As he stumbled up the stone staircase to his dressing-room, he suddenly thought:

“They’ve gone to bed now.”

The imperturbable Flood followed him, laden with properties.

“I’ll just have one more spot, Flood, old boy.”

How tired he was! He cleaned up languidly and got into his normal clothes.

“Well, that’s that, old boy,” he said to Flood. “Now I think we’ll toddle off to our bye-byes.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Nilly, wasn’t you going round to Mr. Bird Craft’s?”

Eh? Oh, yes, for sure; he’d forgotten about poor old Bird. Couldn’t exactly let an old pal in. Well, he would have a cab and hang the expense--just stay a few minutes--dear old Bird would understand. But he stayed an hour at Bird Craft’s. He listened to three new comic songs and a lot of patter.

“Yes, you’ve got a winner there, old boy,” he remarked at the end of each song.

It was nearly one o’clock when he groped his way up the dim staircase of his own house. The bedroom looked bleak and uninteresting. It had never struck him before in quite that way. He had always liked his bedroom with its heavy mahogany furniture and red plush curtains, but somehow to-night the place seemed forlorn ... as though something was terribly lacking.

“You’re tired, old boy.”

He undressed and threw his clothes carelessly on chairs and tables. He got into bed and regarded the room, trying with his tired brain, to think what was wrong. His clothes ought not to have been thrown about like that, of course. He felt that they and he were out of place in the large room. A strange feeling of melancholy crept over him.

“It’s badly ordered ... it’s all badly ordered, old boy.”

He had a great desire to cry, so weak he felt. But no, a man mustn’t do that; a funny man certainly mustn’t. His mind wandered back to his old mother. He remembered the days when she had taught him to pray. He would give anything for the relief of prayer. But he couldn’t do that either. It didn’t seem exactly playing the game. He had put all that kind of thing by so long ago. He despised those people who led unvirtuous lives and then in the end turned religious. He wasn’t going to pretend. He turned out the light, and closed his eyes. He would neither weep nor pray, but he must express himself somehow. Perhaps he compromised between these two human frailties. Certainly his voice was very near a sob, and his accents vividly alive with prayer as he cried to the darkness:

“Charlie, old boy, be good to her.... For God’s sake be good to her.”

THE BEAUTIFUL, MERCILESS LADY

There are few men strong enough to withstand success. She is the beautiful, merciless lady.

At the first tap on the shoulder the victim of her favour rocks and staggers. She glances into his eyes, and unless he is a creature of superb control he loses his head. He plunges hither and thither, clutching at the golden aura in which she seems to float. He feels himself a thing apart, transcendent, impervious, invincible. The world of pigmy men around him are merely the drab background to a brilliant picture. He can do no wrong. The standards of morality and behaviour which these others have set up are not his standards. He is the darling of the gods, and he follows his mistress up and up, leaping from crag to crag on the slope of the sunlit mountain.

Whither?

He never puts this query to himself. He lives in a welter of exultation. All things are charged with the magic of a thousand revelations. The younger he is when she first meets him the more devastating are her allurements. Possibly this is why so many infant prodigies never emerge from the infant stage. She stifles them with a surfeit of her riches--the little bores! She likes men best in their early manhood, when she may flirt with them at her leisure. The old she seldom troubles about. They know her wiles and are frequently too cunning or too weary.

Oh, but the young man, still with beauty and health and clean, strong limbs!

It was such a one that she met in the person of my friend, Johnny Lydgate. She led him away and destroyed him as completely as the rose is destroyed by the breath of autumn winds.

There was no reason why he should have been destroyed, no exterior cause. He had a thousand friends and no enemy, except the one which she created in himself. Everything tended to produce in Johnny Lydgate a creature of gentle bearing, of sanity, and equipoise. His father was a delightful old gentleman, a librarian in a country town, who kept homing pigeons and compiled anthologies. His mother and sisters were charming and lovable women. They formed a united, devoted family.

It was at Stoneleigh College that I first met Lydgate. We were inseparable companions for nearly four years. My recollections of him there were those of a pleasant, companionable, almost negative schoolboy. He excelled at nothing and displayed no ambitions. He was affectionate, intelligent, and amusing, but at work and at sport he never rose above mediocrity.

We know a man’s body by the familiar regard of its movements and expressions. We know the quality of his mind as it is revealed to us through his opinions and observations, but it is strange how we may get to know a man’s soul by some instant of revelation. We may think we are entirely familiar with him. We may have known him intimately for twenty years or more, but one day we suddenly experience a scrap of recognition of something deeper. It may be a phrase that he employs, a gesture, an attitude, some queer telepathic message from his eyes; but in that instant we realize that we know our man for the first time. All our values concerning him become readjusted from that moment.

There came such a moment to me when Lydgate and I were in our last term at Stoneleigh. I remember the moment vividly. It was after our inter-house football match, in which Lydgate had played very well--far above his average. Our Housemaster, who was a very popular man, ran up and, slapping Johnny on the back, called out: “Bravo, Lydgate! Bravo, bravo!” As he turned away I saw my school chum look up at the sky and a queer expression came over his face, a kind of drunken egoism, and I suddenly thought to myself:

“So _that_ is Johnny Lydgate, after all! And I thought I knew----”

For a time after leaving school we lost touch with each other. Boys are very apt to make vows of eternal friendship, and then--well, other things happen along. Writing is such a fag.

Johnny went to Paris to study art, whilst I walked the hospitals. However, he had not been in Paris for a year--he only wrote to me once!--when his father died. As may be imagined, a man who specializes in homing pigeons and anthologies does not leave a fortune. The Lydgate family found themselves in distressed circumstances. Lydgate was recalled from Paris, and had to do something immediately to earn money.

He took the position manfully, and with that cheery good humour that was characteristic of him. He obtained a place as an assistant to a firm of decorative designers, hoping that his meagre training might be of some assistance. His remuneration was, naturally, quite nominal, but the firm held out prospects of advancement. He stayed with this firm for seven years and gave no evidence of special ability. He jogged along stolidly, learning to make pleasant, undistinguished designs for wallpapers, cretonnes, and furniture. He was very popular in the studio where he worked, on account of his unfailing good humour, unselfishness, and gift of fun. He distinguished himself most by making caricatures of his colleagues, and imitating their voices and mannerisms. He displayed no particular ambitions, other than to jog along, and have as good a time as his limited income would allow.

We saw each other occasionally, and when I at last got my degrees I bought a practice in West Kensington, not far from where Lydgate had his rooms. He was at that time earning three hundred a year.

The house I had taken was a tall, gaunt place in an inconspicuous street. I was unmarried, and the place was obviously too large for my requirements. So I had the inspiration to suggest to Lydgate that he should occupy the upper part, and pay me whatever he was paying for his diggings. He accepted my offer with alacrity. His mother and sisters were still living in the country.

The arrangement was full of promise. We had great fun arranging, furnishing, and decorating the rooms. Lydgate spent his evenings and Sundays doing all his own painting and decorating, and he also insisted on doing mine.

I was not convinced that the delicate scheme of grays which he evolved for my consulting-room, with its frieze of stencilled peacocks and yew trees, was quite in keeping with the dignity of my bold brass plate on the front door, but then I knew nothing about art, and Lydgate was so kind in the matter that I let it pass. I had a boy to open the door, and an old woman kept the place reasonably clean, and she used to cook us an evening meal, which we had together.

That was a very happy time for both of us, and it lasted some years. My brass plate did not seem to impress the neighbourhood as I should have liked. Sometimes when I opened the door to people they used to ask for the doctor. I once attended Lydgate when he had a feverish chill, and he said my bedside manners were appalling. But gradually it got about that young Doctor Berners was not such a fool as you might imagine. Some said that he was a fairly good, straight, sensible doctor, who took trouble with his patients. At the end of the first year the practice began to show signs of developing.

It was at this time that Lydgate had an affair with a married ballad-singer. I could never quite get to the root of the matter. Neither could I understand his infatuation. She was a fair, plump person, with magnificent neck and shoulders, a brilliantly clear but unsympathetic voice, and an almost unique gift of self-concentration. She had this wonderful voice, but she knew nothing, not even about music. She used to wear tiny paste diamonds early in the morning, and a shiny vegetable silk jumper which made her person appear even more capacious than it really was. Her name was Betty Brandt, and she had a husband who travelled in automobile accessories.

As I say, I do not know the details of this regrettable affair. I only know that it was very passionate, rather involved, and it went on for nearly six months. At the end of that time something happened. Whether they quarrelled, or whether the traveller in automobile accessories intervened, I cannot say. But Johnny Lydgate was desperately unhappy. He sulked and moped and would not go out, except backward and forward to his work. And then, one day, he did not even go to that. He told me surlily that he had left. He gave no reason. He sat about at home, and apparently drowned his sorrow in charcoal and water-colours. He sketched and drew all day, things which he said he never got an opportunity of doing at “that confounded shop.” I thought it as well to leave him alone. He paid his rent the first week and then he asked me for credit, which I naturally acceded.

One Sunday morning I went up to his room, and found the walls covered with drawings and sketches. In my poor opinion they seemed to be a brilliant advance on anything he had done before. I said so, and he seemed pleased, and announced that he was going to hawk his work around to editors, and try to start up on his own. I wished him the best of luck.

At the end of a fortnight his campaign had apparently met with a fair measure of success. He told me he had some commissions and he hoped soon to be able to let me have some money. The next morning he came into the dining-room. His face was crinkled with suppressed laughter, his eyes brilliant with exultant glee. He unfolded a drawing and held it up on the wall. It was a caricature of Betty Brandt!

It was the most brilliant and, at the same time, the cruelest thing I have ever seen. It was no portraiture, but you could not mistake it. I had never liked Betty Brandt, and I was on the point of protesting, and then the realization that this drawing, in any case, meant the end of the Betty affair, gave me such a feeling of relief that I laughed almost hysterically. Johnny and I stood side by side, laughing till the tears rolled down our cheeks. Poor Betty!

He seemed freer after that, and worked assiduously at the orders he had in hand. I am afraid they were not very remunerative. It was a long time before he proffered any further contribution toward the upkeep of our establishment, and when he did so, it was with many groans and apologies for the smallness of the amount. I told him that he was not to worry about it; my practice was beginning to pay fairly well, and it made a great difference to me to have a companion.