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CHAPTER VI
JIMMY ABANDONS PICCADILLY
Jimmy removed himself sorrowfully from the doorstep of the Duke
of Devizes' house in Cleveland Row. His mission had been a
failure. In answer to his request to be permitted to see Lord
Percy Whipple, the butler had replied that Lord Percy was
confined to his bed and was seeing nobody. He eyed Jimmy, on
receiving his name, with an interest which he failed to conceal,
for he too, like Bayliss, had read and heartily enjoyed Bill
Blake's spirited version of the affair of last night which had
appeared in the _Daily Sun_. Indeed, he had clipped the report out
and had been engaged in pasting it in an album when the bell
rang.
In face of this repulse, Jimmy's campaign broke down. He was at a
loss to know what to do next. He ebbed away from the Duke's front
door like an army that has made an unsuccessful frontal attack on
an impregnable fortress. He could hardly force his way in and
search for Lord Percy.
He walked along Pall Mall, deep in thought. It was a beautiful
day. The rain which had fallen in the night and relieved Mr.
Crocker from the necessity of watching cricket had freshened
London up.
The sun was shining now from a turquoise sky. A gentle breeze
blew from the south. Jimmy made his way into Piccadilly, and
found that thoroughfare a-roar with happy automobilists and
cheery pedestrians. Their gaiety irritated him. He resented
their apparent enjoyment of life.
Jimmy's was not a nature that lent itself readily to
introspection, but he was putting himself now through a searching
self-examination which was revealing all kinds of unsuspected
flaws in his character. He had been having too good a time for
years past to have leisure to realise that he possessed any
responsibilities. He had lived each day as it came in the spirit
of the Monks of Thelema. But his father's reception of the news
of last night's escapade and the few words he had said had given
him pause. Life had taken on of a sudden a less simple aspect.
Dimly, for he was not accustomed to thinking along these lines,
he perceived the numbing truth that we human beings are merely as
many pieces in a jig-saw puzzle and that our every movement
affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so, faintly at
first and taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic spirit
have come to Prehistoric Man. We are all individualists till we
wake up.
The thought of having done anything to make his father unhappy
was bitter to Jimmy Crocker. They had always been more like
brothers than father and son. Hard thoughts about himself surged
through Jimmy's mind. With a dejectedness to which it is possible
that his headache contributed he put the matter squarely to
himself. His father was longing to return to America—he, Jimmy,
by his idiotic behaviour was putting obstacles in the way of that
return—what was the answer? The answer, to Jimmy's way of
thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that,
when all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to
be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down,
skunk.
Having come to this conclusion, Jimmy found himself so low in
spirit that the cheerful bustle of Piccadilly was too much for
him. He turned, and began to retrace his steps. Arriving in due
course at the top of the Haymarket he hesitated, then turned down
it till he reached Cockspur Street. Here the Trans-Atlantic
steamship companies have their offices, and so it came about that
Jimmy, chancing to look up as he walked, perceived before him,
riding gallantly on a cardboard ocean behind a plate-glass
window, the model of a noble vessel. He stopped, conscious of a
curious thrill. There is a superstition in all of us. When an
accidental happening chances to fit smoothly in with a mood,
seeming to come as a direct commentary on that mood, we are apt
to accept it in defiance of our pure reason as an omen. Jimmy
strode to the window and inspected the model narrowly. The sight
of it had started a new train of thought. His heart began to
race. Hypnotic influences were at work on him.
Why not? Could there be a simpler solution of the whole trouble?
Inside the office he would see a man with whiskers buying a
ticket for New York. The simplicity of the process fascinated
him. All you had to do was to walk in, bend over the counter
while the clerk behind it made dabs with a pencil at the
illustrated plate of the ship's interior organs, and hand over
your money. A child could do it, if in funds. At this thought his
hand strayed to his trouser-pocket. A musical crackling of
bank-notes proceeded from the depths. His quarterly allowance had
been paid to him only a short while before, and, though a willing
spender, he still retained a goodly portion of it. He rustled the
notes again. There was enough in that pocket to buy three tickets
to New York. Should he? . . . Or, on the other hand—always look
on both sides of the question—should he not?
It would certainly seem to be the best thing for all parties if
he did follow the impulse. By remaining in London he was injuring
everybody, himself included. . . . Well, there was no harm in
making enquiries. Probably the boat was full up anyway. . . . He
walked into the office.
"Have you anything left on the _Atlantic_ this trip?"
The clerk behind the counter was quite the wrong sort of person
for Jimmy to have had dealings with in his present mood. What
Jimmy needed was a grave, sensible man who would have laid a hand
on his shoulder and said "Do nothing rash, my boy!" The clerk
fell short of this ideal in practically every particular. He was
about twenty-two, and he seemed perfectly enthusiastic about the
idea of Jimmy going to America. He beamed at Jimmy.
"Plenty of room," he said. "Very few people crossing. Give you
excellent accommodation."
"When does the boat sail?"
"Eight to-morrow morning from Liverpool. Boat-train leaves
Paddington six to-night."
Prudence came at the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a
matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a
sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided
before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. He had
ascertained that he could sail on the _Atlantic_ if he wished to.
The sensible thing to do now was to go and lunch and see how he
felt about it after that. He thanked the clerk, and started to
walk up the Haymarket, feeling hard-headed and practical, yet
with a strong premonition that he was going to make a fool of
himself just the same.
It was half-way up the Haymarket that he first became conscious
of the girl with the red hair.
Plunged in thought, he had not noticed her before. And yet she
had been walking a few paces in front of him most of the way. She
had come out of Panton Street, walking briskly, as one going to
keep a pleasant appointment. She carried herself admirably, with
a jaunty swing.
Having become conscious of this girl, Jimmy, ever a warm admirer
of the sex, began to feel a certain interest stealing over him.
With interest came speculation. He wondered who she was. He
wondered where she had bought that excellently fitting suit of
tailor-made grey. He admired her back, and wondered whether her
face, if seen, would prove a disappointment. Thus musing, he drew
near to the top of the Haymarket, where it ceases to be a street
and becomes a whirlpool of rushing traffic. And here the girl,
having paused and looked over her shoulder, stepped off the
sidewalk. As she did so a taxi-cab rounded the corner quickly
from the direction of Coventry Street.
The agreeable surprise of finding the girl's face fully as
attractive as her back had stimulated Jimmy, so that he was keyed
up for the exhibition of swift presence-of-mind. He jumped
forward and caught her arm, and swung her to one side as the cab
rattled past, its driver thinking hard thoughts to himself. The
whole episode was an affair of seconds.
"Thank you," said the girl.
She rubbed the arm which he had seized with rather a rueful
expression. She was a little white, and her breath came quickly.
"I hope I didn't hurt you," said Jimmy.
"You did. Very much. But the taxi would have hurt me more."
She laughed. She looked very attractive when she laughed. She had
a small, piquant, vivacious face. Jimmy, as he looked at it, had
an odd feeling that he had seen her before—when and where he did
not know. That mass of red-gold hair seemed curiously familiar.
Somewhere in the hinterland of his mind there lurked a memory,
but he could not bring it into the open. As for the girl, if she
had ever met him before, she showed no signs of recollecting it.
Jimmy decided that, if he had seen her, it must have been in his
reporter days. She was plainly an American, and he occasionally
had the feeling that he had seen every one in America when he had
worked for the _Chronicle_.
"That's right," he said approvingly. "Always look on the bright
side."
"I only arrived in London yesterday," said the girl, "and I
haven't got used to your keeping-to-the-left rules. I don't
suppose I shall ever get back to New York alive. Perhaps, as you
have saved my life, you wouldn't mind doing me another service.
Can you tell me which is the nearest and safest way to a
restaurant called the Regent Grill?"
"It's just over there, at the corner of Regent Street. As to the
safest way, if I were you I should cross over at the top of the
street there and then work round westward. Otherwise you will have
to cross Piccadilly Circus."
"I absolutely refuse even to try to cross Piccadilly Circus.
Thank you very much. I will follow your advice. I hope I shall
get there. It doesn't seem at all likely."
She gave him a little nod, and moved away. Jimmy turned into that
drug-store at the top of the Haymarket at which so many Londoners
have found healing and comfort on the morning after, and bought
the pink drink for which his system had been craving since he
rose from bed. He wondered why, as he drained it, he should feel
ashamed and guilty.
A few minutes later he found himself, with mild surprise, going
down the steps of the Regent Grill. It was the last place he had
had in his mind when he had left the steamship company's offices
in quest of lunch. He had intended to seek out some quiet,
restful nook where he could be alone with his thoughts. If
anybody had told him then that five minutes later he would be
placing himself of his own free will within the range of a
restaurant orchestra playing "My Little Grey Home in the
West"—and the orchestra at the Regent played little else—he
would not have believed him.
Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. At this
time the Regent Grill was enjoying one of those bursts of
popularity for which restaurateurs pray to whatever strange gods
they worship. The more prosperous section of London's Bohemia
flocked to it daily. When Jimmy had deposited his hat with the
robber-band who had their cave just inside the main entrance and
had entered the grill-room, he found it congested. There did not
appear to be a single unoccupied table.
From where he stood he could see the girl of the red-gold hair.
Her back was towards him, and she was sitting at a table against
one of the pillars with a little man with eye-glasses, a handsome
woman in the forties, and a small stout boy who was skirmishing
with the olives. As Jimmy hesitated, the vigilant head-waiter,
who knew him well, perceived him, and hurried up.
"In one moment, Mister Crockaire!" he said, and began to scatter
commands among the underlings. "I will place a table for you in
the aisle."
"Next to that pillar, please," said Jimmy.
The underlings had produced a small table—apparently from up
their sleeves, and were draping it in a cloth. Jimmy sat down and
gave his order. Ordering was going on at the other table. The
little man seemed depressed at the discovery that corn on the cob
and soft-shelled crabs were not to be obtained, and his wife's
reception of the news that clams were not included in the
Regent's bill-of-fare was so indignant that one would have said
that she regarded the fact as evidence that Great Britain was
going to pieces and would shortly lose her place as a world
power.
A selection having finally been agreed upon, the orchestra struck
up "My Little Grey Home in the West," and no attempt was made to
compete with it. When the last lingering strains had died away
and the violinist-leader, having straightened out the kinks in
his person which the rendition of the melody never failed to
produce, had bowed for the last time, a clear, musical voice
spoke from the other side of the pillar.
"Jimmy Crocker is a WORM!"
Jimmy spilled his cocktail. It might have been the voice of
Conscience.
"I despise him more than any one on earth. I hate to think that
he's an American."
Jimmy drank the few drops that remained in his glass, partly to
make sure of them, partly as a restorative. It is an unnerving
thing to be despised by a red-haired girl whose life you have
just saved. To Jimmy it was not only unnerving; it was uncanny.
This girl had not known him when they met on the street a few
moments before. How then was she able to display such intimate
acquaintance with his character now as to describe him—justly
enough—as a worm? Mingled with the mystery of the thing was its
pathos. The thought that a girl could be as pretty as this one
and yet dislike him so much was one of the saddest things Jimmy
had ever come across. It was like one of those Things Which Make
Me Weep In This Great City so dear to the hearts of the
sob-writers of his late newspaper.
A waiter bustled up with a high-ball. Jimmy thanked him with his
eyes. He needed it. He raised it to his lips.
"He's always drinking—"
He set it down hurriedly.
"—and making a disgraceful exhibition of himself in public! I
always think Jimmy Crocker—"
Jimmy began to wish that somebody would stop this girl. Why
couldn't the little man change the subject to the weather, or
that stout child start prattling about some general topic? Surely
a boy of that age, newly arrived in London, must have all sorts
of things to prattle about? But the little man was dealing
strenuously with a breaded cutlet, while the stout boy, grimly
silent, surrounded fish-pie in the forthright manner of a
starving python. As for the elder woman, she seemed to be
wrestling with unpleasant thoughts, beyond speech.
"—I always think that Jimmy Crocker is the worst case I know of
the kind of American young man who spends all his time in Europe
and tries to become an imitation Englishman. Most of them are the
sort any country would be glad to get rid of, but he used to work
once, so you can't excuse him on the ground that he hasn't the
sense to know what he's doing. He's deliberately chosen to loaf
about London and make a pest of himself. He went to pieces with
his eyes open. He's a perfect, utter, hopeless WORM!"
Jimmy had never been very fond of the orchestra at the Regent
Grill, holding the view that it interfered with conversation and
made for an unhygienic rapidity of mastication; but he was
profoundly grateful to it now for bursting suddenly into _La
Boheme_, the loudest item in its repertory. Under cover of that
protective din he was able to toy with a steaming dish which his
waiter had brought. Probably that girl was saying all sorts of
things about him still but he could not hear them.
The music died away. For a moment the tortured air quivered in
comparative silence; then the girl's voice spoke again. She had,
however, selected another topic of conversation.
"I've seen all I want to of England," she said, "I've seen
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and His Majesty's
Theatre and the Savoy and the Cheshire Cheese, and I've developed
a frightful home-sickness. Why shouldn't we go back to-morrow?"
For the first time in the proceedings the elder woman spoke. She
cast aside her mantle of gloom long enough to say "Yes," then
wrapped it round her again. The little man, who had apparently
been waiting for her vote before giving his own, said that the
sooner he was on board a New York-bound boat the better he would
be pleased. The stout boy said nothing. He had finished his
fish-pie, and was now attacking jam roll with a sort of morose
resolution.
"There's certain to be a boat," said the girl. "There always is.
You've got to say that for England—it's an easy place to get back
to America from." She paused. "What I can't understand is how,
after having been in America and knowing what it was like, Jimmy
Crocker could stand living . . ."
The waiter had come to Jimmy's side, bearing cheese; but Jimmy
looked at it with dislike and shook his head in silent negation.
He was about to depart from this place. His capacity for
absorbing home-truths about himself was exhausted. He placed a
noiseless sovereign on the table, caught the waiter's eye,
registered renunciation, and departed soft-footed down the aisle.
The waiter, a man who had never been able to bring himself to
believe in miracles, revised the views of a life-time. He looked
at the sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the sovereign again.
Then he took up the coin and bit it furtively.
A few minutes later, a hat-check boy, untipped for the first time
in his predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal
intensity, but with far different feelings. Speechless concern
was limned on his young face.
The commissionaire at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant
touched his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confidence of a man
who is accustomed to getting sixpence a time for doing it.
"Taxi, Mr. Crocker?"
"A worm," said Jimmy.
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Always drinking," explained Jimmy, "and making a pest of
himself."
He passed on. The commissionaire stared after him as intently as
the waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr.
Crocker like this after supper, but never before during the
luncheon hour.
Jimmy made his way to his club in Northumberland Avenue. For
perhaps half an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the
smoking-room; then, his mind made up, he went to one of the
writing-tables. He sat awaiting inspiration for some minutes,
then began to write.
The letter he wrote was to his father:
Dear Dad:
I have been thinking over what we talked about this
morning, and it seems to me the best thing I can do is to
drop out of sight for a brief space. If I stay on in
London, I am likely at any moment to pull some *** like
last night's which will spill the beans for you once more.
The least I can do for you is to give you a clear field
and not interfere, so I am off to New York by to-night's
boat.
I went round to Percy's to try to grovel in the dust
before him, but he wouldn't see me. It's no good
grovelling in the dust of the front steps for the benefit
of a man who's in bed on the second floor, so I withdrew
in more or less good order. I then got the present idea.
Mark how all things work together for good. When they come
to you and say "No title for you. Your son slugged our pal
Percy," all you have to do is to come back at them with "I
know my son slugged Percy, and believe me I didn't do a
thing to him! I packed him off to America within
twenty-four hours. Get me right, boys! I'm anti-Jimmy and
pro-Percy." To which their reply will be "Oh, well, in
that case arise, Lord Crocker!" or whatever they say when
slipping a title to a deserving guy. So you will see that
by making this getaway I am doing the best I can to put
things straight. I shall give this to Bayliss to give to
you. I am going to call him up on the phone in a minute to
have him pack a few simple tooth-brushes and so on for me.
On landing in New York, I shall instantly proceed to the
Polo Grounds to watch a game of Rounders, and will cable
you the full score. Well. I think that's about all. So
good-bye—or even farewell—for the present.
J.
P.S. I know you'll understand, dad. I'm doing what seems
to me the only possible thing. Don't worry about me. I
shall be all right. I'll get back my old job and be a
terrific success all round. You go ahead and get that
title and then meet me at the entrance of the Polo
Grounds. I'll be looking for you.
P.P.S. I'm a worm.
The young clerk at the steamship offices appeared rejoiced to see
Jimmy once more. With a sunny smile he snatched a pencil from his
ear and plunged it into the vitals of the Atlantic.
"How about E. a hundred and eight?"
"Suits me."
"You're too late to go in the passenger-list, of course."
Jimmy did not reply. He was gazing rigidly at a girl who had just
come in, a girl with red hair and a friendly smile.
"So you're sailing on the _Atlantic_, too!" she said, with a glance
at the chart on the counter. "How odd! We have just decided to go
back on her too. There's nothing to keep us here and we're all
homesick. Well, you see I wasn't run over after I left you."
A delicious understanding relieved Jimmy's swimming brain, as
thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he
was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery
came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New
York—perhaps she knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay,
not on personal acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him
which she had expressed with such freedom and conviction so short
a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know who he was!
Into this soothing stream of thought cut the voice of the clerk.
"What name, please?"
Jimmy's mind rocked again. Why were these things happening to him
to-day of all days, when he needed the tenderest treatment, when
he had a headache already?
The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. He had laid down his pencil
and was holding aloft a pen. Jimmy gulped. Every name in the
English language had passed from his mind. And then from out of
the dark came inspiration.
"Bayliss," he croaked.
The girl held out her hand.
"Then we can introduce ourselves at last. My name is Ann Chester.
How do you do, Mr. Bayliss?"
"How do you do, Miss Chester?"
The clerk had finished writing the ticket, and was pressing
labels and a pink paper on him. The paper, he gathered dully, was
a form and had to be filled up. He examined it, and found it to
be a searching document. Some of its questions could be answered
off-hand, others required thought.
"Height?" Simple. Five foot eleven.
"Hair?" Simple. Brown.
"Eyes?" Simple again. Blue.
Next, queries of a more offensive kind.
"Are you a polygamist?"
He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be
ample—provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right
kind of mouth, and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in
his mind on other points, on that one he had none whatever.
"Have you ever been in prison?"
Not yet.
And then a very difficult one. "Are you a lunatic?"
Jimmy hesitated. The ink dried on his pen. He was wondering.
In the dim cavern of Paddington Station the boat-train snorted
impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek.
The hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. The
platform was a confused mass of travellers, porters, baggage,
trucks, boys with buns and fruits, boys with magazines, friends,
relatives, and Bayliss the butler, standing like a faithful
watchdog beside a large suitcase. To the human surf that broke
and swirled about him he paid no attention. He was looking for
the young master.
Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man flying-wedge. Two fruit and
bun boys who impeded his passage drifted away like leaves on an
Autumn gale.
"Good man!" He possessed himself of the suitcase. "I was afraid
you might not be able to get here."
"The mistress is dining out, Mr. James. I was able to leave the
house."
"Have you packed everything I shall want?"
"Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir."
"Splendid! Oh, by the way, give this letter to my father, will
you?"
"Very good, sir."
"I'm glad you were able to manage. I thought your voice sounded
doubtful over the phone."
"I was a good deal taken aback, Mr. James. Your decision to leave
was so extremely sudden."
"So was Columbus'. You know about him? He saw an egg standing on
its head and whizzed off like a jack-rabbit."
"If you will pardon the liberty, Mr. James, is it not a little
rash—?"
"Don't take the joy out of life, Bayliss. I may be a chump, but
try to forget it. Use your willpower."
"Good evening, Mr. Bayliss," said a voice behind them. They both
turned. The butler was gazing rather coyly at a vision in a grey
tailor-made suit.
"Good evening, miss," he said doubtfully.
Ann looked at him in astonishment, then broke into a smile.
"How stupid of me! I meant this Mr. Bayliss. Your son! We met at
the steamship offices. And before that he saved my life. So we
are old friends."
Bayliss, gaping perplexedly and feeling unequal to the
intellectual pressure of the conversation, was surprised further
to perceive a warning scowl on the face of his Mr. James. Jimmy
had not foreseen this thing, but he had a quick mind and was
equal to it.
"How are you, Miss Chester? My father has come down to see me
off. This is Miss Chester, dad."
A British butler is not easily robbed of his poise, but Bayliss
was frankly unequal to the sudden demand on his presence of mind.
He lowered his jaw an inch or two, but spoke no word.
"Dad's a little upset at my going," whispered Jimmy
confidentially. "He's not quite himself."
Ann was a girl possessed not only of ready tact but of a kind
heart. She had summed up Mr. Bayliss at a glance. Every line of
him proclaimed him a respectable upper servant. No girl on earth
could have been freer than she of snobbish prejudice, but she
could not check a slight thrill of surprise and disappointment at
the discovery of Jimmy's humble origin. She understood everything,
and there were tears in her eyes as she turned away to avoid
intruding on the last moments of the parting of father and son.
"I'll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayliss," she said.
"Eh?" said Bayliss.
"Yes, yes," said Jimmy. "Good-bye till then."
Ann walked on to her compartment. She felt as if she had just read
a whole long novel, one of those chunky younger-English-novelist things. She knew the whole story as well as
if it had been told to her in detail. She could see the father,
the honest steady butler, living his life with but one aim,
to make a gentleman of his beloved only son. Year by year he had
saved. Probably he had sent the son to college. And now, with a father's
blessing and the remains of a father's savings, the boy
was setting out for the New World, where dollar-bills grew on
trees and no one asked or cared who any one else's father might be.
There was a lump in her throat. Bayliss would have been amazed if
he could have known what a figure of pathetic fineness he seemed
to her. And then her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and she was aware
of a glow of kindliness towards him. His father had succeeded in
his life's ambition. He had produced a gentleman! How easily and
simply, without a trace of snobbish shame, the young man had
introduced his father. There was the right stuff in him. He was
not ashamed of the humble man who had given him his chance in
life. She found herself liking Jimmy amazingly . . .
The hands of the clock pointed to three minutes to the hour.
Porters skimmed to and fro like water-beetles.
"I can't explain," said Jimmy. "It wasn't temporary insanity; it
was necessity."
"Very good, Mr. James. I think you had better be taking your seat
now."
"Quite right, I had. It would spoil the whole thing if they left
me behind. Bayliss, did you ever see such eyes? Such hair! Look
after my father while I am away. Don't let the dukes worry him.
Oh, and, Bayliss"—Jimmy drew his hand from his pocket—"as one
pal to another—"
Bayliss looked at the crackling piece of paper.
"I couldn't, Mr. James, I really couldn't! A five-pound note! I
couldn't!"
"Nonsense! Be a sport!"
"Begging your pardon, Mr. James, I really couldn't. You cannot
afford to throw away your money like this. You cannot have a
great deal of it, if you will excuse me for saying so."
"I won't do anything of the sort. Grab it! Oh, Lord, the train's
starting! Good-bye, Bayliss!"
The engine gave a final shriek of farewell. The train began to
slide along the platform, pursued to the last by optimistic boys
offering buns for sale. It gathered speed. Jimmy, leaning out the
window, was amazed at a spectacle so unusual as practically to
amount to a modern miracle—the spectacled Bayliss running. The
butler was not in the pink of condition, but he was striding out
gallantly. He reached the door of Jimmy's compartment, and raised
his hand.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. James," he panted, "for taking the
liberty, but I really couldn't!"
He reached up and thrust something into Jimmy's hand, something
crisp and crackling. Then, his mission performed, fell back and
stood waving a snowy handkerchief. The train plunged into the
tunnel.
Jimmy stared at the five-pound note. He was aware, like Ann
farther along the train, of a lump in his throat. He put the note
slowly into his pocket.
The train moved on.
CHAPTER VII
ON THE BOAT-DECK
Rising waters and a fine flying scud that whipped stingingly over
the side had driven most of the passengers on the _Atlantic_ to the
shelter of their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the
library. It was the fifth evening of the voyage. For five days
and four nights the ship had been racing through a placid ocean
on her way to Sandy Hook: but in the early hours of this
afternoon the wind had shifted to the north, bringing heavy seas.
Darkness had begun to fall now. The sky was a sullen black. The
white crests of the rollers gleamed faintly in the dusk, and the
wind sang in the ropes.
Jimmy and Ann had had the boat-deck to themselves for half an
hour. Jimmy was a good sailor: it exhilarated him to fight the
wind and to walk a deck that heaved and dipped and shuddered
beneath his feet; but he had not expected to have Ann's company
on such an evening. But she had come out of the saloon entrance,
her small face framed in a hood and her slim body shapeless
beneath a great cloak, and joined him in his walk.
Jimmy was in a mood of exaltation. He had passed the last few
days in a condition of intermittent melancholy, consequent on the
discovery that he was not the only man on board the _Atlantic_ who
desired the society of Ann as an alleviation of the tedium of an
ocean voyage. The world, when he embarked on this venture, had
consisted so exclusively of Ann and himself that, until the ship
was well on its way to Queenstown, he had not conceived the
possibility of intrusive males forcing their unwelcome attentions
on her. And it had added bitterness to the bitter awakening that
their attentions did not appear to be at all unwelcome. Almost
immediately after breakfast on the very first day, a creature with
a small black moustache and shining teeth had descended upon Ann
and, vocal with surprise and pleasure at meeting her again—he
claimed, damn him!, to have met her before at Palm Beach, Bar
Harbor, and a dozen other places—had carried her off to play an
idiotic game known as shuffle-board. Nor was this an isolated
case. It began to be borne in upon Jimmy that Ann, whom he had
looked upon purely in the light of an Eve playing opposite his
Adam in an exclusive Garden of Eden, was an extremely well-known
and popular character. The clerk at the shipping-office had lied
absurdly when he had said that very few people were crossing on
the _Atlantic_ this voyage. The vessel was crammed till its sides
bulged, it was loaded down in utter defiance of the Plimsoll law,
with Rollos and Clarences and Dwights and Twombleys who had known
and golfed and ridden and driven and motored and swum and danced
with Ann for years. A ghastly being entitled Edgar Something or
Teddy Something had beaten Jimmy by a short head in the race for
the deck-steward, the prize of which was the placing of his
deck-chair next to Ann's. Jimmy had been driven from the
promenade deck by the spectacle of this beastly creature lying
swathed in rugs reading best-sellers to her.
He had scarcely seen her to speak to since the beginning of the
voyage. When she was not walking with Rolly or playing
shuffle-board with Twombley, she was down below ministering to
the comfort of a chronically sea-sick aunt, referred to in
conversation as "poor aunt Nesta". Sometimes Jimmy saw the little
man—presumably her uncle—in the smoking-room, and once he came
upon the stout boy recovering from the effects of a cigar in a
quiet corner of the boat-deck: but apart from these meetings the
family was as distant from him as if he had never seen Ann at
all—let alone saved her life.
And now she had dropped down on him from heaven. They were alone
together with the good clean wind and the bracing scud. Rollo,
Clarence, Dwight, and Twombley, not to mention Edgar or possibly
Teddy, were down below—he hoped, dying. They had the world to
themselves.
"I love rough weather," said Ann, lifting her face to the wind.
Her eyes were very bright. She was beyond any doubt or question
the only girl on earth. "Poor aunt Nesta doesn't. She was bad
enough when it was quite calm, but this storm has finished her.
I've just been down below, trying to cheer her up."
Jimmy thrilled at the picture. Always fascinating, Ann seemed to
him at her best in the role of ministering angel. He longed to
tell her so, but found no words. They reached the end of the
deck, and turned. Ann looked up at him.
"I've hardly seen anything of you since we sailed," she said. She
spoke almost reproachfully. "Tell me all about yourself, Mr.
Bayliss. Why are you going to America?"
Jimmy had had an impassioned indictment of the Rollos on his
tongue, but she had closed the opening for it as quickly as she
had made it. In face of her direct demand for information he
could not hark back to it now. After all, what did the Rollos
matter? They had no part in this little wind-swept world: they
were where they belonged, in some nether hell on the C. or D.
deck, moaning for death.
"To make a fortune, I hope," he said.
Ann was pleased at this confirmation of her diagnosis. She had
deduced this from the evidence at Paddington Station.
"How pleased your father will be if you do!"
The slight complexity of Jimmy's affairs caused him to pause for
a moment to sort out his fathers, but an instant's reflection
told him that she must be referring to Bayliss the butler.
"Yes."
"He's a dear old man," said Ann. "I suppose he's very proud of
you?"
"I hope so."
"You must do tremendously well in America, so as not to
disappoint him. What are you thinking of doing?"
Jimmy considered for a moment.
"Newspaper work, I think."
"Oh? Why, have you had any experience?"
"A little."
Ann seemed to grow a little aloof, as if her enthusiasm had been
damped.
"Oh, well, I suppose it's a good enough profession. I'm not very
fond of it myself. I've only met one newspaper man in my life,
and I dislike him very much, so I suppose that has prejudiced
me."
"Who was that?"
"You wouldn't have met him. He was on an American paper. A man
named Crocker."
A sudden gust of wind drove them back a step, rendering talk
impossible. It covered a gap when Jimmy could not have spoken.
The shock of the information that Ann had met him before made him
dumb. This thing was beyond him. It baffled him.
Her next words supplied a solution. They were under shelter of
one of the boats now and she could make herself heard.
"It was five years ago, and I only met him for a very short
while, but the prejudice has lasted."
Jimmy began to understand. Five years ago! It was not so strange,
then, that they should not recognise each other now. He stirred
up his memory. Nothing came to the surface. Not a gleam of
recollection of that early meeting rewarded him. And yet
something of importance must have happened then, for her to
remember it. Surely his mere personality could not have been so
unpleasant as to have made such a lasting impression on her!
"I wish you could do something better than newspaper work," said
Ann. "I always think the splendid part about America is that it
is such a land of adventure. There are such millions of chances.
It's a place where anything may happen. Haven't you an
adventurous soul, Mr. Bayliss?"
No man lightly submits to a charge, even a hinted charge, of
being deficient in the capacity for adventure.
"Of course I have," said Jimmy indignantly. "I'm game to tackle
anything that comes along."
"I'm glad of that."
Her feeling of comradeship towards this young man deepened. She
loved adventure and based her estimate of any member of the
opposite sex largely on his capacity for it. She moved in a set,
when at home, which was more polite than adventurous, and had
frequently found the atmosphere enervating.
"Adventure," said Jimmy, "is everything."
He paused. "Or a good deal," he concluded weakly.
"Why qualify it like that? It sounds so tame. Adventure is the
biggest thing in life."
It seemed to Jimmy that he had received an excuse for a remark of
a kind that had been waiting for utterance ever since he had met
her. Often and often in the watches of the night, smoking endless
pipes and thinking of her, he had conjured up just such a vision
as this—they two walking the deserted deck alone, and she
innocently giving him an opening for some low-voiced, tender
speech, at which she would start, look at him quickly, and then
ask him haltingly if the words had any particular application.
And after that—oh, well, all sorts of things might happen. And
now the moment had come. It was true that he had always pictured
the scene as taking place by moonlight and at present there was a
half-gale blowing, out of an inky sky; also on the present
occasion anything in the nature of a low-voiced speech was
absolutely out of the question owing to the uproar of the
elements. Still, taking these drawbacks into consideration, the
chance was far too good to miss. Such an opening might never
happen again. He waited till the ship had steadied herself after
an apparently suicidal dive into an enormous roller, then,
staggering back to her side, spoke.
"Love is the biggest thing in life!" he roared.
"What is?" shrieked Ann.
"Love!" bellowed Jimmy.
He wished a moment later that he had postponed this statement of
faith, for their next steps took them into a haven of comparative
calm, where some dimly seen portion of the vessel's anatomy
jutted out and formed a kind of nook where it was possible to
hear the ordinary tones of the human voice. He halted here, and
Ann did the same, though unwillingly. She was conscious of a
feeling of disappointment and of a modification of her mood of
comradeship towards her companion. She held strong views, which
she believed to be unalterable, on the subject under discussion.
"Love!" she said. It was too dark to see her face, but her voice
sounded unpleasantly scornful. "I shouldn't have thought that you
would have been so conventional as that. You seemed different."
"Eh?" said Jimmy blankly.
"I hate all this talk about Love, as if it were something
wonderful that was worth everything else in life put together.
Every book you read and every song that you see in the
shop-windows is all about Love. It's as if the whole world were
in a conspiracy to persuade themselves that there's a wonderful
something just round the corner which they can get if they try
hard enough. And they hypnotise themselves into thinking of
nothing else and miss all the splendid things of life."
"That's Shaw, isn't it?" said Jimmy.
"What is Shaw?"
"What you were saying. It's out of one of Bernard Shaw's things,
isn't it?"
"It is not." A note of acidity had crept into Ann's voice. "It is
perfectly original."
"I'm certain I've heard it before somewhere."
"If you have, that simply means that you must have associated
with some sensible person."
Jimmy was puzzled.
"But why the grouch?" he asked.
"I don't understand you."
"I mean, why do you feel that way about it?"
Ann was quite certain now that she did not like this young man
nearly as well as she had supposed. It is trying for a
strong-minded, clear-thinking girl to have her philosophy
described as a grouch.
"Because I've had the courage to think about it for myself, and
not let myself be blinded by popular superstition. The whole
world has united in making itself imagine that there is something
called love which is the most wonderful happening in life. The
poets and novelists have simply hounded them on to believe it.
It's a gigantic swindle."
A wave of tender compassion swept over Jimmy. He understood it
all now. Naturally a girl who had associated all her life with
the Rollos, Clarences, Dwights, and Twombleys would come to
despair of the possibility of falling in love with any one.
"You haven't met the right man," he said. She had, of course, but
only recently: and, anyway, he could point that out later.
"There is no such thing as the right man," said Ann resolutely,
"if you are suggesting that there is a type of man in existence
who is capable of inspiring what is called romantic love. I
believe in marriage. . . ."
"Good work!" said Jimmy, well satisfied.
" . . . But not as the result of a sort of delirium. I believe in
it as a sensible partnership between two friends who know each
other well and trust each other. The right way of looking at
marriage is to realise, first of all, that there are no thrills,
no romances, and then to pick out some one who is nice and kind
and amusing and full of life and willing to do things to make you
happy."
"Ah!" said Jimmy, straightening his tie, "Well, that's
something."
"How do you mean—that's something? Are you shocked at my views?"
"I don't believe they are your views. You've been reading one of
these stern, soured fellows who analyse things."
Ann stamped. The sound was inaudible, but Jimmy noticed the
movement.
"Cold?" he said. "Let's walk on."
Ann's sense of humour reasserted itself. It was not often that it
remained dormant for so long. She laughed.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," she said. "You believe
that I am posing, that those aren't my real opinions."
"They can't be. But I don't think you are posing. It's getting on
for dinner-time, and you've got that wan, sinking feeling that
makes you look upon the world and find it a hollow fraud. The
bugle will be blowing in a few minutes, and half an hour after
that you will be yourself again."
"I'm myself now. I suppose you can't realise that a pretty girl
can hold such views."
Jimmy took her arm.
"Let me help you," he said. "There's a knothole in the deck.
Watch your step. Now, listen to me. I'm glad you've brought up
this subject—I mean the subject of your being the prettiest girl
in the known world—"
"I never said that."
"Your modesty prevented you. But it's a fact, nevertheless. I'm
glad, I say, because I have been thinking a lot along those lines
myself, and I have been anxious to discuss the point with you.
You have the most glorious hair I have ever seen!"
"Do you like red hair?"
"Red-gold."
"It is nice of you to put it like that. When I was a child all
except a few of the other children called me Carrots."
"They have undoubtedly come to a bad end by this time. If bears
were sent to attend to the children who criticised Elijah, your
little friends were in line for a troupe of tigers. But there
were some of a finer fibre? There were a few who didn't call you
Carrots?"
"One or two. They called me Brick-Top."
"They have probably been electrocuted since. Your eyes are
perfectly wonderful!"
Ann withdrew her arm. An extensive acquaintance of young men told
her that the topic of conversation was now due to be changed.
"You will like America," she said.
"We are not discussing America."
"I am. It is a wonderful country for a man who wants to succeed.
If I were you, I should go out West."
"Do you live out West?"
"No."
"Then why suggest my going there? Where do you live?"
"I live in New York."
"I shall stay in New York, then."
Ann was wary, but amused. Proposals of marriage—and Jimmy seemed
to be moving swiftly towards one—were no novelty in her life. In
the course of several seasons at Bar Harbor, Tuxedo, Palm Beach,
and in New York itself, she had spent much of her time foiling
and discouraging the ardour of a series of sentimental youths who
had laid their unwelcome hearts at her feet.
"New York is open for staying in about this time, I believe."
Jimmy was silent. He had done his best to fight a tendency to
become depressed and had striven by means of a light tone to keep
himself resolutely cheerful, but the girl's apparently total
indifference to him was too much for his spirits. One of the
young men who had had to pick up the heart he had flung at Ann's
feet and carry it away for repairs had once confided to an
intimate friend, after the sting had to some extent passed, that
the feelings of a man who made love to Ann might be likened to
the emotions which hot chocolate might be supposed to entertain
on contact with vanilla ice-cream. Jimmy, had the comparison been
presented to him, would have endorsed its perfect accuracy. The
wind from the sea, until now keen and bracing, had become merely
infernally cold. The song of the wind in the rigging, erstwhile
melodious, had turned into a damned depressing howling.
"I used to be as sentimental as any one a few years ago," said
Ann, returning to the dropped subject. "Just after I left
college, I was quite maudlin. I dreamed of moons and Junes and
loves and doves all the time. Then something happened which made
me see what a little fool I was. It wasn't pleasant at the time,
but it had a very bracing effect. I have been quite different
ever since. It was a man, of course, who did it. His method was
quite simple. He just made fun of me, and Nature did the rest."
Jimmy scowled in the darkness. Murderous thoughts towards the
unknown brute flooded his mind.
"I wish I could meet him!" he growled.
"You aren't likely to," said Ann. "He lives in England. His name
is Crocker. Jimmy Crocker. I spoke about him just now."
Through the howling of the wind cut the sharp notes of a bugle.
Ann turned to the saloon entrance.
"Dinner!" she said brightly. "How hungry one gets on board ship!"
She stopped. "Aren't you coming down, Mr. Bayliss?"
"Not just yet," said Jimmy thickly.
CHAPTER VIII
PAINFUL SCENE IN A CAFE
The noonday sun beat down on Park Row. Hurrying mortals, released
from a thousand offices, congested the sidewalks, their thoughts
busy with the vision of lunch. Up and down the canyon of Nassau
Street the crowds moved more slowly. Candy-selling aliens jostled
newsboys, and huge dray-horses endeavoured to the best of their
ability not to grind the citizenry beneath their hooves.
Eastward, pressing on to the City Hall, surged the usual dense
army of happy lovers on their way to buy marriage-licenses. Men
popped in and out of the subway entrances like rabbits. It was a
stirring, bustling scene, typical of this nerve-centre of New
York's vast body.
Jimmy Crocker, standing in the doorway, watched the throngs
enviously. There were men in that crowd who chewed gum, there
were men who wore white satin ties with imitation diamond
stick-pins, there were men who, having smoked seven-tenths of a
cigar, were eating the remainder: but there was not one with whom
he would not at that moment willingly have exchanged identities.
For these men had jobs. And in his present frame of mind it
seemed to him that no further ingredient was needed for the
recipe of the ultimate human bliss.
The poet has said some very searching and unpleasant things about
the man "whose heart has ne'er within him burned as home his
footsteps he has turned from wandering on some foreign strand,"
but he might have excused Jimmy for feeling just then not so much
a warmth of heart as a cold and clammy sensation of dismay. He
would have had to admit that the words "High though his titles,
proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim" did not
apply to Jimmy Crocker. The latter may have been "concentred all
on self," but his wealth consisted of one hundred and
thirty-three dollars and forty cents and his name was so far from
being proud that the mere sight of it in the files of the New
York _Sunday Chronicle_, the record-room of which he had just been
visiting, had made him consider the fact that he had changed it
to Bayliss the most sensible act of his career.
The reason for Jimmy's lack of enthusiasm as he surveyed the
portion of his native land visible from his doorway is not far to
seek. The _Atlantic_ had docked on Saturday night, and Jimmy,
having driven to an excellent hotel and engaged an expensive room
therein, had left instructions at the desk that breakfast should
be served to him at ten o'clock and with it the Sunday issue of
the _Chronicle_. Five years had passed since he had seen the dear
old rag for which he had reported so many fires, murders,
street-accidents, and weddings: and he looked forward to its
perusal as a formal taking _seisin_ of his long-neglected country.
Nothing could be more fitting and symbolic than that the first
morning of his return to America should find him propped up in
bed reading the good old _Chronicle_. Among his final meditations
as he dropped off to sleep was a gentle speculation as to who was
City editor now and whether the comic supplement was still
featuring the sprightly adventures of the Doughnut family.
A wave of not unmanly sentiment passed over him on the following
morning as he reached out for the paper. The sky-line of New
York, seen as the boat comes up the bay, has its points, and the
rattle of the Elevated trains and the quaint odour of the Subway
extend a kindly welcome, but the thing that really convinces the
returned traveller that he is back on Manhattan Island is the
first Sunday paper. Jimmy, like every one else, began by opening
the comic supplement: and as he scanned it a chilly discomfort,
almost a premonition of evil, came upon him. The Doughnut Family
was no more. He knew that it was unreasonable of him to feel as
if he had just been informed of the death of a dear friend, for
Pa Doughnut and his associates had been having their adventures
five years before he had left the country, and even the toughest
comic supplementary hero rarely endures for a decade: but
nevertheless the shadow did fall upon his morning optimism, and
he derived no pleasure whatever from the artificial rollickings
of a degraded creature called Old Pop Dill-Pickle who was offered
as a substitute.
But this, he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling
disaster. It distressed him, but it did not affect his material
welfare. Tragedy really began when he turned to the magazine
section. Scarcely had he started to glance at it when this
headline struck him like a bullet:
PICCADILLY JIM AT IT AGAIN
And beneath it his own name.
Nothing is so capable of diversity as the emotion we feel on
seeing our name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights
or we may sink to the depths. Jimmy did the latter. A mere
cursory first inspection of the article revealed the fact that it
was no eulogy. With an unsparing hand the writer had muck-raked
his eventful past, the text on which he hung his remarks being
that ill-fated encounter with Lord Percy Whipple at the Six
Hundred Club. This the scribe had recounted at a length and with
a boisterous vim which outdid even Bill Blake's effort in the
London _Daily Sun_. Bill Blake had been handicapped by
consideration of space and the fact that he had turned in his
copy at an advanced hour when the paper was almost made up. The
present writer was shackled by no restrictions. He had plenty of
room to spread himself in, and he had spread himself. So liberal
had been the editor's views in the respect that, in addition to
the letter-press, the pages contained an unspeakably offensive
picture of a burly young man in an obviously advanced condition
of alcoholism raising his fist to strike a monocled youth in
evening dress who had so little chin that Jimmy was surprised
that he had ever been able to hit it. The only gleam of
consolation that he could discover in this repellent drawing was
the fact that the artist had treated Lord Percy even more
scurvily than himself. Among other things, the second son of the
Duke of Devizes was depicted as wearing a coronet—a thing which
would have excited remark even in a London night-club.
Jimmy read the thing through in its entirety three times before
he appreciated a _nuance_ which his disordered mind had at first
failed to grasp—to wit, that this character-sketch of himself
was no mere isolated outburst but apparently one of a series. In
several places the writer alluded unmistakeably to other theses
on the same subject.
Jimmy's breakfast congealed on its tray, untouched. That boon
which the gods so seldom bestow, of seeing ourselves as others
see us, had been accorded to him in full measure. By the time he
had completed his third reading he was regarding himself in a
purely objective fashion not unlike the attitude of a naturalist
towards some strange and loathesome manifestation of insect life.
So this was the sort of fellow he was! He wondered they had let
him in at a reputable hotel.
The rest of the day he passed in a state of such humility that he
could have wept when the waiters were civil to him. On the Monday
morning he made his way to Park Row to read the files of the
_Chronicle_—a morbid enterprise, akin to the eccentric behaviour
of those priests of Baal who gashed themselves with knives or of
authors who subscribe to press-clipping agencies.
He came upon another of the articles almost at once, in an issue
not a month old. Then there was a gap of several weeks, and hope
revived that things might not be as bad as he had feared—only to
be crushed by another trenchant screed. After that he set about
his excavations methodically, resolved to know the worst. He
knew it in just under two hours. There it all was—his row with
the ***, his bad behaviour at the political meeting, his
breach-of-promise case. It was a complete biography.
And the name they called him. Piccadilly Jim! Ugh!
He went out into Park Row, and sought a quiet doorway where he
could brood upon these matters.
It was not immediately that the practical or financial aspect of
the affair came to scourge him. For an appreciable time he
suffered in his self-esteem alone. It seemed to him that all
these bustling persons who passed knew him, that they were
casting sidelong glances at him and laughing derisively, that
those who chewed gum chewed it sneeringly and that those who ate
their cigars ate them with thinly-veiled disapproval and scorn.
Then, the passage of time blunting sensitiveness, he found that
there were other and weightier things to consider.
As far as he had had any connected plan of action in his sudden
casting-off of the flesh-pots of London, he had determined as
soon as possible after landing to report at the office of his old
paper and apply for his ancient position. So little thought had
he given to the minutiae of his future plans that it had not
occurred to him that he had anything to do but walk in, slap the
gang on the back, and announce that he was ready to work. Work!—on
the staff of a paper whose chief diversion appeared to be the
satirising of his escapades! Even had he possessed the moral
courage—or gall—to make the application, what good would it be?
He was a by-word in a world where he had once been a worthy
citizen. What paper would trust Piccadilly Jim with an
assignment? What paper would consider Piccadilly Jim even on
space rates? A chill dismay crept over him. He seemed to hear the
grave voice of Bayliss the butler speaking in his car as he had
spoken so short a while before at Paddington Station.
"Is it not a little rash, Mr. James?"
Rash was the word. Here he stood, in a country that had no
possible use for him, a country where competition was keen and
jobs for the unskilled infrequent. What on earth was there that
he could do?
Well, he could go home. . . . No, he couldn't. His pride revolted
at that solution. Prodigal Son stuff was all very well in its
way, but it lost its impressiveness if you turned up again at
home two weeks after you had left. A decent interval among the
husks and swine was essential. Besides, there was his father to
consider. He might be a poor specimen of a fellow, as witness the
_Sunday Chronicle_ _passim_, but he was not so poor as to come
slinking back to upset things for his father just when he had
done the only decent thing by removing himself. No, that was out
of the question.
What remained? The air of New York is bracing and healthy, but a
man cannot live on it. Obviously he must find a job. But what
job?
What could he do?
A gnawing sensation in the region of the waistcoat answered the
question. The solution—which it put forward was, it was true,
but a temporary one, yet it appealed strongly to Jimmy. He had
found it admirable at many crises. He would go and lunch, and it
might be that food would bring inspiration.
He moved from his doorway and crossed to the entrance of the
subway. He caught a timely express, and a few minutes later
emerged into the sunlight again at Grand Central. He made his way
westward along Forty-second Street to the hotel which he thought
would meet his needs. He had scarcely entered it when in a chair
by the door he perceived Ann Chester, and at the sight of her all
his depression vanished and he was himself again.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Bayliss? Are you lunching here?"
"Unless there is some other place that you would prefer," said
Jimmy. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
Ann laughed. She was looking very delightful in something soft
and green.
"I'm not going to lunch with you. I'm waiting for Mr. Ralstone
and his sister. Do you remember him? He crossed over with us. His
chair was next to mine on the promenade deck."
Jimmy was shocked. When he thought how narrowly she had escaped,
poor girl, from lunching with that insufferable pill Teddy—or
was it Edgar?—he felt quite weak. Recovering himself, he spoke
firmly.
"When were they to have met you?"
"At one o'clock."
"It is now five past. You are certainly not going to wait any
longer. Come with me, and we will whistle for cabs."
"Don't be absurd!"
"Come along. I want to talk to you about my future."
"I shall certainly do nothing of the kind," said Ann, rising. She
went with him to the door. "Teddy would never forgive me." She
got into the cab. "It's only because you have appealed to me to
help you discuss your future," she said, as they drove off.
"Nothing else would have induced me . . ."
"I know," said Jimmy. "I felt that I could rely on your womanly
sympathy. Where shall we go?"
"Where do you want to go? Oh, I forget that you have never been
in New York before. By the way, what are your impressions of our
glorious country?"
"Most gratifying, if only I could get a job."
"Tell him to drive to Delmonico's. It's just around the corner on
Forty-fourth Street."
"There are some things round the corner, then?"
"That sounds cryptic. What do you mean."
"You've forgotten our conversation that night on the ship. You
refused to admit the existence of wonderful things just round the
corner. You said some very regrettable things that night. About
love, if you remember."
"You can't be going to talk about love at one o'clock in the
afternoon! Talk about your future."
"Love is inextricably mixed up with my future."
"Not with your immediate future. I thought you said that you were
trying to get a job. Have you given up the idea of newspaper
work, then?"
"Absolutely."
"Well, I'm rather glad."
The cab drew up at the restaurant door, and the conversation was
interrupted. When they were seated at their table and Jimmy had
given an order to the waiter of absolutely inexcusable
extravagance, Ann returned to the topic.
"Well, now the thing is to find something for you to do."
Jimmy looked round the restaurant with appreciative eyes. The
summer exodus from New York was still several weeks distant, and
the place was full of prosperous-looking lunchers, not one of
whom appeared to have a care or an unpaid bill in the world. The
atmosphere was redolent of substantial bank-balances. Solvency
shone from the closely shaven faces of the men and reflected
itself in the dresses of the women. Jimmy sighed.
"I suppose so," he said. "Though for choice I'd like to be one of
the Idle Rich. To my mind the ideal profession is strolling into
the office and touching the old dad for another thousand."
Ann was severe.
"You revolt me!" she said. "I never heard anything so thoroughly
disgraceful. You _need_ work!"
"One of these days," said Jimmy plaintively, "I shall be sitting
by the roadside with my dinner-pail, and you will come by in your
limousine, and I shall look up at you and say '_You_ hounded me
into this!' How will you feel then?"
"Very proud of myself."
"In that case, there is no more to be said. I'd much rather hang
about and try to get adopted by a millionaire, but if you insist
on my working—Waiter!"
"What do you want?" asked Ann.
"Will you get me a Classified Telephone Directory," said Jimmy.
"What for?" asked Ann.
"To look for a profession. There is nothing like being
methodical."
The waiter returned, bearing a red book. Jimmy thanked him and
opened it at the A's.
"The boy, what will he become?" he said. He turned the pages.
"How about an Auditor? What do you think of that?"
"Do you think you could audit?"
"That I could not say till I had tried. I might turn out to be
very good at it. How about an Adjuster?"
"An adjuster of what?"
"The book doesn't say. It just remarks broadly—in a sort of
spacious way—'Adjuster.' I take it that, having decided to
become an adjuster, you then sit down and decide what you wish to
adjust. One might, for example, become an Asparagus Adjuster."
"A what?"
"Surely you know? Asparagus Adjusters are the fellows who sell
those rope-and-pulley affairs by means of which the Smart Set
lower asparagus into their mouths—or rather Francis the footman
does it for them, of course. The diner leans back in his chair,
and the menial works the apparatus in the background. It is
entirely superseding the old-fashioned method of picking the
vegetable up and taking a snap at it. But I suspect that to be a
successful Asparagus Adjuster requires capital. We now come to
Awning Crank and Spring Rollers. I don't think I should like
that. Rolling awning cranks seems to me a sorry way of spending
life's springtime. Let's try the B's."
"Let's try this omelette. It looks delicious." Jimmy shook his
head.
"I will toy with it—but absently and in a _distrait_ manner, as
becomes a man of affairs. There's nothing in the B's. I might
devote my ardent youth to Bar-Room Glassware and Bottlers'
Supplies. On the other hand, I might not. Similarly, while there
is no doubt a bright future for somebody in Celluloid, Fiberloid,
and Other Factitious Goods, instinct tells me that there is none
for—" he pulled up on the verge of saying, "James Braithwaite
Crocker," and shuddered at the nearness of the pitfall.
"—for—" he hesitated again—"for Algernon Bayliss," he
concluded.
Ann smiled delightedly. It was so typical that his father should
have called him something like that. Time had not dimmed her
regard for the old man she had seen for that brief moment at
Paddington Station. He was an old dear, and she thoroughly
approved of this latest manifestation of his supposed pride in
his offspring.
"Is that really your name—Algernon?"
"I cannot deny it."
"I think your father is a darling," said Ann inconsequently.
Jimmy had buried himself in the directory again.
"The D's," he said. "Is it possible that posterity will know me
as Bayliss the Dermatologist? Or as Bayliss the Drop Forger? I
don't quite like that last one. It may be a respectable
occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me. The sentence for
forging drops is probably about twenty years with hard labour."
"I wish you would put that book away and go on with your lunch,"
said Ann.
"Perhaps," said Jimmy, "my grandchildren will cluster round my
knee some day and say in their piping, childish voices, 'Tell us
how you became the Elastic Stocking King, grandpa!' What do you
think?"
"I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are wasting
your time, when you ought to be either talking to me or else
thinking very seriously about what you mean to do."
Jimmy was turning the pages rapidly.
"I will be with you in a moment," he said. "Try to amuse yourself
somehow till I am at leisure. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell
yourself an anecdote. Think of life. No, it's no good. I don't
see myself as a Fan Importer, a Glass Beveller, a Hotel Broker,
an Insect Exterminator, a Junk Dealer, a Kalsomine Manufacturer,
a Laundryman, a Mausoleum Architect, a Nurse, an Oculist, a
Paper-Hanger, a Quilt Designer, a Roofer, a Ship Plumber, a
Tinsmith, an Undertaker, a Veterinarian, a Wig Maker, an X-ray
apparatus manufacturer, a Yeast producer, or a Zinc Spelter." He
closed the book. "There is only one thing to do. I must starve in
the gutter. Tell me—you know New York better than I do—where is
there a good gutter?"
At this moment there entered the restaurant an Immaculate Person.
He was a young man attired in faultlessly fitting clothes, with
shoes of flawless polish and a perfectly proportioned floweret in
his buttonhole. He surveyed the room through a monocle. He was a
pleasure to look upon, but Jimmy, catching sight of him, started
violently and felt no joy at all; for he had recognised him. It
was a man he knew well and who knew him well—a man whom he had
last seen a bare two weeks ago at the Bachelors' Club in London.
Few things are certain in this world, but one was that, if
Bartling—such was the Vision's name—should see him, he would
come over and address him as Crocker. He braced himself to the
task of being Bayliss, the whole Bayliss, and nothing but
Bayliss. It might be that stout denial would carry him through.
After all, Reggie Bartling was a man of notoriously feeble
intellect, who could believe in anything.
The monocle continued its sweep. It rested on Jimmy's profile.
"By Gad!" said the Vision.
Reginald Bartling had landed in New York that morning, and
already the loneliness of a strange city had begun to oppress
him. He had come over on a visit of pleasure, his suit-case
stuffed with letters of introduction, but these he had not yet
used. There was a feeling of home-sickness upon him, and he ached
for a pal. And there before him sat Jimmy Crocker, one of the
best. He hastened to the table.
"I say, Crocker, old chap, I didn't know you were over here. When
did you arrive?"
Jimmy was profoundly thankful that he had seen this pest in time
to be prepared for him. Suddenly assailed in this fashion, he
would undoubtedly have incriminated himself by recognition of his
name. But, having anticipated the visitation, he was able to say
a whole sentence to Ann before showing himself aware that it was
he who was addressed.
"I say! Jimmy Crocker!"
Jimmy achieved one of the blankest stares of modern times. He
looked at Ann. Then he looked at Bartling again.
"I think there's some mistake," he said. "My name is Bayliss."
Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. It was a
perfectly astounding likeness, but it was apparent to him when
what he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him. He was
confused. He blushed. It was deuced bad form going up to a
perfect stranger like this and pretending you knew him. Probably
the chappie thought he was some kind of a confidence johnnie or
something. It was absolutely rotten! He continued to blush till
one could have fancied him scarlet to the ankles. He backed away,
apologising in ragged mutters. Jimmy was not insensible to the
pathos of his suffering acquaintance's position; he knew Reggie
and his devotion to good form sufficiently well to enable him to
appreciate the other's horror at having spoken to a fellow to
whom he had never been introduced; but necessity forbade any
other course. However Reggie's soul might writhe and however
sleepless Reggie's nights might become as a result of this
encounter, he was prepared to fight it out on those lines if it
took all summer. And, anyway, it was darned good for Reggie to
get a jolt like that every once in a while. Kept him bright and
lively.
So thinking, he turned to Ann again, while the crimson Bartling
tottered off to restore his nerve centres to their normal tone at
some other hostelry. He found Ann staring amazedly at him, eyes
wide and lips parted.
"Odd, that!" he observed with a light carelessness which he
admired extremely and of which he would not have believed himself
capable. "I suppose I must be somebody's double. What was the
name he said?"
"Jimmy Crocker!" cried Ann.
Jimmy raised his glass, sipped, and put it down.
"Oh yes, I remember. So it was. It's a curious thing, too, that
it sounds familiar. I've heard the name before somewhere."
"I was talking about Jimmy Crocker on the ship. That evening on
deck."
Jimmy looked at her doubtfully.
"Were you? Oh yes, of course. I've got it now. He is the man you
dislike so."
Ann was still looking at him as if he had undergone a change into
something new and strange.
"I hope you aren't going to let the resemblance prejudice you
against _me_?" said Jimmy. "Some are born Jimmy Crockers, others
have Jimmy Crockers thrust upon them. I hope you'll bear in mind
that I belong to the latter class."
"It's such an extraordinary thing."
"Oh, I don't know. You often hear of doubles. There was a man in
England a few years ago who kept getting sent to prison for
things some genial stranger who happened to look like him had
done."
"I don't mean that. Of course there are doubles. But it is
curious that you should have come over here and that we should
have met like this at just this time. You see, the reason I went
over to England at all was to try to get Jimmy Crocker to come
back here."
"What!"
"I don't mean that _I_ did. I mean that I went with my uncle and
aunt, who wanted to persuade him to come and live with them."
Jimmy was now feeling completely out of his depth.
"Your uncle and aunt? Why?"
"I ought to have explained that they are his uncle and aunt, too.
My aunt's sister married his father."
"But—"
"It's quite simple, though it doesn't sound so. Perhaps you
haven't read the _Sunday Chronicle_ lately? It has been publishing
articles about Jimmy Crocker's disgusting behaviour in
London—they call him Piccadilly Jim, you know—"
In print, that name had shocked Jimmy. Spoken, and by Ann, it was
loathly. Remorse for his painful past tore at him.
"There was another one printed yesterday."
"I saw it," said Jimmy, to avert description.
"Oh, did you? Well, just to show you what sort of a man Jimmy
Crocker is, the Lord Percy Whipple whom he attacked in the club
was his very best friend. His step-mother told my aunt so. He
seems to be absolutely hopeless." She smiled. "You're looking
quite sad, Mr. Bayliss. Cheer up! You may look like him, but you
aren't him he?—him?—no, 'he' is right. The soul is what counts.
If you've got a good, virtuous, Algernonish soul, it doesn't
matter if you're so like Jimmy Crocker that his friends come up
and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather an
advantage, really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and
pretend to be Jimmy Crocker, who had come over after all in a fit
of repentance, she would be so pleased that there would be
nothing she wouldn't do for you. You might realise your ambition
of being adopted by a millionaire. Why don't you try it? I won't
give you away."
"Before they found me out and hauled me off to prison, I should
have been near you for a time. I should have lived in the same
house with you, spoken to you—!" Jimmy's voice shook.
Ann turned her head to address an imaginary companion.
"You must listen to this, my dear," she said in an undertone. "He
speaks _wonderfully!_ They used to call him the Boy Orator in his
home-town. Sometimes that, and sometimes Eloquent Algernon!"
Jimmy eyed her fixedly. He disapproved of this frivolity.
"One of these days you will try me too high—!"
"Oh, you didn't hear what I was saying to my friend, did you?"
she said in concern. "But I meant it, every word. I love to hear
you talk. You have such _feeling!_"
Jimmy attuned himself to the key of the conversation.
"Have you no sentiment in you?" he demanded.
"I was just warming up, too! In another minute you would have
heard something worth while. You've damped me now. Let's talk
about my lifework again."
"Have you thought of anything?"
"I'd like to be one of those fellows who sit in offices, and sign
checks, and tell the office-boy to tell Mr. Rockerfeller they can
give him five minutes. But of course I should need a check-book,
and I haven't got one. Oh well, I shall find something to do all
right. Now tell me something about yourself. Let's drop the
future for awhile."
An hour later Jimmy turned into Broadway. He walked pensively,
for he had much to occupy his mind. How strange that the Petts
should have come over to England to try to induce him to return
to New York, and how galling that, now that he was in New York,
this avenue to a prosperous future was closed by the fact that
something which he had done five years ago—that he could
remember nothing about it was quite maddening—had caused Ann to
nurse this abiding hatred of him. He began to dream tenderly of
Ann, bumping from pedestrian to pedestrian in a gentle trance.
From this trance the seventh pedestrian aroused him by uttering
his name, the name which circumstances had compelled him to
abandon.
"Jimmy Crocker!"
Surprise brought Jimmy back from his dreams to the hard
world—surprise and a certain exasperation. It was ridiculous to be
incognito in a city which he had not visited in five years and to
be instantly recognised in this way by every second man he met.
He looked sourly at the man. The other was a sturdy,
square-shouldered, battered young man, who wore on his homely
face a grin of recognition and regard. Jimmy was not particularly
good at remembering faces, but this person's was of a kind which
the poorest memory might have recalled. It was, as the
advertisements say, distinctively individual. The broken nose,
the exiguous forehead, and the enlarged ears all clamoured for
recognition. The last time Jimmy had seen Jerry Mitchell had been
two years before at the National Sporting Club in London, and,
placing him at once, he braced himself, as a short while ago he
had braced himself to confound immaculate Reggie.
"Hello!" said the battered one.
"Hello indeed!" said Jimmy courteously. "In what way can I
brighten your life?"
The grin faded from the other's face. He looked puzzled.
"You're Jimmy Crocker, ain't you?"
"No. My name chances to be Algernon Bayliss."
Jerry Mitchell reddened.
"'Scuse me. My mistake."
He was moving off, but Jimmy stopped him. Parting from Ann had
left a large gap in his life, and he craved human society.
"I know you now," he said. "You're Jerry Mitchell. I saw you
fight Kid Burke four years ago in London."
The grin returned to the pugilist's face, wider than ever. He
beamed with gratification.
"Gee! Think of that! I've quit since then. I'm working for an old
guy named Pett. Funny thing, he's Jimmy Crocker's uncle that I
mistook you for. Say, you're a dead ringer for that guy! I could
have sworn it was him when you bumped into me. Say, are you doing
anything?"
"Nothing in particular."
"Come and have a yarn. There's a place I know just round by
here."
"Delighted."
They made their way to the place.
"What's yours?" said Jerry Mitchell. "I'm on the wagon myself,"
he said apologetically.
"So am I," said Jimmy. "It's the only way. No sense in always
drinking and making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself in
public!"
Jerry Mitchell received this homily in silence. It disposed
definitely of the lurking doubt in his mind as to the possibility
of this man really being Jimmy Crocker. Though outwardly
convinced by the other's denial, he had not been able to rid
himself till now of a nebulous suspicion. But this convinced him.
Jimmy Crocker would never have said a thing like that nor would
have refused the offer of alcohol. He fell into pleasant
conversation with him. His mind eased.
CHAPTER IX
MRS. PETT IS SHOCKED
At five o'clock in the afternoon some ten days after her return
to America, Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house on
Riverside Drive. The proceedings were on a scale that amounted to
a reception, for they were not only a sort of official
notification to New York that one of its most prominent hostesses
was once more in its midst, but were also designed to entertain
and impress Mr. Hammond Chester, Ann's father, who had been
spending a couple of days in the metropolis preparatory to
departing for South America on one of his frequent trips. He was
very fond of Ann in his curious, detached way, though he never
ceased in his private heart to consider it injudicious of her not
to have been born a boy, and he always took in New York for a day
or two on his way from one wild and lonely spot to another, if he
could manage it.
The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almost
to capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs. Pett
chiefly affected. She prided herself on the Bohemian element in
her parties, and had become during the past two years a human
drag-net, scooping Genius from its hiding-place and bringing it
into the open. At different spots in the room stood the six
resident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr. Pett had such
strong objections, and in addition to these she had collected so
many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Square
that the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futurist
painters, esoteric Buddhists, _vers libre_ poets, interior
decorators, and stage reformers, sifted in among the more
conventional members of society who had come to listen to them.
Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats.
Apostles of Free Love expounded their doctrines to persons who
had been practising them for years without realising it. All over
the room throats were being strained and minds broadened.
Mr. Chester, standing near the door with Ann, eyed the assemblage
with the genial contempt of a large dog for a voluble pack of
small ones. He was a massive, weather-beaten man, who looked very
like Ann in some ways and would have looked more like her but for
the misfortune of having had some of his face clawed away by an
irritable jaguar with whom he had had a difference some years
back in the jungles of Peru.
"Do you like this sort of thing?" he asked.
"I don't mind it," said Ann.
"Well, I shall be very sorry to leave you, Ann, but I'm glad I'm
pulling out of here this evening. Who are all these people?"
Ann surveyed the gathering.
"That's Ernest Wisden, the playwright, over there, talking to
Lora Delane Porter, the feminist writer. That's Clara
What's-her-name, the sculptor, with the bobbed hair. Next to
her—"
Mr. Chester cut short the catalogue with a stifled yawn.
"Where's old Pete? Doesn't he come to these jamborees?"
Ann laughed.
"Poor uncle Peter! If he gets back from the office before these
people leave, he will sneak up to his room and stay there till
it's safe to come out. The last time I made him come to one of
these parties he was pounced on by a woman who talked to him for
an hour about the morality of Finance and seemed to think that
millionaires were the *** of the earth."
"He never would stand up for himself." Mr. Chester's gaze hovered
about the room, and paused. "Who's that fellow? I believe I've
seen him before somewhere."
A constant eddying swirl was animating the multitude. Whenever
the mass tended to congeal, something always seemed to stir it up
again. This was due to the restless activity of Mrs. Pett, who
held it to be the duty of a good hostess to keep her guests
moving. From the moment when the room began to fill till the
moment when it began to empty she did not cease to plough her way
to and fro, in a manner equally reminiscent of a hawk swooping on
chickens and an earnest collegian bucking the line. Her guests
were as a result perpetually forming new ententes and
combinations, finding themselves bumped about like those little
moving figures which one sees in shop-windows on Broadway, which
revolve on a metal disc until, urged by impact with another
little figure, they scatter to regroup themselves elsewhere. It
was a fascinating feature of Mrs. Pett's at-homes and one which
assisted that mental broadening process already alluded to that
one never knew, when listening to a discussion on the sincerity
of Oscar Wilde, whether it would not suddenly change in the
middle of a sentence to an argument on the inner meaning of the
Russian Ballet.
Plunging now into a group dominated for the moment by an angular
woman who was saying loud and penetrating things about the
suffrage, Mrs. Pett had seized and removed a tall, blonde young
man with a mild, vacuous face. For the past few minutes this
young man had been sitting bolt upright on a chair with his hands
on his knees, so exactly in the manner of an end-man at a
minstrel show that one would hardly have been surprised had he
burst into song or asked a conundrum.
Ann followed her father's gaze.
"Do you mean the man talking to aunt Nesta? There, they've gone
over to speak to Willie Partridge. Do you mean that one?"
"Yes. Who is he?"
"Well, I like that!" said Ann. "Considering that you introduced
him to us! That's Lord Wisbeach, who came to uncle Peter with a
letter of introduction from you. You met him in Canada."
"I remember now. I ran across him in British Columbia. We camped
together one night. I'd never seen him before and I didn't see
him again. He said he wanted a letter to old Pete for some
reason, so I scribbled him one in pencil on the back of an
envelope. I've never met any one who played a better game of draw
poker. He cleaned me out. There's a lot in that fellow, in spite
of his looking like a musical comedy dude. He's clever."
Ann looked at him meditatively.
"It's odd that you should be discovering hidden virtues in Lord
Wisbeach, father. I've been trying to make up my mind about him.
He wants me to marry him."
"He does! I suppose a good many of these young fellows here want
the same thing, don't they, Ann?" Mr. Chester looked at his
daughter with interest. Her growing-up and becoming a beauty had
always been a perplexity to him. He could never rid himself of
the impression of her as a long-legged child in short skirts. "I
suppose you're refusing them all the time?"
"Every day from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch. I keep
regular office hours. Admission on presentation of visiting
card."
"And how do you feel about this Lord Wisbeach?"
"I don't know," said Ann frankly. "He's very nice. And—what is
more important—he's different. Most of the men I know are all
turned out of the same mould. Lord Wisbeach—and one other
man—are the only two I've met who might not be the brothers of
all the rest."
"Who's the other?"
"A man I hardly know. I met him on board ship—"
Mr. Chester looked at his watch.
"It's up to you, Ann," he said. "There's one comfort in being
your father—I don't mean that exactly; I mean that it is a
comfort to me AS your father—to know that I need feel no
paternal anxiety about you. I don't have to give you advice.
You've not only got three times the sense that I have, but you're
not the sort of girl who would take advice. You've always known
just what you wanted ever since you were a kid. . . . Well, if
you're going to take me down to the boat, we'd better be
starting. Where's the car?"
"Waiting outside. Aren't you going to say good-bye to aunt
Nesta?"
"Good God, no!" exclaimed Mr. Chester in honest concern. "What!
Plunge into that pack of coyotes and fight my way through to her!
I'd be torn to pieces by wild poets. Besides, it seems silly to
make a fuss saying good-bye when I'm only going to be away a
short time. I shan't go any further than Colombia this trip."
"You'll be able to run back for week-ends," said Ann.
She paused at the door to cast a fleeting glance over her
shoulder at the fair-haired Lord Wisbeach, who was now in
animated conversation with her aunt and Willie Partridge; then
she followed her father down the stairs. She was a little
thoughtful as she took her place at the wheel of her automobile.
It was not often that her independent nature craved outside
support, but she was half conscious of wishing at the present
juncture that she possessed a somewhat less casual father. She
would have liked to ask him to help her decide a problem which
had been vexing her for nearly three weeks now, ever since Lord
Wisbeach had asked her to marry him and she had promised to give
him his answer on her return from England. She had been back in
New York several days now, but she had not been able to make up
her mind. This annoyed her, for she was a girl who liked swift
decisiveness of thought and action both in others and in herself.
She was fond of Mr. Chester in much the same unemotional,
detached way that he was fond of her, but she was perfectly well
aware of the futility of expecting counsel from him. She said
good-bye to him at the boat, fussed over his comfort for awhile
in a motherly way, and then drove slowly back. For the first time
in her life she was feeling uncertain of herself. When she had
left for England, she had practically made up her mind to accept
Lord Wisbeach, and had only deferred actual acceptance of him
because in her cool way she wished to re-examine the position at
her leisure. Second thoughts had brought no revulsion of feeling.
She had not wavered until her arrival in New York. Then, for some
reason which baffled her, the idea of marrying Lord Wisbeach had
become vaguely distasteful. And now she found herself fluctuating
between this mood and her former one.
She reached the house on Riverside Drive, but did not slacken the
speed of the machine. She knew that Lord Wisbeach would be
waiting for her there, and she did not wish to meet him just yet.
She wanted to be alone. She was feeling depressed. She wondered
if this was because she had just departed from her father, and
decided that it was. His swift entrances into and exits from her
life always left her temporarily restless. She drove on up the
river. She meant to decide her problem one way or the other
before she returned home.
Lord Wisbeach, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs. Pett and Willie,
its inventor, about Partridgite. Willie, on hearing himself
addressed, had turned slowly with an air of absent
self-importance, the air of a great thinker disturbed in
mid-thought. He always looked like that when spoken to, and there
were those—Mr. Pett belonged to this school of thought—who held
that there was nothing to him beyond that look and that he had
built up his reputation as a budding mastermind on a foundation
that consisted entirely of a vacant eye, a mop of hair through
which he could run his fingers, and the fame of his late father.
Willie Partridge was the son of the great inventor, Dwight
Partridge, and it was generally understood that the explosive,
Partridgite, was to be the result of a continuation of
experiments which his father had been working upon at the time of
his death. That Dwight Partridge had been trying experiments in
the direction of a new and powerful explosive during the last
year of his life was common knowledge in those circles which are
interested in such things. Foreign governments were understood to
have made tentative overtures to him. But a sudden illness,
ending fatally, had finished the budding career of Partridgite
abruptly, and the world had thought no more of it until an
interview in the _Sunday Chronicle_, that store-house of
information about interesting people, announced that Willie was
carrying on his father's experiments at the point where he had
left off. Since then there had been vague rumours of possible
sensational developments, which Willie had neither denied nor
confirmed. He preserved the mysterious silence which went so well
with his appearance.
Having turned slowly so that his eyes rested on Lord Wisbeach's
ingenuous countenance, Willie paused, and his face assumed the
expression of his photograph in the _Chronicle_.
"Ah, Wisbeach!" he said.
Lord Wisbeach did not appear to resent the patronage of his
manner. He plunged cheerily into talk. He had a pleasant, simple
way of comporting himself which made people like him.
"I was just telling Mrs. Pett," he said, "that I shouldn't be
surprised if you were to get an offer for your stuff from our
fellows at home before long. I saw a lot of our War Office men
when I was in England, don't you know. Several of them mentioned
the stuff."
Willie resented Partridgite as being referred to as "the stuff,"
but he made allowance. All Englishmen talked that way, he
supposed.
"Indeed?" he said.
"Of course," said Mrs. Pett, "Willie is a patriot and would have
to give our own authorities the first chance."
"Rather!"
"But you know what officials are all over the world. They are so
sceptical and they move so slowly."
"I know. Our men at home are just the same as a rule. I've got a
pal who invented something-or-other, I forget what, but it was a
most decent little contrivance and very useful and all that; and
he simply can't get them to say Yes or No about it. But, all the
same, I wonder you didn't have some of them trying to put out
feelers to you when you were in London."
"Oh, we were only in London a few hours. By the way, Lord
Wisbeach, my sister—"—Mrs. Pett paused; she disliked to have to
mention her sister or to refer to this subject at all, but
curiosity impelled her—"my sister said that you are a great
friend of her step-son, James Crocker. I didn't know that you
knew him."
Lord Wisbeach seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"He's not coming over, is he? Pity! It would have done him a
world of good. Yes, Jimmy Crocker and I have always been great
pals. He's a bit of a nut, of course, . . . I beg your pardon!
. . . I mean . . ." He broke off confusedly, and turned to Willie
again to cover himself. "How are you getting on with the jolly
old stuff?" he asked.
If Willie had objected to Partridgite being called "the stuff,"
he was still less in favour of its being termed "the jolly old
stuff." He replied coldly.
"I have ceased to get along with the jolly old stuff."
"Struck a snag?" enquired Lord Wisbeach sympathetically.
"On the contrary, my experiments have been entirely successful. I
have enough Partridgite in my laboratory to blow New York to
bits!"
"Willie!" exclaimed Mrs. Pett. "Why didn't you tell me before?
You know I am so interested."
"I only completed my work last night."
He moved off with an important nod. He was tired of Lord
Wisbeach's society. There was something about the young man which
he did not like. He went to find more congenial company in a
group by the window.
Lord Wisbeach turned to his hostess. The vacuous expression had
dropped from his face like a mask. A pair of keen and intelligent
eyes met Mrs. Pett's.
"Mrs. Pett, may I speak to you seriously?"
Mrs. Pett's surprise at the alteration in the man prevented her
from replying. Much as she liked Lord Wisbeach, she had never
given him credit for brains, and it was a man with brains and
keen ones who was looking at her now. She nodded.
"If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments, you
should be awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about in
his laboratory, though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully as
possible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere. In that safe in
your library. News of this kind moves like lightning. At this
very moment, there may be people watching for a chance of getting
at the stuff."
Every nerve in Mrs. Pett's body, every cell of a brain which had
for years been absorbing and giving out sensational fiction,
quivered irrepressibly at these words, spoken in a low, tense
voice which gave them additional emphasis. Never had she
misjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord Wisbeach.
"Spies?" she quavered.
"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "Secret
Service agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it is
to handle this sort of work."
"They would try to steal Willie's—?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.
"They would not look on it as stealing. Their motives would be
patriotic. I tell you, Mrs. Pett, I have heard stories from
friends of mine in the English Secret Service which would amaze
you. Perfectly straight men in private life, but absolutely
unscrupulous when at work. They stick at nothing—nothing. If I
were you, I should suspect every one, especially every stranger."
He smiled engagingly. "You are thinking that that is odd advice
from one who is practically a stranger like myself. Never mind.
Suspect me, too, if you like. Be on the safe side."
"I would not dream of doing such a thing, Lord Wisbeach," said
Mrs. Pett horrified. "I trust you implicitly. Even supposing such
a thing were possible, would you have warned me like this, if you
had been—?"
"That's true," said Lord Wisbeach. "I never thought of that.
Well, let me say, suspect everybody but me." He stopped abruptly.
"Mrs. Pett," he whispered, "don't look round for a moment.
Wait." The words were almost inaudible. "Who is that man behind
you? He has been listening to us. Turn slowly."
With elaborate carelessness, Mrs. Pett turned her head. At first
she thought her companion must have alluded to one of a small
group of young men who, very improperly in such surroundings,
were discussing with raised voices the prospects of the clubs
competing for the National League Baseball Pennant. Then,
extending the sweep of her gaze, she saw that she had been
mistaken. Midway between her and this group stood a single
figure, the figure of a stout man in a swallow-tail suit, who
bore before him a tray with cups on it. As she turned, this man
caught her eye, gave a guilty start, and hurried across the room.
"You saw?" said Lord Wisbeach. "He was listening. Who is that
man? Your butler apparently. What do you know of him?"
"He is my new butler. His name is Skinner."
"Ah, your _new_ butler? He hasn't been with you long, then?"
"He only arrived from England three days ago."
"From England? How did he get in here? I mean, on whose
recommendation?"
"Mr. Pett offered him the place when we met him at my sister's in
London. We went over there to see my sister, Eugenia—Mrs.
Crocker. This man was the butler who admitted us. He asked Mr.
Pett something about baseball, and Mr. Pett was so pleased that
he offered him a place here if he wanted to come over. The man
did not give any definite answer then, but apparently he sailed
on the next boat, and came to the house a few days after we had
returned."
Lord Wisbeach laughed softly.
"Very smart. Of course they had him planted there for the
purpose."
"What ought I to do?" asked Mrs. Pett agitatedly.
"Do nothing. There is nothing that you can do, for the present,
except keep your eyes open. Watch this man Skinner. See if he has
any accomplices. It is hardly likely that he is working alone.
Suspect everybody. Believe me . . ."
At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burst
forth an uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might well
have been taken for a premature testing of a large sample of
Partridgite; until a moment later it began to resemble more
nearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed victim of that
death-dealing invention. It was a bellow of anguish, and it
poured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising to
all beneath the roof the twin facts that some person unknown was
suffering and that whoever the sufferer might be he had excellent
lungs.
The effect on the gathering in the drawing-room was immediate and
impressive. Conversation ceased as if it had been turned off with
a tap. Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highly
intellectual topics died instantaneously. It was as if the last
trump had sounded. Futurist painters stared pallidly at _vers
libre_ poets, speech smitten from their lips; and stage performers
looked at esoteric Buddhists with a wild surmise.
The sudden silence had the effect of emphasising the strange
noise and rendering it more distinct, thus enabling it to carry
its message to one at least of the listeners. Mrs. Pett, after a
moment of strained attention in which time seemed to her to stand
still, uttered a wailing cry and leaped for the door.
"Ogden!" she shrilled; and passed up the stairs two at a time,
gathering speed as she went. A boy's best friend is his mother.
CHAPTER X
INSTRUCTION IN DEPORTMENT
While the feast of reason and flow of soul had been in progress
in the drawing-room, in the gymnasium on the top floor Jerry
Mitchell, awaiting the coming of Mr. Pett, had been passing the
time in improving with strenuous exercise his already impressive
physique. If Mrs. Pett's guests had been less noisily
concentrated on their conversation, they might have heard the
muffled _tap-tap-tap_ that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell was
punching the bag upstairs.
It was not until he had punched it for perhaps five minutes that,
desisting from his labours, he perceived that he had the pleasure
of the company of little Ogden Ford. The stout boy was standing
in the doorway, observing him with an attentive eye.
"What are you doing?" enquired Ogden.
Jerry passed a gloved fist over his damp brow.
"Punchin' the bag."
He began to remove his gloves, eyeing Ogden the while with a
disapproval which he made no attempt to conceal. An extremist on
the subject of keeping in condition, the spectacle of the bulbous
stripling was a constant offence to him. Ogden, in pursuance of
his invariable custom on the days when Mrs. Pett entertained, had
been lurking on the stairs outside the drawing-room for the past
hour, levying toll on the food-stuffs that passed his way. He
wore a congested look, and there was jam about his mouth.
"Why?" he said, retrieving a morsel of jam from his right cheek
with the tip of his tongue.
"To keep in condition."
"Why do you want to keep in condition?"
Jerry flung the gloves into their locker.
"Fade!" he said wearily. "Fade!"
"Huh?"
"Beat it!"
"Huh?" Much pastry seemed to have clouded the boy's mind.
"Run away."
"Don't want to run away."
The annoyed pugilist sat down and scrutinised his visitor
critically.
"You never do anything you don't want to, I guess?"
"No," said Ogden simply. "You've got a funny nose," he added
dispassionately. "What did you do to it to make it like that?"
Mr. Mitchell shifted restlessly on his chair. He was not a vain
man, but he was a little sensitive about that particular item in
his make-up.
"Lizzie says it's the funniest nose she ever saw. She says it's
something out of a comic supplement."
A dull flush, such as five minutes with the bag had been unable
to produce, appeared on Jerry Mitchell's peculiar countenance. It
was not that he looked on Lizzie Murphy, herself no Lillian
Russell, as an accepted authority on the subject of facial
beauty; but he was aware that in this instance she spoke not
without reason, and he was vexed, moreover, as many another had
been before him, by the note of indulgent patronage in Ogden's
voice. His fingers twitched a little eagerly, and he looked
sullenly at his tactless junior.
"Get out!"
"Huh?"
"Get outa here!"
"Don't want to get out of here," said Ogden with finality. He put
his hand in his trouser-pocket and pulled out a sticky mass which
looked as if it might once have been a cream-puff or a meringue.
He swallowed it contentedly. "I'd forgotten I had that," he
explained. "Mary gave it to me on the stairs. Mary thinks you've
a funny nose, too," he proceeded, as one relating agreeable
gossip.
"Can it! Can it!" exclaimed the exasperated pugilist.
"I'm only telling you what I heard her say."
Mr. Mitchell rose convulsively and took a step towards his
persecutor, breathing noisily through the criticised organ. He
was a chivalrous man, a warm admirer of the sex, but he was
conscious of a wish that it was in his power to give Mary what he
would have described as "hers." She was one of the parlour-maids,
a homely woman with a hard eye, and it was part of his grievance
against her that his Maggie, alias Celestine, Mrs. Pett's maid,
had formed an enthusiastic friendship with her. He had no
evidence to go on, but he suspected Mary of using her influence
with Celestine to urge the suit of his leading rival for the
latter's hand, Biggs the chauffeur. He disliked Mary intensely,
even on general grounds. Ogden's revelation added fuel to his
aversion. For a moment he toyed with the fascinating thought of
relieving his feelings by spanking the boy, but restrained
himself reluctantly at the thought of the inevitable ruin which
would ensue. He had been an inmate of the house long enough to
know, with a completeness which would have embarrassed that
gentleman, what a cipher Mr. Pett was in the home and how little
his championship would avail in the event of a clash with Mrs.
Pett. And to give Ogden that physical treatment which should long
since have formed the main plank in the platform of his education
would be to invite her wrath as nothing else could. He checked
himself, and reached out for the skipping-rope, hoping to ease
his mind by further exercise.
Ogden, chewing the remains of the cream-puff, eyed him with
languid curiosity.
"What are you doing that for?"
Mr. Mitchell skipped grimly on.
"What are you doing that for? I thought only girls skipped."
Mr. Mitchell paid no heed. Ogden, after a moment's silent
contemplation, returned to his original train of thought.
"I saw an advertisement in a magazine the other day of a sort of
machine for altering the shape of noses. You strap it on when you
go to bed. You ought to get pop to blow you to one."
Jerry Mitchell breathed in a laboured way.
"You want to look nice about the place, don't you? Well, then!
there's no sense in going around looking like that if you don't
have to, is there? I heard Mary talking about your nose to Biggs
and Celestine. She said she had to laugh every time she saw it."
The skipping-rope faltered in its sweep, caught in the skipper's
legs, and sent him staggering across the room. Ogden threw back
his head and laughed merrily. He liked free entertainments, and
this struck him as a particularly enjoyable one.
There are moments in the life of every man when the impulse
attacks him to sacrifice his future to the alluring gratification
of the present. The strong man resists such impulses. Jerry
Mitchell was not a weak man, but he had been sorely tried. The
annoyance of Ogden's presence and conversation had sapped his
self-restraint, as dripping water will wear away a rock. A short
while before, he had fought down the urgent temptation to
massacre this exasperating child, but now, despised love adding
its sting to that of injured vanity, he forgot the consequences.
Bounding across the room, he seized Ogden in a powerful grip, and
the next instant the latter's education, in the true sense of the
word, so long postponed, had begun; and with it that avalanche of
sound which, rolling down into the drawing-room, hurled Mrs. Pett
so violently and with such abruptness from the society of her
guests.
Disposing of the last flight of stairs with the agility of the
chamois which leaps from crag to crag of the snow-topped Alps,
Mrs. Pett finished with a fine burst of speed along the passage
on the top floor, and rushed into the gymnasium just as Jerry's
avenging hand was descending for the eleventh time.
End of Chapter X �