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Title: The Masterfolk
Wherein is Attempted the Unravelling of the Strange Affair
of my Lord Wyntwarde of Cavil and Miss Betty Modeyne
Author: Haldane Macfall
Release Date: April 4, 2020 [EBook #61754]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE MASTERFOLK
New 6s. Novels
PIGS IN CLOVER
By Frank Danby
THE CALL OF THE WILD
By Jack London
SPENDTHRIFT SUMMER
By Margrey Williams
IN THE GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD
By Flora Annie Steel
BEGGAR’S MANOR
By R. Murray Gilchrist
GORDON KEITH
By Thomas Nelson Page
THE LUCK OF BARERAKES
By Caroline Marriage
SIR JULIAN THE APOSTATE
By Mrs. Clement Parsons
TYPHOON
By Joseph Conrad
JERUSALEM
By Selma Lagerlöf
’TWIXT GOD AND MAMMON
By William Edwards Tirebuck
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
20 & 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
THE MASTERFOLK
Wherein is attempted the unravelling
of the Strange Affair of my Lord
Wyntwarde of Cavil and Miss
Betty Modeyne
by
HALDANE MACFALL
Author of ‘The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer,’ etc.
London
William Heinemann
1903
All rights reserved
TO
GEORGE MEREDITH
ESQUIRE
TO GIVE YOU THE SALUTE OF SOVEREIGNTY,
SIR, CAN ADD NO TITTLE TO YOUR STATURE;
BUT THERE IS SOLDIER’S DELIGHT IN SALUTING
A CONQUEROR—AND TO YOUR BAYS
THERE IS NO PRETENCE OF A PRETENDER
CONTENTS
OF THE BUDDING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
Chapter
Page
I. Which shows some of the Gods in their Machinery, with but a Shadowy Hint of the Printer’s
Devil
3
II. Wherein it is discovered that, likely enough from an Ancestor who was Master of the Horse to
King Harry the Eighth, Master Oliver had inherited some Gift of Horseplay, together with a
Keen Eye for a Fine Leg on a Woman
13
III. Wherein Master Oliver comes to the Conclusion that, to complete the Dramatic Picture,
Greatness should have known the Hair-Shirt and the Makeshifts of Adversity
20
IV. Wherein it would appear that the most respectable Stucco Architecture may be but a Screen
for Gnawing Secrets
30
V. Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne is introduced to the Study of Nature
36
VI. Wherein it is hinted that to be Famous is not necessarily to be Great
41
VII. Wherein Ambition shrinks from looking down the Ladder
51
VIII. Wherein it is discovered that the Strength of Genius may lie in the Hair
55
IX. Wherein Master Oliver is convinced that it is Difficult to play the Man’s Part on a Weak
Stomach
71
X. Wherein Master Oliver entertains Guests
77
XI. Wherein Egoism begins to suspect that there is a Bottom to the Pint Pot
82
XII. Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne wins more Hearts
88
XIII. Which contains Some Hints towards the Making of a Baronet
93
XIV. Which has to do with the Fascination of Naughtiness
97
XV. Which tells of a Poet that offered Himself for Sacrifice, and was rejected of the Gods
100
XVI. Which hints at an Age of Gold
105
OF THE BUDDING OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
XVII. Which has to do with the Awakening of Youth
111
XVIII. Of the Coming of Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre upon the Town
115
XIX. Wherein a Strutting Cock comes near to losing a Feather upon his Own Dunghill
118
XX. Wherein Master Devlin throws a Fierce Sidelight upon the Genius of Poetry
121
XXI. Which discovers a Great Man in the Hour of his Triumph
124
XXII. Wherein we are obliged to spend a Brief Moment in the Company of the Titled Aristocracy
128
XXIII. Wherein the Major fights a Brilliant Rearguard Action; and beats off a Pressing Attack
133
XXIV. Which tells, with quite Unnecessary Frankness, of what chanced at the Tavern of The Cock
and Bull in Fleet Street
138
XXV. Wherein the Major takes to his Bed
142
XXVI. Wherein Tom Folly blunders along in his Self-centred Gig—and drags a Dainty Little Lady’s
Skirts into the Wheel
144
XXVII. Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the Window of a Shabby Home at a Shabbier
Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces pass in the Street, drifting towards the
Strange Riot of Living
147
XXVIII. Wherein Dawning Womanhood whispers that Dolls are Dolls
150
XXIX. Wherein Mr. Pompey Malahide loses his Breath in the Midst of a Boast
155
XXX. Wherein Miss Betty Modeyne posts a Letter
157
XXXI. Wherein a Great Financier is satisfied with his Bargain
159
XXXII. Wherein the Gallant Major rises from the Dead
162
XXXIII. Which has to do with one of those Emotional Crises that change the Whole Tenor of a Man’s
Political Convictions
165
XXXIV. Which, to some extent, discloses the Incident of the Sentimental Tea-cups
170
XXXV. Wherein we are bewildered by the Cooings of Chivalry
175
XXXVI. Which touches upon the Pains of enjoying the Glow of Self-Abasement whilst maintaining a
Position of Dignity
177
[vii]
[viii]
[ix]
XXXVII. Which is Uneasy with the Restlessness of Youth
182
XXXVIII. Which has to do with the Breaking of a Pretty Lady’s Picture
186
XXXIX. Wherein, the Barber letting the Cat out of the Bag, we give Chase
189
XL. Which, in Somewhat Indelicate Eavesdropping Fashion, hovers about a Trysting-Place, and
Scandalously Repeats a Private Conversation
194
XLI. Which discovers Something of Despised Poetry in a Waste-paper Basket
197
XLII. Wherein we are shown an Emotional Hairdresser at Loggerheads with Destiny
199
XLIII. Wherein we catch a Glimpse of the Benefits that accrue to a Sound Commercial Education
203
XLIV. Wherein a Palace of Art disappears in the Night
207
XLV. Wherein a Poet burns his Verse to keep his Feet Warm
211
OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
XLVI. Wherein the Husband of the Concierge fears that he is growing Blind
217
XLVII. Which introduces us to the First Lady of France
220
XLVIII. Which has to do with the Motherhood of the World
223
XLIX. Wherein the Rich Man’s Son seeks the Sweets of Poverty—not Wholly without Success
225
L. Wherein the Spring comes a-frolic into the Court
229
LI. Wherein it is hinted that it were Best to “Touch not the Catte botte a Glove”
234
LII. Wherein Yankee Doodle is bugled—with a Strong Foreign Accent
238
LIII. Wherein we skip down the Highway of Youth
242
LIV. Wherein the Widow Snacheur separates the Milk from Human Kindness
249
LV. Wherein is Some Worship of the Moon
252
LVI. Wherein it is suspected that there has been Peeping through Windows
256
LVII. Which treats of what chanced at the Tavern of The Scarlet Jackass
261
LVIII. Wherein the Tears of Compassion heal the Bleeding Feet of a Straying Woman
271
LIX. Wherein it is suspect that our Betty has the Healing Touch
275
LX. Wherein Betty feels the Keen Breath of Winter
277
LXI. Wherein the Landlord of The Scarlet Jackass is unable to sing his Song
279
LXII. Wherein a Comely Young Woman waits at a Window all Night, watching for Sir Tom Fool—
listening for his Step
281
LXIII. Wherein the Ceiling of the Tavern that is called The Scarlet Jackass is stained with Blood
283
LXIV. Wherein the Angel of the Annunciation enters into a Garret
285
LXV. Wherein Betty walks into the Desert
288
LXVI. Which has to do with the Great Orgy of Youth
293
LXVII. Wherein Youth finds the Cap and Bells to be but a Bizarre Crown
300
LXVIII. Wherein it is seen that a Man is More or Less Responsible for his Father
301
LXIX. Which treats of a Farewell Banquet to Departing Youth—whereat Gaston Latour glitters with
a Hectic Glitter
305
LXX. Wherein a Comely Young Woman broods upon the Years
309
LXXI. Which treats of a Harmless Riot amongst Such as Dwell on Mount Parnassus
313
LXXII. Wherein our Hero is ill at ease with his own Shadow
315
LXXIII. Wherein our Hero dabbles his Hands in the Turgid Waters of Philosophy, and brings up Some
Grains of Truth from a Pebbly Bottom. A Chapter that the Frivolous would do well to skip—
the Ironies being infrequent, if not wholly wanting, and the Humours lacking in the Comic
Interest
317
LXXIV. Which sees the Day break in the Tavern of The Golden Sun
323
LXXV. Wherein our Hero goes out into the Night
329
LXXVI. Wherein our Hero sets Foot upon the Road to Rome
332
LXXVII. Wherein Foul Things are plotted with Some Glamour of Romance
336
LXXVIII. Wherein our Hero scatters Some Pages of the Indifferent Wisdom of the Ages to the even
more Indifferent Gulls
340
[x]
[xi]
[xii]
LXXIX. Wherein the Honourable Rupert Greppel shows Hidalgic
344
LXXX. Which treats of the Masterfolk
349
LXXXI. Wherein the Widow Snacheur comes into her Fortune
351
LXXXII. Wherein Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre struts airily towards the Goal of Freedom
355
LXXXIII. Which essays the High Epic Note
358
LXXXIV. Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled Cane
360
LXXXV. Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion of putting his Experiences into Writing
363
LXXXVI. Wherein our Hero, and Another, go Home
366
OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
LXXXVII. Which has to do with the Binding of Books in Half-calf and the Whimsies of Calf Love
375
LXXXVIII. Wherein it is suspected that, on Occasion, the Trumpet of Fame is not Wholly Immaculate of
the Hiccup
381
LXXXIX. Wherein Andrew Blotte draws aside the Arras that hangs Across the Unknown and joins the
Company at a Larger Banquet
396
XC. Wherein Hereditary Greatness fails to Glitter Hidalgic
400
XCI. Wherein the Heir of the Ffolliotts falls the Victim to a Limited Badinage
403
XCII. Wherein it is seen that the Blood of the Oldest Families may run to Inconsequence and Mere
Vulgar Stains
407
XCIII. Wherein our Hero comes into a Wide Heritage
411
XCIV. Wherein it is suspected that the Garden of Eden was Well Lost
413
[xiii]
OF THE BUDDING OF
THE TREE OF LIFE
[1]
[2]
CHAPTER I
Which shows Some of the Gods in their Machinery, with but a Shadowy Hint of the Printer’s Devil
Amidst the untidy litter of torn paper that strewed the bare plank floor there stood a large double writing-table, spread
with proofs and manuscript and pamphlets; and, with his feet in the litter of the floor and his elbows in the litter of the
table, sat a gaunt yellow-haired youth, solemnly writing.
Netherby Gomme peered at his work in the waning light of the departing November afternoon; and the deepening dusk
that took possession of the shabby room, turning all things to the colour of shadows, strained his attention, drawing long
lines about his mouth and pronouncing the pallor of his serious face—the grim mask of the humorist. The slips of paper
that were set into the sleeve-ends of his well-brushed threadbare coat to save the soiling of his shirt-cuffs, and the long
reach of yellow sock that showed his feet thrust a wrinkled span beyond the original intention of his much-knee’d
trousers, marked the ordered untidiness of the literary habit.
Everything in the room—the overflowed waste-paper basket at his feet; the severe academic comfort of the polished
wooden armchair that stood yawning augustly vacant opposite to him; the shut door at his right hand, with its curt
announcement of “Editor” in stiff, forbidding letters; the low bookshelves about the room with their rows of books of
reference, stacks of journals and literary scraps piled a-top of them; the walls with their irregular array of calendars,
advertisements, notices, and printed and pictured odds and ends; the atmosphere of the scrap-gathering paste-pot and
of clippings from the knowledge of the world; the sepulchral, monotonous clock that ticked its aggressive statement of
the passage of time as though with a cough of admonition that, whatever journalism might be, life was short and art was
long; the naked mantel beneath it, which held the shabby soul of the jerrybuilder turned to stone—for it is the hearth that
is haunted by the spirit of the architect, and this one had been a vulgar fellow—the bare fireplace that did not even go
through the feeble pretence of giving comfort, for it had no fender, no hearthrug, but gaped, bored and empty and
black, upon the making of literature—everything marked the room to be one of those scanty workshops where opinions
are made, the dingy editorial office of a struggling weekly review; and the extent of the dinginess showed it to be a very
struggling affair indeed.
The young man blotted his writing, and flipped through some pages of manuscript:
“Oliver,” said he, without looking up, “a light, I think!... We have here lying before us a most caustic literary criticism;
but the light is so far gone that we can scarce see the dogmatic gentleman’s own literary infelicities—nay, can scarce see
even his most split infinitives.”
He spoke like a leading article, with a slight cockney accent.
In the gloom of a dark corner by the window, at a high desk that stood against the wall, where he sat perched on a tall
office stool with his feet curled round its long legs, a small boy ceased reading, and, fumbling about in the breast-pocket
of his short Eton jacket, lugged out a tin box, struck a match, and, leaning forward, set a flame to the gas-jet. The place
leaped into light. The youngster flung the matchbox across the room, and went on with his reading. It fell at the feet of
the yellow-haired youth.
“Ah, Noll,” said he, stooping over and searching for it amongst the torn fragments of paper, “like those of even greater
genius, our aims are only too often lost in the sea of wasted endeavour.”
He found the box; lit the gas at his right hand; coughed:
“Are you putting that down?” he asked drily of the grim unanswering silence.
The boy took no notice. The yellow-haired youth chuckled, and the deep-furrowed lines about his mouth broadened
into a quizzical smile.
The boy Oliver could scarcely have been fourteen years of age, and had he not been son of the editor, and that editor
the thriftless owner of but a very broken-winged Muse, and of a steadily diminishing literary property, the boy must still
have been at school. He sighed heavily, rousing from his reading:
“I say, Netherby,” said he, “here’s a poem by that fellow with the hair.”
He held out the manuscript.
Netherby Gomme looked up:
“A lyric?” he asked.
“No. Drivel.”
Netherby Gomme sighed, and sat back in his chair:
“With what candid brutality the sub-editorial mind treats the most ecstatic flights of the imagination!” said he.
The boy Oliver shifted impatiently on his high stool:
“Shall I reject the ponderous rot?” he asked.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“We—if you please, Oliver—we. It is always better to adopt the editorial we in matters of weight; and it throws the
responsibility upon the irresponsible gods of journalism.”
[3]
[4]
Noll sighed, stretched himself, and yawned.
“All right. We’ll reject it, eh?... No good troubling the governor”—he jerked his thumb towards the editor’s room
—“he’s so beastly short this afternoon. But I had better write the rejection, I suppose—the father doesn’t like poets to
be rejected on the printed form—they’re so sensitive.”
He settled himself to write a letter, tongue in cheek, head down, and quoting for the other’s approval as he wrote:
“The—editor—regrets—that—whilst—he—appreciates—the—beauty of—the—lines—herewith—returned—he—
is—unable—to—make—use of—them—owing—to——”
He came to a halt and invited the prompt. None coming, he glanced over his shoulder:
“What is it owing to, Netherby? I’m such a beastly poor liar. You’ve been on the press so much longer. Hustle your
vivid imagination and chuck us an excuse.”
Netherby Gomme shook his head:
“I am only a humorist, Oliver—humour must walk knee-deep in truth. I do not travel on Romance——”
“Oh, shut up!... No good chucking the idiot roughly.... It’s beastly long.... We’ll chuck it for length, eh?”
Netherby Gomme smiled at him:
“Noll,” said he, “you are possessed of the magnificent carelessness of the gods—and I never interfere with religious
bodies.”
Noll turned to his writing again, and there was a steady scratching of pen on paper.
Netherby Gomme sat for awhile, his face seamed with comic lines of grim amusement:
“I suppose,” he said at last—“I suppose we have read the poem, Oliver?”
“No, I haven’t. But you can.”
Netherby Gomme moved uneasily in his seat:
“N-no. No thanks, Oliver. We’ll take it as read.”
He coughed:
“By the way, Oliver, have you got the dummy for next week’s issue over there?”
Noll licked, sealed, and thumped the letter on the desk:
“Oh, ah, yes—I’m sitting on it and a bunch of keys to remind me.” He took a bunch of keys from under him, and put
them in his trousers pocket, then lugged out from beneath him the dummy form of the review in its brown-paper cover.
He opened it, and wetting his finger on his lip, he flipped through the leaves with their proofs pasted in position for
guidance to the printer.
“Look here, Netherby.” He held up the booklet, pointing to a blank space. “The governor said I was to tell you we had
better complete this column with a poem—says verse gives a pleasant appearance to the page.” He dropped the
dummy on the desk in front of him. “It’s an awful bore, Netherby,” said he, “but that bundle of poems he gave me the
other day took up such a lot of space on my desk that I flung them into the waste-paper basket. Can’t you knock up
about twenty lines of amorous matter? I promise not to whistle.”
Netherby Gomme smiled grimly, sighed, took up a pen, and, drawing a sheet of paper to him, prepared to write....
The yellow-haired youth had been with this literary venture from the start. He had begun as office-boy; and as each
member of the original staff had fallen out, at the stern prunings of necessity, he had been promoted to their places, until
he sat alone, as leader-writer, humorist, topical poet, sentimentalist, sub-editor, office lad, and general usefulness.
Scrupulous to the smallest detail, reliable in the performance of the minutest fraction of his bond, he got through his
work with the facility of a man of affairs; and, like all busy men, finding time for everything, he had spent his hours of
leisure outside the office in the humane atmosphere of the theatre, in the tragic fellowship of the street, in the eternal
fresh comedy of the city’s by-ways, and in the company of the mighty masters of his tongue; in this, the best school of
education in all the round world, he had acquired such a knowledge of letters, such a taste for the niceties of the written
word, and such a mastery in its use, as would have astounded, as indeed it was destined to astound, even them that
thought they knew him to his fullest powers.
The other, the editor’s son, Oliver Baddlesmere, had come to the office to complete establishment straight out of the
schoolroom some months back. He had been brought in to reduce the pressure of clerking work, and, owing to
extreme youth and inexperience, had been given the simpler duties to perform, so that he came naturally and as a matter
of course to preside over the destinies of the poet’s corner and to impart information to a hungry world from the
battered volumes of an encyclopædia, and suchlike heavy books of reference, the weight of which, in the intervals of
airily relieving the world’s thirst for knowledge, the boy used for the purpose of pressing prints—of which he was
gathering a collection from the illustrated papers of the day, pasting them into brown paper scrap-books of his own
making.
Netherby Gomme had scarcely got under fair way with the writing of his amorous matter when the boy whipped round
[5]
[6]
on his office-stool.
“I say, Netherby,” said he; “your book is making a splash all along the Thames. The bookstalls are covered with it—the
whole blessed town is saffron with it.”
The yellow-haired youth smiled complacently; sitting back in his chair, he nodded:
“Indeed?” he said.
Noll slipped down off the stool, took it up, and carried it over to the fireplace:
“You were a chunk-head not to put your name to it!” he said. “But all the same, you know, it’s been roaring funny to
hear the father and mother talk about it.”
He vaulted to the top of the high stool, scrambled on to his feet, and, reaching up, opened the glass face of the clock:
“It almost bursts me sometimes that I can’t tell ’em you wrote it,” he said. He got on tip-toe and put forward the large
hand twenty minutes, shut the face with a click, turned where he stood, and, thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets,
he added confidentially:
“D’you know, Netherby, between you and me and the office ink-pot, I never thought myself that you could be so
uncommon funny.”
The yellow-haired youth blushed.
Clambering down off the stool, Noll carried it back to his desk, took down a tall silk hat, ran his coat-sleeve round it,
and put it on his head.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“Oliver,” said he—hesitated—made a pause—then added nervously: “Oliver, I am going to confide in you. In fact, if I
don’t I shall get some sort of low malarial fever. Now, don’t treat the confidence with the giggle of childishness.”
Noll sighed. He turned, leaped on to his office-stool, swung round, set his feet on the bar, his elbows on his knees, his
chin in his palms, and, peering at the other out of the shadow from under the brim of his hat, said gloomily:
“O lor! the little typewriter girl!... Why the dickens you don’t kiss Julia and have done with it, Netherby, I can’t make
out. Hang it, I have!... It was very nice whilst it lasted, and all that, but there was nothing in it to write poetry about!”
Netherby Gomme flushed.
“Oliver,” said he, with biting distinctness, “we have not yet shown the resentment that your vulgarity courts; but we
would remind you that we may be goaded into flinging the office ink-pot——” He stretched out his long arm towards
the large zinc well of ink before him.
Noll slid off the stool, putting it between them with the swift and calculated strategy of experience, guarding his head
with his raised elbow:
“Chuck it, Netherby!” he bawled, dodging under cover of his desk warily; and he added in a hoarse aside, jerking his
thumb towards the editor’s door: “Chuck it! I withdraw.”
The yellow-haired youth put down the heavy ink-pot.
Noll saw out of the corner of his alert eye that honour was satisfied, and as he ran his finger pensively down a large
splash of ink that had dried on the wall beside his desk, he asked:
“Well?... About that confidence!”
Netherby Gomme cleared his throat:
“Now, Oliver, don’t say anything about this to anyone. It might make me so ridiculous, and—professional humorists are
keenly sensitive to ridicule——”
“Lor!” said Noll, leaving the patch on the wall. “Get on.”
“This is in strict confidence, Noll.”
“Oh, it’s Julia all right enough,” growled Noll.
Gomme went on, ignoring the comment:
“Noll, it is one of the penalties of fame that its victims must appear in the brilliant world of fashion.” He coughed. “Come
here, Noll.” He unlocked and pulled open the drawer before him, and Noll, aroused to sudden interest, sidled over to
him as he brought out from the drawer a very carefully folded dress-coat. “Oliver, I’ve got a dress-coat. You see, I
may have to go into society at any moment, now that my book has caught the public eye.”
Noll put out his hand:
“Let’s look at the thing,” said he eagerly.
Gomme caught his arm and kept him off it:
“Careful, Noll!” he gasped anxiously—“gently! or we shan’t get it back into its folds.”
He put it away carefully, locked it up, and, sitting back in his chair, he added gravely:
[7]
[8]
“Now, Noll, as one who has knowledge of the usages of polite society——”
“Eh?” said Noll.
Gomme touched him on the shoulder nervously.
“No, no, Noll—I’m not accusing you of practising them. But as one born within the pale of good society—from no fault
of your own, I admit—ought one to put scent on the coat?”
Noll whistled:
“Je—hoshaphat!” said he, “I never noticed.” He pushed his hat back on his head, thrust his hands deep into his
breeches pockets, and fixed a searching eye on experience: “I’m not sure. N-no—I don’t think so. The governor
doesn’t.”
The yellow-haired youth shook his head solemnly:
“It’s a most awkward point, Oliver—a most awkward point—and somewhat momentous.... One’s first step at the
threshold of a career should not be a stumble.”
Noll’s face lighted up with a suggestion:
“Tell you what I should do, Netherby. Just scent your handkerchief; and if it kicks up a beastly lot of notice and makes
you uncomfortable, you can always get rid of it——”
“Indeed, Oliver!”
“Rather. Hand it to a lady and ask her if it is hers. Gives you a sort of introduction, too.”
Netherby Gomme stared aghast:
“B-but, Oliver, surely one is introduced in society!”
“Rather not—it ain’t form.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know; it’s the new hospitality. But about that scent, Netherby—let us try some on me, and I’ll see if it
worries the mother. The father’ll soon be nasty about it if it’s bad form.”
Gomme shook his head, and sighed heavily:
“Ah, Oliver, one has to be very careful in one’s pose on entering a new world.”
Noll nodded:
“Rather!... Do you know, Netherby, it’s a rummy thing how one begins to wash one’s self and think about ornaments
and things when one becomes a man, eh?”
“A most rummy thing indeed, Noll.”
Netherby Gomme sighed.
Noll looked at him with interest:
“It must be wonderful to feel famous,” he said.
“It is,” said Gomme gloomily. “Wonderful.”
“But I don’t see why you should be so beastly miserable about it, Netherby. It don’t hurt, does it?”
“Not exactly, Noll.” The yellow-haired youth sighed. “I am only suffering from the mood of the time.... Pessimism is on
the town.... A clerk with any claim to culture must affect Decadence this season—and it gives me the hump.” He
coughed. “Causes me acute mental discomfort.”
Noll snorted:
“Then I should chuck it,” he said. “When I was a kid I used to worry if I were not the same as the other kids; but—
hullo!” He looked up at the clock. “It seems to me it’s about time to go and get tea.”
He winked an eye solemnly at Gomme, and whistled his way airily out of the office. The door swung open, revealing a
dingy stair-landing, shut with a bang, and swallowed him.
The sound of Noll’s retreating footsteps on the stair had scarce faded away into the distant echoes of the street, when
the door that led to the editor’s room opened, and a well-groomed man of about thirty-five entered the office. Anthony
Baddlesmere was a handsome, well-set-up fellow—indeed, it was as much from his father as from his mother that Noll
inherited his good looks. He was handsome to the degree of beauty; and this it was, perhaps, which, in spite of the easy
carriage of the body and the subtle air of good-breeding, gave the impression of some indecision of character in the
man. Or it may have been that this indecision was increased by a certain embarrassment as he endeavoured to get a
firm note into his voice:
“Oh, Gomme—have you completed the dummy yet—for this week’s issue?”
[9]
Gomme got up from his chair and searched for the dummy amongst the papers on Noll’s desk. But Anthony
Baddlesmere had seated himself on the corner of the desk, and, fingering a paper-knife, he said:
“Oh—er—never mind. There’s another matter, Netherby.... It’s some years since I started this sorry venture in this
office.” He sighed, and passed his hand over his forehead wearily—“more years than I care to remember. You, the
office-boy, were a lank lad of thirteen—I a young man, full of literary enthusiasms.... I tried to sell the public artistic
wares”—he shrugged his shoulders—“tried to show them vital things—real things, instead of sham—tried to encourage
promising youth”—he laughed sadly—“and a nice waste-paper basket we’ve made of it!”
He swung his foot and kicked the waste-paper basket into the middle of the room, sending its contents flying over the
floor.
Netherby Gomme coughed:
“Yes, sir,” said he, “a great deal of the promise of youth goes into the waste-paper basket.”
Anthony Baddlesmere laughed uncomfortably; the laugh died out of his eyes, obliterated by a frown:
“Downstairs,” he went on, as though repeating an unpleasant task he had set himself—“downstairs they have given the
public trash—cheap. And I have lost.... In me the literary enthusiasm, a little chilled, perhaps, remains; but the youth has
gone. As for you—you are office-boy still, to all purposes, and lank still—but, lord! how you have grown!”
Netherby Gomme looked down at his scanty trousers and sighed:
“Yes, sir, I have grown.”
“H’m! like a scandal,” said Baddlesmere; and a gleam of merriment shot into his eyes, ran round the corners of his
mouth, and vanished. “Gomme,” said he, “we are at the end of our resources. This is our last week in these rooms....
The office is bare—my home is bare. All my money—all my wife’s literary success—all have gone to feed the printing
machine. It’s great inky maw has swallowed everything.... However, there is no debt—except to you. But that is a
heavy one. My conscience tells me that you ought not to have been allowed to remain here and share in the collapse;
you ought to have been promoted—to have been sent to—to——”
He hesitated—stopped.
“Where, sir?” asked the yellow-haired youth.
The bald fact was that Baddlesmere had never given the matter a thought until this disaster was upon him. He smiled
sadly, and added vaguely:
“No place would have been good enough for you, Gomme.... You should have been promoted long ago....” He roused
and faced the position boldly: “But you have been such a good friend to me and to the boy—so useful a part of this
office, that I am afraid I have treated you like a part of myself, and have come by habit to think the hat that covered my
head covered yours.... Dame Fortune has knocked the hat off—and I find there were two heads inside it.”
“Well, sir, we can look her in the face without the hat.”
“Yes, yes, Gomme—but I have looked over your head.”
“It has saved your eyes from the commonplace, sir, and my heart from a bad chill. I wouldn’t have missed the past
years in this office for a fortune.”
“No, no, Gomme; nor I—nor I.”
“They have made a man of me,” the youth added hoarsely.
Baddlesmere put his hand on the other’s shoulder:
“But you should have been promoted—you should have been promoted.... And I could so easily have sent you to a
better billet.” He sat down, and, fidgeting with the paper-knife again, he added, after a pause: “By the way, Gomme, I
wish you did not write such a shocking bad hand.” He smiled, half jesting, half serious. “Why don’t you practise
writing?”
Gomme’s face became a dull, expressionless mask:
“I have, sir,” he said grimly.
“How? You have!”
“I’ve written a book,” he said.
Baddlesmere whistled:
“The devil you have!... Ah, Gomme, everybody writes books nowadays.”
“But they read mine, sir,” said Netherby Gomme. He dived his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and, taking out
a bundle of press-cuttings, drew a much-thumbed one from the others. “Listen to the mighty Thrumsby Burrage in The
Discriminator, sir.” He read out the paragraph:
“We have here a refined humorist, whose work is stamped with the hall-mark of genius.”
Baddlesmere nodded; he was only half listening.
[10]
“Oh yes,” said he—“hall-mark of genius is Thrumsby Burrage.”
Gomme went on with a yawning travesty of the pulpit manner:
“In the present day it is indeed a veritable intellectual treat to come upon the subtle workmanship of a man of
large experience of life—workmanship marked by that delicate wit which grows only to perfection in the
cloistered atmosphere of scholarship.”
“Yes—cloistered atmosphere is Thrumsby Burrage.”
Gomme’s eyes twinkled:
“We rejoice that a new man of genius has risen amongst us, and we do not hesitate to say that the anonymous
writer of ‘The Tragedy of the Ridiculous’ is that man.”
Anthony Baddlesmere shook off boredom, stood up slowly, stared at the gaunt yellow-haired youth before him in frank
tribute of bewilderment, and said at last with hoarse surprise:
“You wrote this book, Gomme?”
“Yes, sir,” said Netherby Gomme simply; “but when I write my tragedy——”
Baddlesmere clapped a hand on his shoulder, and pleasure danced in his eyes.
“But, good God! you are famous, man—famous!... And you must be making a fortune.”
“No, sir—I sold the thing for a few pounds.”
Anthony Baddlesmere strode up and down the room.
“But, man,” said he—“I have been trying all my life, and with every advantage, to create a work of art such as this; and
here are you, a mere stripling—damn it, scarcely out of knickerbockers—though, on my soul, you are nearly as old as
your trousers—here are you, a mere stripling, famous!” He came to him, gripped him affectionately by the shoulder. “Of
all men that I know, I would rather this thing had come to you than to any.” He turned and got to striding up and down
the room again. “Famous!—at least you will be as soon as you give out your own name.”
Gomme’s face had flushed a little with the praise:
“But,” said he, “when I write my tragedy——”
Baddlesmere turned on him sharply:
“Tragedy be hanged!” said he. “My dear Gomme, you’ve got to recognise that the world never takes its humorists
seriously. It’s always looking for the joke in their tragedies.... Which reminds me, Gomme, I’m afraid to-morrow must
see us out of this.”
Gomme’s face lost its mask:
“But, sir!” he faltered—fidgeting nervously with the papers by his hand—“what are you going to do? and Noll?—and
Mrs. Baddlesmere—when the blinds are pulled down?”
Baddlesmere strode over to the window, and, gazing down into the dusk of the chilly street below, made no answer.
He stood so for a long while, and wondered.
He wondered if he had given the public vital things!
His mind ran rapidly over the failure of his scheme—a scheme that, as he now saw, had been inherent with failure at its
very inception. He saw now, as he stood there ruined by it, that it was folly to expect a public to buy literature built up
on the mere brilliant literary exercises in technical skill of a smart group of young fellows who had really had no claim
upon the consideration of the world, nothing to say, no gift but a capacity to use the machinery of letters prettily; who
had had positively nothing to offer to the world but old idioms freshly arrayed in pretty clothes—make-believe kings at
a calico-ball. These had been but smart mediocrities—not an ounce of wisdom amongst them all. It came to him now
with grim irony, as he stood there in confession to the clear-eyed judge of Self, that for all their cackle of literary style
and their contempt for everyone else, these men had uttered no single thought worth preserving—that they had left their
youth behind and were growing bald a-top, and full-blown and ordinary—except——
Yes, the work of this Netherby Gomme. He knew now as he ran over the years, that all the best work had come from
this youth’s pen—about the only one of them all who had not given himself airs, who had put down the absolute truth as
he whimsically saw it, who had worked and wrought amid bare walls and in hours snatched from toil-won leisure, whilst
they all sat and prated of what they intended to do, and of how it should be done.
He turned from the window into the lighted office, and his glance fell on his son Noll’s desk. It was the only artistic
corner in the room—the prints, mounted on brown paper, which the boy had tacked to the wall, had a decorative effect
that showed rare artistic taste in one so young.
A touch of pride came into the man’s eyes, and went out in a frown. Netherby Gomme, watching him in alert silence,
with delicate tact uttered no word.
As Baddlesmere moved towards the editor’s room he asked abruptly:
“Where’s Noll?”
[11]
[12]
