 Chapter 2 Part 3 In the silence which followed this frank statement of opinion, another figure added itself to the group. This was a large and benevolent-looking man in a senatorial frockcoat, whom Bill recognized by his white beard as the boy Horace's companion on the lawn. Even from a distance this person had seemed venerable. Seen at close range, he achieved almost the impressiveness of a minor prophet. He was smiling a grandfatherly smile. The only smile of any description, it may be mentioned, on view in the room at that particular time. For a more joyless gathering it would have been hard to find at any spot in America where a funeral was not actually in progress. Uncle Jasper had sagged like a drooping lily. Uncle Otis's eyes were bulging. Cousin Evelyn gave the impression of being about to burst. As for the boy Horace, the realization of the sort of family he had allowed himself to be adopted into seemed to have taken all the sunshine out of his life. He was the first to speak, and his words revealed what was weighing upon his mind. Do I have to kiss them all? He asked. You are certainly not going to kiss me. Said Uncle Jasper definitely, waking from his stupor. He rounded on Mr. Paradine, puffing like a seal. What is the meaning of this, coley? He demanded. Mr. Paradine waved a hand in the direction of the newcomer. Professor Appleby will explain. The minor prophet bowed. If he felt any embarrassment, he did not show it. His smile, as he spoke, was as gentle and insinuating as ever. The announcement, which my good friend Paradine. How do you mean your good friend, Paradine? Inquired Uncle Jasper heathedly. How long have you known him, I should like to know. I met Professor Appleby on the train coming from San Francisco. It was I, said Professor Appleby, breaking gently in. Who persuaded Mr. Paradine to adopt this little lad here? He patted the boy's head and regarded his fermenting audience kindly. My name. The man who he proceeded, anticipating Uncle Jasper, who seemed about to speak, is possibly not familiar to you, but in certain circles I think I may assert with all modesty. My views on eugenics are considered worthy of attention. Mr. Paradine, I am glad to say, has allowed himself to be enrolled among my disciples. I am a strong supporter of Mr. Bernard Shaw's views on the necessity of starting a new race, building it with the most perfect specimens of the old. Horace here is a boy of splendid physique, great intelligence, sterling character, and wonderful disposition. I hold, and I am glad to say that he agrees with me, that it is better for Mr. Paradine to devote his money to the rearing and training of such a boy than to spend it on relatives who, I may say, have little future, and from whom he can expect, pardon me, but small returns. Mr. Paradine intends to found a family that looks forward instead of back, a family of comers, instead of a family of has-beens. The relatives gave tongue. All through this harangue they had been trying to speak, but Professor Appleby was not an easy man to interrupt. Now that he had paused, they broke out, cousin Evelyn in the lead, uncles Jasper and Otis following close behind. I never heard of such a thing in my life! This fellow is a dangerous crank. Is it really possible that you intend to make this, this uncouth boy, your heir, rather than your own flesh and blood? Professor Appleby intervened gently. One must admit, he acknowledged, that Horace is at present a trifle unpolished. I quite see that. But what of it? A good tutor will remedy so small a defect in a few months. The main thing is, that the little lad is superbly healthy, and extremely intelligent. The little lad made no acknowledgment of these stately tributes. He was still wrestling with the matter nearest his heart. I will not kiss him. He now announced, firmly, No, sir. Not unless somebody makes me a bet about it. I once kissed a goat on a bet. Cousin Evelyn threw up her hands, causing Willydog to fall squashily to the floor. What an impossible little creature! I think, my dear Paradine, said Professor Appleby, mildly, that as conversation seems to be becoming a little acrimonious, it would be best if I took Horace for a stroll in the grounds. It is not good for his growing mind to have to listen to these wranglings. Cousin Evelyn stiffened militantly. Pray, do not let us disturb Horace in his home! She attached a lead to Willydog's collar and made for the door. Goodbye, Uncle Cooley, she said, turning. I consider I have been grossly and heartlessly insulted. Hey, exclaimed Horace, pointing, you've dropped your knitting, and it's dragging. With one long silent look of repulsion, Cousin Evelyn gathered Willydog into her arms and passed out. Uncle Jasper stumped to the door. Goodbye, Jasper, said Mr. Paradine. Goodbye, I shall immediately take steps to have a lunacy-commission appointed to prevent you carrying out this mad scheme. And I, said Uncle Otis, I have only to say, Cooley, that the journey here has left me out of pocket, to the extent of three dollars and seventy-nine cents. You shall hear from my lawyer. He took little Cooley by the hand. Come, John," he said bitterly, in future you will be known by your middle name. Horace observed this exodus with a sardonic eye. Say, I seem to be about as popular as a cold Welsh rabbit," he remarked. Bill came forward amably. I've got nothing against you, buddy," he said, as far as I'm concerned. Welcome to the family. If that's the family," said Horace, you're welcome to him yourself. And placing his little hand in Professor Applebee's, he left the room. Mr. Paradine eyed Bill grimly. Well, William, well, Uncle Cooley, I take it that you have gathered the fact that I do not intend to continue your allowance. Yes, I gathered that. His young relatives calm seemed to embarrass Mr. Paradine a little. He spoke almost defensively, worst thing in the world for a boy your age to have all the money he wants without earning it. Exactly what I feel," said Bill enthusiastically, what I need is work. It's disgraceful," he said, warmly, that a fellow of my ability and intelligence should not be making a living for himself. Disgraceful. Mr. Paradine's sanguine countenance took on a deeper red. Very humorous, he growled, very humorous and whimsical. But what you expect to gain by humorous? You don't imagine I was being funny, do you? I thought you were trying to be. Good Lord, no. Why I came here this afternoon fully resolved to ask you for work. You've taken your time getting round to it. I didn't get a chance to mention it before. And what sort of work do you suppose I can give you? A job in the firm? What as? Bill's extremely slight knowledge of the ramifications of the pulp and paper business made this a difficult question to answer. Oh, oh, anything, he replied with valiant spaciousness. I could employ you at addressing envelopes at $10 a week. Fine, fine, said Bill, when do I start? Mr. Paradine peered at him suspiciously through his glasses. Are you serious? I should say so. Well, I'm bound to say, observed Mr. Paradine after a pause, seeming a trifle disconcerted. Your attitude has taken me by a good deal of surprise. Bill thought of murmuring that his uncle did not realize the hidden depths in his character, but decided not to. It's an odd thing, William, but the only member of my family for whom I still retain some faint glimmer of affection is you. Bill smiled his gratification. And you, boomed Mr. Paradine, are an idle, worthless good for nothing. Still, I'll think it over. You're not going back to the city at once. Not if you want me. I may want you. Stay here for another hour or so. I'll go and stroll by the lake. Mr. Paradine scrutinized him keenly. I can't understand it. He muttered, wanting to work. I don't know what's come over you. I believe you're in love or something. For about a quarter of an hour after the parting of uncle and nephew, perfect peace brooded upon Mr. Cooley Paradine's house and grounds. At the end of that period, Roberts the butler, agreeably relaxed in his pantry over a cigar and a tale of desert love, was startled out of his tranquility by the sound of a loud, metallic crash, appearing to proceed from the drive immediately in front of the house. Laying down cigar and book, he bounded out to investigate. It was not remarkable that there had been a certain amount of noise. Hard by one of the colonial pillars which the architect had tacked on to Mr. Paradine's residence to make it more interesting, lay the wreckage of a red, two-seater car. And from the ruins of this there was now extricating itself a long figure in a dustcoat, revealed a moment later as a young man of homely appearance, with a prominent arched nose and plaintive green eyes. Hello, said this young man, spitting out gravel. Roberts gazed at him in speechless astonishment. The wreck of the two-seater was such a very comprehensive wreck that it seemed hardly possible that any recent occupant of it could still be in one piece. Had a bit of a smash, said the young man. An accident, sir, gasped Roberts. If you think I did it on purpose, said the young man, prove it. He surveyed the ruins interestingly. That car, he said, sagely after a prolonged scrutiny, will want a bit of fixing. However did it happen, sir. Just one of those things that do happen. Coming up the drive at a pretty good lick when a bird settled in the middle of the fairway, tried to avoid running over the beastly creature and must have pulled the wheel too far round. Because all of a sudden I skidded a couple of yards, burst a tire and hit the side of the house. Good heavens, sir. It's all right, said the young man reassuringly. I was coming here anyway. He discovered a deposit of gravel in his left eyebrow and removed it with a blue silk handkerchief. This is Mr. Paradine's house, isn't it? He asked. Yes, sir. Good, is Mr. West here? Yes, sir. That's fine. I wish you would tell him I want to see him. Coker's the name, Mr. Judson Coker. Very good, sir. Something in the butler's manner, a certain placidity and lack of emotion, appeared to displease the young man. He frowned slightly. Judson Coker, he repeated. Yes, sir. Judson looked at him expectantly. Names familiar, eh? No, sir. You don't mean to say you've never heard it before? Not to my knowledge, sir. Good God, said Judson. He reached out a long arm and detained the reseeding Roberts by the simple process of seizing the tail of his coat. Even in his moods of normalcy, there was never anything aloof and reticent about Judson Coker. He was always ready to chat anywhere at any time with anyone. And now his accident had brought about in him a still greater urge towards locustity. Shocks affect different people in different ways. Judson's had left him bubblingly confidential. Do you mean to tell me honestly, as man to man? He demanded incredulously that you have never heard the name Judson Coker before? No, sir. Don't you ever read Broadway Badinage? No, sir. Nor Town Gossip? No, sir. Good God. The failure of this literacy test seemed to discourage Judson. He released the butler's coat tail and relapsed into a moody silence. Shall I bring you a whiskey and soda, sir? Asked Roberts. It had come home to him by this time that the young visitor was not wholly himself and remorse swept over him. Long ere this, he told himself, he should have been playing the part of a kindly physician. The question restored Judson's cheerfulness immediately. It was the sort of question that never failed to touch a cord in him. My dear old chap, you certainly may. He responded with enthusiasm, I've been wondering when you were going to lead the conversation round to serious subjects. Mix it pretty strong, will you? Not too much water. And about the amount of whiskey that would make a rabbit bite a bulldog. Yes, sir. Will you step inside the house? No thanks. Sit right here, if it's all the same to you. The butler retired to return a few moments later with the healing fluid. He found his young friend staring pensively at the sky. I say, said Judson, breathing a satisfied sigh as he lowered his half empty glass. Coming back to that, you were kidding just now, weren't you? When you said you didn't know my name? No, sir, I assure you. Well, this is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard. You seem to know about as much of what's going on in the world as a hen does of tooth powder. Didn't you ever hear of the silks? Silks, sir? Yes, the Fifth Avenue silks. No, sir. Good gat, very famous walking club, you know, used to assemble on Sunday mornings and parade up Fifth Avenue in silk pajamas, silk socks, silk hats, and silk umbrellas in case it rained. Have you really never heard of them? No, sir. Well, I'm darned. Doesn't that just show you what fame is? I shouldn't have thought there was an educated man in the country who hadn't heard of the silks. We got a whole page in the Sunday magazine section of the American. The week the police stopped us. Indeed, sir. We certainly did with a picture of me. I founded the silks, you know. Yes, sir? Oh, yes. I've done a good deal of that sort of thing. I went up in an airplane once, scattering dollar bills over the city. I'm surprised you've not heard of me. We live very much out of the great world down here, sir. I suppose you do, said Judson, cheered by this solution. Yes, I guess that must be it. Quite likely you might not have heard of me, if that's so. But you can take it from me, that I have done a lot of things in my time. Clever things, you know, that made people talk. If it hadn't been for me, I don't suppose the custom of wearing the handkerchief of the sleeve would ever have been known in America. Indeed, sir. I assure you, to some men these reminiscences might have proved enthralling. But not to one who, like Roberts, was in the middle of Chapter 11 of Sand and Passion and wanted to get back to it. He removed the decanter gently from the reach of Judson's clutching hand and tactfully endeavored to end the conversation. I made inquiries, sir, and was informed that Mr. West was last seen walking in the direction of the lake. Perhaps if you would care to look for him there. Judson rose. You're perfectly right. He said earnestly, absolutely right. I've got to see old Bill immediately. Came here especially to see him. No time to lose. Which way is this lake? Over yonder, sir. Ah, but here is Mr. West coming up the drive. Eh? Mr. West, sir, coming up the drive. And having indicated Bill's approaching figure to the visitor, who was peering vaguely in every direction but the right one, Roberts withdrew into the house, he paused in the hall to telephone to the occupants of the local garage that there was a man's work for them to do in Mr. Paradine's front garden, then returned to the pantry and resumed his reading. It was the unwelcome arrival on its grassy shores of Professor Appleby and the boy Horace that had driven Bill from the lake. He was in no mood for conversation, for it had suddenly become plain to him that he had got to do some very tense thinking. Events since his coming to Mr. Paradine's house had marched so rapidly that he had not had leisure until this moment to appreciate the problems and complexities with which life had filled itself. Brooding now upon these, he could see that fate had maneuvered him into a position where he was faced with the disagreeable necessity of being in two places at one and the same time. Obviously, if his newly displayed enthusiasm for toil was to carry weight, he must enter Uncle Cooley's office immediately. Obviously, also, if he entered Uncle Cooley's office immediately, he could not take Judson off for a fishing trip. If he went off now upon a fishing trip, what would Uncle Cooley think of him? And, conversely, if he canceled the fishing trip, what would Alice Coker feel, but that he had failed her in her hour of need after booing her up with airy promises? Bill staggered beneath the burden of the problem and was so preoccupied that Judson had to call him twice before he heard him. Oh, I, hello, Judson. What on earth are you doing here? He wrung in the hand of the founder of the Fifth Avenue Silks with considerable animation. Since there's somewhat distant talk on the telephone that morning, his mental attitude towards Judson had changed a good deal. In his capacity of practically accepted suitor of sister Alice, Bill had taken on a sort of large benevolence towards her entire family. He found himself glowing with brotherly affection for Judson, and even conscious of a certain timid desire to fraternize with the redoubtable Jay Birdsey. He massaged Judson's shoulder lovingly. Quite suddenly it had come to him that the problem which had been weighing him down was no problem at all. He had been mistaken in supposing that two alternatives of action presented themselves. Now that the sudden spectacle of Judson had, so to speak, stressed the Coker motif in the rhythm of life, he saw clearly that there was only one course for him to pursue. At whatever cost to himself and his financial future, he must keep faith with Alice. The fishing trip was on. The spectacular entry into the pulp and paper business off. Hello, Bill, oh man, said Judson. Just the fellow I want to see. As a matter of fact, I came out here especially to see you. Had a bit of a smash, he added, indicating the debris. Good heavens. Bill quivered with a cold dismay at the thought of her brother having motor smashes. You aren't hurt. No, just juggled a bit. Say, listen, Bill, Alice has been tipping me off about what's happened at home. There's no mistake about this fishing trip, is there? Because if there is, I'm sunk. A week at the old ladies would finish me. That's all right. Bill patted his shoulder. I promised Alice, and that's enough. The things settled. Bill hesitated blushfully for a moment. Judson, old man, he went on, his voice trembling. I asked her to be my wife. Breakfast every morning at 7.30, if you can believe it, said Judson, and working on the farm all day. To be my wife, repeated Bill in a slightly louder tone. And if there's one thing that gives me the pip, said Judson, it's messing about with a bunch of pigs and chickens. I asked Alice to marry me. And then family prayers, you know, and hymns and things. I couldn't stand it, old man. Simply couldn't stand it. She wouldn't give me a definite answer. Who wouldn't? Alice, Alice, what about? Bill's attitude of general benevolence towards the Kokra family began to undergo a slight modification. Some of its members, he felt, could be a little trying at times. I asked your sister, Alice, to marry me. He said, coldly, but she wouldn't actually promise. Well, that's fine, said Judson. I mean, you can get out of it all right, what? Revolted as Bill was, and he gazed at his friend with a chilly loathing, which might have wounded a more sensitive man. His determination was not weakened. Judson might have rather less soul than a particularly unspiritual warthog, but he still remained Alice's brother. Wait here, he said, stiffly. I must go and see my uncle. Why? To tell him about this fishing trip. Does he want to come too? Asked Judson, perplexed. He wants me to go to work in his office at once. And I must tell him that it will have to be postponed. Mr. Peridine had left the study when Bill got there. But familiarity with his habits told Bill where to look. He found him in the library, perilously perched upon a long ladder, browsing on a volume which he had extracted from an upper shelf. Uncle Cooley, Mr. Peridine gazed down from the heights. He replaced the book and descended. I wanted to see you, William. He said, sit down. I was just going to ring for Roberts to tell you to come here. He lowered himself into the deep chair which had been the object of little Cooley's recent attentions. I have a suggestion to make. What I wanted to say, shut up, said Mr. Peridine. Bill subsided. His uncle scrutinized him closely. There was something appraising in his glance. I wonder if you have any sense at all? He said, I shut up, said Mr. Peridine. He sniffed, menacingly. Bill began to wish that he had some better news for this fiery little man than the information that he proposed to abandon the idea of work and go fishing. You've always been bone idle, resumed Mr. Peridine, like all the rest of the family. But there's no knowing whether you might not show some action if you were put to it. How would you like me to continue your allowance for another three months or so? Very much, said Bill. Mind you, you'd have to do something to earn it. Certainly, agreed Bill. After I come back from this fishing, I can't go myself, said Mr. Peridine meditatively, and I ought to send someone. There's something wrong somewhere. You see, shut up, don't interrupt. This is the position. The returns of my London branch aren't at all satisfactory. Haven't been for a long time. Can't make out why. My manager there struck me as a very shrewd fellow. Still, there's no getting away from it. The profits have been falling off badly. I'm going to send you to London, William, to look into things. London, said Bill, blankly. Exactly. When do you want me to go? At once. But you're wandering, said Mr. Peridine, placing an erroneous construction on his nephew's hesitation. Just exactly what I expect you to do when you get to London. Well, frankly, I don't know myself, and I don't quite know why I'm sending you. I suppose it's just with the faint hope of discovering whether you have any intelligence at all. I certainly don't expect you to solve a mystery which has been puzzling a man like Slingsby for two years. Slingsby? Wilfred Slingsby, my London manager. Very capable man. I say I don't expect you to go straight over there and put your finger on the solution of a problem that has baffled a man like Slingsby. All I feel is that if you keep your eyes open and try to learn something about the business and take an interest in its management, you may happen, by luck, to blunder on some suggestion which, however foolish in itself, might possibly give Slingsby an idea which would put him on the right track. I see, said Bill, the estimate of his potentialities as factor in solving the firm's little difficulties was not a flattering one, but he had to admit that it was probably more or less correct. It'll be good training for you. You can go and see Slingsby and he can tell you something about the business. That will all help, said Mr. Paradine, with a chuckle when you come back here and start addressing envelopes. Bill hesitated. I'd like to go, Uncle Cooley. There's a boat on Saturday. I wonder if I could have half an hour to think it over? Think it over? Mr. Paradine swelled ominously. What do you mean? Think it over? Do you understand that I am offering you? Oh, oh yes, I quite see that. It's only, look here. Let me just pop downstairs and speak to a fellow. What are you talking about? Demanded Mr. Paradine warmly. Why downstairs? What fellow? You're gibbering. He would have spoken further, but Bill was already at the door with a deprecating smile in his uncle's direction and tended to convey the message that all would come right in the future. He edged out of the room. Judson, he said, reaching the hall and looking about for him. He perceived that his friend was engaged at the telephone. Half a minute, said Judson into the receiver. Here's Bill West. Just talking to Alice, he explained over his shoulder. Fathers come home and he says it's all right about that trip. Ask her to ask him if it will be as good if I take you over to London instead, said Bill hurriedly. My uncle wants me to go over there at once. London? Judson shook his head mournfully, not at chance. My dear old chap, you're missing the whole point of this business. The idea is to dump me somewhere where I can't. Tell her to tell him, urged Bill feverishly, that I will pledge my solemn word that you shan't have a cent of money or a drop of drink from the time you start to the day you get back. Say, you'll be just as safe in London with me as Judson did not permit him to finish the sentence. Genius, murmured Judson, a smile of infinite joy irradiating his face. Absolute genius. I should never have had the gall to think up anything like that. His face clouded again. I doubt if it'll work, though. Father's not a chump, you know? Still, I'll try it. There was a telephonic interval at the end of which Judson relaxed and reported progress. She's gone to ask him, but I doubt. I very much doubt. Hello? Hello? He turned to the telephone again and listened for a space. He handed the instrument to Bill. She wants to speak to you. Bill took the telephone with trembling hands. Yes, he said devoutly, impossible to say anything as coarsely abrupt as hello. The musical voice of Alice Coker twilled at the other end of the wire. Who is that? It's me. Sir, Bill. Oh, Mr. West, said Alice. I've been speaking to Father about Judson going to London with you. Yes. He was very much against it at first, but when I explained to him that you would take such great care of Juddy. Oh, I will. I will. You really will see that he has no money at all? Not a cent. And nothing to drink? Not a drop. Very well, then. He may go. Thank you so much, Mr. West. Bill was beginning to try to put into neat phrases the joy he felt at the thought of doing the least service for her, but a distant click told him that his eloquence would be wasted. He hung up the receiver emotionally. Well, said Judson anxiously. It's all right. Judson uttered a brief whoop of ecstasy. Bill, you're a marvel. The way you pulled that stuff about not letting me have any money has solemn as a, what do you call it? That was what turned the scale as quick a bit of thinking as I ever struck, said Judson with honest admiration. Gosh, what a time we'll have in London. There's a place I've always wanted to see. All those historic spots you read about in the English novels, you know, Romanos. The Savoy Bar and all that. Bill, oh man, we'll paint that good, whole city bright scarlet from end to end. It became apparent to the horrified Bill that young Mr. Coker had got an entirely wrong angle on the situation. Only too plainly, it was shown by his remarks, the divine Alice's deplorable brother had mistaken his recent promises for mere persiflage, evidently holding them to be nothing but part of a justifiable ruse to assist the pal. He choked, ah, do you really think, he said, slowly struggling with his feelings, that I would deceive that sweet girl? You betcher, said Judson sonnally. For a long moment Bill eyed him in cold silence. Then, still without speaking, he strode off up the stairs to inform Mr. Paradine that his services were at his disposal. Down on the lawn that ran beside the lake, Professor Appleby paced to and fro with a boy Horace. His white head was bent, and one viewing them from afar would have said that the venerable old man was whispering sage counsel into his young friend's ears. Words of wisdom designed to shape and guide his future life. And so he was. Now listen to me kid, he was saying, and get this into your nut. I've got you in good and solid in this house, and now it's up to you. You don't want to hang around here picking daisies. A nice quick clean up, that's what we want from you young man. The boy nodded briefly. The minor profit continued. It's got to be an inside job, of course, but I'll have Joe the dip get in touch with you and stand by in case you need him. Not that the party's likely to get rough if you only do your end of the thing without bungling it. Still, it's as well to have Joe handy, so keep an eye out for him. Sure. And don't go getting lazy just because you're in soft in a swell home where you'll probably have lots of good things to eat. That's the trouble with you. You think too much of your stomach. If you were left to yourself, you'd lie back in a chair, stuffing yourself forever without giving a thought to the rest of the gang. You can't run a business that way. Just remember that we're waiting outside and that what we want is quick action. It's no good rushing me, protested Horace. I may not be able to do anything for weeks. Got to fix up a house party, haven't I? So there'll be lots of women around with jewelry. Professor Appleby clutched his white beard in anguish. Gosh darn it. He moaned, are you really so boneheaded or are you just pretending? Haven't I told you a dozen times that we aren't after jewels this time? You don't suppose a hermit like old Paradine gives house parties to women, do you? Didn't I tell you till I was hoarse that what we want is those books of his? I thought you were kidding, pleaded Horace. What's the use of a bunch of books? If you'll just do as you're told and not try to start thinking for yourself, said Professor Appleby severely, we may get somewhere. Those books may not look good to a little runt like you who doesn't think of anything outside of what's for dinner. But let me tell you that there isn't one of them that isn't worth four figures and lots of them are worth five. That's so, said Horace, impressed. It certainly is and what you've got to do is to snoop around and find out just where the best of them are kept and then get away with them, see? Sure, it oughtn't to be hard, said Professor Appleby. You've got the run of the place. Everything's certainly working nice and smooth. The old man swallowed those references of yours hook, line, and sinker. Well, why wouldn't he? Gee, said Horace with feeling, when I think of all the Sunday schools I've had to go to to get him, Professor Appleby frowned. The boy's tone offended him. Horace, he said, chidingly, you must not speak in that way. If you're going to say a single word against your Sunday school, I just won't listen. Do you get me, you little shrimp, or have I got to clump you one on the side of the bean? I get you, said Horace. End of chapter two, part three. Chapter three of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse. This the Bravok's recording is in the public domain. Flick pays a call. There is something about the manner in which spring comes to England, which reminds one of the overtures of a diffident puppy trying to make friends. It takes a deprecating step forward, scuttles away in a panic, steals timorously back, and finally gaining confidence, makes a tumultuous and joyful rush. The pleasant afternoon which had lured Mr. Sinclair Hammond out to sit in his garden had been followed by a series of those discouraging April days when the sun shines feebly and spasmodically, easily discouraged by any blustering cloud that swagger's across its path, and chilly showers lie in wait for those who venture out without an umbrella. But now, two weeks later, a morning had arrived which might have belonged to June. A warm breeze blew languidly from the west and the sun shone royally on a grateful world so that even wimbled in common, though still retaining something of that brooding air which never completely leaves large spaces of public ground on which the proletariat may at any moment scatter paper bags, achieved quite a cheerful aspect. Am a garden of Holly House across the road from the common was practically a paradise. So at least it seemed to flick, strolling on the lawn. The trees that fringed the wall were a green mist of young leaves. A snow of apple blossom covered the turf of the little orchard. Daffodils nodded their golden heads on every side. There was a heartening smell of new turned earth and the air was filled with mingled noises ranging from the silver bubbling of a thrush in the shrubbery to the distant contralto of Mrs. Frances Hammond taking a conscientious singing lesson in the drawing room. And such was the magic of the day that not even this last manifestation of spring fever could quell flicks mood of ecstasy. She was trying now to analyze her feelings. Why was every nerve in her body vibrating with a sort of rapturous excitement? Certainly not because at 4.30 that afternoon she was to call at Roderick's office in Tilbury House and be taken by him to tea at Claridge's. She was fond of Roderick, but whatever his merits, the thought of seeing him was not enough to intoxicate any girl. Even though she and he might be engaged to be married. No, what was thrilling her, she decided, was just that vague feeling of something nice about to happen which comes to the young at this season of the year. We graybeards who have been deceived so often by the whisper of spring are proof against the weedlings of an April morning. We know that there is nothing wonderful lurking around the corner and consequently declined to be lured into false anticipations of joy. But at 21 it is different and Flick Sheridan had that feeling. She paused in her walk to watch the goldfish in their cement-bottomed pool. The breeze was stronger now and it ruffled the surface of the water so that the goldfish had for the moment a sort of syncopated appearance. The breeze became stronger still and shifted from west to east and as if spring had repented of its effusiveness the air grew chilly. The white clouds which had been flitting across the face of the sun began to bank themselves. Flick turned towards the house to get a wrap and as she did so there came through the open window of Mr. Hammond's study on the ground floor a cry suggestive of dismay and wrath followed instantly by the appearance of papers which took to themselves wings and fluttered sportively about Flick's head. Mr. Hammond came into sight framed in the window his hair ruffled and a splash of ink on his forehead. Ass of a maid opened the door and started a draft. Pick him up, there's a good girl. Flick collected the papers. She handed them in through the window. Mr. Hammond vanished and simultaneously the weather did another of its lightning changes. The wind dropped, the sun shone out stronger than ever and Flick, abandoning all ideas of wraps, returned to her stroll. She had just reached the lawn again when she became aware of a derelict piece of paper overlooked in her recent gleaning. It was gambling over the turf in the direction of the pool, hotly pursued by Bob, the celium terrier who was obviously under the impression that he had before him one of the birds which he spent his life in chasing. The paper dodged and doubled like a live thing. It paused till Bob was almost on it, then playfully skipped away. Finally, finding that Bob stuck to the chase, it took the only way out and dived into the pool. Bob, hovering uncertainly on the brink, decided to let the matter rest. He turned and trotted off into the bushes. A last puff of wind from the expiring breeze, attached the paper to a lily-pad and Flick, angling with a rake, was enabled to retrieve it. She was just reaching down to lift it ashore when her eyes fell on the opening words. Sir, if you would save a human life. Flick, who had nice views about the sanctity of other people's letters, read no further, but her heart was beating quickly as she raced across the lawn towards Mr. Hammond's study. Uncle Sinclair! There was an exclamation of patient anguish on the other side of the window. Mr. Hammond was having a little difficulty with his article for the fortnightly on Crosshaw and Francis Thompson, a comparison and a contrast. And this was the third time he had been interrupted since breakfast. Well, the window framed him once more and his severity diminished. Oh, it's you, Flick. Will you kindly get right out of here, young woman, and give a man a chance to work? Go and make daisy chains. But Uncle Sinclair, it's frightfully important. She held up the letter. I couldn't help reading the first line. It says something about saving a human life. I thought you ought to have it at once. Mr. Hammond reached behind him cautiously. The next moment, a flannel pen wiper sailed through the air and hit Flick between her earnest eyes. Good shot, crowed Mr. Hammond exultantly. That'll teach you to come interrupting me about begging letters in the middle of my work. But I remember the letter. I get dozens of them. They all say that the bed will be sold from under some poor dying woman, unless one pound, seven shillings, and three pence is sent by return of post. And they are all written by nasty, grubby men who need a shave. Incidentally, if you ever set up in the begging letter, Business Flick, never ask for any round sum like five pounds. Nobody ever gives five pounds. But the world is full of asses who will tumble over themselves to send one pound, seven and three or two pounds, 11 and five pence. But Uncle Sinclair, how do you know? Persistent Flick with the resolute perseverance of her sex, because I've looked into the thing. When I have leisure, I will give you some statistics from the charity organization. They prove that nine tenths of the begging letters which go out are written by professionals who make an excellent living at it. Now, leave me, child, first restoring to me that pen wiper. If I hear from you again before lunch, I will brain you with the poker. But this may be one of the really genuine, it isn't. How do you know? Instinct, away with you to your childish pastimes. Do you mind if I read it? Frame it, if you like. And don't forget what I said about that poker. I am a desperate man. Flick returned to the lawn. She read the letter as she walked. And the sun, though it was doing its honest best now to pretend that Midsummer had arrived, seemed to fade out of the sky. A chill desolation stalked through the pleasant garden. It was all very well for Uncle Sinclair to talk like that. But how could he know? This was the first begging letter which had ever come Flick's way, and she drank it in with that agonized sinking of the heart which begging letter writers hope for so earnestly in their clients, and so rarely bring out. To flick every word of it rang true, and she shivered with sheer misery at the thought that such things could be on a planet which ten minutes before had seemed filled to overflowing with pure happiness. The letter was not that of a stylist, but it told a story. Written by a Mrs. Matilda Pauley of number nine, Marmot Manchin's Battersea, it raised the curtain on a world of whose very existence Flick had until now been but dimly aware. A world of sickness and despair, of rent overdue, of wolves and landlords howling about the door. Flick, as she read it, sickened with sympathetic horror, and the gong for lunch, which reached her as she paced the lawn in agony of spirit, seemed like the cry of a mocking fiend. Lunch, hot, well-cooked meats, toothsome salads, fruit, potatoes, all the bread you wanted, and Mrs. Matilda Pauley of nine Marmot Manchin's Battersea, so reduced by fate that only three pounds, sixteen and four pence, sent promptly, could save her from the abyss. Suddenly, as if a voice that of Mrs. Pauley, possibly, had spoken in her ear, Flick remembered that in her bedroom upstairs she had certain geegaws, rings, necklaces, a brooch. She walked to the house, and halfway there aspired the corduroy trouser-seat of John, the gardener. He was bending over a flower bed, a worthy and amiable fellow, with whom she had become almost chummy in February, in connection with a matter of bulbs. Them tulips, observed John, not without a certain paternal pride, hoisting himself up at the sound of her approach. It'll be out now, before you know where you are, miss. An hour ago Flick would have plunged lightheartedly into chatter about tulips. But not now. Tulips, once of absorbing interest to her, had ceased to grip. Mrs. Pauley's pneumonia had put them where they belonged, among the lesser things of life. Man, said Flick, have you ever pawned anything? John's manner took on a certain wariness. His story about that missing pair of shears back in July had been well received, and he had assumed that the matter was closed. But you never knew in this world, for the world is full of scandal-mongers who spread tales about honest men. To gain time he hitched up his corduroy's and gazed woodenly at an aeroplane, which purred in the blue like a distant cat. He was about to secure a further respite by stating that there had been none of them things, when he was a boy. But Flick spared him the necessity. I was reading in a book about somebody pawning something, and I wondered how they did it. John was relieved. Now that he was assured that the subject was purely academic, he could approach it with an expert's ease. He proceeded to do so, and a few minutes later Flick was able to go into lunch a mistress of the procedure of what Gardner John described as putting up the spout, or more briefly, popping. The lunch was just as well cooked and appetizing as Flick had supposed it would be, but it did not turn to ashes in her mouth. She had found a way. Speaking of the effervescing happiness, which, until the intrusion of Mrs. Matilda Polly had animated Flick in her garden at Wimbledon, was making life a thing of joy and hope for Bill West, at the hour of one, that same afternoon, as he strode buoyantly along Piccadilly, for who would ride in cabs or buses on such a day, to keep a trist at Mario's restaurant with Mr. Wilfred Slingsby, the London manager of the Paradeen pulp paper company of New York. It was not only the weather that seemed to Bill to have lost its bleakness, but life itself. This morning, for the first time since their departure from America two weeks ago, Judson Coker had emerged from his black cloud of gloom, and shown a disposition to amiability. And in a small furnished flat it is amazing what a difference a touch of cheerfulness can make in the atmosphere. Judson, there is no disguising, had taken Bill's disciplinary measures hardly. From a point coinciding with the passing of the three-mile limit by the steamship Aquitania, he had run through the gamut of the emotions, from blank incredulity, to stunned despair. The negativing of his suggestion, made almost before the Aquitania had got her stern across that vital spot in the ocean, that Bill and he should adjourn to the smoking-room for a small one. Had struck him at first as rich comedy. Bill, he had felt, was ever a kidder, whimsical of him, to keep up with a perfectly straight face, that farce of not letting a fellow have money or a liquid nourishment. And towards the middle of the afternoon, Judson's view began to be that, while a joke was a joke, and he as fond of a laugh as anyone, there was such a thing as overdoing a jest, running it to death, and when Bill firmly declined to collaborate with him in that anti-dinner cocktail, without which, as everybody knows, food can hardly be taken into the system. The comedy definitely reared its ugly head. From that moment, shades of the prison-house began to chase about the growing boy, so to speak, and our gentle pen must decline to pursue the subject in detail. It is enough to say that Judson Coker arrived in London a soured man, and it had required many a glance at Alice's photographs to console Bill for having to pass the days in the sufferer's society. Apart from anything else, Judson's piteous appeals, for even the smallest sum of money, would have wrung the toughest heart, and life had been but a dreary affair in the flat, which Bill, after two days' experience of expensive hotels, had rented furnished for three months. But today things seemed different, whether it was the influence of spring, or whether Judson's abused liver had at last begun to pick up a bit. Bill could not say. But the fact remained that the tea-totaler appeared noticeably more cheery. Twice Bill had caught him smiling to himself, and at breakfast that morning, for the first time in thirteen days, he had actually laughed. A short, sad, rasping laugh, to evoke which it had been necessary for the maid of all work to trip over the carpet and spill a pint of coffee down Bill's legs. But still a laugh. This thought Bill was encouraging. Things he felt were looking up. This lunch with Mr. Slingsby was the outcome of one visit to the office, and two telephone conversations. Mr. Slingsby may have been letting the profits of the business fall off, but he certainly appeared to be no loafer. Time was money with him, and it was only now, five days after Bill had presented himself and announced his identity, that he had been able to find leisure for a sustained conversation. Even in their brief acquaintance, Mr. Slingsby had rather overpowered Bill. In the few moments which the manager had been able to give over to casual chat, his personality had made a deep impression on the young man. Wilford Slingsby was one of those shiny, breezy, forceful, natally tailored men of any age from forty to fifty, who always look as if they had just had a shave and would be needing another in the next few hours. A dark jowl was Mr. Slingsby's, perfectly setting off his flashing smile. His smile flashed out as Bill entered the lobby of the restaurant. He came forward with an outstretched hand, radiating efficiency and goodwill, and once more Bill had the feeling that this man's personality was something out of the common. He felt in his presence like a child. And what is more, like a child with flat feet and one lobe of its brain missing. Mr. Slingsby led the way into the restaurant, sat down at his reserved table, urged Bill into another chair, straightened his tie and called for the waiter. And it then became apparent that he was one of those dominant men who have a short way with waiters. He addressed the waiter in a strong, carrying voice. He heckled the waiter. He bullied the waiter. Bill finally another waiter suddenly appeared and the first one flickered away and was seen no more. Next morning one felt a body in dress clothes with a spot on the shirt front would be taken out of the Thames. Banished from Mr. Slingsby's presence, the man had seemed to feel his disgrace acutely. Yes, sir, said the second waiter briskly. He had a pencil and a notebook which the other had lacked. In fact, the more one thinks the thing over, the more convinced one becomes that the first waiter was, in the truer and deeper meaning of the word, no waiter at all but merely one of those underlings whose bolt is shot when they have breathed down your neck and put a plate of rolls on the table. This new arrival was made of sterner stuff altogether. And Mr. Slingsby, seeming to recognize a kindred spirit, became more cordial. He even dained to ask the newcomer's advice. In short, by the time the ordering was concluded and the hors d'oeuvres on the table a delightful spirit of camaraderie prevailed. And Mr. Slingsby had so far relaxed from his early austerity as to tell a funny story about an Irishman. This completed and the fish having arrived, he embarked on genial conversation. So you're the old man's nephew, eh? Said Mr. Slingsby. Great old boy, and what have you been doing with yourself since you arrived? Bill related the simple annals of his first week in London, touched on Judson, mentioned two theatrical performances of a musical nature which he had attended. Oh, so you've seen the girl in the pink pajamas? Said Mr. Slingsby, interested. How did you like it? Think it would go in New York? I own part of that show, you know. Bill's feeling of belonging to a lesser order of creation became more marked. He had not Judson's airy familiarity with the theatrical world, and men who owned parts of shows were personages to him. Really? He said. Oh, yes. Said Mr. Slingsby carelessly. I do quite a lot of that sort of thing. He nodded in friendly fashion at a passing exquisite. Renfrew, he explained. He's starring in It Pays to Flirt at the Regent. You ought to go and see that. Good show. I'm sorry I didn't take a part of it when they offered it to me, but somehow or other the script didn't seem to read right. One misses these chances. Bill was perplexed for a manager of the London branch of one of the largest firms in America. Pope Paper seemed to mean very little in Mr. Slingsby's life. He began to think that the solution of the mystery of the fallen-off prophets might be simpler than Uncle Cooley had supposed. Something akin to dislike of this splendid person crept over him, Mr. Slingsby made him feel inferior and Bill was not fond of feeling inferior. And what right, Bill asked himself with some warmth, had fellows to make fellows feel inferior when fellows, the first fellows, couldn't handle an excellent business in such a manner as to make it show a decent profit. He looked critically across the table at Mr. Slingsby. Yes, he disliked the man. And if the bounder continued trying to impress him with his beastly theatrical ventures and his rotten theatrical friends, he ran a grave risk of being told precisely where he got off. In fact, decided Bill, no time like the present, he would give him this information now. True, he was the man's guest and full of his hors d'oeuvres and meat. But as these doubtless would be charged up to the office, no nice scruples need restrain him. Uncle Cooley, he said, changing the subject with an abruptness, perhaps a trifle brisk, for Mr. Slingsby had just been commenting apropos of a spectacular young lady who had recently passed the table on chorus girls, their morals, and the opportunities a man financially interested in the theater had of enjoying their stimulating society. Uncle Cooley, said Bill coldly, now thoroughly convinced that his dislike amounted to positive loathing. Asked me while I was over here to try and find out why the profits on the London end of the business had fallen off so badly, he's very worried about it. There was a pause. The introduction of the cold business note seemed to have stunned Mr. Slingsby. He looked surprised, hurt, astonished, wounded, pained, amazed, and cut to the quick. What, he cried, and his demeanor was that of one who has been stabbed in the back by a trusted friend. For half an hour he had been honoring Bill with his cordial geniality, and now this had happened. You could see that Wilfred Slingsby was shaken, but he pulled himself together. He laughed nastily. Oh, profits fallen off, he said, regarding Bill unfavorably. He did not try to conceal his opinion that Bill, a brief while before the companion of his rebels, now wanked in his esteem about on a level with the first waiter. If you ask me, I should say your uncle ought to be glad there are any profits at all. Let me tell you that there aren't many men in my position who could show such a good balance sheet. Not many, believe me, he glowered darkly at Bill. You understand the pulp and paper business thoroughly, of course? No, said Bill shortly. It was just the sort of question this sort of man would ask. Bitter regret for a misspent youth surged through him. If only he had employed those wasted hours in learning all about pulp paper, and what more entertaining subject could a young man in the springtime of life find for his attention? He would now be in a position to cope with this slingsby. As it was, he feared that Slingsby was going to trample on him. His surmise was correct. Mr. Slingsby trampled all over him. Ah, said that gentleman with odious superiority. In that case, it is hardly worthwhile for me to go into the matter. Still, I will try to put it in the simplest nursery language. Mr. Slingsby's idea of putting it in simple nursery language was to pour over Bill a flood of verbiage about labor conditions, rates of exchange, and economic practicabilities, which had his young friend gasping like a fish before he had spoken 10 words. No would entering Mr. Paradine's paper factory had ever been more well and truly reduced to pulp than was Bill at the end of 15 minutes. And when, after taking a quick breath at the conclusion of this period, his host showed signs of beginning chapter two, he could endure no more. He realized that he was retiring in disorder and leaving the field to the enemy, but that could not be helped. Glancing at his watch, he muttered an apology and rose. Mr. Slingsby, restored to his old cheery self by this triumph, became instantly cordial once more. He got to go, he said. Perhaps I ought to be moving myself. He called for the bill, signed it in a bold hand, hurled silver on the plate, nodded like a monarch in acknowledgement of the waiter's charmed gratitude and led the way out. Coming my way? I think I'll be getting back to my flat. I have some letters to write. Why not go to your club? I don't belong to any clubs in London. Hope you're comfortable in this flat of yours. If you feel like moving, mention my name at the regal and they'll treat you right. I have taken the flat for three months, said Bill, resolved that nothing would ever induce him to mention this man's name anywhere. Where are you living? Battersea, marmant mansions. Mr. Slingsby raised his black eyebrows. Battersea? Why on earth you wanna go and bury yourself in a hole like Battersea? Because it's cheap, said Bill, between set teeth. Taxi, said Mr. Slingsby, scorning to plunge any deeper into the degrading subject and bold swiftly away like a Roman emperor going somewhere in his chariot. So strangely as human nature constituted that it was this unconcealed contempt on the other's part for his little nook that definitely set the seal on Bill's dislike. The captain of industry manner, the theatrical swank, the lecture on pulp paper, all these things he might have forgiven. It would not have been easy, but he might have done it. But this was unpardonable. Be it never so merely rented furnished, a man's little home is his little home and if he is a man of spirit, he resents fellows with blue chins sneering at it. By the time Bill put his latchkey in the door of number nine, Marmont Mansions, he was in a state of such nervous hostility to Mr. Slingsby as only tobacco and the ungirded loin could soothe. He removed his coat, his collar, his tie, and his shoes. Lit a pipe and settled down on the sofa in the sitting room, he brooded sullenly. Darned gas bag! He brooded further, pulling all that stuff. He brooded yet again. I believe the man's a crook and I'm gonna keep an eye on him. He was still chewing on this stern resolve when the doorbell rang. He got up reluctantly. He assumed the ringer to be Judson who had a habit of forgetting his latchkey. He went along the passage and opened the door. It was not Judson, it was a girl. There was a pause. It is always disconcerting for a young man of orthodox views on costume to discover after going to the door to admit a male friend and not having bothered to put on his coat, collar, or shoes for the task, that he is face to face with a strange girl. And this was a distinctly attractive girl. Bill, as we know, was in love with Alice Coker. Nevertheless, his eyesight remained good and he was consequently quite able to see how distinctly attractive this girl was. Girls, of course, fell into two classes, Alice Coker and others. But there was no distinguishing the fact that his visitor came very high up in the ranks of the others. She was a slim, fair-haired girl with a trim figure delightfully arrayed in a dress of some brown material. It was not really brown, it was beige, but Bill had not an eye for these niceties. He was particularly aware of her eyes. They were very blue and seemed unusually large. She was staring at him and to his embarrassed thinking, staring with a sort of incredulous horror as if he heard her in some sensitive spot. Bill blushed pinkly and endeavored to wriggle his feet under the mat. In the shop in the Burlington arcade where he had purchased them, those socks had looked extremely pleasing. But now he would faint have hidden their gleaming pinks and greens from sight and he reflected moodily how rash a young man is who in this world of sudden and unexpected crises takes off his shoes in the daytime. So that, taking one thing with another, Bill, in that first instant, contributed nothing towards the task of making this interview go off with a swing. The girl was the first to speak. Good gracious, she said. Bill felt that this was getting worse and worse. Surely, she went on, blinking those large blue eyes, it's Mr. West. To his other discomforts, Bill now became aware that a species of cold perspiration had added itself. It was bad enough to encounter this distinctly attractive girl in a shoeless, coatless, colorless, and as he now perceived, a hole in the sockful condition. But to make it worse, she seemed to remember meeting him before and he couldn't even begin to place her. It was not one of those cases of a mere name slipping from the mind, preventing the sufferer from applying a label to a remembered face. She was a complete stranger. You've forgotten me. Forgotten you? Responded Bill stoutly, feeling the while as if some muscular person were stirring up his interior organs with a pole. I should say not. Forgotten you? He laughed, metallically. Oh, what an idea. It's just, the fact is, I'm bad at names. Felicia Sheridan. Bill felt that his face must be turning gray. Felicia Sheridan. He said, Sheridan, of course. Well, considering that you once saved my life, said Flick, I should have been hurt if you had forgotten me altogether. One of the advantages of being sparing in one's acts of heroism is that it makes them easy to remember. Bill was in the happy position of having saved only one life in his whole career. A wave of the most poignant relief flooded over him. Good heavens, yes! He ejaculated. He stared at her with an intensity that rivaled her own of a few moments back. But you've altered so. He said, have I? Have you? Babbled, Bill. When I saw you last, you were a skinny kid, all legs and freckles. Ah, ah, I mean. He gave it up, won't you come in? He said. They went into the sitting room. Bill hastily thrust his feet into the shoes which lay brazenly near the sofa and feverishly started to dawn his collar. All this took time, thereby enabling Flick, who had looked delicately away during the operation, to inspect the room. Inspecting the room, she could hardly fail to observe the photographs of Miss Alice Coker. If she had missed half a dozen of them, she was bound to see the other six. She observed them. Something like a shadow seemed to fall upon Flick. She endeavored to be reasonable. It was hardly to be expected that a splendid fellow like Bill would have remained uncaught after five years. Besides, he had only met her about 10 times when she was, as he had justly remarked, a skinny kid, all legs and freckles. Furthermore, she was engaged to be married to an estimable young man, of whom, she told herself, she was very, very fond. Nevertheless, a shadow did fall upon her. Bill, meanwhile, shod and no longer in the semi-nude, had leisure to speculate on the mystery of her visit. It puzzled him completely. I expect, said Flick at this moment, you're wondering how on earth I come to be here. The fact is, I must have called at the wrong address. The policeman at the corner told me this was marmant mansions. It is. Marmant mansions, Battersea? Marmant mansions, Battersea? Number nine? Number nine? Then who, demanded Flick, is Mrs. Matilda Polly? Bill could make nothing of the question. Mrs. Who? Polly? Mrs. Matilda Polly? Bill shook his head. I never heard of her. But she lives here. The implied slur on the bachelor respectability of his little home drew from Bill a shocked denial. Well, that's the address she gave in her letter, said Flick, fumbling in her bag. Look, this letter came for my uncle. You remember my uncle? It came this morning. Bill's face, as he took the letter, expressed only bewilderment. This bewilderment, as he started to read, seemed to Flick to deepen. And then suddenly there came a startling change. All his features appeared to dissolve in one enormous grin. And the next moment he had tottered to the sofa and was holding on to its friendly support, laughing helplessly. Yes, Judson, he moaned, meeting Flick's astonished eyes and reading in them a demand for some clue to this strange behavior. Judson? Bill's hand swept round in a spacious wave of indication at the photographs. Man who lives with me, Judson Coker, brother of the girl I'm engaged to. Oh, said Flick, she spoke dully. Women are inexplicable. There was no reason why she should have spoken dully. She was engaged herself to an estimable young man of whom she was very, very fond. And she was even now on her way to pick him up at his office and be taken by him to tea at Claridge's. What could it matter to her if a comparative stranger like Bill West was engaged to? Nevertheless, she spoke dully. Bill was wiping his eyes. I brought Judson over from America with me. He's been cutting up a bit too freely and I'm acting as a sort of nursemaid to him. He isn't allowed to have any money at all and this is the way he's trying to get it. I thought he looked more cheerful the last day or two. Can you beat it? I could expect almost anything of old Judd, but writing begging letters is a new one. Flick joined in his laughter, but a little riley. No high-spirited girl likes to realize that she has been wrong and her elders right. Well, I wish I had known that before. She said, I pawned my brooch to get money for this Mrs. Polly. Bill was touched. He had still quite a lot of unexpended laughter left inside him, but he decided that it would be best to keep it in. That was awfully kind of you. Don't leave it here for Judson. I won't. And if you feel like hitting your friend Judson with something hard and heavy when he comes in, said Flick forcefully, don't stop yourself because you think I may not approve. I'd like to be here to see you do it. Why not? He'll be back soon. Stay on. I can't, thanks. I've got to be in Fleet Street in half an hour. Goodbye, Mr. West. How strange our meeting again like this. How is your uncle? Oh, very fit. And yours? Very well, thanks. Reassured as to the health of their respective uncles, they seemed to find difficulty in selecting a topic of conversation. Flick moved to the door. I'll come down and put you into a cab, said Bill. No, don't bother. Said Flick, it's such a lovely day. I think I'll walk as far as Sloan Square. Here, Bill perceived, was an opening for him to offer to accompany her. But a boat was sailing to-morrow and he had not yet written his bi-weekly letter to Alice. Alice's claims were paramount. Well, goodbye. She said, we shall meet again soon, I hope. I hope so. Goodbye. Bill, as the front door closed, suddenly realized that he had admitted to ascertain where she lived. For a moment he thought of running after her and inquiring. No, he really must get on with that letter to Alice. He returned to the sitting-room. Flick, as she walked out into the sunshine, had an odd feeling that life, promising as it had seemed this morning, was in reality rather flat. And strangely, but women are strange, she found herself thinking a little unkindly of Roderick. Bill had finished his letter to Alice. Red, reread, sealed, stamped, and addressed it, when a key clicked in the front door and presently there entered to him Judson Coker. Any mail for, uh, anybody? Enquired Judson. Physically, enforced abstinence had done Judson good. His face had lost a certain unwholesome pallor which had characterized it a fortnight back and there had begun to steal into his cheeks quite a rosy pinkness. His eyes, moreover, were clear and bright and he no longer indulged in that little trick of his of blinking and wriggling his neck around the edge of his collar. Against these corporeal gains must be set a gravity of demeanor which was entirely new. Judson's habitual manner was now that of the man who has looked upon life and found it a washout. You're always asking for mail this last day or two? Said Bill. Well, why not? Said Judson defensively. Why shouldn't a fellow ask for mail? Anyway, there isn't any, said Bill. You must be patient, my lad. You can't expect people to answer by return of post. Judson started. The recently acquired pink left his face. He licked his lips. What do you mean? I think it's a shame, said Bill vehemently. If you've got pneumonia and are behind with the rent and haven't tasted food for three days, why the devil doesn't Mr. Polly get busy and support you? Judson stared hideously. Through a mist he saw that his friend was giving way to unseemly mirth. How did you find out? He choked. Bill partially recovered himself. He sat back feeling weak. There had been moments since their departure from America when he regretted having taken Judson along with him. But the sight of the other's face now more than made up for all the trifling discomforts he had had to undergo. There was a girl in here just now, he explained, who was so touched by your letter that she had pawned her brooch to get money for you. Judson shook with emotion. Where is it? He asked eagerly. Where is what? The money the girl brought. His face assumed a cold expression. I need hardly remind you West. He said, stiffly, that that money belongs to me. Legally, I shouldn't wonder. So if you have pouched it, I'll thank you to hand it over immediately. Good Lord, man. You don't suppose I've got it, do you? Directly we found out that it was you who had written the letter. I told her to take the money away. Judson gave him one withering look. And you call yourself a friend, he said. Bill, undaunted by his attitude, followed him as he swung off and strode down the passage. He wanted to clear up further points that had perplexed him. How did you come to think of this stunt? He asked as Judson opened the front door. It was the smoothest trick I ever heard of. Father was always getting begging letters. Said Judson coldly. I saw no reason why it shouldn't work. But how did you happen to pick on Miss Sheridan? I never sent any letter to any Miss Sheridan. She must have an uncle or something whose name begins with an H. I wrote to all the H's in who's who. Why the H's? Why not? That's where the book happened to open. He withdrew his coat sleeve aloofly from Bill's grasp and proceeded down the stairs. Bill leaned over the banister, still curious. Another aspect of the matter had occurred to him. Half a second, he called, where did you get the money to pay for the stamps? I pawned a gold pencil. You haven't got a gold pencil? You had, said Judson, and clattered out into the great open spaces. End of chapter three. Chapter four of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Activities of Judson Coker. Rapidity of movement had never been congenial to Judson Coker. He disliked having to hurry, finding, therefore, on reaching the end of the Prince of Wales road that he was not being pursued, he slowed down. At a leisurely walk he turned the corner into Queen's Road and presently found himself on Chelsea Bridge. Here he decided to halt. For Judson had man's work before him. He intended to count his money. He took it out and arranged it in three little heaps on the palm of his left hand. Yes, there it was, just as it had been this morning, last night and the night before. Thirteen shillings, two sixpences, and five pennies. The view from Chelsea Bridge is one of the most stimulating in London, but Judson had no eyes for it. However picturesque, it could not hope to compete with the view afforded by the palm of his left hand. Thirteen shillings, two sixpences and five pennies, a noble sum. His business correspondence had entailed an expenditure which had eaten sadly into the original proceeds from the sale of Bill's pencil, but he had no regrets. If you don't speculate, Judson was well aware, you can't accumulate. He gloated for a few minutes longer, then salted the treasure away in his pocket and resumed his walk. Students of character who have been examining Judson Coker since his appearance in these pages may seem to detect at this point a flaw in the historian's record, finding themselves unable to reconcile the fact that he had had the sum of fourteen shillings and five pence in his possession two nights before, with the statement that he had in his possession fourteen shillings and five pence now. They are too hasty. They do not probe deeply enough. Judson was not one of your shallow fellows who will fritter away here a sixpence and there a penny until they wake up to find their capital gone and nothing to show for it. It was his intention, difficult though it might be, to hold off until he had the chance of shooting the entire works in one majestic orgy, a binge which he could look back to and live again in the lean days to come. He walked on, luxuriating in the pleasurable anguish of a thirst that grew with every stride. He left Chelsea Barracks behind him and the cozy little dolls' houses in Lower Sloan Street, where the respectable live in self-contained flats. The rattle of busy traffic greeted his ears. It was like some grand, sweet anthem, for it meant that he had arrived at that haven where he feigned would be. The king's road, full from end to end of the finest public houses, practically one per inhabitant, an admirable specimen of this type of building, chancing to rear its hospitable façade almost in front of him, he made for it like a homing rabbit. And it was only when he reached its doors that he discovered that there lay between them and himself a securely padlocked iron gate. As he stood there pawing in a feeble bewildered fashion at this astonishing and unforeseen barrier, a passerby stopped to gaze at him, a fellow of Bohemian aspect, clad in a frock coat, flannel trousers, and a pink cricket cap, and wearing upon his feet clothed bedroom slippers, out of one of which peeped coily a sockless toe. To him Judson appealed for an explanation of the ghastly state of things which he had come upon. The man seemed like one who would know all there was to be known about public houses. I can't get in, moaned Judson. The other cleared his throat huskily. They don't open till off par six, he replied. Amazed that in the heart of London, that hub of civilization, there could be walking the public streets a man ignorant of this cardinal fact of life he groped for light. Stranger around these parts, ain't ya, he hazarded. Judson acknowledged that this was so. Foreigner, ain't ya? Yes, from Australia, ain't ya? America, our, said the Bohemian, nodding. He spat sagely, all I hear you can't get a drop of no description or kind whatsoever in America. Judson was about to refute this monstrous slur on the land he loved by giving a list of the places in New York, A, where anybody could get the stuff, and B, the more select where you could get it by mentioning his name, when his companion moved on, leaving him alone in the desert. A hideous gloom came over Judson. He was now enduring the extremes of drought. Six-thirty seemed eons ahead, like some dim distant date lost in the mists of the future. The thought of passing the time till then weighed on his soul like a London fog. Eventually deciding that if the time had to be passed, it would be perhaps a little less dreary living it through up in the West End. He made for the underground station at Sloan Square, bought a ticket for Charing Cross and descended to the platform. A train was just leaving as he came down the stairs. He shuffled dully to the bookstore to see if there was anything there worth reading. The bright cover of Society Spice caught his eye. He knew little of the weekly papers of London, but its titles seemed promising. He yielded up two of his pennies. A train came in, he sat down, and began to turn the pages. The two pints which Judson had spent on Society Spice proved an excellent investment. The church times, or the spectator, he would not have enjoyed, but Society Spice might have been compiled for his special benefit. It gripped him from the first page. Even though the issue in his hands was one of those on which Roderick had tried so hard to exercise a depressing influence, that Craven's co-worker, young Pilbeam, had by no means failed in his efforts after Zip. The Vice in the Pulpit article, for instance, was full of body, nor was there any lack of fruitiness in the one on nightclubs which are living hells. Judson began to feel happier. And then, like an electric shock, a shudder ran through his entire frame. It was as if somebody had beaten him over the head with a sandbag. His heart seemed to stop, his scalp bristled, and there escaped from his twisted lips so sharp a yelp that it drew all eyes upon him. But Judson did not notice the eyes. His own were glued upon an article on page six. It was not an article of which young Pilbeam had been particularly proud. He had had to dig it out of the archives in a hurry when Roderick's veto of the Bookmaker series had caused a gap in the makeup on the eve of press day. It was headed, Profegate Youth, and it dealt with the behavior and habits of the idle offspring of American plutocrats. The passage which had so stunned Judson ran as follows. Another instance which may be cited is that of the notorious Fifth Avenue silks, as they were called, a club whose habit it was to parade up Fifth Avenue on Sunday mornings in silk hats, silk socks, silk pajamas, and silk umbrellas. This was founded and led by the well-known Toddy van Reiter, the recognized chief and guiding spirit of these young sparks. Judson shook as with an ague, not even on the morning after seeing in a new year had he ever felt so thoroughly unstrung. Of all his great exploits, the one of which he was proudest, the one on which he relied most confidently to hand his name down to posterity, was the founding of the Fifth Avenue silks, and to see that masterpiece of ingenious fancy attributed to another, and to Toddy van Reiter at that, his humble follower and henchman, was more, he felt, than a man should be called upon to bear. It seemed to steep the soul in abysmal blackness, a well-known Toddy van Reiter. Ha! The recognized chief and guiding spirit. Oh, ha, ha! It was monstrous, monstrous. These papers simply didn't care what they said. The train rattled on, bearing a raging Judson eastward. Something tremendous, he felt, must be done and be done without delay. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the outrage alone could satisfy him. But what to do? What to do? He toyed with the idea of a libel action, but he had no funds for one. Then how ensure that justice be done and the righteous given their due? There was only one way. He must see the editor and demand that a full apology and retraction appear in the earliest possible issue. He searched the paper, but could find no editor's name. All he learned was that the lying sheet was published by the mammoth company of Tilbury House, Tilbury Street, E.C. Well, that was enough to work on. The train had stopped and he got out, steely cold and filled with a great purpose. And the authorities of the Underground Railway increased his general wrath by their pin-pricking policy of demanding from him another penny for having allowed his reverie to carry him on a couple of stations farther than the scope of his ticket. Having given them this with an awful look, he went up into the street and inquired the nearest way to Tilbury House. In a lighting at Blackfriars, instead of it sharing cross, Judson had done better than he knew, for the policemen in the middle of the road outside the station informed him that to Tilbury House from where he stood was but a step. He strode off and was presently standing in a dingy alleyway before a large gaunt building of discolored brick, that this was the object of his quest, was hinted by the rumble of presses within and confirmed by the scent of printer's ink and paper, gallantly endeavoring to compete with that curious smell of boiling cabbage, which always pervades any mean street in London. Nevertheless, Judson decided to make quite certain by verbal inquiry of the commissioner in the doorway. Is this Tilbury House? asked Judson. Eh, said the commissioner. He was a soured, moody-looking fellow with a ragged mustache, a man who seemed to have a secret sorrow which the spectacle of Judson did nothing to allay. He gazed at him with a billious eye. Is this where Society Spice is published? Eh, I want to see the editor. The commissioner wrestled for a moment with his sorrow. Do you mean Mr. Pike? I don't know his name. Mr. Pike's the editor of Society Spice. If you want to see him you'll have to fill up your name and business. These formalities irked Judson. He resented this check. The spirit of Tilbury House had descended upon him and he wanted to do it now. He wrote his name on the form handed to him, fuming. A buttoned boy appeared from nowhere and regarded him with what seemed to Judson's inflamed senses. Silent mockery. He did not like the boy. The boy looked as if he might be in this plot to exalt Todd Yvonne Reiter at the expense of better men. Take this, he said haughtily, to Mr. Pike. Jim wants to see Mr. Pike out of the commissioner with the air of one interpreting the ravings of a foreigner. The boy glanced disparagingly at the document. He had the trying manner of a schoolmaster examining a pupil's exercise. You ain't filled up your business, he said superciliously. Judson was in no mood for literary criticism from boys in buttons. He spoke no word, but he cut at the stripling viciously with his stick. The boy, dodging expertly, uttered a derisive cry and disappeared. The commissioner picked up his evening paper. You're after white, he said. He turned to the racing page and began to read. On the third floor in the office of Society Spice, Roderick, a prey to a gloom which almost rivaled that of the commissioner, was lugubriously watching young Pilbeam ginger up the next issue. There seemed to Roderick something utterly gruesome in the fellow's cheerful industry. His emotions were not unlike those of a man shut up in a small room with a lunatic who had started juggling with sticks of dynamite sustained by the verdict of the court of appeal. The sub-editor of Society Spice was giving the freest play to his ideas of what a paper that provided weekly scandal should be, and some of the choice items which he had read out from time to time had chilled Roderick to the marrow. To Roderick it seemed utterly inconceivable that even the mildest of these paragraphs should not bring about an immediate visit from indignant citizens with shotguns, and when he remembered Mr. Isaac Bullitt's brief but pregnant remarks concerning the lads, his heart turned to water within him. A fairly frequent attendant at race meetings in the neighbourhood of London, Roderick knew all about the lads. They ranged the world in gangs, armed with hammers, sandbags and knuckle-dusters were to them mere ordinary details of what the well-dressed man should wear. They lay in wait for those at whose actions they had taken offence, and kicked them with heavy boots. In short, if there was one little group of thinkers in existence whose prejudices ought to be respected by a man with any consideration for the pocket of his life-insurance company, it was these same lads, and here was Pilbeam going out of his way to jar their sensibilities. Roderick groaned in spirit, and turned absently to take the form which was being held out to him by the boy in buttons who had just entered. "'What's this?' he asked, his eyes still on young Pilbeam, who was hammering away at a typewriter in the corner. Pilbeam had just emitted a low chuckle of childlike pleasure at some happy phrase. To Roderick it had sounded ghoulish. He was torn between the desire to know what his young assistant had written, and a strong presentiment, that it was better not to know. "'Jam White in to see you, sir?' Roderick wrenched his mind away from the essayist in the corner and inspected the card. His attention was immediately enchained by the same omission which the boy had detected. "'He doesn't say what his business is. He doesn't fill up his business, sir,' said the boy, eagerly. A sensationalist at heart, this fact now appealed to him as pleasingly sinister. It appealed in precisely the same way to Roderick. "'Why not?' he said uneasily. "'Done, no, sir. Just wouldn't do it. I says to him, you ain't filled up your business. I says, and all he'd done was take a crack at me with his stick.' "'Crack at you with his stick?' echoed Roderick pallidly. "'Crack at me with his stick!' repeated the child, with relish. "'Don't know what's the matter with him, but he seemed in a fair all-rage, sir. Bile it over, he seemed to be!' Roderick blenched. "'Tell him I'm busy.' "'Busy, sir. Yes, sir. All right, sir.' The boy disappeared. Roderick sat down at his desk and gazed before him with unseeing eyes. The clatter of young Pilbeam's typewriter still rang through the room, but he did not hear it. At last he felt the blow had fallen, and the Avenger had arrived. Just which of the paragraphs printed during his editorship had brought this on him, he could not say, but he was strongly of the opinion that almost any one of them might have done so. His nightmare had come true. Roderick Pike, as has perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the remarks of his Aunt Francis, was not of the stuff of which heroes are made. He was, as she had justly observed in her conversation with Sir George, a timid, feeble creature. There was once an editor of an organ of opinion catering to the literary wants of a western mining-camp, who, sitting in his office one day, noticed a bullet crash through the glass of the window and flatten itself against the wall behind his head, upon which a relieved and happy smile played over his face. There, he exclaimed, didn't I say so? I knew that personal column would be a success. Roderick Pike was the exact antithesis of this stout-hearted man. He liked peace and quiet, and shrank from all turbulent forms of life, where a sturdier fellow would have welcomed with joy the prospect of an interview with a boiling stranger who cracked at people with his stick. Roderick quailed. He sat, huddled in his chair, in a sort of catalepsy of panic. This cataleptic condition had not passed when flick arrived to be taken out to tea. Just as Roderick's air of gloom was, flick did not observe it. She was feeling oddly preoccupied. Something strange seemed to have happened to her since she had parted from Bill, expressing itself in a vague and general discontent, combined with a curious dreaminess. She greeted Roderick mechanically, and mechanically allowed herself to be introduced to young Pilbeam, who, ever a warm admirer of the sex, had ceased his writing and risen gallantly at her entrance. There was not much that went on in Tilbury House that Pilbeam did not get abreast of, and the news of Roderick's engagement had long since reached him. So this was the boss's niece, a delectable girl, much too good for Roderick. He bowed gentilly, smiled, spoke a courteous word or two, opened the door. The young couple passed out. Pilbeam heaved a not unmanly sigh, and returned to his writing. Much too good for Roderick, he was now certain. He held no high opinion of his superior officer. Roderick escorted flick downstairs. He led her by secret ways, for it was not his purpose to use the main stairway, which ended in the vestibule guarded by the commissionaire. The information that he was busy, had, he hoped, brought about the departure of the stick-cracking visitor, but he was taking no chances. He emerged with flick from a small and insignificant door farther down the street, and looking apprehensively about him, saw with relief that no danger was in sight, except for the usual fauna of localities in which printing-houses are situated, short-sleeved men with blackened faces and the like, Tilbury Street was empty. Somewhat calmed, Roderick proceeded on his way. Unfortunately, it chanced that at this precise moment the commissionaire, who had finished the racing-news, elected to step out for a brief breath of air. And still, more unfortunately, Judson, tired of waiting, and realizing that the fortress was carefully guarded and that he was merely wasting time remaining in the vestibule, decided to get up and go home. The two came out almost simultaneously, and Judson was only a yard or so in the commissionaire's rear, when the latter, citing Roderick and wishing to show zeal and possibly acquire a small tip, touched his hat and uttered these fateful words, Shall I call you a cab, Mr. Pike? Judson, hearing the name, froze in his tracks. No, let's walk along the embankment, said Flick, and go to the Savoy instead of Claridge's. It's such a lovely day. The commissionaire disappointed, but apparently feeling that in a world of sorrow this sort of thing was only to be expected, withdrew. Flick and Roderick turned down the street towards the embankment, and Judson, recovering from his momentary trance, had just started off in hot pursuit, when he was delayed by the sudden arrival of a large truck, which drew up across his path and began to unload rolls of paper. By the time he had rounded this obstacle, his quarry was out of sight. But Judson had caught the word embankment. He needed no further clue. He hurried on in the direction of the river, and there, sure enough, halted opposite a taxi cab which had drawn up at the pavement, was the man he sought. He seemed to be trying to persuade the girl to ride, while the latter appeared to favor walking. Judson dashed feverishly up. Are you the editor of Society Spice? He thundered. Flick spun round. The voice sounded to him like the voice of doom. He had had his back turned and so had been unaware of Judson's approach until the latter spoke, and one may perhaps be permitted charitably to assume that it was the suddenness and unexpectedness of the onslaught that undid him. Some excuse, some theory in extinuation of his behavior is, one cannot deny, urgently needed. For at the sound of these words, Roderick disintegrated. His fatal timorousness, that disastrous legacy from poor Lucy, was too strong for him. He cast at Judson a single quick horrified look, then jettisoned in one mad craving for self-preservation all thoughts of manhood and chivalry. He sprang from Flick's side, leaped into the cab, hissed in the driver's ear, and was off, wafted away like some Homeric warrior snatched from the thick of battle in a cloud. His departure, not unnaturally, created in both Flick and Judson a certain astonishment. Judson was the first to recover. With an anguished cry he started to race after the receiving taxi, leaving Flick standing on the pavement. For some moments Flick stood there motionless, her gaze on the flying Judson. A dull flush had stolen into her cheeks, and an ominous, steely light was turning the blue of her eyes to glazed stone. Then she beckoned to another taxi that was ambling up from the east, and got in. Had Flick waited a minute longer before taking her cab, she would have perceived Judson returning baffled from the chase. Even in his harvard days, when he was young and lissom, athletic feats had never been in Judson's line, and nowadays a twenty-yard dash was about the limit of his sprinting capacity. This being in the nature of a special occasion he had extended himself to a matter of fifty yards before admitting defeat. But at that point his legs and lungs had united in a formal protest, too vigorous to be overruled. But though checked, Judson was not, check mated. Even as he paused, doubled up and gasping, with his back against the friendly railings of the embankment gardens, an idea had come to him. When, or if, he got his breath back again, he would return to Tilbury House and there acquire certain information. He was now on his way to put this scheme into action. The Commissioner was still out having his breath of air when he reached a familiar vestibule. In his seat there sat a boy in buttons, not the one with whom Judson had had the little unpleasantness, but another and more likable-looking lad. To him Judson addressed himself. Say, listen, said Judson. Sir? said the infant courteously. Judson bent nearer and lowered his voice. I want to know, Mr. Bikes, private address. The boy shook his head, and into his manner there crept the dawning of a new austerity. I ain't allowed to give private addresses. Judson had hoped not to be compelled to call up his last line of reserves, but it seemed unavoidable. From the slender store in his trouser pocket he produced a shilling and a sixpence. He held them up in silence. The boy wavered. It's against the rules, he said wistfully. Judson spake no word, but he clinked the coins meditatively in his hand. The little fellow's agitation visibly increased. What do you want to know for? He quavered. Judson, with masterly strategy, dropped the shilling, allowed it to roll in a wide circle, then picked it up and clinked it once more against the sixpence. The boy was but flesh and blood. He stole to the foot of the stairs and listened intently for a moment, then creeping back, whispered in Judson's ear. The money changed hands and Judson took his departure. It was nearly half-past seven when Flick returned to Holly House. She had driven in her cab to the Savoy Hotel, and there, in one of the writing rooms, had remained for a considerable period of time, most of which was spent in chewing a pen and staring straight in front of her, eventually seizing a sheet of note paper. She had dashed down a few lines, and without stopping to re-read them, had sealed the envelope and posted it in the lobby. Then feeling oddly uplifted, she had walked composably out and taken an underground train to Wimbledon. She felt defiant, but calm. Her heart sang rebel songs as she walked up the drive, songs as old and dangerously intoxicating as the spring itself. Mrs. Hammond came out of the drawing-room as she was crossing the hall. �How late you are, Felicia! Be quick and dress! Your Uncle George and Roderick are coming to dinner at eight. This was news to Flick. �Are they?� she said. �Surely Roderick told you,� said Mrs. Hammond. It was settled just after lunch on the telephone. It is the only night your Uncle can manage, as he is obliged to go to Paris to-morrow and expects to be away at least a week. The bag-shots and one or two other people are coming. �Very strange, Roderick, saying nothing about it, to you. He left me and rather a hurry,� said Flick. I suppose he would have mentioned it if he had not been interrupted. �Poor Roderick! I suppose he is kept very busy,� said Mrs. Hammond. �How was the dear boy? Very agile.� �Aggile?� Mrs. Hammond stared. �What do you mean?� Flick stopped at the foot of the stairs. �And, Francis,� she said, �I have something to tell you. I am not going to marry Roderick. I have written to him, �Breaking off the engagement.�