 Section 22 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2, Chapter 19, In the Soup. Sydney Price's narrative continued. They give you a small bonus at the moon if you get through a quarter without being late, which just shows the sort of scale on which the moon does things. Hookson, down at the Oxford Street Emporium, gets fined regular when he's late, shilling the first hour and two pence every five minutes after. I've known gentlemen in banks, railway companies, dry goods, and woollen offices, the India trade, duty, every manner of shop. But they all say the same thing. We are ruled by fear. It's fear that drags them out of bed in the morning. It's fear that makes them bolt or even miss their sausages. It's fear that makes them run to catch their train. But the moon's method is of a different standard. The moon does not intimidate. No, it entwines itself round. It insinuates itself into the hearts of its employees. It suggests, in fact, that we should not be late by offering us the small bonus. No insurance office and, up to the time of writing, no other assurance office has been able to boast as much. The same cause is at the bottom of the moon's high reputation, both inside and outside. It does things in a big way. It's spacious. The moon's timing system is great, too. Great in its simplicity. The regulation says you've got to be in the office by 10 o'clock. Suppose you arrive with 10 minutes to spare. You go into the outer office. There's only one entrance, the big one in Thread Needle Street. And find on the right-hand side of the circular counter a ledger. The ledger is open. There is blotting paper and a quill pen beside it. Everyone's name is written in alphabetical order on the one side of the ledger. And on the other side, there is a blank page ruled down the middle with a red line. Having made your appearance at 10 to 10, you put your initials in a line with your name on the page opposite and to the left of the division. If, on the other hand, you've missed your train and don't turn up till 10 minutes past 10, you've got to initial your name on the other side of the red line. In the space on the right of the line, a thick black dash has been drawn by Leach, the cashier. He does this on the last stroke of 10. It makes the page look neat, he says, which is quite right and proper. I see his point of view entirely. The ledger must look decent in an office like the moon. Tommy Milner agrees with me. He says that not only does it look better, but it prevents unfortunate mistakes on the part of those who come in late. They might forget and initial the wrong side. After 10, the book goes into Mr. Leach's private partition and you've got to go in there to sign. It was there when I came into the office in the morning after we'd been to talk business with Mr. Cloyster. It had been there about an hour and a half. Lost your bonus price, my boy, said genial Mr. Leach, and the general manager, Mr. Fennel, who had stepped out of his own room close by heard him say it. I do not imagine that Mr. Price is greatly perturbed on that account. He will no doubt shortly be forsaking us for literature. What commerce loses art gains, said the GM. He may have meant to be funny or he may not. Some of those standing near took him one way, others the other. Some gravely bowed their heads, others burst into guffaws. The GM often puzzled his staff in that way. All were anxious to do the right thing by him, but he made it so difficult to tell what the right thing was. But as I went down the basement stairs to change my coat in the clerk's locker room, I understood from the GM's words how humiliating my position was. I had always been a bookie sort of person. At home, it had been a standing joke that when a boy I would sooner spend a penny on titbits than licorice, and it was true. Not that I disliked licorice. I liked titbits better though, so the thing had gone on. I advanced from Deadwood Dick to Hall, Cain, and Guy Boothby, and since I had joined the moon, I had actually gone a buster and bought Omar Qayam in the Golden Treasury series. Added to it, I had recently composed a little lyric for a singer at the moon's annual smoking concert. The lines were topical and were descriptive of our complete compensation policy. Tommy Milner was the vocalist. He sang my composition to a hymn tune. The refrain went, come and buy a CCP if you want immunity. From the accidents which come, please plank down your premium. Life is different, you'll agree. Repeat when you've got a CCP. The throne room of the hall went fairly rocked with applause. Well, it was shortly afterwards that I had received a visit from Mr. Cloyster, the visit which ended in my agreeing to sign whatever manuscripts he sent me and forward him all checks for a consideration of 10%. Softest job ever a man had. Easy money. Kudos. I had almost too much of it. Which takes me back to the GM's remark about my leaving the office. Since he's bought that big house at Regent's Park, he's done a lot of entertaining at the restaurants. His name's always cropping up in the here and there column, and naturally he's a subscriber to the strawberry leaf. The GM has everything of the best and plenty of it. You don't see the GM with memo forms tucked round his cuffs. He wears a clean shirt every morning of his life. All tip-top people have their little eccentricities, and the strawberry leaf, the smartest, go-iest, personalist weekly, is never missing from his drawing room whatnot. Every week it's there, regular as clockwork. That's what started my literary reputation among the fellows at the moon. Mr. Cloyster was contributing a series of short dialogues to the strawberry leaf called In Town. These on publication bore my own signature. As a matter of fact, I happen to see the GM showing the first of the series to Mr. Leach in his private room. I've kept it by me, and I don't wonder the news created a bit of a furor. This was it. In Town by Sydney Price. Number one, the secrecy of the ballet. You are standing under the shelter of the criterion's awning. It is 1230 of a summer's morning. It is pouring in torrents. A quick and sudden rainstorm. It won't last long, and it doesn't mean any harm. But what's sport to it is death to you. You were touring the circus in a new hat, brand new. Couldn't spot your tame cabbie. Hadn't a token. Spied the crease awning. Dashed at it, but it leaks. Not so much as the sky, though. Just enough, however, to do your hat no good. You mentioned this to friendly creature with umbrella, and hint that you would like to share that weapon. Friendly creature. Can't give you all, boys. Reminds you, too, you in your charming way. Well, of course, you wouldn't be a woman if you hadn't a new hat. Friendly creature. Do women always have new hats? You, edging under the umbrella. Women have new hats. New women have hats. Friendly creature. Don't call me a woman, ducky I'm a lady. You, I must be careful. If I don't flatter you, you'll take your umbrella away. Friendly creature, changing subject. There's Matilda. You, where? Friendly creature, coming towards us in that land outlet. You, looks fit, doesn't she? Friendly creature. Her, she's a blooming rodder. You, not so loud, she'll hear you. Friendly creature, raising her voice. Good job, I want her to. Stummer. You, shh, what are you saying? Matilda's a duchess now. Friendly creature, I know. You, but you mustn't say Stummer to a duchess, unless, friendly creature. Well, you, unless you're a duchess yourself. Friendly creature, I am. At least I was, only I chucked it. You, but you said you were a lady. Friendly creature, so I am. An extra lady. Front row, second OP. You, how rude of me. Of course you were a duchess. I know you perfectly. Gorrell Barnes said, friendly creature, drop it. What's the good of the secrecy of the ballet if people are going to remember every single thing about you? At this point the rain stops. By an adroit flanking movement, you get away without having to buy her a lunch. Everyone congratulated me. Always knew he had it in him, found his vocation, a distinctly clever head, reaping in the shekels. That was the worst part. The moon, to a man, was bent on finding out how much Sydney Price makes out of his bits in the papers. Some dropped hints. The GM leech and the men at the counter. Others, like Tommy Milner, asked to slap out. You may be sure I didn't tell them a fixed sum, but it was hopeless to say I was getting the small sum which my 10% commission worked out at. On the other hand, I dared not pretend I was being paid at the usual rates. I should have gone broke in 24 hours. You have no idea how constantly I was given the opportunity of lending five shillings to important members of the moon's staff. It struck me then, and I have found out for certain since, that there is a popular anxiety to borrow from a man who earns money by writing. The earnings of a successful writer are, to the common intelligence, something he ought not really to have, and anyone in default of abstracting his income may fall back upon taking up his time. It did no doubt appear that I was coining the ready. Besides, the strawberry leaf features and the key of the week were printing my signed contributions in weekly series. The May Fair, too, had announced its placards, a story in dialogue by Sydney Price. This then was my position on the morning when I was late at the moon and lost my bonus. Whilst I went up in the lift to the new business room, and whilst I was entering the names and addresses of inquirers in the proposal book, I was trying to gather courage to meet what was in store. For the future held this, that my name would disappear from the papers as suddenly as it had arrived there. People would want to know why I had given up writing, written himself out, no staying power, as short-lived as a Barnum monstrosity. These would be the remarks which would herald ridicule and possibly pity. And I should be in just the same beastly fix at the hollyhocks as I was at the moon. What would my people say? What would Nora say? There was another reason, too, why a stoppage of the 10% checks would be a whack in the eye. You see, I had been doing myself well on them, uncommonly well. I had ordered, as a present to my parents, new furniture for the drawing-room. I had pressed my father to have a small greenhouse put up at my expense. He had always wanted one, but had never been able to run to it. And I had taken Nora about a good deal. Our weekly visit to the matinee, Upper Circle and Isis, followed by Tea at the Cabin or Lyons Popular, had become an institution. We had gone occasionally to a ball at the town hall. What would Nora say when all this ended abruptly without any explanation? There was no getting away from it. Sydney Price was in the suit. End of section 22. Section 23 of Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Debra Lynn. Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. Part 2, Chapter 20. Nora Wins Home. Sydney Price's narrative continued. My signed work had run out. For two weeks nothing had been printed over my signature. So far no comment had been raised, but it was only a question of days. But then one afternoon it all came right. It was like this. I was sitting eating my lunch at Eliza's in Birch and Lane. 20 minutes was the official allowance for the meal, and I took my 20 minutes at two o'clock. The St. Stephen's Gazette was lying near me. I picked it up. Anything to distract my thoughts from the trouble to come. That was how I felt. Reading mechanically the front page, I saw a poem and started violently. This was the poem, A Cry. Hands at the tiller to steer, a star in the murky sky, water and waste of mirror, wither and why. Sting of absorbent night, journey of wheel or woe, and overhead the light. We go, we go. Darkness, immortals part, mortals of whom we are. Come to a mortal's heart, immortal star. Thomas Blake, June 6. Rummy, very rummy, I exclaimed. The poem was dated yesterday. Had Mr. Cloyster then continued to work his system with Thomas Blake to the exclusion of the Rev. and myself? Still worrying over the thing, I turned over the pages of the paper until I chanced to see the following paragraph. Literary Gossip. Few will be surprised to learn that the Rev. John Hatton intends to publish another novel in the immediate future. Mr. Hatton's first book, When It Was Lurid, created little less than a furor. The work on which he is now engaged, which will bear the title of The Browns of Brixton, is a tender sketch of English domesticity. This new vein of Mr. Hatton's will, doubtless, be distinguished by the naturalness of dialogue and sanity of characterization of his first novel. Messers Prader and Way are to publish it in the autumn. He's running the Rev. again, is he? Said I to myself. And I'm the only one left out? It's a bit thick. That night I wrote to Blake and to the Reverend, asking whether they had been taken on afresh. And if so, couldn't I get a look in as things were pretty serious? The Reverend's reply arrived first. The Temple, June 7th. Dear Price. As you have seen, I am hard at work at my new novel. The leisure of a novelist is so scanty that I know you'll forgive my writing only a line. I am in no way associated with James Oralbar Cloyster, nor do I wish to be. Rather, I would forget his very existence. You are aware of the interests which I have at heart. Social reform, the education of the submerged, the physical needs of the young. There is no necessity for me to enumerate my ideals further, to get quick returns from philanthropy, to put remedial organization into speeding working order once capital. Cloyster's system was one way of obtaining some of it. But when that failed, I had to look out for another. I'm glad I helped in the system, for it made me realize how large an income a novelist can obtain. I'm glad it failed, because its failure suggested that I should try to get for myself those vast sums which I had been getting for the selfish purse of an already wealthy man. Unconsciously he has played into my hands. I read his books before I signed them, and I find that I have thoroughly absorbed those tricks of his, of style and construction, which opened the public's coffers to him. The Browns of Brixton will eclipse anything that Cloyster has previously done for this reason, that it will out Cloyster Cloyster. It is Cloyster with improvements. And thus abducting his novel reading public, I shall feel no compunction. His serious verse and his society dialogues bring him in so much that he cannot be in danger of financial embarrassment. Yours sincerely, John Hatton. Now this letter set my brain buzzing like the engine of a stationary vanguard. High, too, had been in the habit of reading Mr. Cloyster's dialogues before I signed and sent them off. I had often thought to myself also that they couldn't take much writing, that it was all a knack, and the more I read of them, the more transparent the knack appeared to me to be. Just for a lark I sat down that very evening and had a go at one. Taking the park for my scene, I made two or three theatrical celebrities whose names I had seen in the newspapers talk about a horse race. At least one talked about a horse race, and the others thought she was gassing about a new musical comedy, the name of the play being the same as the name of the horse, the Oriental Bell. A very amusing muddle with lots of double entendres and heaps of adverbial explanation in small prints, such as Miss Adeline Genie with the faint, insipient blush which Mrs. Adaire uses to test her Rouge Imperial, that sort of thing. I had it typed and I said, price, my boy, there's more Mr. Cloyster in this than ever Mr. Cloyster could have put into it, and the editor of the Strawberry Leaf printed it next issue as a matter of course. I say as a matter of course with intention, because the fellows at the moon took it as a matter of course too. You see, when it first appeared, I left a copy about the desk in the new business room, hoping Tommy Milner or some of them would rush up and congratulate me, but they didn't. They simply said, don't litter the place up old man, keep your papers if you must bring them here in your locker downstairs. One of them did say, I fancy something about it's not being quite up to my usual. They didn't know it was my maiden effort at original composition and I couldn't tell them. It was galling, you'll admit. However, I quickly forgot my own troubles in wondering what Mr. Cloyster was doing. No editor I foresaw would accept his society stuff as long as mine was in the market. They wouldn't pay for Cloyster whilst they were offered the refusal of Super Cloyster. Wasn't likely. You must understand, I wasn't over easy in my conscience about the affair. I had, in a manner of speaking, pinched Mr. Cloyster's job. But then I argued to myself, he was earning quite as much as was good for any one man by his serious verse. And at that very minute, our slavy little Ethel Bertina knocked at my bedroom door and gave me a postcard. It was addressed to me in thick, straggly writing and was so covered with thumb marks that a Bertilian expert would have gone straight off his nut at the sight of it. My husband began the postcard. As received yarn, he has no truck with the other man. He is a pot himself and he can do a job of pottery as often as he has a mind to your obedient servant, Ada Blake. P.S., me and his old aunt do is writing up for him. So then I saw how that cry thing in the sense Stevens had come there. You heard me give my opinion about telling Nora my past life. Well, you'll agree with me now that there's practically nothing to tell her. There is, of course, little Miss Richards, the waitress in the smoking room of the Piccadilly cabin. Her, I mean, with the fuzzy golden hair done low. You've often exchanged good evening with her, I'm sure. Her hair is done low. She used to make rather a point of telling me that. Why, I don't know, especially as it was always tidy and well off her shoulders. And then there was the haughty lady who sold programs in the Haymarket Amphitheater. But she's got the sack, so cooks and informs me. Therefore, as I shall tell Nora plainly that I disapprove of the cabin, the past can hatch no egg of discord in the shape of the cast-off glove. The only thing that I can think of as needing suppression is the part I played in Mr. Cloister's system. There's no doubt that the Reverend Blake and I have between us put a fairly considerable spoke in Mr. Cloister's literary wheel. But what am I to do? To begin with, it's no use my telling Nora about the affair because it would do her no good, and might tend possibly to lessen her valuation of my capabilities. At present my dialogues dazzle her, and once your fiancee has dazzled the basis of matrimonial happiness is assured. Again, looking at it from Mr. Cloister's point of view, what good would it be to him if I were to stop writing? Both the editor and the public have realized by now that his work is only second rate. He can never hope to get a tenth of his original prices, even if his work is accepted, which it won't be, for directly I leave his market clear someone else will collar it slap off. Besides of no right to stop my dialogues, my duty to Nora is greater than my duty to Mr. Cloister. Unless I continue to be paid by literature I shall not be able to marry Nora until three years next quarter. The moon has passed a rule about it, and an official who marries on an income not larger than 80 pounds per annum is liable to dismissal without notice. Nora's mother wouldn't let her wait three years, and though fellows have been known to have had a couple of kids at the time of their official marriage, I personally couldn't stand the wear and tear of that whole corner business that couldn't be done. End of Sydney Price's narrative. End of Section 23. Section 24 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part two, Chapter 21. Julian Eversley's narrative. The transposition of sentiment. It is all very, very queer. I do not understand it at all. It makes me sleepy to think about it. A month ago I hated Eva. Tomorrow I marry her by special license. Now what about this? My brain is not working properly. I am becoming jerky. I tried to work the thing out algebraically. I wrote it down as an equation, thus. Hatred denoted by X plus Eva. Reverse of hatred, ditto, Y plus Eva. One month, ditto, Z. From which we get X plus Eva equals, begin parentheses, Y plus Eva, end parentheses, Z. And if anybody can tell me what that means, if it means anything which I doubt, I shall be grateful. As I said before, my brain is not working properly. There is no doubt that my temperament has changed and in a very short space of time. A month ago I was soured, cynical. I didn't brush my hair and I slept too much. I talked a good deal about life. Now I am blithe and optimistic. I use pomade, part in the middle, and sleep eight hours and no more. I have not made an epigram for days. It is all very queer. I took a new attitude towards life at about a quarter to three on the morning after the gut and Creswell's dance. I had waited for James in his rooms. He had been to the dance. Examine me for a moment as I wait there. I had been James's friend for more than two years and a half. I had watched his career from the start. I knew him before he had located exactly the shortcut to fortune. Our friendship embraced the whole period of his sudden extraordinary success. Had not envy by that time been dead in me, it might have been pain to me to watch him accomplish unswovenly with his effortless genius, the things I had once dreamt I too would laboriously achieve. But I grudged him nothing. Rather, I had pleasure in those triumphs of my friend. There was no confidence we had withheld from one another. When he told me of his relations with Margaret Goodwin, he had counted on my sympathy as naturally as he had requested and received my advice. To know living soul saved James would I have confessed my own tragedy, my hopeless love for Eva. It is inconceivable that I should have misjudged him in so utterly as I misjudged James. That is the latent factor at the root of my problem, the innate rottenness, the cardiac villainy of James Orlbar Cloyster. In a measure it was my own hand that laid the train which eventually blew James's hidden smolder of fire into the blazing beacon of wickedness in which my friend's satanic soul is visible in all its lurid nakedness. I remember well that evening, mild with the prelude of spring, when I evolved for James' benefit the system. It was a device which was to preserve my friend's liberty and at the same time to preserve my friend's honor, how perfect in its irony. Margaret Goodwin, Mark U, was not to know he could afford to marry her and my system was an instrument to hide from her the truth. He employed that system. It gave him the holiday he asked for. He went into society. Among his acquaintances were the Gunton Creswells and at their house he met Eva. Whether his determination to treat Eva as he had treated Margaret came to him instantly or by degrees I do not know. Inwardly he may have had his scheme matured in embryo, but outwardly he was still the accomplished hypocrite. He was the soul of honor outwardly. He was the essence of sympathetic tact as far as his specious exterior went. Then came the 27th of May. On that date the first of James Orlebar Cloister's masks was removed. I had breakfasted earlier than usual, so that by the time I had walked from Rupert Court to Walpole Street it was not yet four o'clock. James was out. I thought I would wait for him. I stood at his window. Then I saw Margaret Goodwin. What features, what a complexion. And James, I murmured, is actually giving this the missing-balk. I discovered at that instant that I did not know James. He was a fool. In a few hours I was to discover he was a villain too. She came in and I introduced myself to her. I almost forget what pretext I manufactured, but I remember I persuaded her to go back to Guernsey that very day. I think I said that James was spending Friday till Monday in the country and had left no address. I was determined that they should not meet. She was far too good for a man who obviously did not appreciate her in the least. We had a very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt to touch on James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded in diverting our conversation into less uninteresting topics. She talked of Guernsey, I of London. I said I felt I had known her all my life. She said that one had, undeniably, one's affinities. I said, might I think of her as Margaret? She said it was rather unconventional, but that she could not control my thoughts. I said, there you are wrong, Margaret. She said, oh, what are you saying, Mr. Eversly? I said I was thinking out loud. On the doorstep she said, well, yes, Julian, you may write to me sometimes, but I won't promise to answer. Angel! The next thing that awakened me was the coming of James. After I had given him a suitable version of Margaret's visit, he told me he was engaged to Eva. That was an astounding thing, but what was more astounding was that James had somehow got wind of the real spirit of my interview with Margaret. I have called James Orlebar cloister a fool. I have called him a villain. I will never cease to call him a genius. For by some marvelous capacity for introspection, by some incredible projection of his own mind into other people's matters, he was able to tax me to my face with an attempt to win his former fiancé's affections. I tried to choke him off. I used every ounce of bluff I possessed in vain. I left Walpole Street in a state approaching mental revolution. My exact feelings towards James were too intricate to be defined in a single word. Not so my feelings towards Eva. Hate supplied the lacuna in her case. Thus the month began. The next point of importance is my interview with Mrs. Gutton Creswell. She had known all along how matters stood in regard to Eva and myself. She had not been hostile to me on that account. She had only pointed out that as I could do nothing towards supporting Eva, I had better keep away when my cousin was in London. That was many years ago. Since then we had seldom met, laterally not at all. Invitations still arrived from her, but her afternoon parties clashed with my after-breakfast pipe, and as for her evening receptions—well, by the time I had pieced together the various component parts of my dress-clothes, I found myself ready for bed. That is to say, more ready for bed than I usually am. I went to Mrs. Gutton Creswell in a very bitter mood. I was bent on trouble. I've come to congratulate Eva, I said. Mrs. Gutton Creswell sighed. I was afraid of this, she said. The announcement was the more pleasant I went on, because James has been a bosom friend of mine. I'm afraid you are going to be extremely disagreeable about your cousin's engagement, she said. I am, I answered her, very disagreeable. I intend to shadow the young couple, to be constantly meeting them, calling attention to them. James will most likely have to try to assault me. That may mean a black eye for dear James. It will certainly mean the police court. Their engagement will be, in short, a succession of hideous contra-tomps, a series of laughable scenes. Julian, said Mrs. Gutton Creswell, hear the two you have acted manfully toward Eva. You have been brave. Have you no regard for Eva? None, I said. Nor for Mr. Cloyster. Not a scrap. But why are you behaving in this appallingly selfish way? This was a facer. I couldn't quite explain to her how things really were, so I said, never you mind. Selfish or not, Mrs. Gutton Creswell, I'm out for trouble. That night I had a letter from her. She said that in order to avoid all unpleasantness, Eva's engagement would be of the briefest nature possible, that the marriage was fixed for the twelfth of next month, that the wedding would be a very quiet one, and that until the day of the wedding Eva would not be in London. It amused me to find how thoroughly I had terrified Mrs. Gutton Creswell, how excellently I must have acted, for of course I had not meant a word I had said to that good lady. In the days preceding the twelfth of June, I confess I rather soften to James. The entente cordial was established between us. He told me how irresistible Eva had been that night, mentioned how completely she had carried him away. Had she not carried me away in precisely the same manner once upon a time? He swore he loved her as dearly as—I can't call to mind the simile he employed, though it was masterly and impressive. I even hinted that the threats I had used in the presence of Mrs. Gutton Creswell were not serious. He thanked me, but said I had frightened her to such good purpose that the date would now have to stand. You will not be surprised to hear, he added, that I have called in all my work. I shall want every penny I make. The expenses of an engaged man are hair-raising. I send her a lot of flowers every morning. You've no conception how much a few orchids cost. Then whenever I go to see her I take her some little present, a gold-mounted umbrella, a bicycle lamp, or a patent scent bottle. I'm indebted to you, Julian, positively indebted to you, for cutting short our engagement. I now go on to point two, the morning of the twelfth of June. Hurryed footsteps on my staircase. Allowed tapping at my door. The church clock chiming twelve. The agitated, weeping figure of Mrs. Gutton Creswell approaching my hammock. A telegram thrust into my hand. Mrs. Gutton Creswell's hysterical exclamation. You infamous monster! You—you are at the bottom of this! All very disconcerting. All, fortunately, very unusual. My eyes were ledden with slumber, but I forced myself to decipher the following message, which had been telegraphed to West Kensington Lane. Wedding must be postponed, Cloyster. I've had no hand in this, I cried. But, I added enthusiastically, it serves Eva Jollywell right. End of Section 24 Section 25 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2 Chapter 22 A Chat with James Julian Eversley's narrative continued. Mrs. Gutton Creswell seemed somehow to drift away after that. Apparently I went to sleep again and she didn't wait. When I woke it was getting on for two o'clock. I breakfasted with that magnificent telegram propped up against the teapot. Had a bath, dressed, and shortly before five was well on my way to Walpole Street. The more I thought over the thing the more it puzzled me. Why had James done this? Why should he wish to treat Eva in this manner? I was delighted that he had done so, but why had he? A very unexpected person, James. James was lying back in his shabby old armchair smoking a pipe. There was tea on the table. The room seemed more disheveled than ever. It would have been difficult to say which presented the sorrier spectacle, the room or its owner. He looked up as I came in and nodded listlessly. I poured myself out a cup of tea and took a muffin. Both were cold and clammy. I went to the bell. What are you doing? asked James. Only going to ring for some more tea, I said. No, don't do that. I'll go down and ask for it. You don't mind using my cup, do you? He went out of the room and reappeared with a jug of hot water. You see, he explained, if Mrs. Blankley brings in another cup, she'll charge for two teas instead of one. It didn't occur to me, I said. Sorry. It sounds mean, mumbled James. Not at all, I said. You're quite right not to plunge into reckless extravagance. James blushed slightly, a feat of which I was surprised to see that he was capable. The fact is, he began. He interrupted him. Never mind about that, I said. What I want to know is, what's the meaning of this? And I shoved the bilious, huge telegraph form under his nose, just as Mrs. Gutton-Creswell had shoved it under mine. It means that I'm done, he said. I don't understand. I'll explain. I have postponed my marriage for the same reason that I refused you a clean cup, because I cannot afford luxuries. It may be my dullness, but still I don't follow you. What exactly are you driving at? I'm done for. I'm on the rocks. I'm a pauper. A what? A pauper. I laughed. The man was splendid. There was no other word for it. And shall I tell you something else that you are? I said. You are a low-sneaking liar. You are playing it low down on Eva. He laughed. This time it irritated me unspeakably. Don't try to work off the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me, I said, because it won't do. You're a blacker than you know it. I tell you I'm done for. I've barely a penny in the world. Rot, I said. Don't try that on me. You've let Eva down plop, and I'm jolly glad. But all the same you're a skunk. Nothing can alter that. Why don't you marry the girl? I can't, he said. It would be too dishonorable. Disonorable? Yes. I haven't got enough money. I couldn't ask her to share my poverty with me. I love her too dearly. I was nearly sick. The Beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft music voice, as if he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. The stained glass expression on his face made me feel homicidal. Oh, drop it. I said poverty? Good Lord, isn't two thousand a year enough to start on? But I haven't got two thousand a year. Oh, I don't pretend to give the figures to a shilling. You don't understand. All I have to live on is my holiday work at the orb. What? Oh, yes. And I'm doing some lyrics for Briggs for the second edition of The Bell of Wells. That'll keep me going for a bit. But it's absolutely out of the question to think of marrying anyone. If I can keep my own head above water till the next vacancy occurs at the orb, I shall be lucky. You're mad. I'm not, though I dare say I shall be soon if this sort of thing goes on. I tell you you are mad. Otherwise you'd have called in your work and saved yourself having to pay those commissions to Hatton and the others. As it is, I believe they've somehow done you out of your checks, and the shock of it has affected your brain. My dear Julian, it's a good suggestion that about calling in my work, but it comes a little late. I called it in weeks ago. My irritation increased. What is the use of lying like that? I said angrily. You don't seem to credit me with any sense at all. Do you think I never read the papers and magazines? You can't have called in your work. The stuff's still being printed over the signatures of Sydney Price, Tom Blake, and the Rev. John Hatton. I caught a sight of a strawberry leaf lying on the floor beside his chair. I picked it up. Here you are. I said, Page 324, Short Story, Lady Mary's Mistake by Sydney Price. How about that? That's it, Julian. He said dismally. That's just it. Those three devils have pinched my job. They've learned the trick of the thing through reading my stuff, and now they're turning it out for themselves. They've cut me out. My market's gone. The editors and publishers won't look at me. I have had eleven printed rejection forms this week. One editor wrote and said that he did not want John Hatton in water. That's why I sent the wire. Let's see those rejection forms. You can't. They're burnt. They got on my nerves and I burnt them. Oh, I said they're burnt, are they? He got up and began to pace the room. But I shan't give up, Julian. He cried with a sickening return of the melodrama Hero Manor. I shan't give up. I shall still persevere. The fight will be terrible. Often I shall feel on the point of despair, yet I shall win through. I feel it, Julian. I have the grit in me to do it. And meanwhile, he lowered his voice and seemed surprised that the orchestra did not strike up the slow music. Meanwhile, I shall ask Eva to wait. To wait? The colossal, the Napoleonic impudence of the man. I have known men who seemed literally to exude gall, but never one so overflowing with it as James Orbar Cloister. As I looked at him standing there and uttering that great speech, I admired him. I ceased to wonder at his success in life. I shook my head. I can't do it, I said regretfully. I simply cannot begin to say what I think of you. The English language isn't equal to it. I cannot offhand coin a new phraseology to meet the situation. All I can say is that you are unique. What do you mean? Absolutely unique. Though I had hoped you would have known me better than to believe that I would swallow the ludicrous yarn you've prepared, don't you ever stop and ask yourself on these occasions if it's good enough? You don't believe me. My dear James, I protested, believe you. I swear it's all true, every word of it. You seem to forget that I've been behind the scenes. I'm not simply an ordinary member of the audience. I know how the illusion is produced. I've seen the strings pulled. Why dash it, I showed you how to pull them. I never came across a finer example of seething the kid in its mother's milk. I put you up to the system and you turn round and try to take me in with it. Yes, you're a wonder, James. You don't mean to say, you think. Don't be an ass, James, of course I do. You've had the brazen audacity to attempt to work off on Eva the game you played on Margaret. But you've made a mistake. You've forgotten to count me. I paused and ate a muffin. James watched me with fascinated eyes. You, I resumed, ethically, I despise. Eva, personally, I detest. It seems, therefore, that I may expect to extract a certain amount of amusement from the situation. The fun will be inaugurated by your telling Eva that she may have to wait five years. You will state also the amount of your present income. Suppose I decline. You won't. You think not? I am sure. What would you do if I declined? I should call upon Mrs. Gunton-Creswell and give her a quarter of an hour's entertainment by telling her of the system and explaining to her in detail the exact method of its working and the reason why you set it going. Having amused Mrs. Gunton-Creswell in this manner I should make similar revelations to Eva. It would not be pleasant for you, subsequently, I suppose, but we all have our troubles. That would be yours. He hesitated. As if they'd believe it, he said weakly. I think they would. They'd laugh at you. They'd think you were mad. Not when I produced John Hatton, Sydney Price, and Tom Blake in a solid phalanx and asked them to corroborate me. They wouldn't do it, he said, snatching at a straw. They wouldn't give themselves away. Hatton might hesitate too, but Tom Blake would do it like a shot. As I did not know Tom Blake, a moment's reflection might have told James that this was bluff, but I had gathered a certain knowledge of the Bar-G's character from James's conversation, and I knew that he was a drunken, indiscreet sort of person who might be expected to reveal everything in circumstances such as I had described. So I risked the shot and it went home. James's opposition collapsed. I shall then, administering the coup de gras, arrange a meeting between the Gunton-Creswells and old Mrs. Goodwin. Thank you, said James, but don't bother. On second thoughts I will tell Eva about my income in the five years' wait. Thanks, I said, it's very good of you. Goodbye. And I retired chuckling to Rupert Street. End of Section 25 Section 26 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Deborah Lynn, not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2 Chapter 23 In a Handsome Julian Eversley's Narrative Continued I spent a pleasant week in my hammock awaiting developments. At the end of the week came a letter from Eva. She wrote, My dear Julian, you haven't been to see us for ages. Is Kensington Lane beyond the pale? Your affectionate cousin Eva. You vixen, I thought. Yes, I'll come and see you fast enough. It will give me the greatest pleasure to see you crushed and humiliated. I collected my evening clothes from a man of the name of Attenborough, whom I employed to take care of them when they're not likely to be wanted, found a white shirt which looked presentable after a little pruning of the cuffs with a razor, and drove to the Gunton-Creswells in time for dinner. There was a certain atmosphere of unrest about the house. I attributed this, at first, to the effects of the James Orlebar cloister bombshell, but discovered that it was in reality due to the fact that Eva was going out to a fancy dress ball that night. She was having dinners sent up to her room, they told me, and would be down presently. There was a good deal of flitting about going on, maids on mysterious errands shot up and downstairs. Old Mr. Gunton-Creswell, looking rather rye, was taking cover in his study when I arrived. Mrs. Gunton-Creswell was in the drawing room. Before Eva came down I got a word alone with her. I've had a nice straightforward letter from James, she said, and he has done all he can to put things straight with us. Ah, said I, that telegram he tells me was the outcome of a sudden panic. Dear me, I said. It seems that he made some most ghastly mistake about his finances. What exactly happened I can't quite understand, but the gist of it is he thought he was quite well off, whereas really his income is infinitesimal. How odd, I remarked. It sounds odd. In fact, I could scarcely believe it until I got his letter of explanation. I'll show it to you. Here it is. I read James Orlebar Cloister's letter with care. It was not particularly long, but I wish I had a copy of it, for it is the finest work in an imaginative vein that has ever been penned. Masterly, I exclaimed involuntarily. Yes, isn't it, she echoed. Enables one to grasp thoroughly how the mistakes manage to occur. Has Eva seen it? Yes. I notice he mentions five years as being about the period. Yes, it's rather a long engagement, but of course she'll wait. She loves him so. Eva now entered the room. When I caught sight of her I remembered I had pictured her crushed and humiliated. I had expected to gloat over a certain dewiness of her eyes, a patient drooping of her lips. I will say plainly there was nothing of that kind about Eva tonight. She had decided to go to the ball as Peter Pan. The costume had rather scandalized old Mr. Gunton Creswell, a venerable Tory who rarely spoke except to grumble. Even Mrs. Gunton Creswell, who had lately been elected to the newly formed Le Cerf's Davenier, was inclined to deprecate it. But I was sure Eva had chosen the better part. The dress suited her to perfection. Her legs are the legs of a boy. As I looked at her with concentrated hatred, I realized I had never seen a human soul so radiant, so brimming with a spiglery, so altogether to be desired. Why, Julian, is it you? This is good of you. It was evident that the past was to be waived. I took my cue. Thanks, Eva, I said. It suits you admirably. Events at this point move quickly. Another card of invitation is produced. Would I care to use it and take Eva to the ball? But I'm not in fancy dress. Overruled, fancy dress not an essential. Crowds of men there in ordinary evening clothes. So we drove off. We hardly exchanged a syllable. No one has much to say just before a dance. I looked at Eva out of the corner of my eye, trying to discover just what it was in her that attracted men. I knew her charm, though I flattered myself that I was proof against it. I wanted to analyze it. Her photograph is on the table before me as I write. I look at it critically. She is not what I should describe as exactly a type of English beauty. You know the sort of beauty I mean. Queenly, statuesque, a daughter of the gods. Divinely fair. Her charm is not in her features, it is in her expression. Tonight, for instance, as we drove to the ball, there sparkled in her eyes a light such as I had never seen in them before. Every girl is animated at a ball, but this was more than mere animation. There was a latent devoury about her, and behind the sparkle in the glitter, a film, a mist as it were, which lent almost a pathos to her appearance. The effect it had on me was to make me tend to forget that I hated her. We arrive. I mutter something about having the pleasure. Eva says I can have the last two waltzes. Here comes a hiatus. I am told that I was seen dancing, was observed to eat an excellent supper, and was noticed in the smoking room with a cigarette in my mouth. At last the first of my two waltzes, the Eaton Boating Song, one of my favorites. I threaded my way through the room in search of her. She was in neither of the doorways. I cast my eyes about the room. Her costume was so distinctive that I could hardly fail to see her. I did see her. She was dancing my waltz with another man. The things seemed to numb my faculties. I stood in the doorway gaping. I couldn't understand it. Theological nature of my position did not strike me. It did not occur to me that as I hated the girl so much, it was much the best thing that could happen that I should see as little of her as possible. My hatred was entirely concentrated on the bounder who had stolen my dance. He was a small pink-faced little beast, and it maddened me to see that he danced better than I could ever have done. As the world passed me she smiled at him. I rushed to the smoking room. Whether she gave my other waltz to the same man, or whether she chose some other partner or sat alone waiting for me, I do not know. When I returned to the ballroom the last waltz was over, and the orchestra was beginning softly to play the first extra. It was too passe, an era that has always had the power to throw me. My heart gave a bound. Standing in the doorway just in front of me was Eva. I drew back. Two or three men came up and asked her for the dance. She sent them away and my heart leaped as they went. She was standing with her back towards me. Now she turned. Our eyes met. We stood for a moment looking at one another. Then I heard her give a little sigh, and instantly I forgot everything. My hatred, my two lost dances, the pink-faced blighter, everything. Everything but that I loved her. Tired, Eva, I said. Perhaps I am, she replied. Yes, I am, Julian. Give me this one. I whispered. We'll sit it out. Very well. It's so hot in here. We'll go and sit it out in a handsome, shall we? I'll get my cloak. I waited, numbed by her absence. Her cloak was pale pink. We walked out together into the starry night. A few yards off stood a handsome. Drive to the corner of Sloan Street, I said to the man, by way of the park. The night was very still. I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her. Could I remember now? Now, as we drove together through the empty streets alone, her warm, palpitating body touching mine? James, in his awful predicament, which would last till Eva gave him up, Eva's callous treatment of my former love for her, my own newly acquired affection for Margaret, my self-respect, these things had become suddenly of no account. Eva, I murmured, and I took her hand. Eva. Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. My darling, she whispered, very low. The road was deserted. We were alone. I drew her face to mine and kissed her. My love for her grows daily. Old Gunton Creswell has introduced me to a big firm of linoleum manufacturers. I am taking over their huge system of advertising next week. My salary will be enormous. It almost frightens me. Old Mr. Creswell tells me that he had had the job in his mind for me for some time, and had indeed mentioned to his wife and Eva at lunch that day that he intended to write to me about it. I am more grateful to him than I can ever make him understand. Eva, I know, cares nothing for money. She told me so. But it is a comfort to feel that I can keep her almost in luxury. I have given up my rooms in Rippert Street. I sleep in a bed. I do sandow exercises. I am always down to breakfast at 8.30 sharp. I smoke less. I am the happiest man on earth. End of Julian Eversley's narrative. End of Section 26 Section 27 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2 Chapter 24. A Rift in the Clouds. Narrative resumed by James Orlebar Cloyster. A perfidy of woman. A feminine inconstancy. That is the only allusion I shall permit to escape me on the subject of Eva Eversley's engagement to that scoundrel Julian. I have the news by telegraph, and the heavens darkened above me, whilst the solid earth rocked below. I had been trapped into dishonor, and even the bait had been withheld from me. But it was not the loss of Eva that troubled me most. It should have outweighed all my other misfortunes and made them seem of no account, but it did not. Man is essentially a materialist. The prospect of an empty stomach is more serious to him than a broken heart. A broken heart is the luxury of the well to do. What troubled me more than all other things at this juncture was the thought that I was face to face with starvation, and that only the grimest of fights could enable me to avoid it. I quaked at the prospect. The early struggles of the writer to keep his head above water form an experience which does not bear repetition. The hopeless feeling of chipping a little niche for oneself out of the solid rock with a nib as a nightmare, even in times of prosperity. I remembered the gray days of my literary apprenticeship, and I shivered at the thought that I must go through them again. I examined my position dispassionately over a cup of coffee at Grooms in Fleet Street. Grooms was a recognized or a rendezvous. When I was doing On Your Way, one or two of us used to go down Fleet Street for coffee after the morning's work with the regularity of machines. It formed a recognized break in the day. I thought things over. How did I stand? Holiday work at the orb would begin very shortly, so that I should get a good start in my race. Furman would be going away in a few weeks, then Gresham, and after that, Fane, the man who did the people and things column. With luck I ought to get a clear fifteen weeks of regular work. It would just save me. In fifteen weeks I ought to have got going again. The difficulty was that I had dropped out. Editors had forgotten my work. John Hatton they knew and Sidney Price they knew, but who was James Orr of our cloister? There would be much creaking of joints and wobbling of wheels before my triumphal car could gather speed again, but with a regular salary coming in week by week from the orb, I could endure this. I became almost cheerful. It is an exhilarating sensation having one's back against the wall. Then there was Briggs, the actor. The very thought of him was a tonic. A born fighter with the energy of six men, he was an ideal model for me. If I could work with a sixth of his dash and pluck, I should be safe. He was giving me work. He might give me more. The new edition of the Bell of Wells was due in another fortnight. My lyrics would be used, and I should get paid for them. Add this to my orb salary, and I should be a man of substance. I glared over my coffee cup at an imaginary John Hatton. You thought you'd done me, did you? I said to him, but I get I'll have the laugh of you all yet. I was shaking my fist at him when the door opened. I hurriedly tilted back my chair and looked out of the window. Hello, Cloyster. I looked round. It was Furman, just the man I wanted to see. He seemed depressed, even embarrassed. How's the column, I asked. Oh, all right, he said awkwardly. I wanted to see you about that. I was going to write to you. Oh, yes, I said, of course, about the holiday work. When are you off? I was thinking of starting next week. Good, sorry to lose you, of course, but he shuffled his feet. You're doing pretty well now at the game, aren't you, Cloyster, he said? It was not to my interest to cry myself down. So I said that I was doing quite decently. He seemed relieved. You're making quite a good income, I suppose. I mean, no difficulty about placing your stuff. Editors squeal for it. Because, otherwise, what I wanted to say to you might have been something of a blow, but it won't affect you much if you're doing plenty of work elsewhere. A cold hand seemed laid upon my heart. My mind leaped to what he meant. Something had gone wrong with the orb holiday work, my sheet anchor. Do you remember writing a par about Stickney the Butterscotch Man, you know, ragging him when he got his peerage? Yes. It was one of the best paragraphs I had ever done. A two-line thing full of point and sting. I had been editing on your way that day, Furman being on a holiday and Gresham ill, and I had put the paragraph conspicuously at the top of the column. Well, said Furman, I'm afraid there was rather trouble about it. Hamilton came into our room yesterday and asked if I should be seeing you. I said I thought I should. Well, tell him, said Hamilton, that that paragraph of his about Stickney has only cost us five hundred pounds, that's all. And he went out again. Apparently Stickney was on the point of advertising largely with the orb, and had backed out in a half. Today I went to see him about my holiday, and he wanted to know who was coming in to do my work. I mentioned you, and he absolutely refused to have you in. I'm awfully sorry about it. I was silent. The shock was too great. Instead of drifting easily into my struggle on a comfortable weekly salary, I should have to start the tooth and nail fighting at once. I wanted to get away somewhere by myself and grapple with the position. I said good-bye to Furman, retaining sufficient presence of mind to treat the thing lightly, and walked swiftly along the restless strand, marvelling at what I had suffered at the hands of Fortune, the deceiver of Margaret deceived by Eva, a pauper. I covered the distance between grooms and Walpole Street in somber meditation. In a sort of dull panic I sat down immediately on my arrival and tried to work. I told myself that I must turn out something, that it would be madness to waste a moment. I sat and chewed my pen from two o'clock till five, but not a page of printable stuff could I turn out. Looking back at myself at that moment, I am not surprised that my ideas did not flow. It would have been a wonderful triumph of strength of mind if I had been able to write after all that had happened. Dr. Johnson has laid it down that a man can write at any time if he sets himself to it earnestly. But mine were exceptional circumstances. My life's happiness and my means for supporting life at all, happy or otherwise, had been swept away in a single morning, and I found myself utterly unable to pen a coherent sentence. At five o'clock I gave up the struggle and rang for tea. While I was having tea there was a ring at the bell, and my landlady brought in a large parcel. I recognized the writing on the label. The hand was Margaret's. I wondered in an impersonal sort of way what Margaret could be sending to me. From the feel of it the contents were paper. It amuses me now to think that it was a good half hour before I took the trouble to cut the string. Fortune and happiness were waiting for me in that parcel, and I would not bother to open it. I sat in my chair, smoking and thinking, and occasionally cast a gloomy eye at the parcel, but I did not open it. Then my pipe went out and I found that I had no matches in my pocket. There were some at the farther end of the mantelpiece. I had to get up to reach them, and once up I found myself filled with the sufficient amount of energy to take a knife from the table and cut the string. Languidly I undid the round paper. The contents were a pile of typewritten pages and a letter. It was the letter over which my glassy eyes traveled first. My own dear brave old darling James it began, and its purport was that she had written a play and wished me to put my name to it and hawk it round, to pass off as my work her own amateurish effort at playwriting. Ludacris, and so immoral too. I had always imagined that Margaret had a perfectly flawless sense of honesty, yet here she was, asking me deliberately to impose on the credulity of some poor, trusting theatrical manager. The dreadful disillusionment of it shocked me. Most men would have salved their wounded susceptibilities by putting a match to the manuscript without further thought or investigation. But I have ever been haunted by a somewhat over-strict conscience, and I sat down there and then to read the stupid stuff. At seven o'clock I was still reading. My dinner was brought in. I bolted it with Margaret's play propped up against the potato dish. I read on and on. I could not leave it. Incredible as it would appear from any one but me, I solemnly assure you that the type written nonsense I read that evening was nothing else than the girl who waited. James Orlebar Cloister's narrative continued. I finished the last page and I laid down the type script reverently. The thing amazed me. Unable as I was to turn out a good acting play of my own, I was nevertheless sufficiently gifted with an appreciation of the dramatic to be able to recognize such a play when I saw it. There were situations in Margaret's comedy which would grip a London audience and force laughter and tears from it. Well, the public side of that idiotic play is history. Everyone knows how many nights it ran and the press from time to time tells its readers what were the profits from it that accrued to the author. I turned to Margaret's letter and reread the last page. She put the thing very well, very sensibly. As I read my scruples began to vanish. After all, was it so very immoral, this little deception that she proposed? I have written down the words, she said, but the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you, but for you I should never have begun it. Well, if she put it like that. You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. You know the right men to go to, to approach them on behalf of a stranger's work is far less likely to lead to success. True, true. I have assumed you will see that the play is certain to be produced, but that will only be so if you adopt it as your own. There was sense in this. Claim the authorship and all will be well. I will, I said. I packed up the play in its brown paper and rushed from the house. At the post office at the bottom of the King's Road I stopped to send a telegram. It consisted of the words, except, thankfully, cloister. Then I took a cab from the rank at Sloan Square and told the man to drive to the stage door of the Briggs Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. The cab rank in Sloan Square is really a home for superannuated horses. It is a sort of equine Athenium. No horse has ever seen there till it has passed well into the seer and yellow. A Sloan Square cab horse may be distinguished by the dignity of its movements. It is happiest when walking. The animal which had the privilege of making history by conveying me and the girl who waited to the Briggs Theatre was asthmatic and, I think, sickening for the bots. I had plenty of time to cool my brain and think out a plan of campaign. Stanley Briggs, whom I proposed to try first, was the one man I should have liked to see in the part of James, the hero of the piece. The part might have been written round him. There was the objection, of course, that the girl who waited was not a musical comedy, but I knew he would consider a straight play and put it on if it suited him. I was confident that the girl who waited would be just what he wanted. The problem was how to get him to himself for a sufficient space of time. When a man is doing the work of half a dozen he is likely to get on in the world, but he has as a rural little leisure for conversation. My octogenary and came to a standstill at last at the stage door and seemed relieved at having one safely through a strenuous bit of work. I went through in search of my man. His dressing room was the first place I drew. I knew that he was not due on the stage for another ten minutes. Mr. Richard Belzey, his valet, was tidying up the room as I entered. Mr. Briggs, anywhere about? Richard, I asked. Down on the side, sir, I think, there's a new song in tonight for Mrs. Briggs, and he's gone to listen how it goes. Which side, do you know? OP, sir, I think. I went downstairs and threw the folding doors into the wings. The OP corner was packed, standing room only, and the overflow reached nearly to the doors. The black hole of Calcutta was roomy compared with the wings on the night of a new song. Everybody who had the least excuse for being out of his or her dressing room at that moment was peering through odd chinks in the scenery. Chorus girls, showgirls, chorus men, principals, children, scene-shifters, and other theatrical fauna waited in a solid mass for the arrival of the music queue. The atmosphere behind the scenes has always had the effect of making me feel as if my boots were number 14s and my hands, if anything, larger. Directly I have passed the swing doors. I shuffle like one oppressed with a guilty conscience. Outside I may have been composed, even jaunty. Inside I am hang-dog. Beads of perspiration form on my brow. My collar tightens. My boots begin to squeak. I smile vacuously. I shuffle, smiling vacuously, and clutching the type script of the girl who waited to the OP corner. I caught the eye of a tall lady in salmon pink and said, Good evening, huskily. My voice is always husky behind the scenes. Elsewhere it is like some beautiful bell. A piercing whisper of shh came from somewhere close at hand. This sort of thing does not help bright and sparkling conversation. I shh-d and passed on. At the back of the OP corner, Timothy Prince, the comedian, was filling in the time before the next entrance by waltzing with one of the stage carpenters. He suspended the operation to greet me. Hello, dear heart, he said. How goes it? Seeing briggs anywhere, I asked. Round on the prompt side, I think, he was here a second ago, but he dashed off. At this moment the music cue was given, and a considerable section of the multitude passed on to the stage. Locomotion being rendered easier, I hurried round to the prompt side. But when I arrived, there were no signs of the missing man. Seeing Mr. Briggs anywhere, I asked. Here a moment ago, said one of the carpenters, he went out after Ms. Lewin's song began. I think he's gone round the other side. I dashed round to the OP corner again. He had just left. Taking up the trail, I went to his dressing room once more. You're just too late, said Richard. He was here a moment ago. I decided to wait. I wonder if he'll be back soon. He's probably downstairs. His call is in another two minutes. I went downstairs and waited on the prompt side. Sir Boyle Rosh's bird was sedentary compared with this elusive man. Presently he appeared. Hello, dear boy, he said. Welcome to Ellesmore. Come and see me before you go, will you? I've got an idea for a song. I say, I said, as he flitted past. Can I tell me later on? And he sprang on to the stage. By the time I had worked my way at the end of the performance, through the crowd of visitors who were waiting to see him in his dressing room, I found that he had just three minutes in which to get to the Savoy to keep an urgent appointment. He explained that he was just dashing off. I shall be at the theatre all tomorrow morning, though, he said. Come round about twelve, will you? There was a rehearsal at half past eleven next morning. When I got to the theatre I found him on the stage. He was super-intending the chorus, talking to one man about a song and to two others about motors, and dictating letters to his secretary. Taking advantage of the spell of comparative idleness, I advanced, LC, with the TypeScript. Hello, old boy, he said. Just a minute. Sit down, won't you? Have a cigar. I sat down on the Act One sofa and he resumed his conversations. You see, laddie, he said, What you want in a song like this is tune. It's no good doing stuff that your wife and family and your aunt say is better than Wagner. They don't want that sort of thing here. Dears, we simply can't get on if you won't do what you're told. Begin going off while you're singing the last line of the refrain, not after you've finished. All back. I've told you a hundred times. Do try and get it right. I simply dare not look at a motor bill. These fellers at the garage cram it on. I mean, what can you do? You're up against it. Miss Hinkel, I've got seventy-five letters I want you to take down. Ready? Mrs. Robert Boodle, Sandingham, Mayf King Road, Balham. Dear madam, Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he fears that he has no part to offer to your son. He is glad that he made such a success at his school theatricals. James Winterbotham, Pleasant Cottage, Rhodesia Terrace Stockwell. Dear sir, Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he remembers meeting your wife's cousin at the public dinner you mentioned, but that he fears he has no part at present to offer to your daughter. Arnold H. Bodgett, Wisterialodge. My attention wandered. At the end of a quarter of an hour, he was ready for me. I wish you'd have a shot at it, old boy, he said, as he finished sketching out the idea for the lyric. And let me have it as soon as you can. I want it to go in at the beginning of the second act. Hello, what's that? Your nursing. It's a play. I was wondering if you would mind glancing at it if you have time. Yours? Yes, there's a part in it that would just suit you. What is it, musical comedy? No, ordinary comedy. I shouldn't mind putting on a comedy soon, I must have a look at it. Come and have a bit of lunch. One of the firemen came up carrying a card. Hello, what's this? Oh, confound the feller, he's always coming here. Look here, tell him that I'm just gone out to lunch, but can see him at three. Come along, old boy. He began to read the play over the coffee and cigars. He read it straight through as I had done. What rot, he said as he turned the last page. Isn't it, I exclaimed enthusiastically, but won't it go? Go, he shouted with such energy that several lunches spun round in their chairs and a rand magnet who was eating peas at the next table started and cut his mouth. Go, it's the limit. This is just the sort of thing to get right at them. It'll hit them where they live. What made you think of that dribble at the end of act two? Genius, I suppose. What do you think of James as a part for you? Top hole. Good Lord, I haven't congratulated you. Consider it done. Thanks. We drained our liquor glasses to the girl who waited and to ourselves. Briggs, after a lifetime spent in doing three things at once, is not a man who lets a great deal of grass grow under his feet. Before I left him that night, the ideal cast of the play had been jotted down and much of the actual cast settled. Rehearsals were in full swing within a week and the play was produced within ten days of the demise of its predecessor. Meanwhile, the satisfactory sum which I received in advance of royalties was sufficient to remove any regrets as to the loss of the orb holiday work. With the girl who waited an active rehearsal, on your way lost in importance. End of section twenty-eight. Section twenty-nine of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part two, Chapter twenty-six. My triumph. James Orlebark Cloyster's narrative continued. On the morning of the day for which the production had been fixed, it dawned upon me that I had to meet Mrs. Goodwin and Margaret at Waterloo. All through the busy days of rehearsal, even on those awful days when everything went wrong and actresses breaking down sobbed in the wings and refused to be comforted, I had dimly recognized the fact that when I met Margaret I should have to be honest with her. Plans for evasion had been half-matured by my inventive faculties, only to be discarded, unpolished on account of the insistent claims of the endless rehearsals. To have concocted a story with which to persuade Margaret that I stood to lose money if the play succeeded would have been a clear day's work and I had no clear days. But this was not all. There was another reason. Somehow my sentiments with regard to her were changing again. It was as if I were awaking from some dream. I felt as if my eyes had been blindfolded to prevent me seeing Margaret as she really was, and that now the bandage had been removed. As the day of production drew nearer and the play began to take shape, I caught myself sincerely admiring the girl who could hit off, first shot, the exact shade of drivel which the London stage required. What culture! What excessive brain power she must have! How absurdly naive! How impossibly melodramatic! How maudlinly sentimental! How improbable! In fact, how altogether womanly she must have grown! Womanly! That did it! I felt that she was womanly, and it came about that it was my Margaret of the Kobo shrimping journeys that I was prepared to welcome as I drove that morning to Waterloo Station. And so when the train rolled in and the Goodwin's alighted and Margaret kissed me, by an extraordinarily lucky chance I found that I loved her more dearly than ever. That premiere is still fresh in my memory. Mrs. Goodwin, Margaret and myself occupied the stage box, and in various parts of the house I could see the familiar faces of those whom I had invited as my guests. I felt it was the supreme event of my life. It was THE moment, and surely I should have spoiled it all unless my old-time friends had been sitting near me. Eva and Julian were with Mr. and Mrs. Gunt and Creswell in the box opposite us. To the barrel club I had sent the first row of the dress circle. It was expensive but worth it. Hatton and Sydney Price were in the stalls. Tom Blake had preferred a free pass to the gallery. Kit and Malim were at the back of the upper circle. This was, Malim told me, Kit's own choice. One by one the members of the orchestra took their places for the overture, and it was to the appropriate strains of land of hope and glory that the curtain rose on the first act of my play. The first act, I should mention, though it is no doubt superfluous to do so, is bright and suggestive but ends on a clear firm note of pathos. That is why, as soon as the lights went up, I leveled my glasses at the eyes of the critics. Certainly in two cases, and I think in a third, I caught the glint of teardrops. One critic was blowing his nose, another sobbed like a child, and I had a hurried vision of a third staggering out to the foyer with his hand to his eyes. Margaret was removing her own tears with a handkerchief. Mrs. Goodwin's unmoved face may have hidden a lacerated soul, but she did not betray herself. Hers may have been the thoughts that lie too deep for tears. At any rate, she did not weep. Instead, she drew from her reticule the fragmentary writings of an early Portuguese author. These she perused during the present and succeeding entracts. Pressing Margaret's hand, I walked round to the Gunt and Creswell's box to see what effect the act had had on them. One glance at their faces was enough. They were long and hard. This is a real compliment, I said to myself, for the whole party cut me dead. I withdrew delighted. They had come, of course, to assist at my failure. I had often observed to Julian how curiously lacking I was in dramatic instinct, and Julian had predicted to Eva and her aunt and uncle a glorious fiasco. They were furious at their hopes being so egregiously disappointed. Had they dreamt of a success, they would have declined to be present. Indeed, halfway through act two, I saw them creeping away into the night. The barrel club I discovered in the bar. As I approached, I heard Michael declare that there had not been such an act produced since his show was put on it. He was interrupted by Old Mondrell, asserting that the business arranged for valet reminded him of a story about Leopold Lewis. They, too, added their quota to my cup of pleasure by being distinctly frigid. Ascending to the gallery, I found another compliment awaiting me. Tom Blake was fast asleep. The quality of Blake's intellect was in an inverse ratio to that of Mrs. Goodwin. Neither of them appreciated the stuff that suited so well the tastes of the million. And it was consequently quite consistent that while Mrs. Goodwin dozed in spirit, Tom Blake should snore in reality. With hat and in price I did not come into contact. I noticed, however, that they wore an expression of relief at the enthusiastic reception my play had received. But an encounter with Kit and Malim was altogether charming. They had had some slight quarrel on the way to the theatre, and had found a means of reconciliation in their mutual emotion at the pathos of the first act's finale. They were now sitting hand in hand, telling each other how sorry they were. They congratulated me warmly. A couple of hours more, and the curtain had fallen. The roar, the frenzied scene, the picture of a vast audience half mad with excitement, how it all comes back to me. And now as I sit in this quiet smoking-room of a St. Peter's Port Hotel, I hear again the shout of Author. I see myself again stepping forward from the wings. That short appearance of mine, that brief speech behind the footlights, fixed my future. James Orle Barclois did the plutocratic playwright to Margaret, only daughter of the late Eugene Grandison Goodwin, LLD. End of Section 29. End of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse.