 CHAPTER 1 OF A MAN OF MEANS A MAN OF MEANS by P. G. Woodhouse and C. H. Bovill The Episode of the Landlady's Daughter When a seed merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an eminent firm of jam manufacturers an extremely large order for clover seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these people he asks himself proposing to sell up as farmers of a large scale, or do they merely want the seed to give very similitude to their otherwise bold and unconvincing raspberry jam? On the solution of this problem depends the important matter of price, for obviously you can charge a fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer would resent. This was the problem which was furrowing the brow of Mr. Julian Feinberg of Berries and Edmonds, one's sunny morning when Roland Bleak knocked at his door, and such was its difficulty that only at the nineteenth knock did Mr. Feinberg raise his head. Come in! That dashed woodpecker out there, he shouted, for it was his habit to express himself with a generous strength towards the junior members of his staff. The young man who entered looked exactly like a second clerk in a provincial seed merchant's office, which, strangely enough, he chanced to be. His chief characteristic was an intense ordinariness. He was a young man, and when you had said that of him you had said everything. There was nothing which you would have noticed about him, except the fact that there was nothing to notice. His age was twenty-two, and his name was Roland Bleak. Please, sir, it's about my salary. Mr. Feinberg at the word drew himself together, much as a British square at Waterloo must have drawn itself together at the site of a squadron of couriersers. Salary! he cried. What about it? What's the matter with it? You get it, don't you? Yes, sir, but... Well, don't stand there like an idiot. What is it? It's too much. Mr. Feinberg's brain reeled. It was improbable that the millennium could have arrived with a jerk. On the other hand, he had distinctly heard one of his clerks complain that his salary was too large. He pinched himself. Say that again, he said. If you could see a way to reduce it, sir. It occurred to Mr. Feinberg for one instant that his subordinate was endeavouring to be humorous. But a glance at Roland's face dispelled that idea. Why do you want it reduced? Please, sir, I am going to be married. What reduced do you mean? When my salary reaches a hundred and fifty, sir, and it's a hundred and forty now, so if you could see your way to knocking off ten pounds, Mr. Feinberg saw light. He was a married man himself. My boy, he said, genially, I can quite understand, but I can do you better than that. It's no use doing this sort of thing in a small way. From now on, your salary is a hundred and ten. No, no, don't thank me. You're an excellent clerk. It's a pleasure to me to reward and merit when I find it. Close the door after you. And Mr. Feinberg returned with a lighter heart to the straight clover-seed problem. The circumstances which had led Roland to approach his employer may be briefly recounted. Since joining the staff of Mr. Feinberg, he had lodged at the house of a Mr. Coppin, in honourable employment as porter at the local railway station. The Coppin family, excluding domestic pets, consisted of Mr. Coppin, a kindly and garrulous gentleman of sixty, Mrs. Coppin, a somewhat negative personality, most of whose life was devoted to cooking and washing up in her underground lair, brothers Frank and Percy, gentlemen of leisure, popularly supposed to be engaged in the mysterious occupation known as looking for something. And lastly, Muriel. For some months after his arrival, Muriel had been to Roland Bleak, a mere automaton, something outside himself that was made only for neatly laid breakfast tables and silent removal of plates at dinner. Gradually, however, when his natural shyness was soothed by use sufficiently to enable him to look at her when she came into the room, he discovered that she was a strikingly pretty girl, bounded to the north by a mass of urban hair and to the south by small and shapely feet. She also possessed what we are informed, we are children in these matters ourselves, is known as the RSVPI. This eye had met Roland's one evening as he chumped his chop, and before he knew what he was doing, he had remarked that it had been a fine day. From that wonderful moment, matters had developed at an incredible speed. Roland had a nice sense of the social proprieties, and he could not bring himself to ignore a girl with whom he had once exchanged easy conversation about the weather. Whenever she came to lay his table, he felt bound to say something. Not being an experienced gager, he found it more and more difficult each evening to hit on something bright. Till finally, from sheer lack of inspiration, he kissed her. If matters had progressed rapidly before, they went like lightning then. It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting vast machinery in motion. Even as he reeled back, stunned at his audacity, the room became suddenly full of coppins of every variety known to science. Through a mist, he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in a corner, of Mr. Coppin drinking his health in the remains of sparkling limado, of brothers Frank and Percy, one on each side, trying to borrow simultaneously half-crowns, and Muriel, flushed by demure, making bread pellets and throwing them in an abstracted way, one by one at the Coppin cat, which had wandered in on the chance of fish. Out of the chaos, as he stood looking at them with his mouth open, came the word bands, and smote him like a blast of east wind. It is not necessary to trace in detail Roland's mental processes from that moment till the day when he applied to Mr. Feinberg for a reduction of salary. It is enough to say that, for quite a month, he was extraordinarily happy. To a man who has had nothing to do with women, to be engaged is an intoxicating experience, and at first life was one long golden glow to Roland. Secretly, like all mild men, he had always nourished a desire to be esteemed and nut by his fellow men, and his engagements satisfied that desire. It was pleasant to hear brothers Frank and Percy cough knowingly when he came in. It was pleasant to walk abroad with a girl like Muriel in the capacity of the accepted wooer. Above all, it was pleasant to sit holding Muriel's hand and watching the ill-concealed efforts of Mr. Albert Potter to hide his mortification. Albert was a mechanic in the motor-works round the corner, and hitherto, Roland had always felt something of a worm in his presence. Albert was so infernally strong, and silent, and efficient. He could dissect a car, and put it together again. He could drive through the thickest traffic. He could sit silent in company, without having his silence attributed to shyness or imbecility. But he could not get engaged to Muriel Coppin. That was reserved for Roland Bleak the nut, the dasher, the young man of affairs. It was all very well being able to tell a spark plug from a commutator at sight, but when it came to a contest in an affair of the heart, with a man like Roland, Albert was in his proper place, third at the pole. Probably, if he could have gone on merely being engaged, Roland would never have wearied of the experience. But the word marriage began to creep more and more into the family conversation, and suddenly panic descended upon Roland Bleak. All his life he had had a horror of definite appointments. An invitation to tea a week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was one of those young men, whose souls revolted the thought of planning out any definite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plans made him lose his nerve. By the end of the month, his whole being was crying out to him in agonized tones. Get me out of this, do anything you like, but get me out of this frightful marriage business. If anything had been needed to emphasize his desire for freedom, the attitude of Frank and Percy would have supplied it. Every day they made it clearer that the man who married Muriel would be no stranger to them. It would be his pleasing task to support them, too, in the style to which they had become accustomed. They conveyed the idea that they went with Muriel as a sort of bonus. The Coppin family were at high tea when Roland reached home. There was a general stir of interest as he entered the room, for it was known that he had left that morning, with the intention of approaching Mr. Feinberg on the important matter of a rise in salary. Mr. Coppin removed his source of tea from his lips. Frank brushed the tail of a sardine from the corner of his mouth. Percy ate his haddock in an undertone. Albert Potter, who was present, glowered silently. Roland shook his head with the nearest approach to gloom, which his rejoicing heart would permit. I'm afraid I have bad news. Mrs. Coppin burst into tears, her invariable practice in any crisis. Albert Potter's face relaxed, into something resembling a smile. He won't give you your raise, Roland sighed. He's reduced me. Reduced you? Yes, times are bad just a presence, so he has had to lower me to a hundred and ten. The collected jaws of the family fell as one jaw. Muriel herself seemed to be bearing the blow with fortitude, but the rest were stunned. Frank and Percy might have been posing for a picture of men who had lost their fountain pens. Beneath the table, the hand of Albert Potter found the hand of Muriel Coppin and held it, and Muriel, we regret to add, turned and bestowed upon Albert a half-smile of tender understanding. I suppose, said Roland, we couldn't get married on a hundred and ten. No, said Percy. No, said Frank. No, said Albert Potter. They all spoke decidedly, but Albert the most decidedly of the three. Then, said Roland regretfully, I'm afraid we must wait. It seemed to be the general verdict that they must wait. Muriel said she thought they must wait. Albert Potter, whose opinion no one had asked, was quite certain that they must wait. Mrs. Coppin, between sobs, moaned that it would be best to wait. Frank and Percy, grossly devouring bread and jam, said they suppose they would have to wait. And, to end a painful scene, Roland drifted silently from the room, and went upstairs to his own quarters. There was a telegram on the mantel. Some fellows, he soloquized happily, as he opened it, wouldn't have been able to manage a little thing like that. They he would have given themselves away. They would, he the contents of the telegram demanded his attention. For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have been written in Hindustani. It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from the promoters of the Kolkata Sweep. And it informed him that, as the holder of ticket number 108,694, he had drawn gelatin, and in recognition of this fact, a check for £500, would be forwarded to him in due course. Roland's first feeling was one of pure bewilderment, as far as he could recollect. He had never had any dealings whatsoever with these open-handed gentlemen. Then memory opened her floodgates, and swept him back to a mourning ages ago. So it seemed to him, when Mr. Feinberg's eldest son Ralph, passing through the office on his way to borrow money from his father, had offered him, for tensionings down, a piece of cardboard, at the same time saying something about a sweep. Partly from a vague desire to keep in with the Feinberg clan, but principally because it struck him as a rather dog-ish thing to do, Roland had passed over the 10 shillings, and there, as far as he had known, the matter had ended. But now, after all this time, that simple action had borne fruit in the shape of gelatin, and a check for £500. Roland's next emotion was triumph. The sudden entry of checks for £500 into a man's life is apt to produce this result. For the space of some minutes, he gloated. Then reaction set in. £500 meant marriage with Muriel. His brain worked quickly. He must conceal this thing. With trembling fingers, he felt for his matchbox, struck a match, and burnt the telegram to ashes. Then, feeling a little better, he sat down to think the whole matter over. His meditations brought a sudden amount of balm. After all, he felt, the thing could quite easily be kept a secret. He would receive the check in due course, as stated, and he would bicycle over to the neighbouring town of Lexingham, and start a bank account with it. Nobody would know, and his life would go on as before. He went to bed and slept peacefully. It was about a week after this, that he was roused out of a deep sleep at eight o'clock in the morning, to find his room full of coppins. Mr. Coppin was there in a night-shirt and his official trousers. Mrs. Coppin was there, weeping softly in a brown dressing-gown. Modesty had apparently kept Muriel from the gathering, but brothers Frank and Percy stood at his bedside, shaking him by the shoulders, and shouting. Mr. Coppin flustered a newspaper at him, as he set up blinking. These epic moments are best related swiftly. Roland took the paper, and the first thing that met his sleepy eye, and effectually drove the sleep from it, was this headline, Romance of the Kolkata Sweepstakes, and beneath it another, in type almost as large, as the first. Poor Clarke wins £40,000. His own name leaped out at him from the printed page, and with it, that of the faithful gelatin. Flight! That was the master-world which rang in Roland's brain as day followed day. The wild desire of the trapped animal to be anywhere, except just where he was, had come upon him. He was past the stage when conscience could have kept him to his obligations. He had ceased to think of anything or anyone but himself. All he asked of fate was to remove him from berries and admins on any terms. It may be that some inkling of his state of mind was oftid telepathically to Frank and Percy, for it cannot be denied that their behaviour at this juncture was more than a little reminiscent of the police force. Perhaps it was simply their natural anxiety to keep an eye on what they already considered, their own private goldmine, that made them so adhesive. Certainly, there was no hour of the day when one or the other was not in Roland's immediate. Neighbourhood. Their vigilance even extended to the night-hours, and once, when Roland, having tossed sleeplessly on his bed, got up at two in the morning with the wild idea of stealing out of the house and walking to London. The door opened as he reached the top of the stairs, and a voice asked him what he thought he was doing. The statement that he was walking in his sleep was accepted but coldly. It was shortly after this that having by dint of extraordinary strategy eluded the brothers and reached the railway station, Roland with his ticket to London in his pocket, and the express already entering the station, was engaged in conversation by old Mr. Coppin, who appeared from nowhere to denounce the high cost of living in a speech that lasted until the tail-lights of the train had vanished, and the brothers, Frank and Percy, arrived panting. A man has only a certain capacity for battling with fate. After this last episode, Roland gave in, not even the exquisite agony of hearing himself described in church as a bachelor of this parish, with the grim addition that this was for the second time of asking, could stir him to a fresh dash for liberty. Although the shadow of the future occupied Roland's mind almost to the exclusion of everything else, he was still capable of suffering a certain amount of additional torment from the present. And one of the things which made the present a source of misery to him was the fact that he was expected to behave more like a mad millionaire than a sober young man, with a knowledge of the value of money. His mind, trained from infancy to a decent respect for the pence, had not yet adjusted itself to the possession of large means. And the open-handed role forced upon him by the family appalled him. When the Coppins wanted anything, they asked for it, and it seemed to Roland that they wanted pretty nearly everything. If Mr. Coppin had reached his present age without the assistance of a gold watch, he might surely have struggled along to the end on gun metal. In any case, a man of his years should have been thinking of higher things than mere gourds and trinkets. A like criticism applied to Mrs. Coppin's demand for a silk petticoat, which struck Roland as simply indecent. Frank and Percy took theirs mostly in speachy. It was Muriel, who struck the worst blow, by insisting on a hired motor-car. Roland hated motor-cars, especially when they were driven by Albert Potter, as this one was. Albert, that strong, silent man, had but one way of expressing his emotions, namely to open the throttle and shave the paint off trolley-cars. Disappointed love was giving Albert a good deal of discomfort at this time, and he found it made him feel better to go round corners on two wheels. As Muriel sat next to him on these expeditions, Roland squashing into the tunnel with Frank and Percy, his torments were subtle. He was not given a chance to forget, and the only way in which he could obtain a momentary diminution of the agony was to increase the speed to sixty miles an hour. It was in this fashion that they journeyed to the neighboring town of Lexingham to see Mr. Etienne Ferriol perform his feat of looping the loop in his aeroplane. It was Brother Frank's idea that they should make up a party to go and see Mr. Ferriol. Frank's was one of those generous, unspoiled natures, which never grow blasé at the sight of a fellow human, taking a sporting chance at Harry-Kiri. He was a well-known figure at every wild animal exhibition within a radius of fifty miles, and Mr. Ferriol drew him like a magnet. The bladder goes up, he explained, as he conducted the party into the arena, and then he stands on his head and goes round in circles. I've seen pictures of it. It appeared that Mr. Ferriol did even more than this. Posters round the ground advertised the fact that, on receipt of five pounds, he would take up a passenger with him. To date, however, there appeared to have been no rush on the part of the canny inhabitants of Lexingham to avail themselves of this chance of a breath of fresh air. Mr. Ferriol, a small man with a chubby and amiable face, wondered about signing picture cards and smoking a lighted cigarette. Looking a little disappointed. Albert Potter was scornful. A lot of rabbits. He said, Where's their pluck? And I suppose they call themselves Englishmen. I'd go up precious quick if I had a five-pound note. Disgrace, I call it, letting a Frenchman have the laugh of us. It was a long speech for Mr. Potter, and it drew a look of respectful tenderness from Muriel. You're so brave, Mr. Potter, she said. Whether it was the slight emphasis which she put on the first word, or whether it was sheer generosity that impelled him. One cannot say. But Rowland produced the required sum, even while she spoke. He offered it to his rival. Mr. Potter started, turned a little pale, then drew himself up, and waved the note aside. I take no favours, he said, with dignity. There was a pause. Why don't you do it? said Albert nastily. Five pounds is nothing to you. Why should I? Aha, why should you? It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It stung Rowland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an unpleasantly contemptuous manner. In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had apparently become an object of scorn and abridgment to the party. All right, then, I will, he said suddenly. Easy enough to talk, said Albert. Rowland, strode with a pale but determined face, to the spot where Mr. Foquio, beaming politely, was signing a picture postcard. Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh hour. Don't let him, she cried. But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the sort of thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon. For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He was experiencing that pleasant thrill which comes to a certain type of person, when the victim of a murder in the morning paper is an acquaintance of theirs. What are you talking about? He said, there's no danger, at least not much. He might easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What do you want to go interfering for? Rowland returned. The negotiations with the Birdman had lasted a little longer than one would have expected, but then, of course, Mr. Foquio was a foreigner. And Rowland's French was not fluent. He took Muriel's hand. Goodbye, he said. He shook hands with the rest of the party, even with Albert Potter. It struck Frank that he was making too much fuss over a trifle, and worse, delaying the start of the proceedings. What's it all about? he demanded. You go on as if we were never going to see you again. You never know. It's as safe as being in bed. But still, in case we never meet again. Oh well, said Brother Frank, and took the outstretched hand. The little party stood and watched as the aeroplane moved swiftly along the ground, rose and soared into the air. Higher and higher it rose, till the features of the two occupants were almost invisible. Now, said Brother Frank, now watch. Now he's going to loop the loop. But the wheels of the aeroplane still pointed to the ground. It grew smaller and smaller. It was a mere speck. While the dickens, far away to the west, something showed up against the blue of the sky, something that might have been a bird, a toy kite, or an aeroplane, travelling rapidly into the sunset. Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence. End of Chapter 1. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org Pidgey Woodhouse and C. H. Boval The episode of The Financial Napoleon Seated with his wife at breakfast on the veranda, which overlooked the rolling lawns and leafy woods of his charming Sussex home, Jeffrey Wendell Bird, the great financier, was enjoying the morning sun to the full. His chubby features were relaxed and a smile of lazy contentment, and his wife, who liked to act sometimes as his secretary, found it difficult to get him to pay any attention to his morning's mail. There's a column in today's financial argous, she said, of which you really must take notice. It's most abusive. It's about the wildcat reef. They assert that there never was any gold in the mine, and that you knew it when you floated the company. They will have their little joke. But you had the usual mining-experts report? Of course we had. And a capital report it was. I remember thinking at the time, what a neat turn of phrase the fellow had. I admit he depended rather on his fine optimism than on any examination of the mine. As a matter of fact, he never went near it. And why should he? It's down in South America somewhere. Awful climate, snakes, mosquitoes, revolutions, fever. Mr. Wendell Bird spoke drowsily. His eyes closed. Well, the argous people said that they've sent a man of their own out there to make inquiries, a well-known expert. And the report will be in within the next fortnight. They say they will publish it in their next number but one. What are you going to do about it? Mr. Wendell Bird yawned. Not to put too fine a point on it, dearest, the game is up. The Napoleon of Finance is about to meet his Waterloo. And all for twenty thousand pounds. That is the really bitter part of it. Tomorrow we'd sail for the Argentine. I've got the tickets. You're joking, Geoffrey. You must be able to raise twenty thousand. It's a flea-bite. On paper, in the form of shares, script, bonds, promissory notes, it is a flea-bite. But when it has to be produced in the raw, in flat, hard lumps of gold, or in crackling bank notes, it's more like a bite from a hippopotamus. I can't raise it, and that's all about it. So, St. Helena for Napoleon. Although Geoffrey Wendell Bird described himself as a Napoleon of Finance, a Sankavalli or Chongli Su of Finance would have been a more accurate title. As a juggler with other people's money, he was the head of his class. And yet, when one came to examine it, his method was delightfully simple. So, for instance, that the homegrown tobacco-trust founded by Geoffrey in a moment of ennui failed to yield those profits which the glowing prospectus had led the public to expect. Geoffrey would appease the excited shareholders by giving them preference shares, interest guaranteed, in the Seagold Extraction Company, hastily floated to meet the emergency. When the interest became due, it would as likely as not be paid out of the capital just subscribed for the King Solomon's Mind's exploitation association. The little deficiency in the latter being replaced in its turn, when absolutely necessary and not a moment before, by the transfer of some portion of the capital just raised for yet another company, and so on, at Infernitum. There were moments when it seemed to Mr. Wendell Bird that he had solved the problem of perpetual promotion. The only thing that can stop a triumphal progress like Mr. Wendell Bird's is when some coarse person refuses to play to the rules and demands ready money instead of shares in the next venture. This had happened now, and it had flattened Mr. Wendell Bird like an avalanche. He was a philosopher, but he could not help feeling a little gold that the demand which had destroyed him had been so trivial. He had handled millions on paper, it was true, but still millions. And here he was knocked out of time by a paltry twenty thousand pounds. Are you absolutely sure that nothing could be done? persisted Mrs. Wendell Bird. Have you tried every one? Every one, dear, moon of my delight, the probable, the possible, the highly unlikely's, and the impossible's. Never an echo to the minstrel's wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time, unless, of course, someone possessed at one and the same time of twenty thousand pounds, and of very confiding nature, happens to drop from the clouds. As he spoke an aeroplane came sailing over the tops of the trees beyond the tennis-lawn. Gracefully as a bird it settled on the smooth turf not twenty yards from where he was seated. Roland Bleak stepped stiffly out onto the tennis-lawn. His progress rather resembled that of a landsman getting out of an open boat in which he has spent a long and perilous night at sea. He was feeling more wretched than he had ever felt in his life. He had a severe cold, he had a spitting headache, his hands and feet were frozen, his eyes smarted, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he hated cheerful Mr. Ferriot, who had hopped out and was now busy tinkering the engine. A gay, povencel air, but on his lips, as he had rarely hated anyone, even Muriel Coppin's brother Frank. So absorbed was he, that he was not aware of Mr. Wendell Bird's approach until that pleasant portly man's shadow fell on the turf before him. Not had an accident, I hope, Mr. Bleak. Roland was too far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial stranger came to know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Wendell Bird, keen student of the Illustrated Press, had recognised Roland by his photograph in the Daily Mirror. In the course of the twenty yards' walk from the house to the tennis-lawn, she had put her husband into possession of the more salient points of Roland's history. It was when Mr. Wendell Bird had heard that Roland had forty thousand pounds in the bank that he set up and took notice. Leave me to him, he said, simply. Roland sneezed. Though accident, thank you, he replied miserably, some things God broke with the wargs, but it's nothing serious, worse luck. Mr. Ferriot, having by this time adjusted the defect in his engine, rose to his feet and bowed. Excuse me, come down on your lawn, but not long do we trespass. See him on a me, he said, radiantly to Roland. All now, OK, we go. No, said Roland decidedly. No, what do you mean no? A shade of alarm fell on Mr. Ferriot's weather-beaten features. The eminent bird-man did not wish to part from Roland. Toward Roland he felt like a brother, for Roland had notions about payment, for little aeroplane rides which bordered on the pond the princely. Would you say, take me to France with you? I know, but it's all off, I'm not feeling well. But it's all wrong, Mr. Ferriot, gesticulated to drive home his point. You give me one hundred pounds to take you away from Lexington. Good, it is here. He slapped his breast pocket. But other two hundred pounds, which you also promise to pay me, when I place you safe in France. Where is that, my friend? I will give you two hundred and fifty, said Roland earnestly, to leave me here and go right away and never let me see your beastly machine again. A smile of brotherly forgiveness lit up Mr. Ferriot's face. The generous, gallic nature asserted itself. He held on his arms affectionately to Roland. Ah, now you talk! Now you say something! He cried in his impetuous way. Embrace me! You are all right! Roland heaved a sigh of relief, when five minutes later the aeroplane disappeared over the brow of the hill. Then he began to sneeze again. You're not well, you know, said Mr. Windelberg. I've caught cold. We've been flying about all night. That French ass lost his bearings, and my suit is thin. Can you direct me to a hotel? Hotel? Nonsense! Mr. Windelberg spoke in the bluff breezy voice, which at many a stricken board meeting had calmed frantic shareholders, as if by magic. You're coming right into my house, and up to bed this instant. It was not, until he was between the sheets, with a hot water bottle at his toes and a huge breakfast inside him, that Roland learned the name of his good Samaritan. When he did, his first impulse was to struggle out of bed and make his escape. Geoffrey Windelberg's was a name which he had learned in the course of his mercantile career to hold in something approaching reverence, as that of one of the mightiest business brains of the age. To have to meet so eminent a man in the capacity of Invalid, a nuisance about the house, was almost too much for Roland's shrinking nature. The kindness of the Windelbergs, and there seemed to be nothing that they were not ready to do for him, distressed him beyond measure. To have a really great man, like Geoffrey Windelberg, sprawling genially over his bed, chatting away as if he were an ordinary friend, was almost horrible. Such condescension was too much. Gradually, as he became convalescent, Roland found this feeling replaced by something more comfortable. They were such a genuine, simple, kindly couple, these Windelbergs, that he lost awe and retained only gratitude. He loved them both. He opened his heart to them. It was not long before he had told them the history of his career, skipping the earlier years and beginning with the entry of wealth into his life. It makes you feel funny, he confided to Mr. Windelberg's sympathetic ear, suddenly coming into a pot of money like that. He don't seem hardly able to realize it. I don't know what to do with it. Mr. Windelberg smiled paternally. The advice of an older man, who has had, if I may say so, some little experience of finance, might be useful to you there. Perhaps if you'd allow me to recommend some sound investment. Roland glowed with gratitude. There's just one thing I'd like to do before I start putting my money into anything. It's like this. He briefly related the story of his unfortunate affair with Muriel Coppin. Within an hour of his departure in the aeroplane, his conscience had begun to trouble him on this point. He felt that he had not acted well towards Muriel. True, he was practically certain that she didn't care a bit about him, and was in love with Albert, the silent mechanic. But there was just the chance that she was mourning over his loss. And, anyhow, his conscience was sore. Had I to give her something, he said? How much do you think? Mr. Windelberg propended. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send my own lawyer to her with, say, a thousand pounds. Not a check, you understand, but one thousand golden sovereigns, that he can show her. Roll about on the table in front of her eyes. That'll console her. It's wonderful the effect money in the roar has on people. I'd rather make it two thousand, said Roland. He had never really loved Muriel, and the idea of marrying her had been a nightmare to him. But he wanted to retreat with honour. Very well, make it two thousand, if you like. Though I don't quite know how old Harrison is going to carry all that money. As a matter of fact, old Harrison never had to try. On thinking it over, after he had cashed Roland's check, Mr. Windelberg came to the conclusion that seven hundred pounds would be quite as much money as it would be good for Miss Coppin to have all at once. Mr. Windelberg's knowledge of human nature was not at fault. Muriel jumped at the money, and a letter in her handwriting informed Roland, next morning, that his slate was clean. His gratitude to Mr. Windelberg redoubled. And now, said Mr. Windelberg, genuinely, we can talk about that money of yours and the best way of investing it. What you want is something which, without being in any way what is called speculative, nevertheless returns a fair and reasonable amount of interest. What you want is something sound, something solid, yet something with a bit of a kick to it, something which can't go down and may go soaring like a rocket. Roland quietly announced that was just what he did want, and lit another cigar. Now look here, bleak, my boy, as a general rule I don't give tips, but I've taken a great fancy to you, bleak, and I'm going to break my rule. Put your money, he sank his voice to a compelling whisper. Put every penny you can afford into wildcat reefs. He leaned back with the benign air of the alchemist, who has just imparted to a favourite disciple the recently discovered secrets of the philosopher's stone. Thank you very much, Mr. Windelberg, said Roland, gratefully. I will. The Napoleonic features were lightened by that rare indulgent smile. Not so fast, young man, laughed Mr. Windelberg. Getting into wildcat reefs isn't quite so easy as you seem to think. Shall we say that you propose to invest £30,000? Yes, very well then. £30,000. Why, if it got about that you were going to buy wildcat reefs on that scale, the market would be convulsed. Which was perfectly true. If it had got about that anyone was going to invest £30,000 or pence in wildcat reefs, the market would certainly have been convulsed. The house would have rocked with laughter. Wildcat reefs were a standing joke, except to the unfortunate few who still held any of the shares. The thing will have to be done very cautiously. No one must know. But I think, I say, I think I can manage it for you. You're awfully kind, Mr. Windelberg. Not at all, my dear boy. Not at all. As a matter of fact, I shall be doing a very good turn to another pal of mine at the same time. He filled his glass. This, he paused to sip. This pal of mine has a large holding of wildcats. He wants to realise in order to put the money into something else, in which he is more personally interested. Mr. Windelberg paused. His mind dwelt for a moment, on his overdrawn current account, the bank, in which he is more personally interested, he repeated dreamily. But, of course, you couldn't unload £30,000 worth of wildcats in the public market. Oh, I quite see that, assented Roland. It might, however, be done by private negotiation, he said. I must act very cautiously. Give me your check for the £30,000 tonight, and I'll run up to town to-morrow morning, and see what I can do. He did it. What hidden strings he pulled, what levers he used, Roland did not know. All Roland knew was that somehow, by some subtle means, Mr. Windelberg brought it off. Two days later, his host handed him 20,000 £1 shares in the Wildcat Reef Goldmine. Hey, my boy! he said. It's awfully kind of you, Mr. Windelberg. My dear boy, don't mention it. If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am. Mr. Windelberg always spoke the truth, when he could. He spoke it now. It seemed to Roland, as the days went by, that nothing could mar the pleasant, easy course of life at the Windelbergs. The fine weather, the beautiful garden, the pleasant company—all these things combined to make this sojourn an epoch in his life. He discovered his mistake one lovely afternoon, as he sat smoking idly on the terrace. Mrs. Windelberg came to him, and a glance was enough to show Roland that something was seriously wrong. A face was drawn and tired. A moment before, Roland had been thinking life perfect. The only crumpled rose-leaf had been the absence of an evening paper. Mr. Windelberg would bring one back with him when he returned from the city. But Roland wanted one now. He was a great follower of country cricket, and he wanted to know how Surrey was faring against Yorkshire. But even this crumpled rose-leaf had been smoothed out, for Johnson the groom, who happened to be riding into the nearest town on an errand, had promised to bring one back with him. He might appear at any moment now. The sight of his hostess drove all thoughts of sport out of his mind. She was looking, terribly troubled. It flashed across Roland, that both his host and hostess had been unusually silent at dinner the night before, and later, passing Mr. Windelberg's room on his way to bed, he had heard their voices, low and agitated. Could they have had some bad news? Mr. Bleak, I want to speak to you. Roland moved like a sympathetic cow, and waited to hear more. You were not up when my husband left for the city this morning? What he would have told you himself, Mr. Bleak? I hardly know how to break it to you. Break it to me? My husband advised you to put a very large sum of money in a mine called Wildcat Reefs. Yes, thirty thousand pounds. As much as that, oh, Mr. Bleak, she began to cry softly. She pressed his hand. Roland gaped at her. Mr. Bleak, there has been a terrible slump in Wildcat Reefs. Today they may be absolutely worthless. Roland felt as if a cold hand had been laid on his spine. Worthless, he stammered. Mrs. Windelberg looked at him with moist eyes. You can imagine how my husband feels about this. It was on his advice that you invested your money. He holds himself directly responsible. He is in a terrible state of mind. He is frantic. He has grown so fond of you, Mr. Bleak, that he can hardly face the thought that he has been the innocent instrument of your trouble. Roland felt that it was an admirable comparison. His sensations were precisely those of a leading actor in an earthquake. The solid earth seemed to melt under him. We talked it over last night after you had gone to bed, and we came to the conclusion that there was only one honourable step to take. We must make good your losses. We must buy back those shares. A ray of hope began to steal over Roland's horizon. But, he began, there are no buts really, Mr. Bleak. We should neither of us know a minute's peace if we didn't do it. Now, you paid £30,000 for the shares, you said? Well, she held out a pink slip of paper to him. This will make everything all right. Roland looked at the cheque. But this is signed by you, he said. Yes, you see, if Jeffrey had to sign a cheque for that amount, it would mean selling out some of his stock. And in his position, with every movement watched by enemies, he cannot afford to do it. It might ruin the plans of years. But I have some money of my own. My selling-out stock doesn't matter. You see, I have post-dated the cheque a week, to give me time to realise on the securities in which my money is invested. Roland's whole nature rose in revolt at this sacrifice. If it had been his host who had made this offer, he would have accepted it. But chivalry forbade his taking money from a woman. A glow of self-sacrifice warmed him. After all, what was this money of his? He had never had any fun out of it. He had had so little acquaintance with it that for all practical purposes it might never have been his. With a gesture which had once impressed him very favourably, when exhibited on the stage by the hero of the number two company of the Price of Honor, which had paid a six-day visit to Berries and Deadmans a few months before, he tore the cheque into little pieces. I couldn't accept it, Mrs. Wendell Bird, he said. I can't tell you how deeply I appreciate your wonderful kindness. But I really couldn't. I bought the shares of my eyes open. The whole thing is nobody's fault, and I can't let you suffer for it. After the way you've treated me here, it would be impossible. I can't take your money. It's noble and generous of you in the extreme, but I can't accept it. I've still got a little money left, and I've always been used to working for my living, anyway. So it's all right. Mr. Bleak, I implore you. Roland was hideously embarrassed. He looked right and left for a wave of escape. He could hardly take to his heels, and yet there seemed no other way of ending the interview. Then, with a start of relief, he perceived Johnson the Groom, coming towards him with the evening paper. Johnson said he was going into the town, said Roland, apologetically. So I asked him to get me an evening paper. I wanted to see the lunch scores. If he had been looking at his hostess, then, an action which he was strenuously avoiding, he might have seen a curious spasm pass over her face. Mrs. Windlebird turned very pale and sat down suddenly in the chair which Roland had vacated at the beginning of their conversation. She lay back in it with her eyes closed. She looked tired and defeated. Roland took the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference. In competition with Mrs. Windlebird's news, equally mechanically, he unfolded it and glanced at the front page. And, as he did so, a flaring explosion of headlines smote his eye. Out of the explosion emerged the word Wild Cats. Why, he exclaimed, there's columns about Wild Cats on the front page here. Yes, Mrs. Windlebird's voice sounded strangely dull and toneless. Her eyes were still closed. Roland took in the headlines with starting eyes. The Wildcat Reef Goldmine, another Klondike, frenzied scenes on the stock exchange, brokers fight for shares, record boom unprecedented, rise in prices. Sean of all superfluous adjectives and general journalistic exuberance. What the paper had to announce to its readers was this. The special commissioner sent out by the financial argous to make an exhaustive examination of the Wildcat Reef mine, with the amiable view, no doubt, of exploding Mr. Jeffrey Windlebird once and for all, with the confiding British public, has found, to his unbounded astonishment, that there are vast quantities of gold in the mine. The discovery of the new Reef, the largest and richest it is stated, since the famous Mount Morgan, occurred with dramatic appropriateness on the very day of his arrival. We need scarcely remind our readers that, until that moment, Wildcat Reef shares had reached a very low figure. And only a few optimists retain their faith in the mine. As the largest holder, Mr. Windlebird, is to be heartily congratulated on this new addition to his fortune. The publication of the expert's report in the financial argous has resulted in a boom in Wildcats, the like of which can seldom have been seen on the stock exchange. From something like one chilling and sixpence per bundle, the one-pound shares have gone up to nearly ten pounds a share. And even at this latter figure, people were literally fighting to secure them. The world swam about Roland. He was stupefied and even terrified. The very atmosphere seemed foggy. So far as his reeling brain was capable of thought, he figured that he was now worth about two hundred thousand pounds. Oh, Mrs. Windlebird, he cried. It's all right after all. Mrs. Windlebird sat back in her chair without answering. It's all right for everyone, screamed Roland joyfully. Why, if I have made a couple of hundred thousand, what must Mr. Windlebird have netted? It says here that he is the largest holder. He must have pulled off the biggest thing of his life, he thought for a moment. The chap, I'm sorry for, he said meditatively. Is Mr. Windlebird's pal? You know, the fellow whom Mr. Windlebird persuaded to sell all his shares to me. A faint moan escaped from his hostess's pale lips. Roland did not hear it. He was reading the cricket news. End of the episode The Financial Napoleon Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org Chapter 3 of A Man of Means This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org A Man of Means by Pidgey Woodhouse and C. H. Bovville The episode of The Theatrical Venture It was one of those hard, nubbly rolls. The best restaurants charge you sixpence for having the good sense not to eat them. It hit Roland Bleak with considerable vehemence. On the bridge of the nose. For a moment, Roland fancied that the roof of the Regent-Grill Room must have fallen in. And as this would automatically put an end to the party, he was not altogether sorry. He had never been to a theatrical supper party before, and within five minutes of his arrival at the present one, he had become afflicted with an intense desire never to go to a theatrical supper party again. To be a success at these gay gatherings, one must possess Dash. And Roland, whatever his other sterling qualities, was a little short of Dash. The young man on the other side of the table was quite nice about it. While not actually apologizing, he went so far as to explain that it was Old Jerry, whom he had had in his mind when he had started the role on its course. After a glance at Old Jerry, a chinless child of about nineteen, Roland felt that it would be cherlish to be angry with the young man whose intentions had been so wholly admirable. Old Jerry had one of those faces in which any alteration, even the comparatively limited one which a role would be capable of producing, was bound to be for the better. He smiled, a sickly smile, and said that it didn't matter. The charming creature who sat on his assailants left, however, took a more serious view of the situation. Saidly you make me tired, she said severely. If I had thought you didn't know how to act like a gentleman, I wouldn't have come here with you, go away somewhere, and throw bread at yourself. And I asked Mr. Bleak to come and sit by me. I want to talk to him. That was Roland's first introduction to Miss Billy Veerpoint. I've been wanting to have a chat with you all evening, Mr. Bleak, she said, as Roland blushingly sank into the empty chair. I've heard such a lot about you. What Miss Veerpoint had heard about Roland was that he had two hundred thousand pounds, and apparently he did not know what to do with it. In fact, if I hadn't been told that you would be here, I shouldn't have come to this party. I can't stand these gatherings of nuts in May, as a general rule. They bore me stiff. Roland hastily revised his first estimate of the theatrical profession. Shallow, empty-headed creatures, some of them might be no doubt. But there were exceptions. Here was a girl of real discernment, a thoughtful student of character, a girl who understood that a man might sit at a supper-party without uttering a word, and might still be a man of parts. I'm afraid you'll think me very outspoken, but that's me all over. All my friends say, Billy Veerpoint's a funny girl. If she likes anyone, she just tells them so, straight out. And if she doesn't like anyone, she tells them straight out, too. And a very admirable trait, said Roland enthusiastically. Miss Veerpoint sighed. Perhaps it is, she said pensively. But I'm afraid it's what has kept me back in my profession. Managers don't like it. They think girls should be seen and not heard. Roland's blood boiled. Managers were plainly a dastardly crew. But what's the good of worrying? Went on Miss Veerpoint with a brave but hollow laugh. Of course, it's wearing, having to wait when one has got as much ambition as I have. But they all tell me that my chance is bound to come. Someday, the intense mournfulness of Miss Veerpoint's expression seemed to indicate that she anticipated the arrival of the desired day, not less than sixty years hence. Roland was profoundly moved. His chivalrous nature was up in arms. He fell to wondering if he could do anything to help this victim of managerial unfairness. You don't mind my going on about my troubles, do you? asked Miss Veerpoint solicitously. One so seldom meets anybody really sympathetic. Roland babbled fervent assurances, and she pressed his hand gratefully. I wonder if you would care to come to tea one afternoon, she said. Oh, rather! said Roland. He would have liked to put it in a more polished way, but he was almost beyond speech. Of course, I know what a busy man you are. No, no. Well, I should be in tomorrow afternoon, if you cared to look in. Roland bleated gratefully. I'll write down the address for you, said Miss Veerpoint, suddenly businesslike. Exactly when he committed himself to the purchase of the Windsor Theatre, Roland could never say. The idea seemed to come into existence fully grown, without preliminary discussion. One moment it was not, the next it was. His recollections of the afternoon, which he spent drinking, lukewarm tea, and punctuating Miss Veerpoint's flow of speech, with yeses and nos, were always so thoroughly confused that he never knew even whose suggestion it was. The purchase of a West End Theatre, when one has the necessary cash, is not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine. Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was carried through. The theatre was his, before he had time to realise that he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the offices of Mr Montague with the intention of making an offer for the lease for, say, six months, and that wizard, in a space of less than an hour, had not only induced him to sign mysterious documents which made him sole proprietor of the house, but had left him with the feeling that he had done an extremely acute stroke of business. Mr Montague had dabbled in many professions in his time from street peddling upward, but what he was really best at was hypnotism. Although he felt after the spell of Mr Montague's magnetism was withdrawn, rather like a nervous man who has been given a large baby to hold by a strange woman who has promptly vanished round the corner, Roland was to some extent consoled by the praise bestowed upon him by Miss Veerpoint. She said it was much better to buy a theatre than to rent it, because then you escaped the heavy rent. It was specious, but Roland had a dim feeling that there was a floor somewhere in the reasoning. And it was from this point that a shadow may be said to have fallen upon the brightness of the venture. He would have been even less self-congratulatory if he had known the Windsor Theatre's reputation. Being a comparative stranger in the Metropolis, he was unaware that its nickname in theatrical circles was the Mugs Graveyard, a title which had been bestowed upon it, not without reason. Built originally by a slightly insane old gentleman, whose principal delusion was that the public was pining for a constant supply of the higher drama, and more especially those specimens of the higher drama which flowed practically without cessation from the restless pen of the insane old gentleman himself, the Windsor Theatre had passed from hand to hand with the agility of a gold watch in a gathering of racecourse thieves. The one anxiety of the unhappy man who found himself by some accident in possession of the Windsor Theatre was to pass it on to somebody else. The only really permanent tenant it ever had was the representative of the official receiver. Various causes were assigned for the phenomenal ill luck of the theatre, but undoubtedly the vital objection to it as a temple of drama was that nobody could ever find the place where it was hidden. Cabmen shook their heads on the rare occasions when they were asked to take a fare there. Explorers, to whom a stroll through the Australian bush was child's play, have been known to spend an hour on its trail and finish up at the point where they started. It was precisely this quality of elusiveness which had first attracted Mr. Montague. It was a far-seeing man, and to him the topographical advantages of the theatre were enormous. It was further from a fire station than any other building of the same insurance value in London, even without having regard to the mystery which enveloped its whereabouts. Often after a good dinner he would lean comfortably back in his chair and see in the smoke of his cigar a vision of the Windsor Theatre, blazing merrily, while distracted firemen galloped madly all over London, vainly endeavouring to get someone to direct them to the scene of the conflagration. So Mr. Montague bought the theatre for a mere song and prepared to get busy. Unluckily for him the representatives of the various fire-offices with which he had affected his policies got busy first. The fire-offices insisted upon taking off his shoulders the burden of maintaining the fireman whose permanent presence in a theatre is required by law. Nothing would satisfy them but to install firemen of their own and pay their salaries. This to a man in whom the instincts of the phoenix were so strongly developed as they were in Mr. Montague was distinctly disconcerting. He saw himself making no profit on the deal, a thing which had never happened to him before, and then Roland Bleak occurred and Mr. Montague's belief that his race was really chosen was restored. He sold the Windsor Theatre to Roland for £25,000. It was £15,000 more than he himself had given for it and this very satisfactory profit mitigated the slight regret which he felt when it came to transferring to Roland the insurance policies to have affected policies amounting to rather more than £70,000 on a building so notoriously valueless as the Windsor Theatre had been an achievement of which Mr. Montague was justly proud and it seemed sad to him that so much for her next endeavour should be thrown away. Over the little lunch she kindly allowed Roland to entertain her to celebrate the purchase of the theatre Miss Veer Point outlined her policy. What we must put up at the theatre she announced is a review, a review repeated Miss Peer Point making as she spoke little calculation on the back of the menu. We could run for about £15,000 a week or say £2,000. Saying £2,000 thought Roland to himself is not quite the same as paying £2,000. So why should she stint herself? I know two boys who could write as a topping review said Miss Veer Point. They'd spread themselves too if it was for me. They're in love with me, both of them. We'd better get in touch with them at once. To Roland there seemed to be something just the least bit sinister about the sound of that word touch but he said nothing. Why, there they are, lunching over there! cried Miss Veer Point pointing to a neighbouring table. Now isn't that lucky? To Roland the luck was not quite so apparent but he made no demure to Miss Veer Point's suggestion that they should be brought over to their table. The two boys, as to whose capabilities to write a topping review Miss Veer Point had formed so optimistic an estimate proved to be well grown lads of about 45 and 40 respectively. Of the two Roland thought that perhaps R.P. de Paris was a shade the more obnoxious but a closer inspection left him with the feeling that these fine distinctions were a little unfair with men of such equal talents. Bromham Rhodes ran his friends so close that it was practically a dead heat. They were both fat and somewhat bulgy-eyed. This was due to the fact that what review writing exacts from its exponents is a constant assimilation of food and drink. Bromham Rhodes had the largest appetite in London but, on the other hand, R.P. de Paris was a better drinker. Well, dear old thing, said Bromham Rhodes. Well, old child, said R.P. de Paris. Both these remarks were addressed to Miss Veer Point. The talented pair appeared to be unaware of Roland's existence. Miss Veer Point struck the business note. Now, you stop, boys, tie weights to yourselves and sink down into those chairs. I want you two lads to write a review for me. Delighted, said Bromham Rhodes. But there is the trifling point to be raised first, said R.P. de Paris. Where is the money coming from? said Bromham Rhodes. My friend Mr. Bleak is putting up the money, said Miss Veer Point with dignity. He has taken the Windsor Theatre. The interest of the two authors in their host, till then languid, increased with a jerk. Has he by jove? They cried. We must get together and talk this over. It was Roland's first experience of a theatrical talking over. And he never forgot it. Two such talkers over, as Bromham Rhodes and R.P. de Paris, were scarcely to be found in the length and breadth of theatrical London. Nothing it seemed could the gifted pair even begin to think of doing, without first discussing the proposition in all its aspects. The amount of food which Roland found himself compelled to absorb during the course of these debates was appalling. Discussions which began at lunch would be continued until it was time to order dinner. And then, as likely as not, they would have to sit there till supper time in order to threaten the question thoroughly out. The collection of a cast was a matter even more complicated than the actual composition of the review. There was the almost insuperable difficulty that Miss Veerpoint firmly vetoed every name suggested. It seemed practically impossible to find any man or woman in all England or America whose peculiar gifts or lack of them would not interfere with Miss Veerpoint's giving a satisfactory performance of the principal role. It was all very perplexing to Roland, but as Miss Veerpoint was an expert in theatrical matters his guestly felt entitled to question her views. It was about this time that Roland proposed to Miss Veerpoint. The passage of time and the strain of taking over the review had to a certain extent moderated his original fervour. He had shaded off from a passionate devotion through various diminishing tints of regard for her into a sort of pale sunset glow of affection. His principal reason for proposing was that it seemed to him to be in the natural order of events. Her air towards him had become distinctly proprietorial. She now called him Roly-Poly in public a proceeding which left him with mixed feelings. Also she had taken to ordering him about which as everybody knows is an unmistakable sign of affection among ladies of the theatrical profession. Finally in his chivalrous way Roland had begun to feel a little apprehensive lest he might be compromising Miss Veerpoint. Everybody knew that he was putting up the money for the review in which she was to appear. They were constantly seen together at restaurants. People looked arch when they spoke to him about her. He had to ask himself was he behaving like a perfect gentleman? The answer was in the negative. He took a cab to her flat and proposed before he could repent of his decision. She accepted him. He was not certain for a moment whether he was glad or sorry. But I don't want to get married until I have justified my choice of a profession. You will have to wait until I have made a success in this review. Roland was shocked to find himself hugely relieved at this concession. The review took shape. They did apparently exist a handful of artists to whom Miss Veerpoint had no objection. These, a scrubby but confident lot, were promptly engaged. Sallow Americans sprang from nowhere with songs, dances and ideas for effects. Tausel'd haired scenic artists, wandered in with model scenes under their arms. A great cloud of chorus ladies settled upon the theatre like flies. Even Bromham Rhodes and RP de Paris, those human pythons, showed signs of activity. They cornered Roland one day near Swan and Edgar's, steered him into the Piccadilly Grillroom and, over a hearty lunch, read him extracts from a brown paper-covered manuscript, which they informed him was the first act. It looked a battered sort of manuscript, and indeed it had every right to be. Under various titles and at various times, Bromham Rhodes and RP de Paris first act had been refused by basically every responsible manager in London. As a water life, it had failed to satisfy the directors of the empire. Recristened wow-wow, it had been rejected by the Alhambra. The hippodrome had refused to consider it even under the name of hello-seller-flap. It was now called pass-along-please, and according to its authors, was a real review. It was to learn, as the days went on, that in the world in which he was moving, everything was real review that was not a stunt or a corking effect. He floundered in a sea of real review, stunts, and corking effects. As far as he could gather, the main difference between these things was that real review was something which had been stolen from some previous English production. Whereas a stunt or corking effect was something which had been looted from New York. A judicious blend of these, he was given to understand, constituted the sort of thing the public wanted. Rehearsals began before, in Rowland's opinion, his little army was properly supplied with ammunition. True, they had the first act. But even the authors agreed that it wanted bringing up to date in parts. They explained that it was, in a manner of speaking, their life work. That they had actually started it about ten years ago when they were careless lads. Inevitably it was spotted here and there with smart topical hits of the early years of the century. But that, they said, would be all right. They could freshen it up in a couple of evenings. It was simply a matter of deleting allusions to pro-bores and substituting lines about Marconi shares and mangle-worsals. It'll be all right, they assured Rowland. This is real review. In times of trouble, there is always a point at which one may say, here is the beginning of the end. This point came with Rowland at the commencement of the rehearsals. Till then, he had not fully realized the terrible nature of the production for which he had made himself responsible. Moreover, it was rehearsals which gave him his first clear insight into the character of Miss Veerpoint. Miss Veerpoint was not at her best at rehearsals. For the first time, as he watched her, Rowland found himself feeling that there was a case to be made out for the managers who had so consistently kept her in the background. Miss Veerpoint, to use the technical term, threw her weight about. There were not many good lines in the script of Act 1 of Pass Along Pleas, but such as there were, she reached out for and grabbed away from their owners. Who retired into corners, scowling and muttering like dogs robbed of bones. She snubbed everybody. Rowland included. Rowland sat in the cold darkness of the stalls and watched her panic stricken, like an icy wave that had swept over him. What marriage with this girl would suddenly realise how essentially domestic his instincts really were. Life with Miss Veerpoint would mean perpetual dinners at restaurants, bread throwing suppers, motor rides, everything that he hated most. Yet as a man of honour, he was tied to her. If the review was a success, she would marry him, and reviews he knew were always successes. At that very moment there were six best reviews in London running at night. He shuddered at the thought that in a few weeks there would be seven. He felt a longing for rural solitude. He wanted to be alone by himself for a day or two in a place where there were no papers with advertisements of reviews, no grill rooms, and above all no Miss Billy Veerpoint. That night he stole away to a Norfolk village, where in happier days he had once spent a summer holiday, a peaceful primitive place where the inhabitants could not have told real review from a corking effect. Here, for the space of a week, Roland lay in hiding, whilst his quivering nerves gradually recovered tone. He returned to London happier, but a little apprehensive. Beyond a brief telegram of farewell he had not communicated with Miss Veerpoint for seven days, and experience had made him aware that she was a lady who demanded an adequate amount of attention, that his nervous system was not wholly restored to health, was born in upon him, as he walked along Piccadilly on his way to his flat. For, when somebody suddenly slapped him hard between the shoulder blades, he uttered a stifled yell and leaped in the air. Turning to face his assailant, he found himself meeting the genial gaze of Mr. Montague, his predecessor in the ownership of the Windsor Theatre. Mr. Montague was effusively friendly, and for some mysterious reason congratulatory. You've done it, have you? You pulled it off, did you? And in the first month by George, and I took you for a plain ordinary mug of commerce. My boy, you're as deep as they make them. Who'd have thought it to look at you? It was the greatest idea anyone ever had, and staring me in the face all the time, and I never saw it. But I don't grudge it to you. You deserve it, my boy. You're a nut. I really don't know what you mean. Quite right, my boy. Mr. Montague, you're quite right to keep it up, even among friends. It don't do to risk anything. And Lee said, soon his man did. He went on his way, leaving Rowland completely mystified. Voices from his sitting-room among which he recognized the high note of Miss Veerpoint reminded him of the ordeal before him. He entered with what he hoped was a careless ease of manner. But his heart was beating fast. Since the opening of rehearsals, he had acquired a wholesome respect for Miss Veerpoint's tongue. She was sitting in his favorite chair. There were also present Bromham Roads and R.P. de Paris, who had made themselves completely at home with a couple of his cigars and whiskey from the oldest bin. So he were at last, said Miss Veerpoint querilously. The morning so he waited. Where on earth have you been to running away like this without a word? I only went. Well, it doesn't matter where you went. The main point is, what are you going to do about it? We thought we'd better come along and talk it over, said R.P. de Paris. A talk what over? said Rowland. The review? Oh, don't try and be funny for goodness' sake! snapped Miss Veerpoint. It doesn't suit you. What do you suppose we want to talk over? The theater, of course. What about the theater? Miss Veerpoint looks searchingly at him. Don't you ever read the papers? I haven't seen the papers since I went away. Well, better have it quick, and not waste time breaking it gently, said Miss Veerpoint. The theater has been burned down. That's what's happened. Burned down? Burned down? repeated Rowland. That's what I said, didn't I? The suffragettes did it. They left copies of votes for women about the place. The Siliasses set fire to two other theaters as well. And they happened to be in main thoroughfares, and the fire brigade got them under control at once. I suppose they couldn't find the Windsor. Anyhow, it's burnt to the ground, and what we want to know is what you're going to do about it. Rowland was much too busy blessing the good angels of Kingsway to reply at once. Why Peter Parris, sympathetic soul, placed a wrong construction on his silence. Poor old Rowley, he said, it's quite broken him up. The best thing we can do is all go off and talk it over at the Savoy. Over a bit of lunch. Well, said Miss Veerpoint. What are you going to do? Rebuild the Windsor, or try to get another theater? The authors were all for rebuilding the Windsor. True, it would take time. But it would be more satisfactory in every way. Besides, at this time of the year, it would be no easy matter to secure another theater at a moment's notice. To RP de Paris, and Bromham Roads, the destruction of the Windsor theater had appeared less in the light of a disaster than as a direct intervention on the part of Providence. The completion of that tiresome second act, which had brooded over their lives like an ugly cloud, could now be postponed indefinitely. Of course, said RP de Paris, thoughtfully. Our contract with you makes it obligatory on you to produce our review by a certain date. But I daresay, Bromham, we could meet Rowley there, couldn't we? Sure, said Roads. Something nominal. Say, a further five hundred on account of fees would satisfy us. I certainly think it would be better to rebuild the Windsor. Don't you, RP? I do agree to RP de Paris courtyily. You see, Rowley, our review has been written to fit the Windsor. It would be very difficult to alter it for production in another theater. Yes, I feel that rebuilding the Windsor would be your best course. There was a pause. What do you think, Rowley-Poly? Asked Miss Fairpoint as Rowland made no sign. Nothing would delight me more than to rebuild the Windsor or to take another theater or to do anything else to oblige. He said cheerfully. Unfortunately, I have no more money to burn. It was as if a bomb had suddenly exploded in the room. A dreadful silence fell upon his hearers. For the moment no one spoke. RP de Paris woke with a start out of a beautiful dream of prawn curry and Bromham Rhodes forgot that he had not tasted food for nearly two hours. Miss Fairpoint was the first to break the silence. Do you mean to say, she gasped, that you didn't ensure the place? Rowland shook his head. The particular form in which Miss Fairpoint had put the question entitled to him, he felt, to make this answer. Why didn't you? Miss Fairpoint's tone was almost menacing. Because it did not appear to me to be necessary. Nor was it necessary, said Rowland to his conscience. Mr. Montague had done all the ensuring that was necessary and a bit over. Miss Fairpoint fought with her growing indignation and lost. The salaries of the people who have been rehearsing all this time, she demanded. I'm sorry that they should be out of an engagement but it's scarcely my fault. However, I propose to give each of them a month's salary. I can manage that, I think. Miss Fairpoint rose. And what about me? What about me? That's what I want to know. Where do I get off? If you think I'm going to marry you without your getting a theatre and putting up this review, which was intended to convey regret and resignation, he even contrived to sigh. Very well then, said Miss Fairpoint, rightly interpreting this behaviour as his final pronouncement on the situation, then everything's jolly well off. She swept out of the room, the two authors following in her wake like porpoises behind a liner. Rowland went to his bureau, unlocked it, and took out a bundle of documents. He let his fingers stray lovingly among the fire insurance policies which the energetic Mr Montague had been at such pains to secure from so many companies. And so, he said softly to himself, am I. End of Chapter 3 The Episode of the Theatrical Venture Read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org