 Story 1 of THE THIRTEEN TRAVELERS. Somewhere in the early nineties was Absalon J's first period. He was so well known a figure in London at that time as to be frequently caricatured in the weekly society journals and spies Absalon that appeared in the 1894 volume of Vanity Fair is one of his most successful efforts. In those days were anyone so ignorant as to be compelled to ask who J was, he would probably receive the answer, oh, don't you know, he's a cousin of John Buemisters. He founded the Warrington with Pimmy Stevens, he's so, I don't know, he goes everywhere, knows more people than anyone else in London, I should imagine. Spies' caricature of him has caught that elegant smartness that was Absalon's most marked individuality. Two smart critics have been known to say, and certainly if the ideal of correct dress is that no one should notice your clothes, Absalon was not correct. One always noticed his clothes, but here again one must be fair. It may not have been altogether his clothes that one noticed. From very early years his hair was snow-white, and he wore it brushed straight back from his pink forehead in wavy locks. He wore also a little white tufted imperial. He had an eyeglass that hung on a thick black cord, his favorite color was a dark blue, and with this he wore spats. In summer of a truly terrific whiteness a white slip, black tie, and a pearl pin. He wore wonderful boots and shoes, and was said to have more of these than any other men in London. It was also said that his feet were the smallest masculine in the British Isles. He was made altogether on a very small scale. He was not, I should think, more than five feet six in height, but was all in perfect proportion. His enemies, of whom he had, like everyone else, a few, said that his wonderful pink complexion was not entirely nature's work, but here his enemies lied. Even at the very last he did not give way to the use of cosmetics. He was the kindest-hearted little man in the world, and in the days of his prosperity was as happy as the day was long. He lived entirely for society, and because this is intended to be a true portrait, I must admit that there was something of the snob in his character. He himself admitted it frankly, I like to be with people of rank, he would say, simply because I'm more comfortable with them. I know just what to say to Johnny Bimster, and I'm tongue-tied with the wife of my barber, Kevo Livu. I'm afraid, however, that it went a little further than that. In the season his looking-glass was thronged with cards, invitations to dinner and dances, and musical evenings. I live for society, he said, as some men live for killing pheasants and other men for piling up money. My fun is as good as another man's. At any rate, I get good company. It was his intention to be seen at every London function, public or private, that could be considered a first-class function. People wondered how he got about, as he did. It seemed as though there must be three or four, Absolums. His best time was during the last few years of King Edward VII's reign. His funny little anxious face could be frequently seen in those groups of celebrities invited to meet the king at some famous house party. It was said that the king liked his company, but I don't know how that can have been, because Absolum was never in his brightest days very amusing. He talked a good deal, but always said just what everyone else said. He was asked everywhere because he was so safe, because he was so willing to fetch and carry, and because he knew exactly what it was that ladies wanted. He entertained only a little in return, but nobody minded that because, as everyone knew, he really hadn't a penny in the world which meant that he had about one thousand five hundred pounds a year in various safe investments. A year before the war he was seized with a little gust of speculation. Against the advice of Tony Pennant, who looked after his investments for him, he ventured to buy here and sell there with rather serious results. He pulled up just in time to save disaster, but he had to give up his little house in Knightsbridge, and it took a flat at Horton's and Duke Street. Although this was a service flat, he still retained his man James, who had been with him for a number of years and knew his habits to perfection. He made his rooms at Horton's charming, and he had the dark blue curtains and the gold mirror bristling with invitations, and the old-colored prints and the big signed photographs of Queen Alexandra and the Duchess of Rex in their silver frames, and the heavy silver cigarette box that King Edward had given him, all in their accustomed places. Of course, the flat was small, his silver-talked bottles and silver-backed brushes, and rows of boots and shoes and the two big trouser presses simply overwhelmed his bedroom. But he was over sixty-five now, although he would have been horrified if he thought that you knew it, and he didn't need much space. Moreover, he was always out. Then came the war, and the first result of this was that James joined up. During those first August days, Absalom hadn't fancied that the war would touch him at all, although he was hotly patriotic and cried out daily at the Warrington that he wished he were a lad again and could shoulder a gun. James departure frightened him. Then Tony Pinnott explained to him that his investments were not so secure as they had been, and he'd be lucky if any of them brought him in anything. And, of course, the whole of his social world vanished. No more parties, no more balls, no more Ascotts and Goodwoods, no more shooting in Scotland, no more opera. He bustled about then in a truly remarkable manner, and attacked his friends with the pertenacity of a blue bottle. The war was not a month old before Bryce Drummond secured him a job in one of the ministries at 600 a year. It was not a very difficult job. It consisted for the most part in interviewing eager young men, assuring them that he would do his best for them, and then sending them along to somebody else. He had a room to himself and a lady typist who looked after him like a mother. He was quite delighted when he discovered that she was a daughter of the Bishop of Poulchester and very well connected. She was most efficient and did everything for him. He took his work very seriously indeed and was delighted to be doing his bit. No one knew exactly what it was that he did at the ministry, and he himself was very vague about it, but he hinted at great things and magnificent company. During those first years, when there were so many wonderful rumors, he hinted and hinted and hinted. Well, I mustn't mention names, of course, but you can take it from me. And people really did think he did know. He had been in the closest touch with so many great people before the war that it was only natural that he should be in touch with them still. As a matter of fact, he knew nothing except what his typist told him. He led an extremely quiet life during these years, but he didn't mind that because he understood that it was the right thing to do. All the best people were absorbed in their work. Even old Lady Agatha Bemister was running a home for Serbians, and Rachel Seddon was a B.A.D. in France, and old plum tree cartel was a special constable. He did not therefore feel left out of things, because there was nothing really to be left out of. Moreover, he was so hard up that it was safer to be quiet. All the more would he enjoy himself when the war was over. But as the years went on, and there seemed to be no sign of the war being over, he began to be quarrelous. He missed James terribly, and when in the summer of 1917 he heard that James was killed in Mesopotamia, it was a very serious blow. He seemed to be suddenly quite alone in the world. In Hortons now they employed only women, and the girls straight from Glickshire, who valeted him, seemed to have but little time to listen to his special needs, being divided up between four flats, and finding it all she could do, poor girl, to satisfy them all. After the war, Mr. Nix, the manager of Hortons assured Absalom, we shall have men again. After the war, those three simple little words became the very abracadabra of Absalom's life. After the war everything would be as it had always been. Prices would go down. Society would come up. His gold mirror would once again be stuck about with invitations. He would find a successor to James and a little house. What would he live on? Oh, that would be all right. They would keep him at the ministry. He was so useful there that he couldn't conceive that they would ever get on without him. There would be his work, of course, and probably they would raise his salary. He was an optimist about the future. Nothing made him so indignant as unjustified pessimism. When someone talked pessimistically, it was as though he, Absalom J, were being personally threatened. Throughout the terrible spring of 1918, he remained optimistic. Britain could not be beaten by which he meant that Absalom J must be assured of his future comforts. In spite of all that had happened, he was as incapable in June 1918 as he had been in June 1914 of imagining a different world, a different balance of moral and ethical values. Then the tide turned. During that summer and early autumn of 1918, Absalom was as happy as he had ever been. He simply lived for the moment when life would begin again. He began to go out a little to pay calls, to visit an old friend or two. He found changes, of course. His own contemporary seemed strangely old. Many of them had died. Many of them had shattered nerves. Many were frightened of the future. If they were frightened, it was their own fault, he declared. They would talk of ridiculous things like the Russian Revolution. Nothing angered him more than to hear chatter about the Russian Revolution. As though that absurd affair with its cutthroats and Bolsheviks and Jews and murderers could have anything to do with a real country like England. It was all the fault of our idiotic government. One regiment of British soldiers and that trouble would have been over. No, he'd no patience. November 11 came, and with it the armistice, he actually rode all the way down White Hall on a Lorian wave to flag. He was excited, and it seemed as though the whole world were crying, Arah! Absalom, Jay, you were right after all. You shall have your reward. He pictured to himself what was coming. 1919 would be the year. Let those dirty Ruffians try and imitate Russian methods. They would see what they would get. He resumed his old haughtiness of demeanor to dependents. It was necessary in these days to show them their place. Not that he was never kind when they behaved properly. He was very kind indeed. To Fanny, the Portress at Hortons, a nice girl with a ready smile and an agreeable willingness to do anything, however tiresome, he was delightful, asking her about her relations and once telling her that he was grateful for what she did. He was compelled, however, to speak haughtily to Rose the Ballot. He was forced often to ring twice for her, and once when she came running and out of breath, he showed her that she had put some of his waist cuts into one drawer and some into another, thereby making it very difficult for him to find them. She actually tossed her head and muttered something. He spoke to her very kindly then and showed her how things were done in the best houses, because after all, poor child, she was straight up from the country. However, she did not take his kindliness in at all the right spirit, but burst out angrily that times was different now and one was as good as another. A shocking thing to say and savoring directly of Bolshevism. He was getting into the habit of calling almost everything Bolshevism. Then the first blow fell. He found a letter on his table at the Ministry. He opened it carelessly and read therein that as the war was in process of being wound up, changes were taking place that would compel the Ministry, most reluctantly, to do without Mr. Jay's services. Would he mind taking a month's notice? He would mind very much indeed. Mind! It was as though a thunderbolt had struck him on the very top of his neat little head. He stood in front of the ministerial fireplace as little legs extended, the letter trembling in his hand, his eyes, if the truth must be spoken, flushed with tears, dismissed with a month's notice. He would speak. He would protest. He would abuse. In the end, of course, he did nothing. Bryce Drummond had said he was so very sorry, but really everything was tumbling about one series these days and offered him a cigarette. Lord John, to whom he appealed, looked distressed and said it was a damn shame upon his word. He didn't know what we were coming to. Absalom Jay was left. He realized that he could do nothing. He retired into Hortons. There, in his soul, a fund of optimism, or rather to speak more accurately, it took him time to realize the shifting sands upon which his little house was built. He made now the very most of Hortons. It is true that time began to lie heavy upon his hands. He rose very late in the morning, having his cup of tea and boiled egg at nine, his bath at ten. He read the morning post for an hour. Then the barber, Merritt from next door, came in to shave him and give him the news of the day. Merritt was a most amusing, dark and dapper little man. In him was the very spirit of St. James's, and the Lord only knows how many businesses he carried on, beside his ostensible hair-dressing one. He could buy anything for you, and sell anything to. And his gossip. Well, really, Absalom had thought himself a good gossip in his day, but he had never been anything to Merritt. Of course, half a crown was a good deal for his shave, and Absalom was not sure whether in these days he ought to afford it my only luxury, he called it. He did not see many of his friends this Christmas time. They were all out of London, he supposed. He was a little surprised that the Beaumonts hadn't asked him to spend Christmas at Hôtoy in the old days that invitation had been as regular as the waits. However, they had lost their eldest son in the Cambry fighting. They were having no parties this Christmas, of course. He had thought that the Settens might ask him. He got on so well with Roddy and Rachel. They sent him a card from Ralo, their baby, kind of them to remember him. So he busied himself about the flat. He was preparing for the future, for that wonderful time when the war would be really and truly over, and the world as it had been in the old days. His life was centered in Hortons and the streets that surrounded it. He could be seen every morning walking up Duke Street into Piccadilly. He knew every shop by heart, the picture shops that seemed to be little offspring of the great Christie's round the corner, with their colored plates from Ackerman's microcosm and Pierce Egan and their oils of large, full-bosomed eighteenth-century ladies, and the shops with the China and the cabinets and the lacquer. Everything very expensive indeed. And Bottoms, the paper shop with Mr. Bottoms humorous comments on the day's politics, chalked on to a slate near the door, and the V Parisien, very large in the window. Then there was the shop at the corner of German Street, with the silk dressing gowns of dazzling colors, and the latest fashions with pink silk vests, pajamas, and the great tobacconist and the wine windows of Fortnum and Mason's, at last the familiar broad splendors of Piccadilly itself. Up and down the little old streets that had known all the famous men of their day, that had lodged Thackery and Swift and Dryden, and now lodged Mr. Bottomley and the author of Mutton Jeff, the motors rolled and hooted and honked, and the messenger-boy swissled, and the flower-man went up and down with his barrow, and everything was as expensive and pleasant and humorous as could be. All this Absalom Jay adopted. He was in his own mind, although he did not know it, King of St. James, and he felt that they must all be very glad to have him there, and that rents must have gone up since it was known that he had taken his residence among them. He even went in one day and expostulated with Mr. Bottom for having the daily herald in his window. Mr. Bottom agreed with him that it was not a nice paper, but he also added that sinister sentence that Absalom was getting now so tired of hearing that these were strange times. He didn't know what we were common to. Nonsense, my good man, said Absalom rather torquely. England isn't Russia. Looks damned like it sometimes, said Mr. Bottom. Then, as the year 1919 extended, Absalom began to feel terribly lonely. This fear of loneliness was rapidly becoming a concrete and definite terror lurking behind the curtain in his flat, ready to spring out upon him at any moment. Absalom had never in all his life been alone. There had always been people around him. Where now were they all? Men now were being demobilized, houses were opening again, hospitals were closing, dances were being given, and still his gold mirror remained innocent of invitations. He fancied too, he was becoming very sensitive to impressions, that the men in the Warrington were not so eager to see him as they had been. He went to the Warrington a great deal now to be cheered up. He talked to men to whom five years ago he would not have condescended to say good morning, to Isaac Amontaluc, for instance, and Bandy Manners. Where were all his old friends? They did not come to the club any longer, it seemed. He could never find a bridge for now, with whom he was really at home. This may have been partly because he was nervous these days of losing money. He could not afford it, and he did not seem to have his old control of his temper. Then his brain was not quite so active as it had been. He could not remember the cards. One day he heard some fellows say, Well, if I'd had my way I'd chloroform everyone over sixty. We've had enough of the old duds messing all the world up. Chloroform all the old duds! What a terrible thing to say! Why, five years ago it had been the other way. Who cared then what a young man said? What could he know? After all, it was the older men who had had the experience, who knew life, who could tell the others. He found himself laying down the law about things, giving ultimatums like they ought to be strung up on lamp posts, pandering to the ignorant lower classes. That's what it is. If there had been one thing above all others that Absalom had hated all of his life, it had been rudeness. There was the unforgivable sin. As a young man he had been deferential to his elders, and so in his turn he expected the young men to be to him now. But they were not. No, they were not. He had positively to give up the Warrington because of the things that the young men said. There was a new trouble now, the trouble of money. His investments were paying very badly, and the income tax was absurd. He wrote to the Times about his income tax, and they did not print his letter. Did not print it when they printed the letters of every sort of nobody. Everything was so expensive that it took all his courage to look at his weekly bill. He must eat less. One ate, he read in the paper, far more than one needed. So he gave up his breakfast, having only a cup of coffee and a roll, as he had often done in France in the old days. He was aware suddenly that his clothes were beginning to look shabby. Bacon at the ballot informed him of this. He did not like Bacon. He found himself indeed sying for the departed rose. Bacon was austere and inhuman. He spoke as seldom as possible. He had no faults. He pressed clothes perfectly, kept drawers in absolute order. Did not drink Absalom's claret nor smoke Absalom's cigarettes. No faults. But what an impossible man! Absalom was afraid of him. He drew his little body together under the bedclothes when Bacon called him in the morning because of Bacon's ironic eyes. Bacon gave him his times as though he said, How dare you take in the times, spend throppants a day when you are as poor as you are. It was because of Bacon that Absalom gave up merit. He did not dare to have him when Bacon knew his poverty. I'm going to shave myself in the future, merit, he said. It's only laziness having you. Merit was politely sorry, but he was not very deeply grieved. Why should he be when he had the king's ballot and Sir Edward Hawksbury, the famous KZ, and Borden Hunt, the dramatist, to shave every morning? But Absalom missed him terribly. He was now indeed alone. No more gossip, no more laughter over other people's weaknesses, no more hearty agreement over the wicked selfishness of the lower orders. Absalom gave up the times because he could not bear to see the lower orders encouraged. All this talk about there not having enough to live on. Wicked nonsense. It was people like Absalom who had not enough to live on. He wrote again to the times and said so, and again they did not publish his letter. Then he woke from sleep one night, heard the clock strike three, and was desperately frightened. He had had a dream. What dream? He could not remember. He only knew that in the course of it he had become very, very old. He had been in a room without fire and without light. He had been in prison. Faces had glared at him. Cruel faces, young, sneering menacing faces. He was going to die. He awoke with a scream. Next day he read himself a very serious lecture. He was becoming morbid. He was giving in. He was allowing himself to be afraid of things. He must pull himself up. He was quite severe to Bacon and reprimanded him for bringing his breakfast at a quarter to nine instead of half past eight. He made out then a list of houses that he would visit. They had forgotten him. He must admit that. But how natural it was. After all this time everyone had forgotten everybody why he had forgotten all sorts of people, could not remember their names. For months now he had been saying after the war. And now here, after the war, was. It was May and already society was looking something like itself. Covent Garden was open again. Soon there would be Ascot and Henley and Goodwood. And the peace celebrations, perhaps, if only those idiots at Versailles moved a little more quickly. He felt the old familiar stir in his blood as he saw the red letters and the green pillars repainted. Saw the early summer sunshine upon the glittering windows of Piccadilly. Saw the green shadows of Hyde Park shift and tremble against the pale blue of the evening sky. Saw, once again, the private cars quiver and tremble behind the policeman's hand in the circus. Saw Delathea's name over the pavilion and the posters of the evening papers and the fountains splashing in Trafalgar Square. He put on his best clothes and went out. He called upon Mary, Countess of Gossport, the Duchess of Isles, Lady Glen Robert, Mrs. Leo Torch, and dear Rachel Seddon. At the Countess of Gossport he found a clergyman, a companion, and a chow. At the Duchess of Ales, four young guardsmen, two girls and Isaac Monteluk, who had the insolence to patronize him. At Lady Glen Robert's, a vast crowd of men and women rehearsing for a peace pageant, shortly to be given at the Albert Hall. At Mrs. Leo Torch's, an incredible company of artists, writers, and actors, people unwashed and unbrushed, at sight of whom Absalom's very soul trembled. At dear Rachel's, charming young people, all of whom looked right through him, as though he were an easy and undisturbing ghost. He came back from these visits a weary, miserable, and tired little man. Even Rachel had seemed to have no time to give him an incredible lassitude spread through all his bones. As he entered the portals of Number Two, a boy passed him with a palmel poster. Railwaymen issue ultimatum. In his room he read a Times Leader, in which it said that the lower classes were starving and had nowhere to sleep. And they called the Times a reactionary paper. The lower classes starving. What about the upper classes? With his door closed in his own deep privacy, surrounded by his little gods, his mirror, his silver frames, and his boo trees, he wept bitterly, helplessly, like a child. From that moment he had no courage. Enemy seemed to be on every side. Everywhere he was insulted. If he went out, boys pushed against him. Taxi men swore at him. In the shops they were rude to him. There was never room in the omnibuses, the taxis were too expensive, and the tubes. After an attempt to reach Russell Square by tube, he vowed he would never enter a tube door again. He was pushed, hustled, struck in the stomach, sworn at, both by attendants and passengers, jammed between stout women, hurled off his feet, spoken to by a young soldier because he did not give up his seat to a lady who haughtily refused it when he offered, tubes, never again, never, oh, never again. What then to do? Walking tired him desperately, everywhere seemed now so far away. So he remained in his flat. But now Hortons itself was different. Now that he was confined to it, it was very small, and he was always tumbling over things. A pipe burst one morning and his bathroom was flooded. The bathroom wallpaper began to go, the strangest and most terrible colors. It was purple and pink and green, and there were splotches of white mildew that seemed to move before your eyes as you lay in your bath and watch them. Absalom went to Mr. Nix, and Mr. Nix said that it should be seen to at once, but day after day went by and nothing was done. When Mr. Nix was appealed to, he said rather restively that he was very sorry, but he was doing his best. Labor was so difficult to get now, you could not rely on the men. But they've got to come, screamed Absalom. Mr. Nix shrugged his shoulders. From his lips fell those fatal and now, so monotonous words were living in changed times, Mr. J. Changed times. Absalom should think they were. Everyone was ruder and ruder and ruder. Bills were beginning to worry him terribly. Such little bills, but men would come and wait downstairs in the hall for them. The loneliness increased and wrapped him closer and closer. His temper was becoming atrocious as he well knew. Bacon now paid no attention to his wishes. His meals were brought up at any time. His rooms were not cleaned. His silver was tarnished. All he had to do was to complain to Mr. Nix, who ruled Hortons with a rod of iron, and allowed no incibilities or slackness. But he was afraid to do that. He was afraid of the way that Bacon would treat him afterwards. Always, everywhere now, he saw this increasing attention that was paid to the lower classes. Railway men, minors, hairdressers, dockers, bakers, waiters, they struck, got what they wanted, and then struck for more. He hated the lower classes, hated them, hated them. The very sight of a working man threw him into a frenzy. What about the upper classes and the middle classes? Did you ever see a word in the paper about them? Never. He was not well. His heart troubled him very much. Sometimes he lay on a sofa, battling for breath. But he did not dare to go to a doctor. He could not afford a doctor. But God is merciful. He put a period to poor Absalom's unhappiness when it was plain that this world was no longer a place for Absalom's kind. He gathered Absalom to his bosom. And it was in this way. There arrived suddenly one day a card. The Duchess avails dancing. His heart beat high at the sight of it. He had to lie down on his sofa to recover himself. He stuck his card into the mirror and was compelled to say something to Bacon about it. Bacon did not seem to be greatly impressed at the sight. He dressed on the great evening with the utmost care. The sight of his bathroom affected him. It seemed to cover him with pink spots in mildew. But he shook that off from him and boldly ventured forth to Night's Bridge. He found an immense party gathered there. Many, many people. He didn't seem to recognize any of them. The Duchess herself had apparently forgotten him. He reminded her. He crept about. He felt strangely as though at any moment someone might shoot him in the back. Then he found Mrs. Charles Clinton, one of his hostesses of the old days. She was kind, but preoccupied. Then he discovered Tom Warder. Old Tom Warder, the stupidest man in London and the greediest. Nevertheless, he was glad to see him. By Joe, old man, you do look seedy, Tom said. What have you been doing to yourself? Tactless of Tom that, he felt more than ever that someone was going to shoot him in the back. He crept away and hid himself in a corner. He dozed a little, then awoke to hear his own name. A woman was speaking of him. He recognized Mrs. Clinton's voice. Whom do you think I saw just now? Yes, old Absalom Jay. Like a visit from the dead. Yes, and so old. You know how smart he used to be. He looked quite shabby, poor old thing. Oh no, of course he was always stupid. But now, oh dreadful, I assure you he gave me the creeps. Yes, of course he belonged to that old world before the war. Doesn't it seem a long time ago? Centuries. What I say is that one can't believe that one was alive then at all. Gave her the creeps? Gave Mrs. Clinton the creeps? He felt as though his premonition had been true and someone had shot him in the back. He crept away, out of the house, right away. He crept into a tube. The trains were crowded. He had to hang on to a strap. At Hyde Park Corner, two working men got in. They had been drinking together. Very big men they were. They stood, one on each side of Absalom and lurched about. Absalom was pushed hither and thither. What the hell are you coming to, one said? The other knocked Absalom's hat off as though by an accident. Then the former elaborately picked it up and offered it with a low bow, digging Absalom in the stomach as he did so. Ey, arm-a-lord! he said. They roared with laughter. The whole carriage laughed. At Dover Street Absalom got out. He hurried through the streets and the tears were pouring down his cheeks. He could not stop them. He seemed to have no control over them. They were not his tears. He entered Hortons and in the lift hid his face so that Fanny should not see that he was crying. He closed his door behind him, did not turn on the lights, found the sofa and cowered down there as though he were hiding from someone. The tears continued to race down his cheeks. Then suddenly it seemed as though the walls of the bathroom, all blotched and purple, all stained with creeping mildew, closed in the dark about him. He heard a voice cry, a working man's voice. He did not hear the words but the walls towered above him and the white mildew expanded into jeering hideous triumphant faces. His heart leapt and he knew no more. Bacon and the maid found him, huddled thus on the floor, dead next morning. Well, now, said Bacon, that's a lucky thing. Young Somerset next door's been wanting this flat. Make a nice suite if he knocks the door through. Gives him seven rooms. He'll be properly pleased. And a story one. Story two of the Thirteen Travelers by Hugh Walpole. This Libber Box recording is in the public domain. Story two, Fanny Close. Since the second year of the war, Fanny Close had been portress at Hortons. It had demanded very much resolution on the part of Mr. Nix to search for a portress. Since time immemorial, the halls of Hortons had known only porters. George, at the present fine specimen, had been magnificently in service there for the last ten years. However, Mr. Nix was a patriot. He sent his son, aged 19, to the war. His son was only too delighted to go. Himself joined the London Air defences and then packed off every man and boy in the place. The magnificent James was the last to go. He had, he said, an ancient mother dependent upon him. Mr. Nix was disappointed in him. He did not live up to his chest measurement. You're very nearly a shirker, he said to him indignantly, and nevertheless he promised to keep his place open for him. He had to go out into the highways and byways and find women. The right ones were not easily found, and often enough they were disappointing. Mr. Nix was a tremendous disciplinarian. That was why Hortons were the best service flats in the whole of the West End. But he discovered, as many a man had discovered before him, that the discipline that goes for a man will not do nine times out of ten for a woman. Woman has a way of wriggling out of the net of discipline with subtleties unknown to man. So Mr. Nix discovered. Only with fanny close Mr. Nix had no trouble at all. She became, at the end of the first week, a jewel, and a jewel to the end of her time she remained. I don't wish, in these days of stern and unrelenting realism, to draw Dickenzie in pictures of youth and purity, but the plain truth is that fanny close was as good a girl as ever was made. She was good for two reasons. One because she was plain, the other because she had a tiresome sister. The first of these reasons made her humble, the other made her enjoy everything from which her sister was absent twice as much as anyone else would have enjoyed it. She was twenty-five years of age, the mother had died of pleurisy when the children were babies, and the father, who was something very unimportant in a post office, had struggled for twenty years to keep them all alive, and then caught a cold and died. The only brother had married and Aggy and fanny had remained to keep house together. Aggy had always been the beauty of the family, but it had been a beauty without charm, so that many young men had advanced with beating hearts, gazed with eager eyes, and then walked away, relieved that for some reason or another they had been saved from putting the question. She had had proposals, of course, but they had never been good enough. At twenty-six she was a disappointed virgin. Fanny had always been so ready to consider herself the planer and stupider of the two, that it had not been altogether Aggy's fault that she, Aggy, should take so naturally the first place. Many a relation had told Fanny that she was too submissive and didn't stand up for herself enough. But Fanny shook her head and said that she couldn't be other than she was. The true fact was that deep down in her heart she not only admired her sister, she also hated her. How astonished Aggy would have been had she known this, and how astonished to be truly platitudinous for a moment we should all be if we really knew what our nearest and dearest relatives thought of us. Fanny hated Aggy, but had quite made up her mind that she would never be free of her. How could she be? She herself was far too plain for anyone to want to marry her, and Aggy was apparently settling down inevitably into a bitter old maidenhood. Then came the war. Fanny was most unexpectedly liberated. Aggy did, of course, try to prevent her escape, but on this occasion Fanny was resolved. She would do what she could to help. The country needed every single woman. At first she washed plates in a canteen, then she ran a lift outside some insurance office until finally she fell into Mr. Nix's arms, and there she stayed for three years. She knew from the very first that she would like it. She liked Mr. Nix. She liked the blue uniform provided for her. Most of all she liked the atmosphere of Hortons, the colored repose of St. James's, the hall of white and green, the broad staircase, the palms and the staircase windows, the grandfather's clock near Mr. Nix's office. She even liked her own little rabbit hutch, where were the little boxes for the letters, the cupboard for her own private possessions, the telephone, and a chair for her to sit upon. In a marvelously short time she was the mistress of the whole situation. Mr. Nix could not have believed that he would have missed the marvelous James so little. Really, he said to Mrs. Nix, a great discovery, a remarkable find. Well, I hope she won't disappoint you, said Mrs. Nix, who was an amiable pessimist. Fanny did not disappoint. She got better and better. Everyone liked her and she liked everyone. Because she had, as her standard, haggies grudging and reluctant personality, she naturally found everyone delightful. She was very happy indeed because they all wanted her assistance in one way or another. Men are helpless, was her happy comment after a year's experience at Hortons. She stamped letters for one, delivered telephone messages for another, found addresses for a third, carried bags for a fourth, acted as confidential advisor for a fifth. She was not pretty, of course, but she was much less plain in her uniform than she had been in her private dress. The blue-peaked cap suited her and managed somehow, in combination with her pathne, to give her quite a roguish complexion. Nevertheless, she was looked upon as a serious person, quite like a man, she reflected with satisfaction. She did not wish to waste her time with flirtations. She wanted to do her job efficiently. It needed great self-control not to take too active an interest in the affairs of the ladies and gentlemen in her charge. She was, for instance, deeply sorry for poor, old Mr. Jay, who was obviously poor and helpless and had no friends. He used to ask her whether so-and-so had called to tell her that he was expecting Lady This and Lord That to ring up. Of course, they never did. No one ever came to see him. Fanny's heart simply ached for him. Then there was young Mr. Torby, the honourable Clive Torby. Fanny thought him the most wonderful figure in London. He was in France and was wounded, went back and was wounded again, this time losing an arm. He had the DSO and MC and was simply the most handsome young man in London. But Fanny feared that he was leading a very idle life. He was always happy, always good tempered, always laughing, but Fanny shivered at the thought of the money that he spent. Lord Dronta, his father, used to come and see him and remonstrate with him, so the honourable Clive told Fanny after the interview. But what was the good? All the young ladies came just the same, and the flowers, and the fruit, and the wine. We can only love once, Fanny, the young man declared one day, and I've been so near kicking the bucket so many times lately that I'm going to make the most of the sunshine. How could you blame him? At any rate, Fanny couldn't. There were many others into whose histories and personalities this is neither the time nor place to enter. Fanny felt as though she were living at the very heart of the great bustling eventful world. When she saw Edmund Robsart, the famous novelist whose flat was number twenty, go up in the lift, when he said good evening to her, and smiled. He whose picture was quite often in the daily papers, whose books were on the railway bookstalls, whose name was even mentioned once in Fanny's hearing by D. E. Dunville at the Victoria Palace. Well, there was something to be proud of. True, he was over fifty in fat and a little pompous. What did that matter? Fanny had taken messages to him in his rooms and seen him once in a purple silk dressing gown. She did not consider herself overwork. She had to be on duty at eight thirty every morning, and she remained until six thirty in the evening. She had every Saturday afternoon and every other Sunday. She did every kind of thing in between those hours. The whole warm, pulsing life of the twenty chambers seemed to radiate from her. She fancied herself sitting there in her little office, taking the messages from the flats, and distributing them to the different ballets and servants in the kitchen, watching every one who came in and out, detecting suspicious people who wanted to see so-and-so on very urgent business, attending to Mr. Knicks when he had anything to say or wanted anything, and sometimes in the hot summer weather she would sit and look out upon the white and shining street, feeling the heat play in little gleaming waves upon the green staircase behind her, hearing the news boys shout their worn news, watching stout Mr. Newbury of the picture shop, as he stood in his door and speculated on the weather. How cool here and how hot out there, and in the winter how warm the flats and how cold the dusky blue-green street. She sometimes wondered whether it were not wicked of her to care for her life at Horton so much when it all came to her from the horrible war, which did indeed seem to her the most dreadful thing that had ever happened. She had not known many young men, but there had been Mr. Simmons and Mr. Frank Blake and his brother Tom Blake, nice young men, and most amusing in the evening after supper, or on an evening out at the music hall. All gone! Tom Blake dead, Frank Blake without a leg, Mr. Simmons gassed. Oh, she hated this war, she hated it, but she loved Hortons. The fly in the ointment was the old familiar fly of family comment. The war had not had a good effect upon Aggie. She sat at home and grew more and more pessimistic. There never was such pessimism. Germany was to Aggie a triumphing dominating force that nothing could stop. What's the use of our fighting, she would say, when Fanny would arrive home to supper, exhausted but cheerful? What's the use? That's what I want to know. Here we are at their mercy. Can't step over any time they like and just take us. Nothing made Fanny so angry as this. It was all she could do to control herself. Nevertheless, control herself she did. What about our army, she would say, and the submarines. What about Kitchener? And later, what about Hague? Hague, sniffed Aggie Hague. The air raids finished Aggie. A bomb was dropped quite close to their upper part in Bloomsbury. Aggie was ill for weeks. She recovered, but rose from her bed a soured, injured, vindictive woman. It was exactly as though the whole of the war, and especially the bomb dropping part of it, had been arranged simply for the annoyance of Aggie close. She always said that she hated the Germans, but to hear her talk, you'd think that she hated the English a great deal more. Our incompetence, our cowardice, our selfishness, our wickedness in high places, such were her eternal topics. Fanny, sitting in her hutch at Hortons, saw the evening waiting for her. The terrible evening with their little stuffy, food smelling, overcrowded room, with the glazed and grinning sideboard, the pink and white wool mats, the heavy lace curtains over the window, the hideous oleographs, the large, staring photographs. Unlike most of her kind, she knew that all this was ugly, and in the midst of the ugliness was Aggie. Aggie, with her square, short, thick-set figure, her huge, flat feet, her heavy, freckled hands. She would have escaped to a place of entertainment had there been anybody to take her. Just now there was nobody. She could not walk about the streets alone. At first she tried to interest Aggie in the exciting events of her day, in poor Mr. J. and magnificent Mr. Robesart, and funny Fussing Mrs. Demaris, and the Honorable Clive. But Aggie had a marvelous way of turning everything, however cheerful and bright it might seem, into sin and sorrow and decay. If Fanny was happy it was, how can you laugh when the world's in the state it's in? If Fanny sighed it was, I should have thought it was one's duty to be as cheerful as possible just now, but some people think only of themselves. If Fanny argued against some too outrageous piece of pessimism it was, really Fanny, it's such as you, losing us the war. Oh, I hate Aggie, I HATE Aggie! Fanny would sometimes cry to herself in the heart of her hutch, but she could not summon to herself sufficient resolution to go off and live by herself. She had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise. During the first two years of the war she did not consider the end of the war. She never doubted for a single moment but that the allies would win and for the rest she had too much work to do to waste time in idle speculation. But in the third year that little phrase, after the war, began to drive itself in upon her. Everyone said it. She perceived that people were bearing their trials and misfortunes and losses because, after the war, everything would be all right again, there would be plenty of food and money and rest, after the war. Her heart began to ache for all the troubles that she saw around her. Mr. Nix lost his boy in France and was a changed man. For a month or two it seemed as though he would lose all interest in Hortons. He was listless and indifferent and suffered slackness to go unbunished. Then he pulled himself together. Hortons was its old self again and how Fanny admired him for that. Then came the armistice and the world changed for Fanny. It changed because in a sudden devastating horrible flash of revelation she realized that the women would all have to go. The men would come back. And she, that night when she perceived this, gave her one of her worst hours. She had allowed herself, and she saw now how foolish she had been to do so, to look upon the work at Hortons as the permanent occupation of her life. How could she have done otherwise? It suited her so exactly. She loved it and everybody encouraged her to believe that she did it well. Had not Mr. Nix himself told her that he could not have believed, that he could miss the magnificent James so little, and that no man could fill the blank as she had done. Moreover, in the third year of the war, James had been killed, and it would take a new man a long time to learn all the ins and outs of the business as she had learnt them. So she had encouraged herself to dream, and the dream and the business had become one. She could not tear them apart. Well, now she must tear them apart. Mr. Nix was dismissing all the women. With teeth set, she faced her future. No use to think of getting another job, everywhere the men were returning. For such work as she could do, there would be a hundred men waiting for every vacancy. No, she would have to live always with Aggie. They would have enough to live on, just enough. Their brother allowed them something, and an aunt had left them a little legacy, just enough with a perpetual sparing and scraping, no more of the little luxuries that Fanny's pay from Hortons had allowed them. Certainly not enough for either of them to live alone. Tied forever together, that's what they would be, chained, and Aggie growing ever more and more bitter. Nevertheless, she faced it. She went back to Hortons with a smile and a laugh. Her gentlemen and ladies did not know that she was looking upon them with eyes of farewell. Miss Lois Drake, for instance, that daring and adventurous type of the modern girl, about whose future Fanny was always speculating with crumbling excitement, she did not notice anything at all. But then she thought of very little, save herself. However can she do the things she does. And now, alas, she would never see the climax to her daring. Never, never, never. She said nothing to Aggie of her troubles, and Aggie said nothing to her. The days passed. Then just before Christmas came the marvellous news. By this time all the girl valets had been dismissed and men had taken their place. They would congregate in the hall of a morning, coming on approval, and Fanny would speculate about them. Mr. Nix even asked her advice. Oh, I like that one, she would say. I wouldn't trust that man a yard, she would decide. Then one day Albert Edward came. There was no doubt about him at all. He was almost as good as the late lamented James. Handsome, although short, but Fanny liked the stocky kind and with such a laugh. Fanny delighted in his jet-black hair cut tight about his head, his smiling black eyes, his round rosy cheeks. She admired him quite in the abstract. He was far too grand for any personal feeling. At once, when he had been in the place two days, she allotted him to Mrs. Mellish made a net such a handsome girl, so bold and clever. They were made for one another. Albert Edward was a valet on the second floor. He shared that floor with Bacon. Fanny did not like Bacon. The one mistake she thought that Mr. Nix had made. Well, just before Christmas the wonderful hour arrived. Fanny, said Mr. Nix one evening, do you realize that you're the only woman left in a man's job? Yes, said Fanny, her heart beating horribly. Well, said Mr. Nix, you're going to continue to be the only woman, unless you've any objection. Oh, Mr. Nix, said Fanny, I'm sure I've always tried. Oh, yes, I know, said Mr. Nix, that's why I want you to stay forever, if you like, or at any rate so long as I'm here. Oh, Mr. Nix, said Fanny again, tears were in her eyes. The familiar green staircase, the palm and the grandfather's clock swam before her eyes. It was Aggie, of course, who killed her happiness almost as soon as it was born. And what about the demobilized men? Aggie had asked with her cold acid smile. I should have thought that if there were any jobs going, a patriotic girl like you would have been the first to stand aside. Fanny's heart seemed to leap into the air and then fall, stone dead at her feet. Men, demobilized men. She had not thought of that. But for the moment the only thing she could see was Aggie's spite, her old eternal spite. She felt the tears rising. In a moment they would break out. You would like to spoil it if you could, she cried. Yes, you would. It's what you've always done. Spoilt everything. Yes, you have, since we were children. Any little bit of happiness? Happiness, interrupted Aggie, that's what you call it. Selfishness, cruel selfishness, that's what some would name it. You don't care, cried Fanny. Her words now choked with sobs. You don't care as long as I'm hurt and wounded. That's all you might. Always trying to hurt me. Always. The tears had conquered her. She rushed from the room. She escaped, but she was haunted. It was not because Aggie had said it, that she minded. No, she did not care for Aggie. It was because there was truth in what Aggie had said. Fanny was precisely the girl to feel such a charge, as Aggie well knew. All her life her conscience had been her trouble. Acute, vivid, lifting its voice when there was no need, never satisfied with the prizes and splendors thrown at. In ordinary times Fanny surrendered at once to its hideous demands. This time she fought. Aggie herself helped in the fight. Having succeeded in making Fanny miserable, it was by no means her intention that the silly child should really surrender the job. That did not at all suit her own idle selfishness. So she mocked at her for staying where she was, but made it plain that having given her word, she must stick to it. You've made your bed and must lie in it, was her phrase. Fanny said nothing. The light had gone from her eyes, the color from her cheeks. She was fighting the sternest battle of her life. Everywhere she saw, or fancied she saw, demobilized men. Every man in the street with a little shining disc fastened to his coat was in her eyes a demobilized man starving and hungry because she was so wicked. And yet why should she give it up? She had proved her worth, shown that she was better than a man in that particular business. Would Mr. Nix have kept her? Had she not been better? Kind though he was, he was not a philanthropist, and to give it up, to be tied for life, to Aggie, to be idle, to be unwanted, to see no more of Hortons, to see no more of Albert Edward. Yes, the secret was out. She loved Albert Edward. Not with any thought of herself. Oh, dear me, no. She knew that she was far too plain, far too dull. She need only compare herself for an instant with Mrs. Melish's Annette, and she could see where she stood. No, romance was not for her. But she liked his company. He was so kind to her, he would stand again and again in her little hutch and chatter, laughing and making silly jokes. She amused him, and he admired her capacity for business. You are a one, was his way of putting it. You would be something like running a restaurant, business side, you know. How proud she was when he said these things. After all, everybody had something. Annette, for all her bows and ribbons, was probably poor at business. However, she included Albert Edward in The General Life of Hortons, and refused to look any closer. So day and night, the struggle continued. She could not sleep. She could not eat. Everyone told her that she was looking ill and needed a holiday. She was most truly a haunted woman, and her ghosts were on every side of her, pressing in upon her, reproaching her with starving, dark, rimmed eyes. She struggled, she fought, she clung with bleeding hands to the stones and rafters and walls of hortons. Conscience had her way. Fanny was beaten. The decision was taken one night after a horrible dream, a dream in which she had been pursued by a menacing, sinister procession of men, some without arms and legs, who floated about her, beating her in the face with their soft, boneless hands. She awoke screaming. Next morning she went to Mr. Nix. I'm afraid I must give you my notice, Mr. Nix, she said. Of course he laughed at her when she offered her reason, but she was firm. You've been terribly good to me, Mr. Nix, she said, but I must go. She was firm. It was all that she could do, not to cry. He submitted, saying that he would leave her a day or so to reconsider it. She went into her hut and stared in front of her in stony wretchedness. That was the worst day of her life. She felt like a dead woman. Worst of all was the temptation to run back to Mr. Nix and tell him that it was not true that she had reconsidered it. All day she saw Aggie in her green stuffed dress, her eyes close to the paper, the room so close, so close. In the afternoon, about five, she felt that she could bear it no longer. She would get the haul-boy to take her place and would go home. Albert Edward came in for a chat. She told him what she had done. Well, he said, that's fine. She stared at him. I want you to marry me, he said. I've been wanting it a long time. I like you. You're just the companion for me, sense of humor and all that, and a business head. I'm past the sentimental stuff. What I want is a pal. What do you say to the little restaurant? The grandfather's clock rose up and struck Fanny in the face. She could have endured that had not the green and white staircase done the same. So strange was the world that she was compelled to put her hand on Albert Edward's arm. Behind the swimming, dazzling splendor of her happiness was the knowledge that she had secured a job from which no man in the world would have the right to oust her. End of Story Two. Story Three of the Thirteen Travelers by Hugh Walpole. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Story Three. The Honorable Clive Torby. He was now the only son of old Lord Dromeda. His elder brother had been killed at Mons early in the war. He had been aware of his good looks ever since he was a weak old. Tom, the elder brother, had been fat and plain. Everyone had told him so. He did not mind now, being dead. Clive was the happiest fellow possible, even though he had lost an arm late in seventeen. He had not minded that. It was his left arm, and he could already do almost everything quite well without it. Women liked him all the better for having lost it. He had always been perfectly satisfied with himself, his looks, his home, his relations, everything. His critics said that he was completely selfish and had horrible manners, or no manners at all, but it was difficult to underline his happy unconscious young innocence so heavily. Certainly if, in the days before the war, you stayed with his people, you found his indifference to your personal needs rather galling. But Tom looked after all that, although Tom often did not, because he was absent-minded by nature, and fond of fishing. The fact is that poor Lady Dronda was to blame. She had educated her children very badly, being so fond of them, and so proud of them, that she gave in to them on every opportunity. She was known amongst her friends as a poor Lady Dronda, because being a sentimentalist and rather stupid, life was perpetually disappointing her. People never came up to her expectations, so she put all her future into the hands of her sons, who, it seemed, might in the end also prove disappointing. The favorite word on her lips was, now tell me the truth, the one thing I want to hear from any friends is the truth. However, the truth was exactly what she never did get, because it upset her so seriously, and made her so angry with the persons who gave it her. Tom, being dead, she transformed him into an angel, and told a sympathetic acquaintances so often that she never spoke of him that his name was rarely off her lips. Nevertheless, she was able to devote a great deal of her time to Clive, who was now all her life. The results of this were two. First, that Clive, although retaining all his original simple charm, was more sure than ever before that he was perfect. Secondly, that he found his mother tiresome, and having been brought up to think of nobody but himself, was naturally as little at home as possible. He took up his abode at Horton's, finding a little flat, number eleven, on the second floor that suited him exactly. Into it he put his a few sticks of things, and the result was a charming confusion of soda-water siphons and silver photograph frames. He very happily, throughout the whole of 1918, resided there, receiving innumerable young women to meals of different kinds, throwing the rooms open to all his male acquaintances, and generally turning night in today, with the caution that he must not annoy Mr. Nix, the manager, for whom he had the very greatest respect. The odd thing was that with all his conceit in bad manners, he was something of a hero. He had received both the MC and the DSO, and was as good an officer as the guards could boast. This sounds conventional, and in the good old Wida tradition, but his heroism lay rather in the fact that he had positively loathed the war. He hated the dirt, the blood, the confusion, the losing of friends, what he called the general hell. No one was more amusing and amiable during his stay out there, and to be Wida-esque again for a moment, he was adored by his men. Nevertheless it was perhaps the happiest moment of his life when he knew he was to lose his arm. No more going back to jolly old France for me, old bean, he wrote to a friend, now I'm going to enjoy myself. That was his rooted determination. He had not gone through all that and been maimed for life for nothing. He was going to enjoy himself. Yes, after the war he would show them. He showed them mainly at present by dancing all hours of the day and night. He had danced before the war, like any other human being, and had faithfully attended at Murray's and the 400 and the other places. But he did not know that he had very greatly enjoyed it. He had gone in the main because Miss Poppy Darling, who had just then caught his attention, commanded him to do so. Now it was quite another matter. He went simply for the dance itself. He was not by nature a very introspective young man, and he did not think of himself as strange or odd, or indeed as anything definite at all. But it was perhaps a little strange that he, who had been so carefully brought up by his fond mother, should surrender to a passion for tom-toms and tin kettles more completely than he had ever surrendered to any woman. He did not care with whom it was that he danced. A man would have done as well. The point was that when those harsh and jarring noises began to beat and battle through the air, his body should move and gyrate in sympathy, just as at that very moment, perhaps, somewhere in Central Africa, a grim and glistening savage was turning monotonously beneath the glories of a full moon. He danced all night, and most of the day, with the result that he had very little time for anything else. Lady Dronduk complained that he never wrote to her. Dear mother, he replied on a postcard, jolly busy, ever so much to do, see you soon. Young men and young women came to luncheon and dinner. He was happy and merry with them all. Even Fanny, the porters downstairs, adored him. His smile was irresistible. The strangest fact of all, perhaps, was that the war had really taught him nothing. He had for three years been face to face with reality, stared into her eyes, studied her features, seeing her for quite the first time. And his vision of her had made no difference to him at all. He came back into this false world to find it just exactly as he had left it. Reality slipped away from him, and it was as though she had never been. He was as sure as he had been four years before that the world was made only for him and his, and not so much for his as for him. Had you asked, he would not have told you, because he was an Englishman and didn't think it decent to boast. But you would have seen it in his eyes that he really did believe that he was vastly superior to more than three quarters of the rest of humanity. And this, although he had gone to Eaton and had received, therefore, no education, although he knew no foreign language, knew nothing about the literature of his own or any other country, was trained for no business and no profession, and could only spell with a good deal of hit and miss result. Moreover, when you faced him and thought of these things, you yourself were not sure whether, after all, he were not right. He was so handsome, so self-confident, so fearless, so touching with his youth and his armless sleeve, that you could not but wonder whether the world, after all, was not made for such as he. The old world, perhaps, but the new one? Meanwhile, Clive danced. He flung himself into such an atmosphere of dancing that he seemed to dance all his relations and acquaintances into it with him. He could not believe that everyone was not spending the time in dancing. Albert Edward, whose official name was Banks, assured him that he had no time for dancing. No time, said Clive, greatly concerned. Poor devil, I don't know how you get along. Albert Edward, who approved of the honourable Clive because of his pluck, his berth, his good looks, and his generosity, only smiled. Got to earn my living, sir, he said. Really, must you? Clive was concerned. Well, it's a damned shame, after all you've done over there. Someone's got to work still, I suppose, sir, said Albert Edward, and it's my belief that it's them that works hardest now that will reap the harvest soonest, and that's my belief. Really, said Clive, in politely interested tone. Well, Banks, if you want to know my idea, it is that it's about time that some of us enjoyed ourselves. After all, we've been through. Let the old ones, who stayed at home, do the work. Yes, sir, said Albert Edward. It did indeed seem a shame to Clive that any one should have to work at all. That nice girl, Fanny, for instance, who was porterous downstairs, or that poor old decrepit-looking thing who was night porter, and opened the door for Clive at four in the morning. He told Fanny what he thought. Fanny laughed. I love my work, sir, she said. I wouldn't be without it for anything. Wouldn't you really now, said Clive, staring at her? Dimly he perceived that these months after the armistice, and during the early months of 1919, were a queer time. No one seemed to know what was going to happen. The state of the world was very uncomfortable, did one look into it too closely, even into the chaste and decorous quarter of St. James's Rumors of Impending Revolution penetrated. People were unhappy. Had not enough to eat, had no roof over their heads, always one thing or another. The papers were beastly, so Clive gave up looking at them, save only the sporting times, and devoted his hours that were saved from dancing to a little gentle betting, to wondering whether Joe Becker would be guttered, and when he had beaten him, to wondering whether he would be George Carpentier, and to playing a rubber or two of auction bridge at White's, and to entertaining the ladies and gentlemen already mentioned. He was not, during this period, worrying at all about money. He very seldom saw his old father, who never came up to town, and never wrote letters. Old Lord Dronda, who was now nearly seventy, stayed at the place at Hartfordshire. He loved cows and pigs and horses, and Clive imagined him perfectly happy in the midst of these animals. He had an ample allowance, but he was compelled to reinforce it by writing checks on his mother's account. She had, when he lost his arm, given him an open checkbook on her bank. There was nothing too good for such a hero. He did not naturally think about money, he did not like to be bothered about it, but he was vaguely rather proud of himself for keeping out of the moneylender's hands and not gambling more deeply at Bridge. Luckily a dancing left one little time for that. Keeps me out of mischief-jazzing does, he told his friends. He had in his room a photograph of his father, an old photograph, but like the old man still. Lord Dronda was squarely built and had side whiskers and pepper and salt trousers. He looked like a prosperous farmer. His thighs were thick, his nose square, and he wore a billycock a little on one side of his head. Clive had not seen his father for so long a time that it gave him quite a shock to come in one afternoon and find the old man sitting under his photograph, a thick stick in his hand and large gaiters above his enormous boots. He was looking about him with a lost and bewildered air and sitting on the very edge of the sofa. His grey boulder was on the back of his head. Hello, Governor! Clive cried. Clive was a little bewildered at the side of the old man. His plan had been a nap before dressing for dinner. He had been dancing until six that morning and was naturally tired, but he was a kindly man and therefore nice to his father. I'm delighted to see you, he said, but whatever are you doing up here? The old man was not apparently greatly delighted to see Clive. He was lost and bewildered and it seemed to have trouble in finding his words. He stammered and looked helplessly about him. His son asked him whether he'd had any tea. No, he wouldn't have any tea. No, nothing at all. The fact is, he brought out at last, that Dronda is to be sold, and I thought you ought to know. Dronda to be sold. The words switched back before Clive's eyes that figure of reality that recently he had forgotten. Dronda to be sold. He saw his own youth, colored with the green of the lawns, the silver of the lake, the deep red brick of the old house. Dronda to be sold. But that's impossible father, he cried. He found, however, that a great deal more than that was possible. He had never possessed, as he had been used somewhat proudly to boast, a very good head for figures, and the old man had not a great talent for making things clear. But the final point was that the income tax and the general increased expenses of living had made Dronda impossible. Also, my boy, Lord Dronda added, all the money you've been spending lately, your mother only confessed to me last week, you'll have to get some work and settle down to it. I'm sorry, but the old days are gone. I'm quite aware that this is not a very original story on how many occasions and how many novels has the young heir to the entails been suddenly faced with poverty and been compelled to sit down and work. Nine times out of ten, most nobody has he done it. And ten times out of ten, he has won the girl of his heart by so doing. The only novelty here is the moment of the catastrophe. Here was the very period towards which, through years and years of discomfort and horror in France, young Clive had been looking. After the war, he would have the time of his life. After the war had arrived, Andrunda was to be sold. His first impulse was to abuse fate generally and his father in particular. One glance at the old man checked that. How funny he looked, sitting there on the edge of the sofa, his thick stick between his knees, his hat tilted back, and that air of bewildered perplexity on his round face, as of a baby confronted with his first thunderstorm. His thick set, rather stout body, his side wisters, his rough red hands, all seemed to remove him completely from the smart, slim, dark young man who sat opposite him. Nevertheless, Clive felt the bond. He was suddenly in unison with his father, as he had never been in all his life, with his mother. His father and he had never had what one would call a heart-to-heart conversation in their lives. They did not have one now. They would have been bitterly distressed at such an idea. All Clive said was, What a bore! I didn't know things were like that. You ought to have told me. To which Drona replied, his eyes wistfully on his son's empty sleeve. I didn't think it would get so bad. You'll have to find some work. No need for us to bother your mother about it. The old man got up to go. His eyes moved uncomfortably from one photograph to another. He pulled at his high collar, as though he felt the room close. Sure you won't have anything, said Clive. No thanks, said his father. Well, don't you worry. I'll get some work all right. I'll have to pull my horns in a bit, though. And that was positively all that was said. Drona went away. That puzzle bewildered look still hovering between his mouth and his eyes. His gray bowler still a little to one side. After he was gone, Clive considered the matter. Once the first shock was over, things were really not so bad. The loss of Drona was horrible, of course, and Clive thought of that as little as might be. But even there, the war had made a difference, having shaken everything in its tempestuous course to the ground, so that one looked on nothing now as permanent. As to work, Clive would not mind that at all. There was quite a number of things that he would like to do. There were all these new ministries, for instance. He thought of various friends that he had. He wrote down the names of one or two. Or there was the city. He had often fancied that he would like to go into the city. You made money there, he understood, and simply no time at all. And you needed no education. He thought of one or two city men whom he knew and wrote down their names. One or two other things occurred to him. Before he went out to dine he had written a dozen notes. He liked to think that he could be prompt and business-like when there was need. During the next day or two he had quite a merry time with his friends about the affair. He laughingly depicted himself as a serious man of business, one of those men whom you see in the cinemas, men who sit at enormous desks and have big fists and rolls-royces. He spent one especially jolly evening, first at Claridge's, then as you were at the pavilion. Sir Billion de Boest was what he would shortly be, he told his lapping companion. Then dancing, oh, a delightful evening. My last kick, he called it, and looking back afterwards he found that he had spoken more truly than he knew. His friends answered his notes and asked him to go and see them. He went. There then began a very strange period of discovery. First he went to the Labour Ministry and saw his old friend Reggie Burr. Reggie looked most official in his room with his telephone and things. Clive told him so. Reggie smiled, but said that he was pressed for time and would Clive just mind telling him what it was he wanted. Clive found it harder to tell him than he had expected. He was modest and unelequent about his time in France, and after that there really was not very much to say. What had he done? What could he do? Well, not very much. He laughed. I'm sure I'd fit into something, he said. I'll let you know if there is anything, said Reggie Burr. And so it went on. It was too strange how definite these men wanted him to be. As the days passed Clive had the impression that the world was getting larger and larger and emptier and emptier. It seemed as though he could not touch boundaries nor horizons. It was a new world, and he had no place in it. The dancing suddenly receded, or rather was pushed and huddled back, as the nurse in old days took one's toys and crammed them into a corner. Clive found it no longer amusing. He was puzzled, and dancing did not help him to any discovery. He found that he had nothing to say to his friends on these occasions. He was aware that they were saying behind his back, What's come to Clive, Toby? Doll, as dishwater. He went about with a bemused, blinded expression. He was seeing himself for the first time. Hortons and everything in it had quite a new life for him. Mr. Nix, Fanny, Albert Edward, all these people were earning their living and earning it much more efficiently than he seemed to be able to do. All the time behind them seemed to stand that wistful figure of his father. I'd like to do something for the old man, he thought. Down in the city his experiences were very strange. The first three men whom he saw were very polite and jolly and said they'd let him know if anything turned up. They asked him what business experience he had had, and then how much money he was prepared to put into a concern. And when he had answered them with a jolly laugh, and said that he had had no experience and had no doubt that he would shake down all right, and that he had no money, but really would take his coat off and work, they smiled, and said that things were bad in the city just now, but they would let him know. They all liked him, he felt, and he liked them, and that was as far as it went. But his experience with his fourth friend was different. So James Meredith, Marinette, could scarcely be called a friend of his. He had met him once at someone's house. Reggie Burr had given him a note to him. He was a big broad man, somewhere near sixty, and he was as nice to Clive as possible. But he did not, mince matters. He had been given his Baronetcy for some fine organizing work that he had done in the war. Clive, who did not think much about men as a rule, liked him better than any man he'd ever met. This fellow would do for me, he thought. The question, however, was whether Clive would do for Meredith. What have you done, Meredith asked? Hmm, Eaton and Oxford, and what kind of a job are you looking for? Clive modestly explained, somewhere about six hundred a year, he wanted to help the governor get through a stiff time. Meredith smiled. That was very nice. Would Clive mind Meredith speaking quite plainly? Not at all. That was what Clive wanted. Meredith then said that it was like a fairy tale. He had had, during the last fortnight, four fellows who wanted jobs, had anything from five hundred to a thousand a year. All of them, very modest, hadn't had any experience, but thought they could drop into it. All of them had done well in the war. All of them wanted to keep their parents. Very creditable. But there was another side to the question. Did Clive know that there were hundreds of men ready to come in at three hundred a year, and less? Men who had been in the city since nine years old. Men who had the whole thing at their fingers ends. Hundreds of them. The world was made for you boys before the war. You won't think me rude, will you? You went to Eaton at Oxford and learned nothing at all, and then waited for things to tumble into your hands. That's why commercial Germany beat us all around the world. Well, it won't do any longer. The new world isn't made for you boys. You've got to win your way into it. You're quite right, Clive blushed. Thank you very much. Meredith looked at him and his heart warmed to him. Take my tip and do a working man's job. What about house painting, for instance, or driving a taxi? They're getting big money just for a bit. Do try your hand. Not a bad idea, said Clive. They shook hands in a most friendly fashion. Meredith spoke to his partner at lunch about him. Nice boy, he said. We'll have him in here later. Clive went back to Hortons and met there the temptation of his life in the shape of his mother. She was looking lovely and gray silk, parmaviolets, and a little black hat. She was in one of her most sentimental moods. She cried a good deal and asked Clive what he intended to do. When she asked him that, what she really wanted was that he should say that he loved her. This he did in a hurried fashion because he wanted to tell her about Meredith. She had, however, her own ideas that she wanted to say, and these were in the main that he was her all and that it was too awful about Dronda that John, Lord Dronda, had simply been losing thousands over his stupid old agriculture and finally that she had money of her own on which dear Clive should live to the end of his days. All this nonsense about his working, as though he hadn't done enough already with his poor arm and everything, they should go away together and have a lovely time. Clive was tempted. For ten minutes there raged a fierce battle. He knew that what she said could be true enough that they could go away together and spend money together and that she would give him everything that she had and only want him in return to say over and over again that he loved her. They would wander about and probably he would find some rich girl who would marry him and then he would live on her. While he thought this out, words poured from his mother's lips in tattered confusion. No words used by his mother ever meant what she intended them to say. Nevertheless, the last question held substance of them all. And you really do love me Clive Boy, don't you? The Clive Boy really settled it, although I hope and believe that it would have been settled without that, but he could not wander about Europe as Clive Boy. So he said, ah thanks mother, you're a brick wanting me to have everything and all that, but I really won't. I'm going to settle down and work. Whatever at you poor foolish darling, asked his mother. I didn't think I can get, he replied. She left him at last, having cried just enough to show her real emotion without damaging her unreal complexion. Her parma violets were also intact. He was an unkind, ungrateful son and her heart was broken. But at the same time he was her all and would he lunch with her tomorrow at Claridge's. This he said he would do. My last good meal. He murmured to himself quite histrionically. His mother departed. He had a bad quarter of an hour after she had gone. The sacred precincts of Hortons contained at least one honest soul that afternoon. He saw himself exactly as he was, spoiled useless, idle and conceited. He swore to himself that he would find work of some kind before the day was done. He went out. It was a lovely afternoon early in May. Mr. Bottom, the news agent, had fine copies of color showing in his window the top of Duke Street gazed straight into the huge naked looking statue of a horse in the courtyard of the academy. Everything seemed to be having a spring cleaning. He turned back and down into German Street next to the Hamann Baz that they were painting a house light green. A nice young fellow in overall stepped over a ladder as Clive passed. He smiled at Clive and Clive smiled back. Is that an easy job? Clive asked him. Oh, yes, sir, the young fellow answered. Could you manage it with one arm? Clive asked. Why, yes, the man said. Could I pick it up quickly? Lord, yes. Will you teach me? A week later Mr. Nix, in a hurry as usual, was pattering up Duke Street. Bottom's paper shop was having a new coat of paint. A young workman in yellow overalls perched on a ladder managed his brush adroitly with one arm. Poor fellow, said Mr. Nix, a compassionate man always, but doubly so now, because he had lost his son in the war, left the other in France, I suppose. The workman looked down and revealed to the astonished countenance of Mr. Nix the laughing eyes of his late tenant, the honorable Clive Torbi. End of Story 3