 CHAPTER VIII I saw a great deal of Malim after that. He and Julian became my two chief mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man of delicate literary skill, a genuine lover of books, a severe critic of modern fiction. Our tastes were, in the main, identical, though it was always a blow to me that he could see nothing humorous in Mr. George's aid, whose fables I knew nearly by heart. The more robust type of humor left him cold. In all other respects, we agreed. There was a never-failing fascination in a man with a secret. It gave me a pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes to watch Malim, sitting in his arm chair, the essence of everything that was conventional and respectable, with Eaton and Oxford written all over him, and to think that he was married all the while to an employee in a Tottenham Court Road fried fish shop. Kit never appeared in the flat, but Malim went nearly every evening to the little villa. Sometimes he took Julian in myself, more often myself alone, Julian being ever disinclined to move far from his hammock. The more I saw of Kit, the more thoroughly I realized how eminently fitted she was to be Malim's wife. It was a union of opposites. Except for the type of fiction provided by penny libraries of powerful stories, Kit had probably not read more than half a dozen books in her life. Grim's fairy story, she recollected dimly, and she betrayed a surprising acquaintance with at least three of Ouida's novels. I fancy that Malim appeared to her as a sort of combination of fairy prints and Ouida guardsmen. He exhibited the Oxford manner at times rather noticeably. Kit loved it. Till I saw them together I had thought Kit's accent and her incessant mangling of the King's English would have jarred upon Malim, but I soon found that I was wrong. He did not appear to notice. I learned from Kit, in the course of my first visit to the villa, some further particulars respecting her brother Tom, the potato thrower of Covent Garden Market. Mr. Thomas Blake, it seemed, was the proprietor and skipper of a barge. A pleasant enough fellow went sober, but too much given to what Kit described as his drop. He had apparently left home under something of a cloud, though whether this had anything to do with father's trousers I never knew. Kit said she had not seen him for some years, though each had known the others address. It seemed that the Blake family were not great correspondents. Have you ever met John Hatton, asked Malim one night after dinner at his flat? John Hatton? I answered no. Who is he? A person. A very good fellow. You ought to know him. He is a man with a number of widely different interests. We were at Trinity together. He jumps from one thing to another, but he is frightfully keen about whatever he does. Someone was saying that he was running a boys' club in the thickest part of Lambeth. There might be copy in it, I said. Or ideas for advertisements for Julian, said Malim. Anyway, I'll introduce you to him. Have you ever been in the barrel? What's the barrel? The barrel is a club. It gets the name from the fact that it's the only club in England that allows and indeed urges its members to sit on a barrel. John Hatton is sometimes to be found there. Come round to it tomorrow night. All right, I replied. Where is it? 153 York Street, Covent Garden, First Floor. Very well, I said, I'll meet you there at twelve o'clock. I can't come sooner because I've got a story to write. Twelve had just struck when I walked up York Street looking for number 153. The house was brilliantly lighted on the first floor. The street door opened onto a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano and the singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight of a waiter loaded with glasses. I called to him. Mr. Cloister, sir? Yes, sir. I'll find out whether Mr. Malim can see you, sir. Malim came out to me. Hatton's not here, he said. But come in. There's a smoking-concert going on. He took me into the room, the windows of which I had seen from the street. There was a burst of cheering as we entered the room. The song was finished and there was a movement among the audience. It's the interval, said Malim. Malim surged out of the packed front room into the passage and then into a sort of bar parlor. Malim and I also made our way there. That's the fetish of the club, said Malim, pointing to a barrel standing on end, and I'll introduce you to the man who is sitting on it. He's little Michael, the musical critic. They once put on an operetta of his at the court. It ran about two nights, but he reckons all the events of the world from the date of its production. Mr. Cloister, Mr. Michael? The musician hopped down from the barrel and shook hands. He was a dapper little person and had a trick of punctuating every sentence with a snigger. Chereau, he said genially, is this your first visit? I said it was. Then sit on the barrel. We are the only club in London who can offer you the privilege. Accordingly I sat on the barrel and threw a murmur of applause that could hear Michael telling someone that he'd first seen that barrel five years before his operetta came out at the court. At that moment a venerable figure strode with dignity into the bar. Mondral, said Malim to me, at the last of the old Bohemians, an old actor, always wears the steeple hat and a long coat with skirts. The survivor of the days of keen uttered a bella for whiskey and water. That barrel, he said, reminds me of Buxton's days at the hay market. After the performance we used to meet at the Café de Europe, a few yards from the theatre. Our secret society sat there. What was the society called, Mr. Mondral, asked a new member with unusual intrepidity? Its name, replied the white-headed actor simply, I shall not devolve. It was not, however, altogether unconnected with the pink men of the Blue Mountains. We used to sit, we who were initiated, in a circle. We met to discuss the business of the society. Oh, we were the observed of all observers, I can assure you. Our society was extensive. It had its offshoots in foreign lands. While we at these meetings used to sit round a barrel, a great big barrel, which had a hole in the top. The barrel was not merely an ornament. For through the hole in the top we threw any scraps and odds and ends we did not want. Bits of tobacco, bread, marrow bones, the dregs of our glasses. Anything and everything went into the barrel. And so it happened, as the barrel became fuller and fuller, strange animals made their appearance. Animals of peculiar shape and form crawled out of the barrel and would attempt to escape across the floor. But we were on their tracks. We saw them. We headed them off with our sticks and we chased them back again to the place where they had been born and bred. We poked them in, sir, with our sticks. Mr. Mondrell emitted a placid chuckle at this reminiscence. A good many members of this club, whispered Malim to me, would have gone back into that barrel. A bell sounded. That's for the second part to begin, said Malim. We heard it back along the passage. A voice cried, be seated, please, gentlemen. At the far end of the room was a table for the chairman and the committee, and to the left stood a piano. Everyone had now sat down except the chairman, who was apparently not in the room. There was a pause. Then a man from the audience whooped sharply and clambered over the table and into the place of the chairman. He tapped twice with the mallet. Get out of that chair, yelled various voices. Gentlemen, said the man in the chair. A howl of execration went up, and simultaneously the door was flung open. A double file of white-robed druids came chanting into the room. The druids carried in with a small portable tree which they proceeded to set upright. The chant now became extremely topical. Each druid sang a verse in turn while his fellow druids danced a stately measure round the tree. As the verse was being sung, an imitation granite altar was hastily erected. The man in the chair, who had so far smoked a cigarette in silence, now tapped again with his mallet. Gentlemen, he observed. The druids ended their song abruptly and made a dash at the occupant of the chair. The audience stood up. A victim for our ancient rights, screamed the druids, falling upon the man and dragging him towards the property altar. The victim showed every sign of objection to early English rights, but he was dislodged, and after being dragged and struggling across the table, subsided quickly on the floor. The mob surged about and around him. He was hidden from view. His position, however, could be located by a series of piercing shrieks. The door again opened. Mr. Mondrell, the real chairman of the evening, stood on the threshold. Chair was now the word that arose on every side, and at this signal the druids disappeared at a trot past the long bearded impassive Mr. Mondrell. The victim followed them, but before he did so he picked up his trousers, which were lying on the carpet. All the time this scene had been going on, I fancied I recognized the man in the chair. In a flash I remembered. It was Dawkins who had coached First Trinity, and whom I, as a visitor once at the crew's training dinner, had last seen going through the ancient and honorable process of debagging at the hands of his light-hearted boat. Come on, said Malim. Godfrey Lane's going to sing a patriotic song. They will let him do it. We'll go down to the temple and find John Hatton. We left the barrel at about one o'clock. It was a typical London late autumn night, quiet with a piece of a humming top, warm with the heat generated from mellow asphalt and resinous wood paving. We turned from Bedford Street eastwards along the strand. Between one and two the strand is as empty as it ever is. It is given over to lurchers and policemen. Fleet Street reproduces for this one hour the Sahara. When I knock at the temple gate late at night, said Malim, and am admitted by the night porter, I always feel a pleasantly archaic touch. I agreed with him. The process seemed a quaint and mixture of an Oxford or Cambridge College, gotting in and a feudal keep. And after the gate had been closed behind one, it was difficult to realize that within a few yards of an academic system of lawns and buildings full of living traditions and associations which wane-scutting and winding stairs and gender lay the modern world, its American invaders, its new humor, its women's clubs, its long firms, its musical comedies, its park lane, and its strand with the hub of the universe projecting from the roadway at Charing Cross, plain for Englishmen to gloat over and for foreigners to envy. Sixty-two Harcourt buildings is emblazoned with many names, including that of the Reverend John Hatton. The oak was not sported, and a wrap at the inner door was immediately answered by a shout of, come in. As we opened it, we heard a peculiar whirring sound. Road skates, said Hatton, gracefully circling the table, and then coming to a standstill. I was introduced. I'm very glad to see you both, he said. The two other men I share these rooms with have gone away, so I'm killing time by training for my road-skate tour abroad. It's trying for one's ankles. Could you go downstairs on them, said Malim? Certainly, he replied. I'll do so now, and when we're down, I'll have a little practice in the open. Whereupon he skated to the landing, scrambled down the stairs, sped up Middle Temple Lane, and called the porter to let us out into Fleet Street. He struck me as a man who differed in some respects from the popular conception of a curate. I'll race you to Ludgate Circus and back, said the clergyman. You're too fast, said Malim. It must be a handicap. We might do it level in a cab, said I, for I saw a handsome crawling towards us. Done, said the Reverend John Hatton, done for half a crown. I climbed into the handsome, and Malim, about to follow me, found that a constable to whom the soil of the city had given spontaneous birth was standing at his shoulder. What's the game? inquired the officer with tender solicitude. A fine knight, Perkins, remarked Hatton. A fine morning begging your pardon, sir, said the policeman facetiously. He seemed to be an acquaintance of the skater. Reliability trials continued Hatton. Be good enough to start us, Perkins. Very good, sir, said Perkins. Drive to Ludgate Circus and back and beat the gentleman on the skates, said Malim to our driver, who was taking the race as though he assisted at such events in the course of his daily duty. How I shall say, are you ready? Horf! We shall have Perkins applying to the jockey club for Ernest Willoughby's job, whispered Malim. Are you ready? Horf! Hatton was first off the mark. He raced down the incline to the circus at a tremendous speed. He was just inside as he swung laboriously round and headed for home. But meeting him on our outward journey, we noticed that the upward slope was distressing him. Shall we do it, we asked. Yes, sir, said our driver, and now we too were on the upgrade. We went up the hill at a gallop, were equal with Hatton at Fetter Lane, and reached the Temple Gate yards to the good. The ancient driver of a four-wheeler had been the witness of the finish. He gazed with displeasure upon us. This year's a nice use to put Fleet Street to, I don't think, he said coldly. This sarcastic rebuke rather damped us, and after Hatton had paid Malim his half-crown and had invited me to visit him, we departed. Queer chap, Hatton, said Malim, as we walked up the strand. I was to discover at no distant date that he was distinctly a many-sided man. I have met a good many clergymen in my time, but I have never come across one quite like the Reverend John Hatton. End of Section 11. Section 12 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington, by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2, Chapter 9. Julian Learns My Secret. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. The difficulty in the life of a literary man in London is the question of getting systematic exercise. At school and college I had been accustomed to play games every day, and now I felt the change acutely. It was through this that I first became really intimate with John Hatton, and incidentally with Sydney Price of the Moon Assurance Company. I happened to mention my trouble one night in Hatton's rooms. I had been there frequently since my first visit. None of my waistcoats fit, I remarked. My dear fellow said, Hatton, I'll give you exercise and to spare. That is to say, if you can box. I'm not a champion, and I said, but I'm fond of it. I shouldn't mind taking up boxing again. There's nothing like it for exercise. Quite right, James, he replied, and exercise, as I often tell my boys, is essential. What boys, I asked. My club boys, said Hatton, they belong to the most dingy quarter of the whole of London, South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They are not so interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is a stratum or two above hooliganism, frightful weeds. They lack the robust animalism of the class below them, and they lack the intelligence of the class above them. The fellows at my club are mostly hardworking mechanics and underpaid office boys. They have nothing approaching a sense of humor or the instinct of sport. Not very encouraging, I said. Nor picturesque, said Hatton, and that is why they've been so neglected. There is romance in and out and out hooligan. It interests people to reform him. But to the outsider my boys are dull. I don't find them so. But then I know them. Boxing lessons are just what they want. In fact, I was telling Sidney Price, an insurance clerk who lives in Lambeth and helps me at the club, only yesterday how much I wished we could teach them to use the gloves. I'll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like. I said it ought to keep me informed. I found that it did. I ceased to be aware of my liver. That winter I was able to work to good purpose, and the result was that I arrived. It dawned upon me at last that the precarious idea was played out. One could see too plainly the white sheet in phosphorus. And I was happy. Happier, perhaps, than I had ever hoped to be. Happier in a sense than I could hope to be again. I had congenial work, and what is more, I had congenial friends. What friends they were. Julian, I seem to see him now sprawling in his hammock, sucking his pipe, planting an advertisement or propounding some whimsical theory of life, and in his eyes he bears the pain of one whose love and life were spoiled. Julian, no longer my friend. Kit and Malim, what evenings are suggested by those names? Evenings alone with Malim at his flat in Vernon Place, an unimpeachable dinner, a hand at Piquet, midnight talk with the blue smoke breathing round our heads? Well, Malim and I are unlikely to meet again in Vernon Place, nor shall we foregather at the little house in the Hamsted Road, the house which Kit enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past had not been unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the piano from ear and sing the songs of the street with a charming cockney twang. But there was nothing of the stage about her now. She was born for domesticity, and as the wife of Malim she wished to forget all that had gone before. She even hesitated to give us her wonderful limitations of the customers at the fried fish-shop, because in her heart she did not think such impersonations altogether suitable for a respectable married woman. It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that I shall pay few more visits there. I have mentioned at this point the love of my old friends who made my first years in London a period of happiness, since it was in this month of April that I had a momentous conversation with Julian about Margaret. He had come to Walpole Street to use my typewriter, and seemed amazed to find that I was still living in much the same style as I had always done. Let me see, he said. How long is it since I was here last? You came some time before Christmas. Ah, yes, he said reminiscently. I was doing a lot of travelling just then. And he added thoughtfully, What a curious fellow you are, Jimmy. Here you are, making—he glanced at me—oh, say a thousand a year. Fifteen hundred a year, and you live in precisely the same shoddy surroundings as you did when your manuscripts were responsible for an exercise in waste-paper baskets. I was surprised to hear that you were still in Walpole Street. I supposed that at any rate you had taken the whole house. His eyes raked the little sitting-room from the sham marble mantelpiece to the bamboo cabinet. I surveyed it, too, and suddenly it did seem unnecessarily wretched and depressing. Julian looked at me curiously. There's some mystery here, he said. Don't be an ass, Julian, I replied weakly. It's no good denying it, he retorted. There's some mystery. You're a materialist. You don't live like this from choice. If you were to follow your own inclinations, you'd do things in the best style you could run to. You'd be in German Street. You'd have your man, a cottage in Surrey. You'd entertain, go out a good deal. You'd certainly give up these dingy quarters. My friendship for you deplores a mammoth skeleton in your cupboard, James. My study of advertising tells me that this paltry existence of yours does not adequately push your name before the public. You're losing money. You're— Stop, Julian! I exclaimed. Cherché, he continued. Cherché, stop, confound you. Stop, I tell you. Come! He said, laughing. I mustn't force your confidence, but I can't help feeling it's odd. When I came to London, I said firmly, I was most desperately in love. I was to make a fortune, incidentally my name, Mary, and live happily ever after. There seemed last year nothing complex about that program. It seemed almost too simple. I even, like a fool, thought to add an extra touch of frequency to it by endeavouring to be a Bohemian. I then discovered that what I was attempting was not so simple as I had imagined. To begin with, Bohemians diffuse their brains in every direction except that where bread and butter comes from. I found, too, that unless one earns bread and butter, one has to sprint very fast to the work-house door to prevent one's self-starving before one gets there. So I dropped Bohemia, and I dropped many other pleasant fictions as well. I took to examining pavements, saw how hard they were, had a look at the gutters, and saw how broad they were. I noticed the accumulation of dirt on the house fronts, the actual proportions of industrial buildings. I observed closely the price of food, clothes, and roofs. You became a realist. Yes. I read a good deal of gissing about then, and it scared me. I pitied myself. And after that came pity for the girl I loved. I swore that I would never let her come to my side in the ring where the monster poverty and I were fighting. If you've been there, you've been in hell. And if you come out with your soul alive, you can't tell other people what it felt like. They couldn't understand. Julian nodded. I understand, you know, he said gravely. Yes, you've been there, I said. Well, you've seen that my little turn-up with the monster was short and sharp. It wasn't one of the old-fashioned forty-round most of a lifetime faint for an opening in and out affairs. Our pace was too fast for that. We went at it both hands, fighting all the time. I was going for the knockout in the first round. Not your method, Julian. No, said Julian, it's not my method. I treat the monster rather as a wild animal than as a hooligan. And hearing that wild animals won't do more than sniff at you if you lie perfectly still, I adopted that ruse towards him to save myself the trouble of a conflict. But the effect of lying perfectly still was that I used to fall asleep, and that worked satisfactorily. Julian, I said, I detect a touch of envy in your voice. You try to keep it out, but you can't. Wait a bit, though, I haven't finished. As you know, I had the monster down in less than no time. I said to myself, I've won! I'll write to Margaret and tell her so. Do you know I had actually begun to write the letter when another thought struck me, one that started me sweating and shaking. The monster, I said again to myself, the monster is devilish cunning. That's his only shammy. It looks as if he were beaten. Suppose it's only a faint to get me off my guard. Suppose he just wants me to take my eyes off him so that he may get at me again as soon as I've begun to look for a comfortable chair and a mantelpiece to rest my feet on. I told myself that I wouldn't risk bringing Margaret over. I didn't dare chance her being with me if ever I had to go back into the ring. So I kept jumping and stamping on the monster. The referee had given me the fight and had gone away, and with no one to stop me I kicked the life out of him. No, you didn't, interrupted Julian. Excuse me, I'm sure you didn't. I often wake up and hear him prowling about. Yes, but there's a separate monster set apart for each of us. It's Fate who arranges the program, and by stress of business Fate postpones many contests so late that before they can take place the man has died. Those who die before their fight comes on are called rich men. To return, however, to my own monster I was at last convinced that he was dead a thousand times. How long have you had this conviction, asked Julian? The absolute certainty that my monster has ceased to exist came to me this morning whilst I brushed my hair. Ah, said Julian, and now I suppose you really will write to Miss Margaret. He paused. Goodwin? To Miss Margaret Goodwin, he repeated. Look here, Julian, I said irritably. It's no use, you're repeating every observation I make as though you were Massa Johnson on Marguerite Sands. What's the matter? I was silent for a moment, then I confessed. Julian, I said I can't write to her. You need neither say that I'm a-blaggard nor that you're sorry for us both. At this present moment I have no more affection for Margaret than I have for this chair. When precisely I left off caring for her I don't know. Why, I ever thought I loved her, I don't know either. But ever since I came to London all the love I did have for her has been ebbing away every day. Had you met many people before you met her? asked Julian slowly. No one that counted, not a woman that counted, that's to say. I am shy with women. I can talk to them in a sort of way, but I never seem able to get intimate. Margaret was different. She saved my life and we spent the summer in Guernsey together. And you seriously expected not to fall in love? Julian laughed. My dear Jimmy, you ought to write a psychological novel. Possibly, but in the meantime what am I to do? Julian stood up. She's in love with you, I suppose. Yes. He stood looking at me. Well, can't you speak, I said? He turned away shrugging his shoulders. One's got one's own right and one's own wrong, he grumbled, lighting his pipe. I know what you're thinking, I said. He would not look at me. You're thinking, I went on, what a cat I am not to have written that letter. I sat down, resting my head on my hands. After all, love and liberty, they're both very sweet. I'm thinking, said Julian, watching the smoke from his pipe abstractedly, that you will probably write tonight and I think I know how you're feeling. Julian, I said, must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go, but must it be tonight? Julian hesitated. No, he said, but you've made up your mind, so why put off the inevitable? I can't, I exclaimed. Oh, I really can't. I must have my freedom a little longer. You must give it up some day, it'll be all the harder when you've got to face it. I don't mind that, a little more freedom, just a little, and then I'll tell her to come to me. He smoked in silence. Surely, I said, this little more freedom that I ask is a small thing, compared with the sacrifice I have promised to make. You won't let her know it's a sacrifice. Of course not, she shall think that I love her as I used to. Yes, you ought to do that, he said softly. Poor devil, he added. Am I too selfish, I asked. He got up to go. No, he said, to my mind you're entitled to a breathing space before you give up all that you love best, but there's a risk of what? Of her finding out by some other means than yourself and before your letter comes that the letter should have been written earlier. Do you sign all your stuff with your own name? Yes. Well, then she's bound to see how you're getting on. She'll see your name in the magazines and newspapers and in books. She'll know you don't write for nothing and she'll make calculations. I was staggered. You mean, I said, why, it will occur to her before long that your statement of your income doesn't square with the rest of the evidence, and she'll wonder why you pose as a pauper when you're really raking in the money with both hands. She'll think it over and then she'll see it all. I see, I said, Dully. Well, you've taken my last holiday from me. I'll write to her tonight telling her the truth. I shouldn't necessarily—wait a week or two. You may quite possibly hit on some way out of the difficulty. I'm bound to say, though, I can't see one myself at the moment. Nor can I, I said. End of Section 12 Section 13 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part II. CHAPTER X. TOM BLAKE AGAIN. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. Hatton's Club Boys took kindly to my course of instruction. For a couple of months, indeed, it seemed that another golden age of the noble art was approaching and that the rejuvenation of boxing would occur beginning at Carnation Hall Lambeth. Then the thing collapsed like a punctured tire. At first, of course, they fought a little shy. But when I had them up in line and had shown them what a large proportion of an eight-ounce glove is padding, they grew more at ease. To be asked suddenly to fight three rounds with one of your friends before an audience, also of your friends, is embarrassing. One feels hot and uncomfortable. Hatton's Boys jibbed nervously. As a preliminary measure, therefore, I drilled them in a classic footwork and the left lead. They found the exercise exhilarating. If this was the idea, they seemed to say, let the thing go on. Then I showed them how to be highly scientific with a punch ball. Finally, I sparred lightly with them myself. In the rough they were impossible boxers. After their initial distrust had evaporated under my gentle handling of them, they forgot all I had taught them about position and guards. They bored in, heads down, and arms going like semicircular pistons. Once or twice I had to stop them. They were easily steadied. They hastened to adopt a certain snakiness of attack, instead of the frontal method which had left them so exposed. They began to cultivate a kind of negative style. They were tremendously impressed by the superiority of science over strength. I am not sure that I did not harp rather too much on the scientific note. Perhaps if I had referred to it less, the ultimate disaster would not have been quite so appalling. On the other hand I had not the slightest suspicion that they would so exaggerate my meaning when I was remarking on the worth of science how it tells and how it causes the meagre stripling to play fast and loose with huge brawny ruffians, no cowards mark you and hairy as to their chests. But the weeds at Hatton's Club were fascinated by my homilies on science. The simplicity of the thing appealed to them irresistibly. They caught at the expression, science, and regarded it as the, hey, presto, of a friendly conjurer who could so arrange matters for them that powerful opponents would fall flat involuntarily at the sight of their technically correct attitude. I did not like to destroy their illusions. Had I said to them, look here, science is no practical use to you unless you've got low-bridged, snub noses protruding temples, nostrils like the tubes of a vacuum cleaner, stomach muscles like motor-car wheels, hands like legs of mutton, and biceps like transatlantic cables. Had I said that, they would have voted boxing a fraud and gone away to quarrel over a game of backgammon, which was precisely what I wished to avoid. So I let them go on with their tapping and fainting and sideslipping. To make it worse, they overheard Sydney Price trying to pay me a compliment. Price was the insurance clerk who had attached himself to Hatton and had proved himself to be of real service in many ways. He was an honest man, but he could not box. He came down to the hall one night after I had given four or five lessons to watch the boy spar. Of course, to the uninitiated I, it did seem as though they were neat in their work. The sight was very different from the absurd exhibition which Price had seen on the night I started with them. He might easily have said, if he was determined to compliment me, that they had improved, progressed, or something equally adequate and innocuous. But no, the man must needs be effusive, positively gushing. They came to me in transports. Wonderful! He said, wonderful! What's wonderful? I said, a shade irritably. Their style, he said loudly so that they could all hear, their style is their style that astonishes me. I hustled him away as soon as I could, but the mischief was done. Style ran through Hatton's club boys like an epidemic. Carnation hall fairly buzzed with style, an apology for a blow which landed on your chest with the delicacy of an agog among butterflies was extolled to the skies because it was a stylish blow. When Alf Joblin, a recruit, sent Walter Greenway sprawling with a random swing on the mark, there was a pained shudder. Not only Walter Greenway, but the whole club explained to Alf that the swing was a bad swing, an awful violation of style, practically a crime. By the time they had finished explaining, Alf was dazed, and when invited by Walter to repeat the hit with a view to his being further impressed with its want of style, did so in such half-hearted fashion that Walter had time to step stylishly aside and show Alf how futile it is to be unscientific. To the club this episode was decently buried in an unremembered past. To me, however, it was significant, though I did not imagine it would ever have the tremendous sequel which was brought about by the coming of Thomas Blake. Fate never planned a coup so successfully. The psychology of Blake's arrival was perfect. The boxers of Carnation Hall had worked themselves into a mental condition which I knew was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. Their conceit and their imagination transformed the hall into a kind of improved national sporting club. They went about with an air of subdued but tremendous athleticism. They affected a sort of self-conscious nonchalance. They adopted an odiously patronizing attitude towards the once popular game of Batgammon. I daresay that picture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of blood and iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect of a table full of important military dispatches. While the club boy is to a boy, posed as generals of blood and iron when they condescended to play Batgammon, they did it, but they let you see that they did not regard it as one of the serious things of life. Also knowing that each other's hitting was so scientific as to be harmless, they would sometimes deliberately put their eye in front of their opponents' stylish left in the hope that the blow would raise a bruise, that hardly ever did. But occasionally, oh, then you should have seen the hero with the quiet, smile look on their faces as they lounged ostentatiously about the place. In a word, they were above themselves. They sighed for fresh worlds to conquer, and Thomas Blake supplied the long-felt want. Personally, I did not see his actual arrival. I only saw his handiwork after he had been a visitor a while within the hall. But to avoid unnecessary verbiage, and to avail myself of the privilege of an author, I will set down from the evidence of witnesses the main points of the episode as though I myself had been present at his entrance. He did not strike them, I am informed, as a particularly big man. He was a shade under average height. His shoulders seemed to them not so much broad as humpy. He rolled straight in from the street on a wet Saturday night, at ten minutes to nine, asking for free tea. I should mention that on certain Fridays Hatton gave a free meal to his parishioners on the understanding that it was rigidly connected with a short address. The preceding Friday had been such an occasion. The placards announcing the tea were still clinging to the outer railings of the hall. When I said that Blake asked for free tea, I should have said shouted for free tea. He cast one decisive glance at Hatton's placards and rolled up. He shot into the gate up the steps, down the passage and through the door leading into the big corrugated iron hall which I used for my lessons. And all the time he kept shouting for free tea. In the hall the members of my class were collected. Some were changing their clothes, others already changed for tapping the punch-ball. They knew that I always came punctually at nine o'clock and they liked to be ready for me. Next those present was Sidney Price. Thomas Blake brought up short hiccuping in the midst of them, giving that free tea, he said. Sidney Price, whose moral fortitude has never been impeached, was the first to handle the situation. My good man, he said, I am sorry to say you have made a mistake. A mistake, said Thomas, quickly taking him up. A mistake? Oh, what, oh, my error? Quite so, said Price diplomatically in error. Thomas Blake sat down on the floor, fumbled for a short pipe, and said, Seems to me I am sick of errors, sick of them. Made a bloomer this morning, this way. Here he took into his confidence the group which had gathered and certainly round him. My wife's brother, in what's a postman, owes me our for bloomin' thicken. He's a hard-working bloke, and to save him trouble I came down here from Brentford where my boat lies, to catch him on his rounds. Lots of catchin' he wanted, too, I don't think. Cracked him by the knocks at last, and then what do you think he said? Didn't know nothing but know ready our thicken, and what I kindly cease to impede a public servant in the discharge of his duty. Otherwise, the police, that, mind you, was my own brother-in-law, oh, he's a nice man, I don't think. Thomas Blake nodded his head, as one who, though pained by the hollowness of life, has resigned to it, and proceeded to doze. The crowd gazed at him and murmured. Any price, however, stepped forward with authority. You'd better be going, he said, and he gently jogged the recumbent boatman's elbow. Leave me be, I want my tea," was the muttered and lyrical reply. Hook it, said Price. Without my tea, asked Blake, opening his eyes wide. It was yesterday, explained Price, brusquely, there isn't any free tea tonight. The effect was magical. A very sinister expression came over the face of the prostrate one, and he slowly clambered to his feet. Hull, he said, disengaging himself from his coat. Hull, there ain't no free tea tonight, ain't there? Bill stuck on them railings in error, I suppose. Another bloom in error. Seems to me I'm sick of errors. What I says is, Come on, all of you, I'm Tom Blake I am. You can arse them down at Brentford. Kind old Tom Blake, what wouldn't hurt a fly? And I says, Come on, all of you, and I'll knock your insides through your backbones. Sidney Price spoke again. His words were honeyed but ineffectual. I'm honest old Tom, I am, boomed Thomas Blake, and I'm ready for the lot of your you and your free tea and your errors. At this point Alf Joblin detached himself from the hovering crowd and said to Price, he must be cowed. I'll knock sense into the drunken brute. Well, said Price, he's got to go, but you won't hurt him, Alf, will you? No, said Alf, I won't hurt him, I'll just make him look a fool, this is where science comes in. I'm honest old Tom, droned the boatman. If you will have it, said Alf, with fine aposio pieces, he squared up to him. Now Alf Joblin, like the other pugilists of my class, habitually refrained from delivering any sort of attack until he was well assured that he had seen an orthodox opening. A large part of every round between Hatton's boys was devoted to stealthy circular movements signifying nothing. But Thomas Blake had not had the advantage of scientific tuition. He came banging in with a sweeping right. Alf stopped him with his left. Again Blake swung his right and again he took Alf's stopping blow without a blink. Then he went straight in, right and left in quick succession. The force of the right was broken by Alf's guard, but the left got home on the mark and Alf Joblin's wind left him suddenly. He sat down on the floor. To say that this tragedy in less than five seconds produced dismay among the onlookers would be incorrect. They were not dismayed, they were amused. They thought that Alf had laid himself open to chaff. Whether he had slipped or lost his head they did not know, but as for thinking that Alf with all his scientific knowledge was not more than a match for this ignorant intoxicated boatman such a reflection never entered their heads. What is more each separate member of the audience was convinced that he individually was the proper person to illustrate the efficacy of style versus untutored savagery. As soon therefore as Alf Joblin went writhing to the floor and Thomas Blake's voice was raised afresh in a universal challenge, Walter Greenway stepped briskly forward. And as soon as Walter's guard had been smashed down by a most unconventional attack and Walter himself had been knocked senseless by a swing in the side of the jaw, Bill Shale leaped gaily forth to take his place. And so it happened that when I entered the building at nine it was as though a devastating tornado had swept down every club boy sparing only Sydney Price who was preparing miserably to meet his fate. To me standing in the doorway the situation was plain at the first glance. Only by a big effort could I prevent myself laughing outright. It was impossible to check a grin. Thomas Blake saw me. Hello, I said, what's all this? He stared at me. Hello, he said, another of them is it? I'm honest old Tom Blake. I am. And what I say is, why honest, Mr. Blake, I interrupted. Call me a liar then, said he, go on, you do it. Call at me then, let's see. He began to shuffle towards me. Who pinched his father's trousers and popped them, I inquired genially. He stopped and blinked. Eh! He said weakly. And who, I continued, when sent with two pence to bypostage stamp squandered it on beer. His jaw dropped as it had dropped in Covent Garden. It must be very unpleasant to have one's past continually rising up to confront one. Look here, he said, a conciliatory note in his voice. You and me's pals, Mr. Aint we? Say we're pals. Of course we are. You and me don't want no fuss. Of course we don't. And look here, this is how it is. You come along with me and have a drop. It did not seem likely that my class would require any instruction in boxing that evening, in addition to that which Mr. Blake had given them. So I went with him. Over the moisture, as he facetiously described it, he grew friendliness itself. He did not ask after Kit, but gave his opinion of her gratuitously. According to him she was unkind to her relations, cruel arsh, he said, a girl in fact who made no allowances for a man and was overprone to sauce on the nasty snack. We parted the best of friends. Any time you're on the cut, he said, gripping my hand with painful fervor, you'll look out for Tom Blake, Mr. Tom Blake of the Ash-Layden Electon. No ceremony, just drop it on me in the Mrs. Good night. At the moment of writing, Tom Blake is rapidly acquiring an assured position in the heart of the British poetry-loving public. This incident in his career should interest his numerous admirers. The world knows little of its greatest men. I had been relating on the morning after the Blake affair, the stirring episode of the previous night, to Julian. He agreed with me that it was curious that our potato-thrower of Covent Garden Market should have crossed my path again. But I noticed that, though he listened intently enough, he lay flat on his back in his hammock, not looking at me, but blinking at the ceiling. And when I had finished, he turned his face towards the wall, which was unusual, since I generally lunched on his breakfast, as I was doing then, to the accompaniment of quite a flow of language abuse. I was in particularly high spirits that morning, for I fancied that I had found a way out of my difficulty about Margaret, that subject being uppermost in my mind a guest that wants what Julian's trouble was. I think you'd like to know, Julian," I said, whether I'd written to Guernsey. Well, "'It's all right,' I said. You've told her to come. No, but I'm able to take my respite without wounding her. That's as good as writing, isn't it? We agreed on that. Yes, that was the idea. If you could find a way of keeping her from knowing how well you were getting on with your writing, you were to take it. What's your idea?' I've hit on a very simple way out of the difficulty, I said. It came to me only this morning. All I need to do is to sign my stuff with a pseudonym. You only thought of that this morning? Yes, why? My dear chap, I thought of it as soon as you told me of the fix you were in. You might have suggested it." Julian slid to the floor, drained the almost empty teapot, rescued the last kidney and began his breakfast. I would have suggested it, he said, if the idea had been worth anything. What? What's wrong with it? My dear man, it's too risky. It's not as though you kept to one form of literary work. You're so confoundedly versatile. Let's suppose you did sign your work with a nom de plume. Say George Chandos. All right? George Chandos. Well, how long would it be, do you think, before paragraphs appeared announcing to the public, not only of England, but of the Channel Islands, that George Chandos was really Jimmy Cloyster? What rot! I said. Why the douche should they want to write paragraphs about me? I'm not a celebrity. You're talking through your hat, Julian. Julian lit his pipe. Not at all, he said. Count the number of people who must necessarily be in the secret from the beginning. There are your publishers, Prater and Way. Then there are the editors of the magazine, which publishes your society dialogue, Bilge, and of all the newspapers, other than the orb in which your serious verse appears. My dear Jimmy, the news that you and George Chandos were the same man would go up and down Fleet Street and into the barrel like wildfire, and after that the paragraphs. I saw the truth of his reasoning before he had finished speaking. Once more my spirits fell to the point where they had been before I hit upon what I thought was such a bright scheme. His pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again and spoke through the smoke. The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandos are a single individual. But why should the editors know that? Why shouldn't I simply send in my stuff, typed by post, and never appear myself at all? My dear Jimmy, you know as well as I do that wouldn't work. It would do all right for a bit. Then one morning, dear Mr. Chandos, I should be glad if you could make it convenient to call here sometime between Tuesday and Thursday, yours faithfully, editor of something or other. Sooner or later a man who writes it all regularly for the papers is bound to meet the editors of them. A successful author can't conduct all his business through the post. Of course, if you chucked London and went to live in the country, I couldn't, I said, I simply couldn't do it. London's got into my bones. It does, said Julian. I liked the country, but I couldn't live there. Besides, I don't believe I could write there. Not for long. All my ideas would go. Julian nodded. Just so, he said, then exit George Chandos. My scheme is worthless, you think, then? As you stated, yes. You mean I prompted quickly, clutching at something in his tone which seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirely hopeless. I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you and George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to provide George with separate flesh and blood of his own, there's no reason. But I jove you've hit it. Go on. Listen, here's my rough draft of what I think might be a soundworking system. How many divisions does your work fall into, not counting the orb? I reflected. Well, of course, I do a certain amount of odd work, but lately I've rather narrowed it down and concentrated my output. It seemed to me a better plan than sewing stuff indiscriminately through all the papers in London. Well, how many stunts have you got? There's your serious purse, one, in your society's stuff, two, any more? Novels and short stories? Class them together, three, any more? No, that's all. Very well, then. What you must do is to look about you and pick carefully three men on whom you can rely. Divide your signed stuff between these three men. They will receive your copy, sign it with their own names, and see that it gets to wherever you want to send it. As far as the editorial world is concerned, and as far as the public is concerned, they will become actually the authors of the manuscripts which you have prepared for them to sign. They will forward you the checks when they arrive, and keep accounts to which you will have access. I suppose you will have to pay them a commission on a scale to be fixed by mutual arrangement. As regards your unsigned work, there is nothing to prevent you're doing that yourself—on your way, I mean—whenever there's any holiday work going, general articles and light-bursts—I say, though, half a moment. Why what? I've thought of a difficulty. The editors who have been taking your stuff hitherto may have a respect for the name of James Oralbar Cloyster, which they may not extend to the name of John Smith or George Chandler, sir, whoever it is. I mean, it's quite likely the withdrawal of the name will lead to the rejection of the manuscript. Oh, no, that's all right, I said. It's the stuff they want, not the name. I don't say that names don't matter. They do, but only if they're big names. Kipling might get a story rejected if he sent it in under a false name, which they'd have taken otherwise just because he was Kipling. What they want from me is the goods. I can shove any label on them, I like. The editor will read my ghost stuff, see it's what he wants, and put it in. He may say it's rather like Cloyster's style, but he'll certainly add any how it's what I want. You can scratch that difficulty, Julian, any more? I think not. Of course, there's the objection that you'll lose any celebrity you might have got. No one will say, oh, Mr. Cloyster, I enjoyed your last book so much. And no one will say, oh, do you write, Mr. Cloyster, how interesting? What have you written? You must send me a copy. That's true. In any case, it's celebrity against the respite. Obscurity against Miss Goodwin. While the system is in operation, you will be free but inglorious. You choose freedom. All right, then, pass the matches. End of Section 14. Section 15 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2, Chapter 12. The First Ghost. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. Such was the suggestion Julian made, and I praised its ingenuity, little thinking how bitterly I should come to curse it in the future. I was immediately all anxiety to set the scheme working. Will you be one of my three middlemen, Julian? I asked. He shook his head. Thanks, he said. It's very good of you. But I daren't encroach further on my hours of leisure. Skeffington's Slogan has already become an incubus. I could not move him from this decision. It is not everybody who, in a moment of emergency, can put his hand on three men of his acquaintance capable of carrying through a more or less delicate business for him. Certainly I found a difficulty in making my selection. I ran over the list of my friends in my mind. Then I was compelled to take pencil and paper and settle down seriously to what I now saw would be a task of some difficulty. After half an hour I read through my list and could not help smiling. I had indeed a mixed lot of acquaintances. First came Julian and Malim, the two pillars of my world. I scratched them out. Julian had been asked and had refused, and, as for Malim, I shrank from exposing my absurd compositions to his critical eye. A man who could deal so trenchantly over a pipe and a whiskey and soda with established reputations would hardly take kindly to seeing my work in print under his name. I wished it had been possible to secure him, but I did not disguise it from myself that it was not. The rest of the list was made up of members of the Barrel Club, impossible because of their inherent tendency to break out into personal paragraphs. Writers like Furman and Gresham above me on the literary ladder and consequently unapproachable in a matter of this kind. Certain college friends who had vanished into space as men do on coming down from the varsity leaving no address. John Hatton, Sydney Price, and Tom Blake. There were only three men in that list to whom I felt they could take my suggestion. Hatton was one, Price was another, and Blake was the third. Hatton should have my fiction, Price, my society stuff, Blake, my serious verse. That evening I went off to the temple to sound Hatton on the subject of signing my third book. The wretched sale of my first two had acted as something of a check to my enthusiasm for novel writing. I had paused to take stock of my position. My first two novels had, I found on rereading them, too much of the varsity tone in them to be popular. That is the mistake a man falls into through being at Cambridge or Oxford. He fancies unconsciously that the world is peopled with undergraduates. He forgets that what appeals to an undergraduate public may be Greek to the outside reader and unfortunately not compulsory Greek. The reviewers had dealt kindly with my two books. This pleasant little squib, full of quiet humor, should amuse all who remember their undergraduate days. But the great heart of the public had remained untouched as had the great purse of the public. I had determined to adapt a different style, and now my third book was ready. It was called When It Was Lurid with the subtitle A Tale of God and Allah. There was a piquant admixture of love, religion and eastern scenery which seemed to point to a record number of editions. I took the type script of this book with me to the temple. Hatton was in. I flung When It Was Lurid on the table and sat down. What's this, inquired Hatton, fingering the brown paper parcel? If it's the corpse of a murdered editor, I think it's only fair to let you know that I have a prejudice against having my rooms used as a cemetery. Go and throw him into the river. It's anything but a corpse. It's the most lively bit of writing ever done. There's enough fire in that book to send your tablecloth. You aren't going to read it to me out loud, he said anxiously. No. Have I got to read it when you're gone? Not unless you wish to. Then why, if I may ask, do you carry about a parcel which I should say weighs anything between one and two tons, simply to use it as a temporary table ornament? Is it the sand-ow system? No, I said, it's like this. And suddenly it dawned on me that it was not going to be particularly easy to explain to Hatton just what it was that I wanted him to do. I made the thing clear at last, suppressing, of course, my reasons for the move, when he had grasped my meaning and looked at me rather curiously. Doesn't it strike you, he said, that what you propose is slightly dishonorable? You mean that I have come deliberately to insult you, Hatton? Our conversation seems to be getting difficult, unless you grant that honour is not one immovable intangible landmark fixed for humanity, but that it is a commodity we all carry with us in varying forms. Personally I believe that, as a help to identification, honour impressions would be as useful as fingerprints. Good, you agree with me. Now you may have a different view, but in my opinion, if I were to pose as the writer of your books and gain credit for a literary skill, I laughed, you won't get credit for literary skill out of the sort of books I want you to put your name to. They're pot boilers, you needn't worry about fame, you'll be a martyr, not a hero. You may be right, you wrote the book, but in any case, I should be more of a charlatan than I care about. You won't do it? I said. I'm sorry, it would have been a great convenience to me. On the other hand, continued Hatton, ignoring my remark, there are arguments in favour of such a scheme as you suggest. Stout fellow, I said encouragingly. To examine the matter in its financial, to suppose for a moment briefly, what do I get out of it? Ten percent. He looked thoughtful. The end shall justify the means, he said. The money you pay me can do something to help the awful, the continual poverty of Lambeth. Yes, James Cloyster, I will sign whatever you send to me. Good for you, I said. And I shall come better out of the transaction than you. No one would credit the way that Anne, a clergyman too, haggled over terms. He ended by squeezing fifteen percent out of me. Section 16 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Chapter 13. The Second Ghost. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. The reasons which had led me to select Sidney Price as the sponsor of my society dialogues will be immediately apparent to those who have read them. They were just the sort of things you would expect an insurance clerk to write. The humour was thin, the sad tire as cheap as the papers in which they appeared, and the vulgarity in exactly the right quantity for a public that ate it by the pound and asked for more. Everything pointed to Sidney Price as the man. It was my intention to allow each of my three ghosts to imagine that he was alone in the business, so I did not get Price's address from Henton, who might have wondered why I wanted it and had suspicions. I applied to the doorkeeper at Carnation Hall, and on the following evening I rang the front doorbell of the Hollyhawks Belmont Park Road, Brixton. Whilst I was waiting on the step I was able to get a view through the slats of the Venetian blind of the front ground floor sitting-room. I could scarcely restrain a cry of pure aesthetic delight at what I saw within. Price was sitting on a horse-hair sofa with an arm round the waist of a rather good-looking girl. Her eyes were fixed on his. It was Edwin and Angelina in real life. Up till then I had suffered much discomfort from the illustrated record of their adventures in the comic papers. Is there really, I had often asked myself, a body of men so gifted that they can construct the impossible details of the lives of non-existent types purely from imagination. If such creative geniuses theirs is unrecognized and ignored, what hope of recognition is there for one's own work? The thought had frequently saddened me, but here at last they were, Edwin and Angelina in the flesh. I took the glant Sydney for a fifteen-minute stroll up and down the length of the Belmont Park Road. Poor Angelina. He came as he expressed it like a bird. Give him a sec to slip on a pair of boots, he said, and he would be with me in two ticks. He was so busy getting his hat and stick from the stand in the passage that he quite forgot to tell the lady that he was going out. And as we left I saw her with the tail of my eyes sitting stolidly on the sofa, still wearing patiently the expression of her comic paper portraits. The task of explaining was easier than it had been with Hatton. Sorry to drag you out, Price, I said, as we went down the steps. Don't mention it, Mr. Cloyster, he said, nor I won't mind a bit of a sit by herself. Looked in to have a chat, or is there anything I can do? It's like this, I said. You know I write a good deal. Yes. Well it has occurred to me that if I go on turning out quantities of stuff under my own name there's a danger of the public getting tired of me. He nodded. Now I'm with you there, mind you, he said. Can't have too much of a good thing, some chap say. I say, yes you can. Stands to reason a chap can't go on writing and writing without making a bloomer every now and then. What he wants is to take his time over it. Look at all the real swells. Herbert Spencer, Marie Corelli, and what not. You don't find them pushing it out every day of the year. They wait a bit and have a look round, and then they start again when they're ready. Stands to reason that's the only way. Quite right, I said, but the difficulty, if you live by writing, is that you must turn out a good deal or you don't make enough to live on. I've got to go on getting stuff published, but I don't want people to be always seeing my name about. You mean adopt a nom de plume? That's the sort of idea, but I'm going to vary it a little. And I explained my plan. But why me, he asked when he had understood the scheme. What made you think of me? The fact is, my dear fellow, I said, this writing is a game where personality counts to an enormous extent. The man who signs my society dialogues will probably come into personal contact with the editors of the papers in which they appear. He will be asked to call at their offices. So you see, I must have a man who looks as if he had written the stuff. I see, he said complacently, dressy sort of chap, chap who looks as if he knew a thing or two. Yes, I couldn't get Alf Joblin, for instance. We laughed together at the notion. Poor old Alf, said Sidney Price. Now, you probably know a good deal about society. Rather, said Sidney, there are a hot lot. My word saw the walls of Jericho three times. Gives it them pretty straight, that does. Visits of Elizabeth, too. Chase me. Used to think some of us chaps in the moon were a bit O.T., but we aren't in it. Not in the same street. Chaps, I mean, who'd call a girl behind the bar by her Christian name as soon as look at you. One chap I knew used to give the girl at the cash desk of the Mecca he went to, bottles of scent. Bottles of it, regular. Here you are, Toddy, he used to say. Here's another little donation from yours truly. Kissed her once, slap in front of everybody, saw him do it, but bless you they'd think nothing of that in the smart set. Ever read God's Good Man? There's a book. My stars, let's you see what goes on. Scorchers they are. That's just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then? He said I could. He was an intelligent young man, and he gave me to understand that all would be well. He would carry the job through on the strict QT. He closed willingly with my offer of ten percent, thus affording a striking contrast to the grasping hadn't. He assured me he had found literary chaps not half bad, had occasionally had an idea of writing a bit himself. We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placing my dialogues of Mayfair and my London and country house tales in really competent and appreciative hands. End of Section 16. Section 17 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. The Slipper Box recording is in the public domain, recorded by Debra Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part 2, Chapter 14, The Third Ghost. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. There only remained now my serious verse of which I turned out an enormous quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notably the St. Stephen's Gazette. Already I was beginning to oust from their positions on that excellent journal the Old Crusted Poetesses who had supplied it from its foundation with verse. The prices they paid on the St. Stephen's were an excellent taste. In the musical world, too, I was making way rapidly. Lyrics of the tea and muffin types streamed from my pen. Blake whilst I sing, love, had brought me in an astonishing amount of money in spite of the music pirates. It was on the barrel organs. Adults hummed it. Infants crooned it in their cots. Comic-minute music halls opened their turns by remarking soothingly to the conductor of the orchestra, I'm going to sing now so you go to sleep, love. In a word, while the boom lasted, it was a little gold mine to meet. Thomas Blake was as obviously the man for me here as Sidney Price had been in the case of my society dialogues. The public would find something infinitely pequant in the thought that its most sentimental ditties were given to it by the horny-handed stirrer of a canal barge. He would be greeted as the modern burns. People would ask him how he thought of his poems and he would say, oh, er, and they would hail him as delightfully original. In the case of Thomas Blake I saw my earnings going up with a bound. His personality would be a noble advertisement. He was aboard the ash-laid, or lectin, on the cut, so I was informed by Kitt, which information was not luminous to me. Further inquiries, however, led me to the bridge at Brentford, when it starts that almost unknown system of inland navigation which extends to Manchester and Birmingham. Here I accosted at a venture a ruminative barge. Tom Blake, he repeated reflectively, oh, he's been off this three hours on a trip to Bronston, he'll tie up tonight at the shovel. Where's the shovel? Past Cowley the shovel is. This was spoken in an attired draw, which was evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clench things he slouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner to the tow-path. I took the hint. It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. Judging by the pace of the barges I had seen, I should catch Blake easily before nightfall. I set out briskly. An hour's walking brought me to Hanwell, and I was glad to see a regular chain of locks which must have considerably delayed the Ashlade and Lecton. The afternoon wore on. I went steadily forward, making inquiries as to Thomas's whereabouts from the boats which met me, and always hearing that he was still ahead. Foot sore and hungry I overtook him at Cowley. The two boats were in the lock. Thomas and a lady, presumably his wife, were ashore. On the Ashlade's raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-looking boys were respectively at the Ashlade's and Lecton's tillers. The lady was attending to the horse. The water in the lock rose gradually to a higher level. Hold them tillers straight, yelled Thomas, at which point I saluted him. He was a little blank at first, but when I reminded him of our last meeting his face lit up at once. While you're the Mr. What— Nappy came in a shrill scream from the lady with the horse. Nappy! Yes, Ada, answered the boy on the Ashlade. Liz ain't tied to the can. Do you want her to be drowned in? Didn't I tell you to be sure and tie her up tight? So I did, Ada. She's untied herself again. Yes, she has. Hasn't she, Albert? This appeal for corroboration was directed to the other small boy on the Lecton. It failed signally. No, you did not tie Liz to the chimney. You know you never, Nappy. Wait till we get out of this lock, said Nappy earnestly. The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers violently against the southern sluice-gate. If them boys, said Tom, in an overwrought voice, let's them tillers go round, it's all up with my pair of boats. Let me do it, you. The rest of the sentence was mercifully lost in the thump with which Thomas' feet bounded on the Ashlade's cavern top. He made Liz fast to the circular foot of iron chimney projecting from the boards. Then, jumping back to the land, he said, more in sorrow than in anger, lazy little brats, and they've had their tea, too. Clear of the locks, I walked with Thomas and his ancient horse trying to explain what I wanted done. But it was not until we had tied up for the night, had had beer at the shovel, and, Nappy and Albert being safely asleep in the second cabin, had met at supper that my instructions had been fully grasped. Thomas himself was inclined to be diffident, and had it not been for eight, I would, I think, have let my offer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me of the cottage they had at Fenney Stratford, which they used as headquarters whilst waiting for a cargo. That can be used as a permanent address, I said. All you have to do is to write your name at the end of each typewritten sheet and close it in the stamped envelope which I will send you, and send it by post. When the checks come, sign them on the back and forward them to me. For every ten pounds you forward me, I'll give you one for yourself. In any difficulty, simply write to me, here's my own address, and I'll see you through it. We can't go to prison for it, can we, mister? Act eight of suddenly after a pause. No, I said there's nothing dishonest in what I propose. Oh, she didn't so much mean that, said Thomas thoughtfully. They gave me a shake down for the night in the cargo. Just before turning in, I said casually, if anyone except me cashed the checks by mistake he'd go to prison quick. Yes, mister, came back, Thomas' voice, again, a shade thoughtfully modulated. End of section 17. Section 18 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. His LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part two, Chapter 15, Eva Eversley. James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued. With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication of assured freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked on air. This was my state of mind when I determined to pay a visit to the Gutton Creswells. I had known them in my college days, but since I had been engaged in literature I had seduously avoided them, because I remembered that Margaret had once told me they were her friends. But now there was no need for me to fear them on that account, and thinking that the solid comfort of their house in Kensington would be far from disagreeable, thither one afternoon in spring I made my way. It is wonderful how friendly convention is to art when our art does not appear to want to borrow money. Number five, Kensington Lane W., is the stronghold of British respectability. It is more respectable than the most respectable suburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is that of a mother to a daughter who has gone on the stage and made a success. Kensington Lane is almost tolerant of Mayfair, but not quite. It admits the success but shakes its head. Mrs. Gutton Creswell took an early opportunity of drawing me aside and began gently to pump me. After I had responded with sufficient docility to her leads she reiterated her delight at seeing me again. I had concluded my replies with the words, I am a struggling journalist, Mrs. Creswell. I accompanied the phrase with a half-smile which she took to mean as I intended she should that I was amusing myself by dabbling in literature backed by a small but adequate private income. Oh, come, James, she said, smiling approvingly. You know you will make a quite too dreadfully clever success. How dare you try to deceive me like that? A struggling journalist indeed. But I knew she liked that struggling journalist immensely. She would couple me and my own epithet together before her friends. She would enjoy unconsciously an imperceptible but exquisite sensation of patronage by having me at her house. Even if she discussed me with Margaret I was safe, for Margaret would give an altogether different interpretation of the smile with which I described myself as struggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued by her as brave, for it must not be forgotten that as suddenly as my name had achieved a little publicity just so suddenly had it utterly disappeared. Towards the end of May it happened that Julia dropped into my rooms about three o'clock and found me gazing critically at a top hat. I've seen you, he remarked rather often in that get-up lately. It is perhaps losing its first gloss, I answered, inspecting my hat closely. I cared not a bit for Julian's sneers, for the smell of the flesh-pots of Kensington had laid hold of my soul, and I was resolved to make the most of the respite which my system gave me. What salon is to have the honor today, he asked, spreading himself on my sofa. I'm going to the Gunt and Creswells, I replied. Julian slowly sat up. Ah, he said conversationally. I've been asked to meet their niece, Miss Eversly, whom they've invited to stop with them. Funny, by the way, that her name should be the same as yours. Not particularly, said Julian shortly. She's my cousin, my cousin Eva. This was startling. There was a pause. Presently, Julian said, do you know, Jimmy, that if I were not the philosopher I am, I'd curse this awful indolence of mine? I saw it in a flash, and went up to him, holding out my hand in sympathy. Thanks, he said, gripping it, but don't speak of it. I couldn't endure that, even from you, James. It's too hard for talking. If it was only myself whose life I'd spoiled, if it was only myself, he broke off, and then hers, too. She's true as steel. I had heard no more bitter cry than that. I began to busy myself amongst some manuscripts to give Julian time to compose himself, and so an hour passed. At a quarter past four I got up to go out. Julian lay recumbent. It seemed terrible to leave him brooding alone over his misery. A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep. Meanwhile Eva Eversly and I became firm friends. Of her nature I need simply say that it was the most beautiful that nature ever created. Pressed as to details, I should add that she was petite, dark, head-brown hair, very big blue eyes, a ray truce nose, and a rather wide mouth. Julian had said she was true as steel, therefore I felt no diffidence in maneuvering myself into her society on every conceivable occasion. Sometimes she spoke to me of Julian, whom I admitted I knew, and with feminine courage she hid her hopeless, all-devouring affection for her cousin under the cloak of ingenuous levity. She laughed nearly every time his name was mentioned. About this time the Gutton Creswells gave a dance. I looked forward to it with almost painful pleasure. I had not been to a dance since my last May week at Cambridge. Also number five Kensington Lane had completely usurped the position I had previously assigned to Paradise. To waltz with Julian's cousin, that was the ambition which now dwarfed my former hankering for the fame of authorship or a habitation in Bohemia. Mrs. Goodwin once said that happiness consists in anticipating an impossible future. Be that as it may, I certainly thought my sensations were pleasant enough when at length my handsome pulled up jerkily beside the red carpeted steps of number five Kensington Lane. As I paid the fare, I could hear the murmur from within of a waltz tune, and I kept repeating to myself that Eva had promised me the privilege of taking her into supper and had given me the last two waltzes and the first two extras. I went to pay my duroirs to my hostess. She was supinelly gamesome. Ah, she said, showing her excellent teeth, genius attendant at the revels of Terpsicor. Where beauty, Mrs. Gutton Creswell, I responded, cutting it as though mutton thick, teaches in the humblest visitor the reigning muse's art. You may have this one if you like, said Mrs. Gutton Creswell simply. Supper came at last, and with supper Eva. I must now write it down that she was not a type of English beauty. She was not, I mean, queenly and passive, never anything but her cool, calm self. Tonight, for instance, her eyes were as I had never seen them. I danced in them the merriest glitter, which was more than a mere glorification of the ordinary merry glitter, which scores of girls possess at every ball. To begin with, there was a diabolical abandon in Eva's glitter, which raised it instantly above the common herds. And behind it all was that very misty mist. I don't know whether all men have seen that mist, but I am sure that no man has seen it more than once, and from what I have seen of the average man, I doubt if most of them have ever seen it at all. Well, there it was for me to see in Eva Eversley's eyes that night at supper. It made me think of things unspeakable. I felt a rush of classic aestheticism. Arcadia, Helen of Troy, the happy valleys of the early Greeks. Supper. I believe I gave her oyster pâtés, but I was far away. Deep, deep, deep in Eva's eyes I saw a craft sighting beneath the cloudless azure sky the dark blue simplicates, heard in my ears the jargon, loud and near me of the sailors, and faintly, or the distance of the dead calm sea, rose intermittently the sound of brine foam at the clashing rocks. As we sat there, tater-tater, she smiled across the table at me with such perfect friendliness it seemed as though a magic barrier separated our two selves from all the chattering rustling crowd around us. When she spoke a little quiver of feeling blended adorably with the low sweet tones of her voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, but with just that charming hint of intimacy which men friends have who may have known one another from birth, and may know one another for a lifetime, but never become boars, never change, only when it comes between a woman and a man it is incomparably finer. It is the talk, of course, of lovers who have not realized there in love. The two last waltzes, I murmured when parting with her, she nodded, I roamed the gutten Creswell's rooms awaiting them. She danced those two last waltzes with strangers. The thing was utterly beyond me at the time, looking back, I am still amazed to what lengths deliberate coquetry can go. She actually took pains to elude me and gave those waltzes to strangers. From being comfortably rocked in the dark blue waters of a Grecian sea, I was suddenly transported to the realities of the ballroom. My theoretical love for Eva was now a substantial truth. I was in an agony of desire, in a frenzy of jealousy. I wanted to hurl the two strangers to opposite corners of the ballroom, but civilization forbade it. I was now in an altogether indescribable state of nerves and suspense. Had she definitely and for some unfathomable reason decided to cut me? The first extra drew languorously to a close, couples swept from the room to the grounds, the gallery, or the conservatory. I tried to steady my whirling head with a cigarette and a whiskey and soda in the smoking room. The orchestra, like a train starting tentatively on a long run, launched itself mildly into the preliminary bars of Tupasse. I sought the ballroom blinded by my feelings, pulling myself together with an effort I saw her standing alone. It struck me for the first time that she was clothed in cream. Her skin gleamed, shining white. She stood erect, her arms by her sides. Behind her was a huge black velvet portiere of many folds, supported by two dull brazen columns. As I advanced towards her, two or three men bowed and spoke to her. She smiled and dismissed them, and still, smiling pleasantly, her glance traversed the crowd and rested upon me. I was drawing now quite near. Her eyes met mine, nor did she avert them, and stooping a little to address her, I heard her sigh. You're tired, I said, for getting my two last dances, for getting everything but that I loved her. Perhaps I am, she said, taking my arm. We turned in silence to the portiere and found ourselves in the hall. The doors were opened. Some servants were there. At the bottom of the steps I chanced to see a yellow light. Find out if that cab's engaged, I said to a footman. The cool air, I said to Eva. The cab is not engaged, sir, said the footman, returning. Yes, said Eva, in answer to my glance. Drive to the corner of Sloan Street by way of the park, I told the driver. I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her. Could it help remembrance now that we two sped alone through empty streets her warm palpitating body touching mine? Julian, his friendship for me, his love for Eva, Margaret and her love for me, my own honor, these things were blotted from my brain. Eva, I murmured, and I took her hand. Eva. Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew. My darling, she whispered very low. And the road being deserted I drew her face to mine and kissed her. End of Section 18. Section 19 of Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P. G. Woodhouse. Part II, Chapter 16. I tell Julian. James Oravar Cloyster's narrative continued. Is any man really honorable, I wonder? Hundreds, thousands go triumphantly through life with that reputation. But how far is this due to absence of temptation? Life, which is like cricket in so many ways, resembles the game in this also. A batsman makes a century, and having made it as bold by a ball which he is utterly unable to play. What if that ball had come at the beginning of his innings instead of at the end of it? Men go through life without a stain on their honor. I wonder if it simply means that they had the luck not to have the good ball-bold to them early in their innings. To take my own case, I had always considered myself a man of honor. I had a code that was rigid compared with that of a large number of men. In theory I should never have swerved from it. I was fully prepared to carry out my promise and marry Margaret at the expense of my happiness until I met Eva. I would have done anything to avoid injuring Julie and my friend until I met Eva. Eva was my temptation and I fell. Nothing in the world mattered so that she was mine. I ought to have had a revulsion of feeling as I walked back to my rooms in Walpole Street. The dance was over, the music had ceased, the dawn was chill, and at a point midway between Kensington Lane and the Brompton Oratory I had proposed to Eversley's cousin his Eva, true as steel, and had been accepted. Yet I had no remorse. I did not even try to justify my behavior to Julian or to Margaret or for she must suffer too to Mrs. Gunt and Creswell, who I knew well was socially ambitious for her niece. To all these things I was indifferent. I repeated softly to myself, we love each other. From this state of coma, however, I was aroused by the appearance of my window blind. I saw, in fact, that my room was illuminated. Remembering that I had been careful to put out my lamp before I left, I feared as I opened the hall door a troublesome encounter with a mad housebreaker, mad for no room such as mine could attract a burglar who has even the slightest pretensions to sanity. It was not a burglar, it was Julian Eversley and he was lying asleep on my sofa. There was nothing peculiar in this. I roused him. Julian, I said. I'm glad you're back, he said, sitting up. I have some news for you. So have I, said I, for I had resolved to tell him what I had done. Hear mine first, it's urgent. Miss Margaret Goodwin has been here. My heart seemed to leap. Today, I cried. Yes, I had called to see you and was waiting a little while on the chance of your coming in when I happened to look out of the window. A girl was coming down the street looking at the numbers of the houses. She stopped here. Intuition told me she was Miss Goodwin. While she was ringing the bell, I did all I could to increase the shabby squalor of your room. She was shown in here, and I introduced myself as your friend. We chatted. I drew an agonizing picture of your struggle for existence. You were brave, talented, and unsuccessful. Though you went often hungry, you had a plucky smile upon your lips. It was a meritorious bit of work. Miss Goodwin cried a good deal. She is charming. I was so sorry for her that I laid it on all the thicker. Where is she now? Nearing Guernsey, she's gone. Gone, I said, without seeing me? I don't understand. You don't understand how she loves you, James. But she's gone, gone without a word. She is gone because she loved you so. She had intended to stay with the Gunton Creswells. She knows them, it seems. They didn't know she was coming. She didn't know herself until this morning. She happened to be walking on the quay at St. Peter's Port. The outward-bound boat was on the point of starting for England. A wave of affection swept over, Miss Goodwin. She felt she must see you. Scribbling a note, which she dispatched to her mother, she went aboard. She came straight here. Then, when I had finished with her, when I had lied consistently about you for an hour, she told me she must return. I must not see James, she said. You have torn my heart. I should break down. And she said, speaking, I think, half to herself, your courage is so noble, so different from mine. And I must not impose a needless strain upon it. You shall not see me weep for you. And then she went away. Julian's voice broke. He was genuinely affected by his own recital. For my part I saw that I had bludgeon work to do. It is childish to grumble that the part fate forces one to play. Sympathetic or otherwise, one can only enact one's role to the utmost of one's ability. Mine was now essentially unsympathetic, but I was determined that it should be adequately played. I went to the fireplace and poked the fire into a blaze. Then, throwing my hat on the table and lighting a cigarette, I regarded Julian cynically. You're a nice sort of person, aren't you? I said. What do you mean? Asked Julian startled, as I had meant that he should be. By the question, I laughed. Aren't you just a little transparent, my dear Julian? He stared blankly. I took up a position in front of the fire. Disloyalty, I said tolerantly, where a woman is concerned, is in the eyes of some people almost a negative virtue. I don't know what on earth you're talking about. Don't you? I was sorry for him all the time. In a curiously impersonal way, I could realize the depths to which I was sinking in putting this insult upon him. But my better feelings were gagged and bound that night. The one thought uppermost in my mind was that I must tell Julian of Eva and that, by his story of Margaret, he had given me an opening for making my confession with a minimum of discomfort to myself. It was pitiful to see the first shaft of my insinuation slowly sink into him. I could see by the look in his eyes that he had grasped my meaning. Jimmy, he gasped. You can't think. Are you joking? I am not surprised that you're asking that question. I replied pleasantly, you know how tolerant I am. But I'm not joking. Not that I blame you, my dear fellow. Margaret is or used to be a very good looking. You seem to be an earnest, he said in a dazed way. My dear fellow, I said, I have a certain amount of intuition. You spend an hour here alone with Margaret. She is young and very pretty. You are placed immediately on terms of intimacy by the fact that you have, in myself, a subject of mutual interest. That breaks the ice. You are at cross purposes, but your main sympathies are identical. Also, you have a strong objective sympathy for Margaret. I think we may presuppose that this second sympathy is stronger than the first. It pivots on a woman, not on a man. And on a woman who is present, not on a man who is absent. You see my meaning? At any rate, the solid fact remains that she stayed an hour with you, whom she had met for the first time today, and did not feel equal to meeting me, whom she has loved for two years. If you want me to explain myself further, I have no objection to doing so. I mean that you made love to her. I watched him narrowly to see how he would take it. The day's expression deepened on his face. You are apparently sane, he said, very weirdly. You seem to be sober. I am both, I said. There was a pause. It's no use for me, he began, evidently collecting his thoughts with a strong effort, to say your charge is preposterous. I don't suppose mere denial would convince you. I can only say instead that the charge is too wild to be replied to except in one way, which is this. Employ for a moment your own standard of right and wrong. I know your love story and you know mine. Miss Eversly, my cousin, is to me what Miss Goodwin is to you. True is steel. My loyalty and my friendship for you are the same as your loyalty and your friendship for me. Well, well, if I have spent an hour with Miss Goodwin, you have spent more than an hour with my cousin. What right have you to suspect me more than I have to suspect you, judged me by your own standard? I do, I said, and I find myself still suspecting you. He stared. I don't understand you. Perhaps you will when you have heard the piece of news which I mentioned earlier in our conversation that I had for you. Well, I proposed to your cousin at the Gunt and Creswell's dance tonight, and she accepted me. The news had a surprising effect on Julian. First he blinked, then he craned his head forward in the manner of a deaf man listening with difficulty. Then he left the room without a word. He had not been gone two minutes when there were three short, sharp taps at my window. Julian returned, impossible. Yet who else could have called on me at that hour? I went to the front door and opened it. On the steps stood the Reverend John Hatton beside him, Sidney Price, and lurking in the background, Tom Blake of the Ashladen Lecton. End of James Orle Barcloister's narrative. End of section 19. Section 20 of Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. Part 2, chapter 17, A Ghostly Gathering, Sidney Price's narrative. Nora Perkins is a peach, and I don't care who knows it. But all the same, there's no need to tell her every little detail of a man's past life. Not that I've been a don, what's his name? Far from it. Costs a bit too much, that game. You simply can't do it on 60 quid a year, paid monthly, and that's all there is about it. Not but what I don't often think of going in a bit when things are slack at the office and my pal and the new business department is out for lunch. It's the loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once when Tommy Milner hasn't been there to talk to, I tell you I have half a mind to take out some girl or other to tea at the cabin. A half, straight. Yet somehow when the assist cash comes round with the wicker tray on the first and gives you the envelope, Mr. Price, and you take out the five sovereigns, well somehow there's such a lot of other things which you don't want to buy but have just got to. Tommy Milner said the other day, and I quite agree with him, when I took my clean handkerchief out last fortnight, he said I couldn't help totting up what a lot I spend on trifles. That's it, there you've got it in a nutshell. Washing, bootlaces, bus tickets, trifles, in fact. That's where the coin goes. Only the other morning I bust my braces. I was late already and pinning them together all but lost me the 916, only it was a bit behind time. It struck me then as I ran to the station that the average person would never count braces and expense, trifles, that's what it is. No, I may have smoked a cig too much and been so chippy next day that I had to go out and get a cup of tea at the ABC, or I may now and again have gone up west of an evening for a bit of a look-ground, but beyond that I've never been really what you'd call vicious. Very likely it's been my friendship for Mr. Hatten that's curbed me breaking out as I've sometimes imagined myself doing when I've been alone in the new business room. Though I must say in common honesty to myself that there's always been the fear of getting the sack from the moon. The moon isn't like some other insurance companies I could mention which will take anyone. Your refs must be A1 or you don't stand unearthly, simply not unearthly. Besides, the moon isn't an insurance company at all, it's an assurance company. Of course, now I've chucked the moon, shot the moon as Tommy Milner who's the office comic put it, and taken to literature, I could do pretty well what I liked if it weren't for Nora. Which brings me back to what I was saying just now that I'm not sure whether I shall tell her the past. I may and I may not. I'll have to think it over. Anyway, I'm going to write it down first and see how it looks. If it's all right, it can go into my autobiography. If it isn't, then I shall lie low about it. That's the position. It all started from my friendship with Mr. Hatten, the rev, Mr. Hatten. If it hadn't been for that man, I should still be working out rates of percentage for the moon and listening to Tommy Milner's so-called witticisms. Of course, I've cut him now. A literary man, a man who supplies the strawberry leaf with two columns of social interludes, at a salary I'm not going to mention in case Nora gets to hear of it and wants to lash out. A man whose society novels are competed for by every publisher in London and New York. Well, can a man in that position be expected to keep up with an impudent little ledger lager like Tommy Milner? It can't be done. I first met the Reverend on the top of Box Hill one Saturday afternoon. Bike had punctured and the Reverend gave me the loan of his cyclists' repairing outfit. We had our tea together, watercress, bread and butter, and two sorts of jam, one bob per head. He issued an invite to his diggings in the temple, cocoa and sigs of an evening. Regular pally him and me was. Then he got into the way of taking me down to a boys' club that he had started. Terrorists, they were, so to put it. Fair out and out terrors. But they all thought a lot of the Reverend and so did I. Consequently, it was all right. The next link in the chain was a chap called Cloyster, James Orlebar Cloyster. The Reverend brought him down to teach boxing. For my own part, I don't fancy anything in the way of brutality. The club, so I thought, had got on very nicely with more intellectual pursuits. Drafts, chess, bagatelle and whatnot. But the Rev wanted boxing and boxing it had to be. Not that it would have done for him or me to have mixed ourselves up in it. He had his congregation to consider, and I am often on duty at the downstairs counter before the very heart of the public. A black eye or a missing tooth wouldn't have done it all for either of us, being, as we were in a sense, officials. But Cloyster never seemed to realize this. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Cloyster was not my idea of a gentleman. He had no tact. The next link was a confirmed dipsomaniac, a terrible phrase, unavoidable though. A very evil man is Tom Blake, yet out of evil cometh good, and it was Tom Blake who indirectly stopped the boxing lessons. The club boys never wore the gloves after Drunken Blake's visit. I shall never, no positively, never forget that night in June when matters came to a head in Shaftesbury Avenue. Oh, I say it was a bit hot, very warm. Each successive phase is limbed indelibly. That's the sort of literary style I've got, if wanted, on the tablets of my memory. I'd been up West, and who should I run across at Oxford Street, but my old friend Charlie Cookson. Very good company is Charlie Cookson. See him at a shilling hop at the Holburn. He's pretty much all there all the time. Well-known follower, of course, purely as an amateur, of the late Dan Lennell, King of Comedians, good penetrating voice, writes his own in-between bits, you know what I mean, the funny observations on mothers-in-law, motors and marriage, marked spoken in the song books. Fellows often tell him he'd make a mint of money in the halls, and there's a rumor flying round among us who knew him in the moon that he was seen coming out of a Bedford Street variety agency the other day. Well, I met Charlie at something after 10. Directly he spotted me, he was at his antics, standing stock still on the pavement in a crouching attitude, and grasping his umbrella like a tomahawk. His humor is always high class, but he's a sort of fellow who doesn't care a blow what he does. Chronic in that respect, absolutely. The passersby couldn't think what he was up to. Whoop, whoop, whoop, that's what he said. He did, straight, only yelled it. I thought it was going a bit too far in a public place, so to show him, I just said, good evening, Cookson, how are you this evening? With all his entertaining ways, he's sometimes slow at taking a hint, no tact, if you see what I mean. In this case, for instance, he answered at the top of his voice, baligalia, and pretended to scout me with his umbrella. I immediately ducked, and somehow knocked my boulder against his elbow. He caught it as it was falling off my head. Then he said, India unbraved, give a little pale-faced chief his hat. This was really too much, and I felt relieved when a policeman told us to move on. Charlie said, come and have two penrithes, something. Well, we stayed chatting over our drinks. In fact, I was well into my second lemon and dash at the Stockwood Hotel until nearly 11. At five, two, Charlie said goodbye, because he was living in, and I walked out into the chairing crossroad, meaning to turn down Shaftsbury Avenue, so as to get a breath of fresh air. Outside the Oxford, there was a bit of a crowd. I asked a man standing outside a tobacconist what the trouble was. Says he won't go away without kissing the girl that sang Empire Boys, was the reply, been shifting it, he has, not Arf. Sure enough, from the midst of the crowd came, you are the boys of the Empire, steady and brave and true, you are the ones she calls her sons, and I love you. I had gone out of curiosity to the outskirts of the crowd, and before I knew what had happened, I found myself close to the center of it. A large man in dirty corduroy stood with his back to me. His shape seemed strangely familiar, still singing and swaying to horrible angles all over the shop, he slowly pivoted round. In a moment, I recognized the bleary features of Tom Blake. At the same time, he recognized me. He stretched out a long arm and seized me by the shoulder. Oh, he sobbed, I thought I had no friend in the wide world except her, but now I've got you, it's all right. Yes, yes, it's all right. A murmur, almost a cheer it was, circulated among the crowd, but a policeman stepped up to me. Now then, said the policeman, what's all this about? You are the ones she calls her sons, shouted Blake. Oh, that's your little game, is it? Said the policeman, move on to your here, pop off. I will, said Blake. I'll never do it again. I promise faithful, never to do it again. I found a friend. Do you know this Covey, asked the policeman. Didn't I hate if you dare, said Blake, just you deny it. That's oral, and I'll tell the person. Slightly constable, I said. I mean, I've seen him before. Then you'd better take him off if you don't want him locked up. Him want me locked up? We're bosom friends, ain't we all dear, said Blake, linking his arm in mine and dragging me away with him. Behind us, the policeman was shunting the spectators. Oh, it was excessively displeasing to any man of culture, I can assure you. How we got along Shapsbury, I don't know. It's a subject that I do not care to think about. By leaning heavily on my shoulder and using me, so to speak, as ballast, drunk and Blake just managed to make progress. I cannot say unastentiously, but at any rate, not so noticeably as to be taken into custody. I didn't know, mind you, where we were going to, and I didn't know when we were going to stop. In this frightful manner of progression, we had actually gained sight of Piccadilly Circus when all of a sudden a voice hissed in my ear. Sidney Price, I am disappointed in you. Hissed, mind you. I tell you, I jumped. Thought I'd bitten my tongue off at first. If drunk and Blake hadn't been touching me so tight, you could have knocked me down with a feather, bowled me over clean. It startled Blake a goodish bit too. All along the avenue, he'd been making just a quiet sort of sniveling noise, crikey if he didn't speak up quite perky. Oh, my friend, he says, so drunk and yet so young, meaning me, if you please, it was too thick. You blighter, I says, you blooming blighter. You talk to me like that, let go of my arm and see me knock you down. I must have been a bit excited, you see, to say that. Then I looked round to see who the other individual was. You'll hardly credit me when I tell you it was the Reverend, but it was, honest truth. It was the Rev John Hatton in no error. His face barely frightened me. Simply blazing, red, fair scarlet. He kept by the side of us and let me have it all he could. I thought you knew better, Price, that's what he said. I thought you knew better. Here you are, a friend of mine, a member of the club, a man I've trusted, going about the streets of London in a bestial state of disgusting intoxication. That's enough in itself, but you've done worse than that. You've lured poor Blake into intemperance. Yes, with all your advantages of education and upbringing, you deliberately set to work to put temptation in the way of poor, weak, hardworking Blake. Drunkenness is Blake's besetting sin and you, Blake had been silently wagging his head, as pleased as punch at being called hardworking. But here he shoved in his oar. Oh, dare you, he burst out. I ain't never tasted a drop of beer in my natural. Born in bread-tea total, that's what I was. Don't you forget it, neither. Blake, said the Reverend, that's not the truth. Call me a drunkard, do you? Replied Blake, go on, say it again. Say I'm a blasted liar, won't you? Or I'll write the night shall run away. And with that he wrenched himself away from me and set off towards the circus. He was trying to run, but his advance took the form of semicircular sweeps all over the pavement. He had circled off so unexpectedly that he had gained some 50 yards before we realized what was happening. We must stop him, said the Reverend. As I'm intoxicated, I said coldly, being a bit fed up with things, I should recommend you stopping him, Mr. Hatton. I've done you an injustice, said the Reverend. You have, said I. Blake was now nearing a policeman. Stop him, we both shouted, starting to run forward. The policeman brought Blake to a standstill. Friend of yours, said the Constable when we got up to him. Yes, said the Reverend. You ought to look after him better, said the Constable. Well, really, I liked that, said the Reverend, but he caught my eye and began laughing. Our best plan, he said, is to get a four-wheeler and go down to the temple. There's some supper there, what do you say? I'm on, I said, and to the temple we accordingly journeyed. Town Blake was sleepy and immobile. We spread him without hindrance on a sofa, where he snored peacefully whilst the Reverend brought eggs and a slab of bacon out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He also brought a frying pan and a bowl of fat. Is your cooking anything extra good, he asked? No, Mr. Hatton, I answered rather stiff. I've never cooked anything in my life. I may not be in a very high position in the moon, but I've never descended to Menial's work yet. For about five minutes after that, the Reverend was too busy to speak. Then, he said, without turning his head away from the hissing pan, I wish you'd do me a favor, Price. Certainly, I said. Look in the cupboard and see whether there are any knives, forks, plates, and a loaf and a bit of butter, will you? I looked and sure enough, they were there. Yes, they're all here, I called to him. And is there a tray? Yes, there's a tray. Now, it's a funny thing that my laundress, he shouted back, can't bring in breakfast things for more than one on that particular tray. She's always complaining it's too small and says I ought to buy a bigger one. Nonsense, I exclaimed. She's quite wrong about that. You watch what I can carry in one load. And I packed the tray with everything he had mentioned. What price that, I said, putting the whole boiling on the sitting-room table? The Reverend began to roar with laughter. It's ridiculous, he chuckled. I shall tell her it's ridiculous. She ought to be ashamed of herself. Shortly after we had supper, previously having aroused Blake, the drunken fellow seemed completely restored by his repose. He ate more than his share of the eggs and bacon and drank five cups of tea. Then he stretched himself, lit a clay pipe, and offered us his tobacco box, from which the Reverend filled his briar. I remained true to my packet of Queen of the Haram. I shall think twice before chucking up sig-smoking, as long as Queen of the Haram don't go above Tuppin's half-penny for ten. We were sitting there smoking in front of the fire. It was a shade-parky for the time of year, and not talking a great deal. When the Reverend said to Blake, things are looking up on the canal, aren't they, Tom? No, said Blake. Things ain't looking up on the canal. Got a little house property, said the Reverend, to spend when you feel like it? No, said the other. I ain't got no house property to spend. Ah, said the Reverend, cheesing it and sucking his pipe. Just say you think I'm free with the rhinos, said Blake after a while. I was only wondering, said the Reverend. Blake stared first at the Reverend and then at me. Ever remember a party of the name of Cloyster? Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster, he inquired. Yes, we both said. He's a good man, said Blake. Been giving you money, asked the Reverend. He's put me into the way of earning it. It's the softest job I ever struck. He told me not to say nothing. And I said as how I wouldn't. But it ain't fair to Mr. Cloyster not keeping of it dark, ain't it? You don't know what a noble art that man's got. And if you weren't friend of his, I couldn't have told you. But as you are friends of his, as we're all friends of his, I'll take it on myself to tell you what that noble-natured man is giving me money for. Blow'd, if he shall hide his bloom and light under a blanky bushel any longer. And then he explained that for putting his name to a sheet or two of paper and addressing a few envelopes, he was getting more money than he knew what to do with. Mind you, he said, I play it fair. I only take what he says I'm to take. The rest goes to him. My old missus sees to all that part of it, because she's quicker at figures than or what I am. While he was speaking, I could hardly contain myself. The reverend was listening so carefully to every word that I kept myself from interrupting. But when he'd got it off his chest, I clutched the reverend's arm and said, what's it mean? Can't say, said he, knitting his brows. Is he straight? I said, all on the jump. I hope so. Hope so. You don't think there's a doubt of it? I suppose not. But surely it's very unselfish of you to be so concerned over Blake's business. Blake's business be jiggered, I said. It's my business too. I'm doing for Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster exactly what Blake's doing. And I'm making money. You don't understand. On the contrary, I'm just beginning to understand. You see, I'm doing for Mr. James Orlebar Cloyster exactly the same service as you and Blake. And I'm getting money from him too. End of section 20. Section 21 of Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Deborah Lynn. Not George Washington by P.G. Woodhouse. Part two, chapter 18. One in the eye. Sydney Price's narrative continued. Suppose I ought enter of let on. That's it, ain't it, from Tom Blake? Seemed to me that if one of the three gave the show away to the other two, the compact made by each of the other two came to an end automatically, from myself. The reason I have broken my promise of secrecy is this. That I'm determined we three shall make a united demand for a higher rate of payment. You, of course, have your own uses for the money. I need mine for those humanitarian objects for which my whole life is lived, from the Reverend. What oh, said Blake, more coin? What oh, might have thought of that before. I'm with you, sir, said I. We're entitled to a higher rate. I'll make a memo to that effect. No, no, said the Reverend, we can do better than that. We three should have a personal interview with Cloyster and tell him our decision. When, I asked. Now, at once, we are here together and I see no reason to prevent our arranging the matter within the hour. But he'll be asleep, I objected. He won't be asleep much longer. Yes, roast him out of bed. That's what I say. What oh, for more coin? It was now half past two in the morning. I'd missed the 1215 back to Brixton's slap bang pop hours ago, so I thought I might just as well make a night of it. We jumped into our overcoats and hats and hurried to Fleet Street. We walked towards the stand until we found a four-wheeler. We then drove to number 23 Wall Pole Street. The clock struck three as the Reverend paid the cab. Hello, said he. Why, there's a lightning Cloyster's sitting room. He can't have gone to bed yet. His late hours saved us a great deal of trouble and he went up the two or three steps which led to the front door. A glance at Tom Blake showed me that the barge driver was alarmed. He looked solemn and did not speak. I felt funny, too, like when I first handed round the collection plate in our parish church. Sort of empty feeling. But the Reverend was all there, spry and businesslike. He leaned over the area railing and gave three short, sharp taps on the ground floor window with his walking stick. Behind the lighted blind appeared the shadow of a man's figure. It's he, it's him, came respectively and simultaneously from the Reverend and myself. After a bit of waiting the latch clicked and the door opened. The door was opened by Mr. Cloyster himself. He was in evening dress and hysterics. I thought I had heard a rummy sound from the other side of the door. Couldn't account for it at the time. Must have been him laughing. At the side of us he tried to pull himself together. He half succeeded after a bit and asked us to come in. To say his room was plainly furnished doesn't express it. The apartment was like a prison cell. I've never been in jail, of course. But I read convict ninety-nine when it ran in a serial. The fire was out, the chairs were hard, and the whole thing was uncomfortable. Never struck such a shoddy place in my natural. Ever since I called on a man I know slightly who was in the hand of blood-traveling company number 3B. Delighted to see you, I'm sure, said Mr. Cloyster. In fact, I was just going to sit down and write to you. Really, said the Reverend, well, we've come of our own accord and we've come to talk business. Then turning to Blake and me, he added, may I state our case? Most certainly, sir, I answered, and Blake gave a nod. Briefly then, said the Reverend, our mission is this, that we three want our contracts revised. What contracts? said Mr. Cloyster. Our contracts connected with your manuscripts. Since when have the several matters of business which I arranged privately with each of you become public? Tonight, it was quite unavoidable. We met by chance. We are not to blame. Tom Blake was, yes, he looks as if he had been. Our remanded offer is half-profits. More coin, murmured Blake Huskley, what a hole. I regret that you've had your journey for nothing. You refuse? Absolutely. My dear Cloyster, I had expected you to take this attitude, but surely it's childish of you. You are bound to exceed, why not do so at once? Bound to exceed? I don't follow you. Yes, bound. The present system which you are working is one you cannot afford to destroy. That is clear, because had it not been so, you would never have initiated it. I do not know for what reason you were forced to employ this system, but I do know that powerful circumstances must have compelled you to do so. You were entirely in our hands. I said just now I was delighted to see you, and that I had intended to ask you to come to me, one by one, of course, for I had no idea that the promise of secrecy which you gave me had been broken. The reverend shrugged his shoulders. Do you know why I wanted to see you? No. To tell you that I had decided to abandon my system, to notify you that you would, in future, receive no more of my work. There was a dead silence. I think I'll go home to bed, said the reverend. Blake and myself followed him out. Mr. Cloyster thanked us all warmly for the excellent way in which we had helped him. He said that he was now engaged to be married and had to save every penny. Otherwise, I should have tried to meet you in this affair of the half-profits. He added that we had omitted to congratulate him on his engagement. His words came faintly to our ears as we tramped down Walpole Street, nor did we, as far as I can remember, give back any direct reply. Tell you what it was just like. Reminded me of it even at the time. That picture of Napoleon coming back from Moscow, the reverend was Napoleon and we were the generals. And if there were three humpier men walking the streets of London at that moment, I should have liked to have seen them. End of Section 21.