THE CALL OF THE TOWN

The Call of the Town

A Tale of Literary Life

by

J. A. HAMMERTON

author of
"j. m. barrie and his books," "lord rosebery," "tony's
highland tour," etc.

LONDON
R. A. EVERETT & CO.
42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1904

CONTENTS

chap. page

• "THE PROUD PARENT" [9]
• HENRY LEAVES HOME [22]
• THE REAL AND THE IDEAL [36]
• MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE [53]
• IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES [61]
• WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR [70]
• AMONG NEW FRIENDS [80]
• THE YOUNG JOURNALIST [91]
• WHAT THE NECKTIE TOLD [100]
• VIOLET EYES [111]
• ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY [122]
• "A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL" [136]
• THE PHILANDERERS [147]
• FATE AND A FIDDLER [157]
• "THE MYSTERIOUS MR. P." [164]
• DRIFTING [177]
• THE WAY OF A WOMAN [192]
• IN LONDON TOWN [202]
• THE PEN AND THE PENCIL CLUB [214]
• THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS [228]
• "THAT BOOK" [239]
• HOME AGAIN [246]
• A TRAGIC ENDING [257]
• ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER [262]

THE CALL OF THE TOWN

CHAPTER I

"THE PROUD PARENT"

If you happen to be riding a bicycle you arrive somewhat unexpectedly in the little Ardenshire village of Hampton Bagot, and are through it in a flash, before you quite realise its existence. But in the unlikely event of your having business or pleasure there, you approach the place more leisurely in the carrier's cart from the little station which absurdly bears the name of the village, though two miles distant.

The ancient Parish Church, with its curious old chained library and bits of Saxon masonry, "perfectly unique," as Mr. Godfrey Needham, the vicar, used to say, and the one wide street of quaint old houses, with their half-timbered fronts, remain to this day much as they were, no doubt, when good Queen Bess ruled England. But the thirsty cyclist, whose throat may happen to be parched at this particular stage of his journey, is a poor substitute for the old-time stage-coach which made Hampton Bagot a place of change. Somehow, the village continues to exist, though its few hundred people scrape their livings in ways that are not obvious to the casual visitor. The surrounding district is richly pastoral, plentifully sprinkled with cosy farm-houses, and here, perhaps, we have the reason why Hampton continues under the sun.

If you wandered along the few hundred yards of street, and noted the various substitutes for shops, in which oranges and sweets and babies' clothing mingle familiarly with hams and shoe-laces, you would be struck by the more pretentious exterior of one which bears in crudely-painted letters the legend, EDWARD JOHN CHARLES, and underneath, in smaller characters, the words Post Office. The building, a two-storied one, with the familiar blackened timbers supporting high-pitched gables, and a bay-window of lozenged glass, was, at the time of which I write, the place of next importance in the village to the "Wings and Spur." Behind this window, and by peering closely, one could see dusty packets of writing-paper and fly-blown envelopes, a few cheap books, clay and briar pipes, tobacco, and some withered-looking cigars. Below the window, after diligent search, a slit for the admission of letters might be found.

But while the place itself would easily have been passed over, not so the figure at the door; for there, most days of the week and most hours of the day, stood the portly form of Edward John Charles himself.

It was as though the legend overhead referred to the man beneath, and the smile usually on his face spoke of contentment with himself and the world at large. His face was ruddy and clean-shaven, as he chose to coax his whisker underneath his chin, where it sprouted so amply that the need to wear a collar or a tie did not exist; certainly, was not recognised.

Somewhat under medium height, and of more than medium girth, Edward John Charles was by no means an unpleasant figure to the eye, and if the commonplace caste of face and prominent ears did not suggest any marked intellectual gifts, the net result of a casual survey was "a good-natured sort." He had a habit of concealing his hands mysteriously underneath his coat-tails as he stood at the door beneath the staring sign, and his coat had absorbed something of its owner's nature, for by the perch of the tails one could guess his mood. They were flapped nervously when the wearer was displeased; they opened into a wide and settled V inverted when he was in the full flavour of his satisfaction; and happily that was their most common condition. Indeed, the coat-tails of Edward John Charles were as eloquent as the stumpy appendage of the Irish terrier usually to be seen at the door with him.

Edward John stood in his familiar place this morning, and surveyed placidly the one and only street of Hampton Bagot.

The street does not belong to Hampton at all, but is only so many yards of a great highway to London. If you asked a Hampton man where it led to, he would say to Stratford, as that is the end of his world. That he is spending his life on a main-travelled road that goes on and on until it is lost in the multitudinous streets of modern Babylon has never occurred to him. Stratford is his ultima thule, the objective of his longest travels.

But Edward John was no ordinary man, despite his common exterior, and it was in the list of his distinctions that he had in his early manhood spent two days in London. To him, the road on which he looked out for so many hours each day was one of the tentacles thrown out by the mighty City to drag the sons of Nature into its gluttonous maw.

"It ain't got me, 'owever," he reflected, as he contentedly wagged his tails; "but as for 'Enry, why, 'oo knows?"

And really, what London would have done with Edward John we cannot guess, nor have we at present any idea of what it will do with 'Enry.

At this particular moment you would scarcely have credited the postmaster-bookseller-tobacconist with such philosophic reflections; for he seemed to be chiefly interested in watching with a critical eye a dawdling creature by the name of Miffin, the inefficient tailor across the way.

Edward John pursed his lips and flapped his coat-tails in stern disapproval of that sluggard's method of removing the single shutter which covered his window as a protection from the sun's rays, rather than a barrier to thieves, the latter being unknown in Hampton. Miffin made the mere act of withdrawing a bolt a function of five or ten minutes' duration, exchanging courtesies with every possible creature in the neighbourhood, from schoolboys to cats, while engaged in the operation. He would even call across to Edward John on the state of the day, and secretly wonder when the postmaster ever did a stroke of work, while in the mind of the latter certain wise maxims about ants and sluggards from the Book of Proverbs were suggesting themselves as peculiarly applicable to Mr. Miffin.

Presently, as Edward John turned his glance along the village street towards the Parish Church, which sat on a leafy knoll to the west, with a reproving eye on all Hampton, he saw the Rev. Godfrey Needham hastening eastward at a brisk pace.

The sight was no unusual one. Mr. Needham never moved unless in a whirl, the looseness of his clerical garb helping him to create quite a little gust of energy as he hurried by with his good-hearted greetings to his admiring parishioners. Such haste in a man of sixty was unaccountable, especially when one was fully alive to his appearance. He looked as if he had suddenly awakened after going to sleep a century before, and was in a hurry to make up lost time. Thin-faced, with prominent nose, and eyes red at the rims, blinking behind spectacles; he wore a rusty clerical hat and clothes of ancient cut and material, his trousers terminating a good three inches above his low shoes and disclosing socks, formerly white. The fact that his legs remotely suggested a pair of calipers added to the quaintness of the figure he presented while in full stride down the village street.

The moment Mr. Needham swung into view, the coat-tails of the postmaster were violently agitated, and his face broadened into a smile as he turned quickly into the doorway and called:

"'Enry, 'ere quick. 'Ere's the passon!"

Back in the shade and coolness of the shop the person thus addressed had been eagerly engaged in dipping into several volumes just brought that morning by the carrier from Birmingham, for it was Mr. Edward John Charles's great privilege to be the medium of obtaining books for several of the county gentry in the neighbourhood of Hampton, and these were always feverishly fingered by his son Henry before being despatched to their purchasers.

This same Henry was esteemed by his fond parent a perfect marvel of learning, and nothing delighted more the postmaster than to present him on all available occasions for the vicar's admiration.

In response to the summons, Henry issued into the sunlight of the open door, and craning his neck beyond the projecting window, beheld the advancing figure of the vicar. But the vicar, rusty and time-soiled though he seemed, was still well-oiled mentally, and had taken in at a glance the manœuvres at the Post Office door. Knowing that he would have to fight his way past, he slowed down and approached with a pleasant "Good-morning" to Edward John and a bright smile for Henry, who was his favourite among the lads of the village.

"Well, Henry," he said, as if opening fire, "how do the studies progress?"

"'Enry," returned the postmaster, before the lad had time to answer, "is making wonnerful progress, simply wonnerful. I reckon all the prizes at the school this term are as good as 'is," and the coat-tails opened into a particularly expanded V. "And as for Latin, vicar," he continued, "I shouldn't be surprised if 'e was soon upsides with yourself! 'E's at it every night. Oh, 'e do study, I can tell you."

Mr. Needham smiled at this parental puffery, and answered somewhat timidly:

"Ah, my dear Mr. Charles, I am afraid I have credit for more Latin than I possess. Nothing is so hard for a scholar as to live up to his reputation."

He even glanced furtively down the street, debating whether he should clap on full sail forthwith, and resume his voyage before the postmaster's prodigy could gratify Edward John by giving him a Latin poser. Only for a moment did he hesitate, however, and recovering his self-confidence, Mr. Needham continued brazenly:

"But, after all, one does not master Latin so soon as that. Henry, I am afraid, will still have much to learn of the classic tongue."

"But won't you try me, sir?" blurted out the youthful subject of discussion. "I should really like to be tested."

"Come now, do, Mr. Needham," urged the postmaster teasingly, his face shining with pleasure in delighted anticipation of the coming battle of wits. "Tackle 'im on Virgil; tackle 'im on Virgil. Put 'im through 'is paces, do, and let's see what's in the led."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Mr. Charles; but I am pressed this morning, and must not delay further. Some other day, perhaps, I shall see how he stands in the classics, but really I must be off. Good morning, Mr. Charles; good morning, Henry!"

So saying, the vicar beat a retreat, and as Edward John watched the breeze-blown frock-coat and the twinkling calipers disappear eastward, he cherished the suspicion that the Rev. Godfrey Needham really did not know so much of Latin after all. Nor did the shrewd Mr. Charles arrive at a wrong conclusion. The dear old vicar's reputation as a Latinist rested almost entirely on the fact that it was his custom when showing a visitor through the Parish Church of Hampton Bagot to point to several memorials in the chancel, and after asking if the visitor knew Latin, to glibly recite the inscriptions in that tongue, and follow this up by condescending to give their English equivalents. It was a harmless vanity, and was typical of many little corners in the quaint character of this good man.

Miffin had now accomplished the elaborate ceremony of opening his inefficient shop, and sniffing contemptuously as he retired indoors at the presumptuous Mr. Charles, whose encounter with the vicar he had carefully overheard, he had the satisfaction of seeing the portly form of Edward John disappear inside the Post Office, presumably for the purpose of doing a little business.

"And now, 'Enry," said the proud parent, still chuckling at the obvious retreat of the vicar, "it is time for school, my boy. Remember, tempus fugits. Yes, my word, tempus do fugit."

Thus admonished, the rising hope of the postmaster shouldered his satchel and set out schoolward.

Henry Charles was in almost every sense a direct contrast to his father. Taller than the latter already, although not yet sixteen years of age, he was lean and sallow of appearance, with long, narrow, ungainly features, redeemed from plainness only by the intensity of his glowing brown eyes. By several years the oldest lad at the church school, where Mr. Arnold Page retailed his somewhat limited store of learning to some forty scholars, Henry was the scandal of the village. To the good folk of Hampton it seemed almost a temptation of Providence to keep a lad at school after he was twelve years of age, and to them Henry was a byword for laziness and the possibilities of a shameful end. Often would the postmaster's cronies assure him that he could hope for no good to come of such conduct. At the "Wings and Spur" almost any evening "that long, lanky, lumbering lout of a good-for-nothing, 'Enry Charles," was quoted in conversation as an example of the follies a man could commit who had once gone so far out of his natural station as to visit London and admire "book-larnin'."

"It's downright sinful, I calls it, to keep a led at school arter twelve years of age, when 'e moite be earnin' three shillin' a week a-doin' of some honest werk."

This was the opinion enunciated more than once by Mr. Miffin in the taproom of the inn, and always assented to with acclamation by the company.

But Henry was sublimely unconscious of the interest he created, and his father was stoutly determined in the course he would pursue. So the youth continued to read all the books that came his way, to dream dreams of lands that lay beyond eye-scope of Hampton Bagot. If the main road through the village went to Stratford-on-Avon, it did not stay there for Henry, and when it did go there it carried his thoughts to the home of his favourite author.

It was, perhaps, the very fact of Hampton's nearness to the shrine of Shakespeare that set the postmaster's boy thinking of books and the life of letters. Already he dwelt in an enchanted land whither none else in Hampton had ever wandered, and from the printed page he had built up for himself a city of his own—a city with the familiar name of London. There, as his father had told him—for had not Edward John trod its streets for two whole days?—lived the great men of letters, their busy pens plying on countless sheets of paper, and, like the touch of magic wands, conjuring up for their holders fame and fortune.

Edward John Charles was truly a phenomenon—a bookseller in the tiniest way, who had become imbued with some idea of the dignity of literature, and esteemed its exponents in inverse ratio to his own unlettered condition; thought of his scanty schooling being the one shadow which ever darkened his brow.

To this fairy London, this home of learning, this emporium of all the graces, Henry Charles looked forward in his day-dreams, while his neighbours lamented his father's folly in not setting him to hoe potatoes, or at least to sell ounces of shag.

"The led is struck on books; it's books with 'im mornin', noon, an' night, and I ain't the man to stand in 'is way," quoth Edward John, in expostulation with a friendly neighbour who advised him to put Henry to work. "I don't know what 'e's going to be, or what's in 'im; but whatever it is, the led shall 'ave his chance."

And when Edward John Charles said a thing he meant it.

CHAPTER II

HENRY LEAVES HOME

It had been ever the habit of Edward John Charles that when he made up his mind to do a thing, that thing was as good as done. How else would it have been possible for a man to rise to the onerous and honoured position of postmaster at Hampton Bagot? For some time he had been tending to the conclusion that Henry would soon require to make a move if he was ever to rise in the world. Not that the postmaster was influenced by the opinions of the village gossips, brutally frank and straightforward though these were. He prided himself on being above such trifles, though, if the truth be told, the Post Office was the veritable centre of the local gossip-mongering.

But the last encounter with Mr. Needham, and Henry's shyly audacious offer to stand an examination at the hands of the vicar, confirmed the portly Mr. Charles in the opinion that his youthful prodigy had outgrown all the possibilities of Hampton Bagot. Had not Mr. Page confessed there was really nothing more he could teach the studious Henry? Did he not admit that after a few lessons in Latin Henry shot ahead so fast he soon outstripped the learning of his tutor? Surely, then, further delay in starting him upon the battle of life were only wasting his sweetness on the desert air of Hampton Bagot, as Mr. Charles, in one of his literary moods, would say. Besides, the supposed laziness of the youth was a growing scandal to the community; and after all, even the postmaster could not afford altogether to ignore public opinion.

It will have been gathered by now that although to every outward appearance an intensely commonplace, podgy personality, Edward John Charles possessed within his ample bosom the qualities which made him curiously different from the ruck of village humanity. It would be a fair assumption that in all the countless hamlets of sweet Ardenshire there lived not another parent who could contemplate with equanimity a bookish strain in the blood of any of his offspring.

The literary taste has ever been discouraged in these parts of the green Midlands, and such stray books as the postmaster sold to the village folk were bought chiefly for the gilt on their covers, which rendered them eyeable objects for the parlour table. He himself had not read a dozen books in all his prosperous life, and perhaps his loud interest in literature was nothing better than affectation, springing from the accident of his becoming the most convenient agent for supplying the "county people" in the neighbourhood with their literary goods. Beginning in affectation, his pretended admiration of books and bookmen had fostered a serious love for them in his son, and Edward John was just the man to boldly face the consequences.

When his mind was made up on the necessity of translating Henry to a new field in which his dazzling qualities could radiate with ampler freedom than in the narrow confines of Hampton Bagot, his thoughts turned to his friend, Mr. Ephraim Griggs, who represented literature in the very stronghold of its greatest captain, and already he saw Henry a busy assistant in the well-known second-hand book-shop at Stratford-on-Avon. A word from him to Mr. Griggs, and the golden gates of Bookland would swing wide open to the glittering Henry!

So, without a hint of his mission and its weighty issues, the carrier's waggon creaked with the added weight of Edward John Charles a few mornings later, on its way to Stratford.

For all who are willing to work without monetary reward there is no lack of opportunity, and Mr. Griggs readily consented to receive Henry into his business as a second assistant. The die was cast, and in the evening the postmaster returned mysteriously happy. Although an inveterate gossip, he could be tantalisingly silent when it suited his mood, and as he surveyed the village street from his accustomed post that evening, there was nothing but the usual serenity of his face and the satisfactory cock of his coat-tails to give a clue to the sweet thoughts dancing in his brain.

When the entire Charles family were seated at the supper-table, the auspicious moment had arrived for Edward John to disclose his hand. Whatever he thought fit to arrange would be good. Mrs. Charles, a thin little person, who worshipped her ample husband from afar, and spent her life in cleaning the five living rooms which constituted their household, never removing the curl-papers from her hair until after tea, was certain to applaud his every opinion, while the three girls, the eldest of whom bore the burden of the business on her shoulders, could be depended upon for reserve support.

When Mr. Charles had detailed the arrangements he had made, whereby Henry was to enter the business of Mr. Ephraim Griggs, there was unanimous approval.

"I've always said, 'Enry, that you'd 'ave your chance, and 'ere it is," said Mr. Charles, brushing some crumbs of cheese from his whisker. "There is no sayin' what this may lead to. Some of the greatest men in the world 'ave started lower down the ladder than that."

"Yes, dad," responded the delighted Henry. "Why, Shakespeare himself used to hold horses for gentlemen in London."

"Just look at that," beamed Mr. Charles on his worshipping family. "Shakespeare uster 'old 'osses. You'll never need to do that, my boy."

"And his father was only a woolstapler, dad!" panted the youth.

"A common woolstapler! Think on't! And me in the book-line—in a small way, p'raps—but in the book-line, for all that."

And the thought that a woolstapler's son who had been fain to tend horses for a penny, and in the end had achieved deathless fame which brought admirers from the ends of the earth to his humble birthplace in Stratford-on-Avon, made Edward John look around his own little house, and wonder how many years it would be before the world was trooping to Hampton Bagot to gaze on the early home of Henry Charles. Hampton was only a few miles from Stratford, and Henry would never be so low as the holding of horses.

We can but dimly realise the joy with which Henry received the news of the opening his father had made for him. To a lad of his temperament he already saw himself a chartered libertine in the realms of literature, roving from book to book on the crowded shelves of Mr. Griggs; here following the doughty deeds of some of Sir Walter's heroes, taking a hand, perchance, in the rescue of his heroines, and anon communing with such glorious company as Addison and Lamb and Hazlitt. Had he not read and re-read, and remembered every chapter of that classic work of which his father had sold as many as seven copies in six months to the Hamptonians—"Famous Boyhoods," by Uncle Jim? Within the gold-encrusted covers of that enchanting book had he not learned how Charles Dickens used to paste labels on jam-pots before he found fame and fortune in a bottle of ink? Was not he aware that Robert Burns had been a ploughman, and were not ploughmen in Hampton Bagot as common as hay-ricks and as poor as mice? Had not Oliver Goldsmith been hard put to it often to find a dinner, while Henry Charles had never lacked a meal? And had not Dr. Johnson, who received a ludicrously large sum of money for making a dictionary, lived in a garret? Emphatically, Henry Charles had reason to look the future in the face clear-eyed, and to bless Uncle Jim for giving him those inspiring facts. Moreover, a famous author had said: "In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail." Had not Henry copied these lines in atrocious handwriting till they swam before his eyes, and had not his schoolmaster assured him his penmanship was the worst he had ever witnessed, and were not all great authors wretched penmen? True, he still had doubts as to what "the lexicon of youth" might be.

Unlike his father, Henry was not a talkative person, and, indeed, it was one of the black marks against him in popular opinion that he did not make himself as sociable as he might have done with the lads of Hampton. But weighted with such news, the need to noise it abroad was pressing, and as soon as he could slip away from the supper-table he was publishing the intelligence wherever a chance opening could be found.

In five minutes it had the village by the ears, and the inefficient Miffin, ironing a coat at the moment it reached him, paused in his operation to deliver himself of a sceptical sniff and some adverse opinions on puffed-up fools who were eternally talking of book-larnin' and things quite above them, instead of attending to their business.

"In moi opinion," and he stated it with engaging frankness, "Edward John would do a sight better to let his long-legged lout stick at 'ome and sell nibs and sealin'-wex and postage-stemps, like his fifteen-stone father."

But really, Miffin's opinion did not count for much, although on this occasion it cost him dear, as he had left the heated iron lying on the coat, to its eternal destruction.

Elated with the prospect which the magic wand of his father had swung open to his sight—those fields of fair renown through which he was about to wander—Henry had soon exhausted the possibilities of the village, and found himself tramping the field-path towards Little Flixton, in the hope of meeting some returning villagers, to whom he could unbosom the startling news at first hand, and have the joy of surprising them into congratulations.

The meadows had been lately cut, and the smell of new-mown hay hung sensuously in the air. Never would he forget that evening in all the years that were to be. Although the hay-fields had been to him a commonplace of life since he could toddle, they would never smell as they did that night, and would never be so sweet again. After all, it is our sense of smell that treasures for us most vividly the impressions of our life. The memory of all our great moments is aided largely by our nostrils.

In one of these meadows, sloping down from a wooded mound, Henry espied a white-frocked girlish figure seated among the hay in the soft gloaming. It was Eunice Lyndon, the grand-daughter of old Carne, the sexton, who, as he told you himself, had held that post for "two-an'-forty year." Eunice's mother, old Carne's only daughter, whom many remembered as the "Rose of Hampton," had died of consumption, and there were some who thought that the shadow of this dread complaint hung over the girl also.

Now, as a rule, Henry had a poor opinion of girls. They were all very well in their way, of course, but could never hope to shine in the world like men. This evening, however, he was so brimful of his news that he was glad to tell it to anybody. He had even told Maggs, the blacksmith, though the latter had been over-free with cider at the "Wings and Spur."

Henry crossed the slope of the meadow towards Eunice, who held a long stalk of grass in her hand, and was intent upon watching a green caterpillar worming its way up it.

"Oh, Henry," she cried out, a pretty blush mounting to her cheeks as he approached, "just look at this fellow!"

Henry glanced down disdainfully at the caterpillar. Such trifles were altogether beneath his notice in that great hour.

"Listen, Eunice," he began, flinging himself down beside her. "I have news for you."

"News!" she echoed, still intent upon the caterpillar. "Isn't it a lovely green?"

"I'm going away."

She raised her head, and two violet eyes, with a puzzled expression, were dreamily fixed upon him, half-questioning.

"Going away! Where to?... Oh, there, I've lost it!" as the caterpillar fell among the grass.

"To Stratford first," Henry answered in a lordly way; "afterwards—London, I daresay."

Eunice was profoundly impressed. London! Wasn't that a risky undertaking? She knew it to be a wonderful place when one got there, but had heard it was crowded with people who did terrible things. Mr. Jukes, the landlord of the "Wings and Spur," had been to London on some law business not long ago, and could talk of nothing else since. Indeed, Edward John Charles had felt Mr. Jukes's rivalry very keenly; for the innkeeper's visit being of later date than his, the glory of it was fresher to the Hampton mind.

Henry, conscious that he had taken her breath away, gathered up his knees and fell to dreaming of London. The shadows of evening crept softly upon them as they sat there; the trees on the high ground behind them rustled gently in the light summer breeze; and somehow, the whole scene—the sloping meadow, the darkening hedgerows, the shadowy outline of the country beyond—mingled strangely with his dreams of the future. Years afterwards, when the quiet, peaceful life of Hampton was a dear thing of the past to him, the scent of new-mown hay recreated that evening in every detail, and he saw again the rose-flushed lass who had sat in silent wonder by his side.

Mr. Charles was of opinion that the sooner his son was started on his upward course the better. Henry, therefore, was withdrawn from school, and immediate preparations made for his departure—preparations in which Edward John took no manual part, but which, judging by the poise of his coat-tails, went forward to his mind. Mrs. Charles even forgot to take the curl-papers out of her hair for two whole days before the eventful morning.

On the eve of the day appointed for Henry's departure Mr. Page called in to wish him good-bye. A little later the vicar flashed for a moment into the dingy interior of the shop and shook hands with him.

"Remember, my dear Henry, labor omnia vincit improbus, as the Latinists say," using one of his few but favourite Latin phrases, and rolling it lovingly like a chocolate-cream 'twixt tongue and palate. "And remember also, my dear Henry, that les belles actions cachées sont les plus estimables," pronouncing atrociously a phrase he had picked up a few hours before, "which means, my dear young friend, that you should do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

Henry blushed forthwith.

"And let me present you with a little keepsake. It is a copy of my new book, my poem on Queen Victoria, which the Midland Agricultural News has described in terms of praise that I hope I am too modest to quote. I have signed it with my autograph, and I trust you will lay to heart its lessons."

The poem in question was a sixteen-page pamphlet in a gaudy cover. It enjoyed a large circulation by gratuitous distribution. To the vicar's great regret, he had found at the end of a dictionary the French phrase about beautiful actions too late to be incorporated in his verses.

Henry was profoundly moved, but like all great people in their great moments, he was deplorably commonplace.

"I thank you, sir," was all his genius prompted. He was gravelled for a Latin snatch to cap the vicar's, and the Rev. Godfrey Needham stood supreme.

"Eh, but tempus do fugit, passon," Edward John broke in at this juncture. "It's only loike yesterday that 'Enry was a-startin' school, and 'ere 'e's a-goin' out into the great world to carve out a name for hisself—'oo knows 'e ain't?"

"With youth all things are possible." returned Mr. Needham. "We shall be proud of Henry yet. He certainly has my best wishes for his success. Sursum corda, my friend, as the Latin hath it. And to you, Henry, Deus vobiscum. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, and thank you, sir," said the overwhelmed Henry.

In a moment more the white-socked calipers had carried Mr. Needham out of Henry's life for some years to come.

When the great morning arrived, the whole house was turned upside down. The village itself was agitated. Henry was quite the hero of the moment, despite the sniffing disapproval of Miffin. But one can't destroy a coat and retain a friendly feeling for the cause of the catastrophe.

"Merk moi werds," he said to his apprentice, as together they watched from behind the door the preparations across the street. "Young Che'les will never do nowt. He'll come to a bed end, and Ed'ard John will rue this day. Merk moi werds." And he emphasised his wisdom with a skinny forefinger.

Henry's mother cried over him a little, and impressed upon him that the three pots of blackberry jam—her own making—were at the bottom of his trunk, away from the shirts and linen, in case of accident. His sisters, one by one, threw their arms around him, and said commonplace things to him to hide the less common thoughts in their mind.

At length Henry took his seat on the carrier's waggon, after receiving a luminous impression of London—modern London, not the Edward-John London—from Mr. Jukes of the "Wings and Spur," and drove away, turning his face from his friends to avoid a silly inclination to cry. As the carrier cracked his whip while his horses gathered pace down the street, his passenger looked back to the old familiar house and signalled to the group still standing by the door; but for all the high hopes that beckoned him along this road that ran to London he was sorry to go.

When they were passing the cottage of old Carne, and a sweet face lit by two violet eyes looked out between the dimity curtains, while a girl's hand rattled pleasantly on the window, Henry smiled and waved his arm. But he was dimly conscious he had lost something he could not define. It had to do with tears on a woman's wrinkled face.

CHAPTER III

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL

It was a perfect day in "the sweet o' the year" when the carrier's waggon creaked along the highway to Stratford with Henry Charles perched beside the red-faced driver.

There is, perhaps, no county in all England so full of charm in spring-time and the early summer as leafy Ardenshire. The road on which the hope of Hampton travelled is typical of many in that fair countryside. Gleaming white in the morning sunshine, it lies snug between high banks of prodigal growth, bramble and trailing arbutus, backed by green bushes, among which the massy white clots of elder-blossom look like snowy souvenirs of the winter that has fled, with here and there a strong note of colour struck by swaying foxgloves. The lanes that steal away from the highway are often as beautiful as those of glorious Devon, and all bear promise that if the wanderer will but come with them he will surely find the veritable

"Bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopy'd with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."

But it was not of the wild beauties by the way that Henry thought as onward creaked the waggon. Nor was it for long that the picture of his mother's face and the light of violet eyes occupied his mind. His thoughts ran forward swifter than ever the train would go which in later years was to bring Hampton Bagot within half-an-hour's journey of Stratford.

Twice before had he travelled this same way, and both times to the same place. But now all was changed. The carrier would crack his whip on his homeward way that evening and sing his snatches of song, but not for Henry.

For the first time in his life the youth would stretch himself upon an unfamiliar bed, and hear voices that had never spoken to him before. He would tread the streets where once the steps of the immortal bard had been as common as his own comings and goings at the Hampton Post Office. Till now he had dreamed what life might be in a town larger than his native hamlet, and this night he would begin to know, to live it.

The wayside wild flowers, so recently part and parcel of his daily life, paled before his eyes when he thought of the temple of books toward which his course was bent. The smell of the new bindings, and the mouldy suggestions of old volumes, were sweeter to him for the moment than the scented hedgerows. Already he had built up for himself the figure of his Mr. Ephraim Griggs.

A man of medium height, somewhat bent in the back, high forehead, intelligent face, eyes aided with spectacles in their constant task of examining the treasures stacked around.

His hair? Grey—yes, of course, it must be grey; thin to baldness on the top, but abundant at the back of the head. Clothes? Old-fashioned, no doubt; negligent, certainly; yet not altogether slovenly.

He saw the figure, vivid as life, moving about the shop, talking with innocent display of erudition to some wealthy customer, or half reluctantly selling a costly volume from his shelves.

This dream-companion kept him company all the way, and it was only in a listless fashion that he chatted with the carrier, to whom books were no better than common lumber.

Stratford was reached early in the afternoon, and as the waggon rumbled over the Clopton Bridge, Henry thought that the scene presented here by the soft flowing Avon, with the spire of Shakespeare's Church softly etched on the sky, and the strange masonry of the world-famed Memorial Theatre in the middle distance, was the fairest man could see.

The thoughtfulness of his father had arranged for Henry a lodging near to Rother Street, and thither the carrier undertook to drive him before stopping at the market-hall to distribute his goods. On the way up the broad and pleasant High Street Henry was excited, for there, to his joy, he beheld the name of Ephraim Griggs upon a window well stocked with books—smaller, perhaps, and dustier than he had pictured it in his own mind.

Mrs. Filbert, the landlady with whom Edward John had arranged for Henry's board and lodging, was a widow of more than middle age, who had brought up a considerable family, most of whom were now "doing for themselves." In summertime she often let her best rooms to visitors, but nothing rejoiced her more than the prospect of a permanent lodger. She was fortunate already in having one who came under that description, and whose acquaintance we may make in due time.

Mrs. Filbert was a motherly soul, and set Henry at his ease at once when she took him to the little bedroom he was to share with one of her sons, a lad about his own age. Nor would she allow him to fare forth into the town until he had disposed of some dinner she had kept for him, suspecting that his means did not run to the luxury of a meal at one of the country inns on the way from Hampton.

When Henry had freed himself from the motherly attentions of Mrs. Filbert, and again found himself in the High Street, it was late afternoon. With a beating heart he walked direct to the shop of Mr. Griggs, but as his engagement commenced the next morning, he did not intend to present himself to his future employer that afternoon.

His purpose was merely a preliminary inspection of the place, for on his two previous visits to Stratford the establishment which had suddenly become his centre of interest had not been noticed by him.

The window was dustier than he had supposed from his sight of it while passing with the carrier, and many of the books that were offered for sale were disappointingly commonplace. As for the collection in the window-box, labelled in crude blue letters, "All in this row 2d. each," he was amazed that Mr. Griggs should exhibit them. For the most part they were old school-books, and he remembered, with a sudden sense of wealth unreckoned, that he had quite a number at home as good as these. He was not aware that only a summer ago a sharp visitor had picked up from this bundle a volume which he sold in London for £9.

Timidly did Henry peep in at the doorway, which was narrower than he had expected, and a trifle shabby so far as painting was concerned.

So much as he could see of the shop inside accorded but little better with his mental picture of the place. Books were there in abundance, many of them presenting some degree of order, and as many more seemingly in hopeless confusion.

He got a glimpse of a counter, at which he supposed the business of the place was transacted, but the inadequate back view of the figure of a young man bending at a desk in a gloomy corner was the only thing suggesting life.

His first peep assuredly was not what he had looked forward to, but who knew to what hidden chambers of interest the door at the far side of the front shop gave access?

Afraid to further pursue his inspection, Henry moved away somewhat hurriedly when the young man at the desk showed signs of moving towards the door, having probably scented a customer.

He wandered next to Shakespeare's Church, lingering on the way at the Memorial, then fresh from the hands of the builders, and loudly out of harmony with everything else in Stratford. Anon he was peeping in at the old Grammar School and the Guild Hall, and tea-time found him loitering around the Birthplace, with half a desire to set out then and there to Anne Hathaway's Cottage.

The business of dealing in Shakespeare's memory had not yet developed into Stratford's staple industry, nor had local boyhood begun to earn precarious pennies by waylaying visitors and rehearsing to them in parrot fashion the leading dates in the life of the poet. But the principal show-place of the town had long been attracting pilgrims from the ends of the earth, and for the first time in his life Henry heard the English language produced with strong nasal accompaniment by a group of brisk-looking young men and women issuing from the shrine in Market Street.

There was little sleep for him that night, nor was the unusual circumstances of his sharing a bed with another youth the cause of it. He wondered at his ability to peep in at Mr. Griggs's door without entering precipitately and avowing himself the new assistant. But his father's instructions on this point had been explicit. He had to present himself at the proper hour of the morning; neither early nor late, but at the hour precisely. It would have been unbusiness-like to stroll in the previous afternoon, and if business-like habits were not acquired now they never would be.

But Henry had read so recently the wonderful story of "Monte Cristo," and was so impressed by the hero's habit of keeping his appointments to the second, that he required no advice on this point.

"Suppose I go down in the morning and enter the shop when the market-clock is striking the fifth note of nine. That would be a good start to make!"

Thus he thought, and thus he did. But alas! the new Monte Cristo found no appreciative audience awaiting him.

For a moment he stood at the counter in the middle of the shop, with half a mind to run away. His entry had been unheralded, unobserved. No one was visible. But hesitating whether to knock on the counter, as customers at Hampton Post Office were wont to do, or take down a book until someone appeared, he became aware of certain sounds issuing from behind a wooden partition which enclosed a corner of the shop.

Henry shuffled his feet noisily, and plucked up courage to rap on the counter, for the market-clock had ceased its striking by quite a minute, and no one had witnessed his romantic punctuality.

In answer to the knocking there appeared from behind the partition a youngster of some twelve years, who seemed to have been disturbed in some pleasant but undutiful occupation. On seeing that the person at the counter was merely a youth, just old enough to make a boy wish to be his age, but not old enough to inspire him with respect, the youngster, without a word of inquiry or apology, stooped down and lifted on to the counter a little bull pup, which he stroked with all the pride of a fancier, challenging Henry with his eyes to produce its equal.

Loftily indifferent to the behaviour of the boy, and secretly wondering if Monte Cristo had ever been so absurdly received on any of the occasions when he opened a door as the clock struck the appointed hour of meeting, Henry said, with a touch of indignation in his voice:

"I am the new assistant, and I wish to see Mr. Griggs."

The boy gave a whistle of surprise, and eyed Henry boldly. Hastily stowing away the pup in some secret receptacle under the counter, he proceeded to the side-door, taking a backward glance at the new assistant, and disclosing under his snub nose a very wide and smiling mouth.

"Shop!" bawled the lad, as he opened the door.

Without another word, and leaving the door ajar, he went and perched himself on a stool, from which position he brazenly surveyed the new assistant.

Henry waited, quailing somewhat under the searching gaze of this juvenile servitor in the temple of literature. He surveyed at leisure the walls so thickly stacked with dusty volumes, and wondered why the youngster was not cleaning them or arranging the bundles on the floor, instead of sitting on the stool swaying his legs idly.

How different it all was from what he had expected! The books were there and in abundance, yet they were heaped about more like potatoes in a greengrocer's than things worthy of respect. It was difficult to connect this youthful dog-fancier with literary pursuits, and Henry could only hope that Mr. Griggs in his person would make up for what his establishment had lost in contrast with his ideal picture of it.

It was some little time before the shuffle of slip-shod feet was heard behind the back-door. The new assistant grew expectant. The shuffle suggested the approach of the venerable book-lover himself. There was a pause, during which Henry's heart thumped against his bosom, and then a large and tousled head was thrust inquiringly beyond the door, in a way that suggested a desire to conceal the absence of a collar and tie.

The head belonged to Mr. Ephraim Griggs, dealer in second-hand books and prints.

"Oh, it's young Charles, is it?" said Mr. Griggs, displaying a little more of his person, and showing that he was in the act of drying his hands. "Just come in here, will you?" he went on, jerking his head back towards the passage. "I want your advice."

Wondering on what subject he might be capable of advising the veteran, he went through to the passage, where Mr. Griggs, having finished with the towel, offered him a cold and flabby hand.

Henry felt tempted to laugh, and probably a little inclined to cry, when he stood before his employer, and found that his mental portrait of the man tallied in no particular with the person facing him.

There was little of the book-worm about Mr. Griggs. He did not even wear spectacles; an offence which Henry found hardest to forgive. Not so tall as Edward John, nor yet so stout, he was a long-bearded fellow, with a nasty habit of breathing heavily through his nose, as if that organ were clogged with dust from his books. As he stood before Henry he was in his shirt-sleeves, and, judging by the latter, the garment as a whole was ready for the wash. His waistcoat was glossy with droppings of snuff; his trousers, Henry noticed, were very baggy at the knees and appeared to be a size too large for him; while his feet were encased in ragged carpet slippers.

Evidently Mr. Griggs was in some trouble, and while Henry was speculating as to what the cause of his anxiety might be, the learned bookseller said, somewhat anxiously, and in a thin, wheezy voice:

"Tell me, do you know anythink about poultry?"

"Poultry!" gasped Henry.

"Yes," replied Mr. Griggs, with a solemnity which struck the new assistant as absurdly pathetic. "Hens," he explained further; "my best one is down with croup or somethink o' the kind. Your father has taken a many prizes with his birds, and I thought you might know all about 'em. I've never had great success with 'em myself. Come outside and tell me what you think."

Without waiting for a reply, the bookseller shuffled through the passage into a back-yard, and the youth followed as one in a dream.

The yard was almost entirely devoted to poultry, and if Mr. Griggs was an amateur at the pursuit, he had at least prepared for it in no mean way, three sides of the place being taken up with wired hen-runs and a wooden house for his stock. In a compartment by itself, gasping and choking, lay the object of the old man's solicitude.

"The finest layer I ever had," he declared despondingly. "An egg a day as reg'lar as clockwork. I'd rather lose two of the others."

His sorrow deepened when Henry said that he had never seen a hen in that state before, and did not know what was wrong with it.

"Then I'll be forced to ask old John Shakespeare, the grocer, what to do; although I 'ate the man, and don't want to be beholden to him for anythink. But he's our champion breeder, and what must be, must be."

Shakespeare, grocer, hens! Henry doubted seriously if his ears were doing their duty, but there was no mistaking the anxiety of Mr. Ephraim Griggs. He could not have been more perturbed if his wife had been dangerously ill. His wife? That reminded Henry that he had heard his father say Mrs. Griggs had been dead these many years. Perhaps that was why the bookseller was so untidy.

"You had better go back to the shop, my lad," said he, in a voice which meant he was now resigned to the worst, "and take a look round. I'll be in there directly."

When Henry returned to the shop he found that Mr. Pemble, the senior assistant, had arrived; but for the moment that young gentleman was so engrossed with the study of his features in a broken looking-glass that he did not notice Henry's entrance. Mr. Pemble's anxiety seemed to be centred around the tardy growth of an incipient moustache, which, when an illuminating ray of sunshine fell upon his upper lip, was readily visible to the naked eye.

A somewhat prim and characterless person, with more teeth than his mouth seemed able to accommodate, Mr. Pemble was the bête noir of Jenks, the dog-loving shop-boy, who, with a sly wink to Henry and an expressive grimace, indicated unmistakably his opinion of the senior assistant.

This was a sign to the new-comer that if he cared to make common cause against Mr. Pemble, Jenks was with him to the death; but Henry, either in his rustic simplicity or his lofty indifference to the youngster, did not respond, and waited for Mr. Pemble to languidly acknowledge his presence.

"Ah, you're the new assistant Mr. Griggs was speaking of," he said at length.

"Yes, sir," replied Henry, and at the delicious sound of the flattering "sir" Mr. Pemble endeavoured to tug his laggard moustache. "Mr. Griggs says I'm to have a look round until he is ready," Henry went on, casting a dubious glance at the walls and the thickly-strewn floor.

"Oh, that's all right," drawled Mr. Pemble, who now turned his attention to some small parcels that had arrived by the morning's post.

In a little while Mr. Griggs appeared, fully clothed, by the addition of a faded black morning coat and a creased white collar. He beckoned Henry into the back-parlour, which served as a sort of office and a general lumber-room.

"Sit you down, my lad, and let's see what we have here," he said, pointing to a crazy arm-chair beside an old Pembroke table, on which a broken ink-bottle and some rusty pens lay, together with a muddle of notepaper.

The bookseller then turned to a large case of old volumes recently acquired at the sale of a country house, and picking up several of these he flapped the dust from them, puffing and blowing like a walrus. Glancing briefly at the title-pages of the first two, he threw them in a corner with a brief but emphatic "Rubbish!" The next fished forth satisfied him better, and taking up one of his latest catalogues, he showed Henry how to write down the title and description of the book.

So he proceeded for a time, initiating the youth in the art of cataloguing, which with Mr. Griggs did not take a particularly exalted form. He eschewed such aids to ready references as alphabetical entry, and was content so long as the principal items of his stock appeared on his printed list, quite irrespective of order or value. These lists, villainously printed, were a source of unfailing amusement to the educated book-buyers into whose hands they fell, for every page contained the most hilarious blunders, whereby the best-known classics assumed new and surprising disguises.

Henry took to the simple work eagerly, and displayed far greater interest than his employer did in the books that came to light as the case was gradually emptying. Now and again during the forenoon Mr. Griggs would suddenly disappear from the parlour, as his thoughts reverted to his suffering Dorking, only to return from his visit to the poultry with a gloomy shake of the head.

When dinner-time arrived, Henry and Jenks were left in charge of the shop while Mr. Pemble went home to dine, and the old bookseller shambled upstairs to some of the unknown domestic rooms. Jenks, unabashed by Henry's obvious determination not to familiarise with him, boldly asked if he knew how to play that great and universal game of boyhood called "knifey." When Henry said that he didn't, and hadn't time to think of it, Jenks was filled with disgust, for he found it a delightful pastime when the hours hung heavy on his hands, and he had been at the trouble to import a specially soft piece of wood for the purpose of playing "knifey" whenever an opportunity occurred. Failing Henry's assistance, he brazenly proceeded to engage in the pastime by himself.

The task of cataloguing occupied but little of the afternoon, and for the remainder of the day there was nothing to do but idling. Indeed, Henry found himself wondering by what means Mr. Griggs contrived to exist, as nothing seemed to matter beyond his devotion to the poultry and Mr. Pemble's frequent inspections of his upper lip.

On the whole, the impression left by his first day at business was by no means bright, as he could not suppose there would be books to catalogue every day, and he had not seen more than half-a-dozen customers in the shop.

CHAPTER IV

MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE

Ten days had passed, and the new assistant was more than ever at a loss to understand how a business so laxly conducted and apparently so unremunerative could provide a living for Mr. Griggs, Pemble, and Jenks. Henry knew that he, at least, was no burden on his employer's finances; but he was not yet aware that Mr. Pemble was there on a similar footing, while Jenks's labours were rewarded weekly with half-a-crown.

But this morning a bright and new star swung into his ambit, when a young man of about twenty years of age sauntered jauntily into the shop, his hat stuck on one side of his head and a cigarette drooping from his lips, where grew a moustache which must have struck envy into the soul of Mr. Pemble. The new-comer winked cheerily to Jenks, nodded a "How d'you do?" to the senior assistant, and then, to Henry's surprise, he said:

"I suppose you're the chap that Mrs. Filbert's been telling me about. We're both in the same digs."

"I beg your pardon!" Henry stammered.

"Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know."

"Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert always talks about," answered Henry, brightening.

"That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor Smith—with the accent on the Trev. There's such a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's got to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to be buried in the crowd."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor Smith," replied Henry, who, it will be seen, was beginning to know something of the social graces.

"Right you are, young 'un," said the breezy one. "I'm just back from my fortnight's holidays. Been to London, don't you know. Jolly time. Thought I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See you later, and tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off. Big case on at the police court this morning."

Mr. Smith—Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please—was indeed a person who had assumed considerable importance in Henry's mind before he met him face to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom good Mrs. Filbert set much store.

"'E's that smart," she told Henry the first night he had stayed beneath her roof "there's no sayin' what he don't know. He writes a many fine things in the Guardian, specially 'is story of the Mop, which my Tommy read out quite easy-like last October."

"He'll be a journalist, then," Henry suggested.

"Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways, e's a heditor or a reporter or somethink. The Guardian pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must be clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody likes Mr. Trevor."

It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune that had brought him to the very house where one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and although keenly disappointed at the melancholy falling off in his actual experience of life under the ægis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his vision of what that was to be, he now looked forward to meeting Mr. Trevor Smith with the hope that he might point the way to better things.

The exact position of that local representative of the Fourth Estate is best defined as district reporter. The paper which employed him was published in the busy industrial centre of Wheelton, some twenty-five miles distant, where it maintained a struggling existence as the Wheelton Guardian.

It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column of notes on men and affairs in the Stratford district every week, to supply reports of the local police court proceedings, municipal meetings, and so forth, and also to canvass for advertisements, the few hundred copies of the paper sold in Stratford every week, thanks to these attractions, being mendaciously headed Stratford Guardian.

What the district reporter—who occasionally hinted that he was really the editor when he saw a chance to impress a stranger thereby—called "the office," was a desk in the back premises of the news-agent and fancy-goods-shop whence the Guardian was distributed weekly.

Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of his business to be well liked, and if there was a good deal of humbug about him, he was still excellent value to the Guardian for the twenty-one shillings which the proprietors of that journal paid him each week. One does not expect genius for a guinea a week; not even the ability to write English. But it is a mistake to suppose the latter is ever required of a district reporter. The essential qualifications are a working knowledge of shorthand and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor Smith was deficient in neither; certainly not in the latter quality. He was generously impressed with the magnitude of his importance, and had chosen the Miltonic motto for his "Stratford Notes and Comments":

"Give me the liberty to know, to think, and to utter freely above all other liberties."

He took this liberty whenever he knew that the weight of local opinion tended in a certain direction. At other times he was lavish in his use of complimentary adjectives concerning every one he wrote about, from the Mayor to the town crier. No wonder he was popular.

The notes which appeared in the Guardian during its reporter's holiday were from another hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty pen was at work again. It is one of the strangest experiences that comes to the writing man—this interest of the layman in anyone who writes words that are printed. We seldom feel interested in the personality of the man who made our watch, but the fellow who wrote the report of the tea-meeting we attended last week—ah, there's something to stir the blood!

Now that they had met, these two, Henry was throbbing with excitement to hear what his new friend had to tell him of life and its wonders. Nor was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the youth.

"By Jove, London's the place," he observed to Henry as he dug his teeth into a juicy tart—one of many received that day in Henry's weekly hamper from home. "London's the place! Just fancy, I saw the huge building of the Morning Sunburst, Johnnies at the door in livery, hundreds of people running out and in; and the chap that edits that paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week reporter on that rag the Stratford Times, which isn't a patch on the Guardian."

"He must be very clever."

"Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty small beer in Stratford," pursued the lively Trevor, helping himself to a third tart from Henry's store. "Then there's Wilkins of the Pictorial Globe, a glorious crib—fifteen hundred a year, I'll bet. He used to run that rocky little rag-bag the Arden Advertiser. You should see his office in the Strand. By gum—a palace, my boy, a palace!"

"But perhaps he knows all about pictures."

"Pictures! He doesn't know a wall-poster from a Joshua Reynolds!"

"Then how do they get these grand situations?"

"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But, I say, your mater knows how to make ripping good fruit-cakes."

"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his thoughts were far away, where Luck the Goddess reigned. "And do you intend to go to London some day—to stay, I mean?"

"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha! as the heavy villain hath it. Everybody gets his chance, don't you know. For all that, there's many a jolly good journalist never gets a show in Fleet Street. But what's the row?" he exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out in the evening quiet.

Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump and hose being wheeled along the street from the police station across the way, and a crowd of youngsters running after it.

"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy, by Jingo! Come along with me. There's ten bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot, and it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near the station."

He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him, intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the Times reporter; his ten shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely enough. They were as good as spent already—a new hat for one thing, and some new neckties for another.

The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of twenty lines in next morning's Birmingham Gazette—twenty glowing lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith—twenty lines in which the "conflagration" burned again.

He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment.

Here was Life.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES

Up to the night of the fire, Henry had only been dreaming of what he wished to do in the world of work. Unless one of his age has had his fate sharply settled for him by being placed at some trade or profession—for which he is usually unsuited—by the masterful action of his parents, he has, at best, a nebulous vision of the path he will pursue.

With natural instinct, and aided by the accident of Edward John's business relations in Stratford, Henry had looked to literature through the gateway of the book-shop—of all, the most unlikely. But he had been shorn speedily of his illusions in that quarter.

A month in the establishment of Mr. Ephraim Griggs had left him wondering if he were a footstep nearer his goal than he had been before he bade farewell to Hampton. If the Temple of Literature which he had builded in his brain had not exactly crumbled into nothingness, it was no longer possible to rub shoulders with the slatternly Griggs and the insipid Pemble, and still to dream dreams such as had held his mind when he determined to fare forth an adventurer into the unknown realms of Bookland.

The weeks dragged on wearily. So rude had been Henry's experience of the second-hand book-shop, in disgust he had almost concluded that after all there was as much glory in his father's business as in that of Mr. Griggs. Trevor Smith, however, had appeared on the scene at an opportune moment, and sent his thoughts off at a tangent.

Clearly, journalism was the high road to literature. It enabled one to get into print, and that, at least, was a great matter.

Already the agreeable Trevor could pose as Henry's literary godfather. He had allowed him to write one or two simple notes about the visit of a circus to the town and the annual flower-show, and these had actually appeared in type in the Guardian.

The fact that Trevor had twice borrowed half-a-crown from his fellow-lodger, and had twenty times forgotten to repay, while he had also assimilated innumerable examples of Mrs. Charles's baking, had probably something to do with his readiness in opening his columns to the youth. But that did not in the least detract from the bursting joy with which Henry read his own little paragraphs a score of times; nor did Edward John suspect that the first appearance of his young hopeful in the splendour of print was due to such adventitious aid.

Henry's masterpiece was a letter to the editor of the Guardian protesting against the charge of sixpence exacted for admission to view the grave of Shakespeare. This was signed "Thespian," at the suggestion of Trevor, who never by any chance wrote of actors or of the theatre, but always of "sons of Thespis," or of "the temple of Thespis." Quite a lively correspondence ensued in the columns of the paper, and it was a great delight to Henry that he and Trevor Smith alone knew who the correspondents were. Between them they did it all. Oh, Henry was learning what journalism meant!

"Take my word for it, Henry, journalism's your game," his merry mentor assured him. "That last par of yours about the Christ Church muffin-struggle is nearly as good as I could have done myself. You're cut out for a journalist as sure as eggs is eggs. All that you want is an opportunity to show what's in you."

Yes, only the opportunity was awanting. And how to get it?

"Look at me," Mr. Trevor Smith continued, "I was only a common clerk in the Guardian office—a common clerk, mind you—but I had the sense to learn shorthand, and got the first opening as a reporter—and here I am!"

He helped himself to a luscious pear from the stock which Henry had just received from home that day.

Indeed, these little bursts of confidence usually took place on the evening Henry's weekly hamper arrived, but he had never noticed the coincidence. A year or two later, perhaps, he might suspect there had been some connection between the events; meanwhile, his bump of observation had not been abnormally developed.

To-night the reporter appeared especially concerned for the welfare of his young friend, and it occurred to him to ask if Henry had been trying his hand at something more ambitious than mere paragraphs. He blushingly admitted that he had.

"Then trot it out, my boy, and I'll tell you what it's worth in a couple of ticks," said Trevor, quite unconcerned as to the length or character of Henry's "something."

It is Nature's way that the rawest youths and maidens who desire to follow a literary career invariably commence by writing essays on aspects of life which world-worn men of fifty find impossible to discuss with any approach to ripened knowledge. Henry's unpublished manuscript now brought forth of his trunk proved to be a very long and absurdly grandiloquent essay on "Liberty."

Neither the subject nor the wordiness of the manuscript dismayed the hopeful Trevor, who took it in his hand and ran his eyes with lightning rapidity over page after page.

"Ripping, my boy, ripping! That's the sort of stuff to make the critics sit up."

Henry thrilled and reddened, but winced a little when he heard his handiwork described as "stuff."

"Really? Do you think anybody would care to publish it?" he asked.

"Just the sort o' thing for the Nineteenth Century or the Quarterly," Trevor assured him gaily, although the rascal had never set eyes on either of these reviews. "But I should hold it back a bit until you have made your name, for the editors of these things never give an unknown man a chance."

"Still, you think I ought to persevere?"

"Don't I just! I couldn't have written stuff like that at your age for a mint of money. Take my tip, young 'un, you've got it in you to make a name; and when you're riding down Fleet Street in your carriage and pair, don't forget your humble servant who gave you the first leg-up. That phrase of yours on the last page about liberty being born among the stars and flying earthward to brighten all mankind is worthy of Carlyle at his best."

"I always liked Carlyle; but I'll try very hard to do something even better—I mean better than what I've written."

"And, by-the-by, my dear Henry, do you think you could stretch me another half-crown? I'm rather rocky just now, but am expecting a tidy sum for lineage next week," said Trevor, in an off-hand way, and ignoring his friend's confusion, as he lifted his hat and prepared to go out.

Henry stretched the half-crown—with difficulty, for it meant a week's pocket-money—and when his companion had left he executed a wild dance round the table. Ambition had been fired within him again. He determined that not even the Slough of Despond, to which he likened the shop of Mr. Griggs, would discourage him for a day in his onward march to that City Beautiful where one's life was spent in writing fine thoughts for mankind to read and remember.

The difficulty remained: how to get the opportunity? All the copy-book maxims of his boyhood availed him nothing; all the stories of brave men who seized opportunity instead of waiting for it to turn up, inspired, encouraged, whispered of hope, but did not bring the situation to a simpler issue.

Soon after this evening he determined to induce Trevor to come down from his gorgeous generalisings to plain facts.

"It is all very well to say my essay is so good, but do you honestly think I should go on writing things like that if I wish to become a journalist?"

It took something out of Henry to put it so bluntly. Despite the familiar manner in which Trevor addressed him, the youth, who was naturally reticent, always spoke of him with deference due to one of older years, and especially to one who was a real live journalist. Henry, however, was gradually losing his country shyness, and the fact that Mr. Trevor Smith continued in his debt to the extent of seven-and-sixpence encouraged him to greater boldness in his dealings with that slippery gentleman.

"I confess that I have had enough of old Griggs. There is nothing to learn from him, and I do think I should like to get work on a newspaper. Is there any chance of an opening on the Guardian at Wheelton? I have been pegging in at my shorthand for the last three weeks, you know."

"Well, since you put it that way, and since you seem to be dead set on giving old Griggs the slip, there is one thing you could do," Trevor admitted, now that he had been asked to come down to hard facts.

"What is that?" asked Henry eagerly.

"Get your gov'nor to shell out to old Spring, and he'll take you on like a shot."

"Shell out?" said Henry, evidently not alive to Trevor's slang. "What do you mean?"

"Why," returned his professional adviser, with a smile at the rustic ignorance, "haven't you seen advertisements in the daily papers something like this: 'The editor of a well-known provincial weekly has an opening for journalistic pupil. Moderate premium. Small salary after first six months'? There's your opportunity."

"Ah, I see the idea," said Henry, upon whom a light had dawned.

"What do you say to that?" Trevor pursued.

"Yes, that might do, and no doubt dad would 'shell out,' as you call it. But is there any such vacancy at present?"

"If there isn't, the Balmy One—that's another of our pet names for Old Springthorpe, the editor—will jolly soon make one, provided your pater is ready with the dibs. Write your gov'nor about it, and if he's open to spring twenty-five golden quid, leave the rest to me."

To Henry the suggestion seemed a good one, and he wondered that he had waited so long before getting Trevor to bring the situation to so practical an issue. The fact was, Mr. Smith rather liked the fun of patronising the youth, to say nothing of his share in the weekly hamper, and Henry's willingness to render slight but useful assistance by attending an occasional meeting on his behalf. Accordingly, he had not been anxious to lose his company too soon.

To Edward John Charles his son's letter, with its bold proposal, came with somewhat of surprise. It had never occurred to him to couple the Press with "Literatoor," but he said at once that if Henry felt journalism was good enough for him, why, he would help him to become an editor with as much pleasure as he would have set him up in the egg-and-butter trade, had he been so minded.

Within a week the postmaster took another journey to Stratford, and thence by train to Wheelton, together with Henry, to interview Mr. Martin Springthorpe, editor of the Wheelton Guardian, to whom Mr. Charles carried a letter of introduction from Trevor Smith, wherein that gentleman averred he had taken great personal interest in the literary work of Henry Charles, and had even been able to make use of sundry items from his pen. He commended him to Mr. Springthorpe's best consideration.

Trevor had also taken the trouble to write privily to his chief, saying that he thought Mr. Charles would come down to the tune of five-and-twenty pounds, and not to frighten him off by asking more.

CHAPTER VI

WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR

Wheelton, an industrial town of some importance, lies less than an hour's journey by rail from Stratford. It is not exactly a home of learning, nor has it given any distinguished men to literature or science, but it boasts four weekly newspapers and a small daily sheet, which would appear to be more than the inhabitants require in the shape of local reading matter, for, with one exception, the newspapers of the town have a hard struggle for existence.

At the time when Henry Charles and his father made their first journey thither the journalistic conditions were not quite so straitened, as the evening paper and one of the weeklies had not come to increase competition; but even then the Guardian was the least successful of the three.

The office of Mr. Springthorpe's journal was situated up a flight of narrow stairs, the shop on the street front having been let to a pork-butcher for the sake of the rent. On the first floor were the editor's room, the reporters' room, and another small apartment that served as the general office, and contained a staff of one weedy young man with downy side-whiskers, and a perky little office boy.

Up a further crazy stair the composing-room was reached, and here five men and several boys put into type what was sent from the rooms below. The printing was done in premises on the ground floor behind the pork-butcher's, extended by the addition of a rather rickety wooden outbuilding. By no means an establishment to impress a visitor with the importance of the journal here produced, or to give a beginner any exaggerated idea of the dignity of journalism. Still, the massive gilt letters proclaiming The Guardian above the pork-butcher's had the power to make Henry's blood tingle when first he saw them.

Up the stair he followed his father, with much fluttering of the heart, but reassured by the confident and cheerful look on the face of Edward John, who went about the business as outwardly calm as if he were buying a fresh stock of stationery.

The office-boy showed the visitors into a room to the left of the counter, on the door of which the pregnant word Editor, printed in bold letters on a slip of paper, had been pasted but recently, judging by its cleanness, as contrasted with the soiled appearance of everything else.

The editor's room was plainly furnished, not to say shabbily, despite the fact that it figured frequently in the Guardian gossip columns under the attractive title of "The Sanctum." In the middle of the floor stood a large writing-table, from which the leather covering had peeled off, exposing the wood beneath like a plane tree with its bark half-shed. On the table lay, in picturesque confusion, bundles of galley-slips, clippings from newspapers, sheets of "copy" paper, all partially secured in their positions by small slabs of lead as paper-weights.

The waste-paper basket to the left of the table had overflowed, and the floor around was strewn with cut newspapers and crumpled sheets of manuscript. On the walls hung two large maps, one showing the railways of England and the other the Midland counties. Above the fireplace a printer's calendar was nailed. Three soiled and battered haircloth chairs completed the furniture of the room when we have added a damaged arm-chair, cushioned with a pile of old papers. This was the editor's chair. Its intrinsic value was probably half-a-crown, but to the regular readers of the Guardian it must have seemed as priceless as the gold stool of Ashanti, for they were accustomed to read two columns every week headed "From the Editor's Chair."

The short, thick-set person, with the slightly bald head and distinctly red nose above a heavy black moustache, which trailed its way down each side of a clean-shaven chin and drooped over into space, was the editor himself. With a briar pipe, burnt at one side, stuck in his mouth, and puffing vigorously, he sat there in his shirt sleeves, and his pen flew swiftly over the sheets of paper that lay before him.

When Mr. Charles and his son entered, the editor laid down his pipe and pen, and rising from his chair, said in the most affable way:

"Ah, I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Charles; and this is your son Henry, of whose ability I have already heard."

Shaking hands with each, he pointed them to seats and resumed his own.

"So Henry is ambitious of embarking on a journalistic career," he remarked, as he lifted his pipe again; adding, "I hope you don't mind my smoking. I find a weed a great incentive to thought."

Mr. Springthorpe always spoke like a leading article, and it was noticed by those who knew him best that on the occasions when his nose was particularly ruddy and his utterance somewhat thick, his flow of language and the stateliness of his words were even more marked than when one could not detect the odour of the tap-room in his vicinity.

"Yes, 'Enry is anxious to get on a noospaper," Mr. Charles replied. "And Mr. Trevor Smith has written this letter about him for you to read."

The editor reached out and took the letter with a great show of interest, reading it carefully, as though it were a document of much importance, while Henry sat fumbling with his hat, conscious that he had again arrived at a critical moment in his career.

"This is very nattering indeed, Mr. Charles," said the editor at length, "and I attach great weight to the opinion of Mr. Trevor Smith, who is an able and promising member of my staff."

"Then you think that 'Enry might suit you?"