Old lamps for new

I.—The Autographer

He was sitting forlornly on the shore at Swanage, toying with an open knife. Fearing that he might be about to do himself a mischief, I stopped and spoke.

“No,” he said, “I’m not contemplating suicide. Don’t think that. I’m merely pondering on the illusion that England is the abode of freedom.”

“But isn’t it?” I asked.

He laughed bitterly.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

He jerked his thumb towards the stone globe which is to Swanage what Thorwaldsen’s Lion is to Lucerne, or the Sphinx to the desert.

“Well?” I said.

“Have you seen the tablets?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“They’ve put up two tablets,” he explained, “with a request that any one wishing to cut or write his name should do it there rather than on the globe.”

“Very sensible,” I said.

“Sensible?” he echoed. “Sensible? But what’s the use of cutting your name on a place set apart for the purpose? There’s no fun in that. Things are coming to a pretty pass when Town Councils take to sarcasm. Because that’s what it is,” he continued. “Sarcasm. They don’t want our names anywhere, and this is their way of saying so. Sarcasm has been described,” he went on, “as ‘the language of the devil’; and it’s true.”

“But why do you want to cut your name?” I asked.

He opened his eyes to their widest. “Why? What’s the use of going anywhere if you don’t?” he retorted. “You’ll find my name all over England—on trees at Burnham Beeches, on windows at Chatsworth, on stone walls at Kenilworth, on whitewash at Stratford-on-Avon, in the turf of Chanctonbury. You’ll find it in belfries and on seats. I should be ashamed of myself if I didn’t inscribe it—and permanently, too. But this is too much for me. I came here only because I heard about the stone globe; and then to find those tablets! But I haven’t wasted my time,” he continued. “I went over to the New Forest the other day, and to-morrow I’m going to Stonehenge.”

“That’s no good,” I said.

“No good? Why, I’ve bought a new chisel on purpose for it. I’m told the stone’s very hard.”

“You won’t be able to do it,” I said. “It’s enclosed now, and guarded.”

He buried his face in his hands. “Everything’s against me,” he groaned. “The country’s going to the dogs.”

II.—The Equalizer

My friend was talking about the difficulty of getting level with life: with the people who charge too much, and with bad management generally; the subject having been started by a long wait outside the junction, which made our train half an hour late.

“How,” my friend had said, “are we ever going to get back the value of this half-hour? My time is worth two guineas an hour; and I have now lost a guinea. How am I to be recouped? The railway company takes my money for a train which they say will do the journey between 11.15 and 12.6, and I make my plans accordingly. It does not get in till 12.36, and all my plans are thrown out. Is it fair that I am not recompensed? Of course not. They have robbed me. How am I to get equal with them?”

So he rattled on, and the little cunning eyes opposite us became more cunning and glittering.

After my friend had left, the little man spoke to me.

“Why didn’t he take something?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Something from the carriage, to help to make up?” he said. “The window strap for a strop, for instance? It’s not worth a guinea, of course, but it’s something, and it would annoy the company.”

“But he wasn’t as serious as that,” I said.

“Oh, he’s one of them that talks but doesn’t act. I’ve no patience with them. I always get some, if not all, of my money back.”

“How?” I asked.

“Well, suppose it’s a restaurant, where I have to wait a long time and then get only poor food. I calculate to what extent I’ve been swindled and act accordingly. A spoon or two, or possibly a knife, will make it right. I am scrupulously honest about it.” He drew himself up proudly.

“If it’s a theatre,” he went on, “and I consider my time has been wasted, I take the opera-glasses home with me. You know those in the sixpenny boxes; I’ve got opera-glasses at home from nearly every theatre in London.”

“No!” I said.

“Really,” he replied, “I’m not joking. I never joke. You tell your friend when you see him next. Perhaps it will make him more reasonable.”

III.—A Hardy Annual

“You look very tired,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, with a sigh. It was at the private view of the Academy. “But I shall get some rest now. It is all over for a while.”

“What is over?” I asked.

“My work,” he said. “It does not begin again with any seriousness till next February; but it goes on then till April with terrific vigour.” He pressed his hand to his brow.

“May I know what it is?” I inquired.

“Of course,” he said. “I name pictures for the Exhibitions. The catalogues are full of my work. Here, for example, is one of my most effective titles: ‘Cold flows the Winter river.’ Not bad, is it?”

I murmured something.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he replied. “You’re thinking that it is so simple that the artist could have done it himself without my assistance. But there you’re mistaken. They can’t, not artists. They can just paint a picture—some of them—and that’s all. You’ve no idea.... Well, well.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes,” he continued; “it’s so. Now turn on. Here’s another of mine. ‘It was the Time of Roses.’ That sounds easy, no doubt; but, mark you, you have not only to know it—to have read Hood—but—and this is the secret of my success—to remember it at the right moment.” He almost glittered with pride. “Turn on,” he said. “‘East and West.’ That’s a subtle thing. Why ‘East and West’? you say. And then you see it’s an English girl—the West—holding a Japanese fan—the East. But I’m not often as tricky as that. A line of poetry is always best; or a good descriptive phrase, such as ‘Rivals,’ ‘Awaiting Spring’s Return,’ ‘The Forest Perilous,’ ‘When Nature Sleeps,’ ‘The Coming Storm,’ ‘Sunshine and Shadow,’ ‘Waiting,’ ‘The Farmer’s Daughter,’ ‘A Haunt of Ancient Peace.’”

He paused and looked at me.

“They all sound fairly automatic,” he went on; “but that’s a blind. They want doing. You know the saying, ‘Hard writing makes easy reading’; well, it’s the same with naming titles. You think it’s nothing; but that’s only because it means real work. I don’t know how to explain the gift—uncanny, no doubt. Kind friends have called it genius. But there it is.”

“I hope the financial results are proportionate,” I said.

“Ah,” he replied, “not always. But how could they be? It’s not only the expense of getting to the studios—taxis, and so forth—but the mental wear and tear. Still, I manage to live.”

IV.—Another of Our Conquerors

I used to think that the office-boy did those things. But no; it seems that it is an industry, and a very important one.

I made the discovery at a station, where the horrible and irritating word “Phast-phix” on the picture of a gum bottle held the reluctant eye.

A sleek little man in a frock-coat and a tall hat, who had evidently breakfasted on cloves, paused beside me.

“You might not think it,” he said, “to look at me; but that word that you are obviously admiring so naturally—and I may say so justly—originated with me. I invented it.”

“Why?” I asked. “Surely there are other things to do.”

He seemed pained and perplexed.

“It is my business,” he said. “That’s what I do. I have an office; I am well known. All the best firms apply to me. For example,” he went on, “suppose you were to bring out a fluid mutton——”

“Heaven forbid!” I cried.

“Yes, but suppose you were to,” he continued, “and you wanted a name for it, you would come to me.”

“Why shouldn’t I think of one myself?” I asked.

“You!” he cried. “How could you? It’s a special equipment. Just try and you’ll see. What would you call it?”

“Well,” I said after a moment’s thought, “I might call it—I might call it—— Hang it, I wouldn’t do such a thing, anyway.”

“There,” he cried triumphantly, “I knew it. You would be lost. You would therefore come to me. I should charge you ten guineas, but in return you would have a name that would make your fortune.”

“What would that be?” I ventured to ask.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “for certain. ‘Sheep-O,’ perhaps. But anyway it would be a good name. ‘Flock-vim,’ perhaps. Or even ‘Mut-force.’”

I began to long for my train.

“How do you think of such things?” I inquired. “Tell me your processes.”

He laughed deprecatingly. “I have given the subject an immense deal of thought,” he said. “For many years now I have done little else; I am always on the look-out for ideas. They come to me at all kinds of odd times and in all kinds of odd places. In bed—on a ’bus—in the train.”

“This one?” I asked.

“‘Phast-phix’?” he replied. “Oh, I thought of that instantaneously. You see, the firm came to my office to say they were putting a new gum or cement on the market, and they must have a good name for it at once. I had no time. I buried my head in my hands, for a few seconds (my regular habit) and suddenly ‘Phast-phix’ flashed into it. They were enchanted.”

“I notice,” I said, “a tendency among advertisers to transform ‘f’ into ‘ph.’”

“Yes,” he said, “they got it from me. I was the first. It is far more striking, don’t you think? To spell ‘fast-fix’ correctly wouldn’t be witty at all.”

I agreed with him.

“Tell me some more of your special inspirations,” I said. “Have you done anything lately as good as ‘Phast-phix’? But no, how could you?”

“Let me see,” he remarked. “Yes, there is the name for the new pen. They came to me in a great hurry for that, too. But as it happened I had that carefully pigeon-holed, for I am always inventing names against a rainy day. I gave it to them at once—the ‘Ri-teezi.’ You have no doubt seen it advertised.”

(Haven’t I?)

“That has been an immense success,” he went on. “It’s not a bad pen, either; but the name! Ah!”

“Anything else out of the way?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I was just going to tell you. I was approached by a firm with new blacking. All it required was an absolutely knock-out name. I gave them one, and only yesterday I had a visit from the Secretary of the Company, who was present at the Board meeting when my letter was read out. He says that the thrill that ran through the directors—sober business men, mind you—at that moment was an epoch in the history of commerce.”

“Indeed,” I remarked; “and what was the name?”

“The name?” he said. “Ah, yes. It was one of my best efforts, I think. Simple, forcible, instantaneous in its message and unforgettable in form—‘Shine-O.’”

“Yes,” I said, “that should be hard to beat. I congratulate you.” And so we parted.

I wonder if there’s really any money in that fluid-mutton idea.

V.—A Case for Loyola

We had no introduction save the circumstance that we chanced both to be taking refreshment at the same time—and, after all, is not that a bond? He did not begin to talk at once, and very likely would not have done so had not a little man come hastily in, received his drink, laid his money on the bar without a word, also without a word consumed it, and hurried out again.

“You might guess a hundred times before you could say what that man does,” said my neighbour.

I gave it up at once. He might have been anything requiring no muscle, and there are so many varieties of such professions. An insurance agent, but he was too busy and taciturn; a commission agent, but he was alone; a cheap oculist, but he would not be free at this hour. I therefore gave it up at once.

“He’s a conjurer,” said the man. “Not on the stage; goes out to parties and smokers.”

I expressed the necessary amount of surprise and satisfaction.

“Odd what different things men do,” he continued. “There’s all sorts of trades, isn’t there? I often sit for hours watching men and wondering what they are. Sometimes you can tell easily. A carpenter, for instance, often has a rule pocket in his trousers that you can spot. A lawyer’s clerk has a certain way with him. Horses always leave their mark on men, and you can tell coachmen even in plain clothes. But there’s many to baffle you.”

“Yes,” I said, “it needs a Sherlock Holmes.”

“And yet there’s some to puzzle even him,” said my man. “Now what do you think he’d make of me?”

Upon my word I couldn’t say. He was just the ordinary artisan, with a little thoughtfulness added. A small, pale man, grizzled and neat, but the clothes were old. The shininess and bagginess of the knees suggested much kneeling; nothing else gave me a hint.

“I give that up too,” I said.

“Well,” he replied, “I’ll tell you, because you’re a stranger. I’m a worm-holer.”

“A worm-holer?”

“Yes, I make worm-holes in furniture to make it seem older and fetch a better price.”

“Great heavens!” I said; “I have heard of it, of course, but I never thought to meet a worm-holer face to face. How do you do it?”

“It’s not difficult,” he said, “to make the actual holes. The trick is to make ’em look real.”

“And what becomes of the furniture?”

“America chiefly,” he said. “They like old English things there, the older the better. Guaranteed Tudor things will fetch anything ... we guarantee all ours.”

“And you have no conscience about it?” I asked.

“None,” he said. “Not any more. I had a little once, but there, the Americans are so happy with their finds it would be a shame to disappoint them. I look on myself as a benefactor to the nation now. I often lie awake at nights—I sleep badly—thinking of the collectors in U.S.A. hugging themselves with joy to think of the treasures I’ve made for them.”