CHAPTER VIII
“TOM, DICK AND HARRY”
The partner who managed the forwarding department of the firm of Madden & Company reported to the partner who represented its manufacturing end that the editor of the Babbler had accepted his story The Microbe, for one of his weekly Tabloid Tales. A cheque was enclosed for three guineas.
The manufacturing partner looked up in a dazed way from his manuscript, tapped his mighty brain to quicken recollection of the story in question, signified his approval, and bent again to his labours. Being in the heart of a novel he dreaded distraction. These necessary recognitions of every day existence made it harder for him to lift himself back again into his world of dream.
However, in his sustained fits of abstraction he had a worthy ally in the forwarding partner. Things came to his hand in the most magical way, and his every wish seemed anticipated. It was as if the whole scheme of life conspired to favour the flow of inspiration. Thus, when he was quietly told that lunch was ready, and instead of eating would gaze vacantly at the butter, there was no suggestion of his impending insanity; neither, when he poured tea into the sugar basin instead of into his cup, was there any demonstration of alarm.
On the other hand the forwarding partner might often have been seen turning over the English magazines displayed in front of the booksellers, and noting their office addresses. She was wonderfully persistent, but wofully unfortunate. Even the New York-London article, which the manufacturing partner had told her to send to the Gotham Gleaner, had been returned. The editor was a personal friend of his, and had the article been signed in his own name would probably have taken it. As it was it did not get beyond a sub-editor.
“Throw the thing into the fire,” he said savagely when she told him; but she promptly sent it to the Sunday Magazine section of the New York Monitor. After that she was silent on the subject of returned manuscripts.
I have forbidden Anastasia to sell any more embroidery, so that she no longer spends long and late hours over her needle. Instead she hovers about me anxiously, doing her work with the least possible commotion.
I have given her the forty francs remaining from the sale of my seal and ring, and that, with the three guineas from the Babbler, is enough to carry us on for another month. It is extraordinary how we just manage to scrape along.
I wish to avoid all financial worry just now. My story has taken hold of me and is writing itself at the rate of three thousand words a day. No time now to spend on meticulous considerations of style; as I try to put down my teeming thoughts my pencil cannot travel fast enough. It is the same frenzy of narration with which I rattled off The Haunted Taxicab and its fellow culprits. If at times that newborn conscience of mine gives me qualms, I dull them with the thought that it is just a tale told to amuse and—oh, how I need the money!
And now to come to my novel, Tom, Dick and Harry.
Three cockney clerks on a ten days’ vacation, are tramping over a desolate moor in Wales. Tom is a dreamer with a turn for literature; Dick an adventurer who hates his desk; Harry an entertainer, with remote designs on the stage.
The scenery is wild and rugged. The road winds between great boulders that suggest a prehistoric race. The wind of the moor brings a glow to their cheeks, and their pipes are in full blast. Suddenly outspeaks Tom:
“Wouldn’t it be funny, you fellows, if a man clad in skins were suddenly to dodge out from behind one of these rocks, and we were to find that we were back in the world of a thousand years ago—just as we are now, you know, with all our knowledge of things?”
“It wouldn’t be funny at all,” said Dick. “How could we make use of our knowledge? What would we do for a living?”
“Well,” said Tom thoughtfully, “I think I would go in for the prophecy business. I could foretell things that were going to happen, and—yes, I think I’d try my hand at literary plagiarism. With all my reading I could rehash enough modern yarns to put all the tribal story-tellers out of business. I’d become the greatest yarn-spinner in the world. What would you do, Hal?”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d have any trouble,” said Harry. “I’d become the King’s harper. I think I could vamp on the harp all right. I’d revive all the popular songs of the last ten years, all the minstrel songs, all the sentimental ballads, all the national airs, and I’d set them to topical words. I’d become the greatest minstrel in the world. Now, Dick, it’s your turn.”
Dick considered for so long that they fancied he was at a loss. At last he drew a deep breath.
“I know—I’d discover America.”
They thought no more about it, and next day went gaily a-climbing a local mountain. But Tom, who was a poor climber, lagged behind his companions, and began to slip. Clawing frantically at the rough rock over the edge of the bluff he went, and fell to the bottom with a crash.
When he opened his eyes his head ached horribly. Putting up his hand he found his scalp clotted with blood. The heavy mist shut off everything but a small circle all round him. As he lay wondering what had become of his companions, suddenly he became aware of strange people regarding him. Gradually they came nearer and he saw that they were clad in skins.
Well, they take him prisoner and carry him off to their village, where their head-man questions him in an uncouth dialect. Then they send for a sage who also questions him, and is much mystified at his replies. “This wise greybeard,” thinks Tom, “seems to know less than an average school-boy.”
Then comes the news that two more of the strange creatures have been captured. Once again the trio are united.
“It’s a rum go,” said Dick. “Seems we’ve slipped back a thousand years.”
“What particular period of history have we climbed off at?” demanded Harry.
“It looks to me,” said Tom, “as if we were in Saxon England, just before the Norman Invasion. From what the old gentleman tells me Harold is the big chief.”
“What will we do?”
“Seems to me we’ll be all right. With a thousand years or so of experience ahead of those fellows we ought to become great men in this land. We were mighty small fry in old London. I wish I was an engineer, I’d invent gunpowder or something.”
“We’d better carry out our original plans,” said Dick.
By and by came messengers from the king, who wished to see these strange beings descended on his earth from a star. And, indeed, it seemed to the three friends as if they had really dropped on some planet a thousand years less advanced than ours (for given similar beginnings and conditions, will not history go on repeating itself?). In any case, the king received them with wonder and respect, and straightway they were attached to the royal household.
Gradually they adapted themselves to mediæval ways, became accustomed to sleeping on straw, and to eating like pigs; but even to the last they did not cease to deplore the absence of small-tooth combs in the toilet equipment of the royal family.
The book goes on to trace the fortunes of each of its three heroes. It tells how Harry captivated the court with a buck-and-wing dance, set them turkey-trotting to the strains of “Hitchy Koo,” and bunny-hugging to the melody of “Down the Mississippi.” He even opened a private class for lessons in the Tango, and initiated Tango Teas in which mead replaced the fragrant orange pekoe. He invented the first banjo, demoralised the court with the first ragtime. You should have heard King Harold joining in the chorus of “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,” or singing as a solo “You Made Me Love You.” Decidedly Harry bid fair to be the most popular man in the kingdom.
But Tom was running him a pretty close race. He had become the Royal Story-teller, and nightly held them breathless while he thrilled them with such marvels as horseless chariots, men who fly with wings, and lightning harnessed till it makes the night like day. Yet when he hinted that such things may even come to pass, what a howl of derision went up!
“Ah, no!” cried King Harold, “these be not the deeds of men but of the very gods.” And all the wise men of the land wagged their grey beards in approval.
So after that he gave Truth the cold shoulder, and found fiction more grateful. He reconstructed all the stock plots of to-day, giving them a Saxon setting; and the characters that had taken the strongest hold on the popular imagination he rehabilitated in Saxon guise. The most childish tales would suffice. Night after night would he rivet their attention with “Aladdin” or “Bluebeard,” or “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Just as Harry had made all the minstrels rend their harp-strings, in despair, so Tom made all the story-tellers blush with shame, and take to the Hinterlands.
Poor Dick, however, was having a harder time of it. Like a man inspired he was raving of a wonderful land many days sail beyond the sea. But the stolid Saxons refused to believe him. “Fancy believing one who says the world is round! Surely the man is mad.”
At last he fell in with some Danes who, seeing an opportunity for piracy, agreed to let him be their pilot to this golden land. They fitted out a vessel, and sailed away to the West. But they were storm-driven for many days, and finally their boat was wrecked on the Arran Islands.
In the meantime, William the Conqueror came on the scene, and King Harold, refusing to listen to the warning of Tom, gave fight to the Norman. Then Tom and Harry beheld with their modern eyes that epoch-making battle.
“Oh, for a hundred men armed with modern rifles!” said Tom. “Then we could conquer the whole world.”
But with the subjugation of the Saxon, dark days follow for the three friends. Harry, trying to get a footing in the new court, and struggling with the new language, is stabbed by a jealous court jester. Dick, having escaped from the irate Danes, marries an Irish princess and becomes one of the Irish kings. Tom, continuing to indulge in his gift for prophecy, incurs the dislike of the Church and is thrown into prison. Then one bright morning he is led to be executed. He lays his head on the block. The executioner raises his axe. There is sudden blankness....
“Yes, very interesting case,” he hears the doctor saying. “Fell thirty feet. Came nasty whack on the rocks. We’ve trepanned ... expect him to recover consciousness quite soon....”
One morning, about the beginning of July, I was leading Dick through a whirl of adventure in the wilds of darkest Ireland, when Anastasia entered. I looked at her blankly.
“Hullo! What’s wrong now?”
“Oh! I am desolate. Please excuse me for trouble you, darleen, but there is no help for it. We have forget the rent, and once more it is necessary to be paid.”
“Oh, the rent, the awful, inevitable rent! What a cursed institution it is! Well, Little Thing, I’ve no money.”
“What we do, darleen?”
“It’s very unfortunate. I’m getting on so nicely with my novel, and here I have to break off and worry over matters of sordid finance.”
“I’m so sorry. Let me sell some of my hem-broderie. I sink I catch some money for that.”
“No, I hate to let you do that. Stop! We’ll compromise. Give me what you have and I’ll put it ‘up the spout.’ It will be only for a little while.”
So she gave me a cushion cover, two centre pieces, and some little mats.
“How much money is left?” I asked.
“Only about eleven franc.”
“Hum! That won’t help us much. All right. Leave it to me, and whatever you do, don’t worry. I’ll raise the wind somehow.”
So I took the suitcase, with the pieces of embroidery I had previously bought, and carried the whole thing to the Mont de Piété. I realised seventy francs for the whole thing.
“There you are,” I said on my return. “With the eleven francs you have, that makes eighty-one. You’d better pay the rent for one month only. Then we will have forty francs left. We can struggle along on that for two weeks. By that time something else will be sure to turn up.”
Something did turn up—the very next day. The editor of a cheap Weekly who had already begun to make plans for his special Christmas number, wrote and offered to take my diphtheria story if I would give it a Christmas setting. I growled, and used shocking language, but in the end I laid aside my novel and rechristening the story My Terrible Christmas, I made the necessary changes. Result: another cheque for a guinea.
How she managed to last out the balance of the month on an average of two francs a day I never knew. I discontinued my morning walks, giving all my time to my novel, and thinking of nothing else. I was dimly conscious that once more we were in the “Soup of the Onion” zone, but as I sat down dazed to my meals I scarce knew what I ate. I was all keyed up, with my eyes on the goal. I would compose whole chapters in my dreams, and sleeping or waking, my mind was never off my work.
Then came an evil week when the power of production completely left me. How I cursed and fretted. I was sick of the whole trade of writing. What a sorry craft! And my work was rotten. I hated it. A fog overhung my brain. I saw the whole world with distempered eyes. I started out on long walks around the fortifications, and as I walked everything seemed to lose all sense of my identity. Yet the fresh air was good to me, and the weaving of green leaves had a strange sweetness. The river, too, soothed me; then one day all my interest in the world came back.
At six o’clock that evening I began to work, and all night through I wrote like a madman. As I finished covering a sheet I would throw it on the floor and grab a fresh one. I was conscious that my wrist ached infernally. The dawn came and found me still writing, my face drawn, my eyes staring vaguely. Then at eleven in the morning I had finished. I was islanded in a sea of sheets, over twelve thousand words.
“Please pick them up for me,” I asked her. “I’m afraid it’s awful stuff, but I just had to go on. Everything seemed so plain, and I just wanted to get it down and out of my mind. Well, it’s done, my novel’s done. See, I’ve written the sweetest of all words: Finis. But I’m so tired. No, I don’t want any lunch. I’ll just lie down a bit.”
With a feeling of happiness that was like a flood of sunshine I crept into bed, and there I slept till eight of the following morning. Next day all I did was to loaf around the Luxembourg in the joyance of leaf and flower. I was still fagged, but so happy. As I smoked a tranquil pipe I watched the children on the merry-go-round. They were given little spears, with which to tilt at rings hung round the course, and if they bagged a certain number they were entitled to a seat for the next round. To watch the rosy and eager faces of these youthful knights on their fiery steeds, as they rode with lances couched, was a gentle specific for the soul.
Yes, everything seemed so good, so bright, so beneficent. I loved that picture full of freshness, gaiety and youth. Anastasia and the Môme joined me, and we listened to the band under the marronniers. Then we lingered on the Terrace of the Queen’s to watch the sky behind the Tower Eiffel kindle to a glow of amber, and a wondrous golden tide o’erflooding the groves till each leaf seemed radiant and the fountain exulted in a spray of flame.
Suddenly the Môme gave a cry of delight. Listen! In the distance we could hear a noise like a hum of bees. It is the little soldier, who every evening at closing time, parades the garden with his drum, warning every one it is time to go. This to the children is the crown of all the happy day. Hasten Sylvere and Yvonne—it is the little soldier. Fall in line, Francois and Odette, we must march to the music. Gather round Cyprille, Maurice, Victoire: follow to the rattle of the drum. Here he comes, the little blue and red soldier. How sturdily he beats! With what imperturbable dignity he marches amid that scampering, jostling, laughing, shouting mob of merry-hearted children!
“After all,” I observe, “struggle, poverty and hard work give us moments of joy such as the rich never know. I want to put it on record, that though we are nearly at the end of our resources, this has been one of the happiest days of my life.”
“I weesh you let me go to work, darleen. I make some money for help. I sew for dressmaker if you let me.”
“Never. How near are we to the end?”
“I have enough for to-morrow only.”
“That’s bad.” I didn’t say any more. A gloom fell on my spirits.
“A letter for Monsieur,” said the concierge, as with heavy hearts and slow steps we mounted to our rooms. I handed it to Anastasia.
“Open it, Little Thing; it’s in your department.”
She did so; she gave a little scream of delight.
“Look! It’s for that article I send to New York Monitor. He geeve you cheque. Let me see.... Oh, mon Dieu! one hundred franc! good, good, now we are save!”
I took it quickly.
“One hundred francs nothing,” I said. “Young woman, you’ve got to get next to our monetary system. That’s not one hundred francs; that’s one hundred dollars—five hundred francs. Why, what’s the matter?”
For Anastasia had promptly fainted.