A Man of Means Page 6

  The fact that such a paper existed was brought home to him with the coffee. A note was placed upon his table by the attentive waiter.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “The lady, sare,” said the waiter vaguely.

  Roland looked round the room excitedly. The spirit of romance gripped him. There were many ladies present, for this particular restaurant was a favorite with artistes who were permitted to “look in” at their theaters as late as eight-thirty. None of them looked particularly self-conscious, yet one of them had sent him this quite unsolicited tribute. He tore open the envelope.

  The message, written in a flowing feminine hand, was brief, and Mrs. Grundy herself could have taken no exception to it.

  “‘Squibs,’ one penny weekly, buy it,” it ran. All the mellowing effects of a good dinner passed away from Roland. He was feverishly irritated. He paid his bill and left the place.

  A visit to a neighboring music-hall occurred to him as a suitable sedative. Hardly had his nerves ceased to quiver sufficiently to allow him to begin to enjoy the performance, when, in the interval between two of the turns, a man rose in one of the side boxes.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?”

  There was a hush in the audience. All eyes were directed toward the box. A man in the stalls rose, blushing, and cleared his throat.

  “My wife has fainted,” continued the speaker. “She has just discovered that she has lost her copy of ‘Squibs.’”

  The audience received the statement with the bovine stolidity of an English audience in the presence of the unusual.

  Not so Roland. Even as the purposeful-looking chuckers-out wended their leopard-like steps toward the box, he was rushing out into the street.

  As he stood cooling his indignation in the pleasant breeze which had sprung up, he was aware of a dense crowd proceeding toward him. It was headed by an individual who shone out against the drab background like a good deed in a naughty world. Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time, and this was one of the strangest that Roland’s bulging eyes had ever rested upon. He was a large, stout man, comfortably clad in a suit of white linen, relieved by a scarlet ‘Squibs’ across the bosom. His top-hat, at least four sizes larger than any top-hat worn out of a pantomime, flaunted the same word in letters of flame. His umbrella, which, tho the weather was fine, he carried open above his head, bore the device “One penny weekly”.

  The arrest of this person by a vigilant policeman and Roland’s dive into a taxicab occurred simultaneously. Roland was blushing all over. His head was in a whirl. He took the evening paper handed in through the window of the cab quite mechanically, and it was only the strong exhortations of the vendor which eventually induced him to pay for it. This he did with a sovereign, and the cab drove off.

  He was just thinking of going to bed several hours later, when it occurred to him that he had not read his paper. He glanced at the first page. The middle column was devoted to a really capitally written account of the proceedings at Bow Street consequent upon the arrest of six men who, it was alleged, had caused a crowd to collect to the disturbance of the peace by parading the Strand in the undress of Zulu warriors, shouting in unison the words “Wah! Wah! Wah! Buy ‘Squibs.’”

  Young Mr. Petheram greeted Roland with a joyous enthusiasm which the hound Argus, on the return of Ulysses, might have equalled but could scarcely have surpassed.

  It seemed to be Mr. Petheram’s considered opinion that God was in His Heaven and all was right with the world. Roland’s attempts to correct this belief fell on deaf ears.

  “Have I seen the advertisements?” he cried, echoing his editor’s first question. “I’ve seen nothing else.”

  “There!” said Mr. Petheram proudly.

  “It can’t go on.”

  “Yes, it can. Don’t you worry. I know they’re arrested as fast as we send them out, but, bless you, the supply’s endless. Ever since the Revue boom started and actors were expected to do six different parts in seven minutes, there are platoons of music-hall ‘pros’ hanging about the Strand, ready to take on any sort of job you offer them. I have a special staff flushing the Bodegas. These fellows love it. It’s meat and drink to them to be right in the public eye like that. Makes them feel ten years younger. It’s wonderful the talent knocking about. Those Zulus used to have a steady job as the Six Brothers Biff, Society Contortionists. The Revue craze killed them professionally. They cried like children when we took them on.

  “By the way, could you put through an expenses cheque before you go? The fines mount up a bit. But don’t you worry about that either. We’re coining money. I’ll show you the returns in a minute. I told you we should turn the corner. Turned it! Blame me, we’ve whizzed round it on two wheels. Have you had time to see the paper since you got back? No? Then you haven’t seen our new Scandal Page—’We Just Want to Know, You Know.’ It’s a corker, and it’s sent the circulation up like a rocket. Everybody reads ‘Squibs’ now. I was hoping you would come back soon. I wanted to ask you about taking new offices. We’re a bit above this sort of thing now.”

  Roland, meanwhile, was reading with horrified eyes the alleged corking Scandal Page. It seemed to him without exception the most frightful production he had ever seen. It appalled him.

  “This is awful,” he moaned. “We shall have a hundred libel actions.”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right. It’s all fake stuff, tho the public doesn’t know it. If you stuck to real scandals you wouldn’t get a par. a week. A more moral set of blameless wasters than the blighters who constitute modern society you never struck. But it reads all right, doesn’t it? Of course, every now and then one does hear something genuine, and then it goes in. For instance, have you ever heard of Percy Pook, the bookie? I have got a real ripe thing in about Percy this week, the absolute limpid truth. It will make him sit up a bit. There, just under your thumb.”

  Roland removed his thumb, and, having read the paragraph in question, started as if he had removed it from a snake.

  “But this is bound to mean a libel action!” he cried.

  “Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Petheram comfortably. “You don’t know Percy. I won’t bore you with his life-history, but take it from me he doesn’t rush into a court of law from sheer love of it. You’re safe enough.”

  But it appeared that Mr. Pook, tho coy in the matter of cleansing his scutcheon before a judge and jury, was not wholly without weapons of defense and offense. Arriving at the office next day, Roland found a scene of desolation, in the middle of which, like Marius among the ruins of Carthage, sat Jimmy, the vacant-faced office boy. Jimmy was reading an illustrated comic paper, and appeared undisturbed by his surroundings.

  “He’s gorn,” he observed, looking up as Roland entered.

  “What do you mean?” Roland snapped at him. “Who’s gone and where did he go? And besides that, when you speak to your superiors you will rise and stop chewing that infernal gum. It gets on my nerves.”

  Jimmy neither rose nor relinquished his gum. He took his time and answered.

  “Mr. Petheram. A couple of fellers come in and went through, and there was a uproar inside there, and presently out they come running, and I went in, and there was Mr. Petheram on the floor knocked silly and the furniture all broke, and now ‘e’s gorn to ‘orspital. Those fellers ‘ad been putting ‘im froo it proper,” concluded Jimmy with moody relish.

  Roland sat down weakly. Jimmy, his tale told, resumed the study of his illustrated paper. Silence reigned in the offices of ‘Squibs.’

  It was broken by the arrival of Miss March. Her exclamation of astonishment at the sight of the wrecked room led to a repetition of Jimmy’s story.

  She vanished on hearing the name of the hospital to which the stricken editor had been removed, and returned an hour later with flashing eyes and a set jaw.

  “Aubrey,” she said—it was news to Roland that Mr. Petheram’s name was Aubrey—”is very much knocked about, but he is conscious and sitting up and
taking nourishment.”

  “That’s good.”

  “In a spoon only.”

  “Ah!” said Roland.

  “The doctor says he will not be out for a week. Aubrey is certain it was that horrible book-maker’s men who did it, but of course he can prove nothing. But his last words to me were, ‘Slip it into Percy again this week.’ He has given me one or two things to mention. I don’t understand them, but Aubrey says they will make him wild.”

  Roland’s flesh crept. The idea of making Mr. Pook any wilder than he appeared to be at present horrified him. Panic gave him strength, and he addressed Miss March, who was looking more like a modern Joan of Arc than anything else on earth, firmly.

  “Miss March,” he said, “I realize that this is a crisis, and that we must all do all that we can for the paper, and I am ready to do anything in reason—but I will not slip it into Percy. You have seen the effects of slipping it into Percy. What he or his minions will do if we repeat the process I do not care to think.”

  “You are afraid?”

  “Yes,” said Roland simply.

  Miss March turned on her heel. It was plain that she regarded him as a worm. Roland did not like being thought a worm, but it was infinitely better than being regarded as an interesting case by the house-surgeon of a hospital. He belonged to the school of thought which holds that it is better that people should say of you, “There he goes!” than that they should say, “How peaceful he looks”.

  Stress of work prevented further conversation. It was a revelation to Roland, the vigor and energy with which Miss March threw herself into the breach. As a matter of fact, so tremendous had been the labors of the departed Mr. Petheram, that her work was more apparent than real. Thanks to Mr. Petheram, there was a sufficient supply of material in hand to enable ‘Squibs’ to run a fortnight on its own momentum. Roland, however, did not know this, and with a view to doing what little he could to help, he informed Miss March that he would write the Scandal Page. It must be added that the offer was due quite as much to prudence as to chivalry. Roland simply did not dare to trust her with the Scandal Page. In her present mood it was not safe. To slip it into Percy would, he felt, be with her the work of a moment.

  Literary composition had never been Roland’s forte. He sat and stared at the white paper and chewed the pencil which should have been marring its whiteness with stinging paragraphs. No sort of idea came to him.

  His brow grew damp. What sort of people—except book-makers—did things you could write scandal about? As far as he could ascertain, nobody.

  He picked up the morning paper. The name Windlebird [] caught his eye. A kind of pleasant melancholy came over him as he read the paragraph. How long ago it seemed since he had met that genial financier. The paragraph was not particularly interesting. It gave a brief account of some large deal which Mr. Windlebird was negotiating. Roland did not understand a word of it, but it gave him an idea.

  [*] He is a character in the Second Episode, a fraudulent financier.

  Mr. Windlebird’s financial standing, he knew, was above suspicion. Mr. Windlebird had made that clear to him during his visit. There could be no possibility of offending Mr. Windlebird by a paragraph or two about the manners and customs of financiers. Phrases which his kindly host had used during his visit came back to him, and with them inspiration.

  Within five minutes he had compiled the following

  WE JUST WANT TO KNOW, YOU KNOW

  WHO is the eminent financier at present engaged upon one of his biggest deals?

  WHETHER the public would not be well-advised to look a little closer into it before investing their money?

  IF it is not a fact that this gentleman has bought a first-class ticket to the Argentine in case of accidents?

  WHETHER he may not have to use it at any moment?

  After that it was easy. Ideas came with a rush. By the end of an hour he had completed a Scandal Page of which Mr. Petheram himself might have been proud, without a suggestion of slipping it into Percy. He felt that he could go to Mr. Pook, and say, “Percy, on your honor as a British book-maker, have I slipped it into you in any way whatsoever?” And Mr. Pook would be compelled to reply, “You have not.”

  Miss March read the proofs of the page, and sniffed. But Miss March’s blood was up, and she would have sniffed at anything not directly hostile to Mr. Pook.

  A week later Roland sat in the office of ‘Squibs,’ reading a letter. It had been sent from No. 18-A Bream’s Buildings, E.C., but, from Roland’s point of view, it might have come direct from heaven; for its contents, signed by Harrison, Harrison, Harrison & Harrison, Solicitors, were to the effect that a client of theirs had instructed them to approach him with a view to purchasing the paper. He would not find their client disposed to haggle over terms, so, hoped Messrs. Harrison, Harrison, Harrison & Harrison, in the event of Roland being willing to sell, they could speedily bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion.

  Any conclusion which had left him free of ‘Squibs’ without actual pecuniary loss would have been satisfactory to Roland. He had conceived a loathing for his property which not even its steadily increasing sales could mitigate. He was around at Messrs. Harrison’s office as soon as a swift taxi could take him there. The lawyers were for spinning the thing out with guarded remarks and cautious preambles, but Roland’s methods of doing business were always rapid.

  “This chap,” he said, “this fellow who wants to buy ‘Squibs,’ what’ll he give?”

  “That,” began one of the Harrisons ponderously, “would, of course, largely depend–-“

  “I’ll take five thousand. Lock, stock, and barrel, including the present staff, an even five thousand. How’s that?”

  “Five thousand is a large–-“

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “My dear sir, you hold a pistol to our heads. However, I think that our client might consent to the sum you mention.”

  “Good. Well, directly I get his check, the thing’s his. By the way, who is your client?”

  Mr. Harrison coughed.

  “His name,” he said, “will be familiar to you. He is the eminent financier, Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird.”

  THE DIVERTING EPISODE OF THE EXILED MONARCH

  Fifth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, September 1916]

  The caoutchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc, for the national dance of Paranoya contained three hundred and fifteen recognized steps; but everybody tried to. A new revue, “Hullo, Caoutchouc,” had been produced with success. And the pioneer of the dance, the peerless Maraquita, a native Paranoyan, still performed it nightly at the music-hall where she had first broken loose.

  The caoutchouc fascinated Roland Bleke. Maraquita fascinated him more. Of all the women to whom he had lost his heart at first sight, Maraquita had made the firmest impression upon him. She was what is sometimes called a fine woman.

  She had large, flashing eyes, the physique of a Rugby International forward, and the agility of a cat on hot bricks.

  There is a period of about fifty steps somewhere in the middle of the three hundred and fifteen where the patient, abandoning the comparative decorum of the earlier movements, whizzes about till she looks like a salmon-colored whirlwind.

  That was the bit that hit Roland.

  Night after night he sat in his stage-box, goggling at Maraquita and applauding wildly.

  One night an attendant came to his box.

  “Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr. Roland Bleke? The Senorita Maraquita wishes to speak to you.”

  He held open the door of the box. The possibility of refusal did not appear to occur to him. Behind the scenes at that theater, it was generally recognized that when the Peerless One wanted a thing, she got it—quick.

  They were alone.

  With no protective footlights between himsel
f and her, Roland came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake. It was not that she was any less beautiful at the very close quarters imposed by the limits of the dressing-room; but he felt that in falling in love with her he had undertaken a contract a little too large for one of his quiet, diffident nature. It crossed his mind that the sort of woman he really liked was the rather small, drooping type. Dynamite would not have made Maraquita droop.

  For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this leading question:

  “You love me, hein?”

  Roland nodded feebly.

  “When men make love to me, I send them away—so.”

  She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to feel almost cheerful again. He was to be dismissed with a caution, after all. The woman had a fine, forgiving nature.

  “But not you.”

  “Not me?”

  “No, not you. You are the man I have been waiting for. I read about you in the paper, Senor Bleke. I see your picture in the ‘Daily Mirror!’ I say to myself, ‘What a man!’”

  “Those picture-paper photographs always make one look rather weird,” mumbled Roland.

  “I see you night after night in your box. Poof! I love you.”

  “Thanks awfully,” bleated Roland.

  “You would do anything for my sake, hein? I knew you were that kind of man directly I see you. No,” she added, as Roland writhed uneasily in his chair, “do not embrace me. Later, yes, but now, no. Not till the Great Day.”

  What the Great Day might be Roland could not even faintly conjecture. He could only hope that it would also be a remote one.

  “And now,” said the Senorita, throwing a cloak about her shoulders, “you come away with me to my house. My friends are there awaiting us. They will be glad and proud to meet you.”