Chapter 13
THE SECOND GHOST_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_
The reasons which had led me to select Sidney Price as the sponsor ofmy Society dialogues will be immediately apparent to those who haveread them. They were just the sort of things you would expect aninsurance clerk to write. The humour was thin, the satire as cheap asthe papers in which they appeared, and the vulgarity in exactly theright quantity for a public that ate it by the pound and asked formore. Every thing pointed to Sidney Price as the man.
It was my intention to allow each of my three ghosts to imagine that hewas alone in the business; so I did not get Price's address fromHatton, who might have wondered why I wanted it, and had suspicions. Iapplied to the doorkeeper at Carnation Hall; and on the followingevening I rang the front-door bell of The Hollyhocks, Belmont ParkRoad, Brixton.
Whilst I was waiting on the step, I was able to get a view through theslats of the Venetian blind of the front ground-floor sitting-room. Icould scarcely restrain a cry of pure aesthetic delight at what I sawwithin. Price was sitting on a horse-hair sofa with an arm round thewaist of a rather good-looking girl. Her eyes were fixed on his. It wasEdwin and Angelina in real life.
Up till then I had suffered much discomfort from the illustrated recordof their adventures in the comic papers. "Is there really," I had oftenasked myself, "a body of men so gifted that they can construct theimpossible details of the lives of nonexistent types purely fromimagination? If such creative genius as theirs is unrecognized andignored, what hope of recognition is there for one's own work?" Thethought had frequently saddened me; but here at last they were--Edwinand Angelina in the flesh!
I took the gallant Sidney for a fifteen-minute stroll up and down thelength of the Belmont Park Road. Poor Angelina! He came, as heexpressed it, "like a bird." Give him a sec. to slip on a pair ofboots, he said, and he would be with me in two ticks.
He was so busy getting his hat and stick from the stand in the passagethat he quite forgot to tell the lady that he was going out, and, as weleft, I saw her with the tail of my eye sitting stolidly on the sofa,still wearing patiently the expression of her comic-paper portraits.
The task of explaining was easier than it had been with Hatton.
"Sorry to drag you out, Price," I said, as we went down the steps.
"Don't mention it, Mr. Cloyster," he said. "Norah won't mind a bit of asit by herself. Looked in to have a chat, or is there anything I cando?"
"It's like this," I said. "You know I write a good deal?"
"Yes."
"Well, it has occurred to me that, if I go on turning out quantities ofstuff under my own name, there's a danger of the public getting tiredof me."
He nodded.
"Now, I'm with you there, mind you," he said. "'Can't have too much ofa good thing,' some chaps say. I say, 'Yes, you can.' Stands to reasona chap can't go on writing and writing without making a bloomer everynow and then. What he wants is to take his time over it. Look at allthe real swells--'Erbert Spencer, Marie Corelli, and what not--youdon't find them pushing it out every day of the year. They wait a bitand have a look round, and then they start again when they're ready.Stands to reason that's the only way."
"Quite right," I said; "but the difficulty, if you live by writing, isthat you must turn out a good deal, or you don't make enough to liveon. I've got to go on getting stuff published, but I don't want peopleto be always seeing my name about."
"You mean, adopt a _nom de ploom_?"
"That's the sort of idea; but I'm going to vary it a little."
And I explained my plan.
"But why me?" he asked, when he had understood the scheme. "What madeyou think of me?"
"The fact is, my dear fellow," I said, "this writing is a game wherepersonality counts to an enormous extent. The man who signs my Societydialogues will probably come into personal contact with the editors ofthe papers in which they appear. He will be asked to call at theiroffices. So you see I must have a man who looks as if he had writtenthe stuff."
"I see," he said complacently. "Dressy sort of chap. Chap who looks asif he knew a thing or two."
"Yes. I couldn't get Alf Joblin, for instance."
We laughed together at the notion.
"Poor old Alf!" said Sidney Price.
"Now you probably know a good deal about Society?"
"Rath_er_" said Sidney. "They're a hot lot. My _word_! Saw_The Walls of Jericho_ three times. Gives it 'em pretty straight,that does. _Visits of Elizabeth_, too. Chase me! Used to thinksome of us chaps in the 'Moon' were a bit O.T., but we aren't init--not in the same street. Chaps, I mean, who'd call a girl behind thebar by her Christian name as soon as look at you. One chap I knew usedto give the girl at the cash-desk of the 'Mecca' he went to bottles ofscent. Bottles of it--regular! 'Here you are, Tottie,' he used to say,'here's another little donation from yours truly.' Kissed her once.Slap in front of everybody. Saw him do it. But, bless you, they'd thinknothing of that in the Smart Set. Ever read 'God's Good Man'? There's abook! My stars! Lets you see what goes on. Scorchers they are."
"That's just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then?"
He said I could. He was an intelligent young man, and he gave me tounderstand that all would be well. He would carry the job through onthe strict Q.T. He closely willingly with my offer of ten per cent,thus affording a striking contrast to the grasping Hatton. He assuredme he had found literary chaps not half bad. Had occasionally had anidea of writing a bit himself.
We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placingmy "Dialogues of Mayfair" and my "London and Country House Tales" inreally competent and appreciative hands.