CHAPTER 5. THE POET AND THE EDITOR
It was not bad sport--being in London entirely on our own hook. We askedthe way to Fleet Street, where Father says all the newspaper officesare. They said straight on down Ludgate Hill--but it turned out to bequite another way. At least _we_ didn't go straight on.
We got to St Paul's. Noel _would_ go in, and we saw where Gordon wasburied--at least the monument. It is very flat, considering what a manhe was.
When we came out we walked a long way, and when we asked a policeman hesaid we'd better go back through Smithfield. So we did. They don't burnpeople any more there now, so it was rather dull, besides being a longway, and Noel got very tired. He's a peaky little chap; it comes ofbeing a poet, I think. We had a bun or two at different shops--out ofthe shillings--and it was quite late in the afternoon when we got toFleet Street. The gas was lighted and the electric lights. There is ajolly Bovril sign that comes off and on in different coloured lamps. Wewent to the Daily Recorder office, and asked to see the Editor. It is abig office, very bright, with brass and mahogany and electric lights.
They told us the Editor wasn't there, but at another office. So we wentdown a dirty street, to a very dull-looking place. There was a man thereinside, in a glass case, as if he was a museum, and he told us to writedown our names and our business. So Oswald wrote--
OSWALD BASTABLE NOEL BASTABLE BUSINESS VERY PRIVATE INDEED
Then we waited on the stone stairs; it was very draughty. And the man inthe glass case looked at us as if we were the museum instead of him. Wewaited a long time, and then a boy came down and said--
'The Editor can't see you. Will you please write your business?' And helaughed. I wanted to punch his head.
But Noel said, 'Yes, I'll write it if you'll give me a pen and ink, anda sheet of paper and an envelope.'
The boy said he'd better write by post. But Noel is a bit pig-headed;it's his worst fault. So he said--'No, I'll write it _now_.' So I backedhim up by saying--
'Look at the price penny stamps are since the coal strike!'
So the boy grinned, and the man in the glass case gave us pen and paper,and Noel wrote. Oswald writes better than he does; but Noel would do it;and it took a very long time, and then it was inky.
DEAR MR EDITOR, I want you to print my poetry and pay for it, and I am a friend of Mrs Leslie's; she is a poet too.
Your affectionate friend,
NOEL BASTABLE.
He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn't read itgoing upstairs; and he wrote 'Very private' outside, and gave the letterto the boy. I thought it wasn't any good; but in a minute the grinningboy came back, and he was quite respectful, and said--'The Editor says,please will you step up?'
We stepped up. There were a lot of stairs and passages, and a queer sortof humming, hammering sound and a very funny smell. The boy was now verypolite, and said it was the ink we smelt, and the noise was the printingmachines.
After going through a lot of cold passages we came to a door; the boyopened it, and let us go in. There was a large room, with a big, soft,blue-and-red carpet, and a roaring fire, though it was only October; anda large table with drawers, and littered with papers, just like the onein Father's study. A gentleman was sitting at one side of the table; hehad a light moustache and light eyes, and he looked very young to be aneditor--not nearly so old as Father. He looked very tired and sleepy,as if he had got up very early in the morning; but he was kind, and weliked him. Oswald thought he looked clever. Oswald is considered a judgeof faces.
'Well,' said he, 'so you are Mrs Leslie's friends?'
'I think so,' said Noel; 'at least she gave us each a shilling, and shewished us "good hunting!"'
'Good hunting, eh? Well, what about this poetry of yours? Which is thepoet?'
I can't think how he could have asked! Oswald is said to be a verymanly-looking boy for his age. However, I thought it would look duffingto be offended, so I said--
'This is my brother Noel. He is the poet.' Noel had turned quite pale.He is disgustingly like a girl in some ways. The Editor told us to sitdown, and he took the poems from Noel, and began to read them. Noel gotpaler and paler; I really thought he was going to faint, like he didwhen I held his hand under the cold-water tap, after I had accidentallycut him with my chisel. When the Editor had read the first poem--it wasthe one about the beetle--he got up and stood with his back to us. Itwas not manners; but Noel thinks he did it 'to conceal his emotion,' asthey do in books. He read all the poems, and then he said--
'I like your poetry very much, young man. I'll give you--let me see; howmuch shall I give you for it?'
'As much as ever you can,' said Noel. 'You see I want a good deal ofmoney to restore the fallen fortunes of the house of Bastable.'
The gentleman put on some eye-glasses and looked hard at us. Then he satdown.
'That's a good idea,' said he. 'Tell me how you came to think of it.And, I say, have you had any tea? They've just sent out for mine.'
He rang a tingly bell, and the boy brought in a tray with a teapot anda thick cup and saucer and things, and he had to fetch another tray forus, when he was told to; and we had tea with the Editor of the DailyRecorder. I suppose it was a very proud moment for Noel, though Idid not think of that till afterwards. The Editor asked us a lot ofquestions, and we told him a good deal, though of course I did not tella stranger all our reasons for thinking that the family fortunes wantedrestoring. We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away hesaid again--
'I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you thinkthey're worth?'
'I don't know,' Noel said. 'You see I didn't write them to sell.'
'Why did you write them then?' he asked.
Noel said he didn't know; he supposed because he wanted to.
'Art for Art's sake, eh?' said the Editor, and he seemed quitedelighted, as though Noel had said something clever.
'Well, would a guinea meet your views?' he asked.
I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion,and I've read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, orjoy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noelstanding staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and hewent white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing more andmore crimson lake on a palette. But he didn't say a word, so Oswald hadto say--
'I should jolly well think so.'
So the Editor gave Noel a sovereign and a shilling, and he shook handswith us both, but he thumped Noel on the back and said--
'Buck up, old man! It's your first guinea, but it won't be your last.Now go along home, and in about ten years you can bring me some morepoetry. Not before--see? I'm just taking this poetry of yours because Ilike it very much; but we don't put poetry in this paper at all. I shallhave to put it in another paper I know of.'
'What _do_ you put in your paper?' I asked, for Father always takes theDaily Chronicle, and I didn't know what the Recorder was like. We choseit because it has such a glorious office, and a clock outside lightedup.
'Oh, news,' said he, 'and dull articles, and things about Celebrities.If you know any Celebrities, now?'
Noel asked him what Celebrities were.
'Oh, the Queen and the Princes, and people with titles, and people whowrite, or sing, or act--or do something clever or wicked.'
'I don't know anybody wicked,' said Oswald, wishing he had known DickTurpin, or Claude Duval, so as to be able to tell the Editor thingsabout them. 'But I know some one with a title--Lord Tottenham.'
'The mad old Protectionist, eh? How did you come to know him?'
'We don't know him to speak to. But he goes over the Heath every day atthree, and he strides along like a giant--with a black cloak like LordTennyson's flying behind him, and he talks to himself like one o'clock.'
'What does he say?' The Editor had sat down again, and he was fiddlingwith a blue pencil.
'We only heard him once, c
lose enough to understand, and then he said,"The curse of the country, sir--ruin and desolation!" And then he wentstriding along again, hitting at the furze-bushes as if they were theheads of his enemies.'
'Excellent descriptive touch,' said the Editor. 'Well, go on.'
'That's all I know about him, except that he stops in the middle of theHeath every day, and he looks all round to see if there's any one about,and if there isn't, he takes his collar off.'
The Editor interrupted--which is considered rude--and said--
'You're not romancing?'
'I beg your pardon?' said Oswald. 'Drawing the long bow, I mean,' saidthe Editor.
Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasn't a liar.
The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at allthe same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. SoOswald accepted his apology, and went on.
'We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. Hetook off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the otheramong the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastlypaper one!'
'Thank you,' said the Editor, and he got up and put his hand in hispocket. 'That's well worth five shillings, and there they are. Would youlike to see round the printing offices before you go home?'
I pocketed my five bob, and thanked him, and I said we should like itvery much. He called another gentleman and said something we couldn'thear. Then he said good-bye again; and all this time Noel hadn't said aword. But now he said, 'I've made a poem about you. It is called "Linesto a Noble Editor." Shall I write it down?'
The Editor gave him the blue pencil, and he sat down at the Editor'stable and wrote. It was this, he told me afterwards as well as he couldremember--
May Life's choicest blessings be your lot I think you ought to be very blest For you are going to print my poems-- And you may have this one as well as the rest.
'Thank you,' said the Editor. 'I don't think I ever had a poem addressedto me before. I shall treasure it, I assure you.'
Then the other gentleman said something about Maecenas, and we went offto see the printing office with at least one pound seven in our pockets.
It _was_ good hunting, and no mistake!
But he never put Noel's poetry in the Daily Recorder. It was quite along time afterwards we saw a sort of story thing in a magazine, on thestation bookstall, and that kind, sleepy-looking Editor had written it,I suppose. It was not at all amusing. It said a lot about Noel and me,describing us all wrong, and saying how we had tea with the Editor;and all Noel's poems were in the story thing. I think myself the Editorseemed to make game of them, but Noel was quite pleased to see themprinted--so that's all right. It wasn't my poetry anyhow, I am glad tosay.