The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold
He was fashionably garbed, though not in evening dress, and he greeted her without raising his hat.
"Shall we have a drink?" she suggested. "I'm so thirsty."
"Fizz?" the man drawled. She nodded.
Soon they went out together, the man carelessly stuffing change for a five-pound note into his pocket.
"What's the difference between him and me?" Richard reflected as he walked home. "But just wait a bit; wait till I've...."
When he reached his lodging the meanness of the room, of his clothes, of his supper, nauseated him. He dreamed that he was kissing the Ottoman girl, and that she lisped, "Nice boy," whereupon he cast a handful of sovereigns on her lap.
At six o'clock the next morning he was working at his article. In two days it was finished, and he had despatched it to a monthly magazine, "together with a stamped directed envelope for its return if unsuitable," in accordance with the editorial instructions printed below the table of contents in every number. The editor of the "Trifler" promised that all manuscripts so submitted, and written on one side of the paper only, should be dealt with promptly.
He had been expecting to discuss his work with Mr. Aked at the proposed dinner, but this had not taken place. On the morning after the arrangement had been made, Mr. Aked fell ill, and in a few days he wrote to resign his post, saying that he had sufficient to live on, and felt "too venerable for regular work."
Richard held but the frailest hope that "A City of Sleep" would be accepted, but when the third morning arrived, and the postman brought nothing, his opinion of the article began to rise. Perhaps it had merit, after all; he recalled certain parts of it which were distinctly clever and striking. Hurrying home from the office that afternoon, he met the landlady's daughter on the stairs, and said casually,—
"Any letters for me, Lily?"
"No, sir." The girl had an attractive blush.
"I'll take a couple of eggs for tea, if Mrs. Rowbotham has them."
He remained at home in the evening, waiting for the last delivery, which occurred about 9:30. The double knocks of the postman were audible ten or twelve houses away. At last Richard heard him mounting the steps of No. 74, and then his curt rat-tat shook the house. A little thud on the bare wooden floor of the hall seemed to indicate a heavier package than the ordinary letter.
As, when a man is drowning, the bad actions of a whole lifetime present themselves to him in one awful flash, so at that moment all the faults, the hopeless crudities, of "A City of Sleep" confronted Richard. He wondered at his own fatuity in imagining for a single instant that the article had the barest chance of acceptance. Was it not notorious that famous authors had written industriously for years without selling a line!
Lily came in with the supper-tray. She was smiling.
"Warm work, eh, Lily?" he said, scarcely knowing that he spoke.
"Yes, sir, it's that hot in the kitchen you wouldn't believe." Setting down the tray, she handed him a foolscap envelope, and he saw his own handwriting as if in a dream.
"For me?" he murmured carelessly, and placed the letter on the mantelpiece. Lily took his orders for breakfast, and with a pleasant, timid "Good-night, sir," left the room.
He opened the envelope. In the fold of his manuscript was a sheet of the best cream-laid note-paper bearing these words in flowing copperplate: "The Editor presents his compliments to Mr. Larch [written] and regrets to be unable to use the enclosed article, for the offer of which he is much obliged."
The sight of this circular, with the offices of the magazine illustrated at the top, and the notification in the left-hand corner that all letters must be addressed to the editor and not to any member of the staff individually, in some mysterious way mitigated Richard's disappointment. Perhaps the comfort of it lay in the tangible assurance it afforded that he was now actually a literary aspirant and had communications, however mortifying, with the press.
He read the circular again and again during supper, and determined to re-write the article. But this resolve was not carried out. He could not bring himself even to glance through it, and finally it was sent to another magazine exactly as it stood.
Richard had determined to say nothing in the office about his writing until he could produce a printed article with his name at the foot; and frequently during the last few days his mouth had watered as he anticipated the sweetness of that triumph. But next day he could not refrain from showing to Jenkins the note from the "Trifler." Jenkins seemed impressed, especially when Richard requested him to treat the matter as confidential. A sort of friendship arose between them, and strengthened as time went on. Richard sometimes wondered how precisely it had come about, and why it continued.
Chapter VII
Albert Jenkins was nineteen years of age, and lived with his parents and seven brothers and sisters in Camberwell; his father managed a refreshment bar in Oxford Street. He had been in the employ of Messrs. Curpet and Smythe for seven years,—first as junior office boy, then as senior office boy, and finally as junior shorthand clerk. He was of the average height, with a shallow chest, and thin arms and legs. His feet were very small—he often referred to the fact with frank complacency—and were always encased in well-fitting hand-made boots, brightly polished. The rest of his attire was less remarkable for neatness; but at intervals an ambition to be genteel possessed him, and during these recurrent periods the nice conduct of his fingernails interfered somewhat with official routine. He carried his hat either at the back of his head or tilted almost upon the bridge of his nose. In the streets he generally walked with sedate deliberation, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes lowered, and an enigmatic smile on his thin lips.
His countenance was of a pale yellow complexion just tinged with red, and he never coloured; his neck was a darker yellow. Upon the whole, his features were regular, except the mouth, which was large, and protruded like a monkey's; the eyes were grey, with a bold regard, which not seldom was excusably mistaken for insolence.
Considering his years, Jenkins was a highly accomplished person, in certain directions. Upon all matters connected with her Majesty's mail and inland revenue, upon cab fares, bus-routes, and local railways, upon "Pitman outlines," and upon chamber practice in Chancery, he was an unquestioned authority. He knew the addresses of several hundred London solicitors, the locality of nearly every street and square within the four-mile radius, and, within the same limits, the approximate distance of any one given spot from any other given spot.
He was the best billiard-player in the office, and had once made a spot-barred break of 49; this game was his sole pastime. He gambled regularly upon horse-races, resorting to a number of bookmakers, but neither winning nor losing to an appreciable extent; no less than three jockeys occasionally permitted him to enjoy their companionship, and he was never without a stable-tip.
His particular hobby, however, was restaurants. He spent half his income upon food, and quite half his waking hours either in deciding what he should consume, or in actual drinking and mastication. He had personally tested the merits of every bar and house of refreshment in the neighbourhood of the Law Courts, from Lockhart's to Gatti's, and would discourse for hours on their respective virtues and defects. No restaurant was too mean for his patronage, and none too splendid; for days in succession he would dine upon a glass of water and a captain biscuit with cheese, in order to accumulate resources for a delicate repast in one of the gilded establishments where the rich are wont to sustain themselves; and he had acquired from his father a quantity of curious lore, throwing light upon the secrets of the refreshment trade, which enabled him to spend the money thus painfully amassed to the best advantage.
Jenkins was a cockney and the descendant of cockneys; he conversed always volubly in the dialect of Camberwell; but just as he was subject to attacks of modishness, so at times he attempted to rid himself of his accent, of course without success. He swore habitually, and used no reticence whatever, except in the presence