When a Man's Single: A Tale of Literary Life

'I did. He lives at 42 Lavender Crescent, Shepherd's Bush, and his name is Henry Gilding.'

'Well?' said Rob, seeing Simms pause as if this was all.

'I am afraid, Mr. Angus,' the author murmured in reply, 'that you did not read the powerful and harrowing tale very carefully, or you would remember that my hero's name was also Henry Gilding.'

'Well, but what of that?'

'There is everything in that. It is what made the Shepherd's Bush gentleman my admirer for life. He considers it the strangest and most diverting thing in his experience, and every night, I believe, after dinner, his eldest daughter has to read out to him the passages in which the Henry Gildings are thickest. He chuckles over the extraordinary coincidence still. He could take that joke with him to the seaside for a month, and it would keep him in humour all the time.'

'Have done, Simms, have done,' said Rorrison; 'Angus is one of us, or wants to be, at all events. The Minotaur is printing one of his things, and I have been giving him some sage advice.'

'Any man,' said Simms, 'will do well on the Press if he is stupid enough; even Rorrison has done well.'

'I have just been telling him,' responded Rorrison, 'that the stupid men fail.'

'I don't consider you a failure, Rorrison,' said Simms, in mild surprise. 'What stock-in-trade a literary hand requires, Mr. Angus, is a fire to dry his writing at, jam or honey with which to gum old stamps on to envelopes, and an antimacassar.'

'An antimacassar?' Rob repeated.

'Yes; you pluck the thread with which to sew your copy together out of the antimacassar. When my antimacassars are at the wash I have to take a holiday.'

'Well, well, Simms,' said Rorrison, 'I like you best when you are taciturn.'

'So do I,' said Simms.

'You might give Angus some advice about the likeliest papers for which to write. London is new to him.'

'The fact is, Mr. Angus,' said Simms, more seriously, 'that advice in such a matter is merely talk thrown away. If you have the journalistic instinct, which includes a determination not to be beaten, as well as an aptitude for selecting the proper subjects, you will by and by find an editor who believes in you. Many men of genuine literary ability have failed on the Press because they did not have that instinct, and they have attacked journalism in their books in consequence.'

'I am not sure that I know what the journalistic instinct precisely is,' Rob said, 'and still less whether I possess it.'

'Ah, just let me put you through your paces,' replied Simms. 'Suppose yourself up for an exam. in journalism, and that I am your examiner. Question One: "The house was soon on fire; much sympathy is expressed with the sufferers." Can you translate that into newspaper English?'

'Let me see,' answered Rob, entering into the spirit of the examination. 'How would this do: "In a moment the edifice was enveloped in shooting tongues of flame: the appalling catastrophe has plunged the whole street into the gloom of night"?'

'Good. Question Two: A man hangs himself; what is the technical heading for this?'

'Either "Shocking Occurrence" or "Rash Act."'

'Question Three: "Pabulum," "Cela va sans dire," "Par excellence," "Ne plus ultra." What are these? Are there any more of them?'

'They are scholarship,' replied Rob, 'and there are two more, namely, "tour de force" and "terra firma."'

'Question Four: A. (a soldier) dies at 6 P.M. with his back to the foe. B. (a philanthropist) dies at 1 A.M.: which of these, speaking technically, would you call a creditable death?'

'The soldier's, because time was given to set it.'

'Quite right. Question Five: Have you ever known a newspaper which did not have the largest circulation in its district, and was not the most influential advertising medium?'

'Never.'

'Question Six: Mr. Gladstone rises to speak in the House of Commons at 2 A.M. What would be the sub-editor's probable remark on receiving the opening words of the speech, and how would he break the news to the editor? How would the editor be likely to take it?'

'I prefer,' said Rob, 'not to answer that question.'

'Well, Mr. Angus,' said Simms, tiring of the examination, 'you have passed with honours.'

The conversation turned to Rorrison's coming work in Egypt, and by and by Simms rose to go.

'Your stick, I suppose, Mr. Angus?' he said, taking Rob's thick staff from a corner.

'Yes,' answered Rob, 'it has only a heavy knob, you see, for a handle, and a doctor once told me that if I continued to press so heavily on it I might suffer from some disease in the palm of the hand.'

'I never heard of that,' said Simms, looking up for the first time since he entered the room. Then he added, 'You should get a stick like Rorrison's. It has a screw handle which he keeps loose, so that the slightest touch knocks it off. It is called the compliment-stick, because if Rorrison is in the company of ladies, he contrives to get them to hold it. This is in the hope that they will knock the handle off, when Rorrison bows and remarks exultingly that the stick is like its owner – when it came near them it lost its head. He has said that to fifteen ladies now, and has a great reputation for gallantry in consequence. Good-night.'

'Well, he did not get any copy out of me,' said Rob.

'Simms is a curious fellow,' Rorrison answered. 'Though you might not expect it, he has written some of the most pathetic things I ever read, but he wears his heart out of sight. Despite what he says, too, he is very jealous for the Press's good name. He seemed to take to you, so I should not wonder though he were to look you up here some night.'

'Here? How do you mean?'

'Why, this. I shall probably be away from London for some months, and as I must keep on my rooms, I don't see why you should not occupy them. The furniture is mine, and you would be rent free, except that the housekeeper expects a few shillings a week for looking after things. What do you think?'

Rob could have only one thought as he compared these comfortable chambers to his own bare room, and as Rorrison, who seemed to have taken a warm liking to him, pressed the point, arguing that as the rent must be paid at any rate the chambers were better occupied, he at last consented, on the understanding that they could come to some arrangement on Rorrison's return.

'It will please my father, too,' Rorrison added, 'to know that you are here. I always remember that had it not been for him you might never have gone on to the Press.'

They sat so late talking this matter over that Rob eventually stayed all night, Rorrison having in his bedroom a couch which many journalists had slept on.

Next morning the paper whose nickname is the Scalping Knife was served up with breakfast, and the first thing Rob saw in it was a leaderette about a disease generated in the palm of the hand by walking-sticks with heavy knobs for handles.

'I told you,' said Rorrison, 'that Simms would make his half-guinea out of you.'

When Rorrison went down to Simms's chambers later in the day, however, to say that he was leaving Rob tenant of his rooms, he was laughing at something else.

'All during breakfast,' he said to Simms, 'I noticed that Angus was preoccupied, and anxious to say something that he did not like to say. At last he blurted it out with a white face, and what do you think it was?'

Simms shook his head.

'Well,' said Rorrison, 'it was this. He has been accustomed to go down on his knees every night to say his prayers – as we used to do at school, but when he saw that I did not do it he did not like to do it either. I believe it troubled him all night, for he looked haggard when he rose.'

'He told you this?'

'Yes; he said he felt ashamed of himself,' said Rorrison, smiling. 'You must remember he is country-bred.'

'You were a good fellow, Rorrison,' said Simms gravely, 'to put him into your rooms, but I don't see what you are laughing at.'

'Why,' said Rorrison, taken aback, I thought you would see it in the same light.'