The Hypocrite

"They squirt venom from the attic into the gutter, and nobody is ever hurt." After which passage of arms he left the box, and the curtain went up on the Inn at Shepperford.

After the play Gobion saw the ladies into their carriage, and Mrs. Picton, as she pressed his hand, whispered him to come to tea the next day.

"I shall be quite alone," she said, with a side look.

Then came the "copy shop" and a noisy supper, at which the latest sultry story of a certain judge's wife was repeated and enjoyed.

It struck Gobion more than ever what a drunken, rakish lot these men were, but still he was very little better, only less coarse in his methods, and it didn't matter.

Lucy, the barmaid, was in great form. Someone had given her a copy of The Yellow Book, with its strange ornamentation.

"They do get these books up in a rum way now," she said, pointing to the figures blazoned on the cover.

"You shouldn't find fault with that, my dear," he said. "The fig-leaf was the grandmother of petticoats"; and everyone roared.

"Can anyone recommend me a new religion?" said a fat man who did sporting tips for The Moon.

There was a yell at once. "Flintoff wants a new religion." "Theosophist!" "Absintheur!" "Jew!" "Mahomedan!"

"Theosophist?" said the fat man; "no, I think not. Madame Blavatski was too frankly indecent. Absintheur might perhaps suit if it wasn't for Miss Marie Corelli. Jew is quite out of the question; there are two difficulties, pork and another. Mahomedan! well, that isn't bad. As many wives as you like – the religion of the henroost. Yes, I think I'll be a Mahomedan."

"How about drinks?" said Gobion.

"Oh, damn! Yes, I forgot that, I must stick to Christianity after all." He limped to the table to get a match.

"What's the matter with your leg?" said Heath.

"I hurt it last night going home in the fog."

"You should try Elliman's – horse for choice."

"I did, and I stank so of turpentine I was quite ashamed to lie with myself."

"You're not ashamed to lie here," said some feeble punster.

"No, it's my profession. I'm a sporting prophet."

Gobion suddenly remembered that he had heard nothing about the mass of copy that had been sent out some days before.

"Has Mr. Sturtevant been in to-night?" he asked the barmaid.

"No, I haven't seen him for two or three days," she said.

Gobion went quickly out into the Strand and walked to Sturtevant's rooms. The gas flamed on the dingy staircase, making a hissing noise in the silence, and shining on the white paint of the names above the door – Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, Mr. Thompson Jones, Mr. Gordon.

The "oak" was open, so Gobion went in, pushing aside the swing door at the end of the little passage.

A strong smell of brandy struck him in the face. He walked in, and looked round the screen by the fire, starting back for a moment with a sick horror of what he saw.

The candles were alight before the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. In front of it stood Sturtevant, with his back to Gobion. His thumbs were in the corners of his mouth, and with his first fingers he was pulling down the loose skin under his eyes, making the most ghastly grimaces at his image in the mirror.

Gobion stood still, petrified, and mechanically pressed the spring of his opera hat, which flew out with a loud pop. Sturtevant wheeled round like a shot, shaking with fear. When he saw who was there he gave a great sob of relief and fell into a chair.

"O God, how you startled me!" he said.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" said Gobion; "you look as if you were dying."

The man was not good to look at. His skin was a uniform tint of discoloured ivory, with red wrinkles round the eyes. His lips were dark purple and swollen, his hands shook.

"I'm so glad you've come; I've had a slight touch of D.T., and if you hadn't come in I should have broken out again to-night."

Gobion calmed him as well as he could, and in about an hour got him into something like ordinary condition.

"And now," he said, "how about our copy?"

"By George, I've forgotten all about it; there are probably a lot of letters in the box."

They got them out. The first one they opened was a collection of personal paragraphs sent in by Gobion, "Declined with thanks." The next was a cheque from the Resounder for four guineas, in payment of the "Gambling at Oxford" article. They went on opening one after the other, and at the end found that they had netted twenty-six pounds.

Sturtevant got excited about it, and wanted to have some more brandy, but Gobion managed to get him to bed, and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. He built up the fire, took Daudet's Sappho from a shelf, and passed the night on the sofa alternately reading and dozing.

It took him three or four days to bring Sturtevant round to something like form, most of which he spent in the Temple, occupying himself by writing the attack on Heath for The Spy.

It was the cleverest piece of work he had done, and when it was finished it was with all the pride of an artist that he read it to Sturtevant, and sent it to Blanche Huntley to be typed.

Meanwhile he became at times horribly bored and low-spirited, and each new attack accentuated the next, for he would rush into the lowest forms of amusement to find oblivion. In the intervals of coarseness he called on Mrs. Picton.

Such society as was open to him soon began to pall, and he spent more and more time at the "copy shop" or with Sturtevant in the Temple.

These two men, who a few years ago were freshmen at Oxford, sat night after night cursing and blaspheming all that most men hold sacred.

They were colossal in their bitterness.

Sturtevant said once, "Life is a disease; as soon as we are born we begin to die. I shall die soon from D.T., and you'll write a realistic study for The Pilgrim. Perhaps my life was ordained for that end." Which, considering the degree the man had taken, and what his mental abilities were, was about the bitterest thing he could have said.

One night Sturtevant went to bed about two, leaving Gobion in the room not much inclined for sleep. After an inspection of the bookcase, he took down a Swinburne, and turned to "Dolores."

"Come down and redeem us from virtue,

Our Lady of Pain,"

he read in the utter stillness of the night.

Then he put the book down and sat staring into the fire, thinking quietly of the literary merit of the poem, while its passion throbbed through and through him – a strange dual action of mind and sense.

Suddenly he looked up and saw a silver streak in the dull sky, the earliest messenger of dawn pressing its sad face against the window.

"I will go abroad," he said, "and see the day come to London." He went out in the ancient echoing courts through the darkness, till he came to the Embankment, and looked over the river. Far away in the east the sky was faintly streaked with grey, the curtain of the dark seemed shaken by the birth-pangs of the morning. He stood quite still, looking towards a great bar of crimson which flashed up from over St. Paul's, showing the purple dome floating in the mist. The western sky over the archbishop's palace was all aglow with a red reflected light. Dark bars of cloud stretched out half over heaven, turning to brightness as the sun rushed on them. The deepening glow spread wider and wider, on and up, till the silver greys and greens faded into blue, and the glory of the morning in a great arch suffused the Abbey, the Tower, and all the palaces of London. The sparrows began to twitter in the little trees on the Embankment.