Bones in London

"I meant to advertise," said Bones gently. "I had the idea last night; that's the very piece of paper I was writing the advertisement on."

He pointed to a sheet upon the pad.

"A secretary? The very thing! Let me think."

He supported his chin upon one hand, his elbow upon another.

"You will want paper, pens, and ink – we have all those," he said."There is a large supply in that cupboard. Also india-rubber. I amnot sure if we have any india-rubber, but that can be procured. And aruler," he said, "for drawing straight lines and all that sort ofthing."

"And a typewriter?" she suggested.

Bones smacked his forehead with unnecessary violence.

"A typewriter! I knew this office wanted something. I said to Aliyesterday: 'You silly old ass – '"

"Oh, you have a girl?" she said disappointedly.

"Ali," said Bones, "is the name of a native man person who is devotedto me, body and soul. He has been, so to speak, in the family foryears," he explained.

"Oh, it's a man," she said.

Bones nodded.

"Ali. Spelt A-l-y; it's Arabic."

"A native?"

Bones nodded.

"Of course he will not be in your way," ha hastened to explain. "He isin Bournemouth just now. He had sniffles." he explained rapidly, "andthen he used to go to sleep, and snore. I hate people who snore, don'tyou?"

She laughed again. This was the most amazing of all possible employers.

"Of course," Bones went on, "I snore a bit myself. All thinkers do – Imean all brainy people. Not being a jolly old snorer yourself – "

"Thank you," said the girl.

Other tenants or the satellites of other tenants who occupied thepalatial buildings wherein the office of Bones was situated saw, somefew minutes later, a bare-headed young man dashing down the stairsthree at a time; met him, half an hour later, staggering up those samestairs handicapped by a fifty-pound typewriter in one hand, and a chairin the style of the late Louis Quinze in the other, and wondered at theurgency of his movements.

"I want to tell you," said the girl, "that I know very little aboutshorthand."

"Shorthand is quite unnecessary, my dear – my jolly old stenographer,"said Bones firmly. "I object to shorthand on principle, and I shallalways object to it. If people," he went on, "were intended to writeshorthand, they would have been born without the alphabet. Anotherthing – "

"One moment, Mr. Tibbetts," she said. "I don't know a great deal abouttypewriting, either."

Bones beamed.

"There I can help you," he said. "Of course it isn't necessary thatyou should know anything about typewriting. But I can give you a fewhints," he said. "This thing, when you jiggle it up and down, makesthe thingummy-bob run along. Every time you hit one of theseletters – I'll show you… Now, suppose I am writing 'Dear Sir,' Istart with a 'D.' Now, where's that jolly old 'D'?" He scowled at thekeyboard, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. "I thought so,"he said; "there ain't a 'D.' I had an idea that that wicked old – "

"Here's the 'D,'" she pointed out.

Bones spent a strenuous but wholly delightful morning and afternoon.

He was half-way home to his chambers in Curzon Street before he realized that he had not fixed the rather important question of salary.

He looked forward to another pleasant morning making good that lapse.

It was his habit to remain late at his office at least three nights aweek, for Bones was absorbed in his new career.

"Schemes Ltd." was no meaningless title. Bones had schemes whichembraced every field of industrial, philanthropic, and social activity.He had schemes for building houses, and schemes for planting rose treesalong all the railway tracks. He had schemes for building motor-cars, for founding labour colonies, for harnessing the rise and fall of thetides, he had a scheme for building a theatre where the audience sat ona huge turn-table, and, at the close of one act, could be twistedround, with no inconvenience to themselves, to face a stage which hasbeen set behind them. Piqued by a certain strike which had caused hima great deal of inconvenience, he was engaged one night working out ascheme for the provision of municipal taxicabs, and he was so absorbedin his wholly erroneous calculations that for some time he did not hearthe angry voices raised outside the door of his private office.

Perhaps it was that that portion of his mind which had been left freeto receive impressions was wholly occupied with a scheme – whichappeared in no books or records – for raising the wages of his newsecretary.

But presently the noise penetrated even to him, and he looked up with atouch of annoyance.

"At this hour of the night! … Goodness gracious … respectablebuilding!"

His disjointed comments were interrupted by the sound of a scuffle, anoath, a crash against his door and a groan, and Bones sprang to thedoor and threw it open.

As he did so a man who was leaning against it fell in.

"Shut the door, quick!" he gasped, and Bones obeyed.

The visitor who had so rudely irrupted himself was a man of middle age, wearing a coarse pea-jacket and blue jersey of a seaman, his peaked hatcovered with dust, as Bones perceived later, when the sound ofscurrying footsteps had died away.

The man was gripping his left arm as if in pain, and a thin trickle ofred was running down the back of his big hand.

"Sit down, my jolly old mariner," said Bones anxiously. "What's thematter with you? What's the trouble, dear old sea-dog?"

The man looked up at him with a grimace.

"They nearly got it, the swine!" he growled.

He rolled up his sleeve and, deftly tying a handkerchief around a redpatch, chuckled:

"It is only a scratch," he said. "They've been after me for two days,Harry Weatherall and Jim Curtis. But right's right all the world over.I've suffered enough to get what I've got – starved on the high seas, and starved on Lomo Island. Is it likely that I'm going to let themshare?"

Bones shook his head.

"You sit down, my dear old fellow," he said sympathetically.

The man thrust his hands laboriously into his inside pocket and pulledout a flat oilskin case. From this he extracted a folded and fadedchart.

"I was coming up to see a gentleman in these buildings," he said, "agentleman named Tibbetts."

Bones opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.

"Me and Jim Curtis and young Harry, we were together in the Serpent