Bones in London

"Master," said All "eulogistic speechification creates admiration incommon minds."

He was so unruffled, so complacent, that Bones, could only look at himin wonder. There was, too, about Ali Mahomet a queer look of guiltysatisfaction, as of one who had been surprised in a good act.

"Master," he said, "it is true that, contrary to modest desires ofhumble poets, I have offered praises of your literature to unauthorisedpersons, sojourning in high-class café 'King's Arms,' for my eveningrefreshment. Also desiring to create pleasant pleasure and surprise, your servant from his own emoluments authorised preparation of saidpoems in real print work."

Bones gasped.

"You were going to get my things printed? Oh, you … oh, you…"

Ali was by no means distressed.

"To-morrow there shall come to you a beautiful book for the master'ssurprise and joyousness. I myself will settle account satisfactorilyfrom emoluments accrued."

Bones could only sit down and helplessly wag his head. Presently hegrew calmer. It was a kindly thought, after all. Sooner or laterthose poems of his must be offered to the appreciation of a largeraudience. He saw blind Fate working through his servitor's act. Thematter had been taken out of his hands now.

"What made you do it, you silly old josser?" he asked.

"Master, one gentleman friend suggested or proffered advice, himselfbeing engaged in printery, possessing machines – "

A horrible thought came into Bones's head.

"What was his name?" he asked.

Ali fumbled in the capacious depths of his trousers pocket and produceda soiled card, which he handed to Bones. Bones read with a groan:

MESSRS. SEEPIDGE & SOOMES,

Printers to the Trade.

Bones fell back in the padded depths of his writing chair.

"Now, you've done it," he said hollowly, and threw the card back again.

It fell behind Ali, and he turned his back on Bones and stooped to pickup the card. It was a target which, in Bones's then agitatedcondition, he could scarcely be expected to resist.

* * * * *

Bones spent a sleepless night, and was at the office early. By thefirst post came the blow he had expected – a bulky envelope bearing onthe flap the sign-manual of Messrs. Seepidge & Soomes. The letterwhich accompanied the proof enclosed merely repeated the offer to sellthe business for fifteen thousand pounds.

"This will include," the letter went on, "a great number of uncompletedorders, one of which is for a very charming series of poems which arenow in our possession, and a proof-sheet of which we beg to enclose."

Bones read the poems and they somehow didn't look as well in print asthey had in manuscript. And, horror of horrors – he went white at thethought – they were unmistakably disrespectful to Miss MargueriteWhitland! They were love poems. They declared Bones's passion inlanguage which was unmistakable. They told of her hair which wasbeyond compare, of her eyes which rivalled the skies, and of her lipslike scarlet strips. Bones bowed his head in his hands, and was inthis attitude when the door opened, and Miss Whitland, who had had aperfect night and looked so lovely that her poems became pallid andnauseating caricatures, stepped quietly into the room.

"Aren't you well, Mr. Tibbetts?" she said.

"Oh, quite well," said Bones valiantly. "Very tra-la-la, dear oldthing, dear old typewriter, I mean."

"Is that correspondence for me?"

She held out her hand, and Bones hastily thrust Messrs. Seepidge &

Soomes's letter, with its enclosure, into his pocket.

"No, no, yes, yes," he said incoherently. "Certainly why not this is aletter dear old thing about a patent medicine I have just taken I amnot all I was a few years ago old age is creeping on me and all thatsort of stuff shut the door as you go in."

He said this without a comma or a full-stop. He said it so wildly thatshe was really alarmed.

Hamilton arrived a little later, and to him Bones made full confession.

"Let's see the poems," said Hamilton seriously.

"You won't laugh?" said Bones.

"Don't be an ass. Of course I won't laugh, unless they're supposed tobe comic," said Hamilton. And, to do him justice, he did not so muchas twitch a lip, though Bones watched his face jealously.

So imperturbable was Hamilton's expression that Bones had courage todemand with a certain smugness:

"Well, old man, not so bad? Of course, they don't come up to Kipling, but I can't say that I'm fearfully keen on Kipling, old thing. Thatlittle one about the sunset, I think, is rather a gem."

"I think you're rather a gem," said Hamilton, handing back the proofs.

"Bones, you've behaved abominably, writing poetry of that kind and leaving it about. You're going to make this girl the laughing-stock of

London."

"Laughing-stock?" snorted the annoyed Bones. "What the dickens do youmean, old thing? I told you there are no comic poems. They're alllike that."

"I was afraid they were," said Hamilton. "But poems needn't be comic,"he added a little more tactfully, as he saw Bones's colour rising,"they needn't be comic to excite people's amusement. The most solemnand sacred things, the most beautiful thoughts, the most wonderfulsentiments, rouse the laughter of the ignorant."

"True, true," agreed Bones graciously. "And I rather fancy that theyare a little bit on the most beautiful side, my jolly old graven image.All heart outpourings you understand – but no, you wouldn't understand,my old crochety one. One of these days, as I've remarked before, theywill be read by competent judges … midnight oil, dear old thing – atleast, I have electric light in my flat. They're generally done afterdinner."

"After a heavy dinner, I should imagine," said Hamilton with asperity.

"What are you going to do about it, Bones?"

Bones scratched his nose.

"I'm blessed if I know," he said.

"Shall I tell you what you must do?" asked Hamilton quietly.

"Certainly, Ham, my wise old counsellor," said the cheerful Bones.

"Certainly, by all means, Why not?"

"You must go to Miss Whitland and tell her all about it."

Bones's face fell.

"Good Heavens, no!" he gasped. "Don't be indelicate, Ham! Why, shemight never forgive me, dear old thing! Suppose she walked out of theoffice in a huff? Great Scotland! Great Jehoshaphat! It's tooterrible to contemplate!"

"You must tell her," said Hamilton firmly. "It's only fair to the girlto know exactly what is hanging over her."

Bones pleaded, and offered a hundred rapid solutions, none of whichwere acceptable to the relentless Hamilton.

"I'll tell her myself, if you like," he said. "I could explain thatthey're just the sort of things that a silly ass of a man does, andthat they were not intended to be offensive – even that one about herlips being like two red strips. Strips of what – carpet?"

"Don't analyse it, Ham, lad, don't analyse it!" begged Bones. "Poemsare like pictures, old friend. You want to stand at a distance to seethem."

"Personally I suffer from astigmatism," said Hamilton, and read thepoems again. He stopped once or twice to ask such pointed questions ashow many "y's" were in "skies," and Bones stood on alternate feet, protesting incoherently.

"They're not bad, old boy?" he asked anxiously at last. "You wouldn'tsay they were bad?"

"Bad," said Hamilton in truth, "is not the word I should apply."

Bones cheered up.

"That's what I think, dear ex-officer," he smirked. "Of course, afellow is naturally shy about maiden efforts, and all that sort ofthing, but, hang it all, I've seen worse than that last poem, oldthing."

"So have I," admitted Hamilton, mechanically turning back to the firstpoem.

"After all" – Bones was rapidly becoming philosophical – "I'm not so surethat it isn't the best thing that could happen. Let 'em print 'em!Hey? What do you say? Put that one about young Miss Marguerite beinglike a pearl discovered in a dustbin, dear Ham, put it before acompetent judge, and what would he say?"

"Ten years," snarled Hamilton, "and you'd get off lightly!"

Bones smiled with admirable toleration, and there the matter ended forthe moment.

It was a case of blackmail, as Hamilton had pointed out, but, as theday proceeded, Bones took a more and more lenient view of his enemy'sfault. By the afternoon he was cheerful, even jocose, and, even insuch moments as he found himself alone with the girl, brought theconversation round to the subject of poetry as one of the fine arts, and cunningly excited her curiosity.

"There is so much bad poetry in the world," said the girl on one suchoccasion, "that I think there should be a lethal chamber for people whowrite it."

"Agreed, dear old tick-tack," assented Bones, with an amused smile."What is wanted is – well, I know, dear old miss. It may surprise youto learn that I once took a correspondence course in poetry writing."

"Nothing surprises me about you, Mr. Tibbetts," she laughed.

He went into her office before leaving that night. Hamilton, with agloomy shake of his head by way of farewell, had already departed, andBones, who had given the matter very considerable thought, decided thatthis was a favourable occasion to inform her of the amusing efforts ofhis printer correspondent to extract money.

The girl had finished her work, her typewriter was covered, and she waswearing her hat and coat. But she sat before her desk, a frown on herpretty face and an evening newspaper in her hand, and Bones's heartmomentarily sank. Suppose the poems had been given to the world?

"All the winners, dear old miss?" he asked, with spurious gaiety.

She looked up with a start.

"No," she said. "I'm rather worried, Mr. Tibbetts. A friend of mystep-father's has got into trouble again, and I'm anxious lest mymother should have any trouble."

"Dear, dear!" said the sympathetic Bones. "How disgustingly annoying!

Who's the dear old friend?"

"A man named Seepidge," said the girl, and Bones gripped a chair forsupport. "The police have found that he is printing something illegal.I don't quite understand it all, but the things they were printing wereinvitations to a German lottery."

"Very naughty, very unpatriotic," murmured the palpitating Bones, andthen the girl laughed.

"It has its funny side," she said. "Mr. Seepidge pretended that he wascarrying out a legitimate order – a book of poems. Isn't that absurd?"

"Ha, ha!" said Bones hollowly.

"Listen," said the girl, and read:

"The magistrate, in sentencing Seepidge to six months' hard labour, said that there was no doubt that the man had been carrying on anillegal business. He had had the effrontery to pretend that he wasprinting a volume of verse. The court had heard extracts from thatprecious volume, which had evidently been written by Mr. Seepidge'soffice-boy. He had never read such appalling drivel in his life. Heordered the confiscated lottery prospectuses to be destroyed, and hethought he would be rendering a service to humanity if he added anorder for the destruction of this collection of doggerel."

The girl looked up at Bones.

"It is curious that we should have been talking about poetry to-day, isn't it?" she asked. "Now, Mr. Tibbetts, I'm going to insist uponyour bringing that book of yours to-morrow."

Bones, very flushed of face, shook his head.

"Dear old disciple," he said huskily, "another time … another time… poetry should be kept for years … like old wine…"

"Who said that?" she asked, folding her paper and rising.

"Competent judges," said Bones, with a gulp.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAMP THAT NEVER WENT OUT

"Have you seen her?" asked Bones.

He put this question with such laboured unconcern that Hamilton putdown his pen and glared suspiciously at his partner.

"She's rather a beauty," Bones went on, toying with his ivorypaper-knife. "She has one of those dinky bonnets, dear old thing, thatmakes you feel awfully braced with life."

Hamilton gasped. He had seen the beautiful Miss Whitland enter theoffice half an hour before, but he had not noticed her head-dress.

"Her body's dark blue, with teeny red stripes," said Bones dreamily,"and all her fittings are nickel-plated – "

"Stop!" commanded Hamilton hollowly. "To what unhappy woman are youreferring in this ribald fashion?"

"Woman!" spluttered the indignant Bones. "I'm talking about my car."

"Your car?"

"My car," said Bones, in the off-handed way that a sudden millionairemight refer to "my earth."

"You've bought a car?"

Bones nodded.

"It's a jolly good 'bus," he said. "I thought of running down to

Brighton on Sunday."

Hamilton got up and walked slowly across the room with his hands in hispockets.

"You're thinking of running down to Brighton, are you?" he said. "Isit one of those kind of cars where you have to do your own running?"

Bones, with a good-natured smile, also rose from his desk and walked tothe window.

"My car," he said, and waved his hand to the street.

By craning his neck, Hamilton was able to get a view of the patch ofroadway immediately in front of the main entrance to the building. Andundoubtedly there was a car in waiting – a long, resplendent machinethat glittered in the morning sunlight.

"What's the pink cushion on the seat?" asked Hamilton.

"That's not a pink cushion, dear old myoptic," said Bones calmly;"that's my chauffeur – Ali ben Ahmed."

"Good lor!" said the impressed Hamilton. "You've a nerve to drive intothe City with a sky-blue Kroo boy."

Bones shrugged his shoulders.

"We attracted a certain amount of attention," he admitted, not withoutsatisfaction.

"Naturally," said Hamilton, going back to his desk. "People thoughtyou were advertising Pill Pellets for Pale Poultry. When did you buythis infernal machine?"

Bones, at his desk, crossed his legs and put his fingers together.

"Negotiations, dear old Ham, have been in progress for a month," herecited. "I have been taking lessons on the quiet, and to-day – proof!"He took out his pocket-book and threw a paper with a lordly air towardshis partner. It fell half-way on the floor.

"Don't trouble to get up," said Hamilton. "It's your motor licence.

You needn't be able to drive a car to get that."

And then Bones dropped his attitude of insouciance and became avociferous advertisement for the six-cylinder Carter-Crispley ("the bigcar that's made like a clock"). He became double pages withillustrations and handbooks and electric signs. He spoke of Carter andof Crispley individually and collectively with enthusiasm, affection, and reverence.

"Oh!" said Hamilton, when he had finished. "It sounds good."

"Sounds good!" scoffed Bones. "Dear old sceptical one, that car…"

And so forth.

All excesses being their own punishment, two days later Bones renewedan undesirable acquaintance. In the early days of Schemes, Ltd., Mr.Augustus Tibbetts had purchased a small weekly newspaper called theFlame. Apart from the losses he incurred during its short career, the experience was made remarkable by the fact that he becameacquainted with Mr. Jelf, a young and immensely self-satisfied man inpince-nez, who habitually spoke uncharitably of bishops, and neverreferred to members of the Government without causing sensitive peopleto shudder.

The members of the Government retaliated by never speaking of Jelf atall, so there was probably some purely private feud between them.

Jelf disapproved of everything. He was twenty-four years of age, andhe, too, had made the acquaintance of the Hindenburg Line. NaturallyBones thought of Jelf when he purchased the Flame.

From the first Bones had run the Flame with the object of exposingthings. He exposed Germans, Swedes, and Turks – which was safe. Heexposed a furniture dealer who had made him pay twice for an articlebecause a receipt was lost, and that cost money. He exposed a man whohad been very rude to him in the City. He would have exposed JamesJacobus Jelf, only that individual showed such eagerness to expose hisown shortcomings, at a guinea a column, that Bones had lost interest.

His stock of personal grievances being exhausted, he had gone in for ageneral line of exposure which embraced members of the aristocracy andthe Stock Exchange.

If Bones did not like a man's face, he exposed him. He had a columnheaded "What I Want to Know," and signed "Senob." in which suchpertinent queries appeared as:

"When will the naughty old lord who owns a sky-blue motor-car, andwears pink spats, realise that his treatment of his tenants is adisgrace to his ancient lineage?"

This was one of James Jacobus Jelf's contributed efforts. It happenedon this particular occasion that there was only one lord in England whoowned a sky-blue car and blush-rose spats, and it cost Bones twohundred pounds to settle his lordship.

Soon after this, Bones disposed of the paper, and instructed Mr. Jelfnot to call again unless he called in an ambulance – an instructionwhich afterwards filled him with apprehension, since he knew that J. J.J. would charge up the ambulance to the office.

Thus matters stood two days after his car had made its publicappearance, and Bones sat confronting the busy pages of his garage bill.

On this day he had had his lunch brought into the office, and he was ina maze of calculation, when there came a knock at the door.

"Come in!" he yelled, and, as there was no answer, walked to the doorand opened it.

A young man stood in the doorway – a young man very earnest and verymysterious – none other than James Jacobus Jelf.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Bones unfavourably "I thought it wassomebody important."

Jelf tiptoed into the room and closed the door securely behind him.

"Old man," he said, in tones little above a whisper, "I've got afortune for you."

"Dear old libeller, leave it with the lift-man," said Bones. "He has awife and three children."

Mr. Jelf examined his watch.

"I've got to get away at three o'clock, old man," he said.

"Don't let me keep you, old writer," said Bones with insolentindifference.

Jelf smiled.

"I'd rather not say where I'm going," he volunteered. "It's a scoop, and if it leaked out, there would be the devil to pay."

"Oh!" said Bones, who knew Mr. Jelf well. "I thought it was somethinglike that."

"I'd like to tell you, Tibbetts," said Jelf regretfully, "but you knowhow particular one has to be when one is dealing with matters affectingthe integrity of ministers."

"I know, I know," responded Bones, wilfully dense, "especially huffyold vicars, dear old thing."

"Oh, them!" said Jelf, extending his contempt to the rules which governthe employment of the English language. "I don't worry about thosepoor funny things. No, I am speaking of a matter – you have heard aboutG.?" he asked suddenly.

"No," said Bones with truth.

Jelf looked astonished.

"What!" he said incredulously. "You in the heart of things, and don'tknow about old G.?"

"No, little Mercury, and I don't want to know," said Bones, busyinghimself with his papers.

"You'll tell me you don't know about L. next," he said, bewildered.

"Language!" protested Bones. "You really mustn't use Sunday words, really you mustn't."

Then Jelf unburdened himself. It appeared that G. had been engaged to

L.'s daughter, and the engagement had been broken off…

Bones stirred uneasily and looked at his watch.

"Dispense with the jolly old alphabet," he said wearily, "and let usget down to the beastly personalities."

Thereafter Jelf's conversation condensed itself to the limits of ahuman understanding. "G" stood for Gregory – Felix Gregory; "L" forLansing, who apparently had no Christian name, nor found such appendagenecessary, since he was dead. He had invented a lamp, and that lamphad in some way come into Jelf's possession. He was exploiting theinvention on behalf of the inventor's daughter, and had named it – hesaid this with great deliberation and emphasis – "The Tibbetts-JelfMotor Lamp."

Bones made a disparaging noise, but was interested.

The Tibbetts-Jelf Lamp was something new in motor lamps. It was a lampwhich had all the advantages of the old lamp, plus properties which nolamp had ever had before, and it had none of the disadvantages of anylamp previously introduced, and, in fact, had no disadvantageswhatsoever. So Jelf told Bones with great earnestness.

"You know me, Tibbetts," he said. "I never speak about myself, and I'mrather inclined to disparage my own point of view than otherwise."

"I've never noticed that," said Bones.

"You know, anyway," urged Jelf, "that I want to see the bad side ofanything I take up."

He explained how he had sat up night after night, endeavouring todiscover some drawback to the Tibbetts-Jelf Lamp, and how he had rolledinto bed at five in the morning, exhausted by the effort.

"If I could only find one flaw!" he said. "But the ingenious beggarwho invented it has not left a single bad point."

He went on to describe the lamp. With the aid of a lead pencil and apiece of Bones's priceless notepaper he sketched the front elevationand discoursed upon rays, especially upon ultra-violet rays.

Apparently this is a disreputable branch of the Ray family. If youcould only get an ultra-violet ray as he was sneaking out of the lamp, and hit him violently on the back of the head, you were rendering aservice to science and humanity.

This lamp was so fixed that the moment Mr. Ultra V. Ray reached thethreshold of freedom he was tripped up, pounced upon, and beaten untilhe (naturally enough) changed colour!

It was all done by the lens.

Jelf drew a Dutch cheese on the table-cloth to Illustrate the point.

"This light never goes out," said Jelf passionately. "If you lit itto-day, it would be alight to-morrow, and the next day, and so on. Allthe light-buoys and lighthouses around England will be fitted with thislamp; it will revolutionise navigation."

According to the exploiter, homeward bound mariners would gathertogether on the poop, or the hoop, or wherever homeward bound mannersgathered, and would chant a psalm of praise, in which the line "Heavenbless the Tibbetts-Jelf Lamp" would occur at regular intervals.

And when he had finished his eulogy, and lay back exhausted by his owneloquence, and Bones asked, "But what does it do?" Jelf could havekilled him.

Under any other circumstances Bones might have dismissed his visitorwith a lecture on the futility of attempting to procure money underfalse pretences. But remember that Bones was the proprietor of a newmotor-car, and thought motor-car and dreamed motor-car by day and bynight. Even as it was, he was framing a conventional expression ofregret that he could not interest himself in outside property, whenthere dawned upon his mind the splendid possibilities of possessingthis accessory, and he wavered.

"Anyway," he said, "it will take a year to make."

Mr. Jelf beamed.

"Wrong!" he cried triumphantly. "Two of the lamps are just finished, and will be ready to-morrow."

Bones hesitated.

"Of course, dear old Jelf," he said, "I should like, as an experiment,to try them on my car."

"On your car?" Jelf stepped back a pace and looked at the other withvery flattering interest and admiration. "Not your car! Have you acar?"

Bones said he had a car, and explained it at length. He even waxed asenthusiastic about his machine as had Mr. Jelf on the subject of thelamp that never went out. And Jelf agreed with everything that Bonessaid. Apparently he was personally acquainted with the Carter-Crispleycar. He had, so to speak, grown up with it. He knew its good pointsand none of its bad points. He thought the man who chose a car likethat must have genius beyond the ordinary. Bones agreed. Bones hadreached the conclusion that he had been mistaken about Jelf, and thatpossibly age had sobered him (it was nearly six months since he hadperpetrated his last libel). They parted the best of friends. He hadagreed to attend a demonstration at the workshop early the followingmorning, and Jelf, who was working on a ten per cent. commission basis, and had already drawn a hundred on account from the vendors, was thereto meet him.

In truth it was a noble lamp – very much like other motor lamps, exceptthat the bulb was, or apparently was, embedded in solid glass. Itsprincipal virtue lay in the fact that it carried its own accumulator, which had to be charged weekly, or the lamp forfeited its title.