The Sailor

Do as he would, it was not a propitious hour for the story of Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior. And when the next Sunday came he had to decide whether or not to go to Hyde Park in the hope of seeing the immortal. Finally, in a state of utter misgiving, he went. This time, although he sat a long hour on a seat near the statue of Achilles, there was never a sign of him. Yet he was content to be disappointed, for the longer he sat the more clearly he knew that cowardice would defeat him again should Klondyke and his attendant nymph appear.

Henry Harper was coming now to a phase in which ladies were to play their part. Mrs. Greaves had a niece, it seemed. From brilliant accounts furnished from time to time he learned that she was a strikingly gifted creature, not only endowed with beauty, but also with brains in a very high degree.

"Miss Cora Dobbs," in the words of her aunt, "was an actress by profession, and she had done so well in it that she had a flat of her own round the corner in the Avenue. Toffs as understood Cora's merit thought 'ighly of her talent. She could dance and she could sing, and she earned such good money that she had a nest-egg put by."

Henry Harper was at first too absorbed in his work to pay much attention to the charlady's discourses upon her niece. Besides, had he not known Miss Gwladys Foldal who had played in Shakespeare and been admitted to an intimacy of a most intellectual kind? The indifference of Mr. Harper seemed to pique Mrs. Greaves. She often recurred to the subject of Miss Dobbs; moreover, she seemed anxious for the young man to realize that "although she was the niece of one as didn't pretend to be anythink, Cora herself was a lady."

Such statements were not really necessary. In the eyes of Mr. Harper every woman was a lady more or less, even if to that rule there must always be one signal exception. He had a deep-rooted chivalry for Mrs. Greaves' sex. He even treated her, flat-chested, bearded and ferret-like as she was, with an instinctive courtesy which she at once set down as weakness of character.

For a reason Mr. Harper did not try to fathom – just now he was far too deep in his task to give much thought to the matter – Mrs. Greaves seemed most anxious that he should make the acquaintance of Miss Cora Dobbs. One reason, it is true, she gave. "Mr. Arper was a snail as was too much in his shell. He wanted a bright and knowing girl like Cora to tote him around a bit and teach him not to be afraid of life."

Mrs. Greaves had such a contempt for Mr. Harper's sex that her solicitude was rather strange. As for its two specimens for whom she "did" daily, the emotion they inspired was one of deadly cynicism. In her razor-like judgment they were as soft as pap. It was therefore the more remarkable that she should now take such an interest in the welfare of the younger man.

What was he writing? Lips of cautious curiosity were always asking the question. A book! She was greatly interested in books and had always been since she had "done" for a gentleman who got fifty pounds for every one that he wrote. What did Mr. Harper expect to get by it?

It had not occurred to Mr. Harper that he would get anything by it.

"Why write it then?" she asked with acrid surprise. Why get up so early and sit up so late? Why use all that good ink and expensive paper if he didn't expect to get something out of it?

The young man was writing it because he felt he must.

"I sometimes think you must be a reg'lar soft-biled un," said Mrs. Greaves, with an air of personal affront. "I do, honest. Wasting your time like that … and mine as well!"

At that moment, however, the Sailor was far too deep in Chapter Eighteen to attend to the charlady. His total lack of interest sent her in a huff to the back kitchen. Yet she was not cast down altogether. He was more of a half-bake than she had guessed, that was all.

VII

Next morning a lady walked into the shop. She was tall and stout, beaming and fashionable. The first detail of a striking, even resplendent personality which caught the young man's eye was her boots. These were long, narrow, perilously high in the heel, they had black and white checked uppers, and a pair of fat feet had been buttoned into them.

"I want 'Etiquette for Ladies,' please. It's in the window. A shilling. Yellow cover."

It was not the voice the young man had heard in Hyde Park, nor was it the voice of Miss Foldal; on the contrary, it was direct, searching, rather aggressive in quality. There was ease and confidence in it, there was humor and archness. It was a voice of hyper-refinement, of Miss Foldal receiving company, raised to a higher, more dominant power.

"Yes, that's the one. By a Member of the Aristocracy. At least it says it is. And if it isn't, I get my money back, don't I?"

The flash of teeth and the smile that followed startled the young man considerably. He blushed to the roots of his hair. This was a new kind of lady altogether and he didn't know in the least how he was going to cope with her.

"Thanks very much." Elegantly the sum of one shilling was disbursed from a very smart reticule.

That, however, was not the conclusion of the incident.

"Excuse me," said the lady, "but you are Mr. Harper, aren't you?"

Blushing again he admitted very humbly that he was.

"Yes, you look clever. I'm Cora Dobbs. You know Auntie, I think."

With a blush deepening to a hue that was quite nice the young man said he knew Miss Dobbs' aunt.

"She's a rum one, isn't she?" The sudden friendliness was overpowering.

The young man, not knowing what to say, said nothing. Thus far he had been on the high seas with Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior, but he was quickly coming to dry land, to London, to the Charing Cross Road. So this was the niece of whom Mrs. Greaves thought so much. Henry Harper could understand the charlady's pride in her, but it was very surprising that she should be the niece of Mrs. Greaves. She was something totally different. In manner she was even more refined than Miss Foldal herself, although in some ways she had a slight resemblance to his good fairy. But Miss Dobbs had a candor, a humor and a charm quite new in Henry Harper's very limited social experience. She was really most agreeable; also her clothes, if not exactly Hyde Park, were so fine that they must have cost a great deal of money.

So much for Miss Dobbs in the sight of Mr. Harper. As for Mr. Harper in the sight of Miss Dobbs, that was a very different matter. He was not bad looking; he was tall, well-made, clean, his eyes were good. But their queer expression could only mean that he was as weak as water and as green as grass. Evidently he hardly knew he had come on to the earth. Also he was as shy as a baby and his trousers wanted ironing badly.

"I have heard quite a lot about you, Mr. Harper, from my aunt."

It was a little surprising that a creature so fashionable should own an aunt so much the reverse. Even Mr. Harper, who had hardly begun to get a sense of perspective, felt the two ladies were as wide asunder as the poles. Not of course that Mrs. Greaves was an "ordinary" char, he had her own assurance of that. She was a kind of super-charlady who "did" for barristers and professional gentlemen, cooked their meals, supervised their bachelor establishments, and allowed them to share her pride in a distinguished niece.

Had Mr. Harper been a more sophisticated young man he must have felt the attitude of the niece to be admirable. There was not a shade of false shame when she spoke of her aunt. Miss Cora Dobbs was too frankly of the world to suffer any vicarious embarrassment. She was amused with a relationship thrust upon her by an ironical providence, and that was all.

"I hear you are writing a book."

That was a false move. Mr. Harper was only able to blush vividly and to make a kind of noise at the back of his throat.

"I have a great friend who is writing one." Miss Dobbs hastened to repair a tactical mistake. "Hers is reminiscences. I am helping with a few of mine. I dare say Auntie has told you I have been on the stage?"

Mr. Harper had been told that.

"Don't you think it's a good idea? My friend gives her name because she married a lord, but I'm to do the donkey work. It would be telling if I told you her name, but don't you think it's business?"

Mr. Harper thought, not very audibly, that it was.

"One of our girls at the Friv., Cassie Smallpiece, who married Lord Bargrave, you know…"

… Mr. Harper did not know, but Miss Dobbs had already struck such a note of intimacy that he somehow felt he ought to have known…

"… Made quite a pot of money out of hers. Of course there was scandal in Cassie's. Cassie was rather warm pastry. But there'll be none in ours, although I expect that'll be money out of our pockets."

Mr. Harper hoped such would not be the case.

"Bound to be," said Miss Dobbs. "That's the worst of being a clean potato, you are always missing your share of the cake."

Mr. Harper was completely out of his depth. He had no reply to make to this very advanced remark.

Miss Dobbs watched his perplexed face with a narrow-lidded wariness, behind which glittered the eyes of a goshawk. But she was too wise to force the pace unduly. With a suddenness that was almost startling, she said, "Well, ching-a-ling. I'll look in again when you are not so busy, Mr. Harper. One of these days perhaps you will give me advice about my reminiscences." And with a smile and a wave of her muff of excruciating friendliness, Miss Cora Dobbs gave a trip and a waddle, and the high heels and the black and white check uppers were on the pavement of the Charing Cross Road.

For at least three minutes, however, after they had gone, Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior were left in a state of suspended animation. The author had to make a great effort before he could proceed with Chapter Eighteen. A glamour had passed from the earth; at least from that part of the earth contained by the four walls of No. 249, Charing Cross Road.

VIII

Miss Cora Dobbs was as good as her word. She looked in again; indeed she formed quite a habit of looking into the shop of Elihu Rudge, bookseller, whenever she was passing. This seemed to work out on an average at one morning a week. Her reminiscences could hardly have induced this friendliness because, strange to say, she never mentioned them again.

On a first consideration, it seemed more likely due to her deep interest in the book Mr. Harper was writing, of which her aunt had told her. Whenever Miss Dobbs looked in she never failed to ask, "How is it going today?" and she declared she would not be satisfied until a chapter had been read to her.

Mr. Harper was rather embarrassed by the attentions of Miss Dobbs. He was a very shy young man, and in regard to his new and strange and sometimes extremely painful labors he was unreasonably silent. But so determined was the interest of Miss Dobbs that in the end Mr. Harper yielded to its pressure. At last he let her see the manuscript. But even that did not content her. She was set, it seemed, on having some of the choicest passages read aloud by the author when there was no one in the shop.

In a way the determination of Miss Dobbs was rather a thorn. Yet it would have been idle and ungracious for Mr. Harper to pretend that he was not flattered by this remarkable solicitude for the story of Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior. He was very flattered indeed. For one thing, Miss Dobbs was Miss Dobbs in a way that Miss Foldal had never been Miss Foldal. She was a force in the way that Ginger was; her elegance was positive, it meant something. She had a subtle air of "being out for blood," just as Ginger had when they had paid their first never-to-be-forgotten visit to Blackhampton. Deep in his heart the Sailor was a little afraid of Miss Cora Dobbs. Yet he did not know why he should be. She was extraordinarily agreeable. No one could have been pleasanter to talk to; she was by far the wittiest and most amusing lady he had ever met; it was impossible not to like her immensely; but already a subtle instinct told him to beware.

As for Miss Dobbs, her state of mind would be difficult to render. Just as Mr. Harper was very simple, Miss Dobbs was extremely complex. In the first place, there seemed no particular reason why she should have come into the shop at all. It may have been curiosity. Perhaps her aunt had aroused it by the statement that Mr. Rudge had "set up a nice-looking boy as wrote books," and it may have been that the bearing of the nice-looking boy gave warrant for a continuance of Miss Dobbs' friendly regard.

On the other hand, it may have been the nature of Mr. Harper's calling which inspired these punctual attentions. It certainly had possibilities. Among the friends of Miss Dobbs was a certain Mr. Albert Hobson who was reputed to earn several thousands a year by his pen. Again, it may have been the statement of her aunt that the young man "had follered the sea and had a nest-egg put by." Or again it may have been the young man himself who appealed to her. His clean simplicity of mind and of mansion may have had a morbid attraction for a complexity that was pathological. Of these hypotheses the last may seem least probable, but the motives of a Miss Cora Dobbs defy analysis; and in a world in which nothing is absolute she is perhaps entitled to the benefit of any doubt that may arise concerning them.

In spite of Miss Dobbs, whose attentions for the present were confined to a few minutes one morning a week, the story of Dick Smith began to make excellent progress. All the same it was uphill work. The Sailor was a very clumsy craftsman using the queerest of tools, but oddly enough he had a remarkable faculty of concentration.

At last came the day when the final chapter was written. And a proud day it was. In spite of many defeats and misgivings, he was able at three o'clock of a summer morning to write the magic words, "The End." Yet it was far from being the end of his labors. He little knew that he had merely come to Mount Pisgah, and that for many days he must be content with no more than a glimpse of the Promised Land.

In telling the story of his early years the Sailor had no particular object in view. Certain mysterious forces were craving expression. Such a task had not been undertaken at the call of ambition. But now it was done ambition found a part to play.

On the very morning the story was finished, by an odd chance Miss Dobbs came into the shop. In answer to her invariable, "Well, what of it?" she was gravely informed that the end had been reached.

"My! you've been going some, Mr. R. L. Stevenson. Run along and fetch the last chapter and read it to me and then I'll tell you honestly whether I think it's as good as Bert Hobson."

Miss Dobbs had the habit of command. Therefore Chapter the Last, telling of the hero's miraculous deliverance from the Island of San Pedro, was at once produced. Moreover, it was read to her with naïf sincerity in a gentle voice.

"Hot stuff!" Miss Dobbs dexterously concealed a yawn with a dingy white glove. "It's It."

The author blushed with pleasure, although he could hardly believe the story was as good as all that.

"And what are you going to do with it now you've written it?"

To her intense surprise it had not occurred to him to do anything with it.

"Oh, but that's potty. That's merely potty. Of course you are going to bring it out as a book."

The author had not thought of doing so.

"Anyhow, it is just the thing for a magazine."

Even a magazine had not entered his mind.

"What are you going to do with it, then?" demanded Miss Dobbs, with growing incredulity.

This was a question Mr. Harper was unable to answer.

"You are going to do nothing with it?" gasped Miss Dobbs.

"No."

"But it's 'some' story, I assure you it is. If you send it to the Rotunda or the Covent Garden it may mean big money."

Quite absurdly the financial aspect had not presented itself.

"Well, you're potty," said Miss Dobbs, with despondency. "Don't you know that Bert Hobson, who writes those stories for the Rotunda, makes his thousands a year?"

Mr. Harper, who had never heard of Bert Hobson or of the Rotunda, seemed greatly surprised.

"Why, you are as green as green," said Miss Dobbs reproachfully. "It's such a nugget of thrills, you ought to see that it gets published. You ought really."

But in spite of her conviction it was some time before he felt able to take her advice. Such unpractical reluctance on the part of genius gave her pain. It seemed to lower its value. He must be a genius to have written a book, but it was a great pity that he should confirm the world's estimate of genius by behaving like one.

Why had he taken so much trouble if he was not going to get a nice fat check out of it?

He had written it because he felt he must.

It's a very sloppy reason, was the unexpressed opinion of Miss Dobbs.

After such a hopeless admission on the part of the young man with the queer eyes, Miss Dobbs felt so hurt that she did not appear in the shop for three weeks. And when at last she came again, she learned that the story of Dick Smith and the brigantine Excelsior was still in its drawer and had yet to be seen by anyone.

"You beat Banagher," said Miss Dobbs. And then she suddenly exclaimed, "Look here, Mr. Harper, give me that story and I'll send it myself to the Rotunda."

Very gently and politely, but quite firmly, Mr. Harper declined to do so. But in order to appease Miss Dobbs, who was inclined to make this refusal a personal matter, he solemnly promised that he would send it to the Rotunda himself, or some other magazine.

Henry Harper took a sudden resolve that night to send the story to the home of its only true begetter, Brown's Magazine. Why he chose that periodical in preference to the Rotunda was more than he could say. It may have been a feeling of reverence for the dilapidated Volume CXLI with part of the July number missing. Some high instinct may have been at work since the gods must have some kind of machinery to help them in these matters. At least the material fact was beyond dispute. He packed the story that evening in neat brown paper, and before taking down the shutters of the shop the next morning, went out and posted it, although sure in his own mind that he was guilty of a foolish proceeding.

Still, there was a lady in the case. But when in the course of the following day Miss Dobbs looked in again, by some odd perversity she was inclined to share this view to the full. She had never heard of Brown's Magazine. The Rotunda and the Covent Garden were her stand-bys. She never read anything else. But she dared say that Brown's money would be as good as other people's, although Brown's Magazine certainly would not have the circulation of the Rotunda.

Several weeks passed. Miss Dobbs looked in now and again to ask if Mr. Harper had "had any luck." To this inquiry one invariable answer was given, and after a time Miss Dobbs seemed to lose something of her faith. Her interest in the story of Dick Smith and in Mr. Harper himself began to wane. She had said from the first that Brown's was a mistake. It should have been the Rotunda or nothing. Miss Dobbs was a firm believer in beginning at the top; in her opinion it was easier to come down than it was to go up.

When the fourth week of silence on the part of Brown's Magazine had been entered upon, she suggested that Mr. Harper should stir them up a bit. With surprising inconsequence he asked for one more week of grace. For his own part, he could not help thinking it was a good sign. Miss Dobbs did not share his view. Brown's had either mislaid the manuscript, they had not received it, or they had destroyed it; and in a state verging upon sarcasm she withdrew from the shop with the final and crushing remark, "that Mr. Harper was a rum one, and she doubted very much whether he would ever make good."

However, Miss Dobbs, in spite of her knowledge of the world, had to admit, a week later, that Mr. Harper knew more about Brown's Magazine than she did. For when she looked in on the morning of Saturday to inquire for news of the ill-fated Dick Smith she was met triumphantly with a letter which had come by the last post the previous evening.

With quite a thrill she took the letter out of its neatly embossed envelope and made an attempt to read the following:

12B, Pall Mall,

September 2.

DEAR SIR,

Your story has now been read twice, and the conclusion very reluctantly come to by the writer is that it would be impossible to use it in Brown's Magazine in its present form. It bears many marks of inexperience, but at the same time it has such a strikingly original quality that the writer would be very glad to have a talk with you about it. In the meantime the MS is being returned to you.

Yours very truly,

EDWARD AMBROSE.

"I don't call that writing," said Miss Dobbs, who had been utterly defeated by the hand of the editor of Brown's Magazine. "It is just a fly walking across the paper without having wiped its feet. Read it to me, Mr. Harper."

Mr. Harper, who had spent nearly an hour the previous evening in making out the letter, and now knew it by heart, enforced her respect by reading it aloud as if it had been nothing out of the common.

"Marks of inexperience!" was her comment. "Like his impudence. I wonder who he thinks he is. You take my advice, Mr. Harper, and send it to the Covent Garden. See what they've got to say about it."

However, before taking that course, Henry Harper felt it would be the part of wisdom to get in touch with the real live editor who had expressed a wish to see him. Besides, there had been something in the letter signed "Edward Ambrose" which had set a chord vibrating in his heart.

IX

In order to pay a visit to 12B, Pall Mall, Henry Harper had to ask for leave. This was readily granted by his master, who was even more impressed by the letter from the editor of Brown's Magazine than was its recipient.

As became one who had a practical acquaintance with editors and publishers, Mr. Rudge knew that for more than a century Brown's Magazine had been a Mecca of the man of letters. Great names were enshrined in its history. These began with Byron and Scott, and flowed through the Victorian epoch to the most gifted and representative minds of the present. Mr. Ambrose himself was a critic of some celebrity; moreover, Brown's Magazine was still half a crown a month as it always had been, so that even its subscribers had a sense of exclusiveness.

Henry Harper was so shy that when the hour came for him to set forth to 12B, Pall Mall, his one desire was to take the advice of Miss Dobbs and not pay his visit at all. But Mr. Rudge was adamant. Henry must go to Pall Mall if only for the sake of the firm. Just as the young man was about to set out, his master emphasized the immense importance of the matter by appearing on the scene, clothes brush in hand, in order to give a final touch to his toilet. No discredit must be done to 249, Charing Cross Road. An unprecedented honor had been conferred upon it.

The reception of Mr. Harper in Pall Mall was of a kind to impress a sensitive young man of high aspiration and very limited opportunity. To begin with, Pall Mall is Pall Mall, and No. 12B in every chaste external was entirely worthy of its local habitation. After a much bemedaled commissionaire of incredibly distinguished aspect had ushered the young man into the front office, he was received by a grave and reverend signior in a frock coat whom Mr. Harper instinctively felt was the editor himself. Such, however, was not the case. The grave and reverend one was a trusted member of the staff, whose duty it was to usher contributors into the Presence, and in the meantime, if delay arose, to arrange for their well-being.

Before Mr. Harper could be received, he spent some terrible minutes in a tiny waiting-room, in which he felt he was being asphyxiated. During that time it was borne in upon him that he would not be equal to the ordeal ahead. Every minute he grew more nervous. He could never face it, he was sure. Far better to have taken the advice of the wise Miss Dobbs, and have been content with the Covent Garden.