Chapter 6 The Orb

The problem of lodgings in London is an easy one to a man with an adequate supply of money in his pocket. The only difficulty is to select the most suitable, to single out from the eager crowd the ideal landlady.

Evicted from No. 93A, it seemed to me that I had better abandon Bohemia; postpone my connection with that land of lotus-eaters for the moment, while I provided myself with the means of paying rent and buying dinners. Farther down the King's Road there were comfortable rooms to be had for a moderate sum per week. They were prosaic, but inexpensive. I chose Walpole Street. A fairly large bed-sitting room was vacant at No. 23. I took it, and settled down seriously to make my writing pay.

There were advantages in Walpole Street which Manresa Road had lacked. For one thing, there was more air, and it smelt less than the Manresa Road air. Walpole Street is bounded by Burton Court, where the Household Brigade plays cricket, and the breezes from the river come to it without much interruption. There was also more quiet. No. 23 is the last house in the street, and, even when I sat with my window open, the noise of traffic from the King's Road was faint and rather pleasant. It was an excellent spot for a man who meant to work. Except for a certain difficulty in getting my landlady and her daughters out of the room when they came to clear away my meals and talk about the better days they had seen, and a few imbroglios with the eight cats which infested the house, it was the best spot, I think, that I could have chosen.

Living a life ruled by the strictest economy, I gradually forged ahead. Verse, light and serious, continued my long suit. I generally managed to place two of each brand a week; and that meant two guineas, sometimes more. One particularly pleasing thing about this verse-writing was that there was no delay, as there was with my prose. I would write a set of verses for a daily paper after tea, walk to Fleet Street with them at half-past six, thus getting a little exercise; leave them at the office; and I would see them in print in the next morning's issue. Payment was equally prompt. The rule was, Send in your bill before five on Wednesday, and call for payment on Friday at seven. Thus I had always enough money to keep me going during the week.

In addition to verses, I kept turning out a great quantity of prose, fiction, and otherwise, but without much success. The visits of the postmen were the big events of the day at that time. Before I had been in Walpole Street a week I could tell by ear the difference between a rejected manuscript and an ordinary letter. There is a certain solid _plop_ about the fall of the former which not even a long envelope full of proofs can imitate successfully.

I worked extraordinarily hard at that time. All day, sometimes. The thought of Margie waiting in Guernsey kept me writing when I should have done better to have taken a rest. My earnings were small in proportion to my labour. The guineas I made, except from verse, were like the ounce of gold to the ton of ore. I no longer papered the walls with rejection forms; but this was from choice, not from necessity. I had plenty of material, had I cared to use it.

I made a little money, of course. My takings for the first month amounted to L9 10s. I notched double figures in the next with Lll 1s. 6d. Then I dropped to L7 0s. 6d. It was not starvation, but it was still more unlike matrimony.

But at the end of the sixth month there happened to me what, looking back, I consider to be the greatest piece of good fortune of my life. I received a literary introduction. Some authorities scoff at literary introductions. They say that editors read everything, whether they know the author or not. So they do; and, if the work is not good, a letter to the editor from a man who once met his cousin at a garden-party is not likely to induce him to print it. There is no journalistic "ring" in the sense in which the word is generally used; but there are undoubtedly a certain number of men who know the ropes, and can act as pilots in a strange sea; and an introduction brings one into touch with them. There is a world of difference between contributing blindly work which seems suitable to the style of a paper and sending in matter designed to attract the editor personally.

Mr. Macrae, whose pupil I had been at Cambridge, was the author of my letter of introduction. At St. Gabriel's, Mr. Macrae had been a man for whom I entertained awe and respect. Likes and dislikes in connection with one's tutor seemed outside the question. Only a chance episode had shown me that my tutor was a mortal with a mortal's limitations. We were bicycling together one day along the Trumpington Road, when a form appeared, coming to meet us. My tutor's speech grew more and more halting as the form came nearer. At last he stopped talking altogether, and wobbled in his saddle. The man bowed to him, and, as if he had won through some fiery ordeal, he shot ahead like a gay professional rider. When I drew level with him, he said, "That, Mr. Cloyster, is my tailor."

Mr. Macrae was typical of the University don who is Scotch. He had married the senior historian of Newnham. He lived (and still lives) by proxy. His publishers order his existence. His honeymoon had been placed at the disposal of these gentlemen, and they had allotted to that period an edition of Aristotle's Ethics. Aristotle, accordingly, received the most scholarly attention from the recently united couple somewhere on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. All the reviews were satisfactory.

In my third year at St. Gabriel's it was popularly supposed that Master Pericles Aeschylus, Mr. Macrae's infant son, was turned to correct my Latin prose, though my Iambics were withheld from him at the request of the family doctor.

The letter which Pericles Aeschylus's father had addressed to me was one of the pleasantest surprises I have ever had. It ran as follows:

St. Gabriel's College,
Cambridge.

MY DEAR CLOYSTER,--The divergence of our duties and pleasures during your residence here caused us to see but little of each other. Would it had been otherwise! And too often our intercourse had--on my side--a distinctly professional flavour. Your attitude towards your religious obligations was, I fear, something to seek. Indeed, the line, "_Pastor deorum cultor et infrequens_," might have been directly inspired by your views on the keeping of Chapels. On the other hand, your contributions to our musical festivities had the true Aristophanes _panache_.

I hear you are devoting yourself to literature, and I beg that you will avail yourself of the enclosed note, which is addressed to a personal friend of mine.

Believe me,
Your well-wisher,
David Ossian Macrae.

The enclosure bore this inscription:

CHARLES FERMIN, ESQ.,
Offices of the _Orb_,
Strand,
London.

I had received the letter at breakfast. I took a cab, and drove straight to the _Orb_.

A painted hand, marked "Editorial," indicated a flight of stairs. At the top of these I was confronted by a glass door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with a paroxysm of suppressed hysteria.

My letter was taken down a mysterious stone passage. After some waiting the messenger returned with the request that I would come back at eleven, as Mr. Fermin would be very busy till then.

I went out into the Strand, and sought a neighbouring hostelry. It was essential that I should be brilliant at the coming interview, if only spirituously brilliant; and I wished to remove a sensation of stomachic emptiness, such as I had been wont to feel at school when approaching the headmaster's study.

At eleven I returned, and asked again for Mr. Fermin; and presently he appeared--a tall, thin man, who gave one the impression of being in a hurry. I knew him by reputation as a famous quarter-miler. He had been president of the O.U.A.C. some years back. He looked as if at any moment he might dash off in any direction at quarter-mile pace.

We shook hands, and I tried to look intelligent.

"Sorry to have to keep you waiting," he said, as we walked to his club; "but we are always rather busy between ten and eleven, putting the column through. Gresham and I do 'On Your Way,' you know. The last copy has to be down by half-past ten."

We arrived at the Club, and sat in a corner of the lower smoking-room.

"Macrae says that you are going in for writing. Of course, I'll do anything I can, but it isn't easy to help a man. As it happens, though, I can put you in the way of something, if it's your style of work. Do you ever do verse?"

I felt like a batsman who sees a slow full-toss sailing through the air.

"It's the only thing I can get taken," I said. "I've had quite a lot in the _Chronicle_ and occasional bits in other papers."

He seemed relieved.

"Oh, that's all right, then," he said. "You know 'On Your Way.' Perhaps you'd care to come in and do that for a bit? It's only holiday work, but it'll last five weeks. And if you do it all right I can get you the whole of the holiday work on the column. That comes to a good lot in the year. We're always taking odd days off. Can you come up at a moment's notice?"

"Easily," I said.

"Then, you see, if you did that you would drop into the next vacancy on the column. There's no saying when one may occur. It's like the General Election. It may happen tomorrow, or not for years. Still, you'd be on the spot in case."

"It's awfully good of you."

"Not at all. As a matter of fact, I was rather in difficulties about getting a holiday man. I'm off to Scotland the day after tomorrow, and I had to find a sub. Well, then, will you come in on Monday?"

"All right."

"You've had no experience of newspaper work, have you?"

"No."

"Well, all the work at the _Orb's_ done between nine and eleven. You must be there at nine sharp. Literally sharp, I mean. Not half-past. And you'd better do some stuff overnight for the first week or so. You'll find working in the office difficult till you get used to it. Of course, though, you'll always have Gresham there, so there's no need to get worried. He can fill the column himself, if he's pushed. Four or five really good paragraphs a day and an occasional set of verses are all he'll want from you."

"I see."

"On Monday, then. Nine sharp. Good-bye."

I walked home along Piccadilly with almost a cake-walk stride. At last I was in the inner circle.

An _Orb_ cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He was one of _Us_.