the office of the statesman daily journal was not popular with the neighbours, although its existence unquestionably caused a diminution of rent in its immediate proximity. it was very difficult to find--which was an immense advantage to those connected with it, as no one had any right there but the affiliated; and strangers burning to express their views or to resent imaginary imputations cast upon them had plenty of time to cool down while they wandered about the adjacent lanes in vain quest of their object. if you had business there, and were not thoroughly acquainted with the way, your best plan was to take a sandwich in your pocket, to prepare for an afternoon's campaign, and then to turn to the right out of fleet street, down any street leading to the river, and to wander about until you quite unexpectedly came upon your destination. there you found it, a queer, dumpy, black-looking old building,--like a warehouse that had been sat upon and compressed,--nestling down in a quaint little dreary square, surrounded by the halls of worshipful companies which had never been heard of save by their own liverymen, and large churches with an average congregation of nine, standing mildewed and blue-mouldy, with damp voters'-notices peeling off their doors, and green streaks down the stuccoed heads of the angels and cherubim supporting the dripping arch over the porch, in little dank reeking churchyards, where the rank grass overtopped the broken tombstones, and stuck nodding out through the dilapidated railing.
the windows were filthy with the stains of a thousand showers; the paint had blistered and peeled off the heavy old door, and round the gaping chasm of the letter-box; and in the daytime the place looked woebegone and deserted. nobody came there till about two in the afternoon, when three or four quiet-looking gentlemen would drop in one by one, and after remaining an hour or two, depart as they had come. but at night the old house woke up with a roar; its windows blazed with light; its old sides echoed to the creaking throes of a huge steam-engine; its querulous bell was perpetually being tugged; boys in paper caps and smeary faces and shirt-sleeves were perpetually issuing from its portals, and returning, now with fluttering slips of paper, now with bibulous refreshment. messengers from the electric telegraph companies were there about every half-hour; and cabs that had dashed up with a stout gentleman in spectacles dashed away with a slim gentleman in a white hat, returning with a little man in a red beard, and flying off with the stout gentleman again. blinds were down all round the neighbourhood; porters of the worshipful companies, sextons of the congregationless churches, agents for printing-ink and cumberland black-lead, wood-engravers, box-block sellers, and the proprietors of the never-say-die or health-restoring drops, who held the corner premises,--were all sleeping the sleep of the just, or at least doing the best they could towards it, in spite of the reverberation of the steam-engine at the office of the statesman daily journal.
on a hot night in september mr. churchill sat in a large room on the first-floor of the statesman office. on the desk before him stood a huge battered old despatch-box, overflowing with papers--some in manuscript, neatly folded and docketed; others long printed slips, scored and marked all over with ink-corrections. immediately in front of him hung an almanac and a packet of half-sheets of note-paper, strung together on a large hook. a huge waste-paper basket by his side was filled, while the floor was littered with envelopes of all sizes and colours, fragments cut from newspapers, ink-splashes, and piles of books in paper parcels waiting for review. a solemn old clock, pointing to midnight, ticked gravely on the mantelpiece; a small library of grim old books of reference, in solemn brown bindings, with the flaming cover of the post-office directory like a star in the midst of them, was ranged against the wall; three or four speaking tubes, with ivory mouthpieces, were curling round mr. churchill's feet; and mr. churchill himself was reading the last number of the revue de deux mondes by the light of a shaded lamp, when a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a cheery voice said,
"still at the mill, churchill? still at the mill?"
"ah, harding, my dear fellow, i'm delighted to see you!"
"i should think you were," said harding, laughing; "for my presence here means a good deal to you,--bed, and rest, and country, eh? well, how have you been?--not knocked up? you've done capitally, my boy! i've watched you carefully, and am more than content." (for mr. harding was the editor of the statesman, and churchill, one of his principal contributors, had been taking his place while he made holiday.)
"that's a relief," said churchill. "i've been rather nervous about it; but i thought that tooby and i between us had managed to push the ship along somehow. tooby's a capital fellow!"
"yes, yes," said mr. harding, seating himself; "tooby is a capital fellow, and there's not a better 'sub' in london. but tooby couldn't have written that article on the castle-hedingham dinner, or shown up the teaser's blunders in classical quotation, master frank. palman qui meruit. who did the bishops and the crystal palace?"
"oh, slummer wrote those. weren't they good?"
"very smart; very smart indeed. a thought too strong of billingsgate, though. that young man is a very hard hitter, but wants training. where's hawker?"
"just gone. he's been very kind and very useful, so have williams and burke, and all. and you--how have you enjoyed yourself?"
"never so much in my life. i've read nothing but the paper. i've done nothing but lie upon the beach and play with the children."
"and the children--are they all right? and mrs. harding?"
"splendid! i never saw the wife look so well for the last six years. she sent all kind remembrances to you, and the usual inquiry."
"what! if i was going to be married? no, no; you must take back my usual answer. she must find me a wife, and it must be one after her own pattern."
"seriously, frank churchill, it's time you began to look after a wife. in our profession, especially, it's the greatest blessing to have some one to care for and to be petted by in the intervals of business-strife. there used to be a notion that a literary man required to be perpetually 'seeing life,' which meant 'getting drunk, and never going home;' but that's exploded, and i believe that our best character-painters owe half their powers of delineation to their wives' suggestions. women,--by jove, sir!--women read character wonderfully."
"mrs. harding has made a bad shot at mine, old friend," said churchill, laughing, "if she thinks that i am in any way desirous to be married. no, no! so far as the seeing life is concerned, i began early, and all that has been over long since. but i've got rather a queer temper of my own. i'm not the most tolerant man in the world; and i've had my own way so long, that any little missy fal-lals and pettishness would jar upon me horribly. besides, i've not got money enough to marry upon. i like my comforts, and to be able to buy occasional books and pictures, and to keep my horse, and my club, and--"
"well, but a fellow like you might pick up a woman with money!" said harding.
"that's the worst pick-up possible,--to have to be civil to your wife's trustees, or listen to reproaches as to how 'poor papa's money' is being spent. no, no, no! so long as my dear old mother lives, i shall have a decent home; and afterwards--well, i shall go into chambers, i suppose, and settle down into a club-haunting old fogey."
"stuff, frank; don't talk such rubbish. affectation of cynicism and affectation of premature age are two of the most pernicious cants of the day. very likely now at the watering-place to which you're going for your holiday, you'll meet some pretty girl who--"
"watering-place!" cried frank, shouting with laughter; "i'm going to my old godfather's country place for some partridge-shooting; and as he's an old bachelor of very peculiar temper, there's not likely to be much womankind about."
"ho, ho! a country place, eh? and partridge-shooting? hum, hum! we're coming out. don't get your head turned with grand people, frank."
"grand people!" echoed churchill. "don't i tell you the man's my godfather? there will probably be half a dozen men staying in the house, whose sole care about me will be that i carry my gun properly, and don't hit them out in the stubble."
"when do you go?"
"to-morrow, by the midday express. i've some matters to settle in the morning, and can't get down before dinner-time."
"well, then, get to bed at once. i've got to say a few words to tooby; and i'll see marks when he comes up with the statement, and take care that all's straight. you've seen your own proofs? very well, then; god bless you! and be off, and don't let us see your face for a month."
they shook hands warmly; and as churchill left the room, harding called after him, "two things, frank: look out for a nice wife, and don't get your head turned with what are called 'swells.'"
throughout london town there breathed no simpler-minded man than george harding. at college, as in after-life, he had lived with a very small set, entirely composed of men of his own degree in the world; and of any other he had the vaguest possible notion. his intellectual acquirements were great, and his reading was vast and catholic; but of men and cities he had seen literally nothing; and as, except in his annual vacation, when he could go down with his family and potter about the quietest of watering-places, he never went any where save from his home to the statesman office, and from the statesman office to his home, he was not likely to enlarge his knowledge of life. occasionally, on a saturday night in the season, he would get the opera-box from the musical critic, and would take mrs. harding to her majesty's; but there his whole attention would be absorbed in contemplating the appearance and manners of the "swells,"--the one word not to be found in the dictionary which he sometimes indulged in. slightly radical in his opinions was george harding; and that he was not much gratified by his observation of these specimens of the upper ten thousand, was to be traced in certain little pungencies and acerbities in his leading articles after these opera visits. he worshipped his calling, in his own honest, simple, steadfast way, and resented, quietly but sturdily, any attempts at what he considered patronage by those of higher social rank. the leaders of his political party, recognisant of the good service done to them by harding's pen, had, on several occasions, essayed to prove their gratitude by little set civilities: huge cards of invitation to lady helmsman's saturday-evening reunions had found their way to the statesman's deep-mouthed letter-box; carriage-paid hampers of high-flavoured black game sped thither from the highland shooting-box, where the foreign secretary was spending his hard-earned holiday; earliest intimation of political changes, in "confidential" covers, were conveyed there by downing-street messengers. but george harding never appeared at protocol house; his name was never seen low down amongst those of the foreign-office clerks and outer selvage of fashion, chronicled with such urbanity by mr. henchman of the high-life gazette; and no attention or flattery ever made him pander to a shuffle, or register a lie. he had a very high opinion of churchill's talents and honour; but he knew him to be fond of praise, and, above all, greatly wanting in discretion. harding had seen so many men full of promise fall into the dreary vortex of drink and debt and pot-house dissipation, that he had hailed with delight the innate decency and gentlemanly feeling which had kept frank churchill out of such dirty orgies; but now he feared lest the disinfectant might prove even worse than the disease itself; and lest the aristocratic notions, which his friend undoubtedly possessed, might lead him into society where his manliness and proper pride might be swallowed up in the effulgency of his surroundings.
so mused george harding, bending over the dingy old grate at the statesman office, and gazing vacantly at the shavings with which it was filled, while waiting for mr. marks, the head printer, to bring him the "statement," showing the amount required to fill the paper. meanwhile churchill, cigar in mouth, was striding through the deserted streets, rejoicing in the thought of his coming holiday, and inwardly chuckling over his friend's warnings. at last he stopped at a door in a dull respectable street leading out of brunswick square, let himself in with a latch-key, drank a tumbler of soda-water, and glanced at the addresses of some letters in his little dining-room, exchanged his boots for slippers at the bottom of the staircase, and crept slowly up the stairs. as he arrived at the second floor, he paused for a minute, and a voice said, "god bless you, frank!"
"god bless you, mother!" he replied; "good night, dear;" and passed into his room.
then he sat himself on the side of his bed, and began leisurely to undress himself, smiling meanwhile.
"bring back a wife, and beware of swells, eh? that is the essence of harding's advice. no, no my darling old mother; you and i get on too well together to change our lives. an amusing time a wife would have with me,--out half the night at the office, and she shivering in the dining-room waiting my return. wife, by jove! yes; and thick fat chops, and sixteen-shilling trousers, and the knifeboard of the omnibus instead of the cob to ride on! no; i think not. and as for swells--that old republican, harding, thinks every man with a handle to his name is an enemy to magna charta. i should like to show him my old godfather walking into an idiotic peer of the realm!"
and, very much tickled at the idea, churchill put out his candle and turned in.
