The others headed their flimsy "Sad Accident," a t.i.tle truthful but not alluring. I altered mine to "Plumber in a Hurry--Fatal Result." Saying as little as possible about the unfortunate sailor, I called the attention of plumbers generally to the coroner"s very just remarks upon the folly of undue haste; pointed out to them, as a body, the trouble that would arise if somehow they could not cure themselves of this tendency to rush through their work without a moment"s loss of time.
It established for me a useful reputation. The sub-editor of one evening paper condescended so far as to come out in his shirt-sleeves and shake hands with me.
"That"s the sort of thing we want," he told me; "a light touch, a bit of humour."
I s.n.a.t.c.hed fun from fires (I sincerely trust the insurance premiums were not overdue); culled quaintness from street rows; extracted merriment from catastrophes the most painful, and prospered.
Though often within a stone"s throw of the street, I unremittingly avoided the old house at Poplar. I was suffering inconvenience at this period by reason of finding myself two distinct individuals, contending with each other. My object was to encourage the new Paul--the sensible, practical, pushful Paul, whose career began to look promising; to drive away from interfering with me his strangely unlike twin--the old childish Paul of the sad, far-seeing eyes. Sometimes out of the cracked looking-gla.s.s his wistful, yearning face would plead to me; but I would sternly shake my head. I knew well his cunning. Had I let him have his way, he would have led me through the maze of streets he knew so well, past the broken railings (outside which he would have left my body standing), along the weedy pathway, through the cracked and dented door, up the creaking staircase to the dismal little chamber where we once--he and I together--had sat dreaming foolish dreams.
"Come," he would whisper; "it is so near. Let us push aside the chest of drawers very quietly, softly raise the broken sash, prop it open with the Latin dictionary, lean our elbows on the sill, listen to the voices of the weary city, voices calling to us from the darkness."
But I was too wary to be caught. "Later on," I would reply to him; "when I have made my way, when I am stronger to withstand your wheedling. Then I will go with you, if you are still in existence, my sentimental little friend. We will dream again the old impractical, foolish dreams--and laugh at them."
So he would fade away, and in his place would nod to me approvingly a businesslike-looking, wide-awake young fellow.
But to one sentimental temptation I succ.u.mbed. My position was by now a.s.sured; there was no longer any reason for my hiding myself. I determined to move westward. I had not intended to soar so high, but pa.s.sing through Guildford Street one day, the creeper-covered corner house that my father had once thought of taking recalled itself to me.
A card was in the fanlight. I knocked and made enquiries. A bed-sitting-room upon the third floor was vacant. I remembered it well the moment the loquacious landlady opened its door.
"This shall be your room, Paul," said my father. So clearly his voice sounded behind me that I turned, forgetting for the moment it was but a memory. "You will be quiet here, and we can shut out the bed and washstand with a screen."
So my father had his way. It was a pleasant, sunny little room, overlooking the gardens of the hospital. I followed my father"s suggestion, shut out the bed and washstand with a screen. And sometimes of an evening it would amuse me to hear my father turn the handle of the door.
"How are you getting on--all right?"
"Famously."
Often there came back to me the words he had once used. "You must be the practical man, Paul, and get on. Myself, I have always been somewhat of a dreamer. I meant to do such great things in the world, and somehow I suppose I aimed too high. I wasn"t--practical."
"But ought not one to aim high?" I had asked.
My father had fidgeted in his chair. "It is very difficult to say. It is all so--so very ununderstandable. You aim high and you don"t hit anything--at least, it seems as if you didn"t. Perhaps, after all, it is better to aim at something low, and--and hit it. Yet it seems a pity--one"s ideals, all the best part of one--I don"t know why it is.
Perhaps we do not understand."
For some months I had been writing over my own name. One day a letter was forwarded to me by an editor to whose care it had been addressed. It was a short, formal note from the maternal Sellars, inviting me to the wedding of her daughter with a Mr. Reginald Clapper. I had almost forgotten the incident of the Lady "Ortensia, but it was not unsatisfactory to learn that it had terminated pleasantly. Also, I judged from an invitation having been sent me, that the lady wished me to be witness of the fact that my desertion had not left her disconsolate. So much gratification I felt I owed her, and accordingly, purchasing a present as expensive as my means would permit, I made my way on the following Thursday, clad in frock coat and light grey trousers, to Kennington Church.
The ceremony was already in progress. Creeping on tiptoe up the aisle, I was about to slip into an empty pew, when a hand was laid upon my sleeve.
"We"re all here," whispered the O"Kelly; "just room for ye."
Squeezing his hand as I pa.s.sed, I sat down between the Signora and Mrs.
Peedles. Both ladies were weeping; the Signora silently, one tear at a time clinging fondly to her pretty face as though loath to fall from it; Mrs. Peedles copiously, with explosive gurgles, as of water from a bottle.
"It is such a beautiful service," murmured the Signora, pressing my hand as I settled myself down. "I should so--so love to be married."
"Me darling," whispered the O"Kelly, seizing her other hand and kissing it covertly behind his open Prayer Book, "perhaps ye will be--one day."
The Signora through her tears smiled at him, but with a sigh shook her head.
Mrs. Peedles, clad, so far as the dim November light enabled me to judge, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth--nothing regal; the sort of thing one might a.s.sume to have been Her Majesty"s second best, say third best, frock--explained that weddings always reminded her how fleeting a thing was love.
"The poor dears!" she sobbed. "But there, there"s no telling. Perhaps they"ll be happy. I"m sure I hope they may be. He looks harmless."
Jarman, stretching out a hand to me from the other side of Mrs. Peedles, urged me to cheer up. "Don"t wear your "eart upon your sleeve," he advised. "Try and smile."
In the vestry I met old friends. The maternal Sellars, stouter than ever, had been accommodated with a chair--at least, I a.s.sumed so, she being in a sitting posture; the chair itself was not in evidence. She greeted me with more graciousness than I had expected, enquiring after my health with pointedness and an amount of tender solicitude that, until the explanation broke upon me, somewhat puzzled me.
Mr. Reginald Clapper was a small but energetic gentleman, much impressed, I was glad to notice, with a conviction of his own good fortune. He expressed the greatest delight at being introduced to me, shook me heartily by the hand, and hoped we should always be friends.
"Won"t be my fault if we"re not," he added. "Come and see us whenever you like." He repeated this three times. I gathered the general sentiment to be that he was acting, if anything, with excess of generosity.
Mrs. Reginald Clapper, as I was relieved to know she now was, received my salute to a subdued murmur of applause. She looked to my eyes handsomer than when I had last seen her, or maybe my taste was growing less exacting. She also trusted she might always regard me as a friend.
I replied that it would be my hope to deserve the honour; whereupon she kissed me of her own accord, and embracing her mother, shed some tears, explaining the reason to be that everybody was so good to her.
Brother George, less lank than formerly, hampered by a pair of enormous white kid gloves, superintended my signing of the register, whispering to me sympathetically: "Better luck next time, old c.o.c.k."
The fat young lady--or, maybe, the lean young lady, grown stouter, I cannot say for certain--who feared I had forgotten her, a thing I a.s.sured her utterly impossible, was good enough to say that, in her opinion, I was worth all the others put together.
"And so I told her," added the fat young lady--or the lean one grown stouter, "a dozen times if I told her once. But there!"
I murmured my obligations.
Cousin Joseph, "whom I found no difficulty in recognising by reason of his watery eyes, appeared not so chirpy as of yore.
"You take my tip," advised Cousin Joseph, drawing me aside, "and keep out of it."
"You speak from experience?" I suggested.
"I"m as fond of a joke," said the watery-eyed Joseph, "as any man. But when it comes to buckets of water--"
A reminder from the maternal Sellars that breakfast had been ordered for eleven o"clock caused a general movement and arrested Joseph"s revelations.
"See you again, perhaps," he murmured, and pushed past me.
What Mrs. Sellars, I suppose, would have alluded to as a cold col-la-shon had been arranged for at a restaurant near by. I walked there in company with Uncle and Aunt Gutton; not because I particularly desired their companionship, but because Uncle Gutton, seizing me by the arm, left me no alternative.
"Now then, young man," commenced Uncle Gutton kindly, but boisterously so soon as we were in the street, at some little distance behind the others, "if you want to pitch into me, you pitch away. I shan"t mind, and maybe it"ll do you good."
I informed him that nothing was further from my desire.
"Oh, all right," returned Uncle Gutton, seemingly disappointed. "If you"re willing to forgive and forget, so am I. I never liked you, as I daresay you saw, and so I told Rosie. "He may be cleverer than he looks," I says, "or he may be a bigger fool than I think him, though that"s hardly likely. You take my advice and get a full-grown article, then you"ll know what you"re doing.""
I told him I thought his advice had been admirable.
"I"m glad you think so," he returned, somewhat puzzled; "though if you wanted to call me names I shouldn"t have blamed you. Anyhow, you"ve took it like a sensible chap. You"ve got over it, as I always told her you would. Young men out of story-books don"t die of broken hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their head in the water-b.u.t.t."
"Why, I was in love myself three times," explained Uncle Gutton, "before I married the old woman."
Aunt Gutton sighed and said she was afraid gentlemen didn"t feel these things as much as they ought to.