THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
.THE
STREET OF ADVENTURE
BY
PHILIP 'GIBBS
AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION ,
WITH A SPECIAL PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Published IQIO
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
New American Edition, 1919
All Rights Reserved
Printed In the United States of America
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
tTO THE NEW AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION
THIS novel of journalistic life in London was written
ten years ago. To me, and to those characters in the book
who still survive, that seems a life-time back. Since then
I have seen two wars the Balkan war which was the
storm-cloud in Europe heralding the universal deluge,
and the Great War itself which has left the world bleed-
ing from many wounds, and the soul of the world stricken
by the remembrance of millions of dead boys, and of
untold agonies, brutalities, abominations, in those slaugh-
ter fields where civilization was submerged. The Street
of Adventure which I portrayed in this tale was (though
none of us guessed) only a narrow alley- way leading to
an adventure so terrific in its melodrama that it anni-
hilated the journalistic "scoop," and newspaper competi-
tion in England (for all journals were under military
law and no more than bulletins of official news) and all
the traditions, customs, and purpose of journalistic life.
Those young newspaper men of whom I write in this
book regarded the work as a peep-show of which they
were critics and onlookers ; but when the War came they
found that they could no longer be aloof from life, nor
go to its pageantry and its drama with Press tickets for
the "show" and a cynical amusement at the folly of hu-
man nature. They became part of the pageant, actors in
the drama. They were part pf that pageantry of English
youth which tramped up the roads of war to the Ypres
salient and the Somme battlefields. They took their turn
vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE
on the stage lighted by shell fire and by white rockets
which rose all night from the trenches, revealing a row
of gashed trees, a stretch of mangled earth, and the
barbed wire hedges of the enemy's front line. Many of
their bodies lie under little wooden crosses in France
and Flanders. They did well, most of them.
I met my old comrades of Fleet Street as company
officers, even as majors and colonels, two of them with
the exalted rank of General. They laughed when I met
them and said, "This is a great kind of 'stunt' !" or "We
thought we knew a lot in Fleet Street. . . . Now we're
beginning to find out!" One character in this book,
whom I met one night at a fancy dress ball he was, I
remember, in the costume of Sir Francis Drake became
a gunner in a field battery. During the war I used to see
him now and then in odd places, and once he drew me
aside and said, "I can't stand this much longer. My
nerve is beginning to crack. It's not that I am afraid of
death that is nothing! but this constant shell fire
shakes one to bits." He was killed somewhere beyond
the Somme.
Some of them remembered "The Street of Adventure,"
which had put their old way of life into the form of
fiction. One day in 1915 I was up in "Plug Street"
Village, a most unhealthy spot not far from Armentieres,
and a young officer of a London regiment which had just
been in a desperate little fight, sent word for me to visit
him in his billet. He was taking a bath in a big tub in
the loft of a shell-broken house and stretched out a soapy
hand to me. "I say," he began, "you ought to have let
Frank Luttrell marry Katherine. It was too bad of you
to have it like that !" At another time I went up to our
outpost line beyond Gommecourt, where a trench mortar
company had made a rush into a place called Pigeon
Wood and were arranging to blow the Germans out of
AUTHOR'S PREFACE vi
another place called Kite Copse, two hundred yards
away. They were anxious for me to see the "show," and
on the way up a sergeant, who was my guide across the
battlefield where German "crumps" were bursting, turned
to me with a grin and said, "This is another 'Street of
Adventure/ I liked the other best 1"
Unlike many colleagues in Fleet Street, I still remained
an onlooker, as an official war-correspondent with the
British Armies in the Field. I was still the servant of
Fleet Street, writing words, words, words, when all the
world was dying the world I had known. I hated the
job, but it had to be done, so that the pictures of war
should be described, and the agonies of war known, and
the valour of youth recorded. I did not care a damn
about Fleet Street then. I wrote for the sake of the sol-
diers. I wrote as a chronicler of their history and their
sufferings ; and I shared in my soul the things they feared,
and their tragic doubts and despairs, and the intolerable
boredom of exile from normal life, and the smells and
sights and sounds of the fields in which they fought. I
was not quite aloof, nor only an onlooker. . . .
In this novel there is a true picture of Fleet Street
before the war. Many of the characters have been recog-
nised as real people and have forgiven me for my por-
traits of themselves, not unkindly in intention even when
touched with caricature, as in one or two cases. It is
no secret now that the newspaper was "The Tribune/'
which lived and died before the war, as one of the most
unhappy adventures in Fleet Street. Many of the inci-
dents were pure inventions on my part, typical of journal-
istic life in London, but not associated with actual hap-
penings in "The Tribune" office, and some of the minor
characters and their actions have no reference to the his-
tory of that newspaper. What is more real, I think, than
the incidental episodes of the narrative is the atmosphere
viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE
and psychology of the journalistic picture, which ought
to be true because it is part of my own life. The spirit
of youth, with its hopes and laughter and tears, dwells
a little, perhaps, in this Street of Adventure, and is, I
imagine, the secret of its success. It is a youthfulness
which has passed as far as I am concerned four and a
half years of war knock the boyhood out of one's heart
but it will be renewed by other young men and women
following in the footsteps of Frank Luttrell and Katherine
Halstead down the old street where there are many
ghosts.
London,
May, 1919.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
THE
STREET OF ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I
A YOUNG man in a grey tweed suit and a bowler hat
stood gazing from the opposite side of the way at the
swing door of a long white building in a narrow street.
Several times he had walked from one end of the street
to the other, stopping once to light a cigarette with a
nervous hand, and then throwing it away after a few
whiffs. The doorway at which he now stared seemed to
have a fascination of a strange kind, attracting and repell-
ing him at the same time. Once he crossed the road at
a sharp pace as if he would go straight up the steps into
the building, and then turned off again and strolled away.
But he came back, and at last, with a low, nervous laugh
as though amused at his own hesitation, took the steps
two at a time, and went through the brass-bound doors.
Inside, a commissionaire sat reading a pink paper in a
box-office with a glass window. The young man present-
ed his card, and asked if Mr. Bellamy were in. The
commissionaire, without lifting his eyes from the paper,
jerked his thumb in the direction of a staircase with tiled
walls like an underground lavatory. The visitor went up,
stopping at a bend oi the stairs to lift his hat and pass
a hand over a high, ra r-oiv - forehead. : A slight flush had
crept into his boyish, clear- shaven fa.c.e.
a THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
On the first floor of the big building a bullet -headed
man with the face of a professional pugilist sat at a desk
placed across the landing. On six chairs at right angles
to him sat six boys in uniforms, sucking lollipops and
reading penny dreadfuls with flaming covers.
The young man put his card on the des'c, and asked
again if Mr. Bellamy were in.
"No," said the man with the pugnacious face. He
turned to one of the boys. "When you've made yerself
sick with them suckers/' he said, "p'raps you'll take this
to the Russian Embassy. And if you're not back in half
an hour I'll give you a thick ear, and don't forget it."
The boy changed the lollipop from one side of his face
to the other, put a round messenger's cap at a more acute
angle over one ear, took a big envelope from the man
at the desk, kicked one of his comrades on the shin,
and then bounded down the stairs.
The young man in the grey suit was fingering his
card.
"When will Mr. Bellamy be back?" he asked.
"Perhaps ten or eleven to-night," said the man at
the desk carelessly. "Very uncertain. Leave a message ?
See anyone else?" He strode over to one of the boys
and boxed his ear smartly. " 'Aven't I told you not to
kick your 'eels against the wall, you blasted little fool?
Do it again, and I'll put you outside."
"Strange!" said the young man, "I have an appoint-
ment with him."
"Oh," said the man at the desk, "why didn't you say
so before?" He took up the card and read the name.
"Francis Luttrell. ... Oh yes, the Chief is expecting
you. But you'll have to wait. He's up to his ears."
"Then he is in!" .said the visitor. (
"Did I say he wasn't? M/ihf^ajke;', Stand along the
passage there; J'll put you tbrough when he's ready."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 3
Francis Luttrell went past the desk and stood against
the wall at an angle of two long corridors, into which
opened a number of small doors opened and shut cease-
lessly, it seemed. The inhabitants of the big building
seemed to be playing a game of "family post." At every
minute or so one of the doors would open violently, and
a man would come out with a bundle of papers or letters
in his hand, and go quickly into one of the other rooms
along the corridors. Sometimes two or three of them
would pop out of the doors at the same time and stand
for a few moments talking in low voices, with outbursts
of laughter, in the passages. They seemed to be con-
fiding extraordinary secrets to each other, or to be plot-
ting some dreadful conspiracy. Luttrell, the boyish man
in the grey suit, whose senses were sharpened by an
excitement which made him almost feverish, overheard
whispered ejaculations of surprise. "Great Scott!"
"You don't say so !" "Well, that's the limit." One man
a little dark whimsical man, smartly dressed in black,
with a brilliant tall hat at a jaunty angle seemed to have
a good story to tell. He whispered it to five different
men at intervals, illustrating it by dramatic action with
a silver-knobbed stick. It always had a strong effect.
Each man leant back against the wall, and laughed until
the tears came into his eyes. Luttrell smiled irresistibly
at the sight of this mirth and wondered what the story
was. Presently the whimsical little man, stroking a neat
black moustache, passed down the corridor, and glanced
at Luttrell with eyes in which was still a glint of merri-
ment. It almost seemed as if he were tempted to tell
him the story, but he confided it to the man at the desk,
who was seized with spasms of laughter, which caused
the five remaining messenger boys to grin from ear to
ear.
The little dark man raised his hand. "Hush, not a
4 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
word!" he said solemnly. Then making a pass with his
stick at one of the messenger boys, and neatly striking
his middle button with a sharp click, he went downstairs,
jauntily humming a music-hall song.
He came back for a second, poking his face round the
corner of the passage. "Tell the Chief I shall be back
again. I'm just going over the way for a soul-searcher."
"You've all the luck, Mr. Quin," said the man at the
desk. Luttrell still waited for the interview which
would decide his future career. The strain of a high ner-
vous tension had a curious physical effect on him. Al-
though it was a warm day, his hands became as cold as
ice. Presently he was seized with a kind of terror at the
thought of seeing the man for whom he was waiting, and
he was tempted to tell the clerk at the desk that he
had another engagement and would call again.
"How long will it be before Mr. Bellamy is disen-
gaged?" he asked.
"Don't know," said the man curtly. But he gave
Luttrell's card to one of the boys and told him to take it
to the Chief. Luttrell drew a long breath. Well, at any
rate, he was getting nearer to that great man who was
to decide his fate.
The boy went into the room immediately opposite Lut-
trell's standpoint, and through a door half -opened Lut-
trell saw into a large, comfortably- furnished room, where
a little man with light-brown hair, smoothly brushed, sat
in front of a long desk smoking a cigar and reading a
paper. He looked up to glance at the card, and then the
boy came out and closed the door.
"Will see you in a minute," said the boy. The "min-
ute" lasted half an hour, during which time a bell sound-
ed sharply from the room at intervals, causing one of
the boys to bounce up, pop his head through the
door, and rush off to fetch one of the occupants of the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 5
rooms down the corridor. Among those who entered
was a girl in a flowered muslin dress with a picture hat.
She darted a quick glance at Luttrell, and he saw that
she had fluffy brown hair, and a piquant, pretty face.
She stayed inside the room for ten minutes, and Luttrell
heard the girl's laugh ringing out, and a man's voice
laughing also, more quietly.
Luttrell still waited. It seemed that everyone had the
right of access to that room except himself. He had a
longing to do violence to the man at the desk who ig-
nored his restlessness and sent his small battalion of
boys chivying away on endless errands along the corri-
dors. Other messenger boys came up the stairs and
banged pink envelopes on to the desk, which were im-
mediately sent up to various rooms. A constant stream
of visitors came also and asked whether Mr. Bellamy
were in. They would not keep him half a minute. The
man at the desk lied to most of them with imperturbable
insolence, and only two were told the truth and ranged
alongside Luttrell to take their turn.
For a moment Luttrell forgot his weariness of spirit
and flesh in the interest aroused by the appearance of a
newcomer. It was an extraordinarily tall young man,
about six feet three in height, who came sauntering in
with an air of quiet importance. He had a long, clean-
shaven face, which would have been singularly handsome
but for rather tired and lack-lustre eyes. He was dressed
like a dandy of the Georgian period, in a wide-brimmed
tall hat, a long frock overcoat tight at the waist, and
peg-top trousers, with polish patent boots.
In a suave, melancholy tone he addressed the man
at the desk
"Are there any letters for me this evening, Mr.
Leach?"
6 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
The man at the desk gave his mouth a comical twist
and took a bundle out of a range of pigeonholes.
"Eight," he said, "and five postcards from a lady
named Beatrice, who says she is going to drown herself
if you don't write. They've been here a week, so I sup-
pose the inquest is over."
The tall young man flushed ever so slightly, and re-
garded the man at the desk with a basilisk look out of
his grey eyes.
"So you read my private correspondence," he said
quietly, in a low, mournful voice. "I shall report this to
the Chief."
Leach, the man at the desk, sprang up in a sudden pas-
sion
"Look 'ere, Mr. Christopher Codrington," he said in
a low voice, "if there's to be any tale-telling I can tell the
longest story, and don't you forget it."
He made a step forward, but the tall young man put
up a long white hand with quiet dignity.
"Go to your place, Mr. Leach," he said, "your breath
is bad. It is most offensive to me."
He lifted a small gold bottle hanging to a bunch of
seals and put it to his nose in a languid, graceful way.
Then he passed the desk with a long stride.
The door opposite Luttrell opened violently, and the
girl in the muslin dress came out with a ripple of laugh-
ter. She nearly collided with the man who had been
called Codrington. He stepped back and took off his
tall hat, revealing a high forehead and smooth hair of
palest gold.
"Good-morning, Miss Kitty," he said in his melancholy
voice, "it is good to see you so merry on this dull day.
It is like sunshine in a place of gloom."
"That phrase was in your copy yesterday," said the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 7
girl, tipping up her face in a quizzical way to smile at
the tall young man who bent down towards her.
He fingered a miniature on her breast in an absent-
minded way.
"Was it?" he said gloomily. "It is a simple, foolish
one."
He whispered something into the ear of the girl, wha
hit him smartly across the chest with a roll of cartridge
papers.
"Tush," said Mr. Christopher Codrington, "you will
spoil one of your pretty sketches one of those lovely un-
natural ladies, with wasp waists and elongated limbs."
"I will spoil your shirt-front, if you are so absurd,"
said the girl in the muslin frock. Then she put her hand
on his arm. "I say, Chris," she said, "you and I have
got to go to the Gala night of the Opera! I have just
got a promise from the Chief."
"That will cost me a new pair of patent boots," said
the tall young man, looking down at his feet with an
air of deep melancholy. "And I haven't paid for these
yet."
He moved down the corridor with the girl, stepping
aside and bowing gravely to let her enter one of the
rooms, into which he followed her.
Francis Luttrell, who had listened to the dialogue, sud-
denly found that his hour of expectancy was at an end.
"Now, then, the Chief will see you," said Leach, the
man at the desk, opening the door which had opened
and shut so often.
Luttrell flushed up to the eyes, took off his bowler
hat, and went inside, the door being closed behind him.
"Morning," said a cheerful voice at his elbow. "Sit
down over there, won't you by the desk. I'm just
cleaning myself a little. Filthy place this office."
Luttrell started. He had expected to find the great
8 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
man still seated at his desk, but he was standing with his
coat and waistcoat off, in front of a wash-basin close to
the door.
"Good-morning, Mr. Bellamy," said Luttrell nervously.
He took the chair by the desk and glanced over at the
man who was washing himself. He was a smart, sol-
dierly little fellow, with smooth brown hair and a little
brown moustache. There was an air of alertness in his
figure, in the poise of his head, and both his eyes and
mouth seemed to suggest a sense of humour. For a mo-
ment his eyes met those of the young man sitting by the
side of the desk, who was conscious that in one quick,
shrewd glance he had been photographed and measured
up in the mind of that dapper man.
Silas Bellamy whistled a tune as he brushed his hair,
and smiled at his own thoughts as he cleaned his already
exquisitely clean nails and polished them up with a little
tool. He did not take the slightest notice of Luttrell,
who was hot with nervousness and fervently hoping that
this embarrassing silence would soon be broken.
It was broken when Bellamy got into his coat.
"May Satan seize my tailor," he said. "I would rather
be boiled in oil than wear a coat tight under the arms."
He looked at himself once more in the glass, brushed
a speck of dust off his shoulder, tightened his tie a little,
and then sat down at his desk with a cheery "Now,
then."
Luttrell cleared his throat and waited for the open-
ing of a conversation which he had rehearsed in imagi-
nation a hundred times.
Bellamy, however, was not in a hurry to talk business,
though Luttrell had left three men outside clamouring
to see him. He took up a bayonet, brightly polished,
which had lain on a batch of papers, and passed his
finger down the blade.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 9
"I keep this for some of my men/' he said. "When
I am in a very murderous mood I just show it to them.
It puts the fear of God into their hearts, I can tell you !"
"It looks a dangerous weapon," said Luttrell, laugh-
ing nervously. Then he said in a tentative way, "Did
you get Philip Gibbs's letter?"
The Chief ignored this question and turned on the elec-
tric lamp to scrutinise a spot of rust on the bayonet blade.
"That's blood," he said, with a note of pride in his voice.
"This has killed its man. I drew it out of a Boer's ribs
at Colenso." He twisted his little brown moustache.
"By Jove! I saw some ghastly sights there. I could
curdle your young blood for you! I was in charge of
the Soldiers' Aid Fund, and scoured the whole field of
war. That's still an untold tale. I could blast some
pretty reputations if I told the truth. But, of course, the
truth is the last thing told by pressmen."
Luttrell allowed himself to look surprised.
"Is it?" he said; "I thought that that was what they
had to do."
The Chief looked at him for a moment with lifted eye-
brows.
"My dear boy," he said, "surely, surely, you don't
mean to say "
The telephone bell rang on the desk and the Chief
taking off the receiver said, "Excuse me,'" to Luttrell, and
" 'ulloa, 'ulloa," into the mouthpiece.
Luttrell noticed a gleam of affectionate amusement in
the little man's eyes, and listened to his disconnected sen-
tences.
"What, not in bed yet ! . . . you abandoned young per-
son. ... I forgot to buy that Teddy bear ? God bless
my soul, so I did. . . . It's too late now. I'll buy it to-
morrow. Yes, honour bright! No, I shan't be home
till you're most ready to wake up. . . . Now, now,
io THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
none of your cheek, young woman! Good-bye, lit-
tle lady. Love to Mrs. Mother." He put on the receiver
and laughed softly.
"That's my daughter," he said, "aged six, and a domi-
nating young person. I haven't seen her for a week ex-
cept when I've been in bed."
He pressed his hands to his eyes and yawned.
"Lord, how sleepy I am! . . . Do you mind touch-
ing that bell?"
Luttrell pressed an electric button, and a boy who
seemed to be at the end of the wire pounced into the
room.
"Glass of milk, Tommy," said the Chief, giving hitn
sixpence.
"Yussur," said the boy, grinning. A few minutes later
he came back with a glass of liquid of deep yellow tint
smelling strongly of whisky. The Chief drank it at a
breath.
"Ah ! that's better. Wonderfully good stuff -milk !"
"Let's see," he said, after a pause, during which he ar-
ranged one or two papers on a desk in apple-pie order,
"you mentioned that letter by young Gibbs, didn't you?
Nice fellow, Gibbs, in his own line, don't you know.
Here it is. What does he say? H'm, h'm." He
scanned through the letter, reading out phrases with in-
terpolations.
" 'Bright literary style !' There's more damned non-
sense talked about style than anything else. Say what
you've got to say in the simplest possible way. 'Has a
distinct touch of imagination.' Not wanted in a news-
paper office. Give me the man who can smell out facts.
Imagination is as cheap as dirt and not so useful. It
makes me tired! Took a second at Oxford/ I agree
with Northcliffe. The Oxford manner is the most per-
nicious taint to a newspaper man.' You can hardly cure
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE ir
it. 'Sure he would make his mark on your paper.' Oh
yes, I dare say. There are too many marks on it at
present. Some of them want rubbing out, and will if
I have any india-rubber in my soul." He turned to Lut-
trell and smiled at him.
"I don't want to hurt your young feelings," he said,
"but this is about the most damning testimonial you could
have brought away with you. It is very characteristic of
your friend Gibbs."
"I am sorry," said Luttrell, flushing hotly. "I rather
hoped
He rose and took up his hat.
"Well, don't be in a deuce of a hurry," said Bellamy.
"Sit down, and let's have some more of your great gifts.'*
The door opened with a bang, and a big man, with a
big face that seemed made of the india-rubber which Bel-
lamy had wished for his soul, came in without ceremony
and strode over to the desk.
"Sorry to interrupt your strenuous labours, and all
that don't-you-know-what, but there's the Home Secre-
tary's secretary outside, and wants to see you on official
business. My word! Oh dear, oh no!"
"Tell him to run away and boil his head," said Bel-
lamy. "I'm busy. If the Prime Minister comes, I can't
help it. I am up to my ears in work."
"Yes, I've noticed you do overwork yourself," said the
newcomer, twisting his mouth, and giving a vast wink
with one big eye to Luttrell. "Oh yes, we have to be very
careful of our editor! Don't you know, what? Well!
well ! what am I to tell him ? After all, we are a Gov-
ernment paper. We must be civil to these official fools."
"I suppose it is about the Unemployed," said Bellamy.
"Tell him to drive them into Trafalgar Square, and play
the Catling guns on 'em. It's the only remedy."
12 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"All right/' said the big man, taking a tremendous
stride to the door.
Bellamy called him back, laughing.
"Seriously, Vicary, I can't be bothered. Put him on
to Codrington, who loves gentlemen of state, and over-
awes them with his Ranelagh-Gardens-Charles-Grandison
style. Tell him to say that we are in deep sympathy
with the Unemployed, and are determined that this ques-
tion shall be settled, and that we have every desire to
help the Government and that sort of tosh you know !"
Vicary shook an enormous fist at his Chief, and leered
at him with big eyes.
"Oh, oh !" he said. "One of these days, when you put
up for Parliament "
He laughed, a rich chuckling laugh, and went out of
the room.
"That's Vicary," said Bellamy; "that's the man that
will make you like the toad under the harrow if I am
weak enough to add to my salary list."
"I wonder if you will," said Luttrell, leaning forward
with a feeble effort to restrain his eagerness. "I believe
I could do good work for you. I have written a good
many different kinds of articles and have had signed
things in the Spectator, and so on and I'm very keen."
"Did you say the Spectator?" said Bellamy, starting
back with a mock air of fright. "That is wheje our lead-
er-writers get their training; and that is why this paper
has half the circulation it ought to have. I am afraid
you are too serious, too wise, and too good for us, Mr.
Luttrell, sir."
Luttrell laughed.
"I have written for the Star, the Police Gazette, and
the Domestic Servants' Weekly" he said.
"Ah, now you're talking," said Bellamy. "If you've
written for the Police Gazette, there's some hope for you.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 13
Facts, Mr. Luttrell, that's what we want. Life, passion,
drama, the human heart. That is what makes a news-
paper circulation. When I was religious editor of the
Chicago Angel "
The door opened, and a man in a white apron came
in with a bundle of long proofs which he put on the
desk. "We're already five columns short of being over-
set," he said.
Bellamy looked at him and a strange expression crept
into his steel-blue eyes. He brought his hand down with
a bang on to a gong on the desk. Before the ring of it
had died away, a boy rushed in.
"Tell Mr. Swale to come here," said Bellamy.
He picked up his bayonet and weighed it in his hand.
An elderly man with grey hair, much ruffled, and a
massive, clean-shaven face with dark bags under his
eyes, came in rather hurriedly.
"Do you see this bayonet?" said Bellamy.
The elderly man put on his spectacles and looked at it.
"Yes," he said, with just the faintest flicker of a smile
on his lips; "I've seen it before."
"Well, you'll feel it underneath your fifth rib," said
Bellamy.
He sprang up from his chair with such real passion
that the elderly man started back.
"My God! Swale," he said. "Hicks tells me that
we're five columns short of being overset, and it's only
ten o'clock."
"Well, look at the state of things," said the elderly
man. "There's the Unemployed riot at Manchester, the
Suffrage raid on the House, the Colonial Secretary at
Leeds "
Bellamy dropped wearily into his chair again. "You
make me tired," he said. "If there was an earthquake
at Tooting Bee, and if all the animals at the Zoo broke
14 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
loose and dined off the population round Regent's Park,
you can't get more than fifty-six columns in an eight-
page paper. That's simple arithmetic."
The elderly man took a pinch of snuff with an air
of unconcern, but his face was hotly flushed.
"I try to keep the stuff down as much as possible, but
all your young gentlemen will overwrite themselves."
"Well, go away," said Bellamy. "We'll talk about this
to-morrow when the proprietor comes up. This sort of
thing can't go on, you know."
Mr. Swale's flush died down and left him with an un-
healthy pallor. He hesitated for a moment and then
walked out of the room. Bellamy jotted down a word
or two in a notebook on his desk, and then lit a cigar,
which he smoked in silence for a minute or two.
"Is there any scriptural authority for saying that Satan
was a sub-editor ?" he said presently.
Then he looked across at Luttrell. "Let's see," he
said, "where were we?"
"You were saying that you thought of adding me to
your salary list," said Luttrell audaciously.
Bellamy's eyes twinkled. "Did I go as far as that?
Well, I don't mind giving you a trial. Is 4 IQS. a week
any good to you as descriptive reporter?"
"Yes," said Luttrell. "It will save me from starva-
tion."
Bellamy's eyes softened.
"You have been having a bad time, haven't you?" he
said in a kindly voice.
"Pretty tough," said Luttrell.
"I know, I know I have been through the mill my-
self. I know what it is to be a freelance tilting against
iron walls."
He looked across the room, and his eyes were dreamy
for a moment until a smile crept into them.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 15
"I had the best of fun in the old days when I was
an adventurer with an average income of twenty-five
bob."
He put another word or two into his note-book, and
said with a return to his bantering way
"That's fixed then. You sell your soul and body to us
for ninety shillings a week?"
"I hope you'll not regret the bargain," said Luttrell.
"Oh, I dare say I shall," said Bellamy. "Anyhow,
I will give you my usual words of advice to those who
join my staff. Make a note of them, won't you ?"
Luttrell pulled out a pencil and took a loose sheet of
paper.
"They are all 'dent's/ " said Bellamy. "Don't wear
your hair long. Don't wear a bowler hat with a tail-coat.
Don't say 'on a ship/ Don't use a foreign word when
there is an English one in the dictionary. Don't have
serious convictions on any subjects in the world."
He interpolated an explanation.
"There have been more pressmen ruined by serious
convictions than by drink. I have two men at present
suffering from that disease. Between ourselves, I have
sentenced them both to death. One is a young gentle-
man who once did a Cook's tour in Belgium and has Bel-
gium on the brain. He will drag it in if he is writing a
leading article on Woman's Suffrage, or Tariff Reform.
Another man once went to tea with a Russian anarchist
and was filled with serious convictions on Russian free-
dom. Consequently we ignore Paris, Berlin and Vienna,
and devote ourselves to the interests of Jewish cut-
throats and Russian murderers in Moscow and St. Pe-
tersburg."
He paused and looked sharply at Luttrell.
"Are there any more don'ts?" said the young man.
"Yes," said Bellamy. "Don't have any political
16 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
opinions. A pressman must write from a brief, not from
his soul."
He rose and shook hands with the new member of his
staff.
"You can start work to-morrow if you like. Go and
see Vicary. I will tell him I have taken you on. Be-
fore a week's out he will teach you the deepest signifi-
cance of hell on earth."
Luttrell thanked him, warmly and eagerly, but Bel-
lamy touched his gong and a boy came in.
"Next man," said Bellamy.
As Luttrell was going out Bellamy called him back
for a moment.
"Have you heard the story about the Rector's daugh-
ter?" he said, laughing softly to himself.
"No," said Luttrell, smiling; "what is it?"
"Well, if you are tempted to hear something very
wicked and very witty you ask Quin to tell you. He's
inimitable. . . . Good-night."
Francis Luttrell went out of the building which was
humming with a strange, throbbing, booming sound as
though a million bees were swarming, and turning into
Fleet Street stood under a lamp-post, staring across the
roadway with a peculiar light in his eyes.
"Thank Heaven !" he said aloud, "my luck has turned
at last"
CHAPTER II
FRANCIS LUTTRELL was rather typical of the "only
son." I had known him first as a shy, good-looking boy in
a country vicarage where he was the idol of his mother
and father, who tried very hard, but quite vainly, to hide
their idolatry from him. His father, the Rector of High
Stanton, was a thoughtful, literary man, with what used
to be called "high ideals" it is an old-fashioned phrase
now and a broad humanitarianism. But he was unpop-
ular in his living, because he had a touch of mysticism
which made him an enigma 1 to the small shop-keepers and
middle-class gentry of the little country town. They
mistook his reserved nature, absent-mindedness and in-
tellectual culture for pride. The truth is that the man
was far above the level of the people among whom he
lived, and it was a real torture to him to be impelled
day by day and year by year to bring himself down to
their small ideas, and to limit his vision to the narrow
outlook of his parish. Yet, far from being proud, he
had a deep humility of spirit, and he rebuked himself
constantly for what he knew was his failure to gain the
confidence and affection of his people. His sensitive
spirit shrank from the bickerings and scandals and gos-
sip-mongering of the men and women who came to criti-
cise as well as to pray in his church, and after repeated
episodes, in which he blundered badly in his efforts for
peace and good-will, he shrank farther into his shell,
and devoted more hours a day to the study of Greek lit-
erature and archaeology.
Young Frank Luttrell was the heir to his father's sen-
17
i8 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
sitive and shy nature, although underneath that shyness
he had the gay imagination and the desire for companion-
ship which belonged to his mother, who had faced a life
of drudgery and small duties among commonplace folk
with a sunny courage, which only in secret was some-
times dissolved in the mist of tears. From his baby-
hood they had sheltered their boy from the rough world.
His father, remembering with horror his own life at a
public school where he had been miserable among boys
of a coarse fibre, determined to save Francis from that
hard experience, and became the boy's tutor after the
early years when the mother had him all to herself. As
regards mere knowledge Francis was not at a disad-
vantage with other boys of his own age. Indeed, thrown
upon his own resources a good deal, he developed a taste
for literature and languages, and revelled in the English
and French classics when most boys direct their enthu-
siasm to football and cricket. Otherwise he was se-
verely handicapped. He had a warm and intimate
friendship with one lad, the son of a neighbouring clergy-
man, but apart from that he led a lonely, self-absorbed
life. But for his mother's bright and practical nature
he would have become inevitably morbid and neurotic.
As it was at the age of sixteen years he had acquired the
rather dangerous habit of taking long solitary walks,
with a book of poetry or a French play in his pocket.
His imagination was overstimulated by these wanderings
in the woods on summer days, and there were times
when even his father had misgivings and rather dreadful
doubts as to whether he had done the right thing by his
son. Between those two there was a friendship of rare
tenderness, but veiled by the reserve which was natural
to both of them. If they had not been so shy Francis
would have told his father many of the things which
stirred in his heart, and the clergyman would have talked
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 19
more freely and candidly upon the troubles and tempta-
tions of life. Avoiding all words of this kind they dis-
cussed the humour of Moliere, and the wisdom of Dr.
Johnson, and the characteristics of other great masters,
and Francis never lost his reverence for the wise scholar-
ship, the fine taste, and the prodigious memory of his
father.
It was to his mother, Constantia Fielding, that Francis
revealed himself as much as any boy will and most
boys are in hiding from those they love. It was the
mother who first guessed that at seventeen years of age
Frank was becoming moody, wretchedly discontented,
and possessed with a passionate desire for a larger ex-
perience of life and emotion. The blackest hour of the
little woman's life was on a day when the carpenter's
wife came to her with the tale that the "Young Master"
had got her daughter into trouble. For a moment Mrs.
Luttrell's heart stood still and the world seemed to crum-
ble under her feet. Afterwards it appeared that no great
harm was done, and that Frank had only hurt little Susan
Budge by kissing her too often in shady lanes on summer
evenings. Frank .himself admitted his fault with a burst
of nervous laughter, and confessed that he had made a
fool of himself with the girl, who boasted of his kisses
to other lovers of her own class. But it was a grave
warning to Mr. and Mrs. Luttrell and they did not neglect
it. Frank was sent off to a coach at Maidenhead after
some solemn and tender words by his father, and melted
by the sight of his mother's tears. But he had the prom-
ise of three years at Oxford, and his heart jumped at the
thought of the great adventure of life into which he was
now to plunge.
He went to Oxford in his nineteenth year and was
entered at Balliol, where his father had been before him.
As a "fresher" he was not a success. Not having been
20 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
to a public school he had no ready-made friends, and
was in danger of living a hermit's life in his rooms. He
was not good at games, and was put down as a "mug"
who would do no credit to his college. Frank himself
cursed his thin skin, his early training, and his utter lack
of all the qualities of good friendship. He had a great
yearning to show the men that he was not such a fool
as they thought him, that he had a game and gay spirit
and was out for devilry. He began to have a loathing
for all books except those which would teach him "life."
He read Rabelais, and pretended to himself that the Ra-
belaisian philosophy was greater than the teaching of the
prophets. He flung overboard his rather mystical ideal-
ism which he had received from his father and all the
shining dream-figures of that world in which he had
wandered in his lonely boyhood. To the astonishment
of all Balliol men he distinguished himself one night as
the most reckless and daring leader of a gown and town
riot, in which there was a serious fray with the police.
Frank Luttrell, who was both drunk and disorderly,
bashed in a policeman's helmet, gave a bloody nose to the
wearer thereof, and after a night in the cells was brought
up before a magistrate and fined five pounds. He nar-
rowly escaped being sent down, but received an ovation
from a number of men who, to his great joy, invaded
his rooms for the first time, drank wine with him, smoked
his cigarettes and slapped him on the back as a good
fellow. The report of that night's work came to the
rectory at High Stanton as a bombshell. To Mr. and
Mrs. Luttrell it was incredible that their son should
have been the ringleader of a disgraceful riot. To their
minds, remembering his quiet and sensitive nature, his
refined and pure spirit, his shrinking from all coarse-
ness and brutality, it would not have been more unthink-
able if he had been charged with murder. It was clear
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 21
to them that this was a case of mistaken identity, and
that Frank was the victim of some dreadful error of jus-
tice. Mrs. Luttrell, indeed, believed that he had sacri-
ficed himself to shield a friend. Then they received
a letter from him written exultantly, describing the
night's scene with a wild enthusiasm and glorying in his
own achievement. "At last/' he said, "I have tasted the
wine of life, and it is very good." To the clergyman
and his wife that letter was the breaking-up of all the
belief in the gospel of "home-influence," and they had to
grope their way blindly to a new philosophy into which
their son's new character could be fitted. After the first
shock the mother understood the meaning of Frank's
outbreak more clearly than her husband. She also, in
younger days, had been tempted to "break out," to scan-
dalise her little world by some unconventional adventure
which would relieve the continual monotony, the deadly
respectability of her existence as a clergyman's wife in a
small town. These had been secret promptings hidden
even to her husband, and alarming to herself. But now
they came back to her as an excuse for Frank ; and when
a card-board box arrived with a much mutilated police-
man's helmet inside, sent by Frank as a trophy of a
"glorious night," she cried and laughed hysterically, wet-
ting that ludicrous object with her tears.
Frank's breach of the law was only a spasmodic ad-
venture, and afterwards he nearly lost his new popular-
ity by shrinking again behind his cloak of reserve. But
he won a position for himself in his second year by a
contribution to a new Oxford magazine, very daring in
its satire of men and manners. Frank discovered that
he held a pen which had the gift of epigram arid cari-
cature. He wrote a series of pen-portraits which were
welcomed by Dons and undergraduates as something new
and striking. For some time the secret of their author-
22 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ship was not divulged, but when they were traced to
Frank Luttrell there was general astonishment that a
fellow of his temperament should have such quick ob-
servation of personal idiosyncracies, and such a light-
hearted wit. Another surprise was given when it be-
came known that Luttrell was the author also of a num-
ber of serious little studies in the magazine which re-
vealed a very intimate and rather mystical understand-
ing of nature. Luttrell's dual characteristics were re-
vealed to some extent by these two styles of writing.
The gaiety of his pen-portraits showed that in spite of
a kind of timidity of manner among his fellows, he had
the keenest of eyes for the little traits which go to form
a personality, while his nature sketches came from a
spirit which had listened in loneliness to the whispers of
the nature world, and had been filled at times with the
Dionysian ecstasy.
In spite of these successes Frank's career at Oxford
disappointed his father, who had been his early tutor.
He came down with a second-class, and was depressed
and dissatisfied with himself.
"What are you going to do, Frank ?" said his father
in the study, which smelt of stale tobacco and damp
books. "The Church, I suppose?"
"No," said Frank ; "anything but that, anything in the
world."
The clergyman raised his eyebrows and then smiled
rather sadly at his son.
"You have been prejudiced by my failure," he said.
"But for many men the Church is a good career. It
gives an opportunity of useful work ; a man is able to live
up to his ideals, as far as the weakness of the flesh and
spirit will allow. He has a good deal of leisure for study,
and it is still the position of a gentleman. Why not take
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 23
orders, Frank ? As a poor man I cannot help you to one
of the other professions/'
"There are three reasons against it," said Frank.
"One, I have no vocation. Two, I detest religious ladies,
scandal-loving ladies and old ladies who wear red flannel
underclothes. Three, I could never survive the ordeal of
looking and feeling such an obvious fool as a curate."
"Well, that settles it," said his father, laughing. "What
are you going to be then, Frank?"
"God knows," said Frank very gloomily.
Before the year was out I knew also. Frank Luttrell
became second-master at the Abbey School, King's
Marshwood. I spent a week-end with him here after he
had been at the place a year. He had comfortable rooms
in the charming old schoolhouse looking on to the Abbey
Gardens, and, beyond a clump of noble beeches, to the
Abbey itself, grey, solemn, beautiful, and very restful
to a man from Fleet Street. As we sat smoking in his
room, panelled and furnished in dark oak, with book-
shelves round the walls laden with French and English
classics and with some good prints after Raphael and
the Italian Masters to give colour to the room, the Abbey
clock chimed out, with deep-toned notes that lingered on
the ear, in sweet and solemn cadence.
"I envy you, Frank," I said. "The music of those old
bells must creep into your soul. The atmosphere of this
place would give peace to the most feverish heart. Time
itself goes slowly here." He looked across at me and
laughed a little impatiently.
"Yes, each quarter of an hour is an hour, each hour
is a day. Oh," he said, with a strange note of sup-
pressed passion, "I sometimes curse that old clock."
I looked at him as he sat leaning forward on a wooden
settle with his pipe in his hand. His boyish, clean-shaven
face and his long hands were beautifully bronzed. In his
24 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
soft white shirt, flannel suit and tennis shoes, he looked
a handsome, healthy fellow, the typical Oxford man,
with the refined face, the easy, athletic pose, the reserve
and quietude which belong to many men of his age and
class and training. But there was something in his blu-
ish-grey eyes which made me feel a little uneasy about
him. It was a kind of wistfulness, which, when he spoke
the last words, changed for a moment to an expression
of suppressed revolt.
"You have a good time here/' I said. "Pleasant work,
short hours, long holidays. What more do you want?"
He got up from his chair and went over to the window,
an old-fashioned mullioned window, with little bulging
panes, and looked out to the Abbey Gardens.
"I want life," he said presently, in a low voice.
"Isn't this life ?" I answered after a few whiffs of one
of his cigarettes.
"A sleeping life," he said. "I want to keep awake,
I want to see things, to do things, to get in touch with
modernity. This old town is three centuries away from
modern life."
"Yes," I said. "How jolly!"
He laughed nervously, and sat down with his legs
stretched out and his chin on his chest.
"Awfully jolly!" he said, with sarcasm. "You have
no idea how jolly it is for a fellow of my age and temper-
ament to have no other society but the stupid boys and
doddering old clergyman schoolmaster, his thin-lipped,
bad-tempered wife, three assistants without an idea be-
tween them, tennis girls who don't even -know how to flirt,
and occasionally, as a wild excitement, an ecclesiastical
tea-party at the Abbey House."
"My dear fellow," I said, "you have your books, your
pipes, fresh air and exercise, and a beautiful environ-
ment. Also I have not the slightest doubt that you could
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 25
teach one of those tennis girls to flirt in a quite delightful
way. They only want a little encouragement."
"They won't get it from me," he said savagely. That
evening he threw over some copies of the Spectator to
me, and said in a casual way, "If you have nothing better
to do, you might glance at those essays on the dog-eared
pages. I should be glad of your candid opinion."
"Oh, ho," I said, "yours, eh? I suppose you mean
you want my cordial praise."
"No, I don't ; if they are rotten, say so."
I spent an hour over them. The essays were quite
good, with the Oxford touch a little too apparent, but
with a very pleasant humour, with now and again a
phrase that flashed at one, and here and there a note of
mysticism and ecstasy which brought back to my mind
his Oxford sketches on nature.
"Not bad," I said at last. "Not at all bad, Frank."
He coloured up with pleasure.
"Honest Injun?" he asked.
"Yes, no codding. You have got a rather pretty touch.
Stick to it, and you will get many a nice little guinea as
pocket-money."
He sat smoking he smoked a great deal too much
while I read another Spectator article.
Then he bent forward and said with a little quiver in
his voice :
"Look here, do you think I should stand any chance
in London as a freelance?"
"Free what?" I said.
He gave me a steady look out of his grey eyes.
"You know what I mean," he said quietly. "I mean
do you think I could pick up a living in town with this
sort of stuff?"
"No, I don't," I said, without the slightest hesitation.
He smiled.
26 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Well, anyhow I am going to try/ 1
"My dear Frank," I said rather heatedly, "for Heav-
en's sake don't make a fool of yourself. Don't get that
stupid notion into your head that a decent livelihood is to
be got nowadays by what people are pleased to call a lit-
erary career."
"Some people earn their living that way," said Frank ;
"you, for instance."
"No, I don't," I said. "I am a journalist and news-
paper reporter, that is to say, a miserable wretch who has
sold his body and soul to Fleet Street."
"You've written books," said Frank.
I laughed. My friend Frank was very, very young.
"Oh yes, I have written books of a kind," I said.
"They have never paid for my washing bills. That is
why I went back to Fleet Street. In this life it is neces-
sary to pay one's washerwoman.
"Je n'en vois pas la necessite," said Frank with a sud-
den flash of humour. Then he added, "After all, as you
say, there is always Fleet Street."
I looked at him squarely.
"Not for you, Frank. There is not an editor in Fleet
Street who would give you a billet, at least not on my rec-
ommendation. You have not roughed it enough. You
are a sensitive plant. Fleet Street would kill you in
a year, it is very cruel, very callous to the sufferings of
men's souls and bodies. Besides, journalism is an over-
crowded profession. There is not a vacancy in any of-
fice that I know."
"I suppose not," said Frank quietly ; "but Fleet Street
is not my goal. I would rather keep my liberty and be
my own master."
I think I was rather angry and brutal with him. The
calm assurance of the youth annoyed me. And his abso-
lute ignorance of all the misery that lay in front of him
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 27
if he overtempted Providence in the way he desired, gave
me a kind of dismay. I thought Frank was too delicate
a soul to be bespattered in the squalor of Fleet Street.
I pointed out to him that the profession of letters has
been invaded by the amateur; that every barrister with-
out a brief, every curate with a little leisure, every ele-
mentary schoolmaster, every modern lady with or without
a past, every soldier who has fought through a campaign,
every man with a long memory and every boy with a
touch of imagination, is writing short stories, autobiogra-
phies or "special articles" for the magazines and news-
papers.
"The professional man of letters," I said, "is becoming
starved out. The only people who make money, with
a few exceptions, are novelists who, by some strange fluke
which cannot be accounted for, or worked out on any sys-
tem, make a big popular hit."
Frank listened to me with polite attention for quite an
hour, and then, getting up, stretched his arms and
yawned.
"I am sorry you take such a gloomy view of things,"
he said. "Let's go to bed. Shall we?"
A month later I received a postcard from Frank Lut-
trell. It was addressed from Staple Inn. "Come and
cheer me up with some of your pessimism," it said.
So the young dog had come to London.
I went round to Staple Inn the next afternoon. The
sun of a glorious autumn day was on the front of the old
wooden houses in Holborn which remain in the hideous
highway as a relic of picturesque London ; and in the lit-
tle court the leaves were brown on the few trees, and
red where they lay rotting on the ground. I climbed up
the narrow spiral staircase, the walls of which had been
rubbed by many shoulders now gone to dust, by many
2S THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
generations of young barristers, by many poor devils who
have kept a plucky heart, or hidden a heavy one.
On the top landing I saw a visiting-card tacked on to a
little old door. "Mr. Frank Luttrell." I gave a bang
on the knocker and heard a long stride coming across
the floor inside. Then the door opened and Luttrell stood
grinning at me, his handsome, boyish face not so bronzed
as when I had last seen him.
"Tea's j'tst ready," he said. "Mind your head!"
I ducked under the oak beam and went inside, into a
small, low-ceilinged room with wooden panels, and an
iron-work lattice window looking on to Holborn. "Very
pretty," I said. "Very quaint. How much does it cost
you?"
"One quid a week," said Frank, "with a few extras.
Expensive, but it's worth it. ... Look here!"
He opened the window and put his head out. The
roar of the traffic came up from below, and standing by
Frank's side I looked down into the street which was
filled with the golden glamour of an autumn sunset. An
endless stream of omnibuses, motor-cars, hansom-cabs,
and hurrying people went by in a great tide of traffic, and
seen from above through the golden haze the moving pic-
ture had a strange effect on one's senses.
"Ah! That's the real thing," said Frank, poking his
head in, with a deep breath. "I never get tired of star-
ing at it."
"I hope you are able to pay for it," I said, looking
round the room again. "It's an expensive luxury."
"I have kept my end up pretty well, so far," said
Frank, with an optimism in which I detected a note of
insincerity. I found out that he had been there four
weeks, and that during that time he had had three articles
accepted which brought him in six guineas.
"That's one pound ten a week," I said, "and you pay
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 29
a pound a week for rent. It's rather out of proportion,
isn't it? What about your food, and washing and
clothes?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Frank jauntily. "I brought
away a good stock of clothes and thirty pounds in good
hard cash."
"But, my dear good fool," I cried, "a wardrobe and
thirty pounds won't last for ever. What are you going
to do afterwards ? What are you going to do ?"
"Have some tea," said Frank. "It's Lipton's best."
I swallowed my wrath and some of his tea which he
had made with condensed milk. Then I pointed to the
photographs of his father and mother on the mantel-
piece.
"What do they think of it?"
"Oh, they take it quite sensibly," said Frank. "I have
been sending them good accounts of myself."
"Well, you must have told them pretty stiff lies," I
said.
He flushed a little, and gave me one of his straight
looks.
"You haven't come here to quarrel, have you ?" he said.
"No," I answered. Then I put my hand on his arm.
"But I'm sorry that you have done this, Frank. You
have no notion how sorry I am, I have seen too many
tragedies of this kind."
"Oh, rot," he said impatiently, and then begged my par-
don. "I am going to pick up a living somehow. I
haven't started so badly."
"Three articles in four weeks, Frank!"
"Well, I have written heaps more. Some of them are
bound to find a place."
He pointed to a big card hanging from a tack on the
wall. It was a list of titles for articles, some of them
ticked off in blue pencil.
30 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"I have done a dozen of those," he said, "and the others
are in my head. How do you fancy the titles?"
Some of them were rather striking and good, but as I
told him, the title of an unwritten article was as unsub-
stantial as the dream of a good dinner.
I knew I was a wet blanket, and I blamed myself af-
terwards for damping down a boyish courage and enthu-
siasm which after all were worth more than any weary
wisdom. Unfortunately I was unable to give him a help-
ing hand, as I was ordered off on a special mission which
took me away from London for six months. When I
came back I called on him again.
He was looking thinner, and I thought his eyes had a
rather feverish light in them.
"How goes it?" I said.
"Quite all right," he answered jauntily, and then see-
ing that I was looking at him rather searchingly, he col-
oured up, laughed in his low, nervous way, and said : "It's
no use lying. Things are pretty bad. I shall have to
clear out of these rooms. When you came I thought it
was the landlord. He has been worrying for his rent."
"Are you so low as that ?" I asked.
He put his hand in his pocket, and pulling out half-a-
crown spun it up in the air and caught it in the palm of
his hand.
"That' s all I have until I can get a cheque for an ar-
ticle which was accepted a fortnight ago but is still un-
published." I whistled.
"How about the 30?" I asked.
"Oh, that's gone," he said ; "I have been living on capi-
tal and I swallowed up half of it when I put these sticks
in. I just had enough left to do the theatres and run
down home for week-ends."
"Theatres and week-ends in the country !" I said, laugh-
ing. "Surely bread-and-butter comes first."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 31
"Oh, I don't know," said Frank. He stared into the
fireplace where there were only cold ashes. Then, after
a silence, he said gloomily, "I find London a hideously
lonely place. At first I was excited by the noise and
sights of the streets. I thought I should never tire of
studying the faces in the crowds. Every face had a story
to tell. I found a comedy or a tragedy at every street
corner. But after all you can't be only a spectator. I
hardly know a soul in London. Across the passage there
is a newly-married couple, an artist fellow with a Russian
Jewess as pretty as Ruth or Naomi. I can hear them
laughing and quarrelling, and I pass them on the stairs,
but I'm so stupidly nervous I can't say good-morning to
them. Yet sometimes I would give a lot to go and have
tea in their room, to talk to them to talk to anybody.
One gets so horribly tired of oneself."
"My poor Frank!" I said, not with any sarcasm or un-
kindness, I think. "And so you spent your last money
in flying away from London, into the quiet country which
you used to find so dull!"
He flushed, but lifted his head rather proudly.
"Oh," he said, "I don't regret having taken the plunge.
I would not go back to the Abbey School for all the
money in the world."
"And yet," I said, looking at the lonely half-crown on
the table, "that is all you have, eh?"
He laughed, but it was not a cheery laugh.
"I have this," he said, pulling out a gold watch; "I
suppose I can get something for it, although I have put
off realising it as far as possible it belonged to my old
governor."
"Put that in your pocket," I said rather roughly, "I
am not such a mean skunk, I hope."
However, when I offered to lend him a little money
he turned very red and said "Damn !" and wouldn't touch
32 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
it, and then to my dismay went quite faint, so that I had
to hold him.
"Good lord ! man," I said. "What's the matter ? If a
friend can't lend another "
"It's not that," he said, wiping off the cold sweat from
his forehead. "I have been sucking an empty pipe on an
empty stomach sometimes it makes one forget dinner-
time."
He begged my pardon a dozen times for making such
a weak fool of himself, and was exceedingly distressed
at having revealed himself in this way. But I was more
distressed at the conditions into which he had fallen, and
I took him off then and there to a cosy little restaurant
in Soho where we had a good dinner and a bottle of wine,
which made the world seem more rosy.
Over our cigarettes I asked him what I could do to
give him a leg-up.
He crumbled his bread nervously, and then in a hesi-
tating way said, "Look here, old chap, don't you think
you could get a place for me in Fleet Street. I am not
such a soft thing as you imagine. I believe I could shape
into a journalist."
"You have had no experience," I said. "That's the
devil of it. London pressmen have generally been to
school on provincial papers."
I saw that my answer had plunged him into gloom
again.
"I know," he said, "I am a useless creature. I sup-
pose I shall be among the failures of life. Probably I
shall drift into a city clerkship."
I thought things over, and then it struck me that Silas
Bellamy might stretch a point in his favour. Bellamy
was a generous-hearted little man with a gift of humour
and with a warm corner in his heart for young men.
That evening I took Frank Luttrell to my club and
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 33
wrote a letter of introduction for him. The result of his
interview has been described already. Frank came to me
a day or two later excited and full of gratitude, laughing
but with something like a sob in his throat. "Four
pound ten a week !" he said. "I shall do like a duke on
that." Then he gave me the details of his interview with
a real sense of humour.
CHAPTER III
\
FRANK LUTTRELL began the first day of his new career
like a shipwrecked mariner who had floated ashore at the
last gasp. Relieved of the haunting anxiety of keeping
body and soul together by writing imaginative essays
which were rejected four times out of five, and with a
regular salary on a great London newspaper, it seemed
to him that he had reached a land of promise. Yet in
spite of his soaring spirit he could not overcome a feel-
ing of intense nervousness and excitement. He came as
a stranger to Fleet Street, ignorant of the technicalities of
journalism and of social etiquette and customs of news-
paper life. Always diffident in the company of his fel-
low-creatures, yet boyishly anxious to make a good im-
pression, he looked forward not without a flutter at the
heart to his first plunge into a new and strange society.
He was disconcerted a little at the outset. Passing
through the swing doors of the office with a quick step,
he went upstairs and said: "Good-morning " to the
man named Leach who sat at the desk on the landing
with the six messenger boys who were again eating toffee
and again reading small books with flaming covers. He
was about to go down the corridor to find his way to the
reporters' room when the man sprang up and interrupted
him in an aggressive way.
"No," he said, "excuse me! Not even a Harchangel
goes by 'ere without the Heditor's consent. Kindly fill
up a form signifying name and business, if you please."
"It's all right, my good fellow," said Luttrell, inclined
to be angry. "I'm on the staff."
34
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 35
"Oh, are you?" said Leach, as though he had his
doubts. " *Ow am I to know that, I wonder ?"
"Because I tell you so," said Luttrell, with a touch of
his Oxford manner.
"Oh, well, of course," said the man, changing his tone.
"I'm bound to take your word for it." He seemed to
have a grievance. "The Chief should have let me know.
'Ow am I to do my dooty to this office if I am confronted
by strange gentlemen what may have no more right than
the devil to get inside these premises. I ask you, is it
reasonable ?"
"May I venture to ask who you are?" said Luttrell,
smiling, in spite of his annoyance at this peculiar Cock-
ney person who seemed to think that he had a position
of great authority. The man turned to one of the boys.
"Jenkins," he said, "tell the gentleman who I am."
The boy grinned. "Serjeant Leach, sir, V. C., clerk -
in-charge."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Serjeant Leach," said Lut-
trell, holding out his hand. He was determined not to
make an enemy at the outset whoever he might be.
"All on my side," said Leach, with magnanimity, shak-
ing his hand. "As you may not be aware, sir, the clerk-
in-charge is a responsible orgin in a newspaper office,
being entrusted with many secrets, both private and con-
fidential, which are not to be betrayed for gold, nor even
for the price of a drink in 'ot weather. Modesty for-
bids me to enumerate my other duties which range from
the temporary haccommodation of gentlemen who anti-
cipate their weekly wage to the more 'eroic task of sum-
moning up spirits from the vasty deep after the club is
closed." Luttrell was conscious that he had come in con-
tact with a humourist, and he made the immediate reso-
lution to avoid him strenuously. The man's familiarity
was somewhat galling to his sense of dignity.
36 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"You certainly have a great variety of duties," he said.
"Where shall I find the reporters' room?"
"You can smell it," said Serjeant Leach. "Most of the
young gentlemen in'jale them threepenny packets of
poison-sticks. A 'orrible 'abit, I call it. 'Smoke a good
honest pipe and thou shalt stand before Kings/ as
Shakespeare said. First room on the left."
"Thanks," said Luttrell.
He went down the passage and stood for a moment
outside the door pointed out to him. He could hear the
sound of voices and a girl's laugh. For a moment his
heart beat rather quickly. He drew a deep breath. Then
he opened the door and went in crossing the threshold
of a new life.
It was a large room with a number of desks divided by
glass partitions, and with a large table in the centre. At
the far end of the room was a fire burning brightly in the
grate and in front of it were two men and a girl, the men
in swing chairs with their legs stretched out, the girl on
the floor in the billows of a black silk skirt, arranging
chestnuts on the first bar of the grate.
Luttrell recognised the group. One was the excessively
tall young man with the pale gold hair, the handsome
white face, and the tired, lack-lustre eyes. Mr.
Christopher Codrington, he had been called, if Luttrell's
memory did not err. The girl was one whose laughter
he had heard in Bellamy's room and who was going to
the Gala night at the Opera. And he recognised the
dapper man with the black moustache and the whimsical
face who had been telling a funny story up and down the
passage.
"My dear girl," said the tall young man, "why will you
risk soiling those little white hands of yours by such dirty
work ? Surely the mere animal pleasure of eating chest-
nuts "
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 37
The girl seized a roasted chestnut which popped out of
the fire, and stripping it of its skin gave it to the little
man with the black moustache.
"It makes my mouth water," she said, "but I some-
times try to exercise self-restraint. . . . Oh, eat it
quickly, Mr. Quin, or I shall take it back !"
Then she clasped her hands round one of her knees and
looked at the tall young man with a flush on her face that
may have been caused by the fire.
"I wonder if you have ever made your hands dirty,
Mr. Christopher Codrington ?" she said, with her head a
little on one side, looking at him with an air of serious in-
quiry.
"I always try to keep them clean," said Codrington,
studying his manicured nails with satisfaction. "Have
you any objection?"
"I dislike men to be always clean," said the girl, whose
name Luttrell afterwards learnt to be Katherine Hal-
stead. "It is a sign of decadence."
The tall young man opened his bluish-grey eyes with
surprise. "I protest," he said. "Quin, I appeal to you.
Do you discern any sign of decadence in me?"
"Yes," said Quin; "you are damnably decadent all over,
from your golden hair to your effeminate feet."
Codrington rose to his great height and putting his
thumbs into his armholes assumed a parliamentary air
and attitude. "I must ask the honourable member to
withdraw her offensive statement," he said severely.
"I will withdraw it," said Miss Katherine, munching a
chestnut, "if you can swear to me that you have ever
blacked your own boots."
"I will swear," said Codrington solemnly, "that I once
blacked a man's eye. It was on behalf of a lady in dis-
tress, who afterwards scratched my face for interfering."
38 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
The girl laughed, and threw one of her roasted chest-
nuts at him, which he just dodged in time.
"Bravo !" cried Quin. "Though we disbelieve the fact,
it is a pretty tale."
Then suddenly all three of them saw Frank Luttrell,
who was standing by the door.
"I spy strangers/' said Mr. Quin, in a low voice.
The girl rose from the floor with a momentary sign of
confusion, and Codrington, in his suave, polished way,
said, "Are you looking for anybody, sir ?"
Luttrell stepped forward blushing like a school-boy dis-
covered with a crib. "I am sorry to intrude," he said
nervously, "but the fact is er I am on the staff. My
name's Frank Luttrell."
"Oh!" said all of them simultaneously.
Mr. Quin laughed and said: "That was pretty good
for an unrehearsed chorus ! . . . Glad to make your ac-
quaintance, Mr. Luttrell. Join us, won't you, and share
the merry chestnuts ? You have no idea what a quantity
we get through in this office. Many of them find their
way into the Rag. Our friend Codrington there is a great
merchant of them."
Frank Luttrell was looking towards the girl, and their
eyes met and lingered in each other for a moment. He
thought she looked more attractive to-day than on the first
night he had seen her. The fire had touched her cheeks,
and the rather pretty confusion with which she sprang
from the floor, concealing the roasting chestnuts with her
skirts, struck his imagination as an attitude which would
have been delightful to a French impressionist. She
dropped her eyes with a slight movement and a little
laugh. "Yes, do. . . . They are done to a turn . . . and
there is an empty chair there."
"Thanks," said Luttrell, "if I am not really intruding."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 39
"Intruding, my dear fellow," said Quin ; "you are one
of us, aren't you?"
Luttrell took the vacant chair, and the girl put a thing
like a cinder into his hands.
"There's a beauty for you !" she said.
Luttrell still felt a little embarrassed. The girl was
kneeling on the floor again and the tips of her fingers
touched his hand for a moment as she gave him the
charred nut. It seemed good to him that in a moment
he should have got on to the fireside as it were of journal-
istic life, that the pretty girl by his side should treat him
with friendly familiarity, and that Quin should call him
"one of us." Frank had lived some months in loneliness,
and this sudden warmth of companionship melted him.
Christopher Codrington's pale eyes were studying Lut-
trell's clothes. They were of Harris tweed and well cut
though somewhat the worse for wear, but Luttrell no-
ticed the fixed gaze upon him and shifted his position to
hide the frayed edges of his trousers, a movement that
did not escape Codrington, whose lips curled with the
faint flicker of a smile.
"Are you on the news side of the Rag?" said Codring-
ton.
"Yes," said Frank. "At least I suppose so, I am rather
ignorant of the organisation of a newspaper as I have
never been on one before."
"Marry come up!" said Codrington, lifting his light
gold eyebrows. "You amaze me. Is it too late for you
to draw back?"
"Draw back," said' Luttrell. "Why?"
"My dear fellow !" said Codrington solemnly ; "there is
a dreadful text over this doorway : 'Abandon hope, all ye
who enter here.' Please, please, if you have a mother
who loves you, if you have a kind, forgiving father, go
back to that happy home ere it is yet too late."
40 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Don't pay any attention to him, Mr. Luttrell," said
the girl. "Because he is making a wreck of his own
career, he imagines that no one is strong enough to sur-
vive the ordeals of journalism."
"Miss Katherine," said Codrington, raising his long
white hand in protest, "do not be so cruel in your can-
dour."
Quin, the little man with the black moustache, broke out
into song, in a rather pleasant baritone
"Be she mee-ker, kind-er than
Turtle dove or peli-can,
If she be not so to me
What care I how kind she bef"
There was the tinkle of a telephone bell.
"Hello ! Hello ! Yes, Mr. Quin is here. At your serv-
ice, Mr. Vicary, sir. . . . Get a special interview with
Maudie Merivale about the rumour of her marriage with
Lord Mersham? Certainly . . . nothing easier. And a
portrait? Oh yes, dozens. In every kind of costume,
and otherwise."
He put down the receiver and said "Damn" softly.
"The Press has become nothing but an advertising
agency for chorus girls/' he said.
"Maudie Merivale?" said Codrington, sitting up.
"What, has she done it too? I used to know her when
she did the splits at the Britannia. A saucy little thing
who was born in a travelling circus, and learnt her first
tricks on Epsom Downs."
"Oh yes, you know her, of course," said Quin. "No
doubt she will invite you to tea when she gives her first
At-Home at Mersham Castle."
"It's not the first time I have had tea with her," said
Codrington, stroking his chin.
"Thank you," said Katherine Halstead severely; "we
don't want any more revelations of your private life."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 41
Quin lifted his hat to the girl with exaggerated grace.
"Fair lady," he said, "my heart is sad at this parting.
Perchance, however, we shall meet again."
He lifted up the tails of his black coat and pirouetted
like a premiere danseiwe to the door, kissing his hand, as
he poised on one toe, before disappearing.
Luttrell laughed.
"What part does Mr. Quin play in this world's stage?"
he asked.
"Dramatic critic and theatrical gossip-monger," said
Codrington. "He has seen every play for the last fifteen
years, knows every actor in the country, and hates the
profession like poison. I think that is very wrong of
him."
"He is one of the dearest and best," said Katherine
Halstead. "Quite the favourite, I hear, with all the bar-
maids in the West End. I think Mr. Codrington is envi-
ous of him. There seems to be an irresistible fascination
about barmaids."
Codrington looked at the girl with his pale eyes, in
which there was a curious smile.
"I wonder!" he said, "I wonder!"
There was another tinkle at the telephone-bell which
Codrington answered leisurely.
"Are you there? . . . yes, this is he. The Duchess of
Porchester's Charity Bazaar? Opens at twelve? Not
more than two sticks ? Oh, that is hardly enough, surely ?
. . . Certainly, Mr. Vicary. Oh no, the dear duchess is
always very kind. What ! Ha ! ha ! Naughty ! naughty !"
He hung up the telephone and laughed quietly.
"What a man! . . . What a life!"
He bent over Katherine, who had gone to one of the
desks and was tearing up strips of paper and throwing
them into a little wicker basket.
"Are you busy to-day ?" he said in a low voice.
42 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Very busy," she answered.
"You are vexed with me. You have been very cruel
for quite a week. What have I done?"
She got up quickly, shrugging her shoulders, and went
over to the telephone, asking for a number.
Codrington looked at her with an exaggerated air of
melancholy, heaved a long-drawn sigh, and then, with a
quiet "Good-morning" to Luttrell, went out of the room.
Katherine was calling down the telephone
"Is that the W.F.L. ? ... Oh yes. What time do you
begin operations to-night? Seven o'clock. Oh thanks.
A hot time, eh? Well done! I shall be there. Well,
good luck and good-bye."
Luttrell was left alone with the girl, and he crossed the
room and took a seat at one of the vacant desks. He felt
that he ought to go upstairs and report himself to his
news-editor, but he was seized with an absurd kind of
shyness and could not muster up courage to face that big
man with the big eyes to whom Bellamy had introduced
him a few nights ago.
He glanced towards the girl and saw that she was look-
ing at him.
"I shouldn't take that chair if I were you," she said.
"No," said Luttrell, getting up rather hurriedly. "Why
not?"
"It's a dead man's chair. I don't know whether you are
superstitious about those things ; I am."
"Perhaps it is rather an ill-omen," said Luttrell. "Who
was he?"
"It was young Frampton ... an awfully nice boy. He
was not strong enough for this kind of life. He got wet
through at a shipwreck on the Cornish coast, where he
was sent off suddenly one evening without his dinner and
without his overcoat. I called it murder. The others
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 43
call it martyrdom. The name doesn't count much. The
poor boy's dead, anyhow."
"But if you san stand this life, surely a man can," said
Luttrell.
"Oh, I don't know," said the girl. "It's a question of
luck, I suppose, and the men get the roughest time."
"I am glad of that," said Luttrell earnestly. "Awfully
glad."
Katherine Halstead laughed as she put on a white fur
hat and boa, in which she seemed pretty and dainty to
Luttrell's eyes, which lingered on her.
"That's nice of you. Still, we women wear out sooner.
Five years in Fleet Street withers any girl. Then she gets
crows feet round her eyes and becomes snappy and fretful
or a fierce creature struggling in an unequal combat with
men. I am just reaching that stage."
"Oh no," said Luttrell eagerly. "I am quite sure that
you are not."
"I think I know best about that." Katherine Halstead
smiled at him and then looked at him rather curiously.
"You are quite new to Fleet Street, aren't you ?" -
"Yes," said Luttrell ; "I have only been a few months in
London, and then I lived alone in lodgings. I am an
awful greenhorn. Before that I taught in a country
school."
"I thought you came from the country," said the girl,
getting some papers together and putting them into a
handbag. "You have got green fields in your eyes. I
should think you write fairy-tales, don't you, and make
them all end happily ever after?"
"You mean to say that I am very young," said Frank,
colouring up.
"I should say you are not a hundred and fifty years old
like most of us here," said Miss Halstead, buttoning up
a long glove, but giving him a swift little glance in which
44 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
there was a glint of mischief. "You have no idea what
old men and women there are in Fleet Street. They have
worn out all emotion. They have seen everything there
is to see and learnt everything there is to know, and they
find life, oh, such a stale kind of game ! We are all cynics
here."
"You don't look like one," said Frank. He thought she
looked like a wood-nymph who had strayed into Fleet
Street.
"Oh I," said the girl, "I haven't an illusion left." She
thrust out her arm to him.
"Could you do up that button?" she said. "The little
beast won't poke his head into the right place !"
Luttrell said : "Oh, allow me !" and fumbled over the
glove.
"I say !" he said, "this is a teaser ! Do you mind if I
get round a bit?"
He got the button sideways and prayed silently that
it would not resist his desperate efforts. Then he looked
up with a flushed face.
"You are laughing at me!"
"You have not been blessed with sisters," she said.
"Now, how did you guess that ?" he said, astonished at
such intuitive knowledge, and again getting a grip on the
button.
"Well, it is evident you haven't had much practice."
"Oh, by Jove, no, I am a clumsy idiot. . . . Perhaps
you will let me get a bit of practice now and again. I'd
love to. ... Look, it's done !"
"Wonderful !" cried Katherine. "I really never thought
you would do it."
"It was a thrilling moment when the little beggar went
home," said Luttrell, staring at the button as if it were
some amiable insect.
Their eyes met and they both laughed.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 45
'Thanks so much," said the girl, and before he could
say another word she darted out of the room.
Frank Luttrell sighed when she had gone. The room
felt very lonely without her. But he was not left alone
for long. Four or five men came into the room in a group
laughing and talking noisily. They stared for a moment
at the tall, boyish stranger who was turning over a file
of the newspapers, but took no further notice of him, and
stood round the fireplace discussing the incidents of some
banquet of the preceding evening.
"Did you see the acrobatic performance of Little
Jemmy and Sweet William?" said a squarely-built, old-
ish-young man, with a powerful, clean-shaven face and
hair curiously streaked with white. "It was the funniest
thing on earth. They were arm-in-arm at the top of the
grand staircase, swearing eternal friendship. Suddenly
Jemmy lurched forward and down they both went, slid-
ing the whole flight of stairs and on my word of hon-
our coming up at the bottom still arm-in-arm, and very
much surprised at their own success! The head-waiter
said he had never seen anything so neat in his life."
There was a roar of laughter, and the oldish-young man
said : "Well, I must be off to the Old Bailey. That mur-
der trial finishes to-day." As he passed the telephone
bell rang and he answered it.
"Frank Luttrell? Who's he?" He turned round and
said, "Is there a fellow named Luttrell here?"
"Yes," said Frank.
The man at the telephone stared at him for a moment
with extraordinarily keen cold eyes.
"Oh," he said, "Vicary wants you upstairs." Luttrell
went up, and, asking the way to the news-editor's room
from a messenger boy, was shown into a big room where
Vicary sat at a desk looking at a number of photographs
which were being handed to him by a man with a bowler
46 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
hat. At his side was a secretary arranging newspaper
cuttings.
"Good lord !" said Vicary, "what's the good of bringing
me pictures twenty- four hours old ? Take 'em away."
He thrust the pile of photographs at the man with the
bowler hat, who took them with a crestfallen air and with-
out a word stepped out of the room.
"Jones," said Vicary, turning to the secretary. "Send
a wire to the town-clerk of Leeds asking him to reserve
a seat for the Bennett trial. . . . Oh, morning, Luttrell.
Happy with yourself? . . . Jones, this is Mr. Luttrell,
now on the staff. Mr. Luttrell, Mr. Jones. . . . Perhaps
you will explain to him, Jones, that this is an office where
men are required to work early and late, morning and
night, week-days and Sundays, Boxing days and Christ-
mas days, for better or worse till death us do part. . . .
What are you going to do for us to-day, Mr. Luttrell?
Oh yes, that murder at Bermondsey . . . see it in the
Star? . . . Nose round, won't you? there may be some-
thing in it. See me at six o'clock to-night. . . . Thanks.
Morning. . . . Jones, remind me about that engagement
at ten to-morrow."
Luttrell hesitated, became rather red in the face, and
then, seeing that Vicary ignored his presence and was
giving his attention to other matters, slipped out of the
room. On the landing he gasped, and said in a low voice
to himself: "Murder, Bermondsey, see it in the Star.
Nose it out. . . . What on earth does he mean ? What
the dickens am I to do ?"
CHAPTER IV
FRANK went downstairs and found the reporters' room
deserted. Then he went out into Fleet Street and bought
a copy of the Star, where he found a three-line paragraph
stating that a girl had been murdered in her bed at Ber-
mondsey. No name or address was given. Luttrell had
no geographical knowledge of outer London, and it was
with some humiliation that he inquired as to the where-
abouts of Bermondsey from the policeman on point at
Ludgate Hill.
The details of that first day of journalism still remain
in the memory of Frank Luttrell as a nightmare with
some elements of farce. He had not the slightest idea
how to get into the heart of a murder mystery, and he
suffered torture in his endeavour to overcome the natural
timidity of his character, in order to proceed on some
scheme of criminal investigation. At the police station
he was told curtly by the inspector that if he asked no
questions he would hear no lies. At a baker's shop he
bought threepenny worth of buns, which he did not want,
and came out of the shop without putting any question
upon the subject of the crime to the fat, floury man be-
hind the counter. Seeing him lingering in a curious way,
the baker became so obviously suspicious, that Luttrell
immediately asked for a currant loaf. In Bermondsey he
was then confronted with the problem of what to do with
his burden, and for the first time in his life he discovered
the difficulty of getting rid of a parcel in crowded streets.
He offered the buns to a little girl, but a man came up and
said, "None of that, or I'll bash you." Finally, in des-
47
48 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
peration, Luttrell deposited them in an underground lava-
tory, from which he fled hurriedly like a man guilty of a
dreadful crime. Half-way through the day the brilliant
idea struck him that he might pick up some valuable news
in a low public-house standing at the corner of a side
street. He pushed open the swing doors and found him-
self in a reeking taproom where a number of evil-looking
men were talking to a fat woman with yellow hair who
stood behind the bar.
At the appearance of the tall, boyish stranger in the
tweed suit there was a dead silence among the men, who
stared at him with a kind of sullen suspicion.
"What's yours, young man?" said the yellow-haired
lady, sharply.
Luttrell hesitated. For the moment he had not the
slightest idea what to ask for. Then he said in a nervous
way : "A glass of ale, if you please."
The woman wrenched at a silver handle and passed
him a glass of yellow liquid. Luttrell gulped a mouthful
and found it so inexpressibly nasty that he had to cough
violently in his handkerchief. There was still a dead
silence among the men, but one of them grinned and
winked solemnly at the slovenly barmaid. Luttrell was
in a state of abject confusion. He could not muster up
courage to drink another drop of the filthy beer, and yet
he would look a fool if he were to leave at once. He
attempted a conversation with the lady.
"Fine day, is it not ?" he asked, with what he knew was
a futile attempt at gallantry.
"Not knowing, can't say," said that lady, turning her
back on him to fetch down a bottle labelled "Old Tom."
Luttrell was crushed at once and after an awkward
pause, said, "Good-morning," and thrust his way out
through the swing doors. As they closed behind him he
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 49
heard a loud guffaw of laughter, which sent the blood
tingling to his ears.
"Good lord, what a fool I am !" he said. "What on
earth am I to do next ?"
For an hour or more he wandered about the streets,
trying to remember some detective tales of Eugene Sue
and Emile Gaboriau which he had read in his youth. But
the criminal investigators in those stories always had
access to the scene of tragedy and invariably picked up
clues which gave them something to work on. Poor Lut-
trell was in Bermondsey the squalor of the place and
people dragged his spirit down into his boots but nearer
than that, he could not get to the tragedy which he was
supposed to be "nosing out." He made one more des-
perate effort, and, taking his courage in both hands, spoke
to a seedy-looking man who was leaning up against a
blank wall at the entrance to a court.
"Do you happen to know anything about a murder in
this district to-day?" he said politely.
The man stared at him, shifted his position, spat on the
ground, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Swelp me bob," he said. "What d'yer tike me for?"
"I thought you might know some details," said Luttrell
in a casual way, as if murder might be an everyday affair
in the neighbourhood.
The man narrowed his eyelids and his mouth hardened
into an ugly expression.
"Lor* bli' me," he said hoarsely, "what are yer gitting
at ? Go to 'ell, and blast yerself , won't yer ? I'm an hon-
est working-man, out of a bloomin' job."
"Oh, all right," said Luttrell; "I'm sorry to have
troubled you."
He moved away and pretended to study the paper-cov-
ered novels in a newsagent's shop.
50 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Well!" he said to himself. "This looks as if I am
going to make a bright kind of pressman !"
He shrank from the thought of going to the office with-
out a single word of information. Good Lord, he had not
even discovered the whereabouts of the murder. What
a hopeless idiot he would look!
He stayed in Bermondsey, getting into a more des-
perate state of mind as the darkness crept into the streets
and the shop windows flamed out with electric light.
He had had nothing to eat but three sandwiches. His
feet were tired with walking, he was faint with hunger,
and a nervousness consumed his strength still more. At
last, after a few more inquiries of an equally futile char-
acter, he went back to Fleet Street desperately disheart-
ened. He thought of his Spectator essays, and of the
nature studies in the Oxford Magazine. "I have got
down to the mud," he said to himself, and then, looking
down at his feet, saw that he was literally bespattered
with the filth of the London streets on a damp, slushy
day.
He went into his office, and on the landing of the sec-
ond floor met Vicary in his shirt-sleeves.
"Hulloa !" said the news-editor, stopping for a moment
in his swift stride down the passage. "Got anything?
Had a good time ?"
"No," said Luttrell, "I am sorry to say I couldn't get
any particulars not any, to tell the painful truth."
Vicary grinned.
"Didn't think you would, my boy. I sent Burton out,
and he got all the details there are. Besides, they're all
in the late Star. Well, good-night. See me in the morn-
ing."
He strode away and Luttrell went downstairs feeling
silly with himself.
The reporters' room, into which he went wearily, had
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 51
the stale odour of a third-class smoking-carriage. The
desks, divided by glass partitions, were no longer vacant,
and eight or nine young and middle-aged men, some of
whom he had not seen before, were writing busily, the
floor around them being littered with papers. One of
the men, a sandy-haired fellow, had a steak and chipped
potatoes at his elbow, which he ate with his left hand
while he wrote with his right. Two or three of the others
had earthenware teapots and thick cups and saucers in
front of them. Silence reigned in the room except for the
scratching of pens, the rustle of papers, and a sentence or
two jerked out from behind one of the desks.
"How do you spell exaggeration? two g's? Oh, of
course. Thanks."
"Where the devil is my pair of scissors? some con-
founded thief "
"Let's see, is Cholmondeley in the Ministry?"
"Shut up! can't you? How d'you think I can write
literature if you keep asking insane questions?"
The oldish-young man with the powerful, clean-shaven
face and the hair streaked with white came in quickly,
tossed his bowler hat into a waste-paper basket, took off
his overcoat and threw it over a typewriter. Then he
went to the fire and bent over to warm his hands.
One of the other men looked up.
"What was the verdict, Brandon ?"
"Guilty. The jury were out fifteen minutes. When
old Buckstrom put on the black cape he went a whitish-
grey colour like a three-days-old corpse. The girl held
out her hands as though to beat off some spectre. Then
she gave a blood-curdling shriek and went down like a
log in a swoon. It turned me quite sick. It isn't nice to
see a pretty girl handed over to the hangman."
Brandon got up from the fire and touched a bell knob,
which brought a messenger boy into the room.
52 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Get me some tea, Tommy," he said, spinning a shilling
at him, "and toast well buttered. Don't lick it on the way
back."
Christopher Codrington came in with Katherine Hal-
stead.
"Holloa!" said Brandon, "the children seem to have
been in a scrimmage !"
Two or three other men looked up and laughed.
Certainly Codrington had lost the immaculate appear-
ance which he had presented in the morning. His black
tie was up to his ears, his high dog-eared collar was limp
and dirty, the tall hat looked as if it had been carefully
brushed the wrong way. His patent-leather boots were
muddy and his clothes were splashed with mud up to the
neck. Katherine Halstead, too, was strangely dishevelled.
Her hair was all tousled under her white fur toque, and;
there was a great rent in her black silk dress.
Codrington wore the expression of a man who has gone
to the extreme limit of human suffering, beyond which
nothing matters.
"If there's any gentleman here," he said in a cold, mel-j
ancholy voice, "I should be grateful if he would stand me
a whisky-and-soda. I have had my pockets picked."
Luttrell, upon whom Codrington's grey-blue eyes were
fixed, put his hand in his pocket to feel for a half-crown.
"May I have the pleasure ?" he said.
"You are very good," said Codrington "and the onlyj
gentleman here," he added severely, with a look of coldj
contempt at the other men, who had not been quick to-
respond, and who now looked up and laughed as if ha
had made a good joke.
He rang for a boy and ordered his whisky, directing!
the messenger with a graceful wave of the hand to Lut-l
trell, for the money. Brandon, the young man with the!
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 53
white hair, turned to Katherine Halstead, who had gone
quietly to her desk and was already w.riting.
"What's the story?" he asked. "I've been in court all
day and know nothing of contemporary history."
She turned round in her swing chair and said: "If
you will give me a cigarette I will give you the lurid de-
tails."
"Take 'em all," said Brandon, handing her his case.
"There's been a Suffrage raid this afternoon. Thirty-
seven arrests. Crowd very rough. Chris Codrington and
I were in the thick of it. The police got several of the
women by the throats and used quite unnecessary vio-
lence. Of course I shall not be allowed to say so."
"Certainly not/' said Brandon. "Anyhow, I am glad
women got it in the neck. Serve 'em right. They
.sked for it."
"We all know, Brandon," said Codrington, "that you
re a consistent advocate of brutality."
We all know, Codrington," said Brandon, "that you
,re a silly sentimentalist."
If there had been a spark of chivalry in the crowd/'
id Codrington, "they would have rescued those frail
r omen from the gross savagery of those fat, overfed
ten who have been allowed to terrorise the inhabitants
f London."
Brandon laughed scornfully.
Why didn't you rescue the fair ladies yourself, O
:adisdeGaul?"
I am bound to say that I should not have escaped so
,sily but for Mr. Codrington's protection," said Kath-
ine Halstead. Then seeing an ironical smile on Bran-
ds face, she said with a sudden sign of temper, "Quar-
on the other side of the hearthrug, won't you? I have
my copy to write."
Frank Luttrell went out to get supper, meeting on the
54 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
stairs forty or fifty men who were coming up the staircase
chewing the last morsels of their last mouthfuls. He
guessed them to be printers and printers' readers, a race
of men quite unknown to him. He wondered and then
smiled at himself for the strange idea what their souls
were like under their bowler hats, and whether any of
them had ever been to Oxford. One or two of them
certainly had refined faces, and looked as if they might
have been gentlemen who had given up the habit of
gentility. He had heard that printers' readers were some-
times scholars who had "gone under." "Perhaps I shall
come to that, one of these days," thought Frank.
His meal at a restaurant in Fleet Street was not a suc-
cess. The meat was distinctly high and the cheese re-
minded him in an uncanny way of blackbeetles. But a
strong cup of coffee put some warmth into him and stead-
ied his nerves.
He had done very badly on the first day of his new
career, and the thought of his adventure at Bermondsey
was painful and humiliating. But his imagination wasj
strangely stirred by his first glimpses behind the scenes
of newspaper life. Those men in the reporters' room,
and the girl Katherine Halstead seemed to him types
of characters outside the range of ordinary social ex-
perience. Hardly a serious word had escaped their lips
while he had been listening to them. Yet some of thenJ
had been onlookers during the day of the serious business;
of life. One of them had been a witness of a dreadful,
tragedy. He had been struck by Brandon's order for tea]
and toast after his description of the girl condemned toj
death. He had been impressed strangely by the calmJ
matter-of-fact way in which Codrington and Katherind
Halstead had sat down to write their "copy," as the)l
called it, after being buffeted and knocked about in a
street riot which had led to the violent arrest of thirty-j
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 55
seven women. He thought of his conversation with the
girl and tried to puzzle out the key to her character. She
seemed to have a touch of coquetry, yet she had spoken to
him with an almost boyish candour, which he had found
slightly disconcerting. She had a sharp tongue, yet she
was not shrewish, and there was a pretty feminine light
in her eyes. She had the gift of laughter he had heard
her first laugh on the night of his interview with Bellamy
yet once or twice there had been a certain wistfulness,
even a bitterness, in her voice and words which had not
escaped his ears. She had gone into the Suffrage scrim-
mage with as little unconcern as though it were an after-
noon performance of a comic opera, and had come back
with a torn dress and dishevelled hair without a word of
complaint. Evidently she was a practised journalist!
Yet in the morning she had admitted that women soon
wear out in Fleet Street. She had called herself a cynic,
but she had been very playful roasting chestnuts over the
fire. Luttrell thinking of these things could not place the
girl in his portrait-gallery of feminine characters, but he
knew enough to put her outside the class of girls whom
he had met at tennis tournaments at King's Marshwood
and taking tea with the canon.
Luttrell was drawn back to the newspaper office by a
fascination which he could not resist. He wanted to
see more of that human machinery which would produce
penny paper to be thrust through his letter-box the next
morning. A few mornings ago that paper would have
meant nothing more to him than eight sheets of news on
subjects which as a rule hardly interested him. Now he
would see in it the result of a great human drama, the
product of many brains, many temperaments, many ad-
ventures, in Bermondsey and elsewhere! Every article
would be a chapter of autobiography. Between the lines
f the things written he would guess the things that had
56 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
not been written. Katherine Halstead had said that she
would not be allowed to describe the unnecessary violence
of the police, and Luttrell realised for the first time that
the writers of newspapers see behind the scenes but only
reveal a part of their knowledge.
Luttrell wandered about the streets that evening with
whirling thoughts. Then late at night he could no longer
resist his desire to go back to the office to see the last
act of this drama of Fleet Street life.
Serjeant Leach, the clerk-in-charge, had given way to
another and younger man, and his six messenger boys
had been relieved also, by boys with pale, pasty faces and
sleepy eyes. In the reporters' room most of the lights had
been turned out and only one man remained it was
Brandon, the oldish-young man with the white hair
who was asleep with his arms on the desk under an elec-
tric lamp. The room was ankle-deep in torn paper, and
smelt of stale tobacco-smoke.
The scene of activity was on a higher floor, where a
number of men were scurrying about with long slips of
paper. Most of them went from one big room labelled
"Sub-editors" to a small room labelled "Night-editor."
Luttrell looked into the big room and saw twelve or thir-
teen men sitting at a long table. Each of them held a blue
pencil with which he slashed at sheets of flimsy paper
before handing them to a young man with a long nose and
greenish eyes who went round the table collecting the
sheets which he then thrust into the mouthpiece of a brass ;
tube. At the head of the table sat the man with the J
massive face, long grey hair, and tired eyes with black <
puffy bags underneath them who had blinked at Bellamy's j
bayonet a few nights before when he had been threatened
with disembowelling. He was sipping a glass of whisky!
and smoking the stump-end of a cigar while he gave in- 1
structions to the men around him.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 57
In the room marked "Night-editor" Luttrell saw a
middle-aged man talking to a printer in a white apron,
and afterwards to other men who came quickly from the
larger room to ask a question and then return. There
was a light burning in a room to the right, and through
the door which was opened at times Luttrell had a glimpse
of an elderly man, writing hurriedly, with disordered
hair. Luttrell guessed with a sudden inspiration that he
must be one of the leader-writers one of that unknown
race of men who, like kings and potentates, speak of
themselves as we.
The population of these rooms seemed to be entirely
different to their inhabitants by day. Yet one man had
stayed on. The Chief was still there. As Luttrell wan-
dered about the corridors he came quickly into the pas-
sage. He was in his shirt sleeves, but still spruce and
clean, and with his light brown hair well brushed. He
started when he saw Luttrell.
"What, you here!" he said. "What the dickens are
you doing at this hour?"
Luttrell was embarrassed. He felt as if he had been
caught trespassing.
"I am having a look at things," he said nervously. "It
is all rather strange to me."
Bellamy's eye twinkled at him.
"You are a raw recruit!" he said. "However, if you
want to see things, come along."
He dashed on to a lift, and Luttrell followed him. They
went up swiftly and stopped with a jerk.
"This is the composing-room," said Bellamy. "The
men don't like it when I go up. It hurts their feelings."
He gave an amused little chuckle, and then stepped out
into a big room with a stone floor. A number of men
in white aprons were working almost silently, with quick,
nervous fingers, arranging type, putting thin brasses be-
58 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
tween lines of type with extraordinary deftness, throwing
out bits of lead and putting in other bits newly set, and
carrying columns to a flat table, where they were framed
in steel and screwed up tightly. A tall man stood among
them, giving directions in a cold, clear voice.
Bellamy went up to him.
"You are driving things late," he said ; "are you going
to lose the trains again ?"
The man turned on the Chief with a flushed face.
"Driving things late!" he said angrily. "Whose fault
is it, I should like to know? We haven't got the first
leader yet."
"Ah!" said Bellamy thoughtfully. "I shall have to
wake up some of my gentlemen downstairs. They're too
fond of writing prose poems."
The printing manager laughed ironically.
"They wear their hair a bit too long," he said. Bel-
lamy beckoned to Luttrell and stepped quickly into an-
other room, where there was a great buzzing noise as if
a million bees were booming round their queen. Queer
processes were going on, framed squares were being
beaten by hard brushes ; paper moulds were placed in iron
boxes, into which molten lead was ladled from a great
cauldron. Bellamy spoke to the overseer, who shouted
in answer to him, Hit Luttrell could not hear what words
were spoken, as the buzzing noise in the next room deaf-
ened him.
A quarter of an hour later Bellamy took him down the
lift again, down to the basement of the great office, where
a row of great machines stood in a silent cellar. A few
stalwart fellows in greasy clothes were plunging oil-cans
between wheels and rollers and wiping every bit of steel in
these vast and complicated masses of machinery with
anxious care. The foreman stood with his watch in hisj
hand facing a hole in the wall. Bellamy spoke to him!
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 59
about the machines in a technical language which meant
nothing to Luttrell who stood by.
Suddenly there was a rattle, and a lift came down the
hole in the wall.
"Now then, that's the last ! Look slippy, my lads !"
A great plate was seized from the lift and put on to the
roller. Two men screwed it into position.
"Let her go !" shouted the foreman.
In a moment the machine came to life, with a sudden
and miraculous activity. The great roller went round,
steel rods plunged to and fro with beautiful rhythm, a
frame rose and fell with perfect regularity, and at each
heart-beat, as it were, of those mighty organisms a batch
of complete newspapers was ready for the world.
"Beauties, aren't they?" shouted Bellamy above the
clash and din. "They could eat up a circulation sixty
times as large as ours. That's the pity of it."
He took Luttrell upstairs again and offered him a glass
of whisky. To Frank Luttrell it seemed an incredible
thing to think that this little man in the shirt-sleeves who
spoke to him without any air of authority, who seemed
indeed less in authority than the foremen in the printing
and machine rooms, should be the commander-in-chief
of an army of workers, the directing brain of all that
great and complicated organism.
This little man, who certainly, thought Luttrell, must
have a great and commanding intellect under his light
brown hair, lit a cigar, got into his coat and overcoat,
and tidied up his desk, all the time telling the newest
member of the staff a funny story about a certain well-
known lady in society who had sued for a divorce that
day. Luttrell did not see the point of the story, but
laughed with polite and nervous hilarity.
"Devilish droll! isn't it?" said the Chief, turning off the
60 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
electric light on his desk. "It amused me a good deal,
when Quin told me the yarn."
He yawned loudly, turned a mass of papers off a round
table on to the floor, poured the dregs of his whisky into
the waste-paper basket, put the glass into a small cup-
board, and then left the room, leaving Luttrell behind.
"Good-night," he called out. "Go to bed, young man,
or you'll be a wreck to-morrow."
"Good-night, sir," said Luttrell, following him on to the
landing.
The Editor paused at the swing door on the staircase,
and said with a quick and not unkindly glance at Luttrell's
pale face:
"Here, don't you let Vicary work you too hard. . . .
Let me know if he gives you a rotten time."
Then he went out running swiftly downstairs. Luttrell
also left the office a few minutes later. It was half-past
one. Outside in the street a number of carts were drawn
up in front of the building, and in the large room on the
ground floor open to the street a crowd of men and boys
stood at a long table with trestles. Suddenly, as Luttrell
stood watching them, they pressed closer together, and
there was a babel of tongues. They seized great parcels
of newspapers shoved over the counters to them, and
carried them to the carts outside. Those served first were
first away. The tangle of traffic in the narrow street was
noisily unravelled and the carts clattered into Fleet Street.
Then all was silent, and down the office steps came weary-
looking men, who called out good-night to each other, and
went away towards the trams on the Embankment.
Luttrell walked swiftly to his rooms at Staple Inn. He
was so tired physically that he ached all over, but his brain
was still active and excited. It seemed to him that he
had been behind the scenes of a great and romantic drama
in which he had met many strange characters, of whom
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 6f
not the least curious was that little fair-haired man who
told funny stories, polished his beautifully clean nails,
smoked big cigars, and went about with smiling eyes,
while in some mysterious and unperceived way he guided
the policy and controlled the organisation of the great
newspaper.
"Extraordinary!" said Luttrell aloud. "The world
knows nothing of Fleet Street. . . . History day by day
is written here, yet these historians have never chronicled
their own romance."
Then he thought again of his own adventures in Ber-
mondsey, and went to his lonely rooms in a chastened
spirit and utterly weary in every limb.
CHAPTER V
A WEEK after Luttrell's mission of criminal investiga-
tion in Bermondsey, he sat in the office of the Rag as
he had already learnt to call the great official organ of the
Liberal Party smoking a pipe and staring moodily at a
copy of that morning's issue. He was alone in the room,
for the crowd hadn't yet come in, and he suddenly
crunched the paper in his hands and said "My God !" in
a whisper.
For the past three minutes he had been searching the
sheets for a column headed: "Clothes and the Man."
Having turned over the paper six times without finding it,
he knew that once again he had made a vain sacrifice
of his manhood and self-respect. On the previous day
Vicary had sent for him and set him that ludicrous task.
"It isn't my idea," said Vicary. "It's one of the Chief's
little fancies, and as you're his protege you had better
humour him. Get big representative opinions on the sub-
ject dukes, young peers, Jew millionaires, one or two
society women would be amusing and, as a last resource,
Cyril Townsend, who pretends to be the best-dressed man
in London, and will talk as many columns in his eagerness
to advertise the fact as any damn-fool paper can print.
Thanks. Now, run away, won't you, and lose yourself!
Good-morning. Very nice weather for the time of year."
Vicary had given one of his preposterously big winks to
his secretary, and Luttrell had gone out wondering
whether he should laugh or cry or satisfy his immediate
temptation to take a drink. He did none of these things,
but with the very laudable and somewhat old-fashioned
62
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 63
desire of doing his duty and earning his wage he set forth
to the West End of London after an anxious study of
Who's Who, to gather representative opinions on the need
of new fashions in men's clothes !
According to instructions, Frank Luttrell called on a
duke, that is to say, he called on the duke's flunkey, who
was reading the World in a square hall before a log fire.
"His Grace," said the young man, with almost superb in-
solence, after one glance at Luttrell's card, "does not see
newspaper men on any pretext whatever." Luttrell
trembled in his heart before the arrogance of the man-
servant whom he recognised as being immeasurably his
superior in social position. But taking his courage in
both hands he looked steadily out of his grey eyes at the
impassive face of the footman, and said with a really
admirable pretence of hauteur, "Will you kindly take my
card to the duke ?" The man turned over a page of the
World with a sign of impatience. "What I have said I
have said," he remarked, and then poked a log on the fire
with his feet. Luttrell hesitated, got very red in the face,
swore dreadful oaths silently, and then summoned up his
sense of humour. "You are very courteous," he said.
"Thank you." He held out his hand to the flunkey, who
heard the chink of money. The sound had a peculiar
effect on the man, and his face, which had been as ex-
pressionless as a bronze Buddha, became more human.
Then he dropped the coins which Frank had slipped into
his hand dropped them as though they had been red-hot,
and a look of diabolical rage passed over his face. Frank
had presented him with three-halfpence, and he left the
ducal mansion with an almost fierce joy at having got
even with his enemy.
He called at seven addresses which he had noted down
from Who's Who. They included four peers, a Jew
financier, a well-known playwright, and a young countess
64 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
well known in the society columns of the newspapers, and
not unknown in the Court which has a golden anchor
over the seat of Justice. Three of the peers were not at
home. The fourth, a young man, rather too stout for his
age, with a fat, baby face, happened to be in the hall
when Luttrell put the question, laughed with the greatest
good-nature for half a minute, and then said, "My dear
fellow, ask my tailor, won't you ? He does not allow me
to have any ideas on clothes, and as I owe him quite a
good deal, I am bound not to annoy him."
The Jew financier was away shooting, said his man,
not explaining what game he was tracking down.
When Luttrell sent in his card to the countess he was
surprised to be invited upstairs. He was in his bowler
hat and grey serge suit, and his boots were rather muddy
after walking about the streets on a dirty day. As he
went up a soft-carpeted staircase, and was shown into
a small room tastefully and beautifully furnished, he felt
abashed, and wondered whether he could invent some
excuse for a hasty retreat. But it was obviously impos-
sible, and he found himself staring at the full-length por-
trait of a beautiful woman in a silver frame on a little
Chippendale table. In a moment the door opened and the
lady herself appeared in the flesh, and in a soft gown of
grey silk. She was a dark woman of about thirty-five,
with large, luminous, rather haunting eyes. She gave her
hand to Luttrell and smiled into his eyes, in a sad, spir-
itual way.
"It is so very good of you to call," she said. "I do
so love your paper ! Such charming articles about every-
thing one ought to know the Licensing Bill, Land Tax-
ation, and the Unemployed question."
Frank, who was somewhat embarrassed to find that
he was still holding her hand, lowered his eyes before the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 65
lady's soulful gaze, and said, "Are you interested in those
subjects ?"
"Oh, passionately. I am nothing if I am not a Socialist.
I do so pity the poor Poor. I have taken them up as a
hobby, and I find it ever so much more elevating and en-
nobling than poultry-keeping, which I used to go in for
rather seriously. I am studying Sanitation quite furi-
ously. It is so intimately connected with our economic
and social conditions, is it not?"
"Yes, I suppose so," said Frank. "In fact, I quite
agree with you."
He wondered how long the countess was going to keep
hold of his hand. She relinquished it with apparent re-
luctance, and with a long-drawn sigh. "It is so pleasant
and helpful to me to meet men like you," she said. "You,
who are in the very centre of life and who are animated
with higher ideals than society of the present day. You
will stay to tea, won't you ?"
"I am afraid," said Frank, but the beautiful woman
touched a bell and a young powdered footman came in
at once.
"Tea, Frederick, and some cigarettes."
The countess sat down near the fire, drawing her skirt
a little above her ankles and putting her feet on the fen-
der. "Do sit down," she said, "I'm sure you must be
cold." Frank was too overwhelmed with embarrassment
to refuse, and sat on a straight-backed, gilded chair, won-
dering whether he had ever felt quite such a fool in his
life before. When the tea was brought in the footman
retired and the countess poured out for Frank, saying,
"One or two lumps ?" He had a stick in his hand and a
hat in the other, and he wondered desperately how on
earth he was to take the little Sevres cup. He solved the
difficulty by putting the hat on the floor, feeling that he
66 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
must look like a rate collector or a commercial traveller
touting for orders.
The countess was smoking with that charming grace
which makes a cigarette a magic thing in the hand of a
beautiful woman.
"Life is so very complex," she said, staring into the fire.
"It is so difficult for human nature to resist the influence
of environment. That is why I am studying Sanitation
so earnestly. The greatest thing, I think, is to see the
underlying poetry, the passionate human impulse in the
every-day interests and duties of men and women. Do
you not think so ?"
Frank coughed and said, "Quite so."
She leant forward a little and put one white hand on
his knee, and looked earnestly into his eyes.
"As a literary man," she said, "I feel you will under-
stand. The men in my circle, my aura, as it is called, do
not have that quick perception by which soul looks into
soul, though no words are spoken. But literary men see
the quivering heart beneath the corsage, the throbbing
brain underneath the coiffure, the spirit beating against
its prison bars."
"Do you write much yourself?" asked Frank, with as
much sympathy as he could get into his voice, and trying
to keep his knee from wobbling beneath that white hand
which glittered with a circlet of diamonds.
"All my books," said the countess, "are written in in^
visible ink upon the tablets of sub-consciousness."
"Really," said Frank, groping dimly for her meaning*
"Though," she added, "it is true I have produced a
pamphlet on Socialism as a cure for Society. Perhaps
you would like to see it."
"Oh, thank you," said Frank.
"Do you mind touching that bell ?"
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 67
When the man came in she said, "Frederick, a copy of
my pamphlet."
"Perhaps," said the countess, with a touch of eagerness
in her voice, "you may care to review it in your paper.
It has only been published six months."
"I am sure it is very interesting," said Frank, with a
diplomacy that rather pleased him.
She put into his hand a slim little volume bound in
green silk with a gold coronet on the cover.
"It is my message to the world," she said. "My ideal
of a perfected humanity. Come and sit by my side and
I will read a few pages to you, if you will not be too
unkind a critic." Luttrell wondered how he could escape
from this Circe. Her haunting eyes troubled him; the
touch of her hand made his pulse beat ; the fragrance of
her hair had a subtle effect upon his senses. It seemed
to him that he was in some strange Arabian Nights ad-
venture. He had come in muddy boots to the house of
a countess to ask a ridiculous question about the need of
new fashions for men. He was sitting close to her in a
beautiful room before a cosy fire, and her low, mournful
voice was reading out some enchanting poetry, as it
seemed, of which he did not hear or understand one single
word. The whole thing was preposterous and wildly im-
probable. He refused to believe that it had happened.
He had probably gone raving mad after a week in Fleet
Street, and was sitting in a padded cell imagining the
picture.
Presently the man-servant, or the mad dream of a man-
servant, came in and said : "His Grace the Duke of Bol-
ton, your ladyship."
Frank started. It was the very duke whose flunkey
he had insulted with three-halfpence! . . . Yes, surely
he was mad. Things do not happen like this.
68 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Oh, my dear duke!" said the lady, letting her book
slip on the sofa and rising.
A tall young man with a little fair moustache came in.
"Got any tea left ?" he said, "and will you let me smoke
a cigarette with you?"
"Nice thing !" said the countess. "How very sweet of
you to come."
She turned to Frank and took his hand. "Good-bye ! I
am so sorry you have to go. I have so enjoyed our con-
versation." She gave him the book and said, "A little
review, will you? Oh, kind! Come and see me again,
won't you?"
Frank bent over her hand for a moment and thanked
her. As he left the room he heard the young duke say,
"Who's your pal? A piano-tuner?"
Luttrell went out into the street, turned into Curzon
Street, and then banging up against a lamp-post in the
darkness, laughed in a low voice which was a little hys-
terical.
He had spent half-an-hour with the countess, and had
actually met the duke, in spite of his flunkey, but from
neither of them had he asked for representative opinions
on the need of new fashions for men !
It was five o'clock, and Frank had tea and then set off
again in quest of Mr. Townsend, who had gained the
reputation of being the best-dressed man in London.
After calling at his flat and three clubs, Frank finally ran
him to earth at the Savoy restaurant. Townsend received
him cordially, and asked him to join him over the dinner-
table. It was nine o'clock, and for an hour the man who,
to Frank, seemed merely vulgar, and dressed in an eccen-
tric way which marked him down as being the false imita-
tor of a man of fashion, delivered a monologue on the sub-
ject of clothes. Then he apologised for leaving in a hur-
ry, and left Luttrell to pay his own bill, which amounted
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 69
to half-a-guinea. Frank went to his rooms and wrote his
"interview" to the length of a column, endeavouring, not
without success, to remember the egotistical phrases and
strained wit of the man. It was eleven o'clock when he
sent up his "copy," and the only satisfaction when he got
back to his rooms and put his tired feet into slippers was
that, after a day of humiliation and ludicrous adventure,
he had at least brought a story to the Rag. He slept
feverishly that night, dreaming of the countess's haunt-
ing eyes and of a white hand that tried to strangle him.
In the morning at breakfast he read a letter from his
father, telling him little details of news about the old rec-
tory life, and then covering three pages with the descrip-
tion of a walk in the autumn woods. "I wish you had
been with me, Frank. I miss our old comradeship and
our long talks about art and literature and nature."
Frank pushed back a stale egg, lit a cigarette, and
plunged into the roar of London outside the gateway of
Staple Inn. The old home life, the walks with his father
in the silent woods seemed a thousand miles and a thou-
sand years away; he would like to go back; and as he
thought so, Frank knew in his heart that he would never
go back for more than a few days or a few weeks. He
was walking now quickly towards Fleet Street, towards
the street of adventure, in the air of which there seemed
to be a subtle poison putting a spell into the brains of men,
so that though they go a thousand miles away they must
always return.
In the office he asked Leach, the clerk-in-charge, for
a copy of the paper, which he opened with a smile, think-
ing of yesterday's visits to dukes and peers and the coun-
tess, which had resulted in a column interview with Cyril
Townsend. But having turned over the pages of the
paper several times, he saw with a smarting spirit that it
had not been printed. Not a line ! not a single line ! It
70 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
was then that he had crushed the paper in his hand and
said "My God !" in a whisper.
He could not understand it. He suspected that there
must be some conspiracy against him to keep him under,
to bring about his dismissal. Perhaps Vicary objected to
his appointment by Bellamy. Yet, though brusque, he was
always genial and hearty in his manner. Perhaps he had
not got the right touch for journalism. For whatever
reason he had had a wretched, disappointing week. All
his articles, written with painful anxiety to make them
bright, pointed and interesting, had either been cut down
to a few lines or left out of the paper. Things could
not go on like this. No one was paid a wage for nothing.
And it took the heart out of a man who was eager to do
good work, and who did not spare himself in his endeav-
ours, which extended over many hours, and left him ex-
hausted or excited late at night. A voice interrupted
Luttrell's gloomy reverie.
"Are you thinking of the silent, sombre woods, Mr.
Melancholy Jacques?"
Frank started, and saw Katherine Halstead. She was in
a blue coat and skirt and big black hat, on which a snow- j
white bird had perched, and she stood with one elbow
on the back of a chair and her chin propped in the palm
of her hand. It was a pretty attitude she had the gift
of pretty attitudes and for the first time it struck Frank
that her face was like one of Romney's portraits of Lady
Hamilton, in her early days as Emma Hart the one with
the muff and the mischievous eyes.
"I was not thinking of anything half so pleasant/' he ]
said. "I was in a rather murderous mood, to tell you the
truth."
"Tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth."
She spoke lightly, but there was a note of sympathy in
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 71
her voice. It was an invitation to him to confide his
trouble. She sat down with one foot on the fender, like
the countess on the day before, yet with a simplicity quite
unlike the lady of the day before with the haunting eyes.
Then she took off her hat and let it drop on to the hearth-
rug. Frank, who had no sister, felt that Katherine Hal-
stead was rather a sisterly girl. While he was thinking
so she looked up with her head a little on one side, quiz-
zing him.
"The first week is pretty miserable. One gets hardened
afterwards."
"I have had an appalling experience/' said Frank. "I
cannot understand it at all."
He gave her an account of his adventures. She laughed
at them so merrily that he was hurt.
"They amuse you."
"Yes. It is all very funny. Don't you see the humour
of it?"
"No," said Frank. "It is all too painful to be humour-
is."
"Oh, you must keep your sense of humour or you are
ost. . . . You don't understand the system, that is all."
"Is there any system?" said Frank, raising his eye-
brows. "It seems rather to show a lack of system."
Katherine Halstead pretended to look very wise.
?rank thought she looked very pretty.
"Listen. I will speak to you in parables."
She explained that a great London newspaper is like
a beehive, in which the individual counts for nothing, the
whole community being dominated by one supreme pur-
Dose. The bees go forth far and wide to gather the
>ollen, they come staggering back with their burden ; there
s a continual sacrifice of life, the drones are killed ruth-
essly when food is scarce, and the slaves of the hive toil
ceaselessly under relentless laws.
72 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"This office," said Katherine Halstead, "is a human bee-
hive. We are under the same iron law. 'The paper must
be filled/ 'The paper must not be let down/ That is our
hymn of sacrifice."
"Go on," said Frank. "This is quite exciting !"
"The worker bees bring home more pollen than is
wanted for the hive ; lives are sacrificed if it is necessary
for the continuance of the hive, and the whole crowd of
wriggling creatures in this particular beehive is under the
awful irresistible spell of one mysterious unnecessary
purpose the good of the paper."
Frank laughed.
"Your metaphor is mixed, isn't it? But it is a jelly
good one."
The girl put off her cap of wisdom and laughed.
"I have just been reading a book on bees. Perhaps
I've put it all wrong. I couldn't help being struck with
the simile."
"It is a pretty awful one," said Frank. "I know some-
thing about bees, and the tyranny of the hive is the cruel-
lest thing in nature."
"Oh no, there is more cruelty in Fleet Street." She
held her hand out as a screen between the fire and her
face.
"It's a funny thing, I don't think men are naturally
more cruel in Fleet Street than in other places. It's the
system that makes them cruel. Look at our Chief, Bel-
lamy, he is the kindest-hearted little man in the world,
yet he puts the paper first, before men's lives and souls J
Of course when you get really cruel men like well, one
mustn't mention names their opportunities are unlim-|
ited. If their men get tired or stale or slack, if they make
a mistake or if they are not so good or thought not
to be so good as one of the hundred people outside ask-i
ing for their job, if they get worsted in an office intrigue,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 73
out they go into the street, to become the hungry space
men/'
She turned round suddenly and said
"Have you ever been on space ?"
"No," said Frank. "What does it mean ?"
"May you never know. ... I have seen many men
who work on space. You can always tell them by the
hunted look in their eyes."
"You give me the cold shivers," said Frank.
"Oh, I could curdle the blood in your veins."
"Don't spare me. Let me see clearly into the chamber
of horrors, so that I may know all in store for me."
They were both talking and smiling in low voices like
children telling bogey stories round a nursery fire.
The girl told him about a man a brilliant, golden-
hearted man, who had been sixteen years on a news-
paper. One morning he received his dismissal with a
month's salary. The proprietor had put his nephew into
his place a gilded youth who had been living a fast life
in London. The man who had given himself unstintingly
to the paper for sixteen years was found dead in his
bed, with one end of a rubber tube under the bedclothes
and with the other end fixed to the gas-jet.
"Thank heavens, I have electric light in my rooms!"
said Frank.
She told him of a newspaper office in which there had
been a change of proprietors. "You must know what that
is ... a change of proprietors always means a tragedy."
Sixteen men had been turned off without mercy. They
had held most important positions on the newspaper.
Some of them had got other places at half their former
salaries. One man was writing advertisements for liver
pills. Another had become press agent of a subur-
ban theatre, and another could be found any day at the
corner of Whitefriars Street begging for sixpence from
74 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
any old friends, so that he might get drunk and forget
his misery.
"You can't get drunk on sixpence," said Frank.
"Oh yes, on a hungry stomach," said Katherine Hal-
stead.
Frank looked at his companion on the opposite side of
the fire-place. There was something queer in these words
spoken by a pretty girl with blue eyes. Katherine Hal-
stead caught his glance. She flushed quickly.
"One learns in Fleet Street," she said.
"I suppose that's the secret of it all. ... Men will suf-
fer many things in the quest of knowledge."
"Quest is a good word!" said Katherine. "But it is
copyright. Chris Codrington has made it his own."
"I say, how satirical you are !" said Frank. "You are
always laughing at me."
She opened her eyes at him.
"Laughing at you? Good gracious, I hope I should
not be so impertinent as to laugh at a learned gentleman
from Oxford !"
"You are doing it again," said Frank. "It is not my
fault that I went to Oxford. As for knowledge, you
seem to know everything. Is there anything about life
you don't know?"
Katherine Halstead shook her head, and pursed up her
lips and pretended to look very solemn and wise.
"What I don't know isn't knowledge. . . . You see we
journalists," she gave a little cough, "go everywhere and
see everything."
Frank leant over the fire and stared into the embers.
"Journalists have the gift of invisibility," he said, "they
are always watching and nobody sees them."
"Good job too," said Katherine. "Some of us would
do nicely as scarecrows."
"It's as good as a fairy tale ... a public man speaks
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE ft
some rash words after dinner and invisible hands take
down his words in secret writing and publish his folly
to the world. Murders are done down back streets and
history is made in the courts of Eitrope, and men and
women carve out their careers and break each other's
hearts, and plot and intrigue and express their egotism
and tell obvious lies, and die their little deaths, and go
to their graves in the paupers' cemetery, or Westminster
Abbey, according to their luck and all the while watch-
ful eyes are on them, and invisible people are spying,
eavesdropping, and taking down notes for publication."
"That sounds like an essay," said Katherine Halstead
suspiciously.
"It is," said Frank ; "I wrote it for the Spectator -be-
fore I came into Fleet Street."
They both laughed, a merry boy and girl laugh which
gave the lie to the dreadful pessimism of their conversa-
tion.
"I must go and do some work," said Katherine. "If
Mr. Vicary has any commands this morning "
"Don't go yet," said Frank. There was a note of
eagerness in his voice which made the girl's eyelids flicker
with a momentary self-consciousness. "I want you to
tell me lots of things."
"What things ? . . . I have told you everything."
"No, I want to know all about the private life of the
men walking about these passages."
Katherine opened her eyes with an air of alarm. "Oh,
the revelations would be too shocking!"
"I want to know what their homes are like."
"They haven't any," said Katherine, ". . . only sleep-
ing places."
"And their wives " said Frank.
"Journalists' wives! . . . Those tragedies have not
been written down. . . . They live in little back streets
76 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
at Herne Hill and Brixton. Some of them take to drink
poor creatures others take to religion. It is less harm-
ful to them, perhaps, though their husbands resent it.
Others just have children, and watch the clock go round
while they darn stockings, and put the whisky on the side-
board before they go to bed, and wake up in the middle
of the night when their husbands drop their boots by the
hall table. . . . Oh, it is bad to be a woman journalist
some people call us lady journalists! but heaven pre-
serve, me from being a journalist's wife!"
Frank was startled, and being a man brought up in
the country with a very limited knowledge of women,
felt curiously uncomfortable. It seemed to him for a
moment that Katherine Halstead had drawn back the veil
of her heart, and that he had caught a swift glimpse of
some distress and bitterness, some strife with unfulfilled
instincts. The words themselves had made him think.
In a few sentences she had given him a vivid mental pic-
ture of miserable homes and unhappy lives. "Others just
have children . . . and watch the clock go round." That
had given him a curious and unaccountable shiver. But
it was not the words which had made him search for a
light-hearted reply without finding one, and get red in a
silly, nervous way. It was a sudden expression of pain,
an indefinable look of sharp discontent, which had for a
few seconds hardened the girl's face. For a moment he
saw that look which he had not expected to find in eyes
which had often a laughing light in them the look of
the woman who knows too much, and who has felt the
sharp edge of disappointment and disillusion. She rose
from the fire, and Frank knew that the conversation was
at an end. He could have wished it to go on for an
hour.
"How we have been wasting precious time! ... Do
you mind passing over that duck ?"
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 77
Luttrell bent down and picked up the black hat with
the little white bird, and smoothed its feathers.
"This is charming," he said. "It suits you awfully
well!"
Katherine took it from him and glanced up at him from
under the brim of it, as she put it on.
"Flatterer !" she said, with a coquettishness that was
half assumed.
"No, honour bright !" said Frank.
Christopher Codrington came into the room with a long,
leisurely stride. As he took off his tall hat with its rakish
brim, he glanced quickly from Katherine Halstead to
Frank Luttrell, and his thin lips suggested the ghost of
an ironical smile.
"How cosy the fire looks," he said. "Have you been
telling ghost stories?"
"We've been discussing social philosophy," said Kath-
erine. She rang up the telephone and asked if Mr. Vicary
had come, and then said, "Thanks, I will come at once."
"Social philosophy !" said Codrington. "Dangerous,
very dangerous ! I should hardly like to tell you the hor-
rible holes I have fallen into when discussing that sub-
ject."
His pale blue eyes were fixed on Katherine, and Lut-
trell noticed that they seemed to make her uncomfortable.
She turned her head away, and then, with a word about
having to see Vicary, left the room. Luttrell wondered,
and then was surprised, at a certain sensation of nervous-
ness w hat relations there were between Katherine Hal-
stead and Christopher Codrington. He remembered how
Codrington had fingered the miniature on her breast on
the night of his first interview with Bellamy, and how
he had bent over her chair whispering to her one evening.
The man drew off a pair of lavender gloves and blew
into them. Then he took off his long frock overcoat,
78 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
revealing himself in an immaculate morning suit. Sud-
denly he put the tip of his fingers to his forehead as
though he had forgotten something vastly important, and
then remembered.
"My hat!" he said in a low voice.
Luttrell looked at his hat, which lay on the table, a
beautiful, if somewhat archaic, piece of furniture.
"What is the matter with it?" he asked.
Codrington smiled, a pale, glimmering smile.
' "I do not refer to that." He hesitated, and said in a
mysterious way, "May I have a word with you ?"
"Certainly," said Luttrell.
"I wonder," said Codrington, "if you would lend me
half-a-sovereign for one day? Foolishly, I came with
only a few shillings. It is most important that I should
not be entirely destitute this morning. A point of honour,
in fact."
Luttrell remembered that Codrington still owed him
half-a-crown. He remembered also that he had only
thirty shillings in his pocket, which would have to last
him a week. Still, how the deuce could he refuse the
fellow? It was quite certain that a man who dressed
like a duke at least, like a duke in musical comedy
would pay him back again, and, after all, it was rather
an honour to be asked a favour by this distinguished-
looking colleague. Still, it was horribly inconvenient!
He wished he were strong-minded enough to frame an
excuse.
"By all means," he said, and rummaged in his pocket
for the small gold piece which he knew was among the
loose silver.
"A thousand thanks ! my dear Luttrell," said Codring-
ton. He put on his hat, altering its angle by a hair's
breadth before a mirror in a bamboo hatstand, and then
left the room as two or three other men came in.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 79
One was Brandon, the oldish-young man whose hair
was so curiously streaked with white. He carried a
glorious bouquet of white chrysanthemums, which he put
under the nose of Quin, the little dramatic critic.
"What do you think of that for a market bunch ?"
"I don't think !" said Quin. "How much did they rook
you for it ?"
"I had 'em given to me," said Brandon. "I told Nancy
I wanted them for my very special lady-friend, and she
wouldn't take a penny for them."
Quin whistled.
"Introduce me to Nancy," he said, "I'd like to know
her. Where did you pick her up?"
"Remember the Eagle Street case? That girl came
almost as near to being hanged as John Lee of Babba-
combe. Fortunately I picked up the clue of the rusty nail
which led to the arrest of Nosey William, who swung
for the job. Nancy hasn't forgotten. She would sell
her chemise for me if I was down on my luck."
"The gods send me such lady-friends," said Quin.
He put his hand in his waistcoat-pocket and pulled out
a little golden heart.
"Do you think Mother Hubbard will like that bauble?"
Brandon fingered it. "Charming, but not so unalloyed
as the gold of her own good heart."
"Tell her that," said Quin; "she'll like it."
"Oh, quite spontaneous," said Brandon.
Vicary came downstairs with Katherine Halstead.
"What's all this, boys ? Old Mother Hubbard's birthday,
and you didn't let me know! That's playing a dashed
low-down game with me. Why, she was a pet of mine
before you" boys came out of the turnip beds !"
"She mothered every one of us," said Brandon.
"Yes, and lent you money when you've blued your
weekly wage," said Vicary. "Oh, I know! You can't
8o THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
deceive your old uncle. What's that? flowers, a gold
locket very nice, I'm sure! I suppose they'll go down
on the expense sheets under cab- fares and tips to de-
tectives. Nice lads, aren't you? Oh no, not at all."
Luttrell was surprised to see that Vicary had left his
official manner upstairs, and that in the reporters' room
the men treated their taskmaster as one of themselves.
"By the Lord," said Vicary, "you're not going to leave
me out of this show ? Mother Hubbard would never for-
give me. I should never forgive myself. Here, what
can I buy in Ludgate Hill a box of chocolates, a dia-
mond tarrarrer, or Quin's latest love-song set to trom-
bones and castanets. What do you think she would like ?"
"She likes flowers best in the world," said Katherine.
"Well, that's easy," said Vicary. He touched the bell
and kept the knob pressed until a boy came running in.
Vicary flicked a ten-shilling-piece at him.
"Go and get a bunch of flowers," he said, "from Robert
Green. Tell him it's for me; and get back in fifteen
minutes, or I'll hit you."
Christopher Codrington came back and said "Good-
morning" to Vicary in his grave Charles-Grandison way,
lifting his hat.
"Take those basilisk eyes off me, won't you?" said
Vicary. "You look as if you'd been up all night again."
He turned to Katherine Halstead and said in a stage
whisper, "Don't you have anything to do with that feliow
Codrington. He leads a wicked life. Sad for one so
young !"
"Pardon me, Mr. Vicary," said Codrington gravely. **I
went to bed at ten and had happy dreams. ... I have
just been purchasing "
"Buying," said Vicary "better word."
"I have just been purchasing," said Codrington, "a
small gift for Mother Hubbard."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 81
"Oh, you have, have you ?" said Vicary, seizing a hand-
some box of sweetmeats from Codrington's hands, and
putting one of the sugared bon-bons into his mouth.
"Well, I'll bet anything you didn't pay for it."
"You are wrong," said Codrington, with dignity, "and
joking apart, I think you should not make these accusa-
tions against my moral character without a tittle of justi-
fication or proof."
Vicary turned round to the company and winked pro-
digiously at them.
"Wonderfully noble soul, Codrington!" he said.
"Which of you lent him the money for these lollipops?"
There was a guffaw of laughter from the men and a
ripple from Katherine Halstead. Frank Luttrell tried
not to look self-conscious, and saw that Codrington's eyes
met his with a silent message. He changed the sub'ject
of conversation by saying, "Who is Mother Hubbard?"
There was a silence and the men stared at one another
with an exaggerated air of incredulity.
"Holy snakes and all angels!" said Vicary. "This
young man has been many days in the great organ of the
Liberal Government (which, by the way, no Liberal ever
thinks of buying) without having come under the influ-
ence of Mother Hubbard. I decline to believe it."
"I'm sorry," said Frank, feeling that an apology was
necessary. "Who is the lady?"
Vicary turned helplessly to the others, flopping his
great hand on the table as though exhausted by aston-
ishment.
"Quin," he said, "Codrington, Brandon, Miss Halstead,
tell him who the lady is."
"She is our patron saint," said Quin.
"And edits our fashion page," said Katherine Hal-
stead.
"She is the lady of the golden heart," said Brandon.
82 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"And lives with me in Shaftesbury Avenue," said Kath-
erine,
"For several years," said Ouin, "she has mothered
every young man who has come into this street of trag-
edy."
"She has made tea for them," said Brandon.
"And soothed their weary hearts," said Vicary, "which
news-editors have done their best to break."
"She has given them words of wisdom," said Brandon.
"Which they have seldom acted upon," said Kath-
erine.
"She has opened the sanctuary door of her golden heart
to them," said Codrington.
"And the door of 4OA Shaftesbury Avenue," said Kath-
erine, "of which I pay half the rent."
"She is one of the best, the very best," said Vicary.
"And so say all of us," said Brandon and Quin ancj
Codrington.
Frank Luttrell thought that when his colleagues di<J
agree their unanimity was marvellous.
"I should like to know Mother Hubbard," he said.
"My dear lad," said Vicary, "it is absolutely necessary
to your immortal soul, if you go in for that hobby. Un-
less you swear allegiance to Mother Hubbard you tvill go
down the slippery slope to perdition."
The company followed Vicary out of the room and
walked solemnly along the corridor to a door on which
was the name Miss Margaret Hubbard.
Vicary tapped, and a low contralto voice called out,
"Come in."
"Look here," said Vicary, turning to Codrington, "you
must do the felicitous flip-flap; it's what we pay you
for."
Codrington gave his superior smile, and went into the
room followed by his escort. Luttrell, who was the last
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 83
to go in, saw a lady sitting at a desk cutting out pieces
of paper with a long pair of scissors. She rose as they
all entered, and stood facing them with laughing sur-
prise. Luttrell had expected to see a little old lady in
black silk with white ringlets and spectacles. But he
saw a woman of about thirty-five in a plain tailor-made
coat and skirt. She had a pleasant face, square, with
straight eyebrows, a blunt, good-natured nose, full chin
and firm mouth, rather massive and almost masculine in
its expression of will-power, but softened by a tender-
ness of expression, and by brown eyes brimming over
with mirth.
She held out her long scissors and snapped them.
"Have you come to get your noses cut off ?"
Christopher Codrington stepped out.
''Mother Hubbard," he said gravely, "we, the bad
children who live in the shoe, have come to wish you
many happy returns of the day, and to bring you little
gifts, worthless in themselves, but symbolical of our love
and devotion to you."
There were cries of "Hear, hear," and "Stick to it,
Codrington !"
"Fiddle-de-dee," said Miss Margaret Hubbard, "at
thirty-six years of age a woman should be allowed to for-
get her birthdays, surely?"
"Each birthday of a good woman," said Christopher
Codrington, raising his hand as a sign that he was not to
be interrupted, "is a golden link in the chain of a beau-
tiful life."
Vicary said, "Is there any sub-editor with a blue pencil
here?"
"It is a day," continued Codrington, "when for a little
while the carking cares of the world must be forgotten,
and when we come into the circle of a gracious lady's sun-
shine, remembering her goodness, the little acts of be-
84 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
nignity which she strews upon her path like jewels, the
words of motherly kindness which fall from her lips
like flowers from a dusty highroad, filling the air with
the sweet fragrance of their charity."
A howl of laughter greeted this eloquence.
Miss Margaret Hubbard turned to Katherine Halstead
and said very quietly
"Kitty, my dear, will you get the waste-paper basket
and put it over the head of that tall boy with the golden
hair?"
It was Brandon, the crime expert, who executed the
order so swiftly that Codrington was caged before he
could escape. The two men struggled desperately in the
corner, and Quin stepped forward and presented his
heart.
"The gold is very thin," he said, "but its value is sym-
bolical. Eh, what?"
Miss Margaret Hubbard took the trinket and fastened
it by a pin to her bosom. "Nobody shall say I wear my
Heart on my sleeve." Then she took Quin's hand and
pressed it between both of hers, which were rather large.
"Thanks, friend," she said.
"Old Mother Hubbard," said Brandon, who had got
worsted in the struggle with Codrington and had one
end of his collar hanging loose, "may you have as many
years as the petals in this market bunch. I have counted
'em fifteen hundred and three."
Margaret Hubbard put her face down to them.
"I am glad to have good friends," she said.
Vicary came forward with his own bouquet, which
had just been brought in by the messenger boy.
"Here's to you, Mother Hubbard," he said, "and may
you forgive all news-editors."
"Yes, for such gifts as this." She gave a little cry of
ecstasy. "Oh, oh, they are too beautiful !"
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 85
Codrington put his box of sweets on her desk.
"Your sweetness is greater than theirs, dear lady," he
said.
She put one into Codrington's mouth.
"Perhaps that will stop your phrase-making, Mr.
Euphues," she said. Then she put her arm on his sleeve
and said, "Thanks, Chris."
Vicary had slipped out of the room, but his place was
taken by Silas Bellamy, who poked his head through the
doorway and said
"Do I smell an office intrigue?"
"The Chief I" said Katherine Halstead, and the others
cried, "Come in, sir, come in."
Bellamy came in smiling.
"I suppose you thought I didn't know what was going
on? ... There's very little goes on in the office that
doesn't come to my ears, and don't make any mistake."
He advanced to Margaret and pulled something out of
his tail pocket.
"Miss Hubbard. My felicitations. Pray accept this
as a small token of my esteem."
It was a golliwog whose white eyes glared at the com-
pany with a ludicrous air of surprise.
"Beautiful boy !" cried Miss Hubbard, giving its black
nose a kiss.
"Ungrateful woman !" said Bellamy. "Surely that re-
ward should have been mine."
There was a burst of laughter and Miss Hubbard said,
"If you are not very careful "
But the Chief, blushing like a school-boy, retired hastily .
from the room accompanied by a new outburst of
laughter.
"I have never known that threat to fail," said Miss
Hubbard. "They all run away!"
Luttrell had been watching and listening in the back-
86 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ground. This birthday scene seemed to him to present
newspaper life in one of its pleasantest aspects. For a
few moments the editor and news-editor had put off their
authority and had joined the staff in a merry scene which
was not without an underlying sentiment. Quin, the
dramatic critic, who told witty wicked stories; Brandon,
the crime specialist, who seemed to be interested ex-
clusively in sordid murders and mysteries; Vicary, the
big man, who gave out the orders for the day ; Codring-
ton, the easy-going, lackadaisical dandy; Katherine Hal-
stead, like a wild rose of Fleet Street, had all come with
birthday gifts to the woman of thirty-six, like a family
of children to an elder sister. Yet "Old Mother Hub-
bard" was not so old after all. Perhaps only Codrington,
and Katherine, and Frank himself were younger than this
sweet-faced, smiling woman in whose eyes there was a
steady, restful light, and who received the congratula-
tions of her Chief and colleagues with simple pleasure.
Katherine Halstead took Frank's hand and pulled him
forward.
"Here's a new boy for you, Mother Hubbard."
"Spank him right soundly and put him to bed/' said
Brandon.
"Lift him up tenderly and treat him with care," said
Codrington.
Old Mother Hubbard took Frank's hand.
"Now, who may you be ?" she said, looking at him with
friendly eyes.
"I am called Frank Luttrell. Beyond that I am no-
body."
"He has high ideals, and a pure and beautiful soul,"
said Brandon, and then bursting into imaginary tears,
said, "Would that I were a little child again upon my
mother's knee."
"He comes fresh and unsullied from a gentle English
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 87
home," said Quin, snivelling. "And, oh, the pity of it!"
"He is a young Greek god," said Codrington, in poetical
intonation, "strayed from the woods of Hellas "
"Into hell," said Brandon.
"He is one of us," said Katherine, "and we are very
glad to have him."
Luttrell stood with Mother Hubbard holding his hand,
and the light shafts of satire from the men made him
wince. It was clear to him that those fellows thought
him a weak, sensitive, namby-pamby thing. It would
always be like that. He would always be lonely and
friendless, kept outside the circle of men's comradeship,
or treated with good-natured contempt. If only he could
overcome that miserable shyness which was the curse of
his life! Why could he not be like other men, frank and
easy, with a tough hi4e and a touch of brutality and
coarseness which were necessary to manhood ? Even now
he felt that he was looking like a booby, blushing nerv-
ously and showing that he was uncomfortable as the cen-
tre of observation. But he threw a grateful look at
Katherine Halstead, whose words suddenly brought a
flush to his face. They were kind, comradely words.
Margaret Hubbard patted him on the hand.
"Those boys are very foolish," she said. "But you will
find that we are a happy family in this office. We live on
the bright side of Fleet Street."
She turned to the others.
"Look here, young men, if you are very good I am
going to invite you to a party this evening. Katherine
and I have been making all sorts of goodies toffee and
tartlets, and tarradiddles. There's to be a gala night in
Shaftesbury Avenue. Who will come?"
"Did I hear toffee and tartlets?" said Quin. "We will
all come. I speak on behalf of the Rag"
"Well, pass the word round. Old Mother Hubbard at
88 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
home 9 to 12. Music, muffins and moral conversation.
Strictly moral, if you please ! R.S.V.P."
"We have much pleasure in accepting," said Brandon
very politely.
"Mr. Christopher Codrington begs to thank Mother
Hubbard, and will, D.V., be present at her little gather-
ing. Should he unfortunately be prevented by acts of
God and news-editors "
"No excuses accepted," said Miss Hubbard. She
turned to Frank: "I shall expect you too, Mr. Lut-
trell."
He accepted eagerly, and smiled into the brown eyes of
Mother Hubbard. There seemed to be an understanding
between them already. No one could doubt the frank-
ness and kindness and cheery good-nature of that uncon-
ventional woman.
Katherine Halstead, who was standing by his side, put
her hand on his arm for a moment.
"You are telling the truth when you say that you will
come?"
Their eyes met for a moment. Frank was pleasantly
surprised by the eager invitation in Katherine's glance.
It made his pulse thump for a moment. It made him
look forward to that evening party with an excitement
which he could hardly understand.
"Oh, rather!" he said boyishly.
A messenger boy came into the room.
"Is Mr. Luttrell here?"
"Yes," said Frank.
"Mr. Vicary wants you, sir."
"Oh, oh," cried Margaret Hubbard. "If he gives you
an evening engagement I will jab the scissors into him."
"I shall have to play truant," said Frank.
He went upstairs, astonished at his light-heartedness.
He wondered why life seemed to be a more merry game
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 89
since yesterday, when he had found it stupid and exasper-
ating. The sparkle in Katherine Halstead's eyes seemed
to have lighted some fire in his heart which yesterday
had been filled with the cold ashes of disillusionment.
He went briskly into Vicary's room and got his "assign-
ment," as it was called. He was marked down for a day
in a London police-court.
"Bendall has been in good form lately," said Vicary.
"You ought to get some good fun out of it. I'll keep a
column open. It's a chance for you, my lad/'
Frank said "Right-o, sir. Thanks very much," and
went out of the room. On the landing he said to himself,
"Good fun !" in a wondering way. He suspected that his
sense of humour was not very keen.
CHAPTER VI
A NEWSPAPER man has no difficulty in getting into a
police-court unless he has to fight his way through a
crowd of Suffragettes and Frank Luttrell had only to
show his card to be admitted to a whitewashed room di-
vided into box-like compartments for solicitors, wit-
nesses, clerks, officials of the court, and the general pub-
lic represented by a row of unshaven men of the obvi-
ously "unemployed" class.
About thirty young policemen sat with their helmets
in their laps nudging each other in the ribs and laughing
in excellent spirits. In a box by himself hardly big
enough to hold him sat a fat inspector with a heavy,
frowning face who picked his teeth and sucked his tooth-
pick. Underneath the magistrate's seat, which was raised
on a dais, the clerk of the court, a thickset man of middle-
age, with an apoplectic neck and bald head, arranged his
papers, shovelled snuff into his nose out of a doubled-up
envelope and occasionally referred to the weather or the
charge-sheet to the usher who had respectful manners, a
blue clean-shaven chin and rusty black clothes like a man-
servant in a decayed but genteel family. Three benches in
a box labelled "witnesses" and some seats outside the
box were filled with rows of peculiar people. There were
several young men with bullet-heads cropped closely all
over, except where a single lock in front was curled round
and plastered over the forehead. They wore coloured
handkerchiefs round the neck and brown cloth suits, and
they spoke in hoarse whispers and laughed hoarsely as
though they had lost their voices by shouting too loudly
90
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 91
and too long. Next to them were two or three well-
dressed men, evidently gentlemen, who looked uneasy in
their position, and had restless eyes and hands. One
man, tall, with white hair and a grizzled moustache, and
the straight back of an old soldier, sat, with his silk hat at
an angle, staring at the window through which the Jan-
uary sun crept with a pale gleam. Frank's eyes rested on
him, and it seemed to him that he had never seen such a
look of stern grief.
Next to this man was a young woman with a baby at
her breast, which she rocked incessantly, and hushed
loudly every time the child gave a little wail. The wom-
an's face, pallid and pinched, with high cheek-bones, and
long, thin mouth, and dull, despairing eyes, into which
tears came flooding at times, scalding tears which she
did not trouble to wipe away sent a stabbing pain to
Frank's heart. She looked as if she were starving. Yet
the child, upon whom her tears fell, was plump enough.
But starving or not, it was evident that she was the victim
of misery. Once she broke into a kind of whimper like
an animal in pain, and for the first time the elderly man
by her side stirred, and spoke a word or two to her, and
touched her baby's cheek.
There were other women there, with faces even more
dreadful to see. With shapeless bonnets and wisps of
grey hair tied up behind, they sat in frowsy clothes, star-
ing in front of them, sullenly, one or two of them rather
wildly, with a mad light in eyes which came bulging out
of faces blotched by drink. They did not seem to know
each other, and sat in separate places, but there was a
strange likeness among them, their faces had been cast
in the same mould of evil lives, vicious environment,
and the indescribable horrors of the lowest pit of the
underworld. Here and there were respectable men with
quiet, steady eyes, and a dignity which belongs to the
92 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
honest working man in working clothes; and here and
there were foreign men and women, with the thick lips,
the glittering eyes, the curved nose of the human beast of
prey. In the midst of these strange people was a pretty
girl a typist or West End milliner perhaps who sat
with a mournful face, twisting and untwisting a hand-
kerchief. Frank wondered what tragedy had brought her
to this court where she was as much out of place as a
dove in a slaughter-house. Frank had lived nearly all his
life in the country where his observation had been trained
to watch small signs and small facts, to listen to the flut-
tering of a bird in a bush or to its startled note of fear or
to the ecstasy of its song of love. Now in London he
was always watching the human face and listening to the
human voice, more varied and more wonderful in their
revelation than the sights and sounds of the nature world.
In this court he saw many faces and many pairs of eyes,
and in all of them except those of th.; young policemen,
there was either fear, or despair, or cruelty, or dull res-
ignation. The sound of the voices made him shiver
the sound of the hoarse whispering of evil voices, of a
cruel chuckle of mirth from one of the bullet-headed
men, of a woman's whimper, of the fat, greasy, careless
laughter of young constables, at the wailing of the child
at the breast of the woman with the pinched face, and of
a cornet which in some street outside was playing with
long-drawn, melancholy notes the old tune of "Home
Sweet Home."
Frank wrote a line in his note-book.
"Home Sweet Home !" Then he said to himself, "Good
God! There's humour in that. Yes, it's devilishly hu-
morous !"
Presently the magistrate came into court and took his
seat, nodding to the clerk, who rose for a moment with the
other officials. Frank Luttrell studied this well-known
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 93
"stipendiary," William Trevelyan Bendall. There was
the humorist who was to provide a column of "good fun"
for Vicary. There was the court jester whose remarks
were always followed in halfpenny evening papers with
the word "laughter" in brackets. He was a middle-aged
man with grey hair, and a long, ascetic, clean-shaven
pallid face in which burnt dark, deep-set eyes. It was
a cold, expressionless face with a hard mouth, and as
he gave a brief glance at the array of witnesses, and then
round the court, Frank met that gaze for a moment and
felt a cold shiver pass down his spine.
The magistrate yawned, put his finger down the charge-
sheet and called out a number. It was repeated by the
clerk and the usher, and by a policeman standing at a
door labelled "Prisoners only," who bawled it into the
corridor outside. Then began the first scene in a day
of squalid drama which made Frank Luttrell flush hot
and cold, go faint and sick, get angry and bitter, and then
through the sheer monotony of its tragedy, become call-
lous and unconcerned.
For many hours there came into the dock a procession
of prisoners of varying ages, of both sexes, and of dif-
ferent classes of social life. Most of them came at the
rate of one a minute or two in three minutes. There
was a succession of "drunks and disorderlies" as they
were called by the police witnesses old, white-haired
men with watery eyes and toothless gums, old women in
black bonnets and shiny black dresses, who whined in
the dock, young women with touzled hair and hard, sul-
len faces, young men of respectable appearance who held
their heads down and looked wretchedly ashamed of
themselves, and men in the last stages of filth and rags,
with claw-like hands and feverish, blood-shot eyes and
gaunt cheek-bones. Some of them mumbled excuses;
they had taken "a drop too much," they had been celebrat-
94 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ing a birthday or a funeral, an old friend had been stand-
ing treat to them. But one of the younger men thrust
out a long arm, naked within the ragged sleeve of an
overcoat, and in a kind of shrill sob, said, "You'd get
blind sime as me if you 'ad my blarsted life ! I've been
aht o* work six months. Oh, my Gord !"
He broke into an hysterical sobbing, and the magistrate
raising his eyebrows said, "Whence these tears? . . .
Forty shillings or ten days."
One man was brought into the dock with his head and
throat in bandages, charged with attempted suicide. As
he appeared the woman with the baby in her arms began
crying loudly and piteously until she was hushed down,
not unkindly, by one of the constables who bent over her
and said, "Now, don't you go and make a bloomin' row,
my dear. It's all right, I tell you."
"What did you want to kill yourself for?" said the
magistrate. "Is there a mother-in-law in the case ?" This
remark, which would have brought cries of "Chestnut!"
from the gallery of the lowest music-hall, brought broad
grins to the faces of the young policemen in court, caused
the usher to laugh in an obsequious way behind his hand,
and made the clerk shake his head as though to say,
"What wit! Oh, dear, what a witty man he is, to be
sure!"
"I couldn't bring 'ome any blunt, and the kids were
crying out for bread," said the prisoner.
"And you really thought," said the magistrate, "that
by killing yourself you would provide your wife and
children with all the luxuries of life? That is a strange
theory of political economy, is it not?"
The prisoner stared at him blankly.
"Answer me, man," said the magistrate. "Didn't you
hear my question?"
"No," said the prisoner. "Beg pardon, sir."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 95
The policeman by the dock repeated the question.
"The magistrate says it's a strange theory of political
economy, ain't it?"
"Political what ? Never 'eard of it !" said the prisoner
in a dazed way.
"And that's the result of our national system of edu-
cation!" said the magistrate. Again there was "laugh-
ter" in court, and Frank Luttrell was now convinced that
he had not been born with a sense of humour. When
the magistrate went on questioning the miserable fellow
with the bandaged throat, turning his dazed, stupid an-
swers into an opportunity for making mirthless jests, it
seemed to Luttrell that he was in a torture-chamber where
quivering human souls were being racked by that cynical
inquisitor on the bench. Finally, the man was allowed to
leave the dock with a caution to be more careful of his
throat in future. He stumbled out in a helpless way,
and the young wife with the baby joined him at the
door. As they were bundled out in the corridor Frank
saw the man bend down and kiss the child, and then put
both hands to his head with a long-drawn moan.
A young girl with a dead-white face and black hair
was charged with stabbing her lover. The wounded
man went into the witness-box, and described how she
had chased him round the table and then stuck the knife
into his arm, pinning him to a cupboard.
"Why did you do it?" asked the magistrate.
"He betrayed me," said the girl in a low voice. "I
wanted to kill him, I can't understand why God let him
live."
"Perhaps God was busy at the time," said the magis-
trate. "He has so many things to attend to." (Loud
laughter. )
The girl was remanded for a week, and followed into
the dock by a young Italian waiter accused of stealing
96 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
a silver tea-spoon. Two witnesses were examined and
the magistrate said, "One month."
"Is dis vat you call English justice?'' said the prisoner
in the dock. "I did not pinch de dam spoon."
"Pinch ?" said the magistrate. "What does he mean by
pinch?"
"What do you mean by pinch ?" said the policeman to
the prisoner.
"Accidenti! I did not pinch it, I say."
"I suppose he means 'steal/ " said the magistrate.
"For misuse of the English language, another month.
. . . Two months' hard labour."
A tall, good-looking, well-dressed boy of about twenty-
one was brought up on a charge of forgery. Frank Lut-
trell saw the soldierly old man among the witnesses give a
start, flush painfully, and then become as white as his
moustache. From the police evidence it appeared that he
was the son of a well-known officer in the army. He had
become entangled with a chorus girl, and had been living
far in advance of his allowance. It was this which first
brought him under suspicion, and he was arrested for
forging his father's name to a cheque made out for 250.
"Where did the money go to?" said the magistrate.
"To the lady associated with the prisoner," said the
detective giving evidence.
"Ah !" said the magistrate thoughtfully. "I have heard
that chorus ladies are even more expensive as a hobby
than golf."
The magistrate was well known as an enthusiastic
golfer, and his remark which seemed utterly meaningless
to Frank was received with more loud laughter. In the
middle of it the young prisoner turned round and saw
the soldierly old man in court. Their eyes met, the boy's
appealing and piteous, the old man's stern and mournful.
So the drama went on, with many different characters
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 97
in the dock, charged with crimes of violence, petty lar-
ceny, disorderly conduct, and burglary. There was no
one in court to say a word in defence of any prisoner,
the questions put to them by the magistrate or the clerk
only seemed to bewilder them, and for the most part they
remained silent, sullenly, or despairingly, or in a dazed,
senseless way, while the cynical man on the bench made
jesting remarks of a dull, strained, and often meaning-
less character, and while the officials and some of the
people in the public gallery sniggered and guffawed, and
waited with their lips stretched into a fixed smile for
the next feeble shaft of satire or pointless pun.
As the prisoners came and went Frank noticed how
they were handled by the policemen. Through the door
opening into the corridor he could see the men and women
as they were brought up from the cells and passed along
a line of policemen in the passage, and then into the court
by the constable at the door, and then into the dock by
the warder. Never once was a policeman's hands off a
prisoner until he stood facing the magistrate. They
pawed him, not roughly, but with a kind of gentle, per-
suasive, almost affectionate pressure, in which there was
something curiously repulsive and disgusting. But it was
the magistrate who made Frank go hot and cold, and
who set his nerves quivering, so that once or twice he had
a kind of devilish temptation to stand up and curse him.
That long, ascetic face, those keen, relentless eyes, that
hard, cynical mouth, which curled into a smile as he shot
some blunted arrow of wit at one of the wretched crea-
tures in the dock stamped themselves on Frank Luttrell's
brain. The casual way in which he passed sentence of
"one month," "two months," "forty shillings or seven
days" on these human scarecrows, these blear-eyed old
men, these whimpering old women, these haggard, weak-
chested, ^half-starved boys, was damnable in its brevity
98 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
and iteration. In twelve minutes by Frank's watch he
condemned ten men to an aggregate of eighteen months'
hard labour. Hardly one of them had said a word in de-
fence, not one of them had a friendly voice in court to
say a word in his favour. The magistrate always accept-
ed the police evidence as conclusive. Probably the pris-
oners were guilty of the crimes with which they stood
charged, but Frank Luttrell wondered whether any inno-
cent and ignorant man or woman would ever get the bene-
fit of the doubt, or escape from those policemen's paws,
in this court of summary jurisdiction where it seemed that
every accused person was held guilty before the mockery
of a two minutes' trial.
When the court rose for the day Luttrell went out
into the street feeling as though he had been beaten with
rods. A few months ago in the old Abbey School at
King's Marshwood he had called out for "Life." He had
wanted to escape from his solitude into the whirlpool of
humanity. And this was life ! For seven hours he had
been behind the scenes of human passion, vice, weakness,
and tragedy. In imagination he followed that procession
of men and women through the door of the court into
their prison cells, and saw their dreadful eyes staring at
the blank walls, and their wretched bodies writhing on
the stone floors ; and in imagination he visited the homes
they had left behind, with miserable, starving wives and
wailing children. It was all a terrible vision into the
mean streets of life in London, and Luttrell, born in a
village rectory, taught by a father and mother of high
ideals and infinite love, knowing more of the silent woods
than of the crowded streets of life, self conscious in the
presence of his fellow-men, and sensitive by nature and
upbringing, had suffered mental and spiritual torture dur-
ing this day of revelation. He went into a public-house
close to the police-court and asked for a whisky-and-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 99
soda. The glass trembled in his hand as he took it, and
he gulped down the liquid like a man who has survived
a shipwreck or some great shock. He repeated the words
Vicary had said to him in the morning, "There will be
good fun in it!" And then, thinking of what he had
seen during the last seven hours, he said
"Fun, oh my God ! Good fun !"
Darkness was creeping into the streets as he walked
back to Staple Inn, and a great tide of men and women
was surging down Holborn, going homewards after of-
fice hours. The light of electric-standards and shop-
fronts streamed upon their faces as they passed him,
so that to his overwrought imagination they seemed like
dream faces, ghost faces, hurrying to eternity. He was
glad to get into the quietude of Staple Inn, out of that
crowd of human souls with their unknown passions, and
vices, and miseries. Perhaps some of them would be
brought up at Bow Street next morning, before that man
with the ascetic face and cynical smile who would give
them one month or two months, with a jest or a jibe!
In Staple Inn there was a pool of silence with the dull
roar of the traffic beyond. A black kitten came miauling
up, and stroking itself against Frank Luttrell's leg. He
stooped down, and picked up the ball of black fluff and
pressed it against his chest. He felt a curious affection
for this little wandering, lonely creature which had come
up to him out of the darkness. Passionately fond of ani-
mals, it appealed to his sense of comradeship and to the
protecting pity which the strong feel for the weak.
"You and I both seem forlorn creatures wandering in
the dark," he said.
He took the kitten with him upstairs to his rooms, and
gave it some milk which it lapped greedily. It made
him feel less lonely when it sat on the table in front of
him, playing with his pipe, and chasing its own tail.
ioo THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Funny little beggar!" he said. "It doesn't care a
damn how many broken hearts there are or how many
souls are racked in the torture-chambers of life ! Would
to heaven I had been born with a tail to chase !"
He sat down to write his article, his article of "Good
fun." He glanced at the clock. In another hour he
ought to be at Mother Hubbard's birthday party. His
heart gave a leap. After all, he was glad he hadn't been
born with a tail! Katherine Halstead would be there.
He wanted to see her in her own rooms, away from the
Ra\g. He wondered whether he would have the chance
of sitting near her, and what she would be dressed in,
and whether she would be in a merry mood. It was cur-
ious how her face haunted him. He had seen it in court,
several times, in the pale gleam of sunshine that had come
through the windows, in the dock by the side of a woman
with bloodshot eyes and a broken nose, in his note-book
when he had been scribbling aimlessly, making all sorts
of stupid patterns with his pencil. He wished he could
draw figures and faces. He would have liked to have
drawn her as she sat on the floor roasting chestnuts, with
the firelight on her face; or standing with her arm on
the back of a chair and her chin in the palm of her hand.
He wondered whether he would ever find the key to her
character. She baffled him. He could not tell what was
the meaning of the fretfulness and discontent which
sometimes seemed to make her a little hard and bitter.
She seemed to know too much about the ugly things of
life, and yet sometimes she was very girlish, with a laugh
that was clear and merry and melodious.
The kitten had curled itself on his lap, and was purring
in its sleep. Luttrell lit his pipe, and with his elbows on
the table faced a neat pile of blank paper. Presently he
began to write, stabbing the paper with short, swift sen-
tences, his lips curled into a grim smile. Oh, he was en-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 101
joying himself! He was dipping his pen not into ink
but into vitriol, and with this biting acid he etched out the
portrait of William Trevelyan Bendall, stipendiary mag-
istrate, as he administered justice in the court of sum-
mary jurisdiction. He wrote for three-quarters of an
hour and then lifted the kitten off his lap and put it down
on the rug before the fire.
With a glance at the clock he rushed off to Fleet Street
and handed in his article to Vicary who was still at his
desk, working in his shirt-sleeves.
"You're just the man I want to see," said Vicary. "Is
that your police-court stuff? Good. . . . Look here,
there's been a jolly motor-omnibus smash at Hornsey.
One killed and five injured. Get off at once and find out
more details/'
Luttrell hesitated.
"I had a private appointment," he said. "Miss Hub-
bard "
Vicary stared at him.
"Private appointment! Did I hear you say private
appointment f"
He swore a frightful oath, and then laughed as though
his anger had changed to mirth.
"My dear, innocent boy," he said. "Surely you don't
imagine that any newspaper man has a right to make pri-
vate appointments ? There is only one law in this street.
If you are going to be married, if your wife has twins,
if she has run away with the next-door neighbour, if your
mother is drawing her last dying breath, you've got to
go to Hornsey or to hell, or anywhere else, if the Rag
wants you to go. Understand ?"
"Yes," said Luttrell.
"That's all right. Then get off, and don't waste time."
Luttrell went out. He had not an exact idea where
Hornsey was. He guesSeji vaguely that it was some-
102 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
where in the East End. But he knew that not far away
was Shaftesbury Avenue, where Katherine Halstead and
"Old Mother Hubbard" had some coffee and tarts wait-
ing for him. He had been eager all day for the hour
when he might knock at the door of a little flat and hear
Katherine Halstead's laughter beyond the door, and see
her coming to him across a cosy room.
It was cold and foggy in Fleet Street. He was tired
after an exhausting day. But the Rag wanted him, and
he was the slave of the Rag. He turned his face east-
ward, away from Shaftesbury Avenue and from Kath-
erine and Mother Hubbard. He was beginning to know
the meaning of newspaper life. Katherine Halstead was
right. The system was very cruel.
CHAPTER VII
AT half-past nine Luttrell stood on the top landing of a
house in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was over a bookseller's
shop, now barred up for the night. On a small door in
front of him, under a dim gas-light, was a brass plate
with two names on it: Miss Margaret Hubbard, Miss
Katherine Halstead.
Luttrell had made desperate efforts to get here. He
had gone down to Hornsey, interviewed the driver of
the wrecked omnibus who was shedding tipsy tears in the
charge-room, and two passengers who having been saved
from death were now making their thanksgivings in the
bar parlour of a gin-palace. He had written his story
coming back in the train, had rushed up with it to the
news-editor's room, and then had hailed a hansom and
told the driver to take the shortest cut to Shaftesbury
Avenue.
Now that he stood outside the door of the flat he had
a strong determination to turn back. He was splashed
with mud, cold to the bones, and he had just remembered
that he had eaten nothing since midday. It was a dis-
graceful hour to call on two ladies for the first time. He
would creep downstairs, and go to the nearest restaurant
for a quiet meal.
Through the doorway he heard the sound of ladies*
voices and the ripple of a woman's laugh. It was Kather-
ine Halstead's laugh.
Frank touched the knob, and heard an electric-bell
ring inside. A heavy footstep came along the passage.
He wondered whether there was still time to "do a guy"
as he called it in his old college slang. What a weak
103
104 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
fool he had been to set that bell ringing, and what a mis-
erable wretch he would look if he went in !
The door opened and Brandon stood in the light.
"Hulloh, young feller! So you've come, have you?
The ladies have been taking your name in vain."
"Look here, Brandon," said Frank, "I have changed
my mind. I'm not a fit object for a lady's flat. Say it
was a beggar, and let me bolt."
Brandon grinned at him.
"Come in, man; what the dickens are you talking
about?"
He took his arm and dragged him inside, and then
marched him along the passage like a prisoner.
"All right," said Frank, smiling in spite of his ner-
vousness. 'Til go quietly."
"You'd better," said Brandon, "or I'll give you the
frog's march."
He released him at the door of the room at the end
of the corridor.
"Here's one of the laggards," he said.
Frank went into the warmth and light of a cosy room
to the sound of a tinkling piano, and the quiet hum of
voices. He was conscious that several people were there,
but he saw only Katherine Halstead, in a white dress, who
came towards him and took his hand, and said, "We had
given you up as a lost soul."
She had a deep red rose at her breast, and the heat
of the fire seemed to have touched her cheeks, giving to
them a warmer glow.
She led Frank by the hand towards Margaret Hubbard
who was doing some crochet work in a low chair, with an
electric stand-lamp pouring its white light upon her.
"Here is another of the truants," said Katherine.
"Who has come starving, I can see," said Margaret
Hubbard. "Why, the boy's face is like a banshee. Here,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 105
put him by the fire, and warm up the cockles of his heart,
while I go and seek some provender/'
She took his .hand, and said, "Bless me, it's as cold
as a toad. I suppose that dreadful tyrant, Mr. Vicary,
sent you off to some horrible haunt when you ought to
have been having dinner."
Frank gave an account of his day in a few words."
"What cruelty !" said Katherine. "A day in the police-
court and motor smash in the evening. Really, I shall
have to speak seriously to John Vicary."
She looked as though she had made up her mind to
dismiss her own Chief, and Luttrell felt comforted for
the fatigue of his day.
"What we want," said Brandon, "is a society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Poor Pressmen. It is a long-
felt want in Fleet Street. Chris Codrington, there, would
do famously as Honorary Secretary, on a private salary.
He would get subscriptions from Duchesses who want to
reconstruct their character and from Gaiety actresses pre-
pared to pay for a puff."
Codrington was deep in a big embracing chair, with a
cushion behind his head, and his face tilted upwards so
that its profile was silhouetted in the red light of a lamp
behind him. He was in evening dress with a soft frilled
shirt, and a coat with deep lapels, so that he seemed like
a figure cut out of one of Dendy Sadler's pictures of
Georgian bloods. His eyes were shut and he seemed
asleep, but when Brandon spoke he put up his hand and
said, "Hush, Brandon, your raucous voice jars upon the
melody of my thoughts."
"A pretty egoist, isn't he?" said Brandon, gazing at
him with a kind of angry admiration. "I wonder he
don't hire himself out as a peepshow at a penny gaff."
Luttrell found himself on a low stool by the fire with a
silver tray on a coal-scuttle, with a cup of hot coffee
106 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
sending an exquisite fragrance to his nostrils, and a plate
of fancy cakes and sweets enticing him seductively,
Mother Hubbard was on her knees before him, and said,
"Shut your eyes and open your mouth, and see what God
will give you." Frank was obedient, and God, or Mother
Hubbard, gave him a sweetmeat which sent a thrill of
ecstasy down his backbone. He opened his eyes like a
man who has seen a heavenly vision, and saw that Mother
Hubbard was preparing another gift of grace for him.
"Hush," she said. "I will have no starving men in my
flat!"
He saw that she was in a black silk gown cut square
at the throat; that her brown eyes were smiling at him
with a motherly light in them, that her square, good-
natured face with its blunt nose was as beautiful in its
ugliness as one of Rembrandt's portraits of the women he
loved. Frank wondered why no man had ever loved
this woman, why at least she was thirty-six and unmar-
ried. Such a woman was meant to be the wife of
some good fellow and the mother of his children. Mother
Hubbard ! It was a good name for her.
Katherine Halstead brought him a cigarette, and put it
into his mouth before he had finished the sacred sweet.
It was embarrassing but delightful. She struck a match
and held it for him, and he looked up and said, in his boy-
ish way, "I say, hang it all, you mustn't wait on me like
this. I'm not used to this sort of thing."
"Do as you're bid and don't be chid," said Mother
Hubbard. "Kitty, my dear, leave the child to me, and
don't interfere."
"Oh yes," said Katherine. "You're enjoying yourself,
aren't you ! You're like an old hen with a new chick."
Quin, the dramatic critic, was at the piano running his
fingers softly over the keys. Presently he began to sing,
in a soft tenor, a little French ballad, light and dainty,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
with a gay lilt, until the last verse, when it went into
minor with a pitiful plaint.
There was silence when he had finished, and then Kath-
erine said in a low voice, "Oh, Quinny, there was a broken
heart in that ! I heard it go crack in the last line." She
had set herself down on the floor and was leaning her
head against the piano. Frank thought she looked in her
white frock like one of Jane Austen's heroines Elizabeth
in Pride and Prejudice.
"A poor thing," said Quin, twisting round on the music-
stool, "but mine own."
A man in a Norfolk jacket was propped up against the
wall with his knees tucked up, and a sketching-block on
them. He was a dark bullet-headed man with black,
merry eyes and a comical mouth.
"Keep like that, Miss Halstead," he said. "You look
jolly well. There's a rippin' light and shade on that light
gown of yours."
"I dare say," said Katherine. "And if you could draw
I've no doubt I should make a pretty picture, Finger."
"Don't be cheeky," said the man, "or I'll make you
ugly. Oh crickey! If this don't make an advertisement
for Bile Beans my name isn't Ping- Pong!"
Katherine jumped up and seizing a "Shilling Album
of Popular Favourites" threw it at his head with unerring
aim. It knocked off the artist's pince-nez, and then he
flung the book back again. It overturned one of the can-
dles on the piano and smashed its shade. Quin, who was
singing again to an accompaniment of deep, long-drawn
chords, puffed the candle out at the end of a tremolo note
and began the second verse.
"Who's going to pay?" cried Miss Hubbard.
"It is a fight to a finish," said the artist, with set teeth,
catching a cushion which came Uiirtling from Katherine's
hands.
io8 THE STREET OF. ADVENTURE
"We'll settle up afterwards. Gee-whiz ! one to me !"
The cushion struck Katherine full in the chest, and
made her reel for a moment.
Frank rose from his seat and said, "Isn't this going too
far?" His fists closed and he made a movement as if
he were going to punch the artist's head. Miss Hub-
bard laughed quietly and went on with the crochet work,
which she was doing with nimble fingers as she sat in a
high-backed wooden chair.
"It's all right. They will probably break up the flat,
but Kitty would rather die than give in."
Christopher Codrington opened his eyes and watched
the struggle with languid interest.
"I don't approve of this horse-play," he said. "It is
so extremely bad for one's clothes."
Brandon, the crime expert, was playing a game of chess
opposite a tiny man with a freckled face and a fair, fluffy
moustache brushed upwards, who had his head down
close to the board, at which he stared with stabbing, steel-
grey eyes and a ferocious frown. The combat came near
them Katherine was attacking the artist by assault and
battery, with the cushion held tightly in both hands. Her
face was flushed and her eyes were lighted with the fierce
joy of onslaught. The artist was making a strategic
move to the rear, with a right arm held up in defence.
Suddenly he backed right on to the chess-table, and sent
the chessmen bouncing off the board in all directions,
while the table collapsed under him. Katherine was on
him in a moment stuffing her pillow over his head and
face, regardless of the yell of rage from Brandon and his
companion.
"Ten thousand devils," said Brandon. "I should have
checkmated him in three moves."
"What !" cried the miniature man, whom Luttrell after-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 109
wards knew to be the most famous sporting editor in
London. "I had all the running from the start !"
They quarrelled violently over the split chessmen.
Katherine was pummelling the head of her victim, who
sat grovelling in the wreckage and pleading for mercy
with half -suffocated laughter and plaintive groans. As
an accompaniment to the din could be heard Quin's deep
chords on the piano, and a love-song, thrilling in low and
passionate strains. Miss Hubbard had stopped her cro-
chet, and was standing up with one hand on Luttrell's
shoulder, laughing excitedly.
"Is this game often played?" said Luttrell, who was
leaning forward also, gazing at the flushed face, the lithe,
graceful figure, the flashing, exultant eyes of Katherine
Halstead. He drew a deep breath, and his pulse seemed
to thump in his brain. The girl was like a young Greek
goddess taking divine vengeance. But he felt uneasy.
There was something which rather hurt him in the sight
of this struggle between Katherine and the artist. He
would not have minded, perhaps, if he had been the artist,
who had seized one of her wrists while she pummelled
him with the silk pillow in her right hand.
"Oh, it's good to laugh/' said Miss Hubbard, surveying
the scene with beaming eyes, although one leg of her
chess-table was lying loose. "If it wouldn't spoil sport, I
would like to join in."
Codrington rose quietly and went over to Katherine,
taking her other wrist as she was about to give the death-
blow to her quarry.
"The quality of mercy is not strained," he said. "It
droppeth as the gentle dew from Heaven upon the place
beneath."
"Let me go, Chris," said Katherine. "I will hit you."
"Hit one of your own size, fair lady," said Codring-
ton. He took both her wrists now as the artist struggled
no THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
to his feet, and though she tried to release herself, held
her tight, and smiled down at her in his pale, sardonic
way.
"You cannot go," he said. "You cannot escape from
me, wild bird."
Katherine Halstead's face flamed scarlet and then went
rather white.
"Chris," she said in a low voice. "Let go of my hands,
or I shall be really angry."
For a moment it seemed to Luttrell that the girl's eyes
had filled with tears, and as Codrington released her she
put both hands to her breast, panting a little.
But then she turned to the artist and laughed at him,
so that Luttrell knew he had been mistaken about her
tears. But how quick and transient were her moods !
"Confess you were badly beaten, Mr. Finger."
"I give up the physical force argument against women's
suffrage," said the artist, smoothing his crumpled hair.
"There's nothing in it. Men are mere weaklings com-
pared with modern females who call themselves women."
There was a new voice in the room. It came from the
doorway, and said
"God bless you, my children. Peace be unto this
house."
There was a sudden silence. Quin stopped playing
with a jumble of notes as his hands rested on the keys.
Miss Hubbard turned her head sharply towards the door,
and then with a little gasp sat down suddenly.
"Well-I-never-did-you-ever !" she said.
All eyes were turned upon a man who stood in the door-
way.
It was a short man in a grey suit, with a bowler hat in
his hand, and a big brown-paper parcel under his arm.
The light from a hanging electric light gleamed upon a
high forehead and a head going bald on top. He had the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE in
clean-shaven face of a comic actor, with a whimsical
mouth, and the blue-grey eyes of a poet or a philosopher,
rather wistful and dreamy and sad in spite of the smile
in them. He wore a low collar round a rather bony neck,
and a yellow tie; his grey trousers were baggy at the
knees, and he had heavy boots on. At the first glimpse
he looked like a music-hall "artiste" who would probably
produce a tame rabbit, or some conjuring boxes, from
his brown-paper bag. At the second glimpse he looked
like a social idealist who lives on brown bread and cod-
liver oil. At the third glimpse it was clear that he was a
gentleman, and probably a scholar. There was intellect
behind his huge forehead, and the indefinable imprint of
thought and study on his serio-comic face.
"In the name of all that is wonderful," said Brandon,
"how did you get here? Three days ago I saw your
name under a telegram from Turkey."
"Hush. Not a word !" said the little man. "I am in
Turkey at the present moment, pulling the wires of the
new Constitution. I am not due in London for another
twenty-four hours. It is only my ethereal being which
has come to wish Mother Hubbard many happy returns
of the day.
He went over to Margaret Hubbard and took both her
hands as she rose and came towards him.
"Dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "I have bribed Cus-
tom House officials, and the captains of steam-boats, and
had desperate adventures to escape from the Young
Turks and Persian poison-mongers in order to be in time
for your birthday party."
"Well done !" said Margaret Hubbard. "Well done !"
The man and woman looked at each other with an ex-
pression of frank comradeship.
Was this Mother Hubbard's romance? thought Frank
Luttrell.
H2 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Katherine had clasped the little man's arm.
"And what about me?" she said.
"What, little Kitty? Not in bed yet? Snakes alive!
what is Mother Hubbard thinking about ?" He took her
hand and kissed it with old-fashioned gallantry.
"My dear," he said, "you grow prettier every time I see
you."
The men had crowded round him, and he had a hand-
clasp for each and a word or two.
"What, Brandon! how many murderers have you
tracked down lately, you ghoulish old corpse-hunter?
And, Codrington ! when are you going to stop growing,
man? Sure now, boys, and don't he look beautiful to-
night! Georgian furniture, eh what? And there is
queer Mr. Quin, if my eyes deceive me not ! Still sing-
ing amorous ballads of his own concoction, inspired by
his latest little Gaiety girl. Finger, the lightning artist
. . . and little Birkenshaw, greatest of sportsmen. . . .
Well done! This is just the merry party I saw in my
mind's eye from Constantinople to Blackf riars Bridge."
He turned to Katherine. "My dear, will you unwrap
that pedlar's pack? I come with gifts from the East,
rubbish gathered in Oriental bazaars, thoroughly disin-
fected and duty paid."
Katherine snipped at the string, bringing upon herself
a rebuke from Margaret Hubbard, who had a moral ob-
jection to cutting a knot. She went down on her knees
and the men gathered round.
The brown paper was unwrapped and in the folds of a
beautiful Persian rug, of exquisite colour-harmonies, lay
a number of trinkets.
"Oh, oh!" cried Katherine, holding up a string of
pearls. "Here's a pretty thing, now what shall we do
with this pretty thing?"
"What else but put it round a pretty neck?" said the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 113
newcomer, and taking it from her he suited the action
to the word.
"For me ?" cried Katherine ; "or for the princess of an
Arabian Night?"
As Katherine was on her knees on the carpet, with the
trinkets scattered about her and the rope of pearls round
her neck in her white dress with its little waves of tucks
and lace, her face glowing with excitement, and deepened
in colour by the red firelight she seemed to Frank Lut-
trell like Marguerite in the Jewel Scene. And for a
moment as Christopher Codrington stood by her side,
with an arm on the mantelpiece, his thin lips curved into
a smile, as he looked down upon her, it seemed to Frank
also that Mephistopheles was not far away. He won-
dered why Codrington's tall figure and cold, classical
face sometimes gave him a "creepy" sensation and filled
him with an unaccountable uneasiness.
"I had an impression," said Margaret Hubbard serious-
ly, "that this was my birthday party, Mr. Edmund Grat-
tan."
"True for you, ma'am, Miss Katherine is quite out of
order. Permit me to lay this at your feet. It is the
magic carpet of Baghdad. You have but to sit on the
cluster of roses with your toes pointing to the east, and
you shall be conveyed to the uttermost ends of the earth,
as soon as the wish is shaped within your spirit. Sure
now, and I'm not telling you any untruth."
On the Persian rug were some sandal boxes, a curious
metal charm, some soft silks and gold thread embroid-
eries, and the Irishman told the company to take their
choice in return for a cigarette and a cup of Mother Hub-
bard's coffee, which he said was always more fragrant
than any he had tasted in Constantinople itself.
In a few minutes the company had arranged itself into
different grouping. Codrington lay at full length before
114 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
the fire, and Quin sat on the coal-scuttle with his knees
tucked up, like Robin Good fellow on a toadstool. Kath-
erine was sitting on the Persian carpet with one arm on
the knee of Edmund Grattan the Irishman, who held the
central position before the fire in a low-backed chair.
Brandon, the criminologist, was perched on a swinging
bookcase kicking the Encyclopedia Britannica with his
heels, while his grave, youngish-old face, on which the
memory of some tragedy seemed always brooding, was
lighted from above by the candles, with deep shadows
under the eyes. Birkenshaw, the sporting editor, sat
astride a Chippendale chair the only one of its kind in
the room which had obviously been furnished out of sec-
ond-hand shops like D'Artagnan on his Gascon colt.
Finger, the artist, was lying on his stomach with his body
underneath the Chippendale chair, his elbows dug into
the floor, and his black bullet head and square jowl sup-
ported in the palms of his hands. Luttrell himself was
on the other side of Katherine, on the music-stool, and
Margaret Hubbard moved about in her quiet, thoughtful,
practical way, getting coffee for Grattan, and sandwiches,
chocolate, toffee, and tarts for the other men. Katherine
was the Mary, and Margaret the Martha, of that flat,
and Luttrell's eyes wandered from one to the other, read-
ing the character of these two women who had allowed
him to enter the circle of their lives. Once or twice, as
Margaret passed, Katherine caressed her hand, and then
as the elder of the two stayed for a moment by her side
Katherine put her arm round her waist and snuggled her
brown head against the soft folds of Margaret's black silk
dress. Mother Hubbard, as she was called, stooped down
and kissed Katherine's hair, and Luttrell was strangely
moved by that simple message. He had already seen how
Margaret Hubbard's face was illuminated by a kind of
mysterious love when she looked at the younger girl. He
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 115
was glad that Katherine lived with Mother Hubbard.
There was protection and safety and a sanctuary for a
restless heart in the guardianship of that woman with the
steady brown eyes and the ugly-beautiful face. Kather-
ine disquieted him, made his pulse beat quickly, made him
almost wish that he had not come to this birthday party.
The thought of her pillow fight with Finger the artist dis-
turbed him. The fellow had treated her roughly, as
though she were a torn-boy sister. He did not under-
stand that momentary scene when Codrington had held
her wrists and smiled at her in his peculiar way until
she had become angry, really angry, with sparks in her
eyes, and then, as it seemed afraid. He hardly liked to
see her now with her arm on Grattan's knee, as though
he were her elder brother. And yet, there was no trace
of vulgarity in her manner, no faintest suggestion of
coarseness. She had the purity and the innocence and
the carelessness of a girl of fifteen in short frocks, who
is not ashamed of her long legs and black stockings, and
does not give a thought to the proprieties. Yet she was
not like a young girl in her swiftly-changing moods that
seemed to trouble her spirit like a water-brook stirred
by the lights and shadows of a wind-swept sky. One
moment she was gay, with laughing merriment, and then
wistful, or scornful, or with a melting tenderness, or
dreamy, or excited, or caressing, as the conversation
eddied and swirled round many subjects, or was inter-
rupted by short silences.
Luttrell listened to that conversation, taking no part in
it. Edmund Grattan, the Irishman, was the leader. He
told stories of strange adventures which had happened
to him during recent months in Turkey and Persia and
the Balkans, where he seemed to have been the onlooker
of seething movements of revolt and reform. He spoke
vividly, with a quiet humour and with an undercurrent
Ii6 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
of enthusiasm for the spirit of liberty. He told of Palace
intrigues, of mob passion, and passion of another kind
in which Eastern men and women had been scorched in
the hot fire of love. He described adventures in narrow
alleys between whitewashed houses with high windows,
and in taverns where quick words had been followed by
sharp blows, and where cheap blood had flowed as well
as cheap wine. As he spoke the flat in Shaftesbury Ave-
nue was filled with garishly-coloured pictures of Oriental
scenes, in which silken turbans and robes of gold-shot
silk and dark liquid eyes behind transparent veils, and
jewel-hilted daggers, and the red fez of Turkish officers,
and moving masses of dark-skinned people in the fantas-
tic, many-coloured costumes of Eastern bazaars, passed
before the imagination of those who listened to the Irish-
man's words. Then, after the grim tale of a tragedy in
which Grattan had stumbled over the white corpse of a
beautiful Persian woman in a room hung with rich tap-
estries and fragrant with the scent of sandal wood it
seemed like a new chapter of The Thousand and One
Nights the conversation became general, and changed
from Eastern politics and drama to the street of adven-
ture at home. Luttrell knew none of the personalities
discussed except those of Silas Bellamy and Vicary, and
he listened, not always understanding, to the strange
and fascinating jargon of newspaper life. Whenever
pressmen are gathered together they talk "shop." That
is the dullest kind of talk in most ways of business, but
the "shop" of newspaper men deals with the humanities
and human nature. It is the technical language of men
who are behind the scenes of high politics and low crimes,
and all contemporary history. It is the argot of men who
belong to a secret brotherhood, in which there are pass-
words unknown to the outside world. It is the "shop"
of men and women who are insulted by the flunkeys of so-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 117
ciety, but who know the secrets of courts; who are un-
protected by the common rights of justice, who have
no security of tenure, who are the voluntary victims of
the most cruel form of individualism. It is the language
of a world where reputations are quickly made and quick-
ly lost, where intellects and temperaments are bought by
men having none of either, and used up, until the dry
husks of what were once throbbing brains and hearts are
thrown upon the scrap-heap of broken lives.
Grattan had only been abroad for three months, but
during that time newspapers had changed hands, new
men sat in the seats of the mighty, old friends had
gone under, one warm heart was as cold as the clay that
lay upon it, a baker's dozen had got the "sack" from one
"rag." But there had been some fun. Brandon had put
another man's head into a collar of hemp. He had made a
present of his clues to the police, who, as usual, were not
grateful. Brandon also had a new and true story to tell.
It was called "The Coffin that came Back." Katherine
objected to it so late at night. Christopher Codrington
had actually got a big scoop. How he had obtained the
secret of the new War Office scheme was a romance not
to be told to walls which had ears. Naturally there was
a beautiful lady in the case. Silas Bellamy was still
smiling and polishing his nails, but there was an uneasy
feeling in the office that all was not well with the Rag.
The ads. were dropping off and the Proprietor looked like
Hamlet in search of his uncle. There was a low tem-
perature at the Club. The dismissal of Billy Bramshaw
from the rival show was about the most damnable thing
that had ever been done in the street. He was now
drinking himself to death.
"It makes me weep tears of rage," said Katherine.
Edmund Grattan leant forward on his elbows and
stared into the fire.
n8 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Poor old Billy !" he said. "One of the best ! I must
have a talk with him. Lifting the elbow, is he ?"
He seemed upset by the last story, and a curious look
of sadness and shame crept into his face. Luttrell knew
afterwards the meaning of that look. Grattan himself
sometimes drank himself to the edge of death. There
were periods when he disappeared suddenly for a week or
so. Nobody knew where he was, and nobody asked. Or
if anybody asked, being a newcomer, he was told that
"Grattan was looking for his wife." She had gone from
him one night fifteen years ago, and he went to find her
in low drinking bars down East, where with his head
on his arms, and with bloodshot eyes, he saw her again
indier beauty, and heard the voice that was like the run-
ning water of the silver brooks of Ballyhinton, and
drowned his soul in the silent pools of the eyes that had
been the mirrors of his heart, fifteen years ago.
"Quick !" he said, "let us put the thought of such things
away from us. It is Mother Hubbard's birthday, bless
her dear soul. Draw up closer to the fire, boys. We'll
be little children again, and tell fairy-tales, and forget the
damned old world outside the window curtains."
"Oh," said Katherine. "There are no fairy-tales like
yours. They bewitch the little white soul out of my
body."
"I will tell you the tale of Etain," said Grattan. "I
heard it first to the music of a spinning-wheel in a cabin
of Connemara, where a woman who was my mother sat
in a circle of six bare-legged girls and one boy, who was
myself."
"Eochaid, the glorious son of Finn, who was supreme
lord over Erin, once saw a maid at the brink of a spring.
A clear comb of silver was held in her hand, the comb
was adorned with gold, and near her as for washing was
a basin of silver whereon four birds had been chased. A
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 119
tunic she wore with a long hood ; it was stiff and glossy
with green silk beneath red embroidery of gold, and it
was clasped over her breasts with marvellously-wrought
clasps of silver and gold, so that men saw the bright gold
and the green silk flashing against the sun. On her head
were two tresses of golden hair, and each tress had been
plaited into four strands; at the end of each strand was
a little ball of gold. And there was that maiden undoing
her hair that she might wash it, her two arms stuck out
through the armholes of her smock. Each of her two
arms was as white as the snow of a single night, and each
of her cheeks was as rosy as the foxglove. Even and
small were the teeth in her head, and they shone lik'i
pearls. Her eyes were blue as a hyacinth, her lips deli-
cate and crimson ; very high and soft and white were her
shoulders. Tender, polished and white were her wrists ;
her fingers long and of great whiteness; her nails were
beautiful and pink. White as the snow, or as the foam
of the wave, was her side; long was it, slender, and as
soft as silk. Smooth and white were her thighs; her
knees were round and firm and white; her ankles were
as straight as the rule of a carpenter. Her feet were
slim; evenly set were her eyes; her eyebrows were of a
bluish-black, such as you see upon the shell of a beetle.
Never a maid fairer than she, or more worthy of love,
was till then seen by the eyes of men; and it seemed to
them that she must be one of those who have come from
the fairy mounds."
"I must set that to music," said Quin.
"It is a poem," said Codrington ; "I must make a note
of some of those similes, 'Her eyes were as blue as a hya-
cinth.' That reminds me of someone I know." He
turned on his side as he lay on the rug before the fire and
looked over at Katherine.
120 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
She drooped her eyes and said, "Go on, what happened
to the beautiful Etain?"
Margaret Hubbard raised her hand.
"No," she said, "don't go on, there is the telephone."
"I guess Vicary is at the end of the wire," said Bran-
don. "That's to fetch me to a murder. I'll be hanged
if I go."
Margaret Hubbard had the receiver to her ear.
"Yes," she said, "they are all here. . . . What, all
three of them? Oh, heartless! . . . Poor boys. . . .
Oh yes, / know. Loyalty to the Rag, and all that. A
precious lot of good it does them! . . . Oh, you may
trust me !"
She laughed, banged down the receiver, and clapped her
hands.
"Mr. Brandon, Mr. Codrington, Mr. Luttrell !"
The three men stood up.
"What's happened?" said Codrington, wiping a little
moisture off his high forehead.
"There's a tremendous fire at New Cross. You must
go down at once. Vicary says it's a big story, and you
will all be wanted. He will have the motor-car ready for
you as soon as you get round to the Rag"
Brandon was already in his overcoat, which he had
dashed for at the word "fire." Codrington was more
leisurely, and maintained his cold dignity.
"Come on, Luttrell," said Brandon.
Margaret Hubbard fled into the next room, and brought
out one silk and two woollen scarves. She gave the silk
one to Katherine. "Tie that round Mr. Luttrell's neck,"
she said, and set the example by swathing Codrington in
the woollen wrap.
Katherine darted to Frank and wound the scarf round
his throat, tucking the ends of it over his chest. Her
face was close to his, and he drank in the fragrance of
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 121
her breath. Her white hands were patting down the
silken tie, and she drew him closer towards her as she
pulled the ends tighter. Frank thought of the music of
Grattan's fairy-tale.
"Tender, polished and white were her wrists, her fin-
gers long and of great whiteness, her nails were beautiful
and pink."
For a moment he was intoxicated. He would have
given his soul to clasp his arms about that girl who was
so close to his breast. She was Etain, of whom Grattan
had told them. "Never a maid fairer than she, or more
worthy of love." He wanted to lift up the soft chin and
look into the eyes that were "blue as a hyacinth," and to
kiss those lips "delicate and crimson." For one moment
Frank Luttrell went mad, as many men do, for one mo-
ment, which gives them time enough to commit a murder,
or to conceive a poem.
"Thanks awfully/' he said, "you are very good."
"It is frightfully cold outside," said Katherine. "And
you have been sitting near the fire."
She looked at him with a kind of pitiful concern.
"I hope you are not delicate on the chest."
"Good lord, no," said Frank. "I say, what's all this?"
Margaret Hubbard was filling his pockets with biscuits
and sweets. The pockets of Codrington and Brandon
were already bulging.
"They will be a comfort to you. Perhaps you'll get
nothing to eat until the morning." She clapped her hands
again. "Now off with you ! I gave my word of honour
to Vicary. Hark-away !"
Grattan, Quin, Finger and Birkenshaw were standing
with their backs to the fire, laughing at the scene of
flurry.
"The same old game," said Grattan. "Truth, and it's
a wonderful life !"
122 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
As they went out of the flat, with Margaret Hubbard at
the door, Codrington lingered behind for a moment in the
passage, and bent down to kiss Katherine. She seemed
reluctant, and held her face half turned away, but Cod-
rington touched her cheek with his lips. Frank Luttrell
turned away from the light in the flat and stumbled down
the dark stairway.
CHAPTER VIII
I THINK few men were ever so quickly inoculated with
the subtle poison of Fleet Street as young Frank Luttrellj
His temperament could not withstand it, and I had the
melancholy satisfaction of seeing that all my forebodings
about him were realised. To those who have never lived
in the Street of Adventure, having only passed down its
highway to St. Paul's or Charing Cross, it is difficult to
explain the effect which its atmosphere has upon educated
men of highly- strung temperament. It produces some-
thing, of the same symptoms as the drug habit. The vic-
tim loathes the poison, but craves for it. He knows that
he is yielding to a habit of life which will inevitably drag
him down, and he is filled with self-pity and remorse ; but
if the phial is withheld from him he becomes feverish,
restless and miserable. As with the opium-smoker all his
higher instincts tell him to avoid his evil haunts. He
knows that the temporary thrill of excitement will be fol-
lowed by deadly depression, and by the degradation of his
intellect and imagination, and that his will-power will be
inevitably weakened so that at last it will be impossible
to break or attempt to break his habit of life. Such a
simile would be laughed at by men who have breathed
the atmosphere of Fleet Street all their working lives.
They have never known the purer air. They have been
so long fettered that at last like enslaved animals they lick
their chains.
But Frank was one who had been brought up on the
mountain-tops, figuratively as regards education and
ideals; literally among green fields far away from Fleet
123
124 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Street, in the heart of the country, among simple souls, in
an environment of beauty, in the peace of nature's soli-
tudes. He had drunk deep of the spiritual wine that is
in the holy wells of life. His mother had first held the
cup to his lips when as a small boy lying on the old black
bearskin by the Rectory fire she had told him stories of
saints and heroes and the gentlemen of history. His
father had given him the key to the wine-chest of the
divine vintage when he had unlocked the glass cases of
his book-shelves and said, "Frank, my boy, here is the
wisdom of the world, and of all ages. I have read all
these books some of them a hundred times and I envy
you because you have read none of them. I would give
much how much I wonder ? to begin the banquet with
the thirst of youth!" Frank had read many of those
books, beginning with The Thousand cmd One Nights, in
the fork of the oldest apple-tree in the Rectory orchard,
in the hayloft above the barn and in his own small bed-
room, where a shelf put up by his own hands held his own
cherished volumes, which at every Christmas and every
birthday increased in number. Then, as a small boy with
big, serious eyes and curls about his head, he had dreamed
of writing books which other boys would put under their
pillows at night. Later, while the years passed, he had
gone wandering through the enchanted wood of knowl-
edge and fancy, where poets sang to him and wizards
weaved their spells about him ; where he plucked flowers
of many colours and good fruit. Sometimes he had
pricked his fingers with sharp thorns, and pulled up weeds
thinking they were flowers, and had lost his way in dark
and noisome places from which he shrank back shudder-
ing. But then he had gone on seeing bright visions be-
fore him, dreaming gay dreams, seeking the spirit of
beauty with her glistening skirts and the golden glamour
of her divine presence. At Oxford he left the enchanted
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 125
wood behind, though its memories and its visions were
unforgettable. He came face to face with some of the
actualities of life and grappled or dodged the demons of
doubt. But at Oxford and in the Abbey School of
King's Marshwood he had still been an idealist. He lived
more with books than with men, with books which rilled
him with a new enthusiasm for the music of thought and
words, for the fine perfection of a polished phrase, for
the mystical beauty which lies beyond the reach of art.
In his rooms he had attempted to express, feebly and
unsuccessfully at first, something of his own tempera-
ment, groping his way to the heart of his own mystery.
He tried to hold some of the strange, thrilling moments
which at the sight of a sunset over the Abbey Tower, or
in the silence of a wood, or on a hill top where the birds
rose singing from the grass, stirred his senses with emo-
tions which he could only dimly understand. Gradually
the art of expression caught hold of him. He experi-i
enced the joy of technique. He became an adventurer
with words and ideas. With the audacity of youth, yet
not without humility, he began to believe that he might
one day take a place in the world of letters and write his
name on some small stone of that great temple in which
he had worshipped since his childhood, when his mother
had read him the story of Marathon and his father had
recited Chapman's Homer to him up the white winding
path which led to the hill-top.
Then life had called to him, suddenly and with an ap-
peal which he had to obey. He must get into the heart of
life before he could become a man of letters. He must
know and see and suffer before he could be a truthteller.
So after tilting at windmills as a freelance Frank came
to Fleet Street. From Arcadia he had come into Alsatia.
I think, indeed I am sure, that after a few weeks he knew
he had left the hill-tops for the mire. To a man of his
126 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
training and temperament Fleet Street was a place of
torture. A man who has read poetry and learnt it by
heart cannot be content with writing paragraphs about
cats at the Crystal Palace and murders in Whitechapel
and fat boys at Peckham. A man who has been be-
witched by word-music does not find it easy to read an
article of his own writing which has been slashed up by
blue pencils and left with jolting sentences and discon-
nected phrases. A man who has seen bright visions in
enchanted woods does not go joyfully into mean streets,
into the squalor and filth of human by-ways. Other men
of education and ideals would not have suffered so
acutely. With stronger fibre they would have resisted
the influence of such a life more manfully, but Frank
was so sensitive that every nerve in him quivered at the
least touch. Every rebuff in a profession, where rebuffs
are constant, hurt him frightfully. Every insult, in a
life of ceaseless insults, left him with an open wound.
To be born a gentleman, with instincts of pride and dig-
nity and delicacy, is the greatest misfortune to those who
write history day by day.
Frank was unfortunate in being a gentleman and some-
thing of a scholar. It was not easy for him to suffer the
crack of the whip in the hands of his chief Vicary, who,
in spite of being a genial and good-hearted man, was, on
account of the system, a relentless slave-driver. But that
was endurable in comparison to the daily torture of work
which compelled him to cringe to flunkeys, to be polite
to low scoundrels, to smile in the face of liars, to listen
patiently to the egotism of fools, to gloss over the horrors
and villainies with which he came in daily contact.
Physically Frank was at a pitiful disadvantage. He
was not a weakling. When I had seen him at King's
Marshwood I had admired his straight back, his lithe
figure, the beautiful bronze of his face and hands. But
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 127
he was like a fine Toledo blade which was not made for
chopping wood. His spirit was so delicate, so highly-
strung, that his body suffered. The life of a descriptive
writer on a newspaper is the severest test of strength.
The irregularity of hours, which often kept him out till
the small hours of the morning, and sometimes made him
drag a tired body out of a bed hardly warm, told upon
him. The irregularity of his meals was even more dan-
gerous to a finely-tempered constitution, and often he
would go without food so long that he lost his appetite
and satisfied it with a cigarette.
He became worn, restless, rather fretful. But the
poison worked in him. He laughed bitterly as he de-
scribed to me the daily disappointment and the insuffer-
able conditions of his new life, yet when I suggested that
he should break with it and get back to peace and a coun-
try school he confessed that Fleet Street had "got hold
of him." Although he was angry when after a dciy's
exciting work Vicary sent him off on an evening engage-
ment, he was much more distressed if, as often happens
in Fleet Street, he was compelled to spend a day or two
in utter idleness. Other men, like Brandon and Codring-
ton, enjoyed the spell of inactivity, smoking innumerable
pipes or cigarettes, playing innumerable games of chess,
reading novels or papers, and discussing with interminable
arguments the influence of Meredith, the art of Oscar
Wilde, the characteristics of Marie Corelli, the latest
murder trial, or a new detective story. Frank being new
to the system was worried by a day of do-nothing. He
could not understand it. He became uneasy and ill-at-
ease, and doubted whether he was earning his salary.
He brought down books to the office, but found that he
lost his taste for reading. He thought of writing some-
thing in his leisure hours, a novel, or some more essays
for the Spectator. But he was unused to working in a
128 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
room where men were fighting duels with indiarubber
bands on rulers, or practising the strangle-grip, or ju-
jitsu, or watching a chess-combat with a running fire of
comment, sarcasm and impertinent advice. Sometimes
when he had an evening alone in his rooms at Staple Inn
he sat down before blank sheets of paper with the idea
of writing something that would satisfy his desire of ar-
tistic expression, but the thought of the day's adventures
prevented all concentration of mind, and he would find
himself going back again and again to some new phase
of life which had been revealed to him, to an interview
with some public man or woman, or to office scenes in
which he had played the part of onlooker.
That also worried him. Frank knew that his col-
leagues held aloof from him. They were polite, they
were quite pleasant, but they made him feel that he was
not one of them. He wondered why. He was almost
weak in his desire to get their friendship and goodfellow-
ship. He had a yearning to be on equal terms with them,
and to be one of "the boys," as they called each other.
But he was conscious that when he came into the room
conversation which had been hilarious toned down a lit-
tle, that a man telling a funny story with dramatic ges-
tures concluded it in half tones. If he ventured some
remark, in a hesitating way, there was a momentary pause
before they answered it. Frank could not help seeing
that these men, with one or two exceptions, looked upon
him as a prig, as a fellow who gave himself superior
airs. Yet in reality he had no feeling of superiority to
these men. He was filled with a deep admiration for
them, for the pluck, and high spirits and knowledge of
the world, and splendid camaraderie among themselves.
The truth is that in spite of his humility and quiet good-
humour the staff of the Rag knew that Frank Luttrell was
different from them. Intuitively they knew him to be a
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 129
man who had ideals which they had long cast off but did
not despise. They saw that he had a delicacy and re-
finement of spirit which unfitted him for the coarse tex-
ture of a life in Fleet Street. His handsome, sensitive
face, the Oxford manner which he had not yet got rid of,
his politeness and seriousness, made them feel slightly un-
comfortable. They had been coarsened, and they were
never polite. They insulted each other deliberately and
brutally, knowing that their words would have no effect
on a tough skin and would be accepted as a sign of good
spirits. Cynicism had become a habit with them, and
they felt uneasy in the presence of a colleague who winced
when they discussed sacred subjects with light-hearted
irreverence and flushed like a girl when they indulged in
Rabelaisian humour. Yet they did not dislike Frank
Luttrell. On the contrary they pitied him secretly, and
were sorry when they saw how quickly he was being
worn and torn by the condition of a career which to
most of them had become a second nature. They had no
illusions left. They, who had started with literary ambi-
tions, had long ago abandoned them. They regarded ev-
erything as "part of the day's work," put up with its
hardships, swore terrible oaths when the screw was too
severe, but found a grim amusement even in their own
most miserable experiences, and prided themselves on
"playing the game." On the whole they found life amus-
ing enough and took it laughing. Among themselves
they discussed Frank Luttrell with curiosity, and found
his psychology interesting.
"He is one of those fellows who will probably break
his heart with disappointed ambition, fall in love with
the wrong woman, lose his job at the end of a few years,
and end his days in a lunatic asylum. They're no use
to us in Fleet Street."
That was the cruel summing up of one of the reporters,
130 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
a middle-aged man named Braithwaite, who had once
been the news-editor of a Conservative paper on 15 a
week, and was now doing the law-courts for the Liberal
organ on a third of that salary.
Brandon, the crime expert, had a different theory.
"Luttrell will probably kick the dust of Fleet Street
off his shoes, go down to a cottage in Cornwall, and write
a novel of a morbid character which will give delicious
thrills to maiden ladies. ... I like the boy. He is a
sentimentalist and something of a mystic. He has almost
a feminine gift of sympathy. We haven't enough of 'em
now-a-days, and none at all down this alley, barring him-
self."
"I agree with Braithwaite regarding the love-story/'
said Codrington. "He is predestined to a hopeless pas-
sion. Melancholy grey-blue eyes like his are very appeal-
ing to women. Women always have soul-adventures
with eyes like that, but in the end they generally marry a
brute with optics like motor-goggles. That is why I am
still a bachelor. Luttrell and I are in the same boat."
"Well, as long'as you are not both after the same girl,"
said Braithwaite, with a rough guffaw.
Codrington flushed uneasily.
"You have no manners, Braithwaite."
Brandon and Codrington were the only men in the of-
fice with whom Luttrell became in any way intimate.
They took him out with them occasionally to a Bohemian
restaurant in Soho which seemed to be a rendezvous for
pressmen. Luttrell found the conversation of these men
over the table of an almost haunting interest to him.
Both of them had had the strangest adventures. Both
of them seemed to know life in the lowest haunts. Both
of them seemed to be strangely familiar with thieves and
detectives, and pugilists, and queer characters of the
sporting world. In a language which was almost unintel-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 131
ligible to Luttrell they described famous prize-fights and
races where horses had been "pulled." They knew the
history of crimes of which he had never heard, and told
life-stories of law-breakers who for certain reasons had
never been "lagged" by the police, though the evidence
was clear against them. They seemed to have a familiar
acquaintance with all the scandals of society, and entered
into arguments about causes celebres in which they knew
the parties on either side. But often the xonversation
turned upon literature and drama, and to LuttrelPs sur-
prise he found that Brandon, who professionally seemed
exclusively interested in crime, was a devoted admirer of
Meredith, whose works he seemed to know by heart. He
had an intimate knowledge of the mid- Victorian novelists
and an almost religious reverence for Jane Austen, who
he maintained was the greatest artist that had ever lived.
Codrington was curiously inconsistent in his literary idol-
atry. He held up Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett as the
models for all time and all ages, but in violent contrast
idolised certain modern writers whom Brandon declared
to be "decadent," and of whom Luttrell had to confess
complete ignorance. Codrington had strange theories
about literary art and life. He declared that life itself
should be shaped according to literary ideals, and that
every man should mould himself upon some type found
in one of the great masterpieces. "The art of life," said
Codrington, "is to adopt a pose, or, if you like to call it
so, an ideal, and to be consistent in one's endeavor to
make that pose so perfect that it becomes natural. For
instance, Luttrell there should adopt the David Copper-
field type, which of course is really Charles Dickens as a
young man. He should wear his hair longer, and collars
open at the throat, with a black stock round his neck. He
should certainly wear" straps to his trousers, and a tall hat
with a rather curly brim. He has got all the rest inside
132 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
him : the sentiment, the serious ideals, the sensitiveness to
environment, the facility for falling in love with the Dora
type of woman, and the temperament which would make
such a woman a torture to him if he ever marries."
"Thanks !" said Luttrell, rather taken aback by this
fanciful analysis of his character. "If what you say is
true, I will avoid that particular pose strenuously."
"My dear fellow," said Codrington, "you don't under-
stand. You must be true to type. You must be artistic
in the treatment of your own personality. If you avoid
the right pose, you become a nonenity, or a bungled thing.
Look at Martin Harvey; he would be nothing at all if
some one had not told him that he was the living image
of Sydney Carton in the Tale of Two Cities as drawn by
Frank Barnard. He owes his whole success to the care-
ful adaptation of his personality to that type."
"What is your type?" asked Luttrell.
"Ah !" said Codrington. He played with his seals for
a moment, and then took a pinch of snuff out of a small
enamelled box. "Study the eighteenth-century novelists ;
you will find me there."
Luttrell wanted to find the twentieth-century man be-
hind his eighteenth-century mask. He wanted to know,
with anxious curiosity, what was in the heart and brain of
this tall, handsome fellow who behaved with such care-
fully-studied languor and elegance, who contrived to get
even into his hastily-written "copy" a curious touch of
old-fashioned pedantry, and quaint conceited little phrases
which suggested an eighteenth-century essay in The Gen-
tleman's Magazine. . . He wanted to know, above all things,
what were his exact relations with Katherine Halstead,
with whom he seemed always to be quarrelling in a mock-
ing spirit, and yet to whom he behaved also with an un-
derlying tenderness and gallantry. There was some secret
understanding between them. They were often together.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 133
He had met them walking slowly one night under the
trees on the Embankment. Neither of them had seen
the passer-by. But the passer-by, who was Frank Lut-
trell, had seen that Christopher Codrington, who had
taken his hat off to let the breeze stir his pale gold hair,
was smiling as he bent down to talk to the girl at his side,
and that Katherine seemed to be angry with him. He
heard only a few words as he passed and it was Kath-
erine who spoke.
"You do not play the game, Chris," she said. "How
can you expect me to be patient with you ?"
Obviously there was some understanding or misunder-
standing between them. As they had come into the
room together one day at the office, Luttrell had seen
Braithwaite wink at Brandon. Whenever anybody
wanted to know where Codrington was they asked Kath-
erine Halstead, and so they asked Codrington when they
wanted Katherine. Luttrell was tempted to ask one of
the men whether these two were engaged, but he could not
summon up the courage to do so. For some reason he
was afraid of what the answer might be. But he asked,
one day, of Brandon, what Codrington was and had been.
Brandon laughed. He had a habit of giving a curious
low laugh when he wished to avoid a direct answer.
"Codrington's present began two years ago when he
joined the Rag," he said. "Codrington's past is his own
business, but has been the subject of rumour. Braith-
waite says he was a music-hall singer in the Provinces.
Birkenshaw says he is the son of a duke and has quar-
relled with his father. You may take your choice."
Brandon himself was revealed to Frank in an unex-
pected way. He was always rather cold, always reserved
regarding any fact about his private life, and Frank had
been hurt more than once by the man's abruptness with
him. He was astonished, therefore, one day when Bran-
134 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
don invited him to supper at his flat near Battersea Park.
"We can talk Meredith and Maeterlinck till we are tired,"
he said. And then he added in his abrupt way: "Don't
come if you don't want to. For God's sake, don't be
polite that is what I hate."
"I shall be devilish glad to come," said Frank. "Bar-
ring Mother Hubbard's rooms, I have nowhere to go ex-
cept to my own solitude in Staple Inn. Is it dress?"
"Dress!" said Brandon, snorting. "Oh, if you're one
of that sort, you had better stay away. I only wear liv-
ery when I am on duty."
"I am not one of that sort," said Frank. "I am never
happy out of a Norfolk jacket or my old college blazer."
"There are a lot of fools down my road," said Bran-
don, "who are so proud of wearing clean linen that they
pull up the blinds, turn on the electric light, and show
their shirt-fronts to the passers-by."
Frank spent a remarkable evening with Brandon. He
lived on the fourth floor of a block of mansions facing
Battersea Park. It was a good-sized flat, furnished in the
barest style, but in good taste. On the wall of the room
into which Brandon first led him were some etchings by
Whistler and others, original character studies by Phil
May, and a whole series of drawings by Aubrey Beards-
ley, all neatly framed in black. In the bookcases, to
which Frank's eyes travelled at once, were some good
editions of the English classics, including a fair selection
of the poets, and numbers of French books on crim-
inology, and a long row of detective stories in paper
covers. This juxtaposition of poetry and the history of
crime seemed to Frank startling in its incongruity.
Brandon was in an old brown suit, and had a pipe in
his mouth. His rather massive, clean-shaven face seemed
more than ever to be stamped by the impress of some
tragic memory, and his habit of abruptness was exagger-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 135
ated into something like actual rudeness. Frank felt hor-
ribly nervous, and wondered if he had been invited to be
insulted. Then the door opened, and a woman came in,
and Brandon said, "My wife."
The woman she was almost a girl was of remark-
able beauty. She had mouse-coloured hair, an oval face
with high cheek-bones and a long, bow-like mouth, the
cheeks and the lips touched with carmine by nature and
not by the paint-brush and a long white neck. But her
eyes were most astonishing. They were large, and of the
purest china-blue. She wore a green dress cut low at the
throat, and without a waist, and as she came towards
him, without the usual simpering welcome of the middle-
class hostess, but gravely and rather timidly, Frank
thought that one of Burne- Jones's dream- women must
have come into the living flesh. And then she spoke, and
if Frank had not been a gentleman by instinct as well as
by breeding, he would have opened his eyes wider with
amazement.
She spoke in the strongest Cockney dialect not with
the thin nasal twang of the half -cockney, but with the
hoarse voice, the complete vowel-changes, of the East End
coster-girl.
"It's dahnraht good of yer to come, Mr. Luttrell," she
said earnestly, taking his hand, and holding it for a
moment. "Bill 'ave horfen spoke abaht yer/'
Frank bent over her hand with the reverence he always
paid to women. He did not see that Brandon was watch-
ing him curiously, and that for a moment an expression
of admiration, almost of tenderness, passed over his face.
"It is jolly good of you to have me, Mrs. Brandon,"
said Frank.
"Oh," said the beautiful woman in her hoarse voice,
"yer didn't ought ter call me that ! Mah nime is jest Peg
to Bill's pals. Ain't he told yer abaht it?"
136 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
She looked swiftly over to the man who had called her
his wife with an expression of appeal and surprise.
"No, Peg," said Brandon. "I haven't told him. ... Is
supper ready? We are both hungry."
"Yus," said the woman. "We've kep' it witing fur yer.
I 'ope it won't 'ave spylt by nah."
"I am afraid I am rather late," said Frank. "I ought
to have made my excuses before."
He spoke without a tremor in his voice and without a
glance to show that he was excited by a great surprise,
a surprise indeed amounting to an uncanny feeling that
he was not in his right senses. Brandon had called her
his wife, but she had said that her name was not Mrs.
Brandon. She was surprised that he had not been told.
Told what ? What was this extraordinary mystery which
associated Brandon with a woman who looked like one
of Burne-Jones's dream-pictures, and who spoke like a
Whitechapel flower-girl ?
The dinner, or supper, as Brandon called it, was a
curious episode. The mysterious "Peg" took the head of
the table and served the meal. Once she passed a piece
of bread to Brandon on the point of her knife, and once
she used her knife to put some gravy into her mouth,
but then, remembering some lesson, it seemed, laid it
down quickly; looking across to Brandon with a mute
appeal for forgiveness. Her eyes were always upon
Brandon, watching him eat, quick to notice whether he
had all he wanted, and waiting for a sign from him when
she had to pass something to Frank or put the first plates
on the sideboard. Whenever Frank spoke to her she
had a timid, scared expression, and hesitated before she
answered in her Cockney dialect. A change had come
over Brandon. The abrupt manner in which he had wel-
comed his guest was now replaced by a geniality and
friendliness. He seemed in better spirits than Frank
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 137
had ever seen him before, and the gloom on his face
lifted. He told some of his latest adventures queer and
ghoulish stories of Irish "wakes" in the East End, of
"freak" suicides, and of thieves' kitchens, all of them
touched by a grim humour which redeemed their
tragedy and squalor. Once or twice he appealed to "Peg"
upon some detail of custom or turn of a phrase in the
low haunts of "down East," and she answered with that
seriousness which made her face so interesting in repose.
But once when Brandon spoke of being away for three
days in the following week, she gave a little cry of dis-
may, as though the thought of his absence was unen-
durable.
Brandon put his hand on hers above the table-cloth and
said, "Why, Peg, three days will pass soon enough."
The girl turned to Frank, and in the husky voice and
accent which it is impossible to reproduce said that she
dreaded Brandon, or "Bill," as she called him, being
away from her. She could do nothing but wander about
the rooms. She could almost go mad sometimes, she
said, when the night came and she found herself still
lonely. It gave her the horrors. She thought the life
of pressmen was very rough on their women.
"For men must work and women must weep," said
Brandon.
"Ah," said the girl, "that's po'try, ain't it? It's Cord's
truth, I don't fink!"
"You shouldn't say you don't think, when you mean
you do think, Peg," said Brandon. He turned to Frank
and said, quite simply, "It's strange how Cockneys al-
ways say precisely the opposite to what they mean when
they want to emphasise a statement. For instance 'not
arf means very much more than half completely and
utterly and that is the key to the whole code of ex-
pression."
138 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
This direct reference to the woman's uneducated
speech was disconcerting to Luttrell, who said rather
feebly that he "supposed so."
After the meal, the girl rose at a sign from Brandon,
and disappeared from the room.
"We'll have a smoke and talk," said Brandon.
He threw over some cigarettes, but lit up a pipe him-
self, and puffed silently for a few moments. But the
strange girl came back with coffee. Frank took a cup,
and she crossed over to Brandon, and slipped down on
her knees before him, as he took sugar and milk. A
lady might have done the same thing to her husband
without exciting remark. It was pretty and simple.
But when it was done by this extraordinary coster-girl,
it made Frank think of an oriental slave-girl with her
lord and master.
When she had gone again Brandon opened the conver-
sation by asking him how he liked Fleet Street life, and
when Frank hesitated in reply, he said, "I know. You
are having the devil of a time, of course. You are not
cut out for such work."
"Oh, I like it," said Frank, quickly. "I find it extraor-
dinarily fascinating."
"That's where the danger comes in," said Brandon.
"Fellows like you once upon a time I should have said
fellows like me get led onwards by the variety of the
work, by its continual excitement, and because it brings
one into touch all the time with new things. Then at
forty years of age I am thirty-nine, so I have another
year ! one wakes up to find oneself staled. A touch of
influenza, after a ride on an omnibus, late at night, puts
one to bed for a week. And then one comes back to
work, feeling less inclined to rush about, finding it more
difficult to write quickly, more of an effort to get the right
phrases, and the touches of spirit and style that make
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 139
the difference between a bright article and a dull one,
and what happens next? . . . 'Oh, poor old Brandon/
says some one, 'is getting deuced dull.' 'It is time poor
old Brandon got another job,' says some one else. And
poor old Brandon gets a kind letter and three months'
salary, and a dinner from the staff, and he goes into
cheaper lodgings, and avoids his old pals or sponges
on them, and picks up a few jobs here and there, and
wonders how long it will be before the end comes."
"You all talk like that," said Luttrell "every one of
you till I get the creeps. And yet you all stay in the
street. Not one of you will leave it when you have the
chance."
"Quite true," said Brandon. "D'ye know Kipling's
song?" He hummed it.
" 'For to admire and for to see,
For to be' old this world so wide;
It never done no good to me,
But I can't drop it if I tried!'
That was written by a journalist ; that's the song of the
wandering men with the wandering eyes."
So the conversation went on; Brandon giving his ex-
periences of many papers and many editors. About
editors he said that the course of modern journalism was
the disappearance of the old-fashioned editor who was a
politician and a man of literary taste, and the advent of
the business man who had one eye on the circulation and
the other on the advertisements. "Most of 'em are small
men," he said, "who have worked their way into the edi-
torial chair by intrigue and diplomacy and business ability
of the ruthless cutting-down, cheese-paring, inhuman
kind. They have a lot of small ideas and no big ones.
They funk anything which goes against public opinion
because they are afraid of reducing circulation, and the
140 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
leading article is controlled by the advertising depart-
ment."
"Is it quite as bad as that all round?" said Luttrell.
"No. There are still a few exceptions. Precious few."
"How about Bellamy?" asked Luttrell.
Brandon smiled.
"Oh, Bellamy! . . . He'd be the first to admit he's
not the Heaven-born editor. But he's a gallant little
man and a good pal in private life. He has still kept
some humanity about him, and he has got a strong call on
the loyalty of the staff. . . . He's facing a tough job,
too. What with the proprietor a weak, well-meaning
man who is losing more money than he likes on the one
side, and a little gang of incompetent blighters not a
thousand miles away, he has to move warily. God knows
what will be the end of it."
Luttrell was interested, but all the time his thoughts
kept going back to the girl with the Burne-Jones face.
Perhaps Brandon knew what was in his mind, for pres-
ently, as though in answer to Luttrell's thoughts, he said
abruptly
"I suppose you are wondering about Peg?"
"I have no right to wonder," said Frank, colouring up
in spite of his effort to appear unembarrassed.
Brandon drew his chair close to the fire, and picked up
a poker. For a few moments he stared into the flames,
and the old look of tragic reminiscence crept into his
face again.
"You have a right to know. I asked you here ... I
should be glad if you would look after Peg sometimes
when I go away."
He laughed in a low voice.
"I dare say you think you have got into a mad-house,
or something. Peg is startling, I know. . . . But any-
how " He spoke with a sudden enthusiasm "You
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 141
are a brick, Luttrell. You are a gentleman to the bone,
old man. . . . You didn't let Peg see by the flicker of
an eyelid that you were amazed by her way of speech.
You behaved as though she were a duchess all the time.
I admired you for that."
In a simple, straightforward way he told Frank an
extraordinary story, that was partly a confession, partly
a defence. While it was being told, Frank lent forward,
staring into the fire, as Brandon stared into it ; and beads
of sweat broke out upon his forehead, and once he drew
a long quivering breath. All of that story need not be
told here the story of a young man who, with a restless
spirit, and an insatiable curiosity for life, finds himself
an adventurer in London, lonely and needing intimate
companionship. He found that companionship in Queer
Street, amongst men and women who had no law of life
but that which bade them seize on any fleeting pleasure,
and satisfy any passing passion, regardless of the price.
Brandon had plunged into this life recklessly, and had
lived a few wild years, without a thought that one day
he, too, would have to pay the price ; the price of his own
wild oats the most expensive grain in life's harvest
and the price of one woman's ruined soul. The woman
had died as most of her class die, and Brandon found
upon his doormat a letter written by the hand which was
stiff and cold. The words in it burnt into his brain like
red-hot irons, and seared him with the brand of shame.
For months those words rang into his ears wildly, ac-
cusingly, until he was nearly tortured into madness. All
the time he was doing his daily work, reporting murder-
trials, describing charity bazaars when there were no
murders, and summarising Blue Books. By sheer will-
power he kept sane, and no one knew that he had been
in Hell.
Then, one day he met Peg. He met her in a police-
142 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
court where she was giving evidence against a man who
had tried to murder her, and who had succeeded within
an eighth of an inch. His knife had glanced upon her
corset, and missed her heart. The evidence was dragged
out of the girl, and, after weeping bitterly in the dock,
she swooned when she was hissed by the low-class crowd
in court who hate a woman for "giving away" her man.
The man was sentenced to twelve years' penal servitude
for attempted murder, and he left the dock cursing and
blaspheming. The girl slipped out of the court by a side
way; but the crowd recognised her down a side street
and would have torn her to bits, if Brandon had not
been there. Putting his arm round her, he had fought
his way through the mob of evil men and loose women,
and then, with the assistance of the police who now came
upon the scene, put her half fainting into a cab. He
drove home with her to the flat in'Battersea Park; and
on that journey, while with closed eyes she lay with her
head upon his shoulder, he vowed that he would try to
rescue this girl from her awful life, on account of that
other woman whom he had helped to ruin. Peg had
been very ill, and with the aid of an old charwoman he
nursed her back to health. She repaid him by a slave-
like love. She would have let him trample on her, and
would have kissed his feet. She would have let him
beat her, and she would have kissed the whip. For the
first time in her life, she believed that one man in the
world was good and kind, and the revelation was like a
miracle that had lifted her up among women and re-
stored her purity and grace. Brandon wanted to marry
her, but she believed that she had been married one day
to a man who had left her on the next. Then she had
fallen upon her knees and had put her arms round him,
and had wept passionately with her head bowed down
almost to the ground before him, beseeching him not to
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 143
ruin his life by taking up "with the likes of her," and to
allow her to go out again into the streets. But Brandon
said, "Stay with me, Peg;" and his will and her love had
prevailed over her desire for sacrifice. Wild bird, bred
in the lowest haunts of life, with horrible memories that
came to her in the darkness and made her shriek, she was
only happy when Brandon was with her. Without him,
as she had to be many times, she moped and pined and
Brandon spoke the words in a low voice sometimes
he came back to find that she had found temporary solace
in the worst of ways in drink.
"That is my story, Luttrell," said Brandon.
Frank was silent. He was profoundly moved by this
narrative in which Brandon had deliberately unlocked
the mystery of his life.
"W r hy do you tell me these things ?" he said presently.
"Perhaps there is- a moral in them," said Brandon,
"anyhow, a warning."
"How long has the girl been with you?"
"Only two months." Brandon got up and put his
hand affectionately on Frank's shoulder.
"I haven't told another living soul," he said. "Some-
how I wanted you to know. You won't go talking about
it among the other fellows."
Later in the evening the two men went into the next
room. Peg was there sitting on the floor with a book
on her lap. It was Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. She
rose when they entered, and went swiftly over to Bran-
don, putting her hand on his arm.
"I'm that glad' you've come," she said. "These tales
give me the fair 'ump. They make me want ter cry."
She sat with her head against Brandon's knee, and he
told more stories about the things he had seen. Then
Frank took his leave, and on the landing he promised
his friend that he would call on Peg now and again, if
144 THE STREET 'OF ADVENTURE
possible, when she was left alone in the flat while Bran-
don was away.
"I would not ask any one else," said Brandon. "But
I can trust you, and call on your good nature. You
have got the gift of sympathy."
The two men shook hands, with a grip that meant
more than words ; and Luttrell, on his swinging walk
from Battersea Park to Holborn, lived again in imagina-
tion through every detail of this extraordinary evening.
Robert Louis Stevenson had not conceived anything
stranger in his New Arabian Nights than this episode
with the coster-girl and the remorseful journalist. Like
Luttrell's adventure with the countess, it all seemed to
be a mad dream. Brandon had said there was a moral
in it. But Frank, trying to find the logic of it, thought
the moral was rather muddled, as often happened in life,
it seemed.
CHAPTER IX
THERE was one place in London where Frank Luttrell
spent many of his evenings when he was not doing late
duty for the Rag. It was the flat on the third floor of the
bookseller's shop in Shaftesbury Avenue where the names
of Margaret Hubbard and Katherine Halstead were writ-
ten on the brass plate. "Mother Hubbard" had given
him a general invitation. "If ever you want to toast your
toes before somebody else's fire," she said, "remember
that we always burn the best coal." Frank found that
it was absurdly easy to invent excuses for turning in
the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue any time after seven
o'clock. Margaret Hubbard one day expressed a wish
to read Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee. Frank was under
the impression that he had it on his shelves in Staple
Inn. He was quite mistaken, but he found it in the shop
under Mother Hubbard's own rooms, bought it for three-
and-sixpence, wrote his name in it, and a date that went
two years back, opened it violently in several places,
dog-eared three of the pages, and then went upstairs
with it.
"It looks remarkably clean," said Margaret Hubbard,
eyeing him suspiciously.
"Yes," said Frank, "I always take care of my books.
Good books ought to be treated with respect."
At another time he found that he had a great desire
to read one of G. K. Chesterton's paradoxical philoso-
phies which he had seen on Margaret Hubbard's work-
table.
"Could you spare it for a day or two ?" he said, keeping
US
146 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
his hat in his hand as though he could not stay more
than a minute.
"Of course," said Mother Hubbard, "and I am sorry
you have not yet found where we keep the hat-rack."
It was half-past seven, and he stayed till eleven.
Having discovered that both Margaret and Katherine
were fond of flowers, he became wonderfully benevolent
towards a flower-girl in the Strand who so he said
kept a drunken mother and a consumptive sister. More
than once or twice he went without tea his income was
not adapted to philanthropy in order to buy market
bunches of chrysanthemums and violets.
"It would be a charity if you would give these things
the hospitality of your rooms and a little water," he said
when he brought them to the door of the flat. 'Tolly
looks on me as a regular customer, and I haven't the
heart to disappoint her."
"Your heart is a bit too big for your body, young
man," said Mother Hubbard severely. "What you want
is a little less heart and a bit more head. You have no
business to throw your money away like this."
But her severity was softened by the sight of the
flowers which she adored, and Frank thought himself
well rewarded when Katherine, who refused to do any
dusting, but regarded the arrangement of flowers as her
special province, put them into vases, with many ejacula-
tions of pride in her own good taste. She would stand
back from a blue-china pot into which she had put the
tall flowers, and with her head on one side, say, "How's
that for a chaste effect?" And Frank would say, "It
couldn't be more charming," or, with a little insincere
criticism, "Don't you think that fellow on the offside
wants a shorter stalk?"
Then Frank found that his education had been fright-
fully neglected on the subject of chess. At the office
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 147
the men fought pitched battles while waiting for assign-
ments; and it seemed to him that, as a journalist, it
was his bounden duty to learn the royal and ancient
game. Did Miss Halstead thmk she could have the pa-
tience, and spare the time, to teach such a duffer as
himself? Miss Halstead, with a queer little laugh, said
that she would initiate him into the mysteries free of
charge. That was always a good reason for wending
his way to Shaftesbury Avenue after a day's work. He
vowed both to Katherine and Margaret Hubbard that
there never had been and never would be such a glorious
game. He could not imagine how the dickens he had
lived so long without learning it.
"Well, you don't seem very quick at it even now," said
Mother Hubbard, with her usual candour. "The way in
which Katherine always beats you and she is a perfect
muff at it is simply scandalous."
"I almost believe he lets me win on purpose," said
Katherine; and then, as if the thought had just struck
her, she flushed up to the eyes and said, "If I really
thought that I would not play another game."
Frank was scared, and by a masterly series of moves
which broke down her defence, beat her handsomely in
two minutes.
Mother Hubbard was watching.
"My word!" she said. "This young man is not so
innocent as he makes out. I believe he is an old hand
at the game!"
"Good lord," said Frank, with extreme uneasiness.
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"Look here," said Katherine, leaning over the board
with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands,
staring at Frank with a penetrating gaze, "have you been
playing a game with me all this time?"
148 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Frank looked almost too innocent. "Yes," he said.
"Chess . . . and a jolly game it is, too."
He blundered atrociously in the next contest and re-
stored the balance of things, and afterwards by a curious
coincidence Katherine and he won almost alternately.
He could not afford to be quite honest. He dared
not confess that he had played chess with his father since
he was ten years old until the Rector had said, "Look
here, my boy, I thought I could stand against any chess-
player in England, but you are my master." If he had
said such a thing, he would have been committing moral
and intellectual suicide, for it would have put an end to
his greatest happiness in life. It was a blessed thing to
sit in Mother Hubbard's rooms of an evening, at a little
bamboo table, with the red and white ivories under his
nose, and with Katherine on the other side, not more
than a foot away, with the fragrance of her hair as an
incense to his spirit, with her pretty face to look at and
learn by heart while he waited for her to move, with
her eyes sparkling at him when she caught him in a trap
which he had carefully prepared for himself. How
prettily and patiently she had taught him the moves,
which he found so difficult to learn ! How ingeniously
and cleverly she had demonstrated the first problems of
opening and attack! How excited she had been when,
after a dozen lessons, he was at last able to hold his
own without calling for the charitable advice of his op-
ponent! Such a pleasure was not to be spoilt by con-
fession or contrition. Besides, she would never forgive
him, if she once found out his double-dealing.
Those games of chess, and those visits with flowers
and books, did not take place every night, or every
week. There were many interruptions between them, and
sometimes a fortnight passed before Frank Luttrell could
again press the bell-knob of the flat over the bookseller's
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 149
shop, and see the two names written in letters of gold
on the door and on his heart. He had now gained a
more secure foothold on the Rag, and was no longer the
raw recruit. Vicary had bullied him for his article on
William Trevelyan Bendall "when you are told to be
funny," he said, "don't try and do the tragedy turn";
but Frank had heard afterwards through Brandon that
both Bellamy and Vicary had been impressed by the grim
power and satire of that sketch. So Vicary kept him
busy now, and he was getting accustomed to the thrill
of excitement of seeing his "copy" in type, and to the
disgust and disappointment of finding his carefully-
thought-out phrases mauled by sub-editors, or turned
into absurdity by printers' errors. Night after night,
he was rushing about London in cabs and omnibuses and
underground tubes, trying to track down some elusive
notoriety, or travelling to some provincial town to de-
scribe a curious scene or to interview an eccentric person.
Bellamy "the great Chief," as he was called, had put in
a word for him with Vicary. "That new boy of ours
has got the descriptive touch. He keeps his eyes open.
Give him his chance." This had come to Luttrell's ears
through Katherine Halstead by way of Quin, to whom
Vicary had repeated them.
"My word!" said Katherine, "it isn't every new man
who gets his chance so quickly. You have no idea how
glad I am." It was Katherine's gladness as well as Bel-
lamy's praise which put new heart into Luttrell, and made
him try his hardest. He was sent on the strangest
"turns," as they were called. He had to describe a wed-
ding between an old man of ninety-two and an old woman
of ninety, and the funeral of a clown who had made the
public laugh until their sides ached for thirty years, and
then blew out his brains in an attack of melancholia and
was followed to the grave by circus men and women
150 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
from all parts of the country the strangest collection
of human beings whom Luttrell had ever seen. He had to
take the news of a man's arrest on a charge of murder to a
wife who was giving an "At-Home" in a suburban house.
He could never forget the look of horror, nor her cry of
anguish, nor his own deep shame at having to do such
work in the interests of sensational journalism. He had
to spend a night in a "tuppenny doss," where he lay
awake for hours in a cold sweat, listening to the breath-
ing, the occasional moans, the restlessness of men eaten
by vermin, the horrible snoring, the sudden shriek of ter-
ror as a boy woke out of a nightmare, the fight for breath
of asthmatical old men, in that dark dormitory where
five hundred human beings lay in box-beds like coffins.
He had to go behind the scenes of a pantomime, and
stand crushed against the prompter's box, while crowds
of pretty girls and coarse fat women in tights thrust past
him on to the stage and then came surging back, with
giggles and whispered ejaculations; and when the lights
went out, and the scenery was changed, one of the women
had put her hand on his arm and said, "Oh my, here's a
pretty boy who looks as if he had lost his mother. Won't
you invite us to supper, dearie, after the show?" Frank
had excused himself. He felt horribly ill-at-ease among
a crowd of giggling young women, who wore very little
clothing, and stared at him with saucy eyes. He had to
write a sketch of a Christmas party given by the Salva-
tion Army in Eagle Street, Drury Lane, where the chil-
dren of thieves, murderers, "out-of-works" and "unem-
ployables" fought, tooth and nail, for buns and crackers,
and ate the feast provided for them with the ravenous
hunger of wild animals. A week later he described the
Fancy Dress Ball at the Mansion House, where the chil-
dren of the well-to-do showed off with self -consciousness
and vanity, flirted like little men and women, and toyed
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 151
with jellies and trifles, without appetites. Perhaps the
strangest work he was called upon to do was to take a
party of four people two men and two women across
the Channel and back, to test an alleged cure for sea-
sickness. One of the men had been horribly ill each
time. He was suppressed in Frank's article by a sub-
editor, who thought he spoilt the effect of the story.
Frank Luttrell had read the Greek and Latin poets, he
had had literary aspirations, he had written articles for
the Spectator, and sometimes he laughed, not in a pleas-
ant, happy way, at the thought of having to turn out
these ridiculous articles, at the utter lack of dignity in
his work, at the wear and tear of the body and spirit.
"I am prostituting my pen," he said to himself, and then
another small voice said, "I am seeing a lot of human
nature. It's all right as long as I keep a sense of humour,
and don't take myself seriously. It is all right as long
as Katherine Halstead works on the Rag, and plays chess
with me in Shaftesbury Avenue."
But Katherine Halstead was not always at Shaftes-
bury Avenue to play chess with him. She too, as a jour-
nalist, had many evening engagements, and if he stayed
late enough, talking alone with Margaret Hubbard, who
seemed glad to have him, he would see her come in so
tired that she would drop into a chair and implore
Mother Hubbard to take off her hat and give her, as she
said, "the cup that cheers but does not inebriate." Once
she said, quite seriously giving Frank a sudden cold
shiver "I'm not sure if I would not prefer the cup that
does inebriate. Oh, after a meeting of the Mothers'
Union at the Albert Hall I feel very much inclined to get
really drunk! Bishops always have that effect on me."
Frank did not wonder at Margaret Hubbard's nick-
name, when he saw how she waited on Katherine at
those times, chafing her cold hands, getting tea for her
152 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
in a twinkling, and uncoiling the girl's hair .to soothe
her aching head. Katherine accepted it all as a matter
of course. She seemed to regard Mother Hubbard as
her own private and special providence. Frank thanked
Heaven with real piety that he should have been per-
mitted into the intimacy of these two women's lives.
It was all a revelation to him, something new and strange
and delightful. As a sisterless man, he had never before
seen a woman uncoil her hair, and it gave him a curious
thrill of pleasure. He had never before seen a girl slip
on to the floor, snuggling her head into the lap of another
girl, and smoking a cigarette in front of the fire, in
dreamy enjoyment. He felt that this experience was
good for him. If he had asked other people's advice on
the subject they might not have been so sure.
These were the evenings when he was left alone with
Mother Hubbard. Chris Codrington was in the way
of getting stalls for theatres, and invited Katherine to
join him. Sometimes she refused that was generally
when Frank Luttrell had promised to go round for a
game of chess but several times when Frank had ex-
pected an evening engagement she consented to go. Lut-
trell arrived one evening when she was getting ready
and she came into the room in her evening gown of white
silk, cut low at the throat, and with a rose in her hair.
She curtseyed before him, sitting in the middle of
her billowing skirt, like a picture by Brock in one of Jane
Austen's books.
"Oh," said Frank, "you are beautiful. You are like
Cinderella going to the ball."
Katherine blushed very prettily.
"Your Royal Highness is pleased to flatter me."
She rose in her billowing gown and stood, a graceful
and slender figure, before him.
"For that nice compliment you shall be privileged to
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 153
do up my glove. I remember you said you wanted prac-
tice."
"Oh, rather!" said Frank, and he held her arm again
and bent over it. She gave him a little silver buttonhook,
and he found the task almost too easy. Then Codring-
ton came in, very handsome in his evening clothes, and
Luttrell envied him, with an almost sickening envy. He
could almost find it in his heart to hate that man, who
assumed a kind of proprietorship over Katherine Hal-
stead, and who was going to spend a whole evening alone
with her, with the right of a courtier to hold her cloak, to
sit down by her side in a hansom cab, to have her face
close to him as they whispered comments on the play.
He could see all those things vividly, and each mental
picture was a pain to him. He had never forgotten that
evening when, after Mother Hubbard's birthday party,
Codrington touched Katherine's cheek with his lips. The
memory of it came to him again and again in railway
trains, on the top of omnibuses, in London slums, at
public meetings. By degrees he had tried to forget it, or,
remembering, had persuaded himself, insincerely, that
the kiss had not been a sign of anything but comrade-
ship. Katherine was not to be judged like other girls.
She was a journalist who lived among men and worked
among them. No doubt she and Codrington had known
each other for years. No doubt they had confided little
secrets to one another, and had become almost like
brother and sister. He was absurd to be so sensitive,
so damnably jealous. Jealous! As the word framed
itself in his mind he raised his head in a startled way,
and then a wave of colour swept swiftly into his face. In
that moment something had been revealed to Luttrell, ex-
plaining many things which he had not yet understood.
I think it was that revelation which prevented him
from going quite so often to the third floor of the book-
154 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
seller's shop in Shaftesbury Avenue. If he had any
inkling that Codrington was to be there, he stayed away.
And sometimes, even when Katherine had been alone
with Margaret Hubbard, and he had gone to the flat, un-
able to keep away any longer, he would plead a letter to
write, or some other business, and leave so early that
both Katherine and Margaret cried out upon him. The
truth is that sometimes he found Katherine's company
too exciting. She had little characteristics, which, utterly
unknown to herself, troubled him, and made him feel
that he was not quite master of his emotions. She would
put her hand on his for a moment, when she came in
tired and he waited on her. She had a habit of laughing
into his eyes when she quizzed him for being too serious
or too sensitive. Once, when she was looking at a pic-
ture one of Finger's sketches on the wall, she put her
face against his shoulder, and said he was a nice tall
thing to lean against when her head ached. Then she
would sit on the floor with her hands clasped round her
knees staring into the fire, and command Frank per-
emptorily to tell her about his boyhood in the old Rec-
tory, and about his mother, of whom he had sometimes
spoken in a way that pleased her. All this was very
innocent, very simple, very charming to a man who, if
he had not been in this flat, would have been alone in
his own room, or trudging the streets of London.
But it was so novel to him, and surprising, that he felt
sometimes that he must go for a long lonely walk to cool
his head and steady his pulse. It was at those times that
he pleaded letter-writing, not untruthfully, for on the
way to Kennington Oval, or Peckham Rye, or Clapham
Junction, or some other place to which his long legs led
him, he composed mile-long letters to Katherine Hal-
stead which he posted in the red letter-box of his heart.
I fancy some of these letters must have reached the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 155.
"addressee," as the Post Office guide would say. Once
after Frank had left the flat early and was half-way down
the Waterloo Road, Katherine suddenly called out, "My
ears are burning like Billy-o, Mother Hubbard! Some-
body is thinking of me/'
"Now I wonder who that can be ?" said Margaret Hub-
bard, looking across at her with an innocent expression
which was not quite natural
This time Katherine's cheeks began to burn, as well as
her ears, and she said, rather hastily, "You are an absurd
Mother Hubbard, sometimes, aren't you, my dear?"
On the evenings when Frank found himself alone with
Margaret, he felt no such emotional excitement as when
Katherine was there. There was something very restful
in the mere presence of that woman of thirty-six. She
had the gift of silence as well as of sympathy. Often
these two would sit for an hour or more without speak-
ing a word, Margaret Hubbard doing her crochet or read-
ing a book, Frank deep in a chair with his hands behind
his head and his long legs stuck out, staring at the fire.
Sometimes Margaret would turn her eyes towards him
and look at the boyish, good-looking head, with its keen,
delicate profile upon which the firelight flickered; and
at such times her face softened, and into her eyes crept
the look of motherhood which had, perhaps, suggested
her charming nickname to someone who had seen it.
Once or twice at such times, during recent days, she gave
a quiet sigh. Perhaps she could not have explained to
herself why the sight of that sensitive, silent boy in
the room stirred some chord in her heart, and awakened
an old melody that was melancholy-sweet in its cadences.
Into the silence of the room came the murmurous
sound of the traffic in the streets, the tinkling of cab-
bells passing down Shaftesbury Avenue, the sharp click-
clack of horses' hoofs on hard asphalt, the swishing
156 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
noise of rain beating down on the pavement below, ana
the rattling tune of a piano-organ coming faintly through
the distance. In such a softly-lighted room in London,
in such a quietude after a day's work, with the noise
of humanity heard from afar, a man and woman, alone
together, are drawn close; without words they under-
stand, and, if they speak, it is sometimes to confide the
secret things of the heart, which in daylight, or in an-
other environment, would not be revealed. It is at such
times that spiritual friendships are made, not always
without danger. Many a man has found himself in the
court where a golden anchor hangs above the seat of
justice not a symbol of hope because he has sat too
many evenings with a woman, staring at the fire in a
quiet room, and listening to the tinkling cab-bells in
the street below, and telling those secret things of the
heart, which he had hidden from all others. In Frank's
case there was no danger, to himself, but a source of
strength and consolation in those quiet hours.
He often spoke to Margaret Hubbard about his boy-
hood, as though it were a far distant thing from which
he was divided by a wide gulf of years ; and in his boyish
way, which showed that it was not so far distant after
all, he told her how much he had suffered from being
born with an incurable shyness and sensitiveness, which
had locked him up in loneliness, away from his fellow-
creatures, and had caused him real torture when, as now,
he had to face the world, and plunge into an active life
of small adventures in which a brazen face is essential
for success. In answer to these confidences, Margaret
Hubbard, who understood, gave him sane and wise ad-
vice, and comforted him with words of brave spirit,
telling him to be patient and plucky, and if he suffered,
as he still must, to hide it, and force himself not to
falter. Then he spoke of his father and mother, making
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 157
word-portraits of them, idealised no doubt, and touched
with tenderness, but yet showing the little weaknesses,
the absent-mindedness, the intensely reserved nature of
the country rector, and the highly-strung spirit and occa-
sional rebelliousness of the mother whose imagination
had been shut in by a narrow life.
"I should love to know your mother," said Margaret
Hubbard. "She must be a good and beautiful woman."
And Frank said, "Yes, I am sure you two would under-
stand each other. She often writes about you in answer
to my letters."
From Margaret he learnt some of the things he wanted
to know about herself and Katherine. In Fleet Street
he had met many new people, and it always seemed to
him that they could be only half known because they
seldom spoke of their early life. It was like beginning
a novel at the middle chapter, or reading one of those
modern novels which plunge straight into the middle of
a plot without explaining the precedents of their char-
acters. He was glad to know, therefore, from Margaret
Hubbard why she and Katherine Halstead lived in a flat
over a bookseller's shop in Shaftesbury Avenue, what
chain of facts had led both these women to the big room
rilled with second-hand furniture, where now, as a new
link in their chain of life, he sat with his hands behind
his head.
Margaret told her story not all at one time, but giving
little glimpses of her past as some casual word reminded
her of them. She had been to Girton, but had not taken
her degree. She had been to Cheltenham, and had been
captain of the hockey team, when a hockey girl was as
much ridiculed in the comic papers as a militant suf-
fragette of more recent times. She was the daughter of
an army man yes, the same Hubbard who defended
the pass against the Afghans in '83 a gallant man to the
158 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
last, who fought a more terrible enemy than the fuzzy-
wuzzie with a stoic courage. He died of cancer, and
Margaret Hubbard nursed him single-handed, learning
the two great lessons of courage and death. Her mother
had died when she was a child; and, when the Colonel
went, she was left alone, receiving the cold charity of
rich cousins. Of course, she was proud. A soldier's
daughter is always proud. She had quarrelled violently
with the cousins, and had become the governess of a
newspaper proprietor's children. Three months later,
she started as a woman journalist at two pounds a week,
on the paper which belonged to the man who had played
at bears with her one day among a nursery full of
children, and had then given her the great chance. Oh,
she had had a rough time like most of them. The pro-
prietor had sold his paper, and she had been the first to
go, under the new regime. She knew what it was to be
hungry, really hungry. Then she had got on to another
paper, where the news-editor had constantly insulted
her, and had almost broken her spirit. But, one day
when he swore at her with a coarse oath, the old Colonel's
heart leapt into her, and she knocked the man down
with his own office ruler. The old hockey training was
useful. She had a strong arm, and the man went down
like a ninepin. Very wicked of her, no doubt, but rather
glorious !
Margaret Hubbard laughed at the thought of it, and
felt her muscles again. "They're a bit flabby," she said,
regretfully. Of course, she had been dismissed. The
editor thought it might be his turn next, although he
was rather glad that his subordinate had been "outed."
Another fearful struggle with poverty, another billet on
another newspaper, another dismissal this time for re-
fusing to puff a poisonous wretch who called herself a
"beauty-doctor" and who spent large sums in advertise-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 159
ments, until the police got upon her track. She had
been on two other papers, doing ordinary reporters'
work, attending meetings, rushing and scurrying about
to bazaars and society weddings, learning a lot about
fools and knaves, wearing herself to skin and bones, but
getting as much fun out of the life as she could, making,
oh, ever so many friends among "the boys/' who had all
been good to her. And now, for a time, she had got into
a more or less peaceful sanctuary, as fashion editor on the
Rag. Bellamy was very good to her. He remembered
that, once on a time, they had done "turns" together on
rival Rags with good comradeship before he had come
into his kingdom.
"How long it will last, of course, remains to be seen,"
she said.
"Why should it not last?" said Frank. "At least,
Bellamy will never act the part of a cad."
"Oh, I can trust little Silas," said Margaret Hubbard ;
"but in Fleet Street things never stand still. The spirit
of change is its law of life."
Katherine's history did not go back so far. She had
only been in Fleet Street two years, and this was her
first paper. She was the daughter of a barrister Hilary
Halstead, the brilliant K.C., who, after starving without
briefs for ten years, while his poor frivolous little wife
had fretted for pretty frocks and the luxuries to which
she had been accustomed in her girlhood, burst into fame
and fortune by his defence of Kitty Verlaine, accused of
poisoning her husband. Just when Mrs. Halstead could
have had as many pretty frocks as her heart desired,
she was taken away to the land where frocks, it is said,
are not worn. Halstead, left a widower with a tiny girl
who was her mother in miniature, worked feverishly, and
un fortunately played feverishly when he was not
working. A man of irresistible charm, he was the leader
160 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
of the sporting coterie in London Society, which revived
the old gambling traditions of the Georgian period, play-
ing for high stakes at bridge, and making big books on the
turf. Halstead's luck was villainous; and the high fees
which he received for his briefs were seldom enough to
pay his debts. The excitement of his life wore him out,
and he followed his wife when Katherine was only
twelve, leaving her penniless. She was adopted by an
aunt who wrote regularly for the Family Herald and the
Girl's Own Paper, a kind, sentimental old maid who, like
early- Victorian ladies, kept a bundle of love-letters tied
up in blue silk which she watered with her tears on the
anniversary of the death of a young officer who had
been killed in a war in India thirty years ago. With this
aunt Katherine had led a dull, "genteel," rather self-
absorbed life in Royal Avenue, Chelsea, reading om-
nivorously, dominating the maiden lady and the faithful
maid-servant, both of whom waited on her hand and
foot, doing their best to spoil her, and not hiding from
her their conviction that she was the most beautiful and
the most talented young person in the world.
Katherine had not been spoilt. From her father she
had inherited a good and a gay heart, and a keen sense
of humour which preserved her mental balance. From
the books which she read without guidance or hin-
drance > she had acquired a great deal of useful knowl-
edge outside the range of an ordinary high-school educa-
tion, and a good many false ideas about men and women
and life, and a strangely-concocted religion of her own
which troubled her aunt, who was a High Church-
woman in which pluck, sentiment, and the boyish code
of "playing the game" were the chief ingredients. At
nineteen years of age she walked into a newspaper of-
fice, and demanded to see the editor. Fortunately, or
perhaps unfortunately, the editor was passing the in-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 161
quiry office when she asked for him, and, seeing a pretty
girl's face, thought that it might offer him an agreeable
five minutes between interviews with two men whom
he was going to dismiss for premature old age and over-
grown salaries. Katherine was very rude to him when
he told her, a little brutally no doubt, some plain truths
about school-girls applying for positions on great London
newspapers. She said that she was surprised that the
editor of a great London newspaper did not know how
to behave like a gentleman. The editor sat back in his
chair and laughed heartily. He had never been spoken
to like that in his life. He rather liked it for its novelty.
After some further conversation, in which Katherine at-
tempted to persuade him that she could do anything he
wanted from writing a leading article to a serial story,
she put her hand on his arm and said, "Now, you will be
good, won't you? Because I am not going to leave this
room until you put me on to the staff."
Then he had spoken to her rather seriously, and told
her what Fleet Street meant to a girl, and how utterly
ignorant she was of everything that would make her
useful as a journalist. Upon this Katherine burst into
tears, and the editor, who had hammered many men in
the course of his career, walked up and down the room
wondering what he could do for this extraordinary young
creature whose tearful eyes were so full of disappoint-
ment and reproach.
"Look here," he said, "if you come to me in two years'
time, with a knowledge of shorthand, and if you promise
not to shed tears on my blotting-paper, I will give you
something to do."
"Is that a bargain ?" said Katherine, radiantly.
"Yes," said the editor, who was Silas Bellamy, sitting
in another chair in another office.
162 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Well, if you don't mind, I'll have it in black and
white," said the girl.
Bellamy was startled. He began to think that this
young person was not so young as she looked. He
drafted out an agreement for her on the lines laid down,
with a great deal of solemnity which he found quite
amusing. Then he signed the document, and handed
it to her.
"Don't you go showing that about/' he said, "or my
reputation will be blasted."
"No one shall see it until I come here in two years'
time," she said.
"I don't believe you will come," said Bellamy. "You'll
be engaged to a nice boy long before that."
"Perhaps," said Katherine. "Perhaps not. Anyhow, I
am very much obliged to you. Good-morning, Mr. Bel-
lamy."
She shook hands with him, and he escorted her very
politely to the door. Here she looked back for a mo-
ment, and said, "I am sorry I said you did not know how
to behave like a gentleman. That was quite rude of me,
and it was utterly untrue."
"You relieve my mind infinitely," said Bellamy.
"Thanks so much."
During the two years that passed Bellamy forgot all
about that visit, until one day he received a lady's card
and a letter marked "Private." The name on the card
was unknown to him, except that it stirred some vague
memory; but on opening the envelope he saw the half
sheet of note-paper with a three-line agreement signed
by himself. Then he remembered, and laughed quietly
to himself again and again as he stared at the piece of
paper.
When Katherine Halstead was shown in he was almost
serious.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 163
"So you have not got engaged to a nice boy ?" he asked.
"No/' said Katherine. "I couldn't find one. So I
learnt shorthand. I can do it verbatim here's my cer-
tificate if you don't believe me."
"Oh, I do," said Bellamy.
"And here are some of my cuttings. You will see I
have had articles on all sorts of subjects in all sorts
of papers."
Bellamy read them for ten minutes while Katherine
had tea, which he ordered for her.
Then he looked up and said, "This is all very well
quite nice and bright but that agreement of ours was
rather loosely drawn up. It referred to a position on
this paper. Isn't that so?"
"Yes," said Katherine. "Why not?"
"Well," said Bellamy, "I don't mind telling you in
confidence I know you won't repeat it that I am chang-
ing over to the other side of the street. I am going to
control another paper. So, you see, this agreement
doesn't apply. I'm sorry. . . . Have you finished your
tea?"
For one moment Katherine stared at him in a serious,
searching way, which made him a little uneasy. Then
she said, "Is that playing the game, do you think?"
"Oh, if you put it like that " said Bellamy. Then
he laughed and said, "My dear child, I don't want to
evade a solemn compact by legal hair-splitting. You are
quite right, and I'll be hanged if I don't fulfill the bond
. . . although I am perfectly sure I shall regret the little
joke to my dying day."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Katherine, melting. "I'll
do my very best. I promise I will!"
So that was how Katherine came to Fleet Street, and
how she fell into the company of Margaret Hubbard, and
164 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
how after the death of the maiden aunt she shared rooms
with this good friend in Shaftesbury Avenue.
Margaret Hubbard told the story with delightful hu-
mour, and Frank treasured it in his heart. It was late
one evening when the tale was told, and the fire had
burned dim, and the kettle which was waiting for Kath-
erine's return from another gala night foreign kings
were coming to London too frequently had gone off
the boil. Frank and Margaret were sitting on each side
of the fire, and their quiet laughter had made a merry
duet. Then Margaret became serious, and said rather
sadly
"Poor Kitty! Poor little bird! She ought never to
have come into such a life. I am sometimes afraid "
"Of what?" said Frank.
Margaret Hubbard did not answer his question di-
rectly, but she leant forward with her hands in her lap.
"Oh," she said, "there is so much danger of profes-
sional women missing the good things of life the only
things that matter. I am not one of the old-fashioned
'women at home' dogmatists. The laws of social econ-
omy, and their very nature, force some women to go out
and work, and the world is all the better for it. But,
somehow or other, women have to pay a heavy price
for liberty . . . some of them. They lose caste. Oh yes;
I have felt that many times. Also, they lose their fem-
ininity horrid, detestable word; and, because they see
and know and say and do things which are outside the
range of the domestic woman's knowledge, they are des-
pised, perhaps a little feared ... by men as well as
women. And that is apt to make us bitter and rather
hard. Because, you see perhaps you don't that, though
we lose our femininity, we keep our womanhood. We are
still women, with the desires and dreams of womanhood.
It is curious how the professional woman, meeting many
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 165
men, working among them, goods friends with them, is
so often left solitary. The boys who have sat in her
rooms go away one by one and marry other women.
They have given her their confidences, have been glad
in their time of her comradeship, but other girls the
feminine girls get their hearts. Oh, it is not good to
grow old alone . . . and sometimes I think that Kitty
may be passed over in the same way, and that all her
beauty will gradually fade, that all her bright spirits
will wither, and that all the promise of her womanhood
will bear no fruit but disappointment and the dry husks
of hope."
As though ashamed of having said too much, and re-
vealed herself too nakedly to him, a wave of colour
swept into her face and she said, "Forgive me, Frank.
I did not mean to speak these things/'
Frank was startled and extraordinarily moved.
He leant forward and put his head on her own, big,
beautiful hand a working hand and said rather husk-
ily, "Mother Hubbard! Mother Hubbard!"
And he was surprised, as well as moved. Surely
Katherine would not be passed over? Surely Margaret
Hubbard knew about Christopher Codrington and his
understanding whatever it might be with Katherine
Halstead. Perhaps, after all, Codrington's kiss had not
been the sign of ownership. In that case his heart leapt
within him and then went down, right into his boots.
For at the door was Katherine Halstead, with her hand
on Codrington's arm.
"Oh, we are weary, weary!" she said. "Chris and I
have been doing the gala night : and it was all very won-
derful, and all very beautiful, and I could not describe
all the dresses I saw and envied until I could cry. Chris
has fallen in love with Tetrazzini, and has been writing
prose poetry about her. But, oh I want my supper I"
166 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Codrington taking off a frock overcoat said, "Hulloh,
Luttrell, you here?"
And Frank said, "Yes . . . but I'm just going. . . .
Good-night, Mother Hubbard."
CHAPTER X
THERE was one man in Fleet Street who had a power-
ful influence upon Frank Luttrell. This was Edmund
Grattan, the Irishman, who had come home from the
Near East on the night of Mother Hubbard's birthday
party. He had been round to the flat several times since
then, and he had struck up a warm friendship with the
younger man. Frank Luttrell had been strongly attracted
towards him from the first. The little man's whimsicality
and wit and tenderness, the poetry and colour of his
Celtic spirit, the strange romance of his life, made an
irresistible appeal to Frank's imagination. Grattan
seemed to him typical of the modern adventurer, one of
that race of men who, since the day of the jongleurs
and troubadours have gone a-wandering in the world,
from city to city, from country to country, coming in
close touch with the drama of life, seeing human passions
in every phase of heroism and brutality.
For twenty-five years Grattan had been a spectator of
every great conflict between one nation and another, or
one race and another. In India, Egypt, and South Africa
he had been sun-baked, fever-stricken, wounded, and
taken prisoner. In the Graeco-Turkish, Spanish-Ameri-
can, and Russo-Japanese wars, Grattan had been special
correspondent, doctor, surgeon, priest, cook, sailor, and
jester. Many a time he had told Irish fairy-tales in
French, Italian, Spanish, German, and in a bastard cos-
mopolitan lingo of his own concoction, to men starving
and freezing in rain-soddened tents, and to men dying
by inches in camp-hospitals. He had sung Celtic folk-
songs to the wild hill-tribes of India, who had reprieved
167
168 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
him from death because his plaintive melodies, sung with
a dauntless spirit, had touched some chord of sentiment in
the hearts of brave fighting men not without chivalry and
wild poetry of their own. As an Irishman and a Catholic,
he had heard the confessions of soldiers on the bloody
battlefields of South Africa, and had promised to tell
them to a good-hearted priest who, no doubt, would give
them absolution and say a mass for the soul now strug-
gling to escape from a tortured body. It was uncanonical
doubtless, but comforting, to Irish boys who do not like
to die like dogs in a ditch. He had also got very, very
drunk on the best wines and the vilest spirits in the world
with many comrades who had now gone to the great
Valhalla. He had sung "Father O'Flynn" to Zulus into
whose hands he had wandered on a dark night, and who,
not understanding a single word, had been moved to
guttural grunts expressive of deep emotion, by what they
thought, perhaps, was a war-song, or a hymn to the white
men's Ju-ju. And the hero of these adventures, who
had looked into the face of death more times than he
could remember, was a little man of five feet five, who
looked as if he were a third-class clerk in the Education
Department, or a haberdasher who put his initials at the
bottom of accounts when the young ladies called out
"Sign."
Grattan had been behind the scenes of many revolu-
tionary movements in Russia and the Near East. Like
most Irishmen, he was always "agin the Government"
and on the side of revolt. Any band of men had but to
proclaim the sacred name of Liberty, and Grattan was
with them heart and soul, eager to attend their secret
meetings, nor shirking their company when they de-
fended barricades against the forces of law and order,
or autocracy and tyranny. That trait of his character
had led him into trouble more times than he could count ;
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 169
for it often happened that he got too far entangled in a
revolutionary cause to do his duty as a special corre-
spondent to English newspapers, which, in foreign af-
fairs at least, endeavour to get impartial news and views.
Through the revolutionary days in Russia he had been
so red-hot in his reports that he had been conducted over
the border by Russian officials and relieved of the post
on the paper he was then serving. Finding himself un-
attached, he had crossed into Russia again, had been ar-
rested at a meeting of anarchists and only escaped the
prisons of Riga by a cable sent to the Russian Ministry
by the Foreign Secretary in England who had a personal
interest in the strange little man who had more than once
brought important political information to the Foreign
Office.
When there were no big or little wars on foot, Grattan
was generally on a loose string in England, and consoled
himself by championing the cause of Women's Suffrage,
the Unemployed, and of any other little movement of
revolt and unrest which he could find in the great city
of London. He knew the strangest men and women in
the world. He had interviewed kings and emperors in
many languages; he had personal friendships in the
courts of Europe; he was a hero among the social rebels
of many nations ; he sent "Christmas and birthday pres-
ents to the wives and children of men who were in hid-
ing for political or criminal offences, and he had the key
to the doors of Bohemia that cosmopolitan republic
which owns allegiance to no king, and to no laws but
those of liberty, of poverty, and of humanity. What im-
pressed Frank most in his reading of Grattan's character,
after many conversations with him in which something of
"iis life-story had been revealed, was that, with all his
stronger and varied knowledge of life in its most brutal
and passionate and tragic aspects, he had a remarkable
i;o THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
simplicity of spirit. It was almost true to say of the
Irishman that he had the heart of a child. He delighted
in telling fairy-stories delicate and beautiful in fancy, and
often among a group of men who, like himself, knew the
coarse realities of life he would say as he had said in
Mother Hubbard's flat, "Come, let us be little children for
a while. Once upon a time," and then he would tell some
old tale of Celtic folk-lore, or of Oriental mythology;
and, strangely enough, his comrades, hard-headed men,
perhaps, men who certainly came face to face with the
tough problems of real life, would fall into his mood,
and smoke their pipes silently while he held them spell-
bound by some fantasy as light as an air-bubble about a
princess with a glass heart, or a king who could not
laugh, or a wandering fiddler who could make the "Weary
Willies" of the world dance to his fiddling.
Grattan asked Frank round to his rooms one evening
for a pipe and a yarn ; and, as it was on an evening when
Katherine was down for the dresses at an Embassy re-
ception, he was glad of the invitation. The address was
3O5A Newport Buildings ; and Frank, whose knowledge
of London geography was still limited, had some diffi-
culty in finding his way there. He found the place at the
back of a narrow and squalid street in Soho, where he
stayed for five minutes to watch the progress of a fight be-
tween two foreign Jews and three women. For a moment
it occurred to him that he was called on to intervene, ac-
cording to the old-fashioned laws of chivalry, which or-
dained the rescue of fair ladies in distress. In one sense
of the word the ladies were certainly fair. They were
blonde German women with pink-painted faces. But
Frank's right arm was not needed in their defence. Stout
women, with faces aflame with passion (to say nothing
of the paint), they knocked the two Jews about until
they whined for mercy. A crowd of foreigners of many
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 171
nationalities and of no nationality looked on hilariously
until, at the sight of two stolid English policemen who
thrust their way into the alley, they scuttled into side
courts. The Jews also fled with scratched and bleeding
faces, and the German women, arranging their front
hair, made their way slowly from the scene of victory.
Frank took advantage of the policemen's arrival to
ask them the way to Newport Buildings; and, though
they eyed him suspiciously, they gave him the necessary
direction. It was a big block of grim and ugly buildings
divided into courts like workmen's dwellings, and with
iron staircases leading to the iron balconies of each storey.
On some of these balconies there were white and col-
oured garments hanging out to dry, women's petticoats
and other things which were not meant for the curious
eye. Here and there, on some of the balconies, frowsy
women leant over the railings, shouting to each other in
shrill voices, and breaking into cackling laughter after
some triumph of repartee. On one of the balconies was a
girl in agreeable contrast to the frowsy women. She
had raven hair and a pretty, piquant, Southern-looking
face, and she was neatly dressed in a spotless white
blouse and dark skirt. She was singing to herself in
Italian the sweet and haunting hymn of "Santa Lucia" ;
and at the end of each verse she called out "Dolci ! Dolci !
Carissima!" to a bird piping to her tune in a wicker
cage.
In the courtyard itself a number of children were play-
ing strange hopping games, and melodramas in dark door-
ways. They were white-faced, dark-eyed children, de-
cently clad for the most part, but with touches of colour
here and there a green silk skirt, a pink kerchief in the
hair, a short velveteen jacket, or a brown fur cap which
seemed to show that, although they lived in a London
slum, they were not of English blood. Frank listened ta
172 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
some of them talking. It was a babel of tongues with
ejaculations and shrill cries in different languages. "Ac-
cidenti!" "Crenom!" "Ach, Hebe Gott!" "Oh, crikey!"
with a flow of words in some strange cosmopolitan patois
mixed with Cockney dialect.
In one corner of the court a row of children sat on a
doorstep. One of them was a crippled boy with a
hunched back and long legs as thin as his crutches, and
with a pallid, pinched face in which two dark eyes stared
out woefully and wistfully. In front of this small audi-
ence on an upturned box sat a shrivelled-up little man
in black. He was playing a flute with quick fingers. The
melody came piping through the courtyard, a swift, fan-
tastic tune, mirthful in its infinite variations on one air,
yet melancholy in its minor cadences. Three cats, lean
and hungry-looking creatures, sat in front of the children,
watching the flute-player with their green eyes ; and, see-
ing this strange little group, Frank was vaguely reminded
of some German fairy-tale. Like the Pied Piper of
Hamelin, the man with the flute was calling to the souls
of the children ; and they sat listening to the weird mel-
ody quite motionless, as though enchanted by it.
Frank went up one of the iron staircases in one of the
blocks, after asking for 305 A from a small boy whose
nasal twang proclaimed him to be a true-born Briton.
"Them rooms is wer' Mr. Grattan stys. 'E's a bloomin*
torf, an' no mistike I don't fink !"
"Oh, you know him, do you ?" said Frank.
"Don't I, jest !" said the boy. "I wouldn't be wearin'
these 'ere blimy boots if 'e 'adn't tossed me for 'alf-a-
crahn egin a trahser button. An' strike me if it didn't
come down 'eads !"
On the door of 3O5A Frank found the name Edmund
Grattan, and gave a dab at the iron knocker. The door
was opened by the Irishman himself. "Come in, my
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 173
boy/' he said. "Sure and it's good of you to come.
You're just in time to see the prettiest little feet in Soho
doing a real Hungarian jig."
There was the sound of a fiddle playing a staccato tune;
and when Frank followed the Irishman into the room he
saw a girl in a scarlet silk frock, with red silk stockings
and shoes, dancing round a room in which most of the
furniture had been piled up in a corner, with the chairs
on a deal table. She was a dark, gypsy-looking girl of
about sixteen, with laughing black eyes and a pretty oval
face, with ripe lips and white teeth. She was dancing a
wild, half-savage barcarolle with shrill little cries, spring-
ing into the air, as the fiddle rose into piercing notes, and
then dancing backwards, with her hands thrust out, es-
caping as it seemed from some imaginary pursuer. Sud-
denly, as Frank entered, she stopped, laughing and pant-
ing for breath, with her hands on her hips ; while the fid-
dler, an elderly man with oily black hair and solemn black
eyes, and a long, lean, melancholy face, wiped a bead
of sweat off his forehead and rubbed his bow on a piece
of rosin.
"Bravo ! Bravo !" said Grattan, patting the girl's shoul-
der. "If you are not earning 10 a week on the music-
halls before long I shall be very disappointed with you."
"Oh dat would be too good ! Altogeder too good," cried
the girl, clasping her hands and laughing excitedly. "My
fader, he say ze English people do not understan' ze
poetry of ze Hungarian dance, ze passion, ze vat you
call? romance an' drama! Ten pounds, you say! Oh,
my good God, von leetle pound a veek vould make me
zo 'appy as a king!"
"I 'ave been too long vaiting for vat you call ze luck,"
said the elderly man, with a deep sigh that was half a
groan. "Ze heart of hope do not jump in ze hungry
belly. Zat is a Hungarian folk-word."
174 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Ah, luck !" said Grattan. "That is the magic thing of
life. It comes suddenly, swiftly, when it is least expected,
just at the very nick of time, and then hey presto ! the
sad heart becomes a merry one, and the ragged old dress
changes into a gold-spangled gown, and the old garret
becomes the boudoir of a princess. My friends, do not
despair. I could tell you many stories of good luck,
from the time when the Little People made a king out of
a cobbler and led the Beggar-Maid to the Palace of a
Prince."
"Ah, you vill always tell ze fairy-tales !" cried the gypsy
girl. Then, when her father spoke to her in a strange
language, she said, "Yes, I come, now, at vonce."
She went over to the Irishman and put her hands on his
shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.
"God bless you, little Katarina," said Grattan; "say a
prayer for me to the dear Lady/'
"But yes," said the girl. "I burn 'arf a candle for you
every night. 'Dear Lady/ I say, 'be kind to ze good friend
of my fader an' me/ Oh yes, zat is quite true."
The elderly man clasped Grattan's hand with his bony
fingers and, bending down, kissed it as though the Irish-
man were a king or a saint. Then they went out of the
room, the girl looking back for a moment to blow him
a kiss.
"Nice people," said Grattan when they had gone.
"Fancy that child burning candles for me to the Ma-
donna. I'll bet she sometimes goes without food to do
that. Her fiddler father plays in the orchestra at an
East End music-hall for sixteen shillings a week, and his
room here costs him eight-and-six. My God ! There's
a lot of tragedy in the world."
Frank had been rather startled by the little scene with
those "nice people" into which he had come suddenly out
of the streets of London. But he had assured himself
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 175
now that he would not be surprised if a hobgoblin sud-
denly appeared out of the cupboard, or if an Oriental
wizard suddenly issued lut of a volume of smoke from
the middle of the carpet, or if the ragged gentleman who
had been piping to the children of the court poked his
head through the door and offered to play "Over the
Hills and Far Away." It was sufficiently strange to find
a distinguished war-correspondent and journalist domi-
ciled in the centre of a Soho slum, applauding the strange,
fantastic dance of a Hungarian gypsy girl, and allowing
his hand to be kissed by an oily old man who certainly
had not used soap for a long time.
Grattan's room also suggested the most curious possi-
bilities. Over the doorway hung a gorgeous Oriental
tapestry with a Saracenic design, and the deal boards of
the floor were strewn with Persian rugs. On the mantel-
piece, instead of a clock, was a bronze Buddha with a
solemn, inscrutable face, with some broken remnants of
Greek figures in red clay on either side. On the walls
were hung pencil and charcoal sketches of soldiers in the
uniforms of many nations, and caricatures of many
strange types of humanity. In a recess at the end of the
room was a garishly-coloured statue of the Madonna and
Child in gilt crowns. On each side of the fire-place
stood a mummy case propped up on end. A pair of foils
and three revolvers made a trophy on the opposite wall ;
and here and there, on unpainted deal shelves, were curi-
ously-carved tusks, African fetishes and charms, and
masks, Japanese bronzes, a Russian ikon, a beautiful
ivory and ebony crucifix, and miscellaneous objects, like
a pair of tiny gold-worked slippers, a lock of a woman's
hair in an oval frame, a human skull, a pair of handcuffs,
and Mexican spurs with long rowels. In such a room
Frank felt himself breathing an atmosphere of romantic
and adventurous memories, which, however, could hardly
176 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
be reconciled with the whimsical face of the Irishman
who sat smoking quietly in the midst of these relics.
"Did you ever see such a den?" said Grattan, who
had noticed Frank's roving eyes. "It's a queer kind of
place to call 'home'; and yet I think of it as my 'snug
little kingdom up four pairs of stairs/ and it is pleasant
to come back to it from foreign parts. You see I am a
bird of passage, and I don't need much accommodation.
Besides, I have many friends in Newport Buildings."
He spoke with the greatest affection of a clown who
performed twice daily at the Hippodrome, and who, like
most of his class, was the most melancholy and miserable
man when off duty. Nature had been unkind to him in
giving him a comical face with a turned-up nose and a
twisted mouth. But for those accidents of nature he
might have been a serious actor in melodrama, which
had been his early ambition. But his heart was of the
right shape, and he would give private performances in
the court below to the children, who laughed until their
sides ached at his droll grimaces and the high-pitched
voice in which he made the best jokes in the world and
brought a whole farmyard into Soho. Another of Grat-
tan's friends was an old Russian gentleman living in the
next room down the passage who was the greatest genius
in the science of explosives. "I assure you, my boy,"
said Grattan, "that if you ever want to blow up a news-
paper office, which I am inclined to think would be a
great service to Almighty God, old Petrov Petrovitch will
provide you with a bomb small enough to pop into your
waistcoat pocket and powerful enough to do an admirable
amount of damage. He is a most charming old gentle-
man with a great fund of natural benevolence."
In a room on the storey below, said Grattan, lived an
old Italian who had been a hero in his time. He was a
giant of a man, though now a physical wreck, in a tiny
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 177
bed-sitting-room which he seemed to fill with his im-
mense bulk of flesh. Above his mantelpiece were col-
oured pictures of Garibaldi and King Humbert; and by
the side of them hung a great cavalry sword, which in
his youth this veteran of Italy's struggle for independ-
ence had flashed in many a furious charge. On the table
were the medals he had won, which he showed to Grat-
tan one day with trembling pride, and in an album he
had portraits of many of his old comrades. As he looked
at their faces, and remembered that most of them were
dead, tears had fallen from the old man's eyes and
splashed heavily on to the page. Then he had turned
to another portrait of a blonde young giant in a cavalry
uniform, and Grattan had seen by a sudden dreaminess
and wistfulness that came into his eyes that he was think-
ing of his youth. He gave a great sigh that was some-
thing like a sob, and his old wife came to him, and, put-
ting a hand on his shoulder, said something in her soft
Italian. When the King of Italy came to London, Grattan
put the huge old man into a four-wheeled cab and took
him to join the Old Guard of Garibaldian veterans at the
Italian Embassy. The King shook hands with him, and
it made amends for a long exile.
Grattan told other stories of the strange lives sur-
rounding him in this block of buildings in Soho. There
were many foreigners among them, employed in con-
nection with the theatres round Piccadilly as property-
masters, wardrobe men and women, limelighters, stage-
carpenters, and theatrical dress and wig-makers. No one,
said Grattan, who sits in the stalls, or the gods watching
a new ballet or a gorgeous pantomime, thinks of the work
that goes to the making of all this splendour. But in
Poverty Palace (as he called the place) from early
morning until late in the night there are women sitting
in little rooms, stitching at those flimsy, shimmering
178 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
garments which display the beauty of the ballet ladies,
sewing their silken slippers, and their long, slim stockings,
twisting paper flowers into wreaths, and bespangling cos-
tumes which will dazzle the eyes of the groundlings.
There are many foreign tailors in these flats of three
rooms, which may be rented for eleven shillings a week;
and at night, said Grattan, one may see, sometimes, by the
light of a dim lamp illuminating a black window-pane
the shadow of an arm jerking upwards with a rhythmic
gesture as one of them works overtime, and stitches,
stitches, stitches with dogged industry.
The Irishman told Frank of other strange trades and
strange people in the neighbouring rooms. There were
men of letters who write by candle-light, with hot hearts
and feverish eyes, and wild, disordered hair. They are
men whose names and pseudonyms are known to the
secret police of foreign cities, and who bear on their
bodies the marks of prison sufferings. They are writing
that black literature which preaches a wild gospel of
liberty and blood, and is smuggled across the Continent in
leaflets which find their way to soldiers* barracks and
sailors' bunks, and night-clubs where men come in un-
lawful assembly with bloodshot eyes and smouldering
hearts.
Grattan told Frank of old men who lived lonely lives
in this block of grim, sunless buildings. They are kept
alive by the memory of triumphs forgotten by all except
themselves, of good days which are now yesterdays.
One of them sits with sightless eyes, thinking always of
these things. He remembers when laughter surged at
him from full houses; when, as he stood alone before
the footlights, the applause thundered at him when his
quick brain worked out a new gag which made him the
darling of the gods. The old jokes come floating through
his mind as he gropes back into the past with blind
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 179
eyes. Then he listens for his daughter. She is late to-
night, perhaps, and the kippers are growing cold. The
world would not call her a good woman, but she is kind
to her old father.
"Frank, my boy," said Grattan, "there are many poor
devils within a spit of you, actors of old renown in stock
companies where 'the ghost walked' long ago, old singers
with cracked voices, old fiddlers whose fingers are stiff-
jointed, the wreck and rubbish of humanity kicked into
its lumber-room of broken things."
He sighed mournfully, and for a while was silent.
Then he raised his head and said with a smile
"Listen ! How the children are laughing and squealing
in the courtyard. It does one a power of good to hear
them."
Once, but not on the first night of Frank's visit to
his rooms, he spoke about his wife as though she were
dead; and afterwards Frank noticed how he used to
date everything from the time of her going away. "It
was before my wife had gone rest her soul," or "That
was when my little woman was with me." Late one
evening when Frank was alone with him, he raised the
glass of whisky he was drinking and said, "This is the
poison that killed the love of the best v/oman that ever
kissed a man."
With a sudden gesture of passion he threw half a
tumblerful of whisky on to the fire. It quenched the
flames, and the wet embers fizzled and smoked. Such
moods were rare with him, and generally preceded one
of those periods when he disappeared for a week from
Fleet Street and all his well-known haunts, and when
his friends whispered that "he had gone to find his wife."
Then he would come back chastened, very humble, very
eager to do any little act of kindness to some one "down
on his luck," or some gracious little thing to Margaret
i8o THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Hubbard, to Katherine, or other friends. At such times,
if Frank were alone with him, he would speak of his
religion, and especially of the Blessed Virgin, for whom
he seemed to have a kind of mystical and passionate love,
as the type of purest and infinitely compassionate woman-
hood.
"My boy," he said to Frank once, "the reverence of
divine womanhood in the sacred and beautiful figure of
Our Lady is very cleansing to the filthy hearts of men.
The thought of divine motherhood and virgin innocence
drags them out of the mire. It gives them a bright vision,
to which they grope their way through the darkness of
their own sinfulness. That is why the Irish people never
indulge in the black, unnatural vices of humanity. God
knows many of them are weak, like myself, many of them
are brutal, but the memory of the 'Hail Mary' taught to
them in the old cabin and the little church comes singing
into their ears when the devil lures them to his blackest
pits. And even if they descend to the lowest depths the
face of the Madonna looks down at them ; and, with one
'Ave Maria' shouted from a tortured heart, they leap out ;
of the clutches of the foul fiend and stretch out their
hands to the Mother of Mercy/'
Frank was deeply absorbed in the study of this extraor-
dinary man's character, and especially by these revela-
tions of his faith. Frank himself would not have labelled
himself a "freethinker." He belonged to a generation 1
in which that label had lost its novelty and glamour ; to a
period in which none of the old labels of religious agnos-
ticism or scepticism excite any passionate emotions in the
minds of young men. He was not an agnostic or a ma- I
terialist, or a pessimist, or even a follower of Nietzsche,
or Karl Marx, or Bernard Shaw. All these are fashions
of thought which had an influence yesterday, but. are to-
day as old-fashioned as Arianism or Calvinism. Frank
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 181
Luttrell simply "didn't bother." Having gone through
all the stages of doubt and disbelief, he had decided, not
deliberately or consciously, to adopt an attitude of re-
ligious inactivity, as though waiting for some other philos-
ophy to come along, which, no doubt, would have its
day like others and then die.
At this time .of his life he did not feel the need of any
religious stimulus or consolation. Religion, for a time,
was outside the scope of his inquiry. He was a journalist
investigating the facts of humanity. As yet he had no
business with the laws governing those facts, with the
spiritual force behind them. Vicary, the news-editor,
had not asked him for reports on those subjects. That,
perhaps, is how Frank would have explained his own po-
sition if he had been questioned. And there would have
been sincerity as well as irony in his answer. But,
though he did not "bother" about religion at this time,
the spiritual side of his nature was not dormant. On
the contrary, his spirituality was intensified and sensi-
tised. His spirit was, to use a clumsy metaphor, like
a camera exposing an immense number of photographic
plates on which the light of life was imprinting instan-
taneous but enduring impressions. His soul, to use an-
other clumsy metaphor, was like a stringed instrument
made and tuned by loving hands in which there are all
the possibilities of infinite melodies and discords, and
now was being played upon by thousands of invisible
fingers, which struck thrilling chords, and jangled notes,
and music that was sometimes very gay and sometimes
very sad, and sometimes weird and fantastic. What he
needed was some guiding hand of a master-musician who
would arrange all those stray chords and disconnected
notes into order and rhythm and symphony.
Like many men who have been brought up in old-
fashioned homes, he had all the traditions and promptings
182 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
of a religious nature without a definite religious belief.
He was on the side of the angels, though not among
them. He hated cruelty and vice, and lies and treachery.
He had an instinctive love of kindness, sympathy, cleanli-
ness of heart, and truthfulness. He shrank from the
sight of human suffering, and was thrilled by the courage
of those who suffer. But he was without the spirit of
the reformer. He had no determined ambition to make
the world better. He merely watched and explored, and
tried to understand, and was intensely interested in hu-
man hearts. Only occasionally was he startled and per-
plexed by deeper feelings.
Once when he walked down the Embankment late one
night he stopped and stared at the river, moving by like
a flood of printers' ink, as it seemed to him, on its way to
Fleet Street. And then suddenly he turned and looked
up one of the avenues to the lights in that street beyond,
and some overwhelming emotion flooded his spirits. He
could not tell what was the meaning of it ; he only knew
that his heart was beating in a jerky way, that a kind of
cold wave pressed from the back of his head down his
spine, and that then he seemed to have got outside his own
body. "My God !" he said. "All those people all those
buildings. What is the meaning of it all this swarming
life, these endless births and deaths ?" He was not mor-
alising deliberately, as young men do who have read a
little poetry and a little philosophy. It seemed as if
some voice had put the question to him. He was dimly
conscious that for a moment he had stood on the edge of
the supernatural, and he was afraid of himself. Then
he got back into his body, and walked on to Northumber-
land Avenue, where he read the advertisements outside
the Playhouse, smiling at the photograph of a nautical
play, in a normal state of mind again.
Perhaps his senses were over-sensitive and affected his
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 183
spirit. The smell of hay in a mews behind St. James's
Street made him stand one day for a minute or two in a
kind of dream, in which he saw himself as a boy lying
on the mown grass drying in the sun in the glebe-field at
home, listening to the hum of insect life, watching his
mother reading in a camp-chair, and thinking how beauti-
ful she was in her lilac sun-bonnet.
And once when he was waiting for a fat old duchess to
open an exhibition of "Infant Health," standing among a
group of over-dressed women, he suddenly forgot his en-
vironment and went climbing to the hill-top outside the
village at home, where as a boy he used to watch the sun-
set change into a thousand colour-harmonies, until all
the sky was quivering with reflected light. He was
awakened by the sound of "God Save the King," played
on a cottage piano in another room, and by the royal
duchess saying in German gutturals, "I haf moch pleaz-
har in deglaring this egzhibition open." He wondered
afterwards what had given him this day-dream ; and then
he remembered that one of the women near him had been
wearing violets. The scent had taken him to the shady
lane where as a boy he had picked violets for his mother ;
and when once his imagination had been taken back to the
winding path, his spirit went walking further, to the hill-
top beyond. This sensitiveness, natural and spiritual,
made him vividly impressed by the strange personality of
Edmund Grattan. For Grattan appealed both to his nat-
ural and spiritual sensibility. He had a voice which had
a rather melancholy timbre, and when he was deeply
moved it became deeper in tone, with the musical inflec-
tions of the Irish way of speech. When he spoke of his
faith, or when he was telling a fairy-story, his eyes
glowed with a luminous and rather haunting fire. Frank
was often startled by the extraordinary paradoxes of
the man's character and by the strange, romantic and
184 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
secret tragedy of his life, but what most impressed him
was this devotion to the Virgin Mother in a man who for
the greater part of his life had wandered among the Bo-
hemians, the adventurers, the heretics, the anarchists, the
infidels, and the outcasts of the modern world.
It was Grattan who put up Frank Luttrell as a member
of the Journalist Club. He was seconded by Brandon,
and elected without opposition. Grattan had said to
him, "My boy, you w r ill never be a journalist until you
belong to the Club," and Frank, who thought himself a
journalist already, only understood what Grattan had
meant when he had been a member for some weeks.
The place itself was not inviting. Its entrance was up
a narrow court of Fleet Street; and on the doorway was
a notice in big black letters saying that no strangers
would be admitted until their names had been "sent in" to
the member they wanted to see. A glass window to the
right of the door gave vocal access to the inquiry office,
which was also the bar. When the window opened to
Luttrell, who inquired for Grattan, his nostrils were as-
sailed by the smell of stale tobacco and the fumes of
whisky and wine, and he heard the clink of glasses, a
burst of loud laughter, and one voice shouting out
"And the end of the story wa* "
Luttrell did not hear the end of the story, for, after
mentioning his own and Grattan's name, the man at the
window, who was uncorking a bottle of port, shut down
the glass with a bang.
Grattan came to fetch him in, and Frank found him-
self in a long room, divided at one enc by the bar which
he had seen through the window. Against the bar were
leaning four or five men, among whom were the little
sporting editor Birkenshaw, whom he had met at Mar-
garet Hubbard's flat one night, and Christopher Codring-
ton, looking rather pale, and enormously tall by the side
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 185
of his companion. There were about twenty other men
in the room, deep in easy-chairs, smoking, drinking every
variety of liquid, hot and cold, and carrying on a cross-
fire of conversation.
Several of the men looked up as Grattan entered with
Luttrell and called out to him.
"Hullo, Teddy, what's yours, old man?"
"Nothing at all, at all," said Grattan, with a richer
brogue than he usually affected.
He directed Frank's attention to a collection of col-
oured caricatures which ran the whole length of the
room. They were mad dreams of human faces and fig-*
ures, monstrously ludicrous and amazingly clever.
"Great Scott!" said Frank with a gasp. "That's you,
isn't it?"
"I should rather say it was," said Grattan, as though
he were proud of this distorted likeness. "It's not only
a portrait of my outward characteristics, it is a most
damnable and realistic study of my ridiculous brain."
Luttrell recognised other men on the staff of his own
paper, Brandon, Quin, Vicary, and others, each carica-
ture giving him a kind of shock it was so unmistakably
like the original, yet so wildly and hideously distorted.
"The man who does these," he said, "is either a mad-
man or a genius/'
"Both," said Grattan, "but one of the best."
Luttrell will not soon forget his first evening at the
Club. Grattan introduced him to two or three of the
men, ordered a whisky-and-soda for him, and then went
over to the bar where he stood smoking a pipe with three
or four other men who patted him on the back and
seemed to make a hero of him. Frank was again a spec-
tator and a listener. It would seem to be the part he
had to play in life.
A slim, boyish fellow in a frock-coat, very creased
186 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
about the tails, and trousers baggy at the knees, was
standing with his back to the fire telling with a perfectly
grave face an obviously impossible story of how he was
wrecked in a small yacht on the Goodwin Sands. He
piled absurdity on absurdity, until at last his imagination
took free rein as he described how he chased the boat
for hours as it drifted round the sandbanks, always a
few yards ahead of him as he waded knee-deep in water.
His nautical expressions caused shouts of laughter; and
he was prompted in certain episodes of the adventure
when his fancy halted for a moment.
"Well done, Bunny/' said one of the men, wiping
tears out of his eyes, when the story was finished. "As
an honest lie that's the best story I've heard for a long
time. What are you drinking ?"
Another nautical story succeeded from a man who
looked the real thing, with a big, brown, seafaring face.
He described how, when he was the skipper of a tramp
steamer on the West Coast of Africa, he received a cable
from the owner to bring home 102 monkeys, with his
cargo of rubber and palm oil. The order seemed eccen-
tric; but he took his crew for a monkey-hunt, and after
the most perilous and exciting adventures, captured the
required number of beasts. They were brought on board
and put into temporary cages made by the ship's carpen-
ter. All went well for a week; and the monkeys, with
their heads through the wooden bars of their hutches on
deck, watched the sailormen at work with obvious inter-
est. Then a tragedy happened. The monkeys broke out
early one morning and ran amok on deck. One great
beast seized a marline-spike and chased the chief mate
up the rigging. Three others took possession of the
bridge, from which the skipper himself had fled. The
other sailors had gone below hatches, and had battened
themselves down. After terrible experiences, the vessel
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 187
came by God's grace into the mouth of the Thames, where
she was hailed by the Port Sanitary authorities, who were
surprised to see a crew of the ugliest old scoundrels in-
dulging in wild orgies on deck. Evidently there was a
mutiny on board. The skipper put his head out of a
porthole and explained the painful situation ; and, after a
desperate fight, the monkeys were overpowered and the
vessel towed to Blackwall Dock.
"Then," said the story-teller, "I went to see my own-
ers; and I need not describe in detail the flowers of
speech which fell from my lips. I have never done my-
self so much justice. In the end, however, the owners
explained that an error must have crept into the cable
which had caused all the trouble. Instead of 102 mon-
keys, they had merely asked for one or two. They pre-
pared to take proceedings against the postal authorities,
and in the meantime they relieved me of my berth.
That, gentlemen,, is why I became a journalist."
This story, told in real seafaring speech, was received
with yells of laughter. But a momentary silence fol-
lowed when a newcomer entered the club. It was a
good-looking fellow of about thirty with a pale, clean-
shaven face.
"Well, old boy," said one of the men, "how goes it?"
"Oh, fine !" said the man, with a kind of forced cheer-
fulness. "Stand me a drink, some one."
Half-a-dozen of the men called for the drink, and room
was made for the unlucky one. Luttrell learnt after-
wards from Grattan that the man had been dismissed at
a moment's notice by a new editor of his paper who was
cutting down expenses. He had been married a year
ago, and his wife had just given birth to a child. "What
the poor beggar will do, I don't know," said Grattan.
"It's not easy to get another job. The tragedy of it is
that he hasn't had the pluck to tell his wife in her delicate
188 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
condition, and stays out all day long, pretending he's at
the office as usual."
Luttrell listened to the conversation of the men round
him. One stout, youngish man with a Shakespearean
forehead above a Cupid face which seemed to be oozing
with the most genial good-nature was criticising contem-
porary literature and drama with laughing satire. He
denounced Bernard Shaw as an arch-charlatan. "The
fellow has never put up a single original idea. He has
cribbed everything from Ibsen and Nietzsche."
Another man also of stout build, with a rather swollen
face and fresh complexion reminding one curiously of a
school-boy with the mumps, was discussing certain politi-
cal personalities with almost brutal cynicism. Judging
from his stories they were all liars, mostly knaves, and
hypocrites of the deepest dye.
A good-looking young Jew, with piercing eyes and an
actor's mobile lips, was dissecting the souls of society
women with a clever cruelty which made Luttrell shiver.
A tall, swarthy young man with fuzzy black hair, upon
which rested a tall hat of an oily brilliance, was describ-
ing the bribery and corruption which he had seen at a
recent bye-election. "If I had told the truth about it in
the Rag there would have been the devil to pay," he said.
"Why didn't you ?" asked one of the men.
The fuzzy-haired gentlemen shrugged his shoulders.
"Do we ever tell the truth ?" he asked.
"No," said the other man, "and that is why the Press
has lost all its power. One of these days some one will
come into Fleet Street with the pluck to tell the truth.
Then he will smash creation, and every other newspaper
dragging out a miserable life, bolstered up by party
friends, and keeping itself out of bankruptcy by swin-
dling advertisements."
"How about the laws of libel ? How the devil can we
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 189
afford to tell the truth when any scoundrel can claim
heavy damages and get 'em nine times out of ten ? The
whole machinery of the law is to prevent truth being
told."
"Oh rats! It's because editors have all got the blue
funk. What we want is another William Cobbett, who
hammered at the truth with a good square fist, and was
not afraid to go to prison in an honest cause."
"Oh, that sort of thing don't pay nowadays. We're
all after circulation and ads., and damn sincerity. After
all, what's the good of taking ourselves seriously? No-
body else does."
In all this conversation there was not one word of op-
timism, of idealism, or enthusiasm. These men, young
and old, seemed to have lost all illusions, and a knowledge
of life had made them blase and utterly cynical.
But the conversation of these men was impressive to
one who came from another world, who was one of them
yet almost a stranger among them. Each spoke always
with knowledge. They had all come closely and con-
stantly in touch with interesting people and interesting
things. Some of them were coarse in their speech, some
were of the smart cockney type, one or two had obviously
picked up what education they had in the streets and not
in the schools. But even the youngest among them
boys who, as Frank knew from his own experience, could
not be earning more than 3 or 4 a week spoke with
the understanding and the quick mother- wit of men who
have seen most of the world's peep-shows and measured
up its puppets and pomposities. They were all critics,
untouched by hero-worship and lacking all instincts of
reverence.
One thing was curious in this club. It had a shifting
population. Few men kept their seats for more than
half-an-hour. Men were always going out, and others
190 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
always coming in. A man would rise, stretch his arms
and say, "Well, I must go and do a bit of work." An-
other would run through a time-table and say, "I can get
to Paddington in twenty-five minutes with a little luck."
Each man seemed to have a curiosity in the other man's
business. "Are you on that Chelmsford story? ... By
gad, so am I! We may as well go together, old buck."
"What are you doing down there? Oh, all right, if
you've got a scoop on, keep it to yourself, my lad. I
don't go in for scoops at my time of life. They use up
a lot of energy, and one generally gets left."
At a few minutes after midnight quite a new crowd
of men came in, and stood round the bar drinking and
talking. They belonged to a different type of humanity
from those who had taken possession of the club chairs
earlier in the evening. There were not so many young
men among them, and they were not so smartly dressed.
They had not the same vivacity and restlessness. Their
eyes were tired, and most of them spoke the Scottish
language.
"Who are those fellows ?" said Frank to Grattan, who
was now sipping whisky at his side and telling endless
tales of adventures. Frank also was drinking whisky,
which unloosened his tongue and made him laugh hilar-
iously at Grattan's stories. Six empty glasses stood on
the table before him.
"Those, my boy," said Grattan, "belong to that un-
happy race of men who call themselves 'Subs.' They
have amazing dexterity with blue pencils, and they are
the sworn foes of descriptive writers. Their whole ob-
ject in life is to cut down. They are the butchers of jour-
nalism. Never creating anything, their imaginations
have been stunted, and their souls have shrunk to the
size of sixpenny-bits. Most of them live at Brixton,
where they keep wives and babies. All of them have
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 191
lost ambition, hope, and youthfulness. They are more
to be pitied than the convicts of Portland."
"They seem pretty cheerful now," said Frank.
Grattan stared across at them with eyes in which
there was an alcoholic fire.
"Their laughter is mirthless," he said. "It comes from
empty hearts."
He gripped Frank's knee.
"Luttrell," he said almost fiercely, "never be drawn
into a sub-editor's room. Avoid it as you would the pit
of hell. Rather starve, rather die with cold under Black-
friars Bridge than become a slave and a sub. Better
the body perish than the immortal soul."
The men whom he had been commiserating were going
out. They had only stayed ten minutes or so, and in
that time some of them had consumed a remarkable quan-
tity of whisky.
"Ah weel," said one of them, "the last tram waits for
no mon. Gude nicht to ye all."
The club was now really empty. Only three men sat
round the fire-place, where Grattan was still talking and
sipping whisky, and where Frank, no longer listening to
Grattan, was talking also, and describing in an eloquence
that surprised himself the effect of moonlight on the
river at Westminster Bridge. No one was paying the
slightest attention to him, but he was pleased with the
sound of his own words, and became emotional at the
thought of his imagination being wasted in journalism,
so emotional that tears welled into his eyes, and were
only checked when he laughed hilariously at Grattan,
who had overturned his glass of whisky. The man at
the bar, in a crumpled evening suit, much grease-stained,
was nodding over a pink paper. The sight of him made
Frank sleepy, and he, too, nodded with his chin on his
192 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
chest, waking up with a jerk when Grattan rose and
steadied himself by gripping Frank's shoulder.
"Time to go/' he said. "What d'ye mean by keeping
me up so late, ye young devil?"
Frank got up, wondering why the room was moving
round so curiously, and why there were two men at the
bar in crumpled evening suits with pink papers.
"Time to go ?" he said in a dazed way. "What d'you
want to go for? Just beginning to enjoy myself."
Grattan smacked him on the back.
"Dissolute young scoundrel," he said, "leading your
old uncle into temptation."
Frank was groping his way along the hat-rack, which
was now almost empty.
"Funny thing!" he said to himself. "Where've all the
hats gone to?"
After several efforts he found his own and put it on his
head without noticing that it was the wrong way round.
He followed Grattan out of the club, and arm-in-arm
they went into Fleet Street.
Grattan stood looking up and down the street, which
was now quiet and almost deserted. But on the other
side of the road a scarecrow in fluttering rags padded
swiftly along noiselessly, as though afraid of a black
shadow in a pool of light, where a policeman stood under
a lamp-post.
"Fleet Street !" said Grattan. "The Street of Adven-
ture! What a legion of lost souls have passed this
way !" He took off his hat, and staring in a melancholy
way up and down, said in a low voice, "Old comrades,
where are ye all ?" He muttered one or two names and
then said, "May the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace." Then he
crossed himself, and said, "Good-bye, old fellow. God
bless you."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 193
Frank wiped some cold sweat off his forehead.
"Grattan," he said solemnly, "you're the victim of su-
perstition."
He found the last word difficult to say. He repeated
it several times unsuccessfully, and then he found that
Grattan had left him. For a moment he wanted to sit
down on the curbstone and to burst into tears. It was
unkind of Grattan to go off like that, very unkind. How
was he going to get home alone ? Somebody had turned
Fleet Street into a switchback. Funny thing, he had no
sooner climbed up hill than he plunged down into a val-
ley again. It made his head ache horribly. It made him
feel sea-sick. Then some idea seemed to break its way
through the fog in his head.
"I am drunk," he said. "That's what it is. I'm
drunk."
He kept repeating the words to himself in an idiotic,
helpless way. He leant up against a doorway, and it
seemed to him that he would have to stay there until he
died.
Then a tall figure stood in front of him.
It was Christopher Codrington.
"Hulloh, Luttrell," said the tall figure, which to Frank
seemed as high as the dome of St. Paul's. "What's the
matter with you? You look frightfully ill, man."
"I'm drunk," said Frank. "I tell vou I'm drunk."
Codrington gave a low laugh.
"You surprise me," he said in his polite way. "I al-
ways thought you were above temptation."
"I'm drunk," said Frank. Then he became very angry.
He did not like those pale eyes staring at him.
"Take your eyes off me," he said. "You know youVe
bewitched Katherine with them. Poor little Kitty!
Why, I would give my soul to save her from you."
194 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Codrington laughed again, but there was a note of
anger in the sound.
"My dear fool, don't talk sky-bosh. Go home."
"I say you are trying to ruin Miss Katherine Hal-
stead," said Frank fiercely. "You're a blackguard, a low,
dirty blackguard. Why can't you leave the poor girl
alone?"
"If you mention that lady's name again," said Cod-
rington, "I shall have the painful duty of knocking you
down."
"Do you think she doesn't see through your mask?"
said Frank. "Katherine is not to be deceived by those
cold, smiling eyes "
Codrington's arm went out from the shoulder and
Frank fell down like a log.
"My God !" said Codrington.
He bent down over the fallen boy, who lay quite still.
A black shadow crossed the road. It was a policeman.
"What's this?" he said.
"It's all right, officer," said Codrington. "This gen-
tleman has got too much whisky inside him. Any chance
of a cab?"
The policeman looked up and down Fleet Street.
"There's one coming along now," he said. "It's a bit
of luck for your friend. He looks bad, don't he ?"
Codrington put his arm under Luttrell's head, grasped
his coat and hauled him up.
"Luttrell," he said, "pull yourself together, man."
Frank groaned. "Oh, my God !" he said feebly.
The policeman and Codrington managed to get him
inside the cab, and Codrington mounted the step and told
the driver to get to Staple Inn. Then he sat by Frank's
side and said, "I'm sorry, Luttrell. I ought not to have
hit you. But you deserved it, you know."
That night Frank went to bed with his clothes on.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 195
When the morning light crept through his window-blinds
after a night of agony his face was white and haggard.
He got up and made a cup of tea on a small spirit stove
and gulped down the hot liquid. He was shivering in
every limb, and his head was still throbbing. But he
was now quite sober, and more miserable than he had
ever been in his life before.
Once before he had been drunk. It was up at Oxford
when he had got into trouble on bonfire night. But then
he had been only hilarious, intoxicated more by the wine
of youth and by the wild excitement of leading a college
riot. Last night had been redeemed by no such frolic.
He had just sat and soaked whisky while he was listening
to Grattan's stories. He had made a beast of himself,
and that last scene in Fleet Street when he had abused
Codrington and had measured his own length on the
pavement was utterly degrading and loathesome. What
would his father and mother have thought if they could
have seen him lying in the mud, which still stained his
clothes? What would Katherine and Mother Hubbard
say if they heard of that sordid adventure? Perhaps
Codrington would tell them. At the thought Luttrell's
face flushed scarlet, and he groaned aloud. Good God!
Supposing Codrington told them! Then he reproached
himself for thinking so meanly of the man. He had been
kind last night. He had behaved like a gentleman, even
in knocking him down. He had deserved that. And
afterwards Codrington had helped him to his rooms and
put him on to the bed and bent over him and patted his
shoulder and said, "You'll be all right in the morning,
old man."
Luttrell remembered these things as a kind of dark
and horrible dream. For an hour or more he sat staring
into the cold grate where last night's ashes lay. His face
was white and set as he gripped the arms of the chair.
196 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
It seemed to him in that hour of remorse that he had
gone one step further down the path of degradation. He
was gradually sinking into the mire of Fleet Street. Its
mud was upon him now, body and soul.
He got up shivering and changed his suit, and tried
to brush the filth off the clothes he had worn last night.
But the stains of the slush in Fleet Street would not
come off.
CHAPTER XI
WHEN Frank Luttrell went to the office at half-past
eleven in the morning he hoped devoutly that he would
not look as bad as he felt. His head was still throbbing
as though a steam hammer were at work in his brain,
it seemed as though his eyes were deep in their sockets,
and his tongue felt two sizes too big for his palate. But
worse than this was the sense of shame which made him
afraid of meeting his colleagues, and especially afraid of
Katherine Halstead and Margaret Hubbard. He felt
that he ought to go through some ceremony of purifica-
tion before going into the presence of either of these
women.
As it happened Katherine was the first person he met
when he went into the reporters' room. She gave him a
cheery "Good-morning," and he answered in such a queer
strained voice that she instantly looked up, suspecting
that all was not well with him. She stared at his white
face and sunken eyes, and gave a little cry of alarm.
"How ill you look! What on earth is the matter?"
"Nothing," said Frank.
"Oh yes, there is something the matter with you,"
said Katherine. "You are like a ghost. Have you had
bad news or anything?"
Frank laughed, rather feebly, and sat down in a chair.
He felt weak about the knees.
"I suppose I have got a bit of a chill."
Katherine crossed swiftly over to him and put her
hand on his forehead.
197
198 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Influenza !" she said. "You must go to bed at once,
Frank."
It was the first time she had called him by his Chris-
tian name, and the touch of her cool hand upon his ach-
ing forehead was thrilling to him. But he shrank from
that touch, and thrust her back gently with his hand.
"Don't. You ought not to touch me \"
He meant that he was unworthy, that after his moral
downfall, he ought not to allow the girl to come near
him.
But she laughed, and said that she was not afraid of in-
fection. Then she rang the bell and sent the boy out for
sixpenny worth of quinine.
Frank cursed himself as a hypocrite. How could he
explain to her that he was not suffering from influenza,
but from drink?
"How good you are ! It makes up for "
"For what ?" said Katherine.
"For not having had a sister."
"It seems to me that you want some one to look after
you," said Katherine very seriously.
"Yes, I believe I do. I want " He did not finish
his sentence. What he would have liked to say was that
he wanted Katherine to look after him, that he wanted to
tell her that if they could make an arrangement to look
after each other along the road he would never be un-
well again, but go through the world with a singing heart.
With her hand in his he would be strong to resist tempta-
tion. He would keep his heart clean for her. He would
avoid the club and all places which led to a headache
in the morning. But, of course, he could not tell her any
of these things, so that he stammered and blushed and
looked a fool.
"I shall have to tell Mother Hubbard about this," said
Katherine, with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "She
fTHE STREET OF ADVENTURE 199
will have to crochet a woolen scarf for you. She has
made one for nearly every member of the staff."
"Oh, don't tell Mother Hubbard. I beg of you not!"
"Well, I don't intend to tell her at this precise mo-
ment," said Katherine, "because she would deprive me
of the employment of making you take nasty medicine.
You have no idea how strong the nursing instinct is
among women. It is the only time when v/e really have
the upper hand of men. ... I mean, when they are un-
well. Now you must be very good, or I shall at once
send for Margaret Hubbard. She has been a profes-
sional nurse, and stands no nonsense whatever."
The office boy came back with the quinine, and Kath-
erine, who really seemed to be enjoying herself, meas-
ured out a stiff dose in a tumbler which she brought from
the lavatory.
"I say !" said Frank. "Can't I do something different
for you? If you ask me to put my hand into a burning
fire I will do so, but I really can't take that quinine."
"What nonsense you do talk," said Katherine. "Now
be brave and drink this and I will give you a lump of
sugar afterwards."
Frank stared at the whitish liquid in the glass and went
pale. He wondered, with terror, what the chemical re-
sult would be of quinine versus alcohol. He felt as-
sured that if he drank it he would die.
"I can't drink it. Honour bright, I really can't," he
said piteously.
"What?" cried Katherine incredulously. "Do you
mean to say you funk it? Pull yourself together, and
play cricket ?"
The old school slang was a challenge to him. It
brought the blood back to his brain and tightened his
nerves.
200 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Look here," he said. "If you'll give me a kiss in-
stead of a lump of sugar I'll do it."
Katherine blushed vividly, and was silent for a rro-
ment.
"All right," she said, and Frank saw that though she
had lowered her head, she had the flicker of a smile on
her lips.
He drank the quinine at one draught, and for a mo-
ment it seemed as if his head was bursting.
Then he went forward to Katherine to receive his
reward. She had gone rather pale, and shrank back as
he bent down his face towards her.
"Do you mind if I don't keep my promise?" she said.
"I have just remembered "
"Remembered what?"
"It wouldn't be quite playing the game."
"Whose game?"
"Well, it wouldn't be quite right of me, I think," she
said simply, and for a moment it seemed as if there was
trouble in her eyes.
Then Frank remembered something. He remembered
that when she had put her hand on his forehead he had
shrunk from her touch, not thinking himself worthy.
Now the old feeling of shame came over him again, and
with something like despair he agreed in his heart that
it would not be right for Katherine to kiss him.
"If you think that," he said slowly, as though the
words were dragged out of him, "I will not ask you."
She drew a quick breath, and there was a curious ex-
pression on her face when she looked up at him.
"Oh," she said in a low voice, "thank you for letting
me off!"
They were both embarrassed now. Frank tried to
hide his nervousness by poking the fire and whistling.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 201
Katherine had gone to her desk and was pretending to
arrange her papers.
"Don't you think you ought to get home and go to
bed ?" she said presently.
"Good lord, no," said Frank. "I'm feeling as right
as a trivet after that horrible quinine."
They both laughed and the momentary spell of self-
consciousness seemed to be broken.
"There now!" cried Katherine. "Wasn't I a wise
woman ? I shall be able to crow over Mother Hubbard.
She is a homeopathist and gives little pilules to her pa-
tients. I believe in nasty liquid medicines. They in-
spire so much more confidence."
The truth was that Frank was feeling an awful wreck,
and his head seemed to be on fire. But he was glad that
Katherine took the credit of a cure. His suffering was
a kind of penance for his folly, and not profitless if it
gave her any pleasure. Soon afterwards she went out
to work and he was left alone with his thoughts. They
were not pleasant, for he was now wondering why she
had first promised to kiss and then refused. She said it
would not be playing the game, and he asked, "Whose
game?" She had not answered that question, but Frank
guessed the answer. It was Christopher Codrington.
His spirits sank very low after that, and he felt sick at
heart sick in another sense, for the quinine had made
him feel horribly queer. He also must play the game
with Codrington, who had behaved like a gentleman last
night. And the only way in which he could hope to play
the game was to avoid the society of Katherine Halstead,
whom he desired most in the world. "This game of life
is not so easy as cricket," said Frank Luttrell.
Later in the day he met Codrington, who looked at
him curiously.
202 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"My dear friend," he said, smiling, "you look quite
washed out. I am afraid you had a bad night."
"I want to forget all about it," said Frank. He flushed
hotly and then held out his hand.
"I behaved like a cad last night. Do you forgive me ?"
Codrington took his hand in a limp grasp.
"Tut, tut," he said, "and again tut!" He insisted
upon taking Luttrell out to luncheon. He explained that
Frank needed a tonic. He knew a recipe which put any
man right in a twinkling of an eye after a rather "severe
experience." He was not a vain prophet, for after
drinking a dose obtained at a chemist's shop on the way
to his eating-house Frank felt more brisk and decidedly
hungry.
"I have never known it to fail," said Codrington. "It
is a most useful recipe to a man of the world."
"A man of the world?" said Frank. "Is that what
you call it?"
Over the luncheon-table Codrington, to Frank's amaze-
ment, expressed his pleasure at having discovered him
liable to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. Pre-
viously he had been under the impression that Frank was
one of those high souls, those pure and ethereal beings
who never bring themselves down to the level of the
earth. Now, that was a mistake. It might be very nice
to be a pure, ethereal being, but, after all, the world was
made for men and women who always felt uncomfortable
in the presence of superior beings. He believed that if
a man wanted to do any good work in literature and
he presumed Frank had ambitions that way he must
have learnt all the great lessons of life. He must
have loved, he must have suffered, he must have seen
death. . He must have been hungry. He must have
known the sting of poverty. He must have enjoyed lux-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 203
ury. And certainly not the least important lesson in life
was to know how to get drunk like a gentleman.
Frank did not know whether to laugh or to be angry.
Codrington's pleasure in his descent from "superiority"
was worse than contemptuous words.
"Unfortunately/' he said, "I got drunk like a cad.
My only excuse is that I did it unconsciously. I forg6t
to keep a watch on my glass."
"Besides," said Codrington, "you drank whisky, and
it is better to drink wine. The finest gentlemen who
ever lived I mean of course English gentlemen of the
Georgian period never drank spirit. The juice of the
grape, good old port, was their wine of life."
Codrington lifted a glass of the same juice and held it
up to the light.
"This is pretty good. I am sorry you won't join me,
Luttrell."
He enlarged on the need of emotional experience. He
was sure that the genius of English life was being slowly
stifled by the atmosphere of conventional respectability
which permeated every circle of society. In the old days
respectability was a quality belonging exclusively to the
middle classes haberdashers, and small shopkeepers of
all kinds. A gentleman and man of letters had nothing
whatever to do with this bourgeois code of manners. In
those days a gentleman was so sure of himself that he
could enjoy the society of jockeys, stablemen, prize-fight-
ers, peasants and private soldiers, good fellows, who
come in touch with the natural things of life sport,
fighting, and mother earth without for a moment losing
his self-respect or dignity. A gentleman had such little
need for asserting his rank and superiority that he could
kiss a pretty chambermaid or have an evening's carouse
in a country inn, or go out for a merry night with the
Mohawks, turning over the old watchmen in their boxes,
204 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
or playing the amateur highwayman, without any loss
of prestige or social caste. Now-a-days there was such
a shuffling together of the various social grades, and a
gentleman was so confoundedly nervous of being taken
for a counter-jumper, that curious paradox he be-
haved exactly as if he were one, and led a respectable,
colourless, uneventful life, which sapped his imagination,
enervated his manhood, and made him as uninteresting
as a tailor's dummy. The narrow life of the ordinary
well-to-do man, said Codrington, is quite terrible. He
marries because it is the right thing to do, and without
having once felt the divine thrill of passion. He gener-
ally marries a wife as stupid as himself, and they have
children more stupid than either of them. The' wife
gives "At-Homes" where more stupid people come to
bore each other, and to be bored, the husband goes as
regularly to his stupid club as a civil servant clerk to
his office, and his ideas are strictly limited by the leading
article in the Morning Post or some other dull paper
which is on the exact level of his dull intellect.
"My dear Luttrell/ 5 said Codrington, solemnly, "where
is the romance of life? Where is the mystery, the
poetry, the passion, the adventure which men need to
make them something more than respectable fatheads?'*
Luttrell interrupted the monologue.
"It is all around one," he said. "I find it in every Lon-
don street, and, to speak plainly, in my own heart
where there is more mystery and more adventure than
I like/'
"You have answered my question," said Codrington in
his grave way. "You are indeed right. To the man
who has a sensitive, imaginative soul, life is still full of
poetry and adventure. But that sensibility and imagina-
tion must not be stifled. They must be watered and fer-
tilised by the secret well-springs of emotion. They must
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 205
thrill to the passionate impulses of the human heart.
They must not be deadened by the awful conventional-
ities of modern society. A man must go out seeking ad-
venture, not afraid of himself, not timorous of venturing
into strange by-ways, not fearful of raising the wine of
life to his lips and drinking it to the dregs."
"Supposing there is poison in the cup?" said Frank,
wincing at the memory of his own experience of the pre-
vious night.
"Oh, still drain it to the dregs," said Codrington, pour-
ing himself out another glass of wine. "It is better to
be poisoned than choked. A man who has never tasted
poison never realises the true taste of nectar."
Luttrell was impatient with the man.
"Those are vague words," he said. "What do you
mean by them ? Do you mean that a man has a right to
lead an immoral life, breaking women's hearts in order
to satisfy his emotions and gain new experience, and to
get drunk in order to understand the psychology of
drunkenness ?"
For a moment Codrington stared at him, and a slight
flush crept into his handsome, pale face.
"You do me an injustice," he said. "Breaking wom-
en's hearts is not a pastime I advocate though it is bet-
ter perhaps to break a woman's heart than to go through
life as a mere mummy, a body of dust, swathed in clothes.
In a man's relationship to women he should always be a
gentleman, and the true significance of that good word
is not cruelty but sympathy, not a cold, selfish heart but
one quick to respond to an appeal, quick to give, gener-
ous in all the gifts of the spirit. When I say that a man
should know how to get drunk like a gentleman, I mean
that he should allow his qualities of comradeship, genial-
ity, and imagination to be stimulated in good company.
There is something mean and miserable in a man who
206 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
drinks water while others are drinking wine. It is as
though he would keep his emotions under strict lock and
key, hugging them to himself like a miser with his gold."
"Last night," said Frank, "I did not drink water. I
drank whisky to the dregs and a little while later I be-
haved as a bounder and lay in the filth of Fleet Street.
What's the moral?"
"You are a better man for it," said Codrington, smil-
ing. "It was a strange adventure, in which, if you could
only see it, there was a mystical beauty. The Prodigal
Son was a much more loveable person than his respec-
table brother. After eating husks with the swine he
came back to his father's house, and his tears were like
pearls of great price. Do you not understand? Tears
and laughter, passion and remorse, despair and joy all
those emotions of the soul make up the music of life.
The respectable man never sheds tears. He smiles, but
he does not laugh; he regrets, but he does not despair.
To him joy is something indecent and vulgar. He de-
sires only to be comfortable. Believe me, respectability
is another name for death. There can be no great vir-
tues in men who are above the weaknesses of the flesh."
"You are too much of a pessimist," said Luttrell.
'The Flesh and the Devil have not yet lost their hold
on human nature."
Codrington quizzed his wine-glass.
"Perhaps you take me too seriously," he said.
Luttrell stared at him. This was truly an anti-climax.
"I believe it is all a part of your pose !" he said.
Codrington laughed and said, "My dear Luttrell, con-
versation would lose all its flowers if we were always
quite sincere."
At the end of luncheon he insisted upon paying for
Frank's meal, and with his somewhat theatrical air of
graciousness and dignity would not allow this pleasure,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 207
as he called it, to be denied him. But when Codrington
pulled out his money he found that he had one shilling
and sixpence and a few coppers. For a moment he was
slightly embarrassed, but only for a moment. He called
up the waiter to him, and said, "You will add this to my
account, if you please."
The waiter hesitated. He was, strange to say, an Eng-
lishman, and belonged to an old-fashioned eating-house,
in a narrow court off Fleet Street, which is popularly
supposed to have been one of Dr. Johnson's haunts.
Perhaps tradition had something to do with the discreet
way in which he coughed behind his hand, and said,
"Quite as you please, sir." When he helped Codring-
ton on with his overcoat he took occasion to whisper a
few words to him, and Luttrell heard Codrington reply,
"My dear John, tell your good master to be patient and
he shall be paid. If he is impatient I shall give my pa-
tronage elsewhere. Will you tell him that with my com-
pliments ?" He then poured some coppers into the wait-
er's hand, and adjusting his hat to the right angle, walked
out with the elegant dignity of Count D'Orsay, the last of
the Dandies.
On the following night Luttrell went again to the flat
in Shaftesbury Avenue. He brought some spring flow-
ers for Margaret Hubbard which he had gathered with
his own hands in a cottage garden in Somersetshire.
After his luncheon with Codrington he had been sent
off to interview five octogenarians who lived in one vil-
lage. As Luttrell travelled down to Somersetshire in an
express from Paddington he stared out of the carriage
window, and watched the fields flying past, and the
woods, and the villages, and the sign-posts along the rail-
way line, which told him at intervals that he was twenty,
thirty, forty, fifty miles away from London. It was an
afternoon in early spring, and bright sunshine chased
208 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
light shadows across the swiftly-moving panorama of the
landscape. Every glimpse made a quick impression of
movement, airiness, and a light-hearted hilarity of nature.
It seemed to Luttrell as though the spirit of Spring were
like a young girl he saw from the carriage window, run-
ning down to a wayside station with flying skirts. Fleecy
clouds were scudding across the sky. Clothes hanging
out to dry in cottage gardens were waving like banners
in the wind. The brooks swollen by rain were rushing
swiftly to the rivers. And the woods awakened from
their winter sleep, and just putting on their palest green,
swayed and tossed in the swift breezes. Frank gazed
at the moving scenery and it had a curious effect upon
him. He pulled down the carriage window he was
alone on the journey and let the wind rush into his
open mouth, into his eyes, and through his light brown
hair.
"Oh!" he cried aloud. "This is cleansing!"
As mile after mile sped by, hurling him away from
Fleet Street, it seemed to him that the dust and grime
and squalor of London life were being swept out of his
very soul by this sweet, strong wind which fanned his
face, and came like spring-water into his lungs. Some
touch of the old pantheistic ecstasy took possession of
him. He put a hand out of the window and washed it in
the clean, swift air. As the train went steadily into the
heart of the southlands, he sat in his corner facing the sun
and bathing in its light.
When he stepped out of the train on to the small way-
side station and strode down a winding road towards
the village, he was uplifted by a strange exhilaration. It
seemed to him that he was like a man returning from war
to the quiet sanctuary of his native place; behind him
the memory of evil passions and fierce deeds, here, once
more, the old homes under those thatched roofs, where
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 209
life is simple and where Time itself treads with a soft
footfall. The thought was absurd, for he had been not
much further than Fleet Street. But, although only a
few months had passed since he had left the country
for the town, his life as a journalist had changed him in
that time, body and soul. He was thinner, and his face
was no longer bronzed, and when he thought of himself
as the assistant schoolmaster at King's Marshwood he
seemed to be looking back across a gulf of years'. Five
months' wear and tear in Fleet Street make a lot of dif-
ference to a man with a temperament.
Frank enjoyed himself in a quiet way in the Somerset-
shire village. He found out the five old cronies, and add-
ing up their combined ages found that it made a sum of
four hundred and fifteen years. He found them all in
a row in the taproom of the Montacute Arms. With
toothless gums, but with eyes as bright as school-boys'
eyes, and wrinkled old faces, tanned and weather-beaten,
and curiously like the gargoyles on the tower of the vil-
lage church, they told him stories of their young days,
and repeated old jokes which had caused them to cackle
with laughter, and dig each other with horny hands, for
fifty years or more. One of them had been a serjeant in
the Royal Fusiliers in the days of King William IV. He
had been through the Crimean War and seen "a bit o'
fighting/' as he called it, in other "vurrin parts." But
his strongest remembrance was, not the shock of battle
and the bloody work of a bayonet charge, or the horrors
of the trenches before Sebastopol, but the two rows of
brass buttons which he used to wear on his tunic in the
brave old days when he was a straight and proper lad.
"O dearie lor," said the old man. "How the gals did
use to catch their hair in they gowd buttons, when they
did use to zit on my knee on a zummer afternoon ! Oh,
210 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
dearie lor, he ! he ! They did use to tangle their curls
in they buttons o' mine!"
Sixty years had passed since old Jock had been a gay
young dog with the girls. Perhaps one or two of these
girls were now great-grandmothers. The others were
dead and buried and forgotten, forgotten perhaps by
everyone living except this old yokel with toothless gums
who remembered how he had kissed them when their lips
were ripe and sweet.
Frank wrote his "story" about the five octogenarians
in the parlour of the Montacute Arms, and he was rather
pleased with the humour and sentiment of it when he
read it over to himself and then went out for a walk in
the cold night. As he strode along a good hard country
road with his face to the wind, in which there was the
sweet, subtle and rather intoxicating scent of the moist
earth, he seemed to be walking further and further away
from Fleet Street. The idea was rather haunting to him
and he put on a good pace, and the lean, lithe figure sped
swiftly along followed by his long shadow, thrown by
the high moon upon the white road behind him. This
was better than the streets of London, with their glaring
lights and hurrying crowds and their strident, ceaseless
noise. Here there was no sound but the steady beat
of his own footsteps, no lights but the silver rays of the
moon, and no other human soul but his own, which
seemed to walk a little ahead of his body, so that he could
stare at it and ask it questions. One question he asked,
again and again, "Why go back?" And his soul said to
him, "Don't go back. Leave all that squalor and turmoil
and restlessness. Stay here, where the earth smells sweet
and where a man may hear his heart beat."
So Frank walked on for nearly ten miles, and all the
time he was tempted to go further and further away
from the newspaper office where his spirit was being
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 211
crushed in the wheels of a soulless machine. He would
take a country cottage, a labourer's cottage, on is. 6d. a
week, and write books about nature, or -fairy-tales for
children, or navels which were grown-up fairy-tales for
grown-up children. He would be his own master, and
live quietly, and have time to read old masters again, and
perhaps pick up some of his early ambitions, and re-
member some of the old day-dreams. Then suddenly
he stopped, looked at his watch and turned back. He
was going back to the village, but he knew also that
he was going back to Fleet Street, and his footsteps
lagged a little on the homeward journey.
He slept soundly that night in a bedroom with great
beams above his head and panelled walls where rats
played hide-and-seek. In the morning he forgot all his
truant thoughts of the night before. His spirits were
high, and he whistled an accompaniment to the birds
whose spring songs came into his open window. He
wondered what Katherine was doing at this hour ; still in
bed, no doubt, after a late night, with her pretty face
on a white pillow; or perhaps sitting up to yawn and
stretch her arms out to Mother Hubbard, who always, he
knew, brought her up an early cup of tea. He would go
round to them to-night and take some flowers to them.
The countryside was divine that morning with bril-
liant sunshine. But Frank, having given a cottager six-
pence for a big bunch of "daffies," caught the first train
up to town, and on the journey cursed it for its slowness
in taking him back to Fleet Street.
He was disappointed at not finding either Katherine or
Margaret at the office. Katherine had gone off in quest
of an Italian princess who had married her groom and
was reported to be living at Maidenhead, and Margaret
had sent a note to say that she was sneezing three times
a minute and thought it decent to hide herself for a day.
212 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Frank loitered through the afternoon with very littl<
to do, and then, after a cheap supper, took his daffodil;
from a tumbler on his table in Staple Inn and went ou
with them to Shaftesbury Avenue.
Margaret Hubbard was alone in her room, and as h<
went in she was seated at the piano playing in a soft
dreamy way. She was in a black dress covered with ;
kind of gauze or netting, and her face was illuminec
by the candles on the piano, the room being otherwis<
in darkness. Frank had been let into the flat by the olc
woman who did the "charing" and he now stood quieth
inside the room watching Margaret, who was unaware o:
his presence. Some people called Margaret Hubbarc
"plain," but, for the first time, he was impressed by th<
spiritual beauty of that strong, womanly face, upon whicl
the candlelight shed a soft glamour. Her fingers wen
striking chords very quietly and tenderly until suddenly
they stopped, and Margaret Hubbard spread her arm;
out upon the keys and laid her head upon them. Franl
was startled. It seemed as if she were crying, or that ir
touching one of the chords she had stirred her own heart-
strings, awakening some old memory which had made
her bow her head swiftly. He wondered whether h(
should steal out of the room. He had been a cad tc
come in so silently. A man has no right to come una-
wares upon a woman in her loneliness. He stood quite
still for a second, but Margaret seemed to become aware
of some presence in that mysterious way which reveals
one human being to another in the dark.
"Is anybody here?" she said quietly, lifting her head.
Frank stepped forward.
"Yes, Frank Luttrell. . . . I'm sorry, Mother Hub-
bard. You did not hear me when I came in, a momenl
ago."
She turned on the electric light, and laughed when she
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 213
said, "I thought it was a ghost. I'm jolly glad it's a
nice boy who has come to keep me company."
There was a gleam of moisture in her eyes as she
smiled at him, but Frank was relieved to hear her cheery
voice, and to see her face as quiet and calm as usual.
"It is a foolish thing to indulge in waking-dreams in
the dark," she said. "But tell me how are you, and what
have you been doing with yourself? Katherine told
me you were in the grips of influenza. If so, it seems to
suit you."
"It wasn't influenza," said Frank. "It was something
else."
He did not tell her then; but later in the evening he
made his confession to her and described how he had got
"beastly -drunk" at the club. He made one reservation;
he did not tell Margaret Hubbard how Codrington had
knocked him down in Fleet Street.
Margaret listened to his story quietly. She did not
reproach him or show any disgust at his "beastliness" as
he called it. But in her own common-sense way she told
him some of the things she knew, as an experienced
woman.
"That sort of thing doesn't pay in the long run. . . .
The club has a bad influence on many young men who
come into Fleet Street. It is handy to their offices, of
course, and it is pleasant to go over the way and warm
themselves up with a whisky or two while they are wait-
ing for a job. But it grows into a habit, and without
getting really drunk they take more whisky than is good
for them. ... I think many of the boys begin to drink
out of a spirit of adventure. The clink of the glasses is
merry music to them, and they find their tongues are
loosened, and they say witty and wild things, and for
an hour or two enjoy the sense of being Bohemian. Isn't
that it?"
214 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"That's it," said Frank. "Bohemia is a tradition."
"It is a bad old tradition," said Margaret. "I hate
the word. I know middle-aged men who go once a
week in evening dress to 'Bohemian* clubs where they
repeat stale old stories which they would be ashamed to
tell their wives, and make themselves fuddled, and then
go home by tram to Streatham Hill, or somewhere, afraid
to face the poor wife who is waiting up for them.
There's not much romance about that, is there ?"
"Precious little," said Frank.
She thought there was more excuse for journalists than
for any other men. But it was not less pitiful. She
had known brilliant fellows ruined in body and soul be-
cause they were not strong enough to stand against the
temptation. They had begun by sauntering into refresh-
ment bars while waiting for railway trains. They had
ended by slinking down side streets ashamed to meet one
of their old comrades, or, worse still, cringing and whin-
ing for the loan of a shilling.
"Frank," she said, putting her hand on his sleeve, "re-
member Edmund Grattan. He has got a golden heart.
He is a brilliant writer. He might have been a great
and distinguished man. But his one weakness drags him
down, and every now and again he has to pick himself
tip from the mire and try to build up a new self-respect.
That good, brave, generous-hearted little Irishman is a
warning to all young journalists."
Frank had not told Margaret Hubbard that it was
Grattan who had been his companion on the disastrous
night, and he kept that part of the story to himself. But
he told her something about his conversation with Cod-
rington, and he was surprised at the agitation it caused
her.
"Frank," she said, "what is to be the end of it this
business between Christopher and Katherine?"
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 215
Frank was silent. He had waited a long time for this
moment when Margaret would tell him how things stood
between Katherine and Codrington. He might have
asked a hundred times, but he had been tongue-tied.
Now he was afraid to hear the truth.
"I do not know the beginning yet," he said.
"Hasn't Codrington told you?" she asked. "Well, I
think I admire him for that. It all happened gradually,
and I think I was most to blame. You see, when Kath-
erine first came to Fleet Street she was like a wild rose,
so fresh and so fragrant. Chris Codrington fell in love
with her at once. He found it too easy to fall in love.
For a time I encouraged him. He used to come and tell
me how much he loved her, and used such pretty words
and was so handsome and ardent, that I, who have never
been loved like that, used to envy Kitty. You know how
foolish we women are! Katherine laughed at him at
first. She used to think it very funny and quite nice to
have such a tall, handsome young man as a cavalier. I
must say Chris Codrington played the game very gallantly.
He spent quite a lot of money on theatre tickets and
outings up the river, and excursions to Richmond Park,
and so on. One day I found Katherine sitting on the
floor with her head on the cushions of that chair cry-
ing her heart out. Then I knew that something had hap-
pened. She said that Chris had kissed her in a hansom
cab, and that she had promised to be his wife. For a
moment my heart leaped up. I was so glad that Kitty
was not going to grow old alone. But when I saw she
was crying I wondered, and became rather troubled.
Then she confessed that she did not love Christopher a
Bit, that she only thought it good fun to have him as a
friend, and that she would never marry a poor man, and
live at Brixton, and have babies, and become a drudge
216 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
for a journalist husband who stayed out late at night.
She would rather die."
Margaret smiled at the recollection, in spite of her
anxiety for the girl whom she had mothered so long.
"You know our Katherine. She talks with the candor
of a child sometimes even now but then she was
younger."
Margaret had asked her why she had not told all that
to Codrington and she said she had, and he had behaved
in such a gentlemanly way that she began to think she
did love him a little bit after all. He said that he was in
no hurry to marry, and that he quite agreed with her
as to the horror of married life on a small income in the
suburbs. All he wanted was her promise to wait for
him. He was going to write a big novel, and when that
came out he was going to leave Fleet Street and take a
country house and live like a gentleman. He was quite
sure that he could make a success as a novelist and beat
Hall Caine and Marie Corelli out of the field. Would
she wait for him and inspire him by the thought of her
love, or would she break his heart and make it impos-
sible for him to fulfill his ambition? Katherine was
touched. She had not the heart to ruin this great lit-
erary career, and blight a sensitive spirit. So they had
remained engaged for eighteen months.
"How about the novel?" said Frank. He spoke quite
calmly, but he knew that later he would suffer in remem-
bering this story. It would make the world go very grey
for him.
"Oh, it came out," said Margaret. "It was not a suc-
cess financially, but most of the critics praised it."
"And what is the state of affairs now I mean between
Katherine and Codrington?"
Margaret was thoughtful.
"I hardly know," she said presently. "If I ask Kitty
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 217
to break off the engagement she says, 'Why should I?
We are good chums/ If I ask her when I am to buy
the wedding cake she says, "I am never going to marry
a journalist and a poor man, little mother/ Lately she
has become rather fretful, rather bitter sometimes. I
think she sees that the day may come when she is no
longer young, and when Codrington is still a journalist
and a poor man, or when a middle-aged marriage would
be rather prosaic and joyless/'
"I am sorry," said Frank. "I am very sorry."
There was distress in his voice, but he had that habit
of repressing any evident signs of emotion, which belongs
to reserved self-conscious men.
Margaret suddenly put her hand on Luttrell's knee, and
said in a breaking voice, "Frank, I would give a good deal
to see Katherine safely married/'
"Yes," said Frank, "yes."
It seemed to him that Margaret was making some direct
appeal to him. It was as though she were asking for his
help on behalf of Katherine. He answered quietly.
"I don't see what can be done."
"I put Katherine's happiness first," said Margaret.
"We must all do that. Don't you think so?"
"Yes," said Frank, "yes."
Margaret was looking at him, rather anxiously it
seemed, rather searchingly. He avoided those steady
brown eyes, and taking her hand put his lips to it.
"Mother Hubbard," he said, "you never think of your
own happiness. One of these days your knight will
come riding down the street and carry you off, and then
we shall be left all forlorn."
She laughed in her quiet way.
"I had a dream-knight once, like all women. He was
something like you, Frank, with square shoulders, and a
clean-shaven face and light brown hair that curled a
218 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
little." She looked up at him, and her eyes lingered upon
him with a kind of smiling wistfulness. "Now he has
vanished into thin air, and I know that I am one of the
old maids of life."
She sighed and then rose and stirred the fire into the
flames vigorously, determinedly.
"How's that for a blaze? A single woman can get a
good deal of fun out of the old world, Frank, if she
keeps a warm fire, a warm heart and a sense of humour."
A little later Edmund Grattan came in, and the room
rang with laughter. It was only by a squeeze of the
hand, and a quiet, humorous glance that Frank knew he
remembered the night at the club. He was in good spir-
its, and told some delightfully droll stories. Frank left
the flat after half-an-hour of them, and as he closed the
hall door behind him and went down the dark stairs, he
raised his hand to a throbbing forehead. He repeated the
words he had said to Margaret Hubbard when she had
told him about Codrington. "I am sorry. I am very
sof ry." They were feeble words, but when a man speaks
to his own heart he is not as a rule eloquent, nor does he
use long and polished phrases. "I am sorry, very sorry,"
said Frank Luttrell to the little black kitten which came
purring up to him when he opened the door of his own
rooms at Staple Inn, and he gave a queer, melancholy
laugh as he turned up the light and saw on his table a
half sheet of note-paper on which he had scribbled some
lines "To a Lady."
CHAPTER XII
BRANDON, the murder specialist, went away to York
Assizes for a great trial which was likely to last two
or three weeks. Before leaving Fleet Street he took Lut-
trell on one side and asked him to keep a friendly eye on
Peg.
'The poor girl is already beginning to fret. I should
be deeply grateful, Luttrell, if you could call on her now
and again, to keep her cheerful. Otherwise, I am afraid
" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "You know
jvhat I mean."
Frank was not fascinated by the commission. He
was nervous of that extraordinary girl with the big eyes
and bow-lipped mouth. But he had old-fashioned no-
tions about friendship, and it did not occur to him to
shirk this duty, however unpleasant it might be.
Brandon said, "I know I may rely on your discretion.
I don't want any of the boys to get wind of. the story.
After all, my private life is my own."
" Why not tell Margaret Hubbard ?" said Frank. "She
would help the girl a good deal."
Brandon flushed, and said
"No, not yet. Maggie Hubbard is the most broad-
minded girl I have ever met, but as a Catholic, like all the
Hubbards, she has her convictions, from which she does
not budge an inch, and I am sure she would try to make
me put Peg away. Perhaps that would be best for both
of us if I could get some good soul to look after her,
but I haven't the heart to send the girl to a home. You
x 219
220 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
know what a 'home' is ! She would either pine away and
die or run away and go to the bad for ever."
Frank said no more about the matter, but when Bran-
don had gone he called several times at the flat and spent
an hour or two with Peg. The girl was grateful to him,
and he was struck with pity at her mournfulness. As
much to employ her time and keep her from brooding
as to educate her in an elementary way, Brandon had set
her a number of lessons, and Frank found her doing copy-
book exercises in a laborious round hand, and learning
pieces of poetry by heart in order to acquire a correct
pronunciation. She was also doing some drawings from
models flower-pots, tea-pots, vases and other common
objects and Frank saw that she had a real and natural
talent in this direction. In addition to her educational
course which included the rules of English grammar,
and first lessons in history she had plenty of needle-
work to do. She was darning a number of Brandon's
socks it seemed to Frank that Brandon must have
bought a job lot and deliberately made holes in them
in order that Peg might have work to do and she was
making six pairs of pyjamas for him. At none of these
tasks, except drawing, did she show any aptitude. Her
copybooks were blotted and smudged. It looked as if
some of the blots had been made by tears. She held
her needle in a way that showed to Frank who had
watched his mother at work a thousand times that she
was no good needle-woman. The socks were cobbled in
a rough and ready way, and though sometimes she kissed
them when she spoke of Brandon, Frank thought that
to wear a pair of socks darned in such a way would be
a torture worse than walking on split peas.
But the girl interested him intensely, and he saw that
Brandon, desiring to be kind, had been very cruel in his
method of redemption. The girl was like a trapped bird,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 221
a wild thing with a fluttering heart, put into the narrow
prison of a London flat. All her life until now she had
been at liberty a liberty without law of any kind. From
childhood to womanhood (she was only twenty-one) she
had been out in the London streets selling flowers and
other wares. Brandon had rescued her from an evil life
and surroundings, but he had also destroyed her liberty,
and that, to some human hearts, is the breath of life.
She suffocated in this small flat. Once she actually beat
her head against the wall and thumped it with her hands
until they were all bruised. Sometimes she felt tempted
to smash up the furniture and tear the curtains to pieces.
Once when Brandon was away she did seize the poker
and shatter a big gilt mirror over the drawing-room
mantelpiece because the sight of her own face every time
she crossed the room made her feel quite frenzied. She
had not meant to break the mirror. She had really
struck at the reflection of her own face with the big,
melancholy eyes, which seemed to stare at her and drag
her head round to look into the glass, though she tried
to avoid that image of herself. She told all these things
simply to Frank Luttrell, as simply as a child who has
been naughty and looks back on its misdeeds with the
kind of fatalistic belief of childhood that these things
are inevitable and beyond its own control. Frank urged
her to go out to walk in Battersea Park every day, as a
duty to herself and Brandon, and to go up to town and
see the shops. He offered even to take her to the theatre
a half-a-crown seat in the pit where they would be un-
observed. But the girl explained to him rather piteously
that she dared not go out alone. If she went only so far
as the pillar-box to post a letter to Brandon, she was tor-
mented by the fear of meeting one of her old companions.
Once or twice she had gone for a walk in the park, but
all the time she thought she was being followed. She
222 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
heard footsteps behind her. She fancied she heard some
one call out her name, and she had been so terrified that
she had hurried swiftly along, until at the sight of the
park gates she ran like a hunted thing home to the flat.
Frank was perplexed. It would never do for the girl
to remain always in the stuffy flat, her only companion
when Brandon was away being an old charwoman who
came in to light the fires, cook the meals, and clean up.
No wonder the girl was getting morbid and hysterical,
and losing control over herself. No wonder her eyes
seemed to be getting bigger, and her cheek-bones more
prominent, and the touch of colour on them more vivid.
If she were to be saved from an utter breakdown she
would have to be out into the open air. Brandon in tak-
ing her away from her low companions had not given
her others to take their place, and he himself was away
constantly. Frank was beginning to feel angry and bitter
against the man. Brandon had been merely selfish. Yet
he had made himself believe that he was doing something
noble and self-sacrificing in saving this girl from a vicious
life. He was using her merely as the victim of his own
craving for penance and redemption. But both Bran-
don's ideas were false. He was not saving the girl.
He was destroying her. He was not working out his
own salvation. He was merely substituting one sin for
another.
Frank sometimes wondered whether Peg had a real
love and passion for the man. It was true that she kissed
his socks, and spoke of him in words of adoration as
though he were some angel of God who had stooped
down to lift her up, but it seemed sometimes as if she
was afraid of him, and as if her reverence were that of
an .Oriental slave-girl to her lord and master. Frank
remembered the scene when she had gone down on her
knees to Brandon with the coffee-tray. Whenever she
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 223
spoke of him she seemed to go down, in spirit, on her
knees. There was no sense of equality between the man
and woman in this unconventional menage.
She asked Frank to help her with her lessons, and
whenever she made a mistake she would cry out in a
scared way that Brandon would be displeased with her
because she made such slow progress. She would re-
peat her pieces of poetry to him, and when at almost
every word he would try to correct her vowels, or her
intonation, she would end by bursting into tears, and say
that she would never be able to speak like a "lidy," and
it would be better for Brandon to give her up as hope-
less. She would never be worthy of him. He would
always be ashamed of her before his friends.
Frank soothed her down, and in his simple, rather
boyish way, he made her laugh and forget her troubles
for a while. One Saturday he induced her to
go out with him. They went round Battersea Park.
It was a sunny afternoon, and there was a beautiful show
of spring flowers in the beds hyacinths, daffodils and
crocuses of delicate colour-harmonies. Peg was en-
chanted during the first half-hour, and with her hand
on Frank's arm she wandered round the paths gazing at
the beauty of the flowers with almost hungry eyes. She
told him how in "the old days" they could not have
been very far away she used to buy "daffies" like these
in Covent Garden, and sell them in Cheapside to City
gentlemen. When luck was good she earned as much as
two shillings a day clear profit, but on rainy days she
would sometimes be left with half her stock unsold, and
then she hated to see the poor things wither. They were
seldom any good for a second day though she used to
"fake" them up a bit.
While they were walking round Luttrell suddenly felt
Peg's hand grip his arm, and she said, "Who's that?"
224 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
in a scared voice. It was Quin, the dramatic critic, with
a small boy bowling a hoop by his side. He lifted his hat
to Luttrell, and seemed inclined to stop and speak.
Peg let go of Frank's arm and went quickly over to a
flower bed, pretending to be absorbed in its beauty.
"Hulloh, Luttrell !" said Quin. "Didn't know you lived
in this part of the world."
"I don't," said Frank, "as a matter of fact." For the
life of him he could not resist blushing when Quin looked
across at Peg in a quizzing way, and said, "I see out for
a walk with your best girl."
"Is that your boy?" said Frank.
It was a happy inspiration for changing the subject.
Quin immediately presented his son, aged six, and re-
marked in an aside, that the boy was as bright a little
devil as the sun smiled on. "He keeps me young," said
Quin. "You have no idea how much it adds to your life
if you have to tell fairy-tales in bed in the morning, and
play at steam-engines on a Saturday afternoon, and drive
imaginary motor-cars from London to Edinburgh on a
Sunday morning. Believe me, Luttrell, art, letters,
drama, and that sort of bosh don't add a ha'poth of joy
to life. This is the real thing domestic happiness, a
small boy to romp with. There's nothing like it in life."
He looked over at Peg.
"God bless you !" he said. "Go and do likewise."
He went off humming a song, hand-in-hand with a lit-
tle replica of himself.
Peg came back to Frank, and said she thought she had
better be going home as there were so many people about.
He persuaded her to stay a little longer in the sunshine,
but her pleasure seemed to have gone, and she contin-
ually looked round in a timid way, as if some one might
be following them She referred several times to the en-
counter with Quin, and asked Frank whether he thought
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 225
the man had noticed anything queer about her. Frank
reassured her. The only thing about her, he said, was
her good looks. "You know, Peg," he said, "you are a
very beautiful young person. Don't you know that ?"
She smiled. No daughter of Eve can resent such
words ; but tears came quickly into her eyes when she said
that her good looks, if she had any, had done nothing
but harm to her.
The second time Frank took her for a walk he had a
strange and painful experience. They went as far as
Lambeth Bridge on the way to the Tate Gallery, which
Frank thought would be a great treat to her as she had
such a love of pictures. But they had been rather late
in setting out, and it was dusk when they reached the
bridge. "I am afraid the Gallery will be closed," said
Frank, regretfully. But Peg did not hear him. She had
stopped half-way across the bridge, and was gazing down
the river towards Westminster and to the lights of Lon-
don gleaming along the river side.
"Oh, my Gord!" she said in a kind of whisper.
"What's the matter, Peg?" said Frank.
She turned round with a white face, and in hysterical
words vowed that she would never go back to the flat
at Batter sea. The sight of the great city again was too
much. It was not fair to tempt her like this. Bad as
the old life was it was better than stifling to death in
four rooms. Brandon despised her. He only kept her
out of pity. She didn't blame him for being ashamed of
her and hiding her from his friends, but she couldn't
bear it any longer. It was driving her mad driving her
to drink.
Frank reasoned with her. Brandon had not "hidden"
her from him at least. He had not been ashamed to in-
troduce him to her ; and were they not very good friends ?
226 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Were they not going to have a very pleasant tea together
at a bun-shop, with hot muffins and fancy cakes?
The girl gave a kind of convulsive shiver and turned
her head away from the lights of London over West-
minster and the City. She put her hand on Frank's arm
and said in a low, husky voice that he was a true pal to
her, and he mustn't mind if she was "took a bit queer"
at times.
Frank was genuinely moved by the girl's unhappy sit-
uation and distress of mind. He determined to speak
to Brandon seriously about her when he came back. It
was obviously impossible that she could go on leading this
life. She was too utterly cut off from all companionship
and from all the duties and stimulus of a working life.
She could think too much while she was darning socks
and sewing up pyjamas and reading fairy-tales in words
of one syllable. It seemed to him that the only cure for
the girl would be to get her some employment, some posi-
tion where she could earn enough to give her a sense of
independence, and, what was more essential, a sense of
self-respect. But what could she do? Utterly uneducated
it was difficult to think of any position suitable to her.
She was hardly the sort of girl to recommend as a nur-
sery maid with the care of children. In fact, it was in-
conceivable to think of her in domestic service of any
kind. Her startling type of beauty would scare any
suburban housewife, and her manner of speech would
arouse curiosity and suspicions in the least imaginative
mind. Then, too, who would provide her with a "charac-
ter" ? Frank sighed. Peg had no character according to
the definition of an employment agency.
One thing he felt bound to do, for the sake of the
woman's soul which he could not abandon to its own
misery. He was determined that until Brandon came
back and he had never longed for any one's return so
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 227
ardently before he would devote as much of his time
as possible to keeping Peg company. He realised clearly
enough that she was grateful beyond words for his so-
ciety, and if he could but steal one half-hour a day to
visit her, he kept her away from that terrible temptation
which always seemed to be creeping near to her the
desire to drink herself into oblivion.
As it happened by good fortune it appeared good
fortune to him at the time he was not sent out of town
during these weeks upon any mission which kept him
away a night; and not a day passed without his being
able to take a cab from Victoria across Battersea Bridge
to the block of mansions where he knew Peg would be
listening for the sound of wheels.
This disposal of his leisure hours led to an embarrass-
ment which threatened to become of grave consequence
to his own happiness and peace of mind. He was first
made aware of this by a question from Katherine. They
were alone together t>ne morning in the reporter's room,
for the first time since she had dosed him with quinine
a fortnight before.
"Frank," she said, looking up from her desk, "will you
give me a plain answer to a straight question?"
"Why, yes," he said cheerfully. "I can fairly say I
have never funked doing that with anyone. Ask away."
Katherine swung round on her chair a little so that her
face was in profile to his. He fancied that the rose-tint
on her cheek had deepened.
"Why don't you come round to the flat now. Are you
offended with us about anything?"
Frank saw in a second that a pit was being digged for
him. He could not remember having told a lie in his life.
Truth came naturally to him. And Katherine was the
last girl in the world that he would deceive by a shadow
of dissimulation. He saw whither her question was lead-
228 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ing. She would ask him where he was spending his eve-
nings, and by his pledge to Brandon he was, in honour
bound, forbidden to reply. What should he do? In a
flash all this came to his mind and he was panic-stricken.
It was in a strainejd voice that he said, "Good lord, no !
Offended ! What afe idea !"
Then the fatal question came which he knew would
come.
"What are you doing'^'with yourself, then, every eve-
ning? Why don't you colrrie round sometimes? Mother
Hubbard is quite hurt aboift it."
Frank felt 'himself go ramer white.
"To tell you the truth," he said then he stopped, for
a lie was trembling on his lips and he was afraid of it.
"Yes?" said Katherine.
Frank changed his sentence.
"Mother Hubbard must not feel hurt," he said. "I
shall always be tremendously grateful to her and to
you, for all you have done for me."
Katherine laughed irra queer voice.
"That sounds as if ^ou were taking a sad farewell of
us. Are you never coming to the flat again ?"
"I should rather think I am," said Frank. "If you
will have me," he added with humility.
"If we will have you! . . . You will come to-night,
then? Quin will be there with some new songs of 4iis."
"I should love to," said Frank. But he remembered
that he had promised Peg to be with her at seven if noth-
ing happened to take him out late. That proviso had al-
ways to be made. "Unfortunately, however, I cannot
manage it this evening."
"To-morrow ?" said Katherine.
"Yes, to-morrow perhaps." He said it with hesita-
tion, and went hot and cold. If only Brandon had not
tied his tongue! But he must go through with his task.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 229
He must not forsake poor Peg, who was on the edge of
a horrible precipice.
"Only perhaps ?" said Katherine reproachfully.
Frank twisted uneasily in his chair.
"I am afraid it must be only perhaps," he said gravely.
"I have some private business which is tying my hands
just at present."
"I see," said Katherine.
He saw that she did not see, and that she was hurt or
angry. She bent over her desk and wrote swiftly for a
few minutes. Then in a very friendly and sweet little
voice she said some words which brought the colour flam-
ing to his face.
"By the bye, Quin said he met you in Battersea Park
last Saturday with a beautiful girl with big eyes and bow
lips. The type is rather unusual, isn't it?"
"What type?"
"The Burne- Jones type."
"Is it?" asked Frank. "Yes, I suppose it is."
"Quin was very much struck."
"It is a pity Quin doesn't mind his own business," said
Frank rather hotly. Then he repented of his folly, for
he had emphasised the very thing he wanted to slur over
the secret of the girl with the Burne- Jones face.
It was Katherine's turn to get hot.
"I take that as a hint that I am not minding my busi-
ness," she said. "Pray don't think that I am in the least
inquisitive."
"I don't think so," said Frank quietly. "I know you
will always have the kindest heart and the gift of com-
radeship."
He spoke the words so emotionally that Katherine was
a little startled, even a little afraid. Her long brown
lashes drooped over her eyes and she laid a burning cheek
230 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
oiyrae hand, as she leant on her elbow on the desk pre-
tending to be intent on her work.
"Do you mind if I go on writing?" she said politely, j
"We both seem to be talking foolishly this afternoon."
It was the telephone that saved the situation for Frank.
He sprang to it alertly, and told Vicary over the wire that
he would go upstairs at once. He was sent off to White-
chapel to describe a social "at-Home" at Toynbee Hall,
and on the way he cursed Quin for having talked about
Peg. He saw quite clearly that Katherine's suspicions
were aroused. Perhaps she and Mother Hubbard he
put the thought away from him as a painful thing, but
there was a scared look on his face when he thought that
it would be impossible to explain how and where he spent '
his evenings. What did not occur to him, having a boy-
ish and simple mind unused to the subtleties of woman-
hood, was that Katherine Halstead revealed a trace of
jealousy in her reference to the girl in the park. A man
with more experience might have found a little comfort
in that. But Frank was horribly uncomfortable and felt
that both Katherine and Margaret had a right to be of-
fended with him, as undoubtedly they were. Curiously
enough also, he had an uneasy feeling that he was doing
something "caddish" and dishonorable in thus hiding his
movements from two women who had admitted him into
the delightful sanctuary of their rooms. Like all truth-
ful and simple men, he felt that secrecy was an unnatural
thing.
To his deep annoyance and embarrassment, he found
on the following day that Christopher Codrington had
heard of the strange girl whom Quin had seen walking
with him on Saturday afternoon. The dramatic critic
seemed to have exaggerated the appearance of Peg which
was naturally striking, and Codrington had a mental
vision of a girl with a swan-neck, sapphire eyes, and lips
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 231
like Cupid's bow. Codrington's own lips were curved
into a slightly satirical smile when he congratulated Lut-
trell on having the acquaintance of so original a lady, and
then he used a phrase which brought the blood to Frank's
face. "I am glad/' he said, "that you are gaining experi-
ence of life. It is only when a man's pulse has thrilled to
passionate impulses, that he graduates in the university of
letters."
"I wish to heaven you wouldn't talk sky-bosh, Codring-
ton," he said angrily.
"Hush !" said Codrington. "You may trust to my dis-
cretion. Among men of honour "
He gave another of his pale smiles and slightly lowered
one eyelid.
"Look here, Codrington," said Frank, "I shall be much
obliged if you will drop the subject."
"Certainly," said Codrington. "Not another word, my
dear fellow."
Perhaps Frank would have done well to realise more
quickly the danger of the situation the danger that al-
ways exists in unconventional relationships between men
and women, according to the experience of the world, as
suggested by Codrington's flicker of an eyelid. On the
other hand, a painful scene which took place in the flat
in Battersea Park was not to the blame of a man who
had devoted himself unselfishly to the safeguarding of a
woman's soul. It was the night before Brandon's return
home, when Frank would be able to relinquish his ex-
traordinary task. He found Peg in a state of more
than usual nervous excitement. Strangely enough the
thought that Brandon would be with her within twenty-
four hours did not fire her with that joy which Frank
had expected after all her wailings at his absence. She
was silent and her eyes were very wistful, and as though
she had been weeping for hours. Then she reproached
232 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
herself, passionately, for her own stupidity and broke
down when she said that Brandon would find no improve-
ment in her, that she had done all her lessons badly, and
that she would never be any better.
"Hush, Peg," said Frank, "you must learn a little
patience. In another couple of years you will be such an
elegant lady that I shall be scared of you."
She slipped down on to the ground and put her hands
upon his knees and her face on to her hands. She was
crying.
Frank was horribly ill at ease. He had never seen a
woman weep before, and never before had a woman put
her head upon his knees.
"Peg ! Peg !" hz said. "Get up and sit in a chair, and
let us talk sensibly."
The girl raised her head, and still knelt before him.
"Oh, my Gord! If only I'd been a good woman."
"God made you a beautiful one, and you are going to
be very good."
She got up slowly and rubbed her eyes with the back
of her hands, so that Frank was reminded of the coster-
girl whom he sometimes forgot when looking at this
strange creature.
She vowed that so far from being good she felt she was
going to be very wicked. Sometimes she thought the
devil was in her heart telling her to go to the bad, whis-
pering evil things in her ears. She had not been troubled
so much with that lately until to-night again. Frank had
been very kind to her. She felt "at home" with him.
Brandon always made her feel afraid, he made her feel
that he was a thousand miles above her, and that she was
just dirt at his feet. But Frank had been more of a pal.
He talked to her just as if she could read and write and
speak like a lady. He did not wince every time she
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 233
dropped an "h." He had made her laugh, and she
thought laughter was the best thing in the world.
Suddenly she stretched out her hands to him and called
his name twice. "Frank! Frank!" and then said, "Oh,
my Gord !" and again, "Oh, my Gord !"
Frank rose from his chair. There was something in
her eyes which scared him.
"What is the matter ?"
She half stumbled forward and put her arm round his
neck, and tried to draw his head towards her. She said
she loved him. She couldn't help it. She was a bad
woman, and she ought to be killed, especially after what
Brandon had done for her. But Frank had been "that
kind" to her she couldn't bear the thought of his going
away, and not coming back, now that Brandon would
be home. Couldn't she go with him? She would work
her ringers to the bone for him, and she wouldn't let
the devil whisper bad things in her ears. If only he
would let her stay with him and make her laugh some-
times, she would keep off the drink and be a good girl.
Frank thrust her back, almost roughly.
"Peg!" he said. "I am ashamed of you. How dare
you talk like that ?"
She raised her hand as though to ward off a blow. It
was the instinctive action of a girl who had been struck
by brutal men, and Frank's heart was melted with a
great pity, and all his anger vanished. This girl had
been brought out of the underworld and she was not to
be judged by the ordinary moral code. She sank down
on a sofa rocking herself to and fro, moaning piteously,
and uttering incoherent words of self-abasement.
It was an hour before Frank could calm her down and
make her laugh, though he had spoken between jest and
earnest all that time. He did not go before she had
promised not to say any more silly things and to wait
234 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
like a good girl for Brandon. On his side Frank prom-
ised that he would speak to Brandon and persuade him
to put her into some position where she could earn a liv-
ing, and enjoy liberty without going back to the old ways.
When he left she had brightened up, and at the door of
the flat she bent down and covered his hand with kisses.
Frank Luttrell had played the game with real courage,
not less courageously because, while he had soothed that
girl with cheerful and consoling words, he had been more
frightened than ever in his life before. When she had
put her arm about his neck and spoken passionate and
imploring words to him he had gone quite faint with
fear and horror. It was an awful thought to him that in
trying to fulfill a pledge of friendship with Brandon and
to save this girl from hysteria and worse things he
had risked the loss of honour and had plunged into a
melodrama which might even now have sensational de-
velopments of a most unpleasant character. Peg's out-
burst of passion had scorched him. She had panted like
some beautiful animal when she had put her arms about
him, and her breath had been hot on his face. Then like
a child she had quietened down and cried over his hands
and kissed them.
He shuddered. What would happen if Brandon found
out? He had laid himself open to the most awful accu-
sation which one man may make to another. Like other
men who, in trying to do good, have burnt their fingers,
Frank Luttrell vowed that never again would he play
the part of a philanthropist, or pose as a doctor of wom-
en's souls. But it was too late to make this resolution
as far as Peg was concerned, and there was to be another
chapter to the story.
CHAPTER XIII
LUTTRELL had been on the Rag six months, and his
knowledge of the inner workings of a newspaper office
was no longer limited to the reporters' room. He had
breathed the more rarefied air of the editorial depart-
ment. He had gone with hesitating tread into the pres-
ence of the chief leader-writer. He had become friendly
with the literary editor. He was even admitted into
the confidence of the composing-room.
It was in the last place that he learnt the real secrets
of this great machine of which he was but one small
wheel revolving in a narrow groove. He had first intro-
duced himself to those men in white aprons when he
had sneaked upstairs in the hope of getting a proof
of one of his articles which he had written in a jolting
railway train, so illegibly that he knew even a print-
er's reader would be baffled by it. It was an unconsti-
tutional act to apply for a proof without the news-editor's
permission, but the man from whom he begged this
favour with due humility was gracious.
"I don't mind obliging a gent like you, sir," he said,
shovelling some snuff into his nose and offering it to
Luttrell, who took a small pinch and sneezed violently
three times.
"Why like me?" said Frank.
"Well, I don't mind saying as how I like your articles,
Mr. Luttrell. You've got a bright touch, and see things
with your eyes open."
"It's very good of you to say so," said Frank, feeling
that this was praise from Olympian heights.
235
236 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Well, I dare say you think I've no call to say so,"
said the friendly comp, "but I reckon I know what lit-
erature is, seeing as I was brought up on the Bible,
Shakespeare, Paradise Lost, and George R. Sims."
"Who was George R. Sims ?" asked Frank, feeling that
his education had been woefully neglected.
The man was astounded. "Don't know George R
Sims? Never read The Signalman's Daughter?"
"No," said Frank.
"Strike me pink! Why him and Shakespeare are the
great 'umanists. What them two don't know about
'uman nature ain't 'umanity. I made sure you'd studied
him. You've got just the same touch. The throb of
the 'eart in your copy, so to speak. My old woman says
'that young feller who writes them descriptive articles is
a fair cough-drop/ She says she could just 'ug you, sir,
though she's never set eyes on you."
"I am sure I should be delighted to hug your good
lady," said Luttrell pleasantly, "that is, if you had no
objection."
The man chuckled prodigiously while he shovelled
more snuff into his nose.
"I see you've got a sense of 'umour," he said, while
he went on putting the brasses between lines of type,
with extraordinary deftness. "I wouldn't be surprised if
you play cricket, neither."
"I used to," said Frank, "at Oxford. I don't get a
chance now."
"Oh, that's a pity. You can divide up the world in
two 'alves. Them as plays cricket and them as don't.
The last sort are all blighters. I always try to get a
game of a Saturday on Camberwell Green, with my boy.
. .' . So you've been to Oxford, 'ave you? Ah! I
thought so, by the look of you. You've got the Oxford
manner."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 237
"What's it like ?" said Frank, genuinely amused by this
man in a white apron who spoke without the slightest
deference, yet without any suggestion of insolence or
over- familiarity.
"Oh, you can't define it. It's a jer-nez-say-quah, as
my son calls it. ... I've a son as Article Sixty-Eight
in an elementary school. That boy would surprise you
with his knowledge. French and Latin are mere play-
things to him."
This conversation was the beginning of a friendship
which was not without interest to Frank. Mr. More-
wood the men always called each other "Mr.," though
they spoke of the editor as "little Bellamy," and the news-
editor as "old Vicary" introduced him to some of his
fellow compositors who were glad to have proofs pulled
for him whenever he wanted them, and to hold brief con-
versations with him on politics, literature, cricket, or the
domestic economy, of the Rag, while they worked with
fingers which seemed bewitched. Frank occasionally
stood one or two of them a glass of beer at a tavern in
a side-street, and once went to tea with John Morewood
at Camberwell, where he was introduced to a nice mother-
ly woman, who asked anxiously whether he wore flannel
next to the skin, and to the youth of eighteen whom he
found to be an intelligent Cockney, proud of an education
above the people of his own class, and very patronising
to his parents, who regarded him with awe, but a bright-
eyed, clean-hearted, good-tempered boy. Codrington was
astounded to hear that Frank had gone to tea with a
"comp," although Codrington himself would stand at the
bar any day with sporting men not nearly so respectable.
But he thought the line ought to be drawn somewhere
and he drew it unswervingly between the composing-
room and the second floor.
Frank found that the compositors made him think bet-
238 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ter of the world. Sturdy men, engaged in a hard and
unhealthy occupation which reversed the order of nature
so that they slept during the day and worked at night,
men who had come from the north and south there
were few real Cockneys among them they had a dig-
nity and a solidity of character which inspired him with
admiration. Most of them were married and had large
families. He found that if he allowed them to speak of
their wives and children he at once made them his firm
and grateful friends. Safeguarded by trade union rules
they had a sense of independence which gave them an
independence of manner, and the composing-room was
a kind of free republic governed by an elected represent-
ative called the Father of the Chapel, endowed with tem-
poral and spiritual powers before which the mightiest
editor trembled. The men themselves working at the
top of the building looked down upon the lower floors
with editors, reporters, and the whole staff of pressmen,
like gods gazing down upon the little wriggling figures
of humanity on the ant-heap of the world. They took a
benevolent interest in their wriggling. They distin-
guished one ant from another. They sympathised with
their struggles and strivings. But they had an attitude
of sublime detachment from all this turmoil, knowing
that they were the arbiters of fate. If a reporter failed
with his copy there were a dozen articles in the rack to
take its place. If the editor were to be killed in Fleet
Street the foreman printer would not turn a hair. If a
pestilence were to sweep through the editorial depart-
ment one surviving sub-editor would send up the agency
services and the paper would come out. But if the
Father of the Chapel sent down a note to the editor in-
forming him that the trade union rules had been violated
by a hair's breath, there would be the silence of death
in the composing-room, and, until an abject apology had
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 239
been received, no paper would see the light of day.
They were the masters of the situation, all powerful, and
they had the pride of free men, untouched by the rest-
lessness, the feverishness, the intriguing, the flattery, the
cringing cowardice of some of the men down-stairs, who,
without any trade union to defend their rights, were at
the mercy of despots, benevolent or otherwise, always
afraid of losing their jobs, always haunted by the fear
of going home to their wives and children with a month's
notice in their pocket.
Frank was curiously interested in the private lives of
these "comps," whose only luxury at night seemed to be
the snuff which they took in large quantities, and the half-
hour's "knockoff" at eight-o'clock when they went out
to get a cheap meal and one pipe. They earned good
wages, some of them the linotype men as much as five
pounds a week but it did not seem more than sufficient
to keep above the border line of poverty. House rent
was dear, even in the Battersea Park Road; they sub-
scribed to clubs and masonic lodges which would give
something to the "missus" if they pegged out ; they spent
a good deal on food and tobacco, and nearly all of them
put money on horses and "cup-ties" or adopted other
means of gambling.
"What's the good of it?" he asked, and they answered
that it kept them alive and gave them a bit of excitement.
The matter seemed to them past argument. Betting
seemed as necessary to many of these men as bread-and-
butter. On the other hand, there were some who adopted
higher and less expensive hobbies. One man was an ar-
dent student of theology, and tackled Frank Luttrell one
evening on the writings of Cardinal Newman and Mat-
thew Arnold in a way that was damaging to Luttrell's
self-respect. Several of them were eminent men on the
clarionet, bass-viol, saxophone, and other instruments of
240 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
which Frank was utterly and shamefully ignorant. An-
other, the pride of the composing-room, was the cham-
pion amateur pugilist of South London, and had knocked
out Jim Crow the American negro, to say nothing of a
news-editor who had once given him a "bit of sauce."
It was from these men that Frank had learnt some of
the inner secrets of the Rag. They confided to him that
as a philanthropic institution for converting "the benight-
ed 'eathen" to the gospel of Nonconformist Liberalism,
it was the most expensive thing of its kind. The "ads,"
as they called the advertisements, were not enough to pay
the wages on the editorial floor, and most of them were
paid for at starvation rates. The circulation was drop-
ping off steadily, and at its best it had been very bad.
They didn't think much of Bellamy as an editor. He
was a smart little fellow with a genial way, but he hadn't
got a brain big enough for his job, which would take the
wisdom of an archangel so long as Liberals were too
poor to buy a penny paper and w'hile the Liberal govern-
ment made every big business man quake in his shoes.
They assured Frank that all great advertisers put their
money into Conservative papers, which supported prop-
erty and went into the hands of the rich. Hairdressers'
assistants, Nonconformist clergymen, congregations of
dissenting chapels, inspired vegetarians, and peace-at-
any-price people, who made up the bulk of Liberal read-
ers in London according to composing-room opinions
were no good at all from a business point of view. "All
the money is on the other side when it's a question of
ads," said Mr. Morewood. "Why, firms that are spend-
ing thousands a week will think three times before they
give us a paltry quarter column. It's a dashed good thing
for us that we 'ave a proprietor who is not running this
show as a financial proposition and who can stand the
racket till all's blue. 'E looks upon it as 'is little 'obby,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 241
I understand, and he's got three and an 'alf million to play
about with. That's more than enough for golf."
"Supposing he gets tired of this hobby," said Frank,
"and takes to building free libraries for other people's
newspapers ?"
"Well, then, Gord 'elp us and our wives and kids,"
said Mr. Morewood, measuring off a column of type with
a piece of string.
Frank's knowledge of the editorial floor was due to a
more extensive sphere of work. The Chief had got rid
of the young gentleman who had Belgium on the brain,
and of several other gentlemen of academical distinction
who had been earning good salaries in return for one
leader-note a night. They had been appointed by Bel-
lamy's predecessor in the editorial chair, who had or-
ganised the staff regardless of expense, with the propri-
etor's full consent. When Bellamy had first seen the
salary list he nearly swooned, and had to send out im-
mediately for a glass of "milk," which cost him sixpence.
But there were wheels within wheels, and Bellamy had to
move slowly in his work of retrenchment and reform.
It was only during recent days, when the proprietor had
been brooding over the figures of the last financial year,
that Bellamy had been allowed to cut off the heads of a
number of men whom he had long marked down as
"weeds" in his private note-book. To do him justice he
destroyed these members of his staff with the utmost
tenderness, and as though he loved them. To the gen-
tleman with the Belgian weakness he said that he had
come reluctantly to the opinion that he was too good for
his position, that his high talent deserved a wider scope,
and that he, Bellamy, felt it his duty not to stand in his
way of advancement.
"It's very good of you to put it like that," said the
junior leader-writer, fingering his dismissal note. "It
242 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
is better than being kicked out, but of course it comes to
the same thing, and won't comfort my wife who is ex-
pecting a new baby."
Bellamy wrung him by the hand heartily.
"My dear fellow, when you are editor of the Spectator,
you will be grateful to me for having removed you from
a place utterly unsuited to your abilities."
It was owing to these dismissals that Frank found him-
self with more work and higher wages. Bellamy took
him out to supper one night. It was an hour some-
times extending to nearly two hours when the editor
allowed himself a complete break from the cares of
office. It was also the hour when he made and unmade
favourites. Frank had often noticed men used to hang
round the editor's door when eight o'clock approached,
like courtiers in the ante-room of a king. Some of them
who enjoyed the personal favours of the Chief used to
be more forward in soliciting his company. Quin, for
instance, used to poke his head into the room, and with
his whimsical smile, say, "Can I order you a salmon steak
this evening, my lord?" and then in a whisper he would
say, "I have a remarkably good story to tell you this
evening. No whiskers on it, honour bright. . . . Hush
not a word." If Quin were doing a first night, Codring-
ton perhaps would open the door of the editor's room in
a noiseless way, close it behind him, and taking off his
remarkable hat, stand silent and elegant before his Chief.
Bellamy would look up, and start with mock alarm.
"Have you come to borrow money, Codrington? If so,
get out."
"No, sir, I only wondered whether I might join you
at supper this evening?"
"No, you may not. Go and have supper with one of
your concubines. I am having my simple meal with a
man of strict virtue and high ideals. Needless to say,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 243
he is a distinguished Liberal who does not order this
paper from his newsagent. He reads it free of charge at
the club and has a huge admiration for its noble pur-
pose. Damn him!"
Frank was not one of the ante-chamber courtiers, but
Silas Bellamy sent down word to him one evening that
he would like his company for an hour. Such an invita-
tion was equal to a Royal command, and Codrington,
who overheard it raised his blonde eyebrows and congrat-
ulated him. "I shall be taking off my hat to you as chief
leader-writer, Luttrell."
"It is more likely that I am going to get a month's
notice," said Frank.
"Well, I admit that's just as probable," said Codring-
ton pleasantly. "There's a feeling of unrest in the air.
I never come to the office without being prepared for
my death-warrant."
It was characteristic of Bellamy that for three-quarters
of an hour in the Italian Restaurant round the corner he
did not mention the special purpose of the interview.
He ordered a nice little meal for Luttrell and shared a
bottle of Burgundy with him, and talked pleasantly and
quite amusingly of his experiences in many parts of the
world. He was especially proud of his career as relig-
ious editor on the Chicago Angel when he smelt ouiE
heresy in many different congregations and worked up
sensational copy, when the heretics obtained writs for libel
or resisted the authority of their elders, bishops, or ec-
clesiastical bodies.
At the tooth-pick stage of the meal Bellamy said in a
casual way
"What would you think if I doubled your salary, Lut-
trell?"
"I should think you were joking," said Frank, after
244 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
a sufficient pause to study the idea in its different and al-
luring aspects.
Bellamy seemed pleased with the answer and laughed
in his throat.
"Well, just as you like," he said. "You needn't accept
my offer if you don't care for it. ... The truth is you
have been doing pretty good work, Luttrell, and I believe
you could do better. Anyhow, I am going to make you
do more. I am going to introduce you to our chief
leader-writer ever met him ? He's worth knowing as a
type of the high-souled, academical, un journalistic gen-
tleman and you'll have to write a leader-note for him
when you're not out late or away on one of Vicary's cod
news stories. I am also going to introduce you to our
literary editor he's another pretty specimen: he would
like to abolish news altogether and give nothing but lit-
erary articles by long-haired gents who have a stupendous
reputation at Tooting Bee, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and
Slocumb-in-the-Mud. You'll have to fill up your time
by doing reviews for him. That's why I am going to
raise your salary."
Luttrell began to thank him with an emotion that
gripped his throat, but Bellamy cut him short.
"Oh, it's nothing but sweating. I wouldn't put it to
you myself, but the proprietor is all for cutting down
expenses, and as I'm handling his money I have to work
out his ideas when he has any don't you know. Have
you ever struck the proprietor ? He ought to be put into
a poem.'*
He was thoughtful for a moment, with a whimsical
smile, as he pulled his little chestnut moustache. Then
he returned to the subject of Luttrell's salary.
"Look here, don't you go buying motor-cars or taking
Gaiety girls out to tea. There's no knowing if I shan't
have to give you the sack in another week or two."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 245
He laughed and then shook hands with Frank and said,
"I like your stuff, Luttrell. You're a scholar and a
gentleman, don't you know, and all that."
Frank did not know how far he was to take the editor
seriously. He even doubted whether the doubling of his
salary was anything more than a jest. Men are not in
the habit of expecting miracles nowadays, and Frank,
who had written himself down as an arrant failure,
would really have taken his dismissal without a thought
of being unjustly treated. For a little while after he had
left Bellamy he was tempted to do wild things, to burst
into the reporters' room with the great news, to go over
to the club and stand endless whisky-and-sodas to men
! who could take them endlessly, to go and shed tears of
joy on Mother Hubbard's shoulder, or to go and implore
Katherine to kiss him once, whatever Codrington might
[say. But he did none of these things and gradually
cooled down to a normal temperature, reflecting that he
>; would look a pretty fool if Bellamy had only been in-
dulging in badinage. He decided to say nothing about
the rise, imaginary or real, to any of his colleagues, until
it was put to the test on the following Friday at the
cashier's desk.
That Bellamy had been serious up to a point was
proved when he duly introduced Luttrell to the chief
[leader-writer and the literary editor, leaving him in their
Jhands after a few jesting words.
Luttrell had often seen the tall man with the iron-grey
pair and the long, ascetic face who, day by day, or rather
bight by night, gave expression to the clear and rather
told voice of intellectual Liberalism. He had seen him
coming out of the editor's room, slightly flushed, and
(smiling in a half -amused, half -contemptuous way. He
|iad seen him sitting in his own room with Blue Books
n front of him, the table and floor littered with morning
246 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
and evening papers, his iron-grey hair disordered, and his
hatchet-like face bending over the desk as he wrote page
after page of manuscript in a fine, crabbed, scholarly
hand which was the horror of the linotype men upstairs.
He had read morning after morning those clear, polished,
faultless phrases in which he reproved European mon-
archs for indiscretions, ridiculed Conservative orators in
an ironical vein which was never violent and seldom bit-
ter, gave additional weight to the somewhat ponderous
arguments of Liberal politicians, upheld the old Glad-
stonian ideals without the Gladstonian fire and emotion,
and went back repeatedly to first principles of political,
social and ethical philosophy in dealing with the facts and
problems and tendencies of modern life.
Frank found Henry Bathhurst to be a man of highly-
strung nervous temperament, with a strain of intellectual
arrogance and impatience which had a rather paralysing
effect on those with whom he came in touch. The truth
was, as Frank discovered upon closer acquaintance, that
the man was hopelessly ill at ease in the turmoil of a
newspaper office. He had been a don at Cambridge,
where his text-books on political economy had been re-
ceived as the new gospel. Among his fellow-professors
he had been known as a man of singularly high and
noble character, unsullied by any mean qualities, and il-
luminated by a keen and kindly wit. In that atmosphere
of scholarship, of moral and mental exclusiveness into
which the vulgarities and squalor of life did not enter,
Henry Bathurst breathed naturally. But when he ex-
changed the society of professors for that of pressmen in
obedience to an impulse which bade him put his political
economy to the test of practical problems, he found him-
self in a new world of beings with whom he had but little
sympathy and who bewildered him continually. Silas
Bellamy, his editor, amused him sometimes, irritated him
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 247
constantly, and was always a mystery to him. He could
not understand his flippancy, his apparent indifference
to all the great ideals of Liberalism, his evident light-
heartedness in the face of Liberal defeats. When Henry
Bathhurst went into his room to discuss some momen-
tous question of policy, Bellamy would polish his nails,
play with a bayonet on his desk, and after listening for
five minutes with a queer little smile under his moustache
would look up and say, "I have no doubt you're right,
Bathhurst, I cannot imagine you ever being wrong. But,
of course, politics never gave us any circulation and
never will. It's news that people want, and a few light
articles to keep them cheerful."
The only time when the editor exercised his preroga-
tive of criticism and veto was when Henry Bathhurst hit
any party too hard or used his gift of irony as a rapier.
Then Bellamy would in his whimsical way protest against
this ill-usage of harmless people who no doubt had their
use in the world, and bought the necessities and luxuries
of life which created advertisements for the maintenance
of newspapers. He admitted that in all probability ad-
vertisements were an eye-sore to the chaste eyes of a
Cambridge professor, but unless they were admitted to
the paper Bathhurst would have no means of raising
the ideals of the people, for the simple reason that the
paper would cease to exist.
"Do you mean to say, then," said Henry Bathhurst,
"that I have got to be dishonest in order that some low
creature with Tory prejudices may be induced to pay for
half-a-column of Bilious Beans in black type?"
"Dishonesty," said Bellamy, stroking his fair mous-
tache, "is unknown in a newspaper office. Diplomacy is
a better word and hurts nobody's feelings."
After such conversations as this Henry Bathhurst
would go back to his room and fling himself down in his
248 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
chair with a burst of laughter in which there was no
mirth.
"The whole thing is sordid and squalid/' he said one
night to Luttrell who had come to get instructions for a
"leader-note." "To a man of honour it is an intolerable
situation."
Once he poured forth the vials of his wrath upon all
pressmen. They were ignorant, vulgar, coarse and stupid.
They were false to every ethical ideal. They were board-
school boys invested with terrible power. He had come
to the conviction that a journalist could not be a gentle-
man. They might have been gentlemen once, and they
might retain certain superficial traces of gentility, but at
the heart of them they were mostly rotten.
"When I see these sinister people walking about the
office," he said, "these so-called business men who control
the machine, these men with Yankee ideals, I despair of
the future of the country."
Luttrell, who knew more about the personalities in the
office and of journalists in other offices for Henry Bath-
hurst held himself aloof and remained in the seclusion
of his own room did not entirely agree with this sweep-
ing condemnation. He, more than Bathhurst, had been
broken on the wheel of the machine : more sensitive even
than the man of academical training, he had suffered the
tortures of a shy spirit in the rough crowd. Henry Bath-
hurst after all had never gone out into the streets to seek
interviews with snobs, to flatter flunkeys, to be insulted
by all sorts and conditions of people who, like Bathhurst,
the Cambridge professor, did not think that a journalist
could be a gentleman. He was a descriptive reporter at
the call of a news-editor, and he saw the worst side of
Fleet Street. But in fairness to Frank LuttrelFs breadth
of mind it must be said that he saw more to admire than
to blame. He had marvelled often at the gaiety with
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 249
which those men faced their daily life and at the courage
with which they took the ups and downs of a switchback
career. He knew that Bathhurst himself was regarded
with somewhat contemptuous amusement by his col-
leagues on lower planes of the journalistic ladder. When
they passed judgment on him briefly as an "academical
gent" they expressed a truth which Frank, who was also
a 'Varsity man, had not been slow in admitting. It was
true that they could not all read read J^schylus in the
original or quote the satires of Juvenal, but they saw day
by day greater tragedies than those conceived by Greek
poets, and went behind the scenes of that come die hu-
mame, in which Juvenal had learnt his knowledge of
manners and men.
The literary editor to whom Luttrell went, with his
usual nervousness and diffidence, was a different type of
man from Henry Bathhurst. When Luttrell first tapped
at his door and went in, he saw a young, anaemic-looking
man with fair wavy hair going a little grey and a pale,
haggard, clean-shaven face, seated, with his elbows on the
desk, a novel opened before him and six other novels in
a pile at his elbow. He was smoking a cigarette, and
the third finger of his left hand was deeply stained with
nicotine. As Luttrell entered he groaned slightly, and
pushed back a lock of his fair hair from his forehead.
Then he swung round in his chair, and said in a nervous
way, "You're Luttrell, aren't you? The Chief spoke to
me about you. He says you are going to do a review now;
and again."
"If I may," said Luttrell. "I have had very little ex-
perience except at Oxford, where I used to do books for
the mag."
Percival Phillimore pointed to the novels.
"If you could do some of them in your spare time I
should be grateful. But I warn you it is the most soul-
250 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
destroying work in the world. I have reviewed a hundred
and fifty novels this year, and my brain has gone to pulp.
Nine- tenths of them are utterly bad, the others are just
endurable. But one loses all sense of proportion. When
one reads a novel that does not violate every rule of
grammar and contains just a few traces of good sense
and good feeling, one is apt to hail it as a work of genius.
The worst of it is we can't afford to tell the truth about
the bad ones. The only justification of a literary page in
a newspaper is the publishers' advertisements, so that we
can't be too severe. Besides, the public would not read
columns of adverse criticism. A review must always err
on the side of kindness, and find excuse for the worst of
literary charlatans."
Luttrell was drawn towards this man who called him-
self literary editor, and wrote most of the reviews of his
own page. Although he looked under thirty he had been
on every rung of the journalistic ladder, and on most of
the London papers. It appeared that he was married and
had a beautiful wife in the suburbs, and three young
children to whom he told fairy-tales in bed every morn-
ing. He had written several big books on history, and
innumerable essays and articles; and a life of incessant
literary labour, from early morning until late at night,
had made him a man of delicate health and overwrought
nerves. He had had repeated struggles with poverty, and
this had made him anxious and melancholy, but under-
neath that melancholy there was a gleam of spiritual
sunshine, and he had tenderness of character which gave
him an almost feminine sensibility.
Though Frank Luttrell did not know it, Percival Philli-
more was curiously like himself in many ways. It was as
though Luttrell were face to face with his own person-
ality after Fleet Street had done its worst with him, and
when disappointment, failure, toil, long hours, and mental
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 251
strain and stress had left him physically enfeebled and
weary in spirit. If ever such a thought had sprung into
Luttrell's mind it would have come to him as a shock,
for although he spent many pleasant minutes in Philli-
more's room, talking "literature," telling his adventures,
and rinding some rest fulness in the presence of this tired,
shy, and sympathetic man, he always pitied him as he
pitied any weak and forlorn creature who had been
wrecked on the shore of life.
But Luttrell at this time, and for the first time during
his career in Fleet Street, was hopeful and elated. When
the first Friday came round after his supper with Bellamy
he received a cheque for nine guineas. So it was true!
He was a man of means of almost inconceivable wealth!
On four pounds ten a week he had paid his way, by care-
ful management, leaving himself a margin for small
luxuries. On nine guineas he would not know what to
do with his money. That was what he thought while
standing at the cashier's desk fingering the bit of pink
paper which was a document standing for more than gold
a diploma of merit, an acknowledgment of hard service
on behalf of the Rag, a reward for insults and absurdi-
ties, and loss of self-respect, and mental irritation, and
hours of futile work, and articles never published, and
articles chopped down, and nights of dreadful doubt, and
mornings of blank pessimism, and days of infinite fatigue.
CHAPTER XIV
IT happened that a Bourbon princess was to be mar-
ried to a Bourbon prince, and by a chain of facts that
began in the year 1789 when a pale young man with long
hair and black eyes jumped on to a table outside the
Palais Royal in Paris and shouted "Aux armes!" to a
mob of butchers, clerks, lawyers, and market-women it
appeared that the marriage was to take place in the heart
of Worcestershire. It seems curious that the downfall of
the Bastille, followed by the march on Versailles, the sack
of the Tuileries, the escape to Varennes and the execution
of Louis Capet, should have any influence upon the life
of a young journalist named Francis Luttrell, a century
and a half later, but it seems curious only because men
do not understand how their lives have already been in
some measure fashioned for them in the womb of Time,
and how many of their actions and adventures have been
made possible by the deeds of men and women whose
bones have long been mouldering in the grave or scattered
among the motes which dance in the sunbeam. If Louis
XVI. had not been fat and somnolent after dinner, and
ruled by a woman with a stronger will; even if Jean
Jacques Rousseau had not written a book which was read
by young blacksmiths by the light of their forge, and by
poor Parisian clerks in their fireless lodgings, or by men
and women with wit beneath their powdered wigs ; or if
Madame de Warens had not been the "cher maman" of
the loutish young man in whose brain was conceived the
contrat social, or if a thousand things going back down
the dim vistas of history haunted by millions of unknown
252
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 253
ghosts the joy-bells would not have rung for a Bourbon
princess at her marriage in a Worcestershire farm-house,
and Francis Luttrell would not have been what now he is^
There was another chain of events much too tedious to*
follow out, but quite independently, leading to the strange
connection between the journalist and the French Revo-
lution. For if Queen Elizabeth had not been fond of
pinching the ears and sometimes slapping the faces of
handsome young men who pretended to be in love with
her, it is quite certain that Christopher Codrington would
not have been sent off to describe a pastoral play at Sher-
borne which was given by the great Queen to young
Walter Raleigh. And if Codrington had not gone to
Sherborne he would certainly have gone to the Bourbon
wedding in Worcestershire, and Francis Luttrell would
probably, on that day, have eaten a mutton chop in a
Fleet Street restaurant, without having his fate linked
up with the ancien regime of France, so strangely do
things come about.
Vicary, the news-editor, was the instrument of Fate.
He called Luttrell into his room one afternoon and told
him that he was to get away next morning to a Worces-
tershire town where once a great battle was fought.
Vicary did not mention the battle, but Frank, who used
to read history, remembered it. "We haven't a ticket,"
said Vicary, "and what you have got to do when you are
on the ground is to lay your hands on two."
"Why two?" asked Luttrell.
"Because I tell you so," said Vicary amiably, "and, if
you want to know more on the subject, because Miss
Katherine Halstead is going with you to describe the
frocks. Any objection?"
Frank controlled his emotion admirably, and said,
"None whatever," just as he might have done if a man
in the corner seat of a railway carriage had asked whether
254 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
he had any objection to the window being shut. But
Vicary's words had opened the window of his imagina-
tion, and he saw a delightful vision of a gay adventure
with Katherine as his comrade.
Vicary gave one of his prodigious winks. He winked
with one whole side of his face.
"I thought you wouldn't mind. Katherine is a charm-
ing girl ; I hope you will behave discreetly and look after
her carefully."
"Miss Halstead is quite able to look after herself," said
Mr. Frank Luttrell, with a rather steely look in his grey-
blue eyes.
Vicary was amused, and when he was amused he had a
habit of twisting his body, and laughing behind a big fist.
"Oh, oh ! There's a nasty east wind in here 1"
Then he became business-like and told Luttrell in his
abrupt way that it was a good story, and he ought to be
jolly glad to get on to it and he must write a prepara-
tory article describing who the Bourbons were when they
were at home, and who was going to be married to whom,
and above all things he was to get two tickets for the wed-
ding on the following day, and put his stuff on to the
wires before they were bunged up with messages to all
the papers in Europe and the village of London.
Frank met Katherine in the passage. He had been to
the flat again for three evenings, and she had forgotten
the mysterious girl of Battersea Park, or, if she remem-
bered, she had forgiven him, and asked no more ques-
tions.
She had already heard the news, and greeted him in the
passage with an excited pleasure which she did not at-
tempt to conceal.
"How splendid ! There will be some wonderful frocks,
and they say the princess's wedding gown is beyond the
dreams of women."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 255
"I suppose as far as I am concerned it will mean top
hat and frock coat?" said Frank, talking in the leisurely
way which all Englishmen affect when they want to hide
their feelings.
"And lavender gloves, if you please, and a silver-
knobbed stick. You must look your very bestest best.
We are going to rub shoulders with the crowned heads
of Europe, and all sorts of queer, disreputable people in
their Sunday clothes."
Frank promised humbly to try and look the part of a
potentate, but he was quite sure that his disguise would be
imperfect.
Katherine tipped up her face a little and studied him
with critical eyes as he leant against the passage wall.
"I am quite sure you will be mistaken for a prince."
"It is a doubtful compliment," said Frank, who had
seen some princes since he had been a journalist.
"Prince Charming," said Katherine. "One of the fairy-
book kind, and I will be your princess, that is if your
Royal Highness will stoop to so poor a beggar-maid."
There was a roguish look on her face, yet something
more or less than roguishness in the smile with which
she said these words. It was as though she had discov-
ered while the words were on her lips, that the man be-
fore her had really that beauty which belongs to the
princes of Elf-land, being tall, and strong, and meek be-
fore women.
"It is you who stoop," said Frank, after a pause. "But
if you will let me be your knight, princess, I will defend
you from all fierce dragons and naughty fiends who may
stand in our path."
"It will be a gay adventure," said Katherine, drooping
her eyes before his gaze. And then she gave her silver
laugh and went away from him.
It seemed to Frank that he was unworthy of the great
256 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
favour promised to him. He was even a little afraid,
knowing that in real life, as in fairy-land, there are fierce
dragons and naughty fiends which lie in wait for the man
who does not keep a watch over his own heart. Yet his
fear was only for a moment, and when he went out to
buy the lavender gloves and the silver-knobbed stick, and
a pair of patent boots, and a new silk hat the adventure
was not to be without expense he was as merry as if he
were preparing for his own marriage ; even more merry,
for there was all the amusement of make-believe without
the responsibility of actual fact.
In the evening he had to attend a dinner at the Man-
sion House, where his thoughts wandered so much that
he had to beg the friendship of a fellow-pressman to give
him the drift of an important political speech by the
Prime Minister, of whose priceless words of wisdom on
the fascinating subject of Free Trade he had not heard
a single syllable. Upon returning to the office he found
a note on his desk. It was from Katherine, and said,
"I shall meet you at Paddington to-morrow well before
eleven. I am having a dress rehearsal to-night with
Mother Hubbard."
When Frank put all his things on in the morning a
tail coat, well-creased trousers (he had put them under
his mattress, and slept on them), patent leather boots,
new silk hat, and lavender gloves he felt just as big a
fool as a man who is really going to get married at Han-
over Square, or St. Margaret's, Westminster. He had a
desperate temptation to throw the hat out of his window
into Holborn, to pitch his black coat into the coal-scuttle,
and to slip into a Norfolk jacket and his old sense of free-
dom. It seemed absurd to be going into the country on
a day of sunshine dressed like an undertaker. He said
many violent things to himself about the idiocy of human
nature, and then with a last glance at himself in a mirror,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 257
four inches by three (which to tell the truth slightly re-
stored his cheerfulness, for it was a very good hat, and
not a bad-looking face), strolled out of Staple Inn, and
hailed the nearest hansom.
It was two minutes to eleven before Katherine ap-
peared, and two minutes before the train started. Frank
had waited for three-quarters of an hour, and now, with
one foot on the step of an empty first-class carriage, was
feeling that the gods had mocked at him. Something, he
felt sure, must have prevented Katherine from coming
with him. Perhaps Vicary had sent her a wire cancelling
the engagement and sending her off to some fancy ba-
zaar, or to a breakfast to suffragettes released from Hoi-
loway. Then he saw her coming up the platform fol-
lowed by a porter with her bag, as though the train would
wait for her good pleasure, however late she might be.
She wore a white silk dress and a white hat with pink
roses, and long white gloves, and she carried a flowered-
silk parasol with a long crooked handle, and she looked
as fresh and simple and sweet as a shepherdess in Dres-
den china, or a lady of the old French court in one of
Watteau's pictures. She caught sight of Frank from the
far end of the platform and came towards him, smiling.
Even from the end of the platform Frank could see that
she was smiling.
She dropped him a half-curtsey on the platform, regard-
less of the gruff porter, who shouted, "Are you going,
miss?" and of the guard who was waiting to wave his
flag. Frank took off his hat and bent over her white-
g'oved hand as she stretched it out to him.
"Princess," he said, "I was very much afraid."
"Of what?"
"I thought you were going to miss the train."
"Pooh!" said Katherine, "I wouldn't have missed it
for the world."
258 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
She got into the carriage, and Frank stepped in after
her as the train moved off.
"First class !" said Katherine. "Vicary only allows
second class on a long journey."
"Oh, I will pay the difference. This is my day out."
He stood watching her as she peeped into a mirror be-
neath the rack and altered the position of her hat by a
hair's breadth. Then she caught his eyes in the glass
and smiled at them. "How's this for style?" she asked,
turning round and taking a corner seat.
Frank said that as far as he could judge, and he had
had very little experience, it was quite perfect. She re-
turned the compliment by saying that he had put on his
clothes very nicely, and that he looked exactly like the
hero of a Family Herald Supplement. That, said Frank,
was a pretty brutal thing to say to a man who had violated
every principle of his life in dressing himself up like a
tailor's dummy, and he pitched his hat on to the rack
with such carelessness of its beautiful architecture that
Katherine was shocked and angry at his behaviour. So
they quarrelled for five minutes in the most delightful
way, and then felt quite at ease with each other, and
prepared to settle down to a railway conversation.
Of course, there is nothing in the world so pleasant as
a railway conversation between a man and woman really
interested in each other. Only on a desert island could
they be so lonely as in a railway carriage reserved for
themselves on an express train which goes rushing into
the heart of the country at sixty miles an hour. In no
other place in the world do a man's words come so
swiftly, so easily, so light-heartedly, when there is a
charming girl in the corner seat ready to be amused,
and quick to answer his spoken thoughts, and pleased to
reward his little jests with laughter that is not loud or
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 259
strained, but a silvery, rippling mirthfulness that comes
from a gay spirit.
Frank and Katherine found a thousand things to laugh
about. It was amusing, for instance, to make up stories
about the lives of the people who belonged to the houses
and cottages and fields which sped swiftly past them.
They were short stories in chapters of one sentence, and
Katherine was the best at the game.
"In that old thatched cottage there lives a poor old
widow who was once the beauty of the village sixty years
ago. Every Sunday she goes to that little churchyard
how the sunshine gleams on the white tombstones!
and dreams a dream about the boy who loved her. He
used to come vaulting across that stile, and go on,
Frank."
"And she used to wait for him at the top of that little
lane where the sign-post stands. The sun was always
in her eyes, which were as blue as the sky above those
white cottages on the hill. They would go hand-in-hand
up that winding path towards the church there you can
just see it through the trees, Katherine, and "
"They used to think of the time when they would go
into that very building there, and after a little while come
out as man and wife, and live in a farm-house surrounded
by big barns, like that one we just passed, and keep
cows, like those wading in that pond. But one day the
young man did not come vaulting across the stile "
"He inherited a large fortune and went to live in that
glorious old manor Elizabethan by the look of it, where
he smoked big cigars and drank more brandy than was
good for him "
"And every day for sixty years that woman has gone
to the top of the lane to wait for him."
"And there is the very old woman," said Frank, "shad-
ing her eyes against the sun outside her cottage gate. She
260 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
has not got a tooth in her head, and she is as ugly as an
old witch."
"But she believes she is still young and beautiful, and
every day she thinks her young man will come vaulting
across the stile again."
That was one of the best stories they made up to the
scenes outside the carriage window, and Katherine did
not laugh this time and say, "What nonsense you do talk,
Frank !" when it was finished. She said it was an allegory
of most women's lives, and she thought their imaginations
were getting a little morbid.
Her gaiety was restored when at Rugby a boy came
to the carriage door and handed in two luncheon bas-
kets.
"That is a thoughtful boy," said Katherine. "Where
did he get the idea from."
Frank had sent a telegram in advance from Padding-
ton, but he made believe that it was a little attention
always shown towards the Royal travellers by the direc-
tors of the line who were aware that a prince and princess
were travelling incognito. Of course Katherine did not
believe him, but she pretended to, which was better still,
and they had a merry meal with the luncheon baskets
on their knees. Frank drank her health without winking
in a tumbler of thin red wine which tasted like vinegar,
and said with his best French accent, "A votre sante,
princesse." She touched her glass with her lips and
clinked it against his, and replied, "A vous, mon prince !"
When they arrived at the end of the line Frank got
out of the carriage and touched the tips of Katherine's
fingers, as she jumped lightly on to the platform.
"You see," said Frank, "they have put down the red
carpet for us, and the station is charmingly decorated in
our honour."
Above their heads was a canopy of sky-blue silk em-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 261
broidered with the fleur-de-lis of France, and the walls
of the rural station were draped with flags of many rich
colours, but not the red, white and blue of England,
or the blue, red and white of Republican France. A num-
ber of foreign gentlemen descended from the train, tall
Frenchmen with brown spade beards (like Elizabethan
gentlemen), who were received with kisses on both
cheeks, or with much raising of hats and bending of
backs by other foreigners of a similar type. Only one
language was spoken on the platform, except by Frank
and Katherine, and it was the vivacious, sparkling nimble
tongue of France. It was queer to hear it in the heart of
Worcestershire.
Katherine had found a friend. It was none other than
Edmund Grattan, who was standing among a group of
distinguished-looking Frenchmen who were laughing
heartily at a story he was telling in their own language,
spoken with perfect fluency and with an exquisite accent.
Katherine touched him on the arm, and he turned
round quickly, lifting his hat and bowing low. It was
already dusk, for Frank and Katherine had travelled a
long way since eleven o'clock, and for the twinkling of an
eye the Irishman did not recognise the elegant girl in
the white silk frock, and the white hat with pink bows.
"A votre service, madame." In a flash he saw Kather-
ine's smiling face.
"What, Kitty, you here! That is good. You should
have let me know, and we could have come down to-
gether." Then he saw Luttrell, and said, "But no, you
were in good hands, and I should have spoilt a delightful
tete-a-tete." He gripped Frank's hand. "You are just
in time. Young Alfonso will be here in three minutes
by special train."
A tall man with a heavy tread approached Frank and
262 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
said politely but firmly, "You must move off the platform,,
if you please."
"That is all right," said Grattan. "This lady and gen-
tleman are London journalists and my friends."
"Oh. If they are friends of yours, Mr. Grattan "
The man raised his hat and strolled away.
"You seem a. very important person," said Katherine.
"Who is that potentate?"
"A Scotland Yard man. I met him in Madrid on the
marriage day, when the bomb went off under the horses'
feet. He was not quite sharp enough that time, but of
course the Spanish detectives were in charge, and a bright
lot they are, to be sure."
A few moments after the train in which Frank and
Katherine had travelled went off on to a siding, there
was sound of a motor-car fussing and bubbling in the
station-yard outside, a rattle of steel, and the hoarse voice
of a man shouting, "Present arrrrms !"
"Le roi en exil," said Grattan.
The crowd of French gentlemen round the booking-
office ranged themselves in two ranks and bowed very
low as two tall men came on to the platform. One was
a middle-aged man with a blonde beard, and bluish eyes,
and a soft, womanish face which yet had an extraordi-
nary likeness, as it seemed to Frank, to old prints of
Henry IV.
"Paris vaut bien une messe."
Frank remembered the old epigram, and the figure
of that dare-devil hero-villain who had fought and in-
trigued his way to the French throne far back in his-
tory. How blood will out! After five centuries here
was the same nose, the same prominent eyes of the victor
of Ivry belonging to a gentleman in a frock coat and a
silk hat, whose name was Louis Philippe Bourbon Or-
leans, and who but for the republican instincts of a
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 263
great people would be, by right divine, or otherwise,
King of France.
By his side was a young, clean-shaven man with a nose
of the same shape the Bourbon nose which not even the
guillotine could ever cut off, however many heads were
sliced into the bloody baskets on the Place de la Revo-
lution.
'The Due de Montpensier," said Grattan. "Quite a
bright young fellow."
A few moments later a white train glided alongside the
platform, and out of one of the carriages came springing
with a light, quick step, a tall boy, with a pale, melancholy
face and dark, haunting eyes, and a mouth twisted into a
strange, sad smile. Every hat on the platform was swept
low, every head but one bowed down, and for a moment
there was silence. Then while the tall boy went quickly
towards the middle-aged gentleman with the blonde
beard, who took both his hands and kissed him twice,
a voice shouted out, "Vive le roi! Vive le roi d'Es-
pagne !"
A little group of dark, handsome, sallow-faced young
men had dismounted from the train and stood with bared
heads in a half circle round the two central figures of
that tableau, under the silk canopy embroidered with
fleur-de-lis, with a background of orange and crimson
facings.
"Come along," said Grattan. "He is going to inspect
the guard of honour." He dodged through two lines of
tip-toed foreigners, and Katherine, seizing Frank's hand,
followed swiftly through a white wicket gate to the yard
outside the station. Here there was a hollow square
framed on one side by a battalion of Worcestershire vol-
unteers in khaki, on the other three sides by a dense mass
of Worcestershire gentry and yokels wedged in between
great motor-cars with their burnished lamps and metal
264 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
gleaming like gold in the glinting rays of the afternoon
sun.
The tall boy with the grave face and the burning eyes
and the sad, twisted smile came out of the station fol-
lowed by his kinsman of the House of Bourbon. At a
quick, sprightly step with his head high and turned stiffly
to the right, the younger man walked with a six-foot-
three officer carrying a drawn sword, along the line of
Worcestershire men who held their rifles in front of their
noses. The boy in the silk hat and frock coat turned
and held out his hand and said, "Thank you" to the young
officer, who for a moment stared at the hand of a king,
and then tucking his sword under his left arm, grasped
it in a good hard English grip.
"I like him!" said Katherine, and Frank said "Who?"
"The sad boy-king; what a wistful smile that is!"
The king without a throne led the sovereign of the
proudest, poorest nation of Europe to his automobile,
which in a moment gave a long-drawn sigh and then a
few panting breaths, and then with a fierce snort bounded
out of the station-yard like one of Frank's imaginary
dragons, while the Worcestershire yokels shouted "Hoo-
ray!"
A procession of motor-cars and carriages streamed out
of the station-yard and then down the High Street of an
old town of square-built Georgian houses, with here
and there an old gabled roof and timbered front of a
house that had been built when Elizabeth was Queen.
Grattan took Katherine's hand and put her arm through
his, and told Frank to have the baggage sent up to the
Royal Arms, the best old hostelry in the town. For the
first time since his friendship with Grattan, Frank wished
this Irishman further away. Good fellow as he was, he
was taking the lead in an adventure which Frank re-
garded as his own with Katherine as his comrade-in-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 265
arms. Katherine glanced at his face, and perhaps in a
woman's intuitive way she read the thought that had
made him rather silent during the last few minutes. She
told Grattan that they were going to put the baggage on
his shoulders, or in his cab if he had one, and that as
he was an old and tried friend, she was going to entrust
him with the responsible duty of fixing up rooms for
them at the Royal Arms. Meanwhile she and Mr. Lut-
trell had a little business on hand for their paper of an en-
tirely private and confidential character. Grattan smiled
at her mysterious words, and protested that as an old
journalist he did not wish to poke his nose into other
people's "scoops." He would obey her commands to
the letter. But, as a friend and rivai, he felt bound to
say that if she had any intention of calling at the house
of the king in exile she might save herself the journey.
Strict orders had been given to turn back all members
of the press and any one not a guest, or a servant of a
guest, at the old farm-house where princes and princesses
of the Royal Houses of Europe were treading on each
other's heels. These people were constitutionally ner-
vous of spies and anarchists, and Scotland Yard had
been asked to put a detective behind every bush of the
three-mile avenue
"Three miles?" said Katherine. "Then we must take
a carriage."
Grattan laughed. "You have let the cat out of the
bag! My dear children, you had much better come
and have tea with me. It is easier for a camel to get
through the turnstiles of the Zoo than for a stranger to
pass three miles of policemen with strict orders to bar all
persons who cannot produce a special permit."
"Pooh !" said Katherine. "I am not in the habit of
being turned back by policemen."
266 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Grattan did not argue the point, but, seizing the bag-
gage, bundled it into a hackney carriage.
"Au revoir/' he said. "For what hour shall I order
your steaks and chip potatoes ?"
"Expect us when you see us/' said Katherine. "Mr.
Luttrell, kindly order a private brougham with a coach-
man who can hold his tongue."
Frank was restored to his former gaiety. Katherine's
air of command was magnificent. She ordered a private
brougham and a discreet coachman with as much assur-
ance as Cinderella's fairy godmother when she requested
a pumpkin and four mice to change into a carriage and
milk-white steeds. She gave her orders to Grattan as
if he were her footman, and the Irishman obeyed just as
promptly. Frank himself made a dash for a row of
hackney carriages drawn up outside the station-yard
and selected one in charge of a driver who wore a chim-
ney-pot hat and an old blue coat with breast buttons.
By his inarticulate grunt which signfied that he was dis-
engaged Frank was confident that he could "hold his
tongue." Providence was on the side of youth and ro-
mance.
"Admirable !" said Katherine, when Frank opened the
carriage door and handed her in.
"Tell him to drive to the house, and to answer no ques-
tions on the road."
They took precedence of Grattan as they drove out,
and Katherine smiled graciously at the Irishman who
sat wedged in between two portmanteaus the baggage
of these two adventurers which they had calmly handed
over to him. He kissed his hand and seemed to regard
them with amusement, as two wilful children who were
out for trouble.
Frank was nervous. His pulses were doing double
time. He had an uneasy feeling that "something might
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 267
happen." Without credentials it might be dangerous to
drive through the lines of the army of police guarding
a houseful of foreign royalties. He glanced at Kather-
ine. She was sitting straight up. Excitement, or the
drive through the cool evening breeze, had deepened the
colour on her cheeks, and had made her eyes very lumi-
nous and sparkling.
"How's this for fun?" she said.
Frank answered that he would be glad to drive like
this for ever down endless roads.
"Oh, that would be monotonous ! Change is the magic
thing. This is like Paradise, because we have come from
Fleet Street. After a week here I should long for the
smell of the motor-'buses."
"No! no!" said Frank. "Let us forget Fleet Street
and its stench. This smell is better than a whiff of the
Press Restaurant. It is the scent of wet grass, and of
flowers which say their prayers at this time offering up
incense in that great cathedral." He pointed to a wood
of giant beeches on the right of them as they drove along
the white winding road.
"Listen!" said Katherine. "That is the cathedral
choir. A thousand little boy birds are singing an anthem
of praise for one more good day of life."
"To-day," said Frank, "they are singing to you. Do
you notice how the sound gets louder as we pass? It is
a song of greeting to Princess Snow- White."
Katherine was looking at the river which went winding
down below in the green meadows flashing back the after-
noon sun.
"It is like a snake with golden scales."
"This is Paradise, and that is the wicked old serpent,
and we " He stopped, and then laughed with a sud-
den embarrassment.
"Are like Adam and Eve," said Katherine, finishing
268 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
his sentence. She glanced at him under her long brown
lashes and then looked far away to the line of purple
hills beyond the river, and said in a thoughtful way, "It
would be rather jolly to be Adam and Eve to be quite
alone in the big beautiful world, Frank . . . for a little
while." She gave a deep quivering sigh which ended in
a note of laughter. "I should never have to write fashion
articles or describe society weddings!"
Frank drew a deep breath of the air which was fragrant
with the scent of the grass and woods. Perhaps there
was something rather intoxicating in that aroma of an
evening in the springtime in Worcestershire. It gave
him a kind of nostalgia, and when he answered Kather-
ine's words his voice thrilled.
"Could we not make a little paradise like that?"
Katherine slipped her hand away and whispered,
"Hush! Here comes the first challenge. Leave it to
me."
A man came from behind a tree and went to the horse's
head, raising his hand. The driver pulled up, and the
man spoke to him in a low voice and seemed to get no
answer but a grunt. Then the man came to the carriage
door, and said, "Show your permit, if you please."
"Qu'est-ce-qu'il dit?" said Katherine to Frank. She
leant over the carriage and smiled at the 'man and spoke
most fluently in French, not a word of which did he seem
to understand.
"Are you one of the dock's guests?" said the man,
breaking in upon the rippling stream of words.
"Comme ils sont stupides, ces gens de police!" said
Katherine. "II cut voir, n'est ce-pas, que je suis Prin-
cesse de pur sang, sans tache et sans reproche. Mal-
heureusement, je n'ai pas ma petite couronne a la poche."
The man caught the word "Princesse" and repeated it
in Cockney English. "Well, of course, if you're a prin-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 269
cess, it's all right, I suppose. Still I shall get into trouble
if you ain't what you ought to be, you know." He mut-
tered to himself something about "infernal lingo" and
then stood back from the horse's head. "Get on with
you," he said to the driver.
"One up to us," said Katherine when they had got be-
yond ear-shot. "It's a good thing these wretched police-
men can't understand school-girl French."
Frank said "Bravo" with enthusiasm. "That was a
brilliant idea." But he cursed the man in Els heart for
spoiling his dream of paradise. It was difficult to return
to that subject. There are some conversations which
can never be continued when once the thread is broken.
Frank knew that the end of the thread in his web of
fancy had slipped out of his hands, snapped by the heavy
tread of a plain-clothes policeman.
Along the three-mile avenue they were challenged five
times, and each time Katherine played her trick with
success. Scotland Yard was at fault in sending down
men who had not mastered conversational French. No
doubt they would not have been so easily persuaded by
a lady less elegant and charming than Katherine Hal-
stead. But she spoke to them with such an air of dig-
nity, softened by a gracious persuasiveness that their
doubts were dispelled. Frank, too, sitting back, silent
and grave, with his clear-cut face, looking very aristo-
cratic under a new silk hat, was not the type of man to
make a policeman suspect dynamite cartridges.
Without further trouble the two adventurers drove
straight through a pair of high wrought-iron gates above
which was the Royal Crown of France, and into the
quadrangle of a low-built, straggling old English farm-
house, to which had been added new wings, and extensive
outbuildings and stables. A number of motor-cars were
drawn up on one side, and across the courtyard there
270 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
passed and repassed chauffeurs in uniform, French work-
men in white blouses and blue overalls, servants in light
blue coats and knee-breeches, powdered wigs, and white
silk stockings, officials of a higher rank, in black silk
coats, breeches, and stockings, and some of the foreign
brown-bearded men, dressed in frock suits and tall hats,
whom Frank and Katherine had first seen on the station
platform. On one side of the courtyard was a beautiful
chapel which seemed to have stood through centuries
of English weather, and it was joined to the house by
an open colonnade of Gothic pillars and arches. Its
secret was only revealed by the French workmen in white
blouses, who were hammering at its walls and putting on
last touches of paint. This chapel which looked so an-
cient and weather-worn was made of nothing but paste-
board and canvas !
Frank gave his hand to Katherine at the carriage door,
and immediately the door of the house opened revealing
two lines of footmen in the livery of the old Court of
France.
"Isn't this rather risky?" whispered Frank, and Kath-
erine answered, "Not a little bit."
They went up the steps into a square hall panelled in
dark oak, with a golden fleur-de-lis on each panel, and
between the two lines of powdered footmen in scarlet and
gold, whose white wigs bent low before them. Katherine
held her head high, and swept over the polished floor in
her white silk dress, as though she were indeed a princess
coming home to her father's house. Frank had a curious
feeling that he was acting a part in a pantomime. He
would not have been surprised if the big doors at the end
of the hall had opened suddenly and revealed a crowd
of dancing maidens, or if a saucy old mother-in-law had
come tumbling down the stairs head over heels.
At the end of the line of footmen was a tall officer
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 271
in white and gold with a long staff. He bowed low and
said to Frank, in French
"Whom may I have the honour to announce?"
Frank answered in English and gave his own name
and Katherine's. The man seemed a little surprised, but
was quite polite.
"You wish to see M. le Due d'Orleans?"
Frank nodded, as if that should be taken for granted.
"You have an appointment with M. le Due d'Orleans,
no doubt?"
Katherine interposed. "You will have the goodness
to take in our cards, will you not ?"
The man bowed, called up a footman, and gave him an
order.
"Vos cartes, s'il vous plait, Monsieur et Madame," said
the man. He held out a golden salver engraved with the
Arms of Royal France. Then he led Frank and Kath-
erine down a long passage, where servants were scurry-
ing to and fro, and ushered them into a small room fur-
nished in the style of Louis Quinze. Bowing gravely he
said that Monsieur and Madame would doubtless have a
little patience until M. le Due 1'Orleans to whom he would
take their cards should be able to see them. Naturally,
M. le Due d'Orleans was much occupied. His Majesty
the King of Spain had but just arrived. Then he re-
tired, closing the door noiselessly.
Katherine sat down on a gilt-backed chair at a little
French writing-table on which was a bowl of lilies.
"We came, we saw, and I think we shall conquer,"
she said gaily. "Experience has taught me always to ask
for the great personage, and never to interview his sec-
retary or his flunkey. We may have to wait an hour for
the duke, but at the end of that time we shall certainly
get the tickets which ought to have been applied for a
272 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
month ago. The Rag is like the British Nation. It has
no system, but it generally pulls through."
"Owing," said Frank, "to the splendid abilities of its
individuals. ... I should never have had your courage,
Katherine. When I saw those bowing footmen I nearly
fainted."
"Pooh!" said Katherine. "This is child's play. It
is nothing to some of my audacities."
They waited an hour in that little room which seemed
like one of the ante-chambers of Versailles, and into
which the purple twilight came through leaded window-
panes. They sat on each side of the little French writ-
ing-table, and Frank talked about Marie Antoinette, Lu-
cile Desmoulins, Madame Roland, the Princess de Lam-
balle and the women whose fair heads had fallen under
the knife during the time of Terror. Katherine won-
dered whether she could die so bravely, and whether she
would bare her neck for the guillotine without a tremor.
Frank looked at her white neck and shuddered at the
thought so that he made her laugh at his nervous imagi-
nation. . . .
How strange it was, he said, to find this Court in exile
in the Worcestershire woodlands, keeping up the tradi-
tions of the old regime, guarding its relics and jealous
of its blood. In the duke's service were men who bore
titles famous in French history, and the ribbons and dec-
orations of old orders of Chivalry. . . .
So they went on talking until they forgot their jour-
nalistic mission, and Frank, at least, remembered only
that it was a strange, and delightful thing to sit opposite
Katherine in her white silk dress in the old-world room
with its fragrance of sandal wood and lilies, the scent
of which would remind him always of this hour in the
twilight. He started when the door was opened wide by
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE. 273
the powdered footman who said, "M. le Comte de Gram-
mont."
A tall, handsome old man with a white beard, in court
dress with a blue scarf across his shirt-front came in, and
bowed to them with old-fashioned courtesy. He ex-
plained that M. le Due d'Orleans was exceedingly busy,
owing to the arrival of the King of Spain and his .duties
to his numerous guests. Perhaps he might have the
pleasure of doing them some service? Katherine ex-
plained the object of her visit, speaking prettily and per-
suasively in French. Her vivacity seemed to win the fa-
vour of the old French aristocrat, for his eyes twinkled
at her, but when he heard that she wanted two tickets for
the wedding next day he raised his hand, and said, "Im-
possible ! There is not a vacant seat/'
But Katherine laughed at impossibility, and the old
count gave her two of his own cards on which he wrote
the words "Admission a la chapelle pour le mariage de S.
A. R. Princesse la Louise de France." He did more than
that, for, leading the way himself, he showed Frank and
Katherine the great dining-hall where men in the old
court livery were putting the last touches to tables laden
with gold plate, on every piece of which were the lilies
or the arms of France under the Bourbon dynasty. He
led them down back-passages where servants were rush-
ing about in a state of inarticulate excitement, and, at
his questioning, explained incoherently that the King of
Spain's valise had gone astray and it was but an hour to
dinner! "It must be found, my friends," said the old
aristocrat quietly, and then passing across the courtyard
took his guests into the chapel where the princess was
to be married next day to her Bourbon kinsman. The
bride and bridegroom were there, and with them the duke,
the King and Queen of Spain, the Queen of Portugal
and a little group of foreign ladies and gentlemen who
274 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
kept at a respectful distance from the central figures in
the scene. Frank and Katherine took a brief glimpse
at the altar with its candles and flowers, the silk canopy
and hangings, spangled with the lilies of France, the gilt-
backed chairs ranged row by row; and more than one
glimpse at the pale, sad face of the princess who was to
be married here, at the dark, smiling, soldier-husband, at
the young King, with his grave eyes and smiling mouth,
and at the blonde Pretender to the throne of France who
pointed out the details of the decorations to his visitors.
Then at a sign from their courtly old guide they with-
drew, and in the quadrangle where the carriage was still
waiting Katherine thanked him for his great kindness in
her fluent, rippling French which was like music to the
ears of Frank Luttrell. The old man waved his hand to
them with a gracious gesture and then went back jjito
the rambling old house, and as the hackney carriage rotted
down the drive Katherine leant back and gave a gay
laugh and said, "This is a scoop for you, Frank. Y6u
will be able to write an article from behind the scenes.
And we have the tickets for to-morrow ! The motto for
journalists is Taudace et toujours 1'audace !' "
Frank said that Katherine was wonderful, that as a
journalist he was a fool and she was a great master. He
would always remember this adventure when he had gofce
with an enchanted princess to the court of a French King
who lived in an English farm-house. Surely it was ajl
a fairy-tale! When he looked back at the old house
where lights were gleaming from every window and
where the lamps on the iron gates shone upon the golden
crown of France, when he saw the high moon above them
as they drove along the white winding road, and the dark
woods, now to the left of them, touched by its pale light,
and the river below, on the right, like a silver sword
drawn from its scabbard, and when he saw the lady in
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 275
white sitting by his side, so close to him that the warmth
of her body seemed to creep into his heart, he was bound
to believe that he was driving through dreamland from
which he would awake to find himself before the fireless
grate of his rooms in Staple Inn. It was all too fantastic,
and fanciful and imaginative. In spite of the click-clack
of hoofs on the hard road he was sure that the old horse
in front of them was a nightmare which would suddenly
change into the arm-chair in his sitting-room, or into
the hat-rack at the office. Katherine who laughed at his
incredulity tried to persuade him that all was real by
taking his hand under the rug which he had wrapped
round them. It was a cold hand and she warmed it by
putting it on her lap and holding it fast. So they sat,
rather silent now, for a mile or more, until they came
into the High Street of the old Worcestershire town and
pulled up at the Royal Arms, where Edmund Grattan was
waiting for them with the news that the dinner he had
ordered for them was already overdone.
The coffee-room of the old hostelry was in possession
of the London press and of correspondents to foreign
papers, among whom were several lady journalists who
greeted Katherine's arrival with enthusiasm. Two or
three men sat at table silently eating a heavy meal, and
Frank had enough experience to know that they were
Scotland Yard men. He thought he recognised one of
them, who stared at him curiously, as the man who had
first challenged them on the road to the farm-house with
the iron gates. From an adjoining room came the sound
of a stringed orchestra practising Mendelssohn's Bridal
March, and the coffee-room was filled with the noise of
a general conversation, of men and women's laughter,
the rattle of knives and forks, the tinkle of tea-cups, and
the scratching of many pens covering many slips of paper.
It was a scene familiar enough now to Frank Luttrell,
276 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
special correspondent of a London journal, but different
from all others because Katherine Halstead was in the
crowd, sitting with two girl friends at table where he
could see her as he wrote his preliminary account of the
Court in Exile, and of the preparations for the Royal
marriage. Several times her eyes sparkled across at him,
and with the inspiration he wrote his story in words that
contained some of the glamour and romance of those
impressions which were still vivid in his mind. He went
round to the Post Office and handed over his column of
"copy" feeling that sense of relief and satisfaction which
comes to every journalist when he has put his message
on to the wires.
That evening Grattan organised a "sing-song" and
Katherine played the accompaniments for men who sang
old English songs in a throaty baritone, and sentimental
ballads with tenor tenderness, and sparkling French lyrics
with light-hearted grace. Frank sat in a corner with his
hands behind his head and his eyes half-closed, taking no
part in the music, but sensitive in a dreamy way to its
harmonies. Katherine had slipped away from him into
another world. A dozen men were round the piano, and
she was laughing with them, and playing for them. His
dream-princess was giving her beauty and her gaiety to
other men, and Frank felt that he had been robbed.
He was alone with himself again, in spite of the crowd
in the room, and in his loneliness he comforted himself
with the memory of that drive when Katherine had held
his hand, and when the warmth of her body had filled
him with a divine glow.
Later in the evening Katherine left the piano, and com-
ing over to Frank, said that she was sleepy and going to
bed. "The others will keep it up till midnight," she said,
"for Grattan is just beginning to tell his stories."
Frank found her candle for her and lighted the way
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 277
up a dark old staircase which had been built three hun-
dred years ago, so that its broad oak stairs had been hol-
lowed out by the feet of many travellers who had gone
up to bed before they fell asleep for ever.
On the landing Frank held the silver candlestick over
his head while Katherine peered at the numbers on the
door to find her room. Standing there in the oak-pan-
elled passage with the candle making a pool of light in the
surrounding darkness it seemed to Frank that Katherine
looked like one of those fair women of the past who
must have stood here centuries ago before vanishing into
the dream-world.
"This is my room," she said, and then held out her
hand, smiling up at him. "We have had a merry day.
. . . Good-night."
He put down the candle on the oak chest by the door.
He was trembling a little and his voice was troubled when
he took her hand and bent over it and said, "Good-night
. . . princess." Then he lifted up his head and looked
into her eyes, and still holding her hand drew her towards
him.
"Katherine," he said, "may I have one kiss?"
She went rather white, and gave a little whispered cry
as he put his arm round and kissed her on the lips, a
long and lingering kiss, with his eyes shut. It was the
first time Frank had ever held a woman in his arms,
and he held her so close that he seemed to crush her to
him, but she did not stir, and her face was close against
his, and her lips clung to his lips. He did not know how
long he held her like that. The divine ecstasy in which
he swooned may have lasted a second only, or an hour.
Suddenly she drew away from him and said, "Frank!
Frank !" in a whisper. The flush of a deep red rose dyed
her face and her eyes were moist with tears. She turned
and seized the candlestick quickly and went into her room.
278 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
For a moment she stood in the doorway, a white figure
framed in darkness with the candlelight falling upon her
face and putting a glamour round her hair. It seemed
that her eyes were smiling through tears, and with just
one shy, tender, tremulous glance at Frank who stood
motionless outside, she whispered, "Good-night !" and
shut the door.
Frank stumbled to his own room on the next floor
and sat on the bed in the darkness for an hour or more.
He heard Edmund Grattan come upstairs with two or
three men, laughing and singing. He heard boots thrown
out into the passage, and doors banged. Then all was
silent, and he still sat on the bed with his hands on his
knees and his white face staring into obscurity. For a
while he thought of nothing, but lived again in the kiss
he had given to Katherine, and felt her warm body
against his own, and breathed the fragrance of her hair.
Then gradually he began to think, and he wondered
whether she would be angry with him for his theft. He
was very troubled. Perhaps she would not forgive him.
For a moment of ecstasy he may have forfeited her
friendship for ever. Yet she had suffered him to hold
her in his arms. She had not struggled or tried to re-
lease herself, and her lips had clung to his. And after-
wards though tears were trembling in her eyes, and she
was very shy, she had smiled at him and said, "Good-
night," and there was no anger or reproach in that glance
which had gone into his soul with a white message of
hope. But presently he began to reproach himself. He
remembered, and groaned at the remembrance, that Kath-
erine had promised herself to Christopher Codrington.
Once before when he had asked for a kiss, she said it
would not be playing the game. If it was wrong then,
it was still wrong, and Frank Luttrell, journalist, who had
the instincts of a gentleman, could not clear his con-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 279
science of having betrayed a friend. Then there came
into his mind some words of Margaret Hubbard's, "We
must put Katherine's happiness first. . . . We must all
do that." Frank thought over those words, which seemed
to have a hidden meaning for him.
Which way did Katherine's happiness lie? With Cod-
rington? The man was a careless, light-hearted, irre-
sponsible fellow. He did not deserve the supreme gift
of her beauty and graciousness and purity. Then Frank
thought of himself going hand-in-hand with her down
the long highway as to-day they had sat hand-in-hand,
driving along the white road between the river and the
woods. He would be her servant and knight. He would
have no thought but for her happiness. He would
be faithful to death and beyond. By that kiss their spir-
its had touched and joined, and were not to be divided.
So Frank, who was a boy, spoke to his own soul in
that language, which comes from the heart to youth when
it is first caught on fire by the pure and passionate flame.
During the next morning Frank had no opportunity of
seeing Katherine alone. At breakfast she gave him one
sly glance, and blushed so deeply that Grattan, who had
quiet, observant eyes, looked first at her and then across
at Frank in a wondering way, but with that tactfulness
which was characteristic of the good-hearted Irishman,
plunged into a lively story which enabled Katherine to
regain her composure.
After breakfast, which was at ten o'clock, all the jour-
nalists who had come straggling down drove off in every
variety of vehicle that can be got in a country town. A
young journalist named Verney joined Grattan, Kather-
ine and Frank in an open broughham, and they followed
the procession of motor-cars, gigs, and pony carts up the
long road between the river and the woods which had
been so dream-like under the light of a silver moon.
28o THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
In the quadrangle of the old farm-house, facing the
pasteboard chapel which looked so venerable and substan-
tial, there came a seemingly endless stream of automo-
biles from all parts of the countryside from which de-
scended characters in costumes so strange and gorgeous,
that even under the bright sun, Frank was reminded
again of a scene in a pantomime. Spanish hussars in
sky-blue uniforms glittering with gold lace, Italian, Aus-
trian, Hungarian, Servian, and Roumanian officers in red
and gold, green and gold, white and gold, with gold hel-
mets or plumed hats, or shakos with white osprey feath-
ers, members of the old French noblesse in court dress
with foreign stars and orders, a Polish prince in a great
bearskin hat and cloak with ropes of pearls round his
neck, with glittering stones on every finger and on each of
his two thumbs, and a huge flat face fringed with brown
hair and thickly rouged on each cheek, princesses and
grandes dames from the courts of Europe, women whose
ugliness was redeemed by refinement and elegance, and
women whose beauty had the exquisite charm and deli-
cacy of the portraits once painted at the court of Ver-
sailles by Madame Vigee le Brun, gathered together in the
courtyard of the old English farm-house and entered
through the lines of powdered footmen in the Royal livery
of the ancien regime who again were drawn up in the hall.
In a little while Frank and Katherine stood side by
side in the chapel, under the sky-blue canopy spangled
by the lilies of France, where an organ pealed out tri-
umphantly, and an unseen choir of men and women's
voices sang exultantly, as the bridal procession passed
slowly up the nave, towards the flower-laden altar, with
its tall candles ; where a French priest, a kinsman of the
Bourbon House, waited to solemnise this marriage be-
tween prince and princess of the Blood Royal. There
was something strangely thrilling in this scene where
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 281
into the paste-board chapel there came crowned sover-
eigns of Europe, princes and princesses of the reigning
houses, and with the uncrowned King, and the faithful
adherents of a Court in Exile, which still cherishes the
tradition of an ancient dynasty now passed away into
the shadow land of history.
But as Frank Luttrell looked at the pale bride beneath
her long lace veil, at the soldier-prince who was soon to
be her husband, at the tall, blonde-bearded man in whose
veins there was the blood of the Sun-King, of Henri
IV., of St. Louis, and of Charlemagne, at all these gor-
geous figures in blue and scarlet and;- 'white and gold,
many of whom claimed names and titles famous in the
annals of old French chivalry, it seemed to him that they
were all ghosts, all unreal, all figures of fancy in a world
of make-believe. This was not real life. The bride was
not really a princess of France. These grand titles had
been abolished by the Republic. The only real people
were Katherine and Edmund Grattan and himself and the
journalists who stood in front of the gilt-backed chairs
watching the drama, making notes of costumes and scenic
effects, copying down the programme of music which one
of them had obtained. And it seemed to him that jour-
nalists are the only real people in the world. Life itself
is but a pageant, a drama which is sometimes comedy and
sometimes tragedy, with no other purpose than to provide
descriptive articles to the real people who come out of
Fleet Street when the curtain rings up, and go behind
the scenes with their notebooks and pencils. To them
everything in life is but a peep-show, and they watch a
bleeding heart, a soul in agony, a face behind prison bars,
a murderer in the dock, a Royal wedding, a coronation,
with the same sense of detachment sometimes rather in-
terested, sometimes very bored, with all this mimicry, and
these stage effects, but never forgetting that they are the
282 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
lookers-on, the living people in the stalls and gallery, crit-
icising and describing the puppets and their theatrical
performances.
While the music played softly and tenderly, and the
bride and bridegroom knelt at the altar, and the priest
prayed over them, and preached to them in French, con-
juring up the old traditions of their Royal House, Frank
kept his eyes on Katherine. She was the real princess,
the other was only one of the puppets. She was true
flesh and blood, the other was a pale ghost kneeling in a
pasteboard chapel. As Katherine stood watching the
wedding scene with intense, observant eyes, she was the
only real person in the world to Frank Luttrell, and only
if he might drink the sweetness of her lips again, and
breathe the fragrance of her hair, would life be real to
him. . . .
After the Royal wedding the representatives of the
British and foreign press were entertained to a sumptuous
banquet in the hunting museum of the uncrowned king
adorned with the trophies of his sport in Africa and other
lands. The Comte de Grammont in his court dress pre-
sided at the table, and Katherine sat at his right hand.
Beyond, in the banqueting room, the Bourbon kings and
princes and princesses, and the noblesse of their courts
raised their glasses to the pale bride, and then to Louis
Philippe d'Orleans, soi-dlsant King of France.
The journalists of Fleet Street were the guests of that
King in exile, and he was generous in his hospitality,
knowing that by their quick pens would the history of this
day of solemn ceremonial be told to the world. No doubt
he wanted his advertisement like other business men and
he was prepared to pay for it. But unlike some business
men (who do not speculate in crowns) this pretender to
the throne of France treated his journalist guests as peo-
ple of education and breeding. The Comte de Gram-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 283
mont, his representative at the table, was as courteous
to the members of the press as though they, also, were
of the old noblesse, and perhaps he may have remem-
bered that the writers of history belong to the old aris-
tocracy of letters which has always been more powerful,
in spite of poverty, than that of worldly rank and wealth.
For they have made and unmade kings, and their pens
have been sharper than swords. So he lifted his glass to
them, rising from his seat, and then with a charming
grace touched Katherine's glass with his own before set-
ting his lips to it.
It was with gay spirits that all, but one, of these
men and women journalists went back to Fleet Street in
a special train from the country town three miles away.
From the corridor-carriages the sound of laughter was
wafted out of the windows to rustics who leant over five-
barred gates, to children who waved handkerchiefs in the
fields, and to the meek-eyed cows, who (as one of these
journalists scribbling his copy in a corner would say)
were standing knee-deep in the "lush grass," as the train
sped swiftly through the country. Frank had a corner
seat opposite Katherine and Edmund Grattan and a row
of young men and women who were playing shuttle-cock
and battledore with funny tales, though none could keep
pace with the little Irishman. Frank was not gay in
spirit. Katherine avoided his eyes, and once only on the
journey looked across to him beneath her long brown
lashes. There was a message in that quick glance, and
Frank found that the journey was not too long while
he searched his heart for an interpretation.
CHAPTER XV
Two days after this episode in the life of a journalist
Frank Luttrell met Christopher Codrington in Fleet
Street. This tall young man had just come back from
the country, and was dressed charmingly in a fawn-
coloured suit with a bowler hat to match. They went
well with his golden eyebrows and his pale, clean-shaven
face. Frank's face deepened in colour when Codrington
raised his silver-knobbed stick on the other side of the
street and then crossed the road and came towards him.
He had aji uncomfortable sensation. Almost for the first
time in his life he avoided meeting the eyes of a friend.
The truth was that since his return from Worcestershire
he had taken himself severely to task for that kiss which
had been stolen outside a bedroom in an old-fashioned
inn. He had put himself in the dock before twelve good
and true principles who had been sworn in at the old
Rectory years ago; he had examined evidence on oath
before the judgment seat of his conscience, and he had
convicted himself of conduct unworthy of what Bellamy
would call "a scholar and a gentleman." It will have
been realised before now that Luttrell was not as many
men are who take life as they find it, and make the most
of its joyous moments without self-analysis.
Having received a verdict of guilty he proceeded to
pass sentence upon the prisoner. It was what journal-
ists like himself would call an "exemplary" one. It was
banishment from the society of Katherine Halstead, ex-
cept on matters of strict business. Reviewing all the cir-
cumstances of the case without bias, he concluded that,
284
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 285
without being even more of a cad than he had already
proved himself, he could not play with temptation be-
fore which he was sure to fall. So long at least as Kath-
erine remained engaged to Codrington he would play the
game as she herself had desired, and as he had always
been taught. He was very sorry for himself, and when
he shut himself up in the whitewashed cell of his con-
science he stared at its blank walls with all the despair
of a convict on his first day of penal servitude. It was
no wonder then that when Codrington, the man whose
friendship he had betrayed, came towards him he felt
horribly uneasy.
Christopher Codrington seemed to be enjoying a pro-
found melancholy. He shook hands with Luttrell
mournfully and then looked far away to the distant hill
country of Ludgate. Luttrell asked if anything were the
matter, and Codrington said that nothing mattered now.
The sun had gone out of his life and he was in darkness.
He was a mere shadow walking without a purpose in the
night. He would be extremely glad if Luttrell would
have a drink with him. He desired his sympathy and
consolation.
Frank was disturbed. He wondered what calamity had
overtaken this man, and he was extraordinarily moved
by the thought that Codrington was seeking his sympathy
of the man who had betrayed his friendship. He asked
where they could find a quiet place for a chat, and Cod-
rington suggested the smoking-room of a tavern over the
way where he was in the habit of writing his copy, and
sipping "tawny port" in leisure half-hours. The two men
walked across the street in silence. Codrington had the
air of Sydney Carton going to the guillotine as imper-
sonated by Martin Harvey in The Only Way. Two or
three passers-by turned round to look at this tall young
man with the grave, handsome face, an elegant bowler
286 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
hat at an oblique angle over his right eye, his silver-
knobbed stick tucked under his arm, his right hand thrust
deep into the breast of his light brown coat.
As he walked he sighed deeply, and Frank had the
curious thought that the melancholy of a tall man must
be greater than that of a short one, for his heart has to
go a long way down to get into his boots.
For some time after they had taken their seats on the
leather lounge in the smoking-room, which at this hour
of the morning was almost deserted, Codrington smoked
a cigarette with long silences between stray sentences
about life and "the street." He asked Frank whether
he did not think that, on the whole, the creatures of imag-
ination were more real than those walking the highways
of actuality. Frank assented to the proposition without
argument. Then he said with one of his long-drawn sighs
that after some years in Fleet Street the heart of man
becomes callous, and less sensitive to the blows and
bludgeonings of Fate. Frank who had not been a year
in Fleet Street supposed that Codrington was right. Five
minutes later, towards the end of a glass of port, Cod-
rington reflected that no suffering is without value, and
that the memory of golden days, though followed by
tragedy, is as much as a man may hope for without pre-
sumption. Frank did not care to dispute this assertion,
for it was wonderfully in accord with his own mood.
Then at last, after more vague and melancholy and
philosophical axioms, Codrington turned to Frank and
said with a grave courtesy
"Luttrell, you have played your cards well. Believe
me that though I am a wounded man I bear no malice."
Frank was raising a glass of wine to his lips. His
face went redder than that doctored claret, and he set
down the glass with a trembling hand so that the wine
slopped over the brim.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 287
"What do you mean, Codrington ?" he said in a queer
shaky voice. "I don't understand."
Codrington said it was all very simple, and he begged
Frank not to harbour for a single moment the thought
.that he, Codrington, would accuse him of unfair or un-
gentlemanly conduct. Before Frank had come into Fleet
Street Codrington had (he said) suspected, not without
pain, that Katherine Halstead would pass away from him
like the fair women of his dreams. They had laughed
together, they had gone on gay adventures, they had been
buffeted in the crowd, they had sipped the wine of life
out of the same glass, as it were, and always she had
been a good and tender comrade, but, alas, never never
once his sweetheart and heart's mistress. He had
realised, with infinite sadness, as Frank would readily
believe, that he had not lighted that divine fire in her soul
which once in a lifetime must flame in every woman's
heart. She was always virginal, cold even when most
kind, keeping him aloof though they might touch hands,
never coming to him with outstretched arms across that
bridge which separates a man from a woman until their
spirits touch and intermingle. At times she had frozen
him by her cold and chaste friendship. Her light arrows
of satire had hurt him, and he had bled. (Codrington
held up his glass of port wine and looked at it as if it
were his blood.) Her criticism of his little foibles and
Frank would know that like other men he had his pe-
culiar weaknesses had at times seemed too candid, even
a little hard and bitter. Alas! alas! he would not re-
proach her with that. She had been justified, only too
well. . . . Then at last it was borne home upon him that
Katherine and he would never be more than friends. He
knew, as though it had been told him in a vision, that one
day a stranger would come riding into Fleet Street and
would lift her upon his saddle and ride away with her
288 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
into the beautiful country beyond the noise and roar of
the city. (Codrington paused and said, "Hark!" and
from the street outside came the noise of the motor-omni-
buses and the tumult of the traffic.) It so often hap-
pened like that. Into Fleet Street, now and then came
people of another world a beau sabreur, dashing, de-
bonnair, who for a time had laid aside his sword for a
pen ; or some man with a poet's heart who came wan-
dering into Alsatia to watch its drama for a while, to
read its riddles, and then to go forth, having plucked one
of the few roses that bloom in its dusty highway. These
men go through Fleet Street as one phase of the adven-
tures of life. They go through it, but they never belong
to it; they are only visitants, and knights errant of the
pen like Luttrell himself.
"I have come to stay/' said Frank in a low voice. "I
am one of the crowd."
But Codrington raised his hand, and said, "No . . .
you are one of the visitants."
Then he resumed his narrative, in which he seemed to
find a melancholy satisfaction.
Every day he had waited for the stranger who would
light the torch in Katherine's heart. He was bound to
come, if not to-day then to-morrow, if not to-morrow
then the day after. And at last he had come. When he
saw Luttrell in the reporters' room
Frank went very white and cried out, "Nonsense, Cod-
rington ; for heaven's sake, man "
But Codrington raised his hand again and went on.
When he had seen how Katherine's eyes brightened at
the sight of him, when he saw them talking over the of-
fice fire, when night after night he knew that Luttrell
went to the flat in Shaftesbury Avenue, above all when
Katherine became colder, more satirical, more impatient
with his little foibles which he did not disguise and
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 289
sometimes was more hard and bitter than ever before,
then he knew that the inevitable had happened.
For a time he had struggled with his fate. He had
tried to win Katherine away. He had almost frightened
her with the burning light of his eyes. Oh yes, he knew
that she avoided his eyes and was sometimes afraid.
Poor child! Poor child! He had even found it in his
heart to hate his rival. He must confess to Luttrell that
his handsome, boyish face, his tall, lithe figure, his Ox-
ford manners, his rather cold, superior airs
Frank said, "Don't !" and his face flushed hotly, but
Codrington smiled with his grave sad smile and said,
"I do not flatter you ; I only say that these characteristics
of yours filled me with a jealousy which I now regret."
But it was only for a little while. Frank's shyness
he used the simple word with diffidence his charming
amiability, his fine breadth of sympathy, his grace of
spirit had stolen into Codrington's heart and won his ad-
miration. He realised before the final blow came that
Luttrell was the one man in the world who was worthy
of Katherine.
Frank rose from his chair.
"Codrington, for God's sake, let us chuck this conver-
sation. You have no idea how utterly mistaken.you are.
I cannot understand "
"You must understand."
Codrington spoke almost sternly. Then he called to
the waiter to bring another glass of port for himself
and a claret for his friend. Frank refused the claret,
but he sat down again, leaning forward over the small
table upon which he had placed his arms. He would
hear Codrington out and let him tell his fantastic story
in his own way.
Codrington reached the climax of his narrative, and
wiped some beads of sweat off his white forehead.
290 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Katherine gave me the coup de grace last night."
He put his hand to his heart as though the wound were
still bleeding, and then drank his glass of port in one
breath.
"She was very kind, very good, very beautiful. She
asked me to release her. God ! to release her ! as though
I would keep any woman chained to me by any other
links than love ! She said that we had both made a mis-
take, and that our engagement ought not to drag on with-
out a purpose. It could never end in marriage. . . .
Then she thanked me for all my goodness and kindness.
Ha! Ha!"
Codrington laughed in a hollow, mirthless voice which
startled one man on the other side of the smoking-room
who put down a pink paper to stare at him.
"She gave me back my letters, in which I had written
many foolish little things, the bright fancies of summer
days, the rose-tinted dreams of nuits blanches. . . . Lut-
trell, I burnt them last night after leaving her, one by
one after touching it with my lips you will understand
and, one by one, as each letter was devoured by the
flames it was as though the spirit of a dream were being
dissolved in the eternal ether."
He sighed deeply and was silent for a while, and Frank,
stirred by a deep emotion, sat with a white face and
downcast eyes.
"Thank heaven," continued Codrington, "I did not re-
proach her. I believe I may do myself the justice of say-
ing that I behaved like a gentleman an eighteenth-cen-
tury gentleman, if you will forgive the allusion. I
thanked her for the truest comradeship that any woman
has given to any man. I told her I would always cherish
the memory of the hours we had spent together as the
most precious reminiscences of a life not without exper-
ience. We had a very tender hour together, and when
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 291
I left I kissed her hand for the last time, and she was
good enough you will not begrudge me this last favour,
Luttrell to touch my forehead with her lips."
He was silent, and for a moment his face flushed with
genuine emotion, and there were real tears in his eyes.
Frank raised his head and looked across at him with
steady, fixed eyes. His voice was strangely calm when he
said
"Why do you tell me all this, Codrington? What has
it got to do with me ?"
Codrington rose to his great height and stretched out
his hand.
"My dear fellow, there is nothing left for me but to
congratulate you which I do from my heart. We have
been rivals and you have won; but if my friendship is
worth anything to you, Luttrell, it is yours, now and al-
ways. God bless you, and be good to little Katherine !"
He held Frank's hand in a firm grip and smiled down
upon him in a kindly way. Perhaps at this moment Cod-
rington knew that he was playing the game supremely
well, and was glad as all men are when they act up to
the ideals of their own personality.
Frank could not find words to express his agitation.
He could only stammer out something about his never
having spoken a word of love to Katherine, and that Cod-
rington was wildly and absurdly wrong . . . though he
thanked him from his heart, and would always be proud
of his friendship.
But Codrington smiled, and said, "Hush! I respect
your emotions. Let us go you to your dreams and I to
mine ... but oh, how different !"
He put his hat on carefully, regarded himself for a
moment in a mirror, and then strode out of the tavern
with his head held high like a man who was going to face
292 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
death unflinchingly. Frank followed, feebly and foolish-
ly, feeling a mere worm behind such nobility, but yet a
worm with a wild, tumultuous spirit. In Fleet Street
Codrington turned, lifted his hat in a grave, old-fashioned
way, and went off with a long, melancholy stride.
Frank himself turned into the Temple and paced Foun-
tain Court and King's Bench Walk for half-an-hour.
The sun was shining on this spring day, and London spar-
rows were preening themselves on the edge of the basin
while the fountain sprayed a sparkling jet of water
and twittered in the trees, whose fresh leaves were
still unblackened by London smoke. A breeze came up
from the river across the Temple Gardens, and the day
was so genial in its promise of an early summer that
even lawyers walked with an elastic tread to their cham-
bers, and lawyers' clerks were whistling for the same
reason that the sparrows chirped. Frank saw and heard
none of these things, yet in spite of a deep perplexity he
was uplifted by a strange sense of gladness. Katherine
had broken with Christopher Codrington and she was
now free. That sentence kept ringing in his brain like a
song. She was free ! He was glad for her sake, honest-
ly glad for her sake. That strange, unconventional en-
gagement had not been good for her. It could have led
to no certain happiness. But what did it mean to him?
Why was he excited, so that his heart was fluttering with
a quick, uneven beat so that he wanted to laugh out loud
with ridiculous, unreasoning joy? Codrington had
spoken wild things. He had assumed things which were
by no means to be taken for granted. He had shaken
Frank's hand as a man who had out-rivalled him, and
had won what he had lost. He had been immensely
magnanimous. At least, in spite of his somewhat melo-
dramatic melancholy, he had been really good-hearted and
generous. At the thought of Codrington's words of
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 293
friendship, evidently sincere and unselfish, Frank was
touched by a tender feeling for this eccentric character,
and conscience-stricken at the memory of the contemptu-
ous and ill-natured opinions he had harboured against
him.
But he would be a fool if he took all Codrington's
words at their face-value. As an imaginative writer and
speaker, Codrington's statements had always to be dis-
counted. No doubt it was true that some such scene
as he described had taken place between Katherine and
him. No doubt he had burnt those letters, one by one
(and Frank was deeply moved by the thought of such
self-inflicted suffering), but what then? Was he not
mad to think for a single moment that Katherine's ac-
tion was intended as a message to him Frank Luttrell ?
Was it not more likely that Katherine was rejoicing now
in her new liberty which she would not be ready to ex-
change for any other bond?
Frank thought of her own words about journalists'
wives. "Oh," she had said once, "it is bad to be a woman
journalist . . . but Heaven preserve me from being a
journalist's wife !" That made his heart sink for a mo-
ment, and he remembered gloomily what Margaret Hub-
bard had said. "She would never marry a poor man, to
become a domestic drudge in a suburban household/'
He groaned aloud and frightened the sparrows who were
making love on the basin of the splashing fountain, and
startled a messenger boy in uniform, who was reading
a blood-and-thunder novelette on a seat close to him, rest-
ing no doubt on his way with an express letter.
But the groan was hollow and artificial. Frank was
only pretending. At the bottom of his heart there was a
melody of gladness, for he remembered how Katherine
had let him kiss her outside the bedroom door of the
old inn in Worcestershire, how gaily they had gone ad-
294 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
venturing 1 together, how her eyes had softened when she
looked at him across the railway carriage on the way
home, how quickly she had veiled those eyes with her
brown lashes while her cheeks had deepened into blush-
roses at that moment. It was impossible to despair with
such memories as those, and after all his reveries in which
he had tried to look the truth manfully in the face, and
to thrust down all wild and wanton hopes, he felt himself
buoyed up to the seventh heaven with a gladness that
was beyond all reason.
With his incurable shyness Frank Luttrell deliberately
avoided Katherine Halstead for several days. He only
entered the reporters' room when he knew she was not
there, and in the mornings went straight to Vicary to
get his "assignment," and then set forth on his work
whatever it might be, writing his copy later in his own
room at Staple Inn, and handing it in to the sub-editor
in the evening. All this time he was longing with an
almost aching pain to be with her again and to speak the
words which came silently to his lips when he was alone.
Yet he shrank from his next meeting with her, even
though he yearned for it. It seemed to him that all in-
stincts of delicacy and good feeling bade him hold back
from too quick an encounter with her after Codrington's
confession. She would guess that Codrington had told
him, and if he went round to the flat she would think
that he had come to take advantage of her freedom. So
he racked himself with exquisite agonies of self-inflicted
torture, from which he derived that subtle pleasure which
belonged to the medieval saints who lacerated themselves
and wore hair shirts and spiked girdles for the love of
God.
Then one evening he found himself on the fourth floor
of the house in Shaftesbury Avenue. He had not gone
there deliberately. On the contrary he had made up his
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 295
mind to write the fourteenth chapter of a work which
had caught hold of his imagination in an extraordinary
way during the past three weeks, so that it had compelled
him to sit up half the night, or several nights a week,
writing until his fingers became numb and cramped, and
the fire had gone out in the grate, and he had awakened
to self-consciousness with a shiver. It was curious how
he had come to be writing that story. He had not sat
down deliberately one day and said "Go to. I will write
a book." He had finished an article one night on 'The
Relics of Old London." It was for the magazine page
of the Rag. Then with his* pencil in his hand he had
played about with the next sheet of blank paper scribbling
lines this way and that, and making grotesque patterns
and designs, while his thoughts went straying to the old
iRectory where his father would be sitting with the lamp
shade throwing a light upon his book, or his mother would
be knitting, or perhaps playing the piano in that quiet
way which used to send his spirit into the dream world,
when as a boy he lay on the bearskin rug, with his hands
behind his head, staring up at the oak beams across the
plastered ceiling. In a curious way he seemed to have
got out of his body, and to be watching himself as he
was years ago. He could see that small boy with the
fair curling hair and his white face, with the old green-
covered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, which he was not
reading. And Frank Luttrell, of Fleet Street, standing
like a ghost in the old room by the side of that boy who
was once himself saw the fantastic dream- fancies which
seemed to take form and float to the ceiling as his
mother's white fingers went wandering over the keys.
Something prompted him unconsciously the habit, no
doubt, that a journalist acquires, of putting his thoughts
on to paper without effort to write a description of that
scene so vivid in his imagination the picture of that
296 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
home-scene with the clergyman's wife at the piano in
semi-darkness, dreaming over the notes; the handsome,
ascetic father reading his Homer with his back turned
to the table and the shade of the lamp tilted so that the
light fell upon his iron-grey hair, and across his shoulder
on to the book; the small boy with his elbows dug into
the bearskin rug, lying on his stomach with the fairy-
book under his arm, and the firelight flickering upon him,
and scorching one side of his face, and making strange,
fantastic shadows on the wall. Every detail of the old
scene came back to Frank's memory, or rather to his
imagination; for he saw the image of those things as
though his eyes were looking at them now, and he heard
the sounds that made up the music of his boyhood the
solemn, rhythmic beat of the grandfather clock, the rus-
tling of the leaves of his father's book, the purring of
the tabby cat whom as a child he had loved next to his
father and mother, the brushing of a fir-tree against the
window-pane a strange, ghostly noise which used to af-
fright his young soul when he was left alone in the room
the hooting of screech owls in the church tower, the
laughter of village boys and girls out in the road, and,
throbbing through the room, those beautiful, haunting,
melting dream-melodies played by his mother, so that
they made his thoughts go wandering into the elf-land
of his own dreaming, in which always he was the hero,
the chivalrous knight, the brave and handsome prince,
the poor gallant journeyman tailor, or the wandering min-
strel, who rescued fair ladies from fierce dragons and re-
ceived, after many adventures, the reward of their love
and beauty.
When Frank had put down this well-remembered scene
and one of the beautiful dream-stories which had been
built up to the melody played by his mother which now
came ringing into his ears, he read over the scribbled
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 297
pages, smiling, and surprised to find that he had written
them. It was as though his sub-conscious mind had been
at work dictating the narrative, and that he had awakened
from the dream of a dream when the words had been set
down by invisible fingers. At least, he had not deliber-
ately intended to write this composition, but when he read
it through he was touched by the tenderness of the old
memory which was so subtly and vividly evoked. It had
pleased him to go on writing, and recalling his early im-
pressions, his childish adventures in the Rectory garden
when a snail had looked as large as a dragon, and down
by the brook where he had been scared by the first sight
of a water-rat a monstrous, ferocious creature it had
seemed on first acquaintance which afterwards became
an old and trusty friend to whom he delivered tit-bits
saved up from his own banquets. He described many of
these early comrades the raven which his father gave
him on his tenth birthday (a wise and cunning bird with
a grim sense of humour), and the vagabond dog of the
village, who was no one's property but everybody's friend,
who would bring back a rabbit in return for a kind word
and a pat on the head, and who loved best of all to go
for wild adventures with a small boy, Frank, to the top
of the quarry hills which touched the sky. Then there
were the rabbits who, once, when he lay down to sleep
in the Druids walk, sat round him in a ring, taking him
perhaps for the trunk of a tree, and then when he woke
up and rubbed his eyes scuttled off with bobbing white
tails. He had succeeded after long and patient vigils to
accustom them to his presence, and some of them be-
came quite tame and would gambol round him and eat
lettuce leaves out of his hands. They seemed to him like
furry gnomes, and for some of his well-known favourites
he had especial names such as Nutkin, and Puss-in-Boots,
and Prince Peterkin, and Little Brown Man, and Slyf ace.
298 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
He used to sit on a hummocky mound and tell stories to
them while they fed on the lettuces which he rooted out
of the kitchen garden not without arousing the wrath
of old Ralph, who was grave-digger and gardener and
coachman. Frank wrote on and on for hours amused
with these childish recollections, and very much inter-
ested in that small boy who was once himself, and then
he made him grow up and fall in love, and have adven-
tures in many phases of London life, somewhat like those
which Frank himself had been through but more romantic
and idealised, and without any connection with Fleet
Street and journalism. It was all half real and half
imaginary, a romantic autobiography in which he let his
imagination wander at will, leading him into episodes
which had never happenecj, and in which he was amused
to find a fellow of his own temperament. It never oc-
curred to him that he was writing for publication. If
that had been in his thoughts he would not have written
so easily, so naturally, with such little concern, or with
such a carelessness in construction, and indifference to
public opinion. It was simply a delight in self-expres-
sion which kept him out of bed late at night, writing in
his lonely room until he was too tired to write another
line. And at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter,
as already said before this long parenthesis, he bundled
his papers in a drawer, strode out into Holborn and
found that his footsteps led him willy-nilly and unswerv-
ingly to the flat on the fourth storey of the house in
Shaftesbury Avenue.
Margaret Hubbard opened the door, and she said,
"Well, I never did ! You don't mean to say so !"
Then she took hold of his coat lapels and pulled him
inside. "Why, Frank, I thought you had deserted us
again !"
Frank said that he would never be a deserter from
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 299
Mother Hubbard's kingdom. To whatever part of the
world he might go his footsteps would always come back
to her roof -tree. But he thought it well to stay away
now and again, he was so afraid of wearing out her wel-
come.
She took off his coat and laughed at him as a foolish
fellow, and pushed him in her peremptory, bullying, mas-
terful, cheery way into the drawing-room. Katherine
was there engulfed in a deep chair with a book on her
lap. She got up when Frank went in, and said, "Hulloh,
Frank/' in her old, familiar, comradely way. But her
face flushed ever so slightly, and she avoided his eyes
as they shook hands. Neither of them saw the quick
glance which Margaret gave to each of them, nor the in-
finite tenderness of the look that came over her square,
strong, motherly face.
For half-an-hour they talked "shop," and then Frank
told them for the first time of his promotion and in-
creased salary. He had hugged that secret to himself,
feeling unaccountably diffident in making it known to his
colleagues. He knew that both these women, though they
worked as hard as he did, had smaller incomes than his
own even when he had started on 4 IDS. a week.
Women were sweated in Fleet Street, as elsewhere. He
felt that it was "beastly selfish" of him to be getting so
much when they had so little.
But he had no need to feel any uneasiness on this
score. There was no trace of envy in Margaret Hub-
bard's voice when she said
"Bravo! Bravo! . . . Why that is the best piece of
news I have heard for many a long day I"
Katherine sat up with sparkling eyes, and clasped both
arms of her chair as though she had to hold herself down
to restrain her excitement.
"Excellentissime, Signor Francesco! I can see the day
300 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
when you will be a proud, rich man rolling around in a
motor-car. ... In a year or two you will be sitting aloft
in an editorial chair, and we shall have to knock at your
door before venturing into the high presence."
Frank carried his honours blushingly and modestly,
and confessed his utter bewilderment as to the reason of
his good forune. But his self-depreciation was cut short
by Margaret Hubbard, who said that if he wanted to
fish for compliments he must go to other waters. She
never pandered to a young man's vanity in that way.
Then seeing that he was actually hurt by this banter she
said, "Frank, Frank, when will you harden that thin
skin of yours? A sensitive plant will never flourish in
Fleet Street soil."
"Mother Hubbard," said Katherine, "you are a brutal
and cynical old woman. You do not understand that a
sensitive temperament is just the very thing that does
flourish in Fleet Street. Those who get hardened never
get out of the rut, but people who put tenderness and
imagination and poetry into their work, like our esteemed
colleague here, rise to exalted places and become special
article writers, and get to the heart of the big public so
that they can dictate terms to editors."
"Stuff and nonsense/' said Margaret Hubbard, "how
can a man with tenderness dictate terms ? He is always
crushed by brutes without a soul."
Then she smiled over at Frank and said, "Make the
most of your good fortune while you have it, Frank.
Remember that Fleet Street is a hilly country, with ups
and downs."
"Is that a warning ?" asked Frank. "Are you going to
preach a little sermon on the need of thrift and the virtue
of saving up for rainy days ?"
"No," said Margaret Hubbard. She was looking at
Katherine rather than Frank, and said in her quiet way,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 301
"If you will allow an old woman to give a little word of
advice, I would say: Do not wait too long before you
buy happiness. Do not say, 'I will wait till I am really
well off before I begin to spend/ Buy as much happi-
ness as you can, now and quickly."
"What does the dear good woman mean by that?"
asked Katherine.
"I speak in parables," said Margaret Hubbard. "Per-
haps Frank understands."
Frank did not quite understand, but he had a dim idea
of Mother Hubbard's meaning, and it made him silent
and thoughtful for a few moments.
Then he looked up and said
"Anyhow, I would like to celebrate the occasion, don't
you know. I wonder if you would come to a tea-party in
Staple Inn? Neither of you has been inside my rooms,
and it is about time I had a house-warming. I can prom-
ise tea and muffins, and my black kitten will play merry
games with you, and we will have a box at the theatre
afterwards."
"I would love to see your den," said Katherine quickly,
and Margaret said that settled it, because she would have
to go as chaperone. She looked shyly at Katherine and
then said, "Well, I will leave you two to fix the date. I
am going out."
"Going out ?" said Katherine, with a surprise in which
there was a trace of alarm. "Where, for goodness' sake ?"
"Quite so for goodness' sake," said Margaret Hub-
bard. She stood at the door for a moment looking back
at them, with a curious, wondering, smiling glance and
then left the room, and a moment later Frank heard the
hall door close behind her, quietly.
An awkward, embarrassed silence took possession of
the drawing-room. It was the first time Frank and Kath-
302 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
erine had been alone together since that evening in
Worcestershire.
Katherine was the first to speak.
"I am very glad to hear of your good luck/' she said.
"But it is more than good luck. You have worked for it."
"Not more than the others," said Frank. "Not like
you, Katherine. You are the best journalist I have ever
met. I shall never forget that adventure at the palace of
the king in exile."
Katherine laughed rather nervously.
"Perhaps some incidents of that adventure ought to be
forgotten."
She screened her face from the fire which seemed to
burn her cheeks.
Frank said that every minute of that adventure from
the moment they had got into the train at Paddington
was worth remembering.
Katherine avoided the issue which seemed inconvenient
to her by asking whether he did not find it rather too
mild for the time of year. She asked that important
question as if she were seriously interested in the answer.
Frank found that for conversational purposes it was well
to disagree with her, and gave his decided opinion that
the spring sunshine was delightful. They discussed the
matter for quite three minutes and then the conversation
languished, and flickered out.
Katherine seemed to be a little uneasy and restless.
She crossed over to the piano and played a few bars of
Handel. It was the "Lascio qu'i o pianga," and r she
played it with tenderness.
"Go on," said Frank, "my mother used to play that.
You have no idea how I miss the old tunes."
Katherine said, "I can't play!" and then contradicted
herself by playing Mendelssohn's Minnelied with a light
and beautiful touch. Frank sat on a low stool behind
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 303
her, with his hands on his knees. The melody which he
had heard years ago and had remembered crept into
his -ears and then carried his soul away on one of those
winged flights by which he had been lifted up as a small
boy. His spirit went wandering into the dream-world.
He was with Katherine hand-in-hand walking through a
wood. The sun was glinting through the trees and span-
gling her white dress with gold. He plucked flowers for
her, and she stooped before him, smiling, and he crowned
her with them. Then some brambles caught her dress,
and they pricked his fingers as he pulled them away,
and a little drop of blood on one of his fingers stained
her white gown. . . . They wandered on and came to a
hut and she said, "Let us go in and make a little home
here in the woods." But she looked at him roguishly,
and then ran away laughing through a vista of trees,
and he followed breathlessly, and could never catch her
up, until suddenly she stopped and turned and stretched
out her arms to him, and every flower in the wood began
to ring with silvery bells and Katherine stopped playing
the piano and the dream came to an end.
He stood up and spoke her name in a queer voice.
She had gone away from the piano and stood facing
him. When he spoke she seemed a little frightened, and
the colour faded from her face.
Frank went toward her. He was whiter than she was
and his voice faltered.
"Katherine," he said, "Codrington told me "
The colour flooded back to her face.
"Yes v . . What did he tell you?"
"He told me that you and he that you "
He could get no further, and Katherine did not help
him.
"That I?" she said, with her eyes studying the rose-
pattern on the carpet.
304 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Frank took both her hands and lifted them up to his
heart, and said very humbly
"Katherine, would it be playing the game if I were to
ask you to be my wife ?"
She swayed a little as he held her hands, and then
said, "Oh, Frank, do not ask me . . . please, please. . . .
I don't think it is quite playing the game."
She took her hands away from him and went over to
the fireplace, and, clasping the mantelpiece, put her face
down on her hands and cried.
Frank wanted to take the hands away from the tearful
face so that he might kiss her. Of course he should have
done so ; but he stood abashed and motionless in the cen-
tre of the room and stared at the girl with grave, won-
dering eyes.
"I'm beastly sorry," he said. "I didn't want to be a
cad. I only wanted to tell you that I love you. It sounds
stupid, and all that, but I can truly say that I love you
with my whole heart and soul. . . . Katherine, I am red-
hot for you ! I have never loved any other woman ; and
it was all very strange and glorious and wonderful when
I thought, perhaps don't you know ? But, of course .
Well, I'm not such a stupid, selfish rotter "
She turned, and, though her eyes were wet with tears,
she laughed at him as though he were irresistibly comical.
"Frank . . . what a boy you are ! . . . Why are you so
humble and meek?"
She mopped her eyes with her handkerchief and said,
"Oh, oh, what children, we are, both of us !"
"It's rather jolly to be kids," said Frank, "isn't it? We
could have such good times together, you and I, Kath-
erine. We would be children all the time, and go through
all sorts of wonderful adventures, and play at make-
believe behind the drawn blinds, if the world outside were
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 305
rather stupid, and make a doll's house for ourselves in
some respectable suburb "
"Hush I" said Katherine. "Hush ! you mustn't !"
She was smiling at him again, and mopping her eyes
like a girl who has had "a good cry" and rather enjoyed it.
"Why mustn't I ?" said Frank. He was not feeling so
horribly depressed, and had a little more courage. "Why
did you let me kiss you in the old inn at Worcestershire?"
"It was very wrong of me," said Katherine seriously.
"I can't think how I could have been so so very wicked."
"You were very good," said Frank. "I have been
in heaven ever since."
Katherine said she wanted him to be very unselfish and
very patient, and she begged him not to say rash things.
She was glad, she said, that Codrington had told him
what had happened. That had cleared the air a little.
She had been in a very false position. But he must see
that some time must go by before she could could de-
cently and honourably make any other engagement of the
kind. It would be like a widow who rushes into matri-
mony before her husband's corpse is cold. Chris had
behaved very nobly and unselfishly; and, besides she
owed it to Frank himself not to let him make any rash
promises. Of course she had been very wrong. She had
let him see that she cared for him "
"Good God!" said Frank. "Then you do care for
me?"
He went down on his knees in quite an old-fashioned
way and put his arms round her waist and took one of
her hands and kissed it.
"Katherine ; I believe you really love me !"
"Of course I do," she said, pulling his head to her
breast and touching his hair with her lips. "I loved you
from the first moment I saw you."
"Well, then," said Frank, kneeling straight up and star-
306 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
ing at her with a kind of joyous amazement, "in heaven's
name why can't we ?"
"Frank, Frank," she said, "I am not going to promise
anything just yet. ... I want a little time to think. I
am not good enough for you. I have been thinking that
I should make you very unhappy. You don't know how
wicked I am."
"Unhappy? Wicked? Why, I am deliriously happy
already ; and you are so good that I tremble at the thought
of my rotten, foolish, weak unworthiness."
"You don't understand," said Katherine. "My poor
boy, you don't understand!"
When he begged her to explain she took his hand and
fondled it, and said it was wonderful to her that he could
think twice about such a girl.
But he did not know her. He had made a kind of
shining white angel of her she had seen that in his eyes
and it was so very far from the real truth. There was
a legion of black imps in her heart restlessness and bit-
terness and discontent and revolt and ambition. Yes, she
must confess all that. She would never make a good
wife to any man, but least of all to a poor one. Of course
she was a fool but she could never bear to give up her
work and Fleet Street and the slavery which she called
liberty. It had got hold of her, and she could never es-
cape from it and settle down in domestic drudgery, to
wash up tea-cups, and have an "At-Home" on first and
second Thursdays, and knit her husband's socks, and get
into a narrow, miserable groove.
"By the Lord !" said Frank, "I would never ask you to
r do that. You need not give up your work, Katherine.
We would work together instead of alone."
She shook her head.
"All journalists say that to the women of their own
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 307
profession. But it doesn't work. Babies and things have
a habit of coming, you know/'
"By Jove ! so they do !" said Frank. "But isn't that
rather jolly?"
"Oh, I dare say it would be amusing for a little while,
but afterwards the woman gets so tired of it all women
like me, I mean . . . selfish, restless creatures, who have
got the poison of Fleet Street in their blood."
Frank was silent, stupefied. He was trying to think
out some answer to his problem, but his ideas were
clogged, and he could only sit dumb and miserable.
"You see how wicked I am," said Katherine, rather
triumphantly at having demonstrated the fact beyond all
argument. "I am one of those very women whom Presi-
dent Roosevelt and other great preachers are inveighing
against. I shirk the responsibilities of married life. I
compete with men on sweated wages. I am a disgrace to
my sex. I am one of the tendencies of the modern age.
. . . How awful to be a tendency !"
She laughed a little hysterically, but it was a laugh in
which there was the bitterness of truth.
"I know I ought to be whipped ... I am no longer a
child. I have read Bernard Shaw and other people. I
know perfectly well that I have behaved shamefully to
you, my poor Frank, leading you on, enticing you, throw-
ing myself at your head, and then denying what you
want because I am afraid of marriage. That is the way
with so many professional women, poor wretches ! and it
is hard on the men."
"Yes," said Frank. "It is deuced rough on them."
"Of course the women can't help behaving like that.
They are what the ha'penny papers call 'creatures of cir-
cumstance/ It is very wrong of them; but the whole
world has got askew, and we want somebody or some-
thing to come and put it straight again."
308 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Meanwhile," said Frank, "what am I going to do ?"
He asked the question quite simply, just like a man
who has got into a very difficult and desperate situation
and looks round for advice.
The directness of the question, perhaps also the look
of blank misery on that handsome boy's face, disturbed
Katherine Halstead uncomfortably.
"Oh," she cried, wringing her hands rather piteously,
"I am a wretch ! I am a wretch ! . . . Why did you come
to the Rag. Frank ? Why didn't you go to some one else's
Rag?"
"I think it was due to Philip Gibbs, who gave me the
introduction to Bellamy. I must thank him for that. . . .
Just fancy, but for that letter of introduction I should
never have met you, Katherine, and now to feel that Fate
meant us for each other from the beginning of time."
He was so serious, so grave, that Katherine became
ashamed of her cruelty, as she certainly had every right
to be. She took his hand again and caressed it, and said
in a low voice, "Frank, you are too good for me. I could
never live up to your ideal."
And just then Margaret Hubbard stood in the door-
way.
"Good gracious!" she said. "What is this? Holding
hands in the twilight ! I can't allow that sort of thing in
a respectable household."
She laughed softly, and came across the room and stood
behind Frank's chair with her hands on his shoulders.
. "Has anything happened since I have been away?"
she asked, in a tremulous voice.
"No, nothing," said Katherine, blushing very deeply.
"How absurd you are, Mother Hubbard ! Did you expect
the devil to come down the chimney on a broomstick ?"
"No," said Margaret Hubbard. "I expected to play
fairy godmother to two babes in the wood."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 309
"You always do that, Mother Hubbard," sai3 Frank.
Then he rose and said, "I must be going."
Margaret Hubbard looked at his white, grave face, and
then over at Katherine.
"I am afraid I shall have to give some one a severe
talking to," she said, quite seriously.
"You mean me, of course," said Katherine.
"Yes, I mean you, Miss Kitty. This is a pretty kettle
of fish, and I'll know the reason why, or I'm a Dutch-
man."
Frank laughed in a rather melancholy way, and then
got his overcoat from the hall and said good-bye. Mar-
garet Hubbard was off-hand with him. She said she was
most annoyed with two stupid children, and she would
not go to the door with him. So Katherine followed
Frank into the hall, and at the door she said rather shyly,
"There is no reason to be so very downhearted, Frank."
When he shook hands with her she bent forward a
little with an invitation he was quick to accept. He put
his arms round her for one moment and kissed her on
the lips.
Then he went out and she shut the door behind him
softly, and he wondered whether he was immensely happy
or immensely miserable. It was a curious state of mind
for any young man.
CHAPTER XVI
THREE weeks had gone by since Luttrell had said good-
bye to Peg in the Batter sea Park flat on the night before
Brandon's return from the murder trial. She had gone
suddenly out of his life as she had come suddenly into it,
and he had so many emotions of his own that he could
not afford much time for thinking of that extraordinary
girl and of her poor tortured spirit. For he had some-
times remembered with a rather "creepy" sensation the
dreadful moment when in a wild hysterical cry she had
made a passionate appeal to him, and said things which
he had tried to forget. As it often happens in Fleet
Street, Brandon and he, though belonging to the same
office, had not met for more than a few minutes since his
return. Frank had been very busy inside and outside the
office, and Brandon had as usual been diving into his queer
haunts for the tragic stories which were his special line
of business. The only conversation they had had on the
subject of Peg was when Brandon had come up to him
and with a hard hand-grip said, "I am deeply obliged to
you, Luttrell." Frank said, "Not at all, Brandon," and
then, after a moment's hesitation: "I want to have a
serious talk with you. I can't help feeling that you are
doing quite the wrong thing by by that girl." Brandon
gave him a quick glance of surprise and said, "Think so?
... By all means, let us talk it out. I should value your
advice." But then they had been interrupted by Vicary,
who sent Frank away to interview a cowboy baronet from
Australia, and the opportunity for discussion had not yet
come. It was not likely to come for a few days at least,
310
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 311
because, as Luttrell heard from Codrington, Brandon had
been sent into the country again on some crime story
which had not yet found its way into print. Frank's
thoughts went straight to that flat in Battersea Park
which held the unfortunate girl to whom Brandon's going
away was always a misery. No doubt Brandon had
rushed off in a hurry or he would have said something,
or left a message.
Frank was deeply perplexed. He felt that he ought
to go round and see the girl, but he shrank from it with
something like fear. Already he had suffered on account
of his good-nature. He would not soon forget that mau-
vais quart d'heure when he had to parry Katherine's ques-
tions in a disingenuous way which was hateful to him,
and Peg's extraordinary ignorance of the conventional
moral code was not only fearfully embarrassing, but dan-
gerous. These thoughts stirred him exceedingly, and
after deciding that he would cut himself adrift from an
acquaintance which, after all, was not of his making, he
decided, with a swift inconsistency, to go round and see
how Peg was getting on. His nature would not allow
him to leave the girl to go to the devil because it was
inconvenient to him to give her a word of help and
advice. But he would have to postpone that visit until
the next day at least. He had arranged with Margaret
Hubbard, who accepted on behalf of Katherine and her-
self, that the celebration of his promotion should take
place that evening. They were coming at six o'clock to
his rooms at Staple Inn, and he had already engaged a
box for Lohengrin. Obviously he could not put off such
a red-letter event in his career. He had not seen Kath-
erine since the strange and stirring conversation that
had taken place between them three nights before. Their
separate work had brought them to the office at different
hours, and he had been excited by alternate moods of
312 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
joy and despair when he thought as he did every minute
of the day except when he forced his brain to write his
copy for the paper of Katherine's surprising, torturing,
bewitching and unreasonable behaviour. He resolved, at
least, to adopt her advice and not be too "downhearted."
At least this gala night should be ever-memorable and
joyful.
By good luck things were slack at the office, and Frank
was able to get away in the afternoon to superintend the
decorations of his room.
He bought a wonderful bouquet of white flowers. It
cost him ten shillings in Covent Garden, and when he car-
ried it wrapped up in blue paper along Holborn to Staple
Inn people turned round attracted by the perfume of
arum lilies and lilies of the valley which trailed an incense
behind him as he walked. He wondered whether the few
vases and tumblers in his rooms would be sufficient to dis-
play the beauty of these flowers, so that his barely-fur-
nished chambers might be made fragrant and decorated
for Katherine's coming. It seemed to him almost too
good to be true that in a little while she would be sitting
in his one arm-chair in the room where he had spent so-
many lonely hours, thinking and dreaming of her. Once,
in the late evening, she had seemed to sit in that chair,
as a spiritual presence, evoked by his imagination. Now
she would be there in her beauty of flesh and blood, and
he would hear her laughter, and her words of comment
upon his books and pictures and poor treasures. The
thought filled him with nervousness as well as with joy. A
girl like Katherine would see many faults in this small
kingdom of his. He knew that his books were too dusty.
They would begrime her fingers if she touched them.
There was a hole in his carpet where he had dropped his
cigarette one night when he dozed off to sleep in front
of the fire, waking with the smouldering smell in his nos-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 313
trils. His prints and sketches were tacked up anyhow on
the walls. The shelves were littered with pipes and rub-
bish. It was a poor place in which to receive his prin-
cess; but perhaps her kindness would overlook all these
things, and the flowers would hide some of the ugly cor-
ners. Then, too, he had engaged the services of a young
charwoman with a bright Irish face and a cheery way
of dealing with dirt. She had promised to make every-
thing as spick and span as might be, to have a bright fire
burning in the sitting-room, to get the tea-things ready
and to toast the muffins. Upon her fidelity and good sense
depended the success of the first part of the evening's
programme, which was to include Lohengrin and a little
supper in Soho.
Frank sprang up the old spiral staircase to his rooms
with an excitement which made his pulse thump to a gay
tune. He opened his door with his latch-key, and
whistled a bar of The Harmonious Blacksmith as he hung
up his hat in the hall. He could already smell the toast-
ing muffins. Molly was doing her duty !
But Molly came out into the passage with a rather
flushed face.
"Sure, an' there's one of the young women come al-
ready," she said in a whisper, jerking her thumb towards
the sitting-room.
"Surely not!"
"She don't look very well, poor thing. She struck me
as very queer, entirely."
Frank was startled. It was already an hour before
the time when he expected Katherine and Margaret Hub-
bard, and he had to get into evening dress. Perhaps
something had happened. Perhaps Katherine had come
to say that Vicary wanted her for an evening engage-
ment. His heart sank with the horror of the thought.
Was the gala night to be spoilt after all?
314 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
He strode into the sitting-room, prepared to meet his
fate like a man. But instead of Katherine Halstead he
saw another girl, and at the sight of her he stood still in
amazement. It was Brandon's "Peg."
She was in a black dress, with a big black picture hat,
beneath which her face was a dead white. Her eyes were
swollen with weeping and there were dark rims round
them. She was sitting huddled up on the window seat
with her elbows on the ledge and her pointed chin propped
in the palm of her hand, and she was staring down upon
the swirling traffic in Holborn.
"Good heavens, Peg!" said Frank. "What are you
doing here?"
At the sound of his voice she started up and came
towards him, with her hands outstretched, groping for-
ward in a blind kind of way. She seized hold of one of
his hands, and raising it to her face as she bent over it,
burst into tears, saying, "Frank! Frank!" in a hoarse
whisper, with strange little moans.
Frank was more thoroughly frightened than he had
ever been in his life before. As Peg raised her tear-
stained face and put one hand on his shoulder, leaning for-
ward as though she would lay her head upon his breast,
her breath came into his nostrils with a faint pungent
odour. It was the smell of brandy.
"Sit down, Peg," he said, thrusting her away with his
arm, almost roughly, as she came close to him again with
her groping, clinging hands. "What have you come here
for?"
"Oh, my Gord! You are angry with me. Don't be
angry with me, Frank. I've been suffering that awful."
She raised her hands to her head and pressed her
temples and moaned.
"Be quiet," said Frank. "Don't you understand? I
can't have any scene here."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 315
He went to the door and called out, "Molly, are you
there?" The girl answered, and he told her to go home
now as he would not want her any more. He could do
all the rest himself. "I'm just a-going, sir," said the girl.
"The kettle's a-biling and the muffins are done to a
turn."
"That's all right. Thanks very much, and now be off
like a good girl."
A moment later the latch of the front door snapped.
Frank breathed a sigh of relief. He and Peg were
alone. If there was to be a "scene" no one would hear.
He must get her away before Katherine and Margaret
came. Good Lord ! Supposing they came when she was
here?
Peg had sank back into his arm-chair and had pulled off
her black hat, and let it fall on the floor by her side. Her
hair was all touzled, and she pressed it back from her
forehead. Her eyes were half-closed and she was giving
little fluttering moans.
Frank stood looking at her, and even at that moment
he was struck by this girl's strange beauty, and once
again, as on the night at Battersea Park, his anger
changed to pity. Frank Was a boy, with natural instincts
of chivalry towards women, and even to this woman
who had come to disturb his happiness, and who had been
drinking, he could not be unkind. Perhaps there was a
strain of weakness in him where women were concerned.
"Peg, what is the matter ? Tell me, why have you come
here?"
She sat up, clasping the arms of the chair and looked
round in a dazed way.
"For the love of Gord," she said, "give me something
to drink." She put her tongue on to her parched lips and
whispered, "Brandy, brandy!"
"My poor Peg," said Frank. "You have been drinking
316 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
already. ... I have no brandy and I would not give you
any if I had."
She -moaned out that her head was on fire, that she must
have something to drink or she would die. She looked
really ill. Her eyes were dull and glazed, and her high
cheek-bones were touched with colour as vivid as ver-
milion. Her long white fingers fluttered at her throat, as
though she were choking.
Frank knew little about women, but he was suddenly
overpowered by the fear that this girl was dying. He
cried to her in a stifled voice to stay quietly while he
made her some tea. Then he strode out into the tiny
room in which there was a gas-stove. It was really a
box-room, but he used it as a china-cupboard, scullery
and kitchen. The kettle was boiling its heart out on the
stove, and the tea-things were all ready. The muffins
which Molly had toasted lay on the rack, beautifully
brown.
He poured some boiling water into the tea-pot. Molly
had already put the tea in. Then he carried it on the
tray into the next room.
"This will do you good," he said, with the horrible
cheerfulness that men and women have when they are
waiting on sick people.
One of the girl's hands flopped limply on to the arm of
the chair and she said, "Oh, my good Gord !" in a helpless,
piteous way.
Frank poured out a cup of tea and put enough milk
in it to cool it a little. His brain was working very
clearly and his hand did not tremble, but he was filled with
the cold terror of a man in the middle of some uncanny
and horrible predicament.
"Now take some of this. I insist, Peg, and you know
I am a very strong-willed person."
He spoke in the half-humorous, half-authoritative way
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 317
in which he used to talk to her sometimes at Battersea
Park. The words seemed to recall her to her senses some-
what, and she stretched out a hand to take the cup. But it
shook as though she had the ague, and Frank was obliged
to put the cup to her lips. She gulped down some of the
steaming liquid and then gave a convulsive shudder. But
in a moment or two a warmth of colour spread over her
face, and her eyes were not so glazed.
"Now then," said Frank, "y u feel better, don't you?"
She lifted his hand and put it on the arm of the chair
and stroked it.
"You've always been very good to me. That's what I
call being a real pal. You've never been down on md,
Frank. I knew if I could only get here, you'd be that
kind."
"Why did you come here? What on earth are you
here for?"
She sat up and looked at him rather wildly.
"Bill's gone away again. I couldn't stand it no longer.
... All alone in that flat. ... It gave me the 'errors
. . . and then I began to drink."
"That was the worst thing you could do, Peg. The
very worst."
"And I'm never going back no more."
She spoke the words sullenly at first and then repeated
them with an hysterical laugh. "I'm never going back
no more."
Those words came to Frank's ears as though he had
been struck with a blow. He looked at the clock. Nearly
half-an-hour had gone by, and in another quarter of an
hour Katherine and Margaret would come. He must get
the girl away at once. It would never do for them to
find her here this extraordinary girl, who was still obvi-
ously intoxicated alone with him in his rooms. What
would Katherine think ? She had already been suspicious
3i8 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
of the unknown girl, and then had forgotten her. But
how could he explain her presence here ? He had given
his word of honour to Brandon to keep this story secret.
As a man of honour he was bound by that pledge to a
friend. It would be horrible if Katherine came !
"Peg," he said sternly. "You must go back at once.
I will fetch a cab for you."
He went towards the door, but the girl rose with a
strangled cry and clutched him by the arm.
"No !" she cried. "I'll never go back, so 'elp me Gord,
I won't!"
She put her arms round him so tightly that he could
not release himself, though he struggled to get free.
"Frank . . . don't be 'ard on me, don't send me back.
... I should go mad, stark raving mad . . . you've no
notion ... I see my face in the glass, and my own eyes
scare me . . . till I shriek myself silly . . . that devil,
Brandon, is torturing my soul. . . . Oh! oh!"
Her voice rose to a shriek, and, clutching Frank, she
fell on her knees, with her arms round his waist, weeping
wildly.
"Hush!" said Frank, white to the lips. "They will
hear you in the other rooms. For heaven's sake be quiet."
He seized her by the wrists and drew her up from the
floor where she grovelled at his feet, and half dragged her
to the arm-chair. It seemed as if the momentary effect of
the hot tea had passed off and as if the spirit she had
drunk had made her mad again. She staggered and
swayed so that she almost fell, and Frank had to put his
arms about her, before he could get her into the chair.
He leant over her.
"Peg ... be reasonable. Try and be sensible and
quiet. Don't you understand? You cannot stay here.
I am expecting friends in a few minutes. You must
go away before they come."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 319
She moaned out that she could not go. She thought he
would be a good pal to her. He was not like Brandon,
who was a devil to her.
She seemed to have a fierce hatred of Brandon, and
Frank, who knew the man's story and how he had sac-
rificed himself to save her mistakenly, madly, but yet
inspired by repentance and remorse was utterly per-
plexed.
"Why do you call Brandon a devil? . . . He has done
everything in the world for you."
She laughed piteously, and in her wild, inconsistent way
reproached herself passionately for calling Brandon a
devil. He was a good angel. But that was the trouble.
She could not live up to an angel. The strain made her
feel utterly bad. Brandon was so cold, when he looked
at her with his steel eyes it made her freeze. She was
afraid of him. Yes, that was the secret. He was always
so silent, and moody, and far-away. She gave him no
pleasure, and could never bring any warmth to him.
He had suffered her kisses as a block of stone might, and
when she grew tired of that and kissed him no more
he did not miss them. She had craved for his love, and
he only gave her kindness and pity. She had longed for
him to show that he needed her, that he could not do
without her, but he only made her feel that she was a
burden to him. He was her protector and school-master,
but never her lover. He was never merry with her. He
never laughed and said foolish things to her like Frank
had done. And then he kept her alone, without a living
soul to speak to except the old charwoman, who despised
her as a bad character. He was ashamed to show her
to his friends. He hid her as a dreadful secret. He did
not understand. Oh, how could he? If he had under-
stood even a little he would never have left her alone
so often to get melancholy mad. Last time it had been
320 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
better. Frank had been so good, such a dear boy to her.
For the first time in her wretched life she had seen a
glimpse of happiness. When he had gone away she
missed him frightfully. When Brandon went away this
time she was almost glad because she thought Frank
would come again. But two days had gone by, and she
had stared herself blind out of the window watching for
him. This afternoon, when she knew that he would never
come again she had gone out into the Battersea Park
Road and bought a shillingsworth of brandy at the gro-
cer's shop. She had called at the chemist's first to buy
a shillingsworth of poison, but she could not remember
the name of one her wits were dazed and the man
looked at her so curiously that she was afraid, and when
he had asked for her name and address she believed he
was going to send for a policeman. Oh, the brandy had
done her good. It had put a little pluck into her heart,
and had given her grit enough to call a cab and drive her
to Staple Inn. On the way she had sung softly to her-
self, except when she cried. She had been terribly happy
in that cab driving through the London streets towards
him. The passing lights had dazzled her eyes, and the
cab went so swiftly it seemed as if she were flying through
the air, and she laughed, just like a child going to a party,
as she had seen them in the old days when she used to
cry at the sight of them. All the way she was sure that
Frank would be good to her and let her stay. He would
never send her back to that awful place from where she
had escaped. He would let her drudge for him, and
perhaps he would like it if she kissed him. She had
gone to sleep for a minute or two in the cab, and had
dreamed that she was kissing him and that he smiled at
her. Then she woke up with a jerk when the cab stopped,
and she paid the man her last five shillings. He swore
at her and called her bad names, but she had left him
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 321
swearing, and groped her way upstairs feeling glad and
afraid at the same time. When she found he was out
she said she would wait, and then she had cried in the
room, and felt horribly ill, and when she stared down at
the street she wondered how it would feel if she threw
herself down. It had made her laugh to think that she
would fall on the people's heads. How surprised they
would be, wouldn't they?
She laughed then, with such a shrill, dreadful sound
that Frank, who had been listening to all this wild inco-
herent talk standing motionless in the centre of the room
almost as dazed and distracted as if he too had been
drinking, cried out sharply, "Don't !"
The girl looked up, and stared at him.
"As sure as Gord is Gord," she said deliberately, "I
will kill myself rather than go back to that place."
Then she began to whimper, and said he was a dear
boy and she was sure he would be kind to her.
At that moment there resounded through the flat a
sharp, lightly-touched, staccato tattoo on the door-
knocker.
Frank started, turned as pale as death, looked wildly
round the room, and then said, "Good God!" softly to
himself. He could not move hand or foot. He felt
like a man in a death-trap. His brain refused to work out
any solution of the problem which confronted him. Be-
hind that knock was the light hand of Katherine. What
would he do ? How could he explain the presence of this
half-drunken girl?
At the sound of the knock Peg had risen, and with
one hand on the mantelpiece stared towards the door.
"Who's that?"
Frank laughed bitterly, in a low voice.
"Those are my friends," he said. "Two ladies. No
doubt vou will be charmed to meet them."
322 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
For a moment he felt very cruel to this girl who had
spoilt the happiness of his great evening.
"Ladies!" said Peg. "Oh, what'll I do? ... I am that
drunk and mad "
She looked round the room as though for a place to
hide. It seemed as if that knock on the door had sobered
her a little.
The knock sounded again, a dainty, playful, fluttering
knock utterly unlike the dabs delivered on the door by
the postman and milkman and charwoman and other peo-
ple who used the knocker.
Frank strode swiftly into the passage. At least he
could not keep Katherine and Margaret waiting outside.
In the few seconds it took him to reach the front door his
thoughts raced swiftly round trying to find a way out of
this dilemma. But he could see no way of escape.
Then he opened the door, and under the lamp in the
passage outside stood Katherine Halstead. She was in
her white dress with the gold sequins, and a white opera
cloak was hanging from her shoulders. Her eyes seemed
as bright as stars to Frank as she smiled at him and
stepped into the passage.
"Mother Hubbard can't come. She has got a very
bad headache and begs to be excused. I have bullied her
and cajoled her, but she says she would only be like a
bear with a sore head. Of course she is fearfully dis-
appointed."
"By Jove," said Frank gravely, "I am awfully sorry
Mother Hubbard is unwell."
"Oh, I don't think she is very bad . . . and I dare
say we shall enjoy ourselves. I adore the opera so much
that I am quite, quite selfish."
She said, "Take hold," and turning her back to Frank
slipped off her cloak into his hands. Her arms and neck
were bare, and looked deliciously soft and white in the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 323
lamp-light. If Frank had been alone with this charming
girl he would have praised God that he might have her
beauty all to himself, but the thought of Peg in the room
a yard away made him numb with terror. But he was
always so quiet, and his smile was always so serious, that
Katherine did not notice that anything was wrong with
him. He lifted her hand up and touched it with his lips
and said, "You look very beautiful to-night, Katherine/'
"Come," she said, "no pretty compliments or I shall
catch cold in your passage . . . what a dear little place
you have here, Frank!"
She went in front of him into the sitting-room as
though to take possession of his rooms. For a moment
Frank's heart seemed to stand quite still, and there was a
singing in his ears. How should he introduce Peg, how
should he explain her ?
"What a jolly fire!" said Katherine. "It was chilly
in that cab with these naked arms of mine."
Frank stood inside the doorway, and his eyes roved
round the room. Peg had vanished ! God ! what had she
done? Beyond was the door leading into his slip of a
scullery. It was ajar by an eighth of an inch. The girl
was hiding in there!
Frank went cold. The situation was worse than ever.
How could he say, "Katherine, a girl is hiding in there.
I am sorry I cannot tell you her name or anything about
her. She is a friend of mine, and I hope you will excuse
her being intoxicated." What should he do ? Dear God,
what should he do?
The situation of course was really rather comical. If
Frank had been a bright, breezy person with a cool head
and a sense of humour and the gift of telling a white lie
well, he might have got out of the difficulty by introduc-
ing Peg as the charwoman who had obtained access to
his decanter. It is true that Peg did not look like a char-
324 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
woman, for she was exactly like one of Rossetti's dream-
women or one of Burne-Jones's saints. But then her
cockney dialect would be convincing enough.
Unfortunately for Frank he was not a bright, breezy
person with a sense of humour and a cool head. At that
moment any sense of humour he might have possessed
had gone a thousand miles away from him, and so far
from having a cool head he was in a pitiable state of
nervous perplexity. Then, too, he had no gift for tell-
ing white lies, being of a serious and truthful nature . . .
and he was utterly inexperienced in melodramatic situa-
tions of this kind. No doubt Codrington would have
played the game skilfully, and at least made the best of a
bad case. Frank merely felt as if he had been stricken
with idiocy.
Katherine held her white hands out to the fire and
warmed herself. Then she turned round and looked at
the room.
"What a pretty little crib !"
"Do you like it?"
"Oh, it is sweet and old-fashioned. I had no idea you
lived in such luxury."
She went over to the window and opened the lattice
to put her head out into Holborn, looking down upon the
lights of London, and the swirling traffic, and the adver-
tisements which flashed out in red letters, and then dis-
appeared and then reappeared.
"My word!" she said, drawing in her head again.
"That ought to give you inspiration, Frank. It is won-
derful."
"One gets used to it."
"Yes, I suppose so. ... Even the Alps would get
monotonous if one saw them every day."
She went round the room staring at the prints and
sketches and photographs on the wall.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 325
"Very pretty, Frank ... oh, delightful . . . that is
your mother, I am sure."
"Yes, that is my mother. How did you know ?"
Frank wiped some beads of cold sweat off his fore-
head. He was wondering how long Peg would keep
quiet.
"She is like you . . . the eyes and the mouth are the
same. I would like to know her, Frank."
"I hope you will one of these days."
"You say that rather coldly. I believe you think we
should quarrel !"
Katherine gave a ripple of laughter and looked across
at him rather roguishly.
"She would love you at first sight," said Frank.
"Oh, I am not so sure. She would think me a very
frivolous, worldly young person."
Katherine sank on the floor in billows of chiffon and
scanned the books in a low case.
"Um, um, . . . Berenger's 'Chansons/ 'L'Histoire
literaire de France/ %'Abbe Constantin/ George Mere-
dith's 11 :e m>./ 'Peter Ibbetson/ Hazlitt's 'Spirit of the
Age' " slie read through some of the titles and picked
out a volume here and there, putting her pretty nose into
its pages.
"I should love to browse among all these," she said.
"Why not?" said Frank. "Every one of them is at
your service."
He heard a movement through the open door of the
scullery, and it made his pulse beat with a sickening
thud.
"Those old books are dusty. Take care they do not
make you dirty, Katherine."
"Yes, I suppose I must be careful in my best bib and
tucker."
She sprang up from the floor with a swish of chiffon
326 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
over a white silk petticoat. The sound would have been
music to Frank's ears if they had not been strained to
hear the slightest noise in the adjoining room.
"Well, how about that tea?" said Katherine. "Let me
help you get it in."
Her eyes softened and she blushed a little when she
added
"It will be quite like a menage a deux. 3 '
Then as she moved round to the fireplace again she
noticed two things which surprised her.
She saw that Frank's face was white and that he had
a tense, strained look. And she saw that a woman's hat
lay on the floor by the side of a flat-topped coal-scuttle,
Qn which was a tray with tea-things that had recently
been used.
She picked up the hat, and said in a wondering way
"Whose is that?"
Frank knew that his moment had come. It was ? -*
lief to him, for the strain on his nerves har"
severe.
"I had a visitor this afternooi ' Vim then
stopped, not knowing what else to i ^
"Did she leave her hat behind?"
Katherine asked the question with an attempt at gaiety,
but it was evident that she was becoming troubled.
Frank's face told her that he was strangely embarrassed.
He had the look of a guilty man.
"As a matter of fact she is still here."
"Still here? Where?"
She spoke quickly, and raised her head slightly as
though scenting danger.
"I think she is in that room," said Frank, pointing
towards the scullery. Then, he spoke rapidly and ex-
citedly. "I can hardly explain. Ikjs a most extraordi-
nary situation. I ask you to believe me that I had not
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 327
the slightest idea this woman was coming, and it is not
by my wish that she concealed herself. She is a poor
unfortunate creature, half mad with grief. I have tried
to be kind to her, and she came here for help - " He
was going on incoherently, but Katherine stopped him
with a gesture.
"Who is this woman? . . . Why does she hide from
As she spoke the door of the slip-room opened slowly,
and Peg stood there holding the door-handle.
The two women stared at each other for a moment;
Peg wistfully and piteously, Katherine in a kind of
amazement.
That moment when the two women looked at each
other seemed to Frank who stood stock still and quite
incapable of speaking or even thinking in a rational
way to have lasted an hour before Katherine turned to
him with a gesture of impatience. Her face was flushed
and her eyes wer * very troubled.
"There is s' " *ng I do not understand," she said
in a low voice* * iiaps it is well that I should not . . .
I had better lea\ . y'cfu with this lady."
She spoke the last word scornfully, and with her head
held very straight, went towards the door.
"Katherine!" said Frank. "You are not going! . . .
This is my gala night. In a little while we must be at
Lohengrin!"
He tried to take hold of her wrist as she passed him,
but she threw his hand off. "Let me go."
Peg had come forward into the room and steadied
herself by holding the back of a chair. She called out to
Katherine, saying that she needn't be afraid. She was
a good woman, but it would not hurt her to be in the
same room with a girl who had never had her chance of
being good.
328 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Frank turned on her wrathfully.
"Silence," he said. "You have done enough harm for
one day."
"Harm ?" said Peg wonderingly. The word seemed to
wound her and she muttered it to herself incoherently,
and then cried, and said she loved the ground he walked
on and she would rather die than do him any harm.
Frank strode into the hall after Katherine, who had
already taken her cloak and thrown it over her shoul-
ders.
"Katherine," he said, "you do not trust me. You are
angry because this girl is here. You have some horrible
suspicion. May I tell you on my word of honour "
"Oh," said Katherine very bitterly, "I do not believe
in any man's honour . . . now. They are all the same."
She put her hands up to her face and shuddered and
said in a low voice
"I did not expect this kind of thing of you, Frank."
"What kind of thing? ... Do you insult me?"
Frank spoke with real anger. His nerves had been
overstrained, and that Katherine should think evil of
him when he was innocent stung him to the quick.
"It is I who have been insulted," said Katherine, stamp-
ing her foot lightly, in passionate anger "grossly and
intolerably."
She went to the door and fumbled at the latch, but
could not unfasten it.
"Will you kindly open the door?" she said, compelled
to turn to him for help.
Frank held the corner of her cloak in a tight grasp.
"Before I open the door for you," he said, "I must tell
you that you will be sorry one day for having been so
quick to think evil of me. You have not asked for any
explanation. You have not given me a chance of self-
defence. Do you think that is quite kind, or fair?"
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 329
It seemed that Katherine wavered. Perhaps his last
words revived her sense of justice, which had been over-
powered by a sudden shock of surprise and suspicion.
"I am sorry," she said. "I did not make any accusa-
tion. I do not make any . . . but oh, please open the
door. I must go back to Margaret. I I feel rather un-
well."
Frank opened the door and said, "I will fetch you a
cab."
He ran down the old wooden stairs and out of Staple
Inn into Holborn. A hansom was passing and he hailed
it, and then went back to where the white figure of Kath-
erine stood in the dark doorway.
"We should have been driving together to the Opera,"
he said, as she walked by his side out of the inn. "My
little dream has been broken up, all through a silly, stupid,
damnable mistake."
Katherine put her hand on his arm. "Perhaps it is my
mistake," she said quickly. "If so I will go on my knees
to ask your forgiveness."
Frank drew a quick breath and took her hands under
the archway of Staple Inn.
"Katherine!"
"Who is that strange girl?"
Frank hesitated.
"She is called Peg. She has no other name."
"Is she not the queer girl whom Quin met with you
in Battersea Park?"
"Yes," said Frank. "I have been befriending her.
She has had a tragic story "
"How did you get to know her ?"
Frank was silent, and Katherine withdrew her hands
from him, as though she were losing confidence.
"The hateful thing is," said Frank, "that I cannot tell
330 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
you, just yet. I am under a pledge of honour to a
friend."
"Do you mean to say you can't tell me anything more
than that ?" said Katherine. * Why did she come to your
rooms to-day ? Where is she going afterwards ?"
Frank was wondering what answer he could give, and
he could find no answer which would seem reasonable and
true. "To tell you the honest truth, I cannot say."
"You cannot say!" said Katherine incredulously.
"No ... it sounds absurd and unconvincing, and all
that, but it is another man's secret. As a man of hon-
our . . ."
"Oh, you talk too much of honour," said Katherine, so
bitterly and impatiently that Frank was stricken dumb.
She stepped out of the archway into Holborn where
the hansom cab was waiting.
Frank opened the doors for her, and she took her seat
and gave the driver the address through the trap. Frank
said "Katherine!" in a pleading, broken voice, but the
driver flicked the horse and the cab went jingling down
Holborn.
When Frank went back to his rooms he felt extremely
sorry for himself. He could have found it an easy thing
to sit on the stairs and cry like a girl. It was only a
sense of humour which kept him from this weakness.
Instead of crying he did what many men do when they
have been swiped in the face by a sudden stroke of ill-
fortune he laughed. When he thought of the gaiety
with which he had leapt up these stairs only a little while
ago, with the white flowers in one hand and the latch-key
in the other, and remembered how he had anticipated
every moment of an evening that was to have been so de-
lightful, there seemed a grim and devilish irony in this
miserable catastrophe. But his laugh was hard and bitter
and his self-pity was accompanied with a simmering an-.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 331
ger. He was very angry with Peg for having come like
a witch to blight his garden of love. He was even angry
with Katherine for having so quickly, so unreasonably,,
and so mistakenly, suspected him of evil relations with
this girl. Perhaps he had been a fool to respect Brandon's
secret with a Quixotic reverence for a nice point of hon-
our. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have con-
sidered the circumstances of the case sufficiently grave to
absolve them from such a pledge of confidence. Per-
haps if Katherine had not been so ready to smell scandal
Frank himself would not have held to the letter of his
word. But she had not helped him. She had not with-
held judgment until he was able to clear himself. His
hesitation and nervousness had strengthened her suspi-
cions, and she had gone away believing that he was no
better than most men of loose morals. That hurt him
and stung his pride. It would make him less ready to
clear himself in her eyes. Surely she should have had
more trust in him? Surely if she had the slightest love
for him she would have known that every instinct of
his character was contrary to her suspicions.
But Peg had been mad and wicked. He could never
forgive her part in this tragedy of misunderstanding.
When he went into the flat again words were on his lips
which he had never yet spoken to any woman. It was
well that he did not speak them now. . . . When he saw
the girl sitting on the floor and crying bitterly with her
face against his old arm-chair, he stood and looked at
her silently and unable to crush her still lower to the
ground by words of abuse and anger. She abased her*
self before him in a broken-hearted way. With a worn-
an's intuition she had realised the evil she had done.
Perhaps the loathing she had for her own character and
the remembrance of her past life helped her to understand
how such a girl as Katherine would shrink from her and
332 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
suspect the honour of the man to whose rooms Peg had
come. She had also in spite of her semi-intoxication
seen something in Frank's eyes which told her that
the girl in white was his "young woman," and with that
generosity which is often found in the hearts of women
of even the lowest class she reproached herself passion-
ately for having come between the boy who had been her
"pal" and the girl of his choice.
"Oh, I am that sorry," she said several times, and she
wished that she had drowned herself rather than come
to Staple Inn to make a beast of herself before his
friends. She got up and put her big black hat on her
touzled hair and fumbled on her long black gloves, say-
ing that she would go before she had done any more
harm.
"Will you go back to the flat quietly, like a good girl ?"
said Frank.
She hesitated and went rather white before she said
"Oh yes, I'll go back. I won't be troubling you any
more."
But he read something in her eyes, something that made
him stare at her sternly.
"You are not going to do anything rash wicked?" he
asked.
She drooped her eyes. "What do you mean by rash?"
"I'll go back with you," said Frank very quietly, "and
see you safely home."
This seemed to frighten her, and she said in an eager
way that she would rather go alone.
"Do you swear to me that you will go straight home !"
asked Frank, and she answered yes, she would be glad to
go home.
There was something so peculiar in the way she spoke
that word that Frank read a horrible significance in it.
He could not trust her. He believed that if he let her out
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 333
of his sight that night, some tragedy would happen, some
unthinkable thing. Once again he was the victim of a
dreadful perplexity. He did not know what to do for
the best. He could not keep the girl in his rooms, but
even if he took her back to Battersea Park and left her
there alone, she might slip out again. . . . The river was
not far off. The thought which shaped itself in his
brain made him shudder.
But while he was wondering there came another knock
at his front door, and for the second time in one evening
the sound gave him a shock. Who else was coming to
meet this girl in his rooms and to suspect him of evil
things ?
But this time he did not hesitate. He was becoming
hardened. Even the most sensitive man finds his emo-
tions become less exciting if too many come crowding
into a short space. "Stay here," he said to the girl quite
sternly. "Do not move." Then he strode out, shut the
door of the sitting-room, walked down the passage,
opened the front door, and started back with a word of
amazement when he saw Brandon -there.
The man's face was white, and he said in his abrupt,
matter-of-fact way
"Peg's gone missing from the flat. Is she here by
any chance ?"
"Yes," said Frank, "she is here."
Brandon stepped into the passage and looked keenly
at Frank with his steely eyes.
"What's she here for?"
Something in the tone of his voice made the words
sound like an accusation. Frank knew that this man also
suspected him. After what he had gone through that
evening the thought maddened him.
"Because you are a damned scoundrel," he said fur-
334 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
iously but in a low voice. "Because you have left me
the task of saving that girl from suicide."
"What do you mean?" asked Brandon. He spoke
quite calmly and coldly, but there was a terrible frown
on his grave, massive face.
Frank told him what he meant in a few swift, sharp,
cruel sentences. He said that Brandon had made that
girl the victim of his morbid desire for self-admiration.
He hugged to himself the thought that he was doing a
heroic thing in keeping the girl in his house. He per-
suaded himself that he was saving the girl from a life of
degradation. But Frank could not tell him that he was
degrading her to lower depths than she had ever reached
in her life before. By keeping her as a prisoner in his
flat, by isolating her from all companionship, he was tor-
turing her poor soul into madness. He knew that when
he left her alone she took to drink. He was a low cad
to keep the girl in such conditions.
These words were spoken in a low, fierce voice, and
Frank was trembling with nervous passion. But when
he had finished and stood breathing heavily, half expect-
ing an outburst of rage from Brandon, he was astonished
when the man put a hand on his arm and said
"You are quite right, Luttrell. For a moment I
thought however, let that pass. I have been a blind
fool perhaps something more of a scoundrel than I can
quite believe. What's to be done ?"
"Give her some companions," said Frank; all his pas-
sion cooled down by Brandon's words. "Get her some
work to do."
Then he added, with a laugh in which there was a note
of his former bitterness, "And do not get men like me
to look after the girl. The responsibility is too great and
the consequences too embarrassing."
"Tell me?" said Brandon.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 335
Frank looked towards the closed door of his room.
"Let us go in to her," he said.
He went in and said, "Peg, Brandon is here."
The girl flushed to the eyes, and when Brandon went
in she stood looking very miserable and despairing and
ashamed.
"Peg," said Brandon quietly, "I came back unexpect-
edly. I am glad to find you with our friend Luttrell.
Are you ready to come home now ?"
"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Peg wearily. "I am very
tired."
In a little while they all went downstairs together and
Brandon put Peg into a cab. Before he got in himself he
held Frank's hand in a firm grip and said, "When can
I have a talk with you to-morrow ?"
"Yes," said Frank.
He stood staring at the cab as it went tinkling down
Holborn, and then went back to his rooms again and sat
with his head in his hands thinking of all the drama of
that evening and wondering what Katherine said when
she went back to Margaret Hubbard. Those two girls
were thinking bad things of him, and, though he had a
white conscience, he had a bleeding heart, for he was
very young.
CHAPTER XVII
BEFORE Frank was out of bed next morning the post-
man gave a dab on the door, and he heard something rattle
through the letter-box. He had a vague curiosity to
know what the letters were, but he dressed and shaved
before he took the trouble to get them. In the grey
light of morning he thought over the events of the eve-
ning before, and the memory of them did not make a
cheerful beginning to a new day.
When he went out into the passage he found two let-
ters on the mat. One of them was addressed in a neat,
woman's hand, the other had a typewritten address and
he saw by the imprint on the back that it was from his
office. The first was from Margaret Hubbard, and he
read her few lines with eager interest.
DEAR FRANK (she wrote),
"Katherine came home last night hours before I
expected her and made me jump out of my skin with
fright. She is very angry with you, and cried like a child
before I put her into bed. I could not get a word of ex-
planation from her, and I could only gather in a vague
way that you are a very wicked fellow and have com-
mitted a dreadful crime and broken her poor heart. As I
know you to be as good as gold I am sure that some fool-
ish misunderstanding has taken place between you two
children, and I shall be glad if you will look into my
room at the office this morning, so that I may give you
the benefit of an old woman's wisdom, and help to sweep
the clouds out of your sky. I shall make Katherine
336
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 337
keep to her bed to-morrow as I am sure that after so
many tears and sighs she will have a sick headache in
the morning.
"Yours very sincerely,
"MARGARET HUBBARD.
"P.S. I fancy Katherine is just a little bit ashamed
of herself, so don't be downhearted."
This letter, so characteristic of "Mother" Hubbard
that he could hear her speaking the words as he read
them, and could see her restful, kindly eyes looking up
at him from the paper, gave Frank Luttrell great com-
fort. He felt sure that with Margaret Hubbard's help
he would be able to clear his character, and restore him-
self to his lady's grace. If Brandon played the game
he would release Frank from the pledge of honour suf-
ficiently to put himself straight with these two good
women. He thought the matter out as he boiled his
egg and prepared his breakfast. Then suddenly he re-
membered the other letter and opened it. He guessed
it was a note from Vicary setting him an early task.
But as he read the few typewritten words he gave a sharp
ejaculation and then stared at it in dismay. It was a
formal note marked Private and Confidential and ran as
follows
"DEAR SIR,
"I regret to inform you that I am instructed by the
proprietor, Mr. Benjamin Harrison, to give you one
month's notice from this date terminating your engage-
ment with this journal.
"As this is due to the reconstruction of the Company,
for which negotiations are now proceeding and the suc-
cess of which depends in a large measure upon the loy-
338 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
alty and secrecy of the staff, I have to ask you to regard
this notice as strictly private.
"Yours faithfully,
"RICHARD FEATHERSTONE,
"Secretary to The Liberal/ Ltd."
The exact and literal significance of the words was not
understood by Frank Luttrell, but after reading them
several times in a dazed way one meaning stood out
cold and clear and unmistakable. He had received
one month's notice. He was dismissed from the Rag!
For a while it was as though he had been struck by
a heavy blow which half stunned him. Coming so soon
after his promotion it was a cruel stroke. During the
past few weeks he had indulged in bright ambitious
hopes. He had been praised for his articles and envied
by his colleagues. He had written home the good news
to his father and mother (sending presents to them out
of his first increased salary), and they had been over-
joyed at this recognition of their son's talent, exagger-
ating its significance according to their pride in his
achievements.
Above all, this salary which was more than enough for
himself was nearly enough for two, and it had given him
courage to speak to Katherine as one who could reason-
ably hope to provide for a wife. Now in a month's time
he would be once again "without visible means of sub-
sistence." At the thought he shivered and felt very
cold and stared with blank eyes at the vision of another
hard struggle on starvation pay, picking up odd scraps,
racking his brains for ideas which appealed to no one
but himself, writing articles with the prescience that they
would join his stock of rejected addresses. That was a
gloomy prospect after his short-lived success, but he
would have had pluck enough to face poverty again if
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 339
he had stood alone. It was the thought of Katherine
which crushed him. As a man without a job he would
have to abandon his bright dream. That had been dis-
solved into thin air by the words in the scrap of paper
before him. The best he could hope for now would be
a reconciliation after the scene of last night. He would
not be so great a cad as to ask her to wait for him until
he could build up his new career. He had learnt enough
of Fleet Street to know that he would have to begin at
the bottom rung of the ladder if, indeed, he could get
his feet on any rung.
Then he groaned aloud. This would have been hard to
bear anyhow. But, oh, it was harder a thousand times
because Katherine was angry with him. He could not
go to her for consolation. This was a double tragedy,
and he had been wounded in the heart before being bludg-
eoned about the head. Last night Frank Luttrell had
been very sorry for himself. This morning he would
have sold his hopes of happiness for a threepenny-bit.
Then he read his dismissal once again with lack-lustre
eyes, and suddenly he lifted up his head and said, "My
God !" as though some new and startling interpretation of
its meaning had been revealed to him. As an egotist,
like all men born of women, he had only thought of the
words as they affected himself. But now it struck him
with a blinding light that he was only one out of many,
that the whole staff of the Rag was in the same boat,
which was in danger of shipwreck. They had all re-
ceived these notices marked "private and confidential"
Katherine, Codrington, Brandon, Quin, Vicary, Margaret
Hubbard, Braithwaite the whole population of that hu-
man beehive! And he had been thinking miserably of
his own wretched personality! He had been indulging
in selfish egoism in the face of a great tragedy which in-
volved the lives of hundreds. Supposing the paper went
340 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
under? Supposing the "hope of reconstruction" were
unfulfilled? What would Katherine and Margaret do?
What would all those men do who had wives and chil-
dren the compositors upstairs who lived in the back
streets of Peckham and Camberwell, the editorial men
who kept up a "social position" in small flats at Bays-
water and Hampstead and Battersea Park ? Frank Lut-
trell with white lips cursed his stupid selfishness which
had made him blind to a general catastrophe.
He hurried off to the office, and when he got through
the doors into the hall leading to the business offices
he saw at once that the issue of the notices had come
as a bombshell into this building. Groups of men were
talking in whispers, with white scared faces. The led-
ger clerks were doing no work, and had their heads to-
gether.
The secretary of the company, Richard Featherstone,
who had signed the month's notice, was surrounded by
five or six men who were talking in low, excited whis-
pers. Featherstone was a tall, gaunt man, singularly
like the worthy knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, but
always smiling, bland, genial, and optimistic. As a cash-
ier, he had paid Frank his salary week by week, and had
always been effusively polite and courteous. Now he
was still smiling, but his eyes were troubled, and he
shrugged his shoulders again and again, and spread out
his long, bony hands in a deprecating way.
"My good gentlemen," Frank heard him say, "do not
take this little affair too seriously. Put the notices in
Your pockets and think no more about them. It will all
come right. It is the merest formality, I assure you."
Brandon looked at him with his keen, steel-blue eyes.
"If it is a mere formality it is a very stupid one. Do
you think these notices can be kept secret? Why, in
less than half an hour the news will be all over Fleet
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 341
Street. Then how about our advertisers ? Do you think
they will put their money into a sinking ship ? Bah ! we
had better haul down the flag at once."
"My dear Mr. Brandon/ 5 said the secretary, "if all
you gentlemen shut your mouths and say nothing, nobody
outside will be any the wiser. The proprietor relies on
your loyalty."
"A secret shared by five hundred people," said Bran-
don, "is no secret. Have the comps had notice?"
"Yes, a fortnight's notice," said the secretary. "The
printing manager has pledged them to secrecy."
Brandon laughed ironically.
"That's all right. The secret will be well kept! . . .
A fortnight, you say ? In that case we can run two weeks
before putting up the shutters."
"Unless the notices are withdrawn," said the secretary.
"Negotiations are in progress "
"Are they likely to be successful?" asked Brandon
bluntly.
Richard Featherstone shrugged his shoulders.
"Why not?" he said. "I believe there is every
hope "
Brandon turned on his heel and walked away. Lut-
trell joined him, and they went up to the reporters' room.
"This is a black business," said Brandon on the stairs.
"What does it mean ?" asked Luttrell.
"It means that the proprietor has gone tired, after
spending 200,000. And I don't wonder. We have been
a dismal failure from the first, owing to woeful misman-
agement and robbery on a large scale."
"Robbery?" said Frank.
"Well, that's the wrong word let's call it extrava-
gance."
"How about reconstruction ?" asked Frank.
"Well, there may be other big fools who want to lose
342 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
100,000 a year. But I doubt it. There are not many
millionaires like Benjamin Harrison, who is as innocent
as a child, and as weak as a wax doll. Most rich men
I have come across are pretty good at business. That's
how they get rich."
"Then you don't think we have a chance ?"
Brandon glared at him gloomily.
"I reckon we shall all be on half rations before long.
. . . There is just one chance. Bellamy may get the Lib-
eral Government to promise a peerage to some rich Jew
scoundrel who wants to become an English aristocrat."
"Good Lord!" said Frank, gasping. "You're not se-
rious, are you ?"
"Why not ? There's no difficulty in getting the prom-
ise of a peerage. The Liberal party don't want to see us
go under, and a title more or less won't cost them any-
thing. The difficulty will be to find the man who will buy
one at a big enough price. There is a dreadful slump in
the market."
In the reporters' room there was a full staff with the
exception of Katherine Halstead. Even the parliament-
ary men had come down early to discuss the grave news.
As Luttrell and Brandon went in the room was buzzing
with excited talk.
Christopher Codrington was very pale, but he seemed
to be the only man who was resolved to put a cheerful
construction upon the notices.
"My dear good fools," he said, lifting his hand to ob-
tain a silence which did not come, "why worry? Tend-
ing negotiations' is a good phrase. I stand by Bellamy.
He is not the man to let this paper go under. Any doubt
upon the subject is disloyalty to him. Let us give him
the support of our confidence in this grave crisis."
Brandon laughed at him scornfully.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 345
"You are always romantic, Codrington. Do you think
even Bellamy can find a market for damaged goods?"
Codrington flushed angrily.
"Hush," he said. "Do not use such language, Bran-
don, I beg of you. It is most indiscreet."
He looked round the room as much as to say that walls
have ears.
"Is all our brilliant work to go for nothing? Apart
from circulation and advertisements, The Liberal is the
greatest paper in the world."
"Why certainly," said Brandon, with deep irony.
"Apart from circulation and advertisements we are al-
most too blatantly and indecently prosperous!"
"My God!" said one of the reporters. "I haven't
dared to tell my wife yet. It would almost kill her in
her present state of health."
"What I don't like," said another, "is those words 'Pri-
vate and Confidential/ Why, that prevents us from go-
ing after new jobs ! I don't mind saying that I shall en-
tirely ignore the demand for secrecy. Does the propri-
etor think we are fools enough to work out our notices
to the bitter end, and then walk out into the street with-
out a penny to fall back on ?"
Codrington again dominated the assembly. With his
highly-polished silk hat at an acute angle on his head,
and with his arms folded across the breast of his beau-
tiful frock overcoat, he looked like Beau Brummel cal-
culating his losses at Brooks's.
"I trust," he said very gravely, "that we shall not hear
such words again in this room. They are nothing less than
treasonable. If we have any pride and self-respect let
us keep this pledge of confidence as a sacred duty. If
this ship is to sink which I utterly refuse to believe
let us go down with flying colours and doing the Birken-
head drill."
344 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"In other and simpler words," said Quin, the dramatic
critic, "let's play the game."
This was received with "Hear, hear !" from most of the
men present.
Vicary came downstairs looking very gloomy. He was
immediately surrounded by the men, who clamoured for
information.
"I don't know any more than you, boys," he said. "Of
course we have been running on to the rocks for some
time, but the financial side was no business of mine. My
job was to get news into the paper, and I have done it as
well as I know how. But, of course, some of the blight-
ers here knocked the bottom out of things. It was like
building a house on a quagmire."
He gave his colleagues a few words of advice. He was
going on with his job without any flim-flam, and he rec-
ommended them to do the same. "A shut mouth catches
no flies" was a good old proverb with a lot of sense in
it. With that oracular utterance Vicary went upstairs
and sat in front of his telephone, dealing with the busi-
ness of the day in his usual strenuous way.
But in the reporters' room the buzz of excited con-
versation continued intermittently throughout the day, as
men came and went with grave faces and serious eyes;
and in the passages other men collected into groups of
twos and threes, whispering together. All day long Bel-
lamy remained shut up in his room, and only once or
twice was he seen through the open door sitting at his
desk, looking rather tired and troubled, but giving his
attention to the business manager, the advertising man-
ager, Featherstone, the secretary, and other visitors. At
four o'clock in the afternoon the news was brought to
the reporters' room that the proprietor's thousand-guinea
Daimler had been sighted in Fleet Street. The report
produced a sensation among the men, and when the pro-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 345
prietor himself came upstairs and went to Bellamy's
room, a strange silence succeeded the noise of many
voices speaking together, and some of the reporters sat
with anxious eyes and strained attention, and spoke only
in whispers, while others went constantly into the pas-
sage to look at the editor's closed door from which no
sound came out. Frank Luttrell had the sensation of liv-
ing in the midst of a drama. There was something al-
most unreal and theatrical in this scene of men whisper-
ing and watching and waiting for something to happen,
though nothing happened. It was like a scene in a play
where the characters are waiting for the verdict in a mur-
der trial, or like the ante- room of a death-chamber where
men are waiting for the doctor to come out with the
word that all is over. To Luttrell it seemed that both
these ideas were terribly appropriate to the present case.
Inside Bellamy's room there was a trial going on which
meant life or death to the paper for which all these
men had worked so zealously. The Rag, as they called
it, was not an inanimate object to be bought or sold or
broken up according to the balance of profit and loss.
It was a real living thing. Frank, in his first f retfulness
against the system, had often compared the newspaper
to a grinding, devouring machine. But when The Lib-
eral lay at death's door he realised that it had a life and
spirituality of its own. Day by day its voice had ex-
pressed certain facts and opinions and ideals. Although
many different minds were at work upon it, and many
different pens filled its columns, the paper itself had only
one mind, and it had a character of its own different from
that of all other papers. If the paper died it would be
more than the breaking up of so much type, and the shut-
ting up of a big building, and the silence of great ma-
chines, and the absence of the familiar sheets at the
breakfast-table. It would mean the death of a living
346 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Idea, the silence of a great voice that had helped in some
measure, perhaps, to shape the destinies of the nation,
certainly to give men knowledge, to mould their opinions,
to push forward certain causes of good or evil. To
kill such a paper would be almost like murder ; to let it
die without every effort to save it would be a crime of
callous cruelty.
And the comparison of this scene to that of a group of
men awaiting a verdict of life or death was not too fanci-
ful. To all these men the continuance or closing down
of the paper meant almost that. There were elderly men
who would not find it easy to begin again. Inevitably if
the ship went down they would sink into the great abyss.
There were young men just launched upon the sea of life
one of them had been married just a year and was
the father of a one-day-old child who would have a
terrible struggle if they were washed overboard. Frank
knew himself how difficult it is to get hold bf any floating
planks to keep one's head above water. All of these
men lived up to their income, and some of them beyond
it. Even a few months of enforced idleness would drag
them into debt. Those with wives and children would be
faced by the grim spectres of hopeless anxiety or of that
hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. To all these
men, therefore, the verdict that would come from Bel-
lamy's room, condemning the paper to death, or giving it
a new lease of life, was of supreme and vital importance.
Few of them bolstered themselves up with false hopes.
They knew more of the financial side of the paper than
Luttrell, and they expected the worst. They talked
ghoulishly of the death-rattle, and were already prepar-
ing for the funeral. But with that curious freak in
psychology, which is always apparent when a number
of people are gathered together in the presence of death
or approaching death, these men were affected by a mor-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 347
bid inclination to laugh in spite of their anxiety. Quin
made gay little jests in a whisper outside Bellamy's door,
which convulsed the men to whom he was talking. Even
Brandon's grim jokes about corpses or coffins excited
the sensibility of his audience, and more than once a gust
of laughter shook the reporters' room, though Codring-
ton, whose gravity was imperturbable, raised his hand
and said "Hush" as if such hilarity were indecent. The
men who laughed most were those who were most afraid.
The young reporter who had the one-day-old baby at
home was as white as his collar, but he laughed hyster-
ically at any jesting remark until tears came into his eyes.
Luttrell was in the passage when the proprietor came
out of Bellamy's room. He was in a long motor-coat
with a big fur collar, and he hurried by in a nervous way
with a flushed and rather haggard face and tired eyes.
Luttrell had often seen that tall young man, who was
alleged to have an income of 300,000 a year and a bank
balance of three and a half millions. Before Luttrell
knew him to be proprietor of the paper he had put him
down as a distinguished literary man, perhaps even as
a prosperous playwright, which would account for the
fur round his neck. He had a long, lean, handsome face
with dark, dreamy, mournful and rather haunting eyes.
Luttrell had been staggered when Codrington had pointed
this figure out one day as Benjamin Harrison, the mil-
lionaire. Without knowing anything of his character or
history Luttrell had been struck with an indefinable pity
for the man. His millions had certainly not brought him
happiness. He seemed like a man overburdened with a
tragic responsibility. His face when it was not animated
by conversation was extraordinarily sad, and in the
depths of his dark eyes there was a profound melancholy.
As he passed down the stairs this evening he had a hunted
348 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
look. He was like a man who is encompassed on every
hand by enemies and who is seeking a way of escape.
Silas Bellamy came out of his room now, and as he
passed along the passage he heard the laughter in the re-
porters' room. It seemed to surprise him, and after a
moment's hesitation he pushed open the door and went
in. This appearance of the Chief produced an instant
silence, and then Codrington said, "Is there any news,
sir?' 1
"News? News?" said Bellamy, as though he could
not understand the question. "News of what?" Then
he put his hands to his eyes as though they were very
tired and said "No . . . there won't be any news for a
week or more. You boys must be patient. Are you
downhearted ?"
There was a cry of "No"; and Codrington said, "We
trust the man at the helm."
"You couldn't do better," said Bellamy, smiling. Then
he added, more seriously, "You may trust me at least
as far as this : I will do my best for you all."
He seemed gratified when there was a unanimous and
enthusiastic expression of confidence in him, and for a
moment there was a twinkling moisture in his eyes.
"Who will come out and have some tea with me ?"
There was a general response to the invitation, but Bel-
lamy said, "I will have Luttrell here. He is a quiet and
restful young man, and won't ask awkward questions."
Luttrell felt the honour of the choice, and blushed with
pleasure and at the laughter of his colleagues.
He had tea with Bellamy in the smoking-room of an
hotel in a neighboring court. The little Chief seemed
to have recovered his spirits, and told funny stories as
usual as though no crisis were happening. But towards
the end of an hour he said, after silence during which he
smoked his cigar thoughtfully
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 349
"Luttrell, some people make me tired."
"Am I one of them?"
Bellamy laughed, and said, "No, not now, anyhow.
But I don't know which is worse, a bad man or a weak
one."
He was silent again, and then said with apparent ir-
relevance, "It will be a wicked thing anyhow, if the paper
goes under. To found a newspaper is just like building
a railway, say from Charing Cross to Hampstead. Every
yard of the tunnel costs a lot of money, and by the time
you have got within a mile of Hampstead you have spent
a fortune without getting a halfpenny back. But what
would you say to a railway company which stops within
a mile of its terminus, just one mile before it begins to
take fares?"
"It would be mad," said Frank.
"Well, Benjamin Harrison, of Bristol City, wants to
stop within a mile of Hampstead," said Bellamy.
"I don't want to ask questions," said Frank, "but is
there any real chance of reconstruction?"
"Oh yes, I think so," said Bellamy. Then he added
less doubtfully, "Heaps of chances, of course. What I
have got to do is to make one of them a certainty."
He seemed to think that he had spoken more than he
ought to have done, and when he got up and put on his
overcoat he said, "Don't you repeat a word of this to
the boys. I think I can trust you, Luttrell."
"Oh, rather !" said Frank.
They went back to the office in silence, and Bellamy
just nodded to Luttrell in a friendly way at the door of
his own room. In the reporters' room Frank was ques-
tioned eagerly by his colleagues. "What did he say?
Did 'he tell you any news?"
"Nothing whatever," said Frank. "He seemed pretty
cheerful."
350 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
But the men evidently disbelieved him, and Codring-
ton took him apart in a mysterious way down to the end
of the corridor.
"Judging from your serious face," he said, "Bellamy
must have told you bad news."
"He told me nothing. Absolutely nothing."
"Oh," said Codrington doubtfully. Then he added
gravely, "Far be it from me to ask you to break any
pledge of confidence. But naturally we are all anxious."
He asked Frank to go out and have something to drink
with him. He admitted that his nerves had been serious-
ly shaken, and he thought a pick-me-up would do them
both good.
"This is a terrible affair," he said. "Terrible. Until
the crisis is over I shall be living in a continual night-
mare."
"What will you do if the worst happens ?" asked Frank.
Codrington's eyes widened with horror.
"Hush !" he said. "For God's sake ... do not men-
tion such a thing! It is too awful."
Luttrell was unable to go outside with him, because
he was looking for Margaret Hubbard. He had been
looking for her most of the day, but she had sent a note
round by one of her assistants saying that she would not
be at the office until four or five o'clock. It was now
six o'clock, and Frank heard from the clerk-in-charge
that Miss Hubbard had just arrived. He went to her
room and found her working quietly at her desk. She
looked up as he crossed the floor, and said
"Well, Frank. Everybody seems to have the blues
to-day. What's the meaning of those notices? Are we
really doomed ?"
"Goodness knows. Tell me, how is Katherine?"
Margaret smiled.
"Oh, naturally Miss Katherine Halstead's health is of
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 351
vastly more importance than the fate of five hundred
other souls."
"Yes," said Frank, "to me. How is she? I am
frightfully anxious."
"I don't know whether you deserve to be told. Her
illness is entirely due to your own evil deeds."
She spoke with mock severity, but Frank cried out
again
"For heaven's sake, tell me is she really ill?"
"No," said Margaret. "She is suffering from what
used to be called in Jane Austen's days 'the vapours/
which means that she is angry with you and ashamed of
herself, and irritable with me. She has cried herself into
a feverish headache."
"Good God!" said Frank, as if a feverish headache
were a deadly disease.
"Now, look here, young man/' said Margaret to the
man who was just a few years younger than herself.
"Of course, I have got to talk to you seriously, but I am
not going to lose my sense of proportion or my confi-
dence in your respectability, so don't be scared. Who
was that young woman in your flat last night ? It is not
my business, I know, but I fancy that it is {Catherine's
business, considering the proposal with which you have
honoured her."
Frank hesitated.
"She has nothing to do with me," he said. "She is
another man's secret, and I pledged my word to him to
say nothing about it to a living soul."
"Hum !" said Margaret Hubbard. "That is awkward,
certainly. Can't you produce the other man, or get him
to release you from your sacred pledge ?"
"Yes," said Frank. "I have been thinking it over,
and I have decided to let the other man tell the story. It
352 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
will not only clear me, but I believe you will be able to
help him."
"Oh, that is excellent," said Margaret Hubbard. "I
have a genius for putting my finger into other people's
pies. Needless to say, I always burn my own fingers."
Frank asked permission to ring the bell, and when a
boy came he told him to ask Mr. Brandon to step that
way.
Margaret Hubbard opened her eyes.
"Oh; it's Brandon's mystery, is it? That is character-
istic of him."
When Brandon came in, looking surprised at the sum-
mons, Frank said quietly
"Brandon, I want you to tell Margaret Hubbard about
Peg."
For a moment Brandon flushed deeply, and frowned
over at Frank with an ugly look on his face.
"I thought that was my secret," he said. "And I
thought you were a gentleman."
"We will leave the second point out of the question,"
said Frank. "With regard to the first, it is no longer
your secret entirely. I have been mixed up with it, and
you owe it to me, I think, to clear me in the eyes of Mar-
garet Hubbard and Katherine Halstead."
In a few words he explained the situation in which
he found himself, and before he had finished the frown
passed off Brandon's face.
"My dear fellow," he said warmly, "I am truly sorry.
I had no idea "
Then he turned to Margaret and said, "As a matter of
fact, I was going to consult you anyhow. I want the
advice of a wise, good woman. I have been making a
desperate fool of myself. . . . Frank, do you mind?"
"Certainly," said Frank, and left the room, shutting
the door behind him quietly.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 353
An hour afterwards Brandon came into the reporters'
room, and said in a casual way before the other men,
"Luttrell, Mother Hubbard wants to speak to you."
When Frank went into Margaret's room again she was
standing, waiting for him, and she took both his hands
and said, "Frank, you have been a good and brave fellow.
I think Katherine will admire you very much when I
tell her something about this queer story. And I think
she will be even more ashamed of herself, poor child."
"No," said Frank. "No. She had every right to sus-
pect to feel uneasy men are such brutes."
Then he said in rather a husky voice : "I am so glad it
is all cleared up ... thanks to you, dear Mother Hub-
bard. What should we all do without you?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Margaret Hubbard.
"You are all very troublesome and foolish children. I
will give you some broth without any bread " She
stopped and then said in a kind of whisper, "Oh, oh
perhaps some of us won't have any broth, or any bread
either, in a little while. . . . Frank, I hardly like to think
of what is going to happen to some of these young men,
and old men, if the worst happens. I can only pray that
the worst will not happen."
She clasped her hands and stared at him in a tragic
way.
"All these husbands and fathers of children ! All those
poor printers and their little homes! ... I know what
it is when five or six men are thrown out of a paper. It
is always a tragedy. Some of them always go under.
But I have never known a great paper to go down with
a full staff. Five hundred men thrown into the street
at once it is too horrible !"
Frank protested that there was every hope of recon-
struction. He refused to believe that such a great paper
354 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
would be allowed to die. But Margaret Hubbard shook
her head.
"We have been in a bad way for a long while. We
have made no real headway. And I know from private
friends that Benjamin Harrison is tired of losing his
money. He has awakened to the fact that certain men
here on the business side have been victimising him, and
wasting his money with almost criminal extravagance.
He has made up his mind to put an end to it all."
"But surely he realises all the suffering it will mean ?"
cried Frank.
"No, he doesn't understand."
"Can't he afford to go on losing money? We are
bound to turn the corner eventually."
"It hurts him to lose money. He has got the blood of
his father, who made millions by saving sixpences. I
know something of his family history, and the Harrisons
know how to earn but not how to spend. His money is
a curse to him and for that very reason. He is haunted
by the thought of losing it. He suspects every man to
be a rook eager to pluck him as a pigeon . . . and there
is a good deal of truth in that idea."
"Somebody will step in to buy the paper/' said Frank.
"It is a good hobby for a rich man."
"There are few men rich enough to lose 100,000 a year
with a smiling face," said Margaret Hubbard, repeating
Brandon almost word for word. "Besides," she added,
looking towards the door cautiously, "there are wheels
within wheels. You have no idea of the intrigues inside
and outside this office. I have heard a good deal from
Edmund Grattan, who knows everybody and everything
in the newspaper world. Poor Silas Bellamy has got to
steer his way through many cross-currents and sunken
reefs."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 355
"Is it as bad as that?" said Frank gloomily. "What
shall we all do?"
"I suppose we shall have to take in each other's wash-
ing," said Margaret Hubbard, with a laugh and a brave
attempt to regain her cheerfulness.
Frank had a better reason for cheerfulness.
"You will put it all right with Katherine?" he said
"Will you give her my love when you see her ?"
"I'll be hanged if I do," said Mother Hubbard with
the slang which she had picked up by living so much
among men. "Give it her yourself, you lazy fellow."
That evening Frank acted upon Margaret Hubbard's
advice and gave Katherine his love by word of mouth.
He called at the flat and found that Katherine's feverish
headache had entirely disappeared. But she looked very
serious. The news about the office had come to her as
a great shock, and, like Margaret, she was more dis-
mayed at the thought of what would happen to all her
colleagues than at the prospect of her own time of trouble
if the great disaster happened. In the face of that her
misunderstanding with Frank seemed insignificant and
trivial. Yet she was embarrassed when he first came
in, and blushed so deeply when he took her hand that
Frank dared not look into her face. They were alone,
for Margaret had slipped into another room and Kath-
erine said with a brave humility brave because she was
very proud "I have to abase myself before you. Will
you forgive my foolishness ? I was too utterly ridiculous,
and I am very much ashamed."
"Hush!" said Frank. "Let us forget the stupid inci-
dent or laugh at it ! I behaved like a blundering idiot."
She did not say any more on a subject which still
seemed painful to her, and she seemed relieved when
Margaret Hubbard came back. The conversation that
evening between Frank and these two women was rather
356 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
subdued and serious. The shadow of an approaching
tragedy seemed to have fallen upon them. Yet it was
not any selfish fear which made them dispirited and anx-
ious. When they spoke of their own future they used
brave words. They would be able to "manage" somehow
or other. But it was the thought of other men and wom-
en which troubled them, and the downfall of the paper
for which they had worked with a loyalty and enthusi-
asm which would now be made so vain and fruitless.
Perhaps Frank was the selfish one. When his eyes stole
over to Katherine he was full of pity for himself to think
that as an honest man he would have no right to ask
for an answer to the question which he had asked once
before. Katherine had postponed her answer then, and
now perhaps the years would slip by in a hopeless way
for him.
Margaret Hubbard noticed his gloomy looks and said,
"Cheer up, Frank. Never say die !"
He laughed and tried manfully to face his fate with
pluck, whatever it might be. The quiet courage of these
two girls seemed to him wonderful and beautiful, and he
was thankful at least that they would be his comrades
in any future struggle. He would not have to face the
frightful loneliness of his early days as a freelance in
London.
When he left the flat that evening Katherine put up her
face for him to kiss, and he went out into the streets
with new courage and new hope. It is strange how a
woman's kiss may act like magic in a man's heart.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE month following the issue of the notices to the
staff of The Liberal was a strain upon the nerves of the
most hardened journalist of that paper. To Frank Lut-
trell, who was less hardened than any of them, it was
a long-drawn period of suspense which made him quite
feverish at night when he turned and tossed in his bed
wondering whether the morrow would bring forth an of-
ficial statement ending one way or the other a situation
which, after the first week, had become quite intolerable.
But every day came and went without the expected an-
nouncement being given. Rumours flew up and down
the passages with extraordinary rapidity. Some one
heard from some one else, who had been given the
"straight tip" from the business manager or the advertis-
ing manager, or the secretary, or the chief leader-writer,
that the negotiations had been satisfactorily completed,
and that the whole staff was to be summoned into the
Board Room to have their notices cancelled, and to be
introduced to the new proprietors. This information, re-
peated at intervals from different sources, was disproved
by the days which passed without such a glad assembly.
Another rumour started with equal "certainty" that the
proprietor was coming in that very evening after the
paper had gone to bed to shut up shop. But "that very
evening" passed like the others without a word from the
authorities.
Many strange visitors went into Bellamy's room, or
into Benjamin Harrison's room, and remained there for
an hour or more, while men went whispering about the
357
358 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
passages, believing that the crisis was being settled. Some
of these visitors had hook noses and fur-lined overcoats,
the outward and visible signs of Hebrew blood and
wealth. Others were gouty or wheezy old gentlemen
who looked like English aristocrats, but might have been
creditors pressing for the settlement of accounts in view
of the ugly rumours persistent in the City as to the in-
stability of the paper. One man was recognised unmis-
takably by the parliamentary reporters as the chief Lib-
eral Whip, and perhaps it was the appearance of this im-
portant personage which accounted for the unofficial
statement which buoyed up all hearts with the "fact"
that the Government had agreed to subsidise the paper for
a certain time, and to offer one peerage and five baron-
etcies to any group of men who would undertake to run
the paper on strict Party lines. This seemed really gen-
erous (leaving high ethics out of the question) on the
part of the Government, and the barometer rose steadily
in the office until it was counteracted by a new rumour
which came straight from the advertising manager's pri-
vate secretary and typist. This was to the effect that
the chief Liberal Whip had said, with really cruel can-
dour, that The Liberal had never been worth a damn to
the Party and that he would not lift a little finger to save
it from that death it so richly deserved.
It was known (or at least reported) that terrible in-
trigues were on foot inside the office. The business man-
ager was treacherous to Bellamy and playing a dark and
subtle game of his own. The advertising manager was
the leader of a campaign against all other authorities, and
was attempting to raise capital among a group of Liberal
Imperialists who were anxious to get hold of a big Lon-
don daily. One of the leader-writers, who had been
closeted for many hours with the proprietor, was hand in
glove with the Temperance party in the House and coun-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 359
try, who were ready to bring in new capital if Benjamin
Harrison would put down another 50,000 and continue
his position as Governing Director. One condition they
made was a complete change of editorial and business
control, and the junior leader-writer who was acting as
intermediary in the affair was already nominated as edi-
tor-in-chief.
How much truth, if any, there was in any of these state-
ments could not be guessed by Frank Luttrell, to whom
they came from this colleague or that. At first, as each
one reached him, his hopes were buoyed up or dashed
down according to the character of the information, but
at last, when a fortnight had nearly passed, he became
deeply skeptical, and declined to give credence to any-
thing but an official announcement of indisputable au-
thority.
A remarkable scene took place on the night of the
thirteenth day since the issue of those letters marked
"Private and Confidential ." It was known to every one
that an announcement of some sort was bound to be de-
livered before midnight. The compositors were fort-
nightly men, and if the paper were to live another day it
would be necessary, according to Trade Union rules, to
re-engage them for another two weeks before they left
work. Already they had been restless and almost re-
bellious. Indeed, when they went into the composing-
room on this evening of the thirteenth, several of the
men had declined to put on their aprons or do a stroke
of work until their notices had been rescinded. They
swore that they would not be made fools of any longer.
They had gone on loyally up to the last day, believing
that every day would bring good news, and they would
wait no longer. They had a right to know what their
fate was to be. They had a hard job to keep their wives
360 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
quiet all this while, and it was about time the situation
was ended or mended.
The printing manager had a short way with rebels.
"The first man who knocks off work before the paper
is through will be floored by this fist," he said, showing
a row of very hard knuckles at the end of a long and
brawny arm. "Then I will report him to the Union."
Having brought them back to a sense of their duty he
agreed with many deep and dreadful oaths that he would
get a definite statement from Benjamin Harrison that
night if he had to choke it out of him. There and then
he marched down to the proprietor's room, with a square
jaw set in a dogged way, and with a bang on the door
strode in without ceremony. In two minutes he came
out again with the proprietor's pledge that he would re-
ceive the Father of the Chapel and three of the com-
positors at three minutes before midnight, when he would
fix his decision about the notices.
When the printing manager came out of the proprie-
tor's room he was instantly button-holed by Codrington,
who took him into a small room where he had a whisky
bottle and glasses. Codrington beckoned Luttrell to join
him and then closed the door.
"What do you want, gentlemen?'' said the printer.
"I want you to have a glass of whisky," said Codring-
ton. "It will do you good."
"I am not saying it won't," said the man, pouring him-
self out a stiff dose. "This is going to be a nervous sort
of night. The men want a lot of careful handling up-
stairs. If the proprietor plays any bogey tricks with
them, or refuses to give a plain answer to a plain ques-
tion, there'll be something like a riot."
"Tell me," said Codrington. "What did he say, and
how does he look ?"
"He refused to make any statement until five min-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 361
utes to twelve, and he looks like a man who is going to
commit a murder. It is my firm belief, gentlemen, that
we put up our shutters to-night. Then God help the
men and their women and children."
Codrington put down his tumbler, and his whisky
slopped over the brim. He was as white as a ghost, and
wiped some beads of cold sweat off his forehead with a
trembling hand.
"This is a terrible situation," he said. "The strain is
unendurable." Then he pulled himself together a little,
and said, with a kind of desperate courage, "Let us be
calm, my friends. Let us play the game like gentlemen."
"There are some men in this office that never played
the game in their lives," said the printing manager. He
strode out of the room, and went up-stairs to his own
place, and Codrington put his hand on Frank's shoulders
and said, "We must see this night out, Luttrell. For
the first time since the crisis I have the most gloomy
forebodings."
By common consent, uncommunicated and un-
expressed, the full staff of the paper remained at their
posts waiting for midnight. Even the day men, who us-
ually left, the office at six or seven, stayed on, and the re-
porters who had finished writing their copy for the next
day's paper, which many of them believed would be the
last, smoked cigarettes for hour after hour, until the
room was filled with a blue haze. But the men who had
come in late with "stories" were still writing at their
desks regardless of the buzz of conversation around them,
of the shifting groups in the passages, and of the elec-
tricity in the atmosphere of this night of crisis. Whether
the paper died or lived it would have to be filled to-night,
and these men were faithful to the law. In other rooms
the leader-writers and sub-editors were at work as usual,
writing and shaping the copy which recorded the day's
362 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
history. All these men were filled with the gravest anx-
iety. Many of them had left weeping wives at home.
The prospect was very gloomy for every man of them.
But they did their duty quietly and unflinchingly. In
their way they lived up to the traditions of the race. It
is, perhaps, easier for a sailor to stand to the pumps on a
sinking ship than for a man to pump his brains for a lead-
ing article, when he knows that in a few hours the paper
may go down with all its staff.
In the reporters' room Katherine Halstead sat at her
desk though she had finished her day's work, and Mar-
garet Hubbard came from her own room to join her col-
leagues who were waiting for the statement. Brandon
was there, silent and very moody, and Quin, des-
perately cheerful, and the little sporting-editor, with dark
lines under his eyes, and twisting his moustache until
it was a wonder a hair was left on his upper lip. The
room was littered with papers, and on some of the desks
were plates with the remains of meals, and coffee-cups
and sloppy saucers which had been used for tobacco-
ash. The atmosphere was poisoned by the stale smoke of
cheap cigarettes, and at ten o'clock Margaret Hubbard,
who had been talking quietly to Frank and Katherine
in a corner of the room, stood up and put her hands to
her throat, as though she were suffocating.
"This is awful. Let us get outside into the fresh air
for a while."
"I think so too," said Frank. "Will you come, Kath-
erine?"
They went out on to the Embankment. It was a beau-
tiful spring night, and the air was delicious. Katherine
took off her hat, and let the wind blow through her hair.
"Oh, this is divine, after that awful room," she said, lift-
ing her face up and drawing a deep breath.
"It will steady our nerves down," said Margaret Hub-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 363
bard. "I was becoming quite jumpy and hysterical..
And it is so foolish to worry oneself into fiddle-strings.
Whatever happens it is not a bit of good losing self-con-
trol."
Katherine put her hand through Frank's arm.
"The poor old Rag" she said. "I shall cry my eyes
out if it goes under."
"Oh, you emotional goose," said Margaret Hubbard.
"What good will that do, I wonder ? It's no good crying
over spilt type."
The two girls talked of the paper's achievements, of
"scoops" which had excited envy and admiration in Fleet
Street, of gallant deeds done in the pursuit of news by
Brandon and Codrington and others, and of the charm-
ing articles by this man or that, which had given a liter-
ary prestige to the paper. It seemed sad to them that all
that work should end in failure. Frank listened to them,
saying very little, but enjoying this walk with Katherine's
hand on his arm. He tasted the sweetness of melan-
choly, and found that there is a subtle and exquisite plea-
sure in sharing the sadness of women friends. After
all, the tragedy was one of anticipation. It might never
happen, for in spite of passing moods of pessimism he
had an instinctive feeling that the paper would not die.
But the crisis was like a melodrama pleasantly exciting
and thrilling, and if Providence were kind it might end
with wedding bells, like all good melodramas.
Big Ben boomed out eleven o'clock, and Frank sug-
gested that they should have a snack and some hot coffee
before going back to the office. Margaret Hubbard ac-
cepted the idea with enthusiasm. She felt sure that
Katherine must be faint with hunger. So they went into
a small restaurant in a side street of Charing Cross, and
there the first person they saw was Edmund Grattan.
He greeted them with joyful surprise, and then lowering
364 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
his voice said, "What news, my children ? I hear gloomy
things of a certain office."
Margaret told him that they were waiting for the great
announcement, and Grattan vowed that if he had to stay
out all night he would not go to bed before hearing the
verdict. It had been a real shock to him when he heard
of the crisis, and the thought of the boys who would be
turned out into the street if things went wrong made his
heart like lead. He need hardly say that everything he
had in the world, down to the shirt on his back, would
be at the service of Margaret, and Katherine, and Frank,
if things went badly with them for a time. He prayed
God they would not be too proud to come to an old
friend in time of need.
Margaret said she would certainly call for his shirt
to shield her from the cold blast rather than go naked
before the world.
"Ah now, you think I'm joking," said Grattan. "On
my soul I swear that all I have is yours, though it's not
much that I can call my own."
He seemed hurt at the laughter with which his offer
had been received, but Margaret Hubbard said very gen-
tly, "We know you'll be the best of friends, and that gives
us comfort/'
These words restored Grattan's enthusiasm, and he
seemed almost eager for the paper to go under in order
that he might have some chance of showing his gratitude
for all the hours he had spent in Margaret Hubbard's
rooms. Frank, and certainly Katherine and Margaret
who had quick, observant eyes, noticed that the little
man was dressed in the deepest black as though he had
just come from a funeral, and that he was drinking cold
water with his meal. Frank, who had never seen him
drinking anything weaker than whisky, was astonished,
and he could not help remarking that he took his water
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 365
with an almost ostentatious air. But he did not say a
word on the subject of his clothes or his temperance,
and though once or twice he seemed to fall into a melan-
choly mood, and gave vent to deep sighs, he quickly
roused himself and showed the warmest sympathy with
the troubles of his friends. He walked back with them
to the office, and said he would wait outside until Frank
could oblige him by letting him know what announcement
had been made.
It was a quarter to twelve, and when Frank and his
companions went back to their room they found all their
colleagues bending over a paper upon which Codrington
was writing with an air of intense solemnity.
"Good heavens !" he said, lifting his pale face to stare
at the newcomers. "Where have you been all this time ?
I am surprised at you leaving the office for a single min-
ute. There is no knowing what might have happened."
"Has anything happened?" said Luttrell.
"No. But we are just sending a Round Robin to the
proprietor, demanding an announcement to the editorial
staff. It is beneath our dignity to rely upon the answer
to the compositors. Our own fate is at stake."
"Bother dignity," said Margaret Hubbard, "but I agree
that we ought to have a special statement."
Every one put his signature to the paper, and it was
taken into the proprietor's room by Codrington himself.
He came back with a flushed face and troubled eyes.
"The proprietor desires us to wait until he has received
the deputation of men. Bellamy was with him, and from
the Chief's gloomy face. I am convinced that we must
abandon hope."
"Well, there is not long to wait anyhow," said Mar-
garet. "Hark! the men are going down."
All the reporters moved out into the passage, and down
the stone stairs from the composing-room came four
366 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
sturdy men with their shirt sleeves rolled up and white
aprons tied round them. They held their heads high,
and they had the air of men who are not going to stand
any nonsense. But they were very pale, and the sight
of them filing into the proprietor's room made Luttrell
feel curiously sick and faint for a moment. It made him
realise with a sharp sense of tragedy that upon the an-
swer to these men would depend the happiness of many
little homes, and of many women and children.
They stayed in the room only ten minutes, but it
seemed like an hour. Voices could be heard through the
closed door, and it seemed as if the men's spokesman,
the Father of the Chapel, was speaking loudly and an-
grily.
"My God!" whispered Codrington. "The paper dies
to-night."
Then the door opened and the men came out in single
file. They were still very solemn, and walked back to
the stairs with a kind of stern dignity. Brandon took
the Father of the Chajpel by the arm.
"What's the answer?" he said hoarsely.
"The notices are withdrawn," said the man.
"Withdrawn?" said Codrington. He went very white
and then gave a queer laugh as though there were tears
in his throat. He turned to the group of men and women
in the passage. "The notices are withdrawn ! God's in
His heaven and all's well with the world !"
"But only for a fortnight," said the compositor to
Brandon. "We're still left in a state of bloomin' uncer-
tainty. The Boss won't give us any definite news. It's
simply a case of prolongin' the hagony."
Silas Bellamy came into the passage, and beckoned to
the reporting staff.
"Come on, boys. The proprietor will speak to you."
They were joined by the leader-writers and the liter-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 367
ary-editor. The general anxiety had abolished all dif-
ferences of rank and office. Phillimore, the young liter-
ary editor, with a dead-white face and disordered hair,
was next to Luttrell and said, "This strain is killing me."
"The fortnightly notices have been cancelled," said
Luttrell. "It seems all right."
Phillimore shook his head.
"They are bound to do that unless the paper died to-
night. But Fm told all the negotiations have failed."
The fifteen or sixteen men, with Margaret Hubbard
and Katherine Halstead, went into the proprietor's room
and ranged themselves at the end of the room. Benjamin
Harrison was sitting at his desk staring at his red blot-
ting-pad. He looked haggard and ill at ease, and when
he raised his head and gave a quick, searching glance at
the editorial staff assembled before him his eyes looked
very tired and melancholy. But he roused himself into
an attempt at cheerfulness and stood up with a smile
flickering about his lips, grasping his coat lapels.
"I have to thank you all for your loyalty to me and the
paper," he said in a low, nervous voice. "The way in
which you have all respected the pledge of secrecy has
been remarkable and and if I may so admirable. It
has been unnecessary to emphasise the fact that upon the
discretion of each member of the staff depends the re-
sult of the negotiations now in progress. If you had
all gone out seeking new places advertisers would have
withdrawn their orders, the public would have known
of our jeopardy, and the present value of the paper, such
as it is, would have been destroyed. It was only because
I had the utmost confidence in your loyalty that I was
persuaded not to close it down a fortnight ago, and to
give an extra time of grace to those who may possibly
be able to rescue the paper from its peril. I regret to
say that so far all our negotiations have failed, but I
368 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
am assured by Mr. Bellamy and I have every confidence
in his assurance that there is still a good chance of re-
construction. I may say, and I hope you will believe me
when I say it, that I have been untiring in my own efforts
to obtain capital elsewhere in order to take over the
burden which has been too heavy for me, and I have
reasonable expectations in several quarters. In a few
days, perhaps even in a few hours, one of these hopes
will be fulfilled, in which case no one will rejoice more
than myself that this paper which began with such great
promise will not end in an untimely and unfortunate way.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you heartily for the great
patience and courage which you are showing in these days
of of apprehension."
He sat down and took up a copy of the Westminster
Gazette, staring at the leader page as if its article on
Tariff Reform and Tin Plates were of absorbing interest
to him. But it was only a cover to his intense nervous-
ness.
Brandon cleared his throat, and stepping forward a
little said
"Do you still bind us over to secrecy and to abstain
from seeking new places? I speak not only for myself
but on behalf of my colleagues. It will be awkward for
all of us if we step straight into the street, having worked
out our notices to the bitter end."
A man's voice trembling with suppressed emotion said
in a low tone, "It will be more than awkward. It will
be a damnable injustice."
It was Phillimore's voice. He was standing behind
his colleagues, and only those near to him heard his pas-
sionate remark.
The proprietor seemed rather taken aback by Bran-
don's question.
"Why," he said, looking at Bellamy, as though for
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 369
counsel, "I think it would be well to continue the policy
of secrecy. That I am sure is essential to the success
of the negotiations. Is it not, Mr. Bellamy?"
"Undoubtedly," said Bellamy, pulling his moustache.
"But, of course, we have no right to prevent any one
from applying for a new position if he thinks fit. It is
only a matter of policy. There can be no binding
pledge."
"After all, gentlemen," said Harrison, looking rather
wistfully over to the group of journalists, whose hopes
had been utterly damped by the proprietor's vague and
unsatisfactory words, "after all, I am playing your game
as well as my own. We are all in the same boat, are we
not?"
The words seemed to be spoken in self-defence, and
there was a murmur of "Hear! hear!" from one or two
of the journalists stirred to sympathy by this handsome
young man, whose eyes were so unutterly mournful, and
who looked almost afraid of the men in front of him,
as though they were his enemies rather than his em-
ployees.
But to Luttrell's surprise Katherine Halstead answered
the proprietor differently. Twisting her hands together
nervously, she spoke in a clear and thrilling voice, though
there was timidity in some of its tones.
"I do not think we are quite in the same boat," she
said. "You are a very rich man, Mr. Harrison, and most
of us are very poor. If this paper goes down you will not
have to give up one of your motor-cars, nor deny your-
self even a cigar. But some of us here will face starva-
tion, and their wives and children will perhaps go hun-
gry. That is a big difference, is it not?"
These words created something like a sensation, and
the quiet "Hear! hear!" which had been uttered pre-
370 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
viously, was now repeated more loudly and almost unani-
mously.
The young proprietor flushed deeply and rested his
hand on his forehead as he sat at his desk.
"What would you have me do ?" he said in a helpless,
embarrassed way.
Margaret Hubbard answered for Katherine.
"There is some truth in what Miss Halstead has said.
If what we still hope will never happen does happen,
would it not be fair to regard the notices as dating from
the first of next month instead of the first of this month?
We all wish to be loyal, but our loyalty will be your
gain and our grievous loss if the worst takes place."
"What shall I gain ?" said the young millionaire.
"The month's wages of the staff/' said Brandon. "You
admit, sir, that, but for our keeping the secret, the paper
would have closed down on the night after the issue
of the notices. In that case we should at least have gone
out with four weeks' salary."
"Then you would have preferred me to end things on
that night?" said the proprietor. He glanced across at
Bellamy, who was listening to this conversation with a
worried look.
Codrington stepped in front of Brandon.
"I am sure none of us wish anything so terrible," he
said in a voice of solemn cadence. "We hope, indeed we
believe, that this great paper has before it a brilliant and
prosperous future. I for one, Mr. Harrison and I feel
sure I speak on behalf of the majority here cannot con-
ceive any greater calamity than the downfall of this
paper, which is so impossible and incredible, that the
imagination refuses to entertain the idea. There is only
one watchword among us. We will be loyal to the
death."
These words, uttered in Codrington's finest eighteenth-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 371
century style, startled Benjamin Harrison, who was un-
used to his gifts of oratory. He was struck dumb and
seemed quite bewildered. Bellamy in spite of the gravity
of the situation smiled and winked at Luttrell in a comi-
cal way. Some of the men murmured angrily, others
looked over at Codrington quizzingly as much as to say
that after that speech nothing further was to be said.
This was the view taken by the proprietor.
He rose and grasped his coat lapels again, and said,
"Perhaps we had better dissolve this meeting. I am
sorry that I had nothing more satisfactory to tell you.
In a few days perhaps "
He turned to Bellamy and spoke to him in a low voice,
while the staff silently left the room.
"Oh, you blithering idiot !" said Brandon to Codrington.
"You can't restrain your torn-fool emotion, can you."
"Thank God," said Codrington, "I was not born with
the instinct of disloyalty."
The two men argued with each other, but Luttrell did
not wait to hear them. He ran down the stairs to find
Edmund Grattan, who was waiting for the news outside.
He saw his figure in a slouch hat and long cloak pacing
up and down on the dark side of the street. Luttrell
called to him, and Grattan came across into the greenish
light of the lamps hanging outside the newspaper office.
"Tell me," said Grattan, "what news, my dear boy?"
In a few words Luttrell told him confidentially the
vague, unsatisfactory statement which had just been made
to the staff, and Grattan whistled in a dismal way.
"It looks bad," he said. "I'm afraid these lights will go
out in two weeks' time. I'm sorry. I can't say how sorry
I am. The poor boys ! The poor girls ! What will be-
come of them all?"
He gripped Frank's arm, and said, "Courage, friend.
Be of good heart ! It's pluck that pulls a man through."
372 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Katherine and Margaret came down the steps, and
the men joined them.
"Come and have some dinner in Soho," said Grattan.
"We will have a pleasant meal and some champagne."
He corrected himself hastily and said, "At least, you will.
I'm not drinking anything now."
"A cab is what I want, and then home to bed," said
Margaret. "This poor child is dog-tired."
Grattan pressed them to join him at a cosy meal, but
Margaret said the greatest kindness he could do them
would be to call a cab. That was an easy task, for a
hansom came tinkling by and the two girls got inside.
"How are you feeling ?" said Frank anxiously to Kath-
erine, as he mounted the step and shut the doors upon
them.
She gave him her hand and did not answer, and Frank
could see that there were tears in her eyes.
He raised her hand to his lips and then jumped down
as the cab made a move.
"This is a tragic business," he said to Grattan.
"My boy," said the Irishman. "It is sheer brutality.
How that young whipper-snapper with three and a half
millions can abandon this great paper to its fate, regard-
less of ruined lives and bleeding hearts, is a mystery I
can't understand. If we were in Russia his life would
not be worth a kopek." He pulled Frank by the arm and
dragged him into the darkness beyond the lamps.
"There he is ! May he know no sleep to-night."
The thousand-guinea automobile, which was the won-
der of all the newsvendors waiting for the first edition,
came slowly from behind a row of carts and stopped be-
fore the office steps. Benjamin Harrison, a tall figure
in a long fur-lined coat and silk hat, came through the
swing doors and hurried into the car. For a moment
the green lights illumined his face, and it was very white
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 373
and haggard. As soon as the door was closed the driver
sounded his horn, the car panted and then glided swiftly
forward through the lines of newspaper carts.
"There goes the white-livered cur !" said Grattan. "Bad
luck attend him."
"There goes a very unhappy man," said Luttrell. "I
pity him from my heart. I am sure he means well."
"My son," said Grattan, "Hell is paved with the souls
of those who meant well."
Then he pressed Frank's arm and said, "All the same
I am sorry for my hard words. You teach me a lesson
in charity, my lad. Perhaps that poor young man is suf-
fering for other people's sins. I know he has had a pack
of scoundrels round him. . . . But it is not for me to
judge. God forbid!"
As they walked together into Holborn he stopped under
a lamp-post and said, "Do you see these black duds of
mine, Luttrell?"
"Yes," said Frank. "I'm sorry if "
"They're for my wife, rest her soul," said Grattan
very solemnly. "She died a week ago, and I could not
hold her dear hand, or close her eyes in the last sleep."
His voice broke and he walked on silently. Then, in
a little while, he said, "Frank, I drove her away because
of my wildness, and wandering life, and Bohemian ways.
She left me one night when I was drunk, and she went,
poor girl, to another man who didn't drink, and who was
once my best friend. She sent me a letter the night be-
fore she died imploring my forgiveness and begging me to
give up the drink which she knew was still the curse of
my life. ... I had nothing to forgive. The sin was
mine because I drove her to it. ... And I have taken
the pledge, which God help me to keep."
Frank tried to express his sympathy, but the Irishman
interrupted him, and spoke of Margaret and Katherine as
374 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
though their troubles were of more importance than his
own.
"Frank," he said suddenly, "is it the truth I hear from
Codrington that you have lost your heart to little Kitty.
. . . Yes ? well, sure, now, that gives me joy !"
He stopped in the middle of the street and wrung
Frank by the hand.
"That will give you courage," he said. "Why, man,
you will be able to face the whole world on the strength
of that! To work for one's woman! To carve a way
through for her ! To leap over any mound and ditch of
difficulty that keeps you two apart! Why, that is what
puts pluck into the heart of a man and makes a hero of
him!"
These words and others which came glowing from the
heart of the little Irishman put wine into Frank Luttrell
and made him feel a stronger and braver man. He went
home in the small hours of the morning strangely ex-
hilarated, in spite of the gloomy result of the long-awaited
announcement. In his new zeal to carve, as Grattan
said, a way for Katherine, he turned to the manuscript
story which had lain unfinished on his desk for many
days now, and before he went to bed as the light of day
was creeping through his window blinds added a chapter
to it. The book had not been begun with the idea of
publication, but now he thought that perhaps he might
get a few pounds for it, which would help to tide over
the barren days ahead if he should find himself again
"out of a job." He determined to "keep his end up"
whatever happened, and perhaps he might succeed as a
novelist, if he failed as a journalist. A man of moods he
plunged into pessimism and rose to the heights of opti-
mism too easily and quickly, but perhaps it was good for
him in these hours of crisis that he should find a new
hope with which to buoy himself up.
CHAPTER XIX
THE next fortnight was even a greater strain than the
two weeks which had just gone by. Vicary passed the
word round that the paper was to be better and bigger
than before. For the sake of those mysterious negotia-
tions, which seemed to drag on interminably, it was neces-
sary, he said, to bluff the world and Fleet Street, and to
turn out the best article on the market. In his own strong
and forceful language he said that "each man must do
his damndest," and he put on the screw with relentless
severity. Yet, to the honour of the staff, it is to be re-
corded that each man, and each woman, too, responded
gallantly to the call. They worked ardently in their spe-
cial sphere, and with two extra pages in the paper each
day, they turned out some admirable and brilliant work.
Brandon, who was the only one of the men to resent the
attitude of the proprietor as to the notices, said with
regard to all this effort and enthusiasm, "Cest magnifique
mais ce n'est .pas la guerre," but even he worked like a
Trojan, and his articles on the Making of Criminals were
masterly and convincing, and have not yet been forgot-
ten.
Luttrell himself was doing ordinary reporters' work
special inquiries and descriptive reports of small hap-
penings, and for a man of his calibre the rush and bustle
of these days were wearing enough. But in the evenings
when he had finished his copy, after feverish hours and
the final effort of putting the result of his sight-seeing on
the paper with a desperate endeavour to be bright and
original, the inevitable reaction set in, and he felt that
375
376 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
the death of the paper would be a relief to the haunting
anxiety as to its fate.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen days had
passed, and still there was no word to say that the
negotiations for reconstruction had been successful. Bel-
lamy went away on a mysterious journey to the north
ot England, and came back again to shut himself up in
his room, avoiding his favourites, and taking his meals
indoors, when he could get half-an-hour's release from
interviews with the proprietor, business manager and
strange visitors who still continued to call. Now and
again Codrington or Quin would get inside his room for
a few minutes and come out again smiling with a funny
story just narrated by the Chief, or with a message of
hope to the staff. "Things are going on famously/' "The
negotiations are all but completed/ 1 "There are a mil-
lion chances to one that we shall pull through."
But on the twenty-second day there was a decided
drop in the spiritual barometer of the office. Bellamy
had told Quin, and Quin whispered it to his colleagues
that "things were looking very black and only a miracle
could save them."
These words gave the men cold shivers, and they re-
garded their doom as settled. But in the midst of their
despair they were excited to hilarity by the report that
upon Christopher Codrington, of all people in the world,
the safety of the paper now depended. For two days
Codrington had been terribly mysterious, and he had been
closeted with Bellamy for over two hours at a time on
each of those days. On the third day he came to the
office more immaculately dressed than ever, with a brand-
new Gladstone-bag on the hansom in which he had rattled
up to the door, and with a pocketful of gold out of which
he stood drinks to Brandon and Luttrell.
At the bar of the wine tavern round the corner he
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 377
revealed, under a pledge of strict confidence to his two
colleagues, that he had been provided with money, and
the full financial figures of the paper, by Bellamy, and
that he was about to start on a journey to the west of
England to raise capital from a group of enormously
wealthy men in the shipping line of business, who were
keen Liberals and particular friends of himself. He had
already prepared the way for his visit by long despatches
which they had answered favourably, and he felt con-
vinced that he would bring back a written guarantee for
the sum required by Benjamin Harrison as earnest money
for the sale of the paper.
"Luttrell and Brandon, my dear fellows," said Cod-
rington solemnly, ''this is a great hour in my career. If
I can save the paper I shall consider I hope legitimately
that all my private trespasses may be forgiven in re-
turn for this service to humanity, which, by God's grace,
I am about to perform."
He shook hands solemnly with Luttrell and Brandon,
as though about to depart on a perilous journey which
might cost him his life.
"I will send you a private telegram," he said to Lut-
trell, and then raising his hat to the lady behind the bar,
entered the cab which, regardless of expense, he had kept
waiting outside.
Brandon and Luttrell watched his cab steering a course
through the traffic until it was lost to sight. Then Bran-
don turned and leant against a lamp-post and laughed
until the tears came into his eyes, to the surprise and
amazement of the passers-by.
"To think that Codrington is our ambassador-extraor-
dinary in search of gold !" he said when he recovered his
gravity. "It will be ironical if he really raises the wind."
It was on the way back to the office that Frank heard
the first news of Peg since the evening at his rooms in
378 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
Staple Inn, over a fortnight ago. He had not put a ques-
tion to Brandon, and Margaret Hubbard had not given
him any details as to the private interview that had taken
place at the office. But now Brandon said quietly, "You
will be interested to hear, Luttrell, that Peg has got a
place and is no longer living with me. Thanks to Mother
Hubbard she is as happy as a humming-bird, and is build-
ing up a new life for herself."
He explained that Margaret had gone several times to
see the girl, and that Peg had fallen in love with her and
would do anything in the world for her. Then Mar-
garet had found her a situation in a farm-house in Sur-
rey, which was an experiment, and a successful one, in
practical philanthropy, by a woman friend of Margaret's.
This lady befriended girls of the lower middle-class
mostly shop-girls and waitresses in city tea-shops who
had suffered from ill-health owing to long hours in a
vitiated atmosphere, or had been the victims of those little
tragedies which so often imperil the souls of girls in great
cities. Under the cheerful, sane, practical and spiritual
rule of this maiden lady the girls learnt dairy and poultry
work, bee-keeping, and horticulture. Although designed
at first as a charitable institution it had become a self-
supporting business, and the girls were paid fair wages.
They were a happy family of twenty, and a healthy life of
fresh air and exercise in the most beautiful part of Sur-
rey, soon restored the mental and moral balance of young
women who had for a time suffered from hysteria, and
melancholia, or anaemia. But they gained other good
things. Mary Warrington was a woman of dominating
character and of a sweet and refined temperament. The
Women's Home Farm, as the place was called, was in
its way a rural college, or perhaps more like a convent
without strict religious rules, but under the pervading
influence of a pure religious character. Although Miss
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 379
Warrington knew literally how to take her eggs to mar-
ket and always obtained the full market price she was,
according to Margaret Hubbard, a medieval saint in mod-
ern life. The tenderness of her heart, which drew forth
all that was best and beautiful in the girls who came into
her Home Farm, was only equalled by the mental breadth
which enabled her to teach as well as to organise and to
give intellectual culture as well as moral and physical
health to those under her kind authority. At night she
read books to the girls gathered in the great kitchen of the
farm-house, which was three centuries old, and induced
them to read out aloud in turns. Then she would talk
to them of the great ideals and thoughts which she had
gathered from many of the masters, and without any
dogmatism or the pedantry of the ordinary school-mis-
tress, gave these girls, gradually and in a simple, unaf-
fected way, a broader outlook on life and a womanly edu-
cation. She was of the old Catholic faith herself, but
she never attempted to proselytise, and her girls were of
all denominations and of no religious creed. But she had
a kind of spiritual radiance which illumined the farm-
house and its garden with the light of a pure and sweet
soul, and those twenty young women, who had become
dairymaids and bee-keepers and gardeners, had a devo-
tion to her which was near idolatry. All this Margaret
Hubbard had told to Brandon, and he had smiled at her
enthusiasm, not believing that it could all be justified.
But he had taken Peg down to the Home Farm and had
met Mary Warrington and had seen the girls at work,
and when he came back, leaving Peg miserable and in
tears, he believed that in a little while she too would be
singing as he had heard the dairymaids. It was too soon
yet to know how the experiment would work out as re-
gards Peg, whose nature was so peculiar and abnormal,
but two days ago he had had a bright ill-written letter
380 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
from her, and a note from Mary Warrington to say that
already the girl was beginning to cheer up and was on the
friendliest terms with her companions.
"It is an enormous relief to me," said Brandon; "and
my debt of gratitude to Margaret Hubbard will never be
repaid."
"I am glad," said Frank. "It is the best of news."
"I will not thank you, Luttrell, for all you have done
in this affair. Words are foolish things. But if ever I
can do anything in the world "
"My dear fellow," said Frank, "I have done nothing."
"You have done everything," said Brandon. He did
not say any more, but he was more deeply moved than
Frank had ever seen this strange, reserved man, who
underneath his rather sullen nature had a strain of ten-
derness which was very rarely revealed.
This incident was only a passing interruption of the
drama which obsessed the mind of every man on the
staff of The Liberal, but the thought that Brandon's
strange, unhappy girl should have found a home in which
she had a chance of building up a new character and life
was a source of real joy to Frank, who out of pity and
kindness had done his best by giving a helping hand to
her in the days of her great distress.
At the office the sands were running down, and only a
few days remained before the fate of five hundred men
would be decided. Among the few people who knew of
Codrington's embassy there was no hope left, and they
could only give way to an hysterical kind of hilarity.
They felt that if this was the last resource of the myste-
rious "negotiations" the flag might be hauled down. But
curiously, by some freak of psychology, the great majority
of the staff had swung round to the belief that all would
go well. When they approached near to the fatal day
it was impossible to think of the debacle. With machin-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 381
ery throbbing down below, with all the busy hum of life
upstairs, with telegrams pouring in from different parts
of the world with the news of the world, with every man
doing his appointed task as he had done it day after day
and week after week for years, it was as difficult to think
that in a short time all that thrilling life would be silenced
in the death of the great paper, as it is always difficult to
imagine that a strong man full of energy and spirit may
drop down dead, suddenly and swiftly.
There was a kind of superstition which took the place
of hope. Phillimore, the literary editor, spoke to Lut-
trell in the passage and said, "I am sure we are going to
pull through. At the eleventh hour some rich man will
come rolling up in his motor-car, bringing the money up
with him. The paper cannot die. Why worry?"
He, of course, was worrying himself into fiddle-strings,
but fantastic as his idea was it really represented the gen-
eral feeling of the staff. 'The paper cannot die. Noth-
ing could kill a thing with such vitality. Bellamy will
turn up trumps an hour before the fatal time. You bet
he has a card up his sleeve."
Such words were spoken by men who at the beginning
of the month had been almost broken up by the dread
of ruin. And some of them had been sadly broken up.
One of the reporters, who had recently left another paper
to come on to the staff, believing that he was settled in
life, was drinking hard, in order to get Dutch courage,
and was a pitiable-looking wreck. Another, who had gone
through nearly all the London newspapers, and knew that
this was his last chance on earth, was in a state of maudlin
misery.
Luttrell himself was so nervous and highly-strung that
the banging of a door or the sudden sneeze of a col-
league gave him heart palpitation. But he tried to get a
grip over his will, and at least he had sufficient reserve of
382 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
strength to show a quiet front to all rumours of ruin and
to all counsels of despair. On the morning following
Codrington's departure he received a telegram from that
romantic ambassador. It was a message of good cheer.
"Have every prospect of success" He showed the tele-
gram in confidence to Brandon, Margaret Hubbard and
Katherine, and on the strength of it they went to supper
at the Savoy and drank a bottle of champagne to Cod-
rington and the god of luck. Even Brandon's natural
hostility to Codrington was dispelled by the great and
bounding hope that he would be the deus ex machine
by hooking a millionaire. Their mysterious cheerfulness
in the reporters' room could not pass unnoticed, and a
cheerful face was so unusual that four of them at* one
time seemed a proof to all their immediate colleagues
that things were shaping well.
But on the following day Luttrell was sent for by Bel-
lamy.
"Shut the door, Luttrell/' he said, and then, "you
know that Codrington went away to seek gold in the
west?"
"Yes," said Luttrell, and his pulse beat quickly when
he added eagerly, "has he had luck?"
Bellamy smiled.
"Codrington is very persuasive. He has got on to the
right side of a chocolate manufacturer."
"Well done '"said Luttrell. "That's magnificent." He
gave a deep sigh expressive of infinite relief. "Then we
are all right, sir? out of the wood?"
"Go slow," said Bellamy. "I did not say as much as
that. But Codrington has drawn blood. His potentate
is prepared to put down a tenth part of the amount which
Benjamin Harrison demands, in return for the ines-
timable privilege of acquiring this paper with its monthly
expenses."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 383
"A tenth part ?" said Frank. "I suppose it's impos-
sible to get at the rest in the time?"
Bellamy laughed. "On the Conservative side the diffi-
culty would not exist for a moment. But it is as difficult
to get a true Liberal to part with money as to draw blood
out of that ink-pot."
"Have all the other negotiations failed?" asked Lut-
trell. As Bellamy had gone so far in his confidence he
felt entitled to ask the question.
"Not altogether," said Bellamy. He was thoughtful
for a moment. Then he said in a weary way, "You don't
know all I have done in the endeavour to save this paper,
Luttrell. Nobody will ever know that. And I can hon-
estly say it is not for myself. I am prepared to vacate
this chair to-morrow now if that would help matters
forward. I am thinking of the men and their wives and
children. I know what it will mean to them if we go
tinder. Benjamin Harrison does not understand that. I
cannot make him understand. For a young man with
many good qualities he seems extraordinarily callous. But
it is simply sheer ignorance of Fleet Street and the con-
ditions of life here. He thinks it will be perfectly easy
for every man of them to find a new place. He thinks
he has done nobly in keeping them so long. He forgets
does not realise his terrific responsibility in having
drawn them out of good positions on to this paper of
his. He does not remember that they have spent their
brains and bodies in his service. I assure you that night
after night he has come in with intent to kill. He wanted
to close up there and then. And I have had to struggle
with him every night. Even now it is only a question
of time. Given three months I would still save the situa-
tion. But Harrison won't give us another day, not an-
other hour, after the end of this month. And there are
only two days more. The irony of it is that he is one of
384 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
the richest men in England. How can we go touting
round for capital when he is wallowing in wealth ? That
is the question asked by every one I have gone to. And
I'm hanged if I know any answer to it."
Bellamy picked up his bayonet and handled it in a
yearning way, as though it would be a joy to him to
thrust it between somebody's ribs.
"Then we must abandon hope ?" said Luttrell in a mel-
ancholy voice.
"Good God no," said Bellamy, looking up sharply.
"Who said so ? Dum spiro spero. Isn't that good Latin ?
You ought to know as an Oxford gent. . . . Look here,
Luttrell, talking about Oxford, do you know any rich
young fool who wants to buy a peerage and a paper?
They're both going cheap."
"No," said Luttrell, "I'm sorry I don't."
"Take your time and think it out," said Bellamy. "Sit
down, won't you? I'll use the opportunity for washing*
my hands. Filthy place this office."
Luttrell sat down, and Bellamy went to the wash-
basin. It was a repetition of that scene when Luttrell
had first met Bellamy, and sat in his room.
The little Chief washed his hands, and polished his
nails, and brushed his hair before the looking-glass and
whistled a little tune. It was the same tune which he
had whistled on that day, months ago, when Frank had
sat with a beating heart waiting for the words which
would decide his fate. The memory of the tune came
back to him, and with it the emotions of that evening.
Much water had flowed under the bridges since then,
but Frank's heart was filled with a strange emotion at the
thought of this end to all his hopes. He never thought
he would sit in this room discussing the approaching
death of the great paper.
"Well?" said Bellamy.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 385
"There is only one man I can think of. He was an
idealist and an ardent Liberal when we were in the same
college together. But he doesn't want a peerage. He is
the Earl of Bramshaw."
"Bramshaw !" said Bellamy. "My hat, man, you don't
mean to say you know Bramshaw?"
"Yes," said Luttrell. "Why not?"
"And you have been keeping him up your sleeve all
this time?"
"I haven't given him a thought."
"Why, my innocent babe," said Bellamy. "He is one
of the wealthiest peers in England. He has got the
biggest collieries up North."
"So I believe," said Luttrell.
Bellamy banged his fist on a gong and a boy bounced
in.
"Bring a Bradshaw, and be quick about it."
He opened a drawer and emptied a cash-box full of
gold on to the desk.
"How much do you want?"
"What for?" said Luttrell.
"To get up to Bramshaw and do credit to your friend.
Do you want a new hat? clothes? Anyhow you will
want a first-class fare, and something in your pocket in
case of accidents."
He handed over ten pounds.
The boy came in with the Bradshaw, and Bellamy
turned up a train,
"You had better go by the twelve o'clock. It gets to
Bramshaw at five."
"I can't go without facts and figures," said Luttrell,
rather overwhelmed by this sudden mission. He was
wondering whether Bramshaw, who used to be the Hon-
ourable John Poyning, would be the same bright, boyish,
386 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
enthusiastic fellow with whom he had gone forth on the
night of the bonfire "rag."
Bellamy told him to sit still for half-an-hour while he
coached him in newspaper arithmetic, and during that
half -hour Frank learnt more about the financial side of
a newspaper than he had expected to know. It was a
revelation to him, and he gasped at the vast and almost
incredible expense of carrying on a great London journal.
He could not help sympathising with Benjamin Harrison
in his desire to "cut his losses." But Bellamy having
shown him the black side of the books explained how in
twelve months from that date the paper ought to be not
only making its way, but making a good profit. He
showed him the steady progression of the advertising
revenue, which if it continued in the same proportion
would secure the working expenses of the paper by the
time named. And in his ingenious way he worked out a
scheme of figures which looked, on the face of them,
satisfactory and promising. "All we want," said Bel-
lamy, "is 50,000 in addition to the sum put down by Cod-
rington's man. For that small figure Bramshaw can
dominate a powerful organ of opinion, become an impor-
tant person in his Party, and enjoy one of the most agree-
able hobbies open to a rich man. If you want any little
thing for yourself such as an editorial chair, make your
own terms. Or if Bramshaw wants to put in his own
man some heaven-sent genius of a haughty and aristo-
cratic temperament, don't you mind me. I'm ready to
hand over office to-morrow."
He shook hands with Frank, and said, "Do your best,
Luttrell. Remember you will be helping the other boys
and girls. Send me a wire with the most cheerful news
you can."
"I'll try my hardest," said Frank. He had a flushed
face and was painfully excited.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 387
"I am sure you will," said Bellamy. "You are a scholar
and a gentleman."
Frank had half-an-hour to get to King's Cross. It was
not too much time, but he spent three minutes of it in
whispering a few words to Katherine, who had been
wondering why he had been such an unconscionable time
in the Chief's room.
She became even more excited than himself, and in the
passage she put her hands on his shoulders and said
"Frank, if you save the paper I will "
"What?" said Frank. "What?"
"I will marry you the very next day if you like."
"Honour bright?" he said. "Is that a solemn and
sacred promise?"
They had both been smiling, but in the eyes of both of
them there was something more than merriment.
"If you will save the Rag " said Katherine in a low
voice.
He bent down and kissed her on the lips.
"I am going to have a try," he said.
Then he turned and ran down the stairs, and in less
than a minute found himself panting in a hansom cab
on the way to King's Cross.
On the railway journey Frank studied his brief, and
notebook full of figures. He was not a good arithmeti-
cian, but he concentrated his mind on those sums of news-
paper mathematics and mastered them. Because upon
the figures depended the fortunes of his friends and col-
leagues and his own happiness. If he could persuade
Bramshaw he would win Katherine. The thought filled
him with an almost feverish emotion. He felt quite sick
with excitement. At times a gust of anxiety and hope
swept through him. What a joyous thing it would be
if he could save the paper! He had been a reserved,
sensitive fellow among his colleagues. Some of them
3 88 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
had given him the cold shoulder. Some had not con-
cealed their jealousy of his promotion. Others had
looked upon him as a snob and weakling. But they
would be proud of him if he did this thing. He and
Codrington would be the heroes of Fleet Street. How
strange that he and Codrington of all people in the office
should be the means of keeping the flag flying! They
had been rivals. Now they were working for the same
cause, and they would share the glory. And Katherine
would be his reward. It was his chance! His whole
happiness in life depended upon his playing his cards
well. He must keep his nerve. He must not get too
excited. If only he applied to Bramshaw in the right
way, calling upon their old comradeship, reminding him
of his old ideals, pointing out what an enormous service he
would do to the nation and the Party, he would succeed.
Surely, Bramshaw would not refuse! Fifty thousand
pounds it was but a bagatelle to a man who owned the
biggest coal-fields of the North ! Towards the end of the
journey Frank went into the lavatory carriage to wash,
and was startled at the bloodless, haggard face in the
mirror before him, and by the burning eyes which stared
at him. He must calm down. He was overwrought by
this racking anxiety. He looked like a ghost, and Bram-
shaw would be scared at him.
When he arrived at the journey's end in the Yorkshire
town where Bramshaw Castle dominated the heights, he
hired a hackney carriage, and, after a cup of strong tea
which pulled his jangled nerves together, he drove straight
up to the sham Gothic buildirig on the hill. It was dark,
and as he drove through an avenue of beech-trees there
was only a dim light about him, and deep shadows were
flung across the road by the last rays of the sun. Rooks
were cawing noisily on the tree-tops, and a bat skimmed
in short, swift flights before the carriage. Frank was
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 389
chilly, and as the shrewd wind of a Yorkshire evening
came to his face he shivered. All his courage had gone.
He was filled with a nervous dread of asking Bramshaw
for the money. After all, it was an audacious embassy,
and in spite of their old comradeship the young earl
might snub him for his impudence.
When the avenue came to an end, and spread into a
sweeping carriage drive, Frank saw that the great cas-
tellated house was in darkness except where lights glim-
mered from the windows to the right of the archway.
He got down from the hackney carriage and gave a sharp
pull to the iron bell-handle, and, when he heard the pro-
longed jingle- jangle of the bell inside, the sound startled
him and he was in a desperate state of "funk/* He heard
a man's footstep coming down a long passage, and he
took a deep breath and prayed for self-command and a
little pluck. Then bolts were unbarred and an elderly
man-servant stood in the doorway, holding up a lamp.
"Is Lord Bramshaw at home?" said Frank.
"His lordship is not at home," said the man.
"Will he be long?"
"His lordship is in town."
"In town ?" said Frank, and his heart went to the bot-
tom of his boots. He had come three hundred miles
.and seemed to have travelled for three hundred hours,
and "his lordship was in town !" What a damnable anti-
climax to all his emotion !
He stood utterly nonplussed. What a fool he had been
to come all this way without sending a prepaid telegram
in advance !
He questioned the man at the door, who, with reluc-
tance and a curt disrespect, divulged the fact that Lord
Bramshaw was staying at the Sports Club in St. James's
Square for two Or three days.
Frank got back into his carriage and drove down to the
390 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
town again, and on the way he said hard things against
the devil who had tricked him with such fiendish malevo-
lence. What on earth should he do now? It was im-
possible to get back to town that night, and to-morrow
night the paper would die. He had only twenty-four
hours before him in which to save or lose the game. He
had now only a gambler's chance.
Luttrell sent off a telegram to Bellamy with the news
of the horrible disappointment, and another to Bramshaw
at the Sports Club begging him to be there at four o'clock
en the following day, as he wished to see him on a matter
of life and death. That was the earliest time he could
get to St. James's Square from this small Yorkshire town
with an atrocious train service.
That night Luttrell put up at the Bramshaw Arms, and
sat smoking for hours in the bar-parlour listening to the
gossip of Yorkshire yokels, but not hearing or under-
standing. He was utterly wretched, and brooded over
the tragedy of the fruitless journey. He slept hardly at
all that night under the oak beams of his bedroom, and
\\hen he rose in the morning and shaved himself he had
an aching head, and felt and looked horribly ill. There
was no train to London before eleven-thirty, and he trav-
elled back the same route on which he had come yester-
day.
At four o'clock he stood in the hall of the Sports Club,
staring at the heads of antelopes and at the stuffed lion,
and into the gaping jaws of a grinning hippo, and waiting
with a sickening anxiety for the return of the page-boy
who had gone with his card to find the Earl of Bram-
sham.
"Will you come this way, sir? His lordship is in the
smoking-room."
Luttrell drew a deep breath of relief, and thanked God
he had found his man; then he followed the page, and
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 391
making his way past the outstretched legs of well-
groomed, fresh-complexioned men, who were reading
evening papers or sleeping as peacefully as babes in the
smoking-room chairs, saw his old college chum in .the far
corner.
"Hulloh, Luttrell," said Lord Bramshaw, giving him a
limp, plump hand. "Glad to see you. It seems cen-
turies since we used to talk damned rot together. Have
a whisky, or anything?"
Luttrell saw that his friend had changed. He had put
on flesh during the past few years, and had lost the
elegant, graceful figure which had given him the name
of Pretty Poyning. He was now a rather stolid, flabby
young man, and there was a trace of vulgarity in his
manner. -
Luttrell sat down and had some coffee, while Bramshaw
said it was devilish funny weather for the time of year,
and gave an account of a new piece at the Gaiety Theatre
to which he had been the night before. There were some
extremely jolly little girls on show, and if Luttrell had
not been he certainly ought to make a point of going.
Half an hour passed before Luttrell could find an
opening for his own line of conversation.
"Weren't you rather surprised to get a wire from me
with the Bramshaw stamp on it?" he asked.
"Did you send it from Bramshaw! 'Pon my soul I
didn't notice. Ghastly place, isn't it? If it weren't for my
infernal title I would sell the whole bag of tricks. That
Gothic castle of mine gives me the horrors every time
I set eyes on it."
Luttrell plunged.
"I wanted to speak to you about something of the great-
est importance."
"Let's see; you said something about life and death,
392 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
didn't you ? I suppose that was hyperbole. You always
tised to be a fellow for picturesque imagery, Luttrell."
He smiled and looked at Luttrell in a curious way.
"You look a bit pulled down/' he said. "You ought
to get away to the south of France for a bit. Join me,
won't you ? I have taken a little box at Biarritz. There
is a charming society there. All sorts of lovely ladies."
"I have to earn my living," said Frank.
"Lucky beggar," said Bramshaw. "I'll bet you don't
get half so bored with yourself as I do."
This gave Frank his opportunity, and he did not let
it escape. He put before Lord Bramshaw the way in
which he could escape from boredom. He must buy a
paper. It would give him endless interest and great
power. He would be doing a great service to the country
and to the Party.
"Which Party?" asked Bramshaw.
"Why, ours, of course," said Frank.
Bramshaw seemed to be groping back down the aisles
of memory.
"Let's see, we used to be Social Democrats, or some-
thing, didn't we?"
"You were an ardent Liberal," said Frank, with some-
thing like irritation in his voice. The matter was too
serious for jesting.
"Oh, most fellows go through that phase," said Bram-
shaw carelessly. "It's like measles, and poetry, and
calf-love. But, of course, now I've come into the title
and all that I have settled down. One has to look after
one's property, and those Rads would grab every damn
thing they could lay their hands on."
Frank was dismayed. This was a pretty introduction
to a demand for 50,000 to support a Liberal paper !
But he rallied his forces, and appealed to Bramshaw's
old idealism, his old comradeship, his sworn vows that
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 393
when he came into his money he would use it on behalf of
humanity.
Bramshaw's plump face turned pink.
"Draw it mild, Luttrell," he said, laughing rather pain-
fully. "Did I talk such asinine things as that ? . . . Any-
how, it's beastly rough on a fellow to call up the indis-
cretions of his teens."
Luttrell shifted his ground and based his plea on more
personal reasons. He gave Bramshaw an idea of the
inside of a newspaper office, and explained the tragedy
which would fall upon so many lives if the paper went
under. It would be a bad blow to himself. Wouldn't
he stretch out a helping hand for the sake of a college
chum ? It would mean so very little to him.
"What is it you want me to do ?" said Bramshaw good-
naturedly. Frank's words had touched him.
"I want you to put down 50,000."
Bramshaw put down his glass of whisky and looked
as if he would have a stroke of apoplexy. He put his
plump finger inside the neck of his collar and loosened it.
"50,000!" he said. "Good God! . . . Look here, if a
hundred quid are any good to you "
Frank pleaded with him. In a low, thrilling voice he
put forward every argument he could think of. He re-
cited figures which he had learnt by heart in the train.
He showed how Bramshaw could get a good profit for
his money. He spoke of the immense power he would
wield. He said how five hundred men and the whole
Liberal Party would praise him as a benefactor. There
were tears in his eyes, and his words came from a full
heart.
But Bramshaw became cold and put on the solemn
pomposity of a young man of high rank.
"I wish I could oblige you," he said. "But it is quite
impossible. I owe a duty to my position in life, and to
394 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
my class. It would go seriously against my conscience
to bolster up a Liberal paper. This Government is ruin-
ing the country. Why, damn it all, my solicitors tell me
that I shall be a poor man if the financial stability of the
country continues to be undermined in this disastrous
way. . . . Have another whisky, Luttrell, and let's drop
this most unprofitable conversation/'
Luttrell did not have another whisky, but in a few
minutes left the Sports Club with despair in his heart and
with a bitter hatred of that fat young peer who had once
been his friend.
He had failed . . . and to-night the paper would die !
He had failed, and he could not get his great reward.
Katherine was lost to him.
He went to his office utterly miserable. It was a quar-
ter to six o'clock, and everything was going on almost as
usual. The night men had just come in and the composi-
tors were trooping upstairs, messenger boys were bring-
ing in press telegrams, there was all the activity of a great
newspaper office. No one would dream that this night
could be its last night. Even Luttrell did not believe it now
that he had come back to the familiar scenes. He accused
himself of romancing, and was inclined to be ashamed of
his emotionalism. But presently he began to realise that
things were not quite the same as usual. The day men
on the literary business staff, who generally left at six
o'clock, were staying on, and there was an air of sup-
pressed excitement among them. He saw the secretary
in the corridor having a whispering conversation with
one of the canvassers.
"Any news ?" said Luttrell, as he passed. The secretary
smiled and pulled his beard. "We shall know the best
to-night," he said, with a cheerfulness that was almost
suspicious.
Luttrell knew that it was useless to cross-examine him,
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 395
and went to his own room. There was a full crowd there
with the exception of Codrington.
Katherine came quickly to him and said "Well?" in a
whisper. Then she searched his face and saw its gloom.
"Oh !" she said rather piteously. Two or three men were
looking rather curiously. Brandon, who seemed to know
something, moved towards him and said "Come outside,
Luttrell." In the passage Katherine and Brandon faced
him and asked him for a word of news, bad or good.
"I have failed," he said, simply. "I did my best, but
it was a wild-goose chase."
"Oh, Frank," said Katherine, "surely you could have
done something?"
It was a reproach and it stabbed him.
"No, I could do nothing. Do you think you could have
done better ?"
"Perhaps," she said, and went back with a rather white
face to her room.
It was the last stroke, and Frank was badly hit. He
looked so knocked-out that Brandon took his arm and
said, "You want something to eat and drink, old man.
Let's go and have a meal. It is no use hanging about
here."
"1 must tell Bellamy," said Luttrell. "He is waiting
for news."
But the proprietor was inside with Codrington and a
stranger. Bellamy had given orders that no one was to
be admitted until he rang the bell. So Frank sent in a
note with a brief line of regret for the failure of his em-
bassy, and afterwards went out to a restaurant with Bran-
don. They shared a bottle of wine, and it put a little
heart into Frank and brought a touch of colour into his
cheeks. But it was a serious meal and mainly silent.
Neither of them felt in a mood for light converse. But
Brandon gave Frank the latest information regarding the
396 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
situation, as far as it was known by rumour and hearsay.
The general feeling in the office was that Benjamin Har-
rison wanted to kill his own paper. He was playing dog
in the manger, and, not having made a success of the
paper, he did not want any one else to do so. Un-
doubtedly certain offers had been made. Actual money
had been paid down to get an option on it, but for some
reason or other nothing had yet been settled. Of course,
the truth of the whole business could not be known, per-
haps never would be known. Certainly, there were trai-
tors in the camp, and it was highly probable that the pro-
prietor himself was playing off one combination against
another in order to keep them all at bay until twelve
o'clock that night, when he would issue the death-war-
rant.
"On the other hand," said Brandon, "the optimists still
hold that Bellamy has had a trump-card up his sleeve all
this time, which he will put on the table at the eleventh
hour. He is an astute little diplomat."
"How about Codrington?" said Luttrell.
"He has brought his man up, and both of them are
inside Bellamy's room now. I should take off my hat to
Codrington if he really picked the chestnuts out of the
fire/'
They were silent after this until over a coffee and
liqueur Brandon puffed out a cloud of smoke and said
very gloomily, "God knows what will happen to us all,
Luttrell, if the doors close to-night. Out into the streets
we go without a penny-piece of compensation, and then
it will be the law of the jungle among us. There is not
room for half of us in Fleet Street if the paper goes
under. New men have filled up the old places. ... It
will go badly with me. I am getting on in years, and
I can't begin all over again. I have staled, and that's the
painful truth."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 397
'I am worse off," said Luttrell gloomily. "I hardly
know a soul outside our own show."
They went back to the office at nine o'clock and joined
their colleagues. Once again the staff waited for the ver-
dict, and this time it was to be final. There could be no
further postponement. The men talked in low voices.
The hours dragged by on leaden wings. Occasionally
there was a momentary excitement when Bellamy's door
opened and shut. Again some of the men were work-
ing, turning out copy for the next day's paper. Again
some of them tried to cheer each other up by telling
funny stories, and gusts of laughter shattered the silence,
but were quickly spent. Katherine came over to Frank
and said, "I'm sorry. I did not mean to say what I did.
I was overwrought. Forgive me, Frank, will you ?"
"There is nothing to forgive/' he said. "Failure is
always inexcusable."
"No," said Katherine, "the men who try are the
heroes."
He was glad she spoke like that. It healed his wound,
and when Margaret Hubbard came and sat on the floor by
the fireplace and handed up chocolates from a big box
to Katherine and Luttrell and Brandon, and any others
who liked to apply, the misery of this scene was softened
for Frank himself, sitting on the coal-scuttle next to
Katherine who was on an office stool, with Quin the other
side on an upturned waste-paper basket. Katherine put
her hand on his shoulder. It was a sign of sympathy and
it was comforting.
At eleven o'clock there was a sensation when Silas
Bellamy put his head into the room.
"Halloh," he said. "Going strong?"
They called to him and pleaded for news. Katherine
sprang up and seized him by the arm and pulled him into
the room.
398 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Tell us," she said. "For heaven's sake put us out of
our misery. Is it all right with the paper?"
He laughed and stood pulling his little fair moustache.
His eyes were filled with great tenderness as he looked
round the room and saw so many of the men who had
given loyal service to him, and who had gone on many
great adventures on behalf of the Rag.
"The proprietor will make the announcement to you
at one o'clock," he said. "Don't ask me questions, boys,
and keep your hearts up."
"Not till one !" cried several voices.
"No," said Bellamy; "we must see the paper through
first. The men upstairs must do their job. Then we all
assemble in the Board Room."
He did not say any more about the situation, and what
he had said might be taken either way. But he sat chat-
ting for a while and told two or three merry stories and
made every one laugh, and laughed himself quite natur-
ally and with real enjoyment. Then he went away, say-
ing that he had another conference with Benjamin Har-
rison.
"Lord !" he said, "how glad I will be when this crisis
is over. I haven't had any sleep for two days and nights."
When he had gone there was a silence, and then Quin
said, "What do you think of it? Have we turned the
corner ?"
"Yes," said one of the men. "He wouldn't have been
so cheerful if the end was near.'*
"I don't know," said Margaret Hubbard thoughtfully.
"There was something rather queer in his eyes."
At last one o'clock came, and from every part of the
building men trooped down to the Board Room composi-
tors, departmental editors, reporters, leader-writers, the
business men all except the machine men who were
printing the morning issue. The room was dimly
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 399
lighted, but outside the windows hung the long greenish
lights which had distinguished the great newspaper office
at night. There was a rattle of carts in the streets and
the voices of the newsvendors waiting for the first edi-
tion. But inside the room there was a silence as the great
staff grouped themselves all round, the reporting staff
in a bunch together near a raised dais at the end of the
room, where chairs had been placed for the proprietor,
the editor, the news-editor, and the business manager.
Luttrell, who was next to Katherine and Margaret Hub-
bard, looked round upon all the faces of his colleagues.
They were very grave, many of them very pale, with
anxious eyes. It was not often the staff had been gath-
ered together like this in one body, and the size of it
astonished Luttrell. And he was moved with a deep emo-
tion at the sight of all those anxious faces, and the in-
tense silence was oppressive and rather dreadful. Then
a door at the end opened and Benjamin Harrison came in,
with Silas Bellamy and Vicary and the business manager.
Bellamy gave a rather timid glance towards all the men,
and then the proprietor bent down and whispered a few
words to him. Benjamin Harrison himself was white
and haggard and very weary looking. He too looked
round the room with a nervous glance. Vicary had a
bull-dog look on his face and his eyes were very gloomy.
Without any preliminaries the proprietor rose, and
clearing his throat spoke in a low, hesitating voice, but
every word was distinct in that silent, crowded room.
"I deeply regret to say that a note, set up by different
hands, so that it will be news to most of you, will appear
in the morning's issue, announcing that the paper has
ended its career."
He paused, but there was no sound in that room except
a kind of quivering sigh, and a slight movement among
the men at the back.
400 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
"Its career," said the proprietor, "has been compara-
tively short, but it has not been ignoble. In spite of
financial failure we have done a great deal of good work,
and obtained a high, perhaps even a unique reputation as
a paper animated by high ideals and by an honest pur-
pose."
He went on speaking in carefully-chosen phrases. He
spoke of the great burden that had been on his shoulders
he had found it more than he could justly support and
of the immense efforts that had been made to secure fresh
capital. It was with real grief, he said, that he had to
admit that all those efforts had been vain for reasons
into which he need not enter. He must pay a high tribute
to the staff, which had done admirable and brilliant
service. He must also acknowledge his deep indebtedness
to Mr. Bellamy, their gallant editor, and to Mr. Vicary
their indefatigable news-editor, and to Mr. Harker their
business manager, to whose work and so on, and so on.
But what did it all matter ? The men listened to these
phrases, perhaps without hearing. They had heard
enough. The paper was dead. In a little while they
would all be on the streets. Nothing mattered but that.
Luttrell looked round at all the faces. The men
seemed to have been stunned. They were staring at the
proprietor in a dazed way, white to the lips. It was a
sickening sight. Then he looked at Katherine by his side,
and at Margaret Hubbard. Katherine was crying, quite
quietly, with tears streaming from her eyes. Margaret
was pale with serious, sorrowful eyes.
The proprietor sat down and then Silas Bellamy rose,
and in a broken voice thanked all the men his boys, as
he called them for their splendid, magnificent work. No
editor had ever had such loyalty, nor a more brilliant and
gallant staff. He could only assure them that he had
done his best to save the paper. Mr. Harrison would bear
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 401
him out that he had not spared himself in his most des-
perate endeavours to avert this great tragedy. Even to
the last hour he had hoped that some way out could be
found. Fate had decided otherwise.
He, too, sat down nervously. He was deeply moved
and had difficulty in hiding his emotion.
Then, for the first time, the silence was broken. The
men cheered their editor with a great demonstration of
enthusiasm and affection. The cheers made the window-
panes rattle, and in that early hour in the morning in
which the paper had died, in the dimly-lighted room, and
after the long silence, the noise of those cheers was
startling and extraordinarily impressive in its effect.
The business manager then rose. He was a fat, flabby
man, and his plump hands fidgeted with the lapels of his
frock coat. He spoke in suave, oily platitudes, lavishing
praise upon their "noble, their self-sacrificing, their gen-
erous, high-souled young proprietor." He spoke in this
strain for five minutes, and when he sat down he seemed
to expect applause. But not a voice said, "Hear, hear,"
and there was no whisper of a cheer.
Everyone waited, as though something else would hap-
pen. But nothing more took place except the hurried exit
of Benjamin Harrison followed by the business manager,
who kept close to his coat tails, and by Bellamy and
Vicary who went together speaking in low tones.
A murmur of voices rose in the room. One man
fainted and was leaning back on a chair with his head
flopping on his chest.
Suddenly the greenish lights hanging outside the office
were put out. No doubt it was the hour for their ex-
tinction, but it seemed a symbolical act. The lights had
gone out. The ship had gone down.
The men made their way into the passage. Even now
they spoke only in whispers to each other, or were quite
402 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
silent, as though still stunned by the shock of calamity.
Some of them went back to their own rooms. Little
Birkenshaw the sporting editor was weeping like a child,
with his head on his arms outstretched upon his desk.
Other men were crying, and did not hide their tears.
Percival Phillimore, the literary editor, had taken it
badly. Frank met him in the passage, and he put his
hand to his head and moaned.
"Oh, my God I" he said. "Oh, my God ! How can I
go back to my wife and children ?"
Frank drew him into a side room and tried to comfort
him. He seemed quite broken.
Several of the men, among them Vicary and Quin and
Codrington, had gone into Bellamy's room. The Chief
was very tired, very serious. He had not a single quip^
or jest. He was in no mood for a merry tale. He re-
vealed some of the negotiations which had taken place,
and pulled his reddish-brown eyebrows, and said, "It's
more than a calamity it's a crime. There is no earthly
reason why the paper should not be flourishing. ... I
can't tell you all, but I want you to believe that I did my
best."
Katherine was weeping piteously and could not be com-
forted. Margaret Hubbard was with her holding her
hand, and Frank bent over her and whispered to her, but
she wrung her hands, and said, "Go away, Frank ... I
can't bear it. Forgive me."
Margaret Hubbard said, "I think you had better call a
cab for us, Frank." Then she said bitterly, "This is a
black night's work. I think Benjamin Harrison ought to
suffer for it."
Luttrell went for the cab, and took the two girls down
to it. He would have kissed Katherine's hand, but she
put her arms on his shoulders and kissed him on the lips,
and her tears wetted his cheeks.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 403
"When shall we meet again?" said Frank, "and
where?"
"Come round to the flat, Frank, to-morrow," said Mar-
garet Hubbard.
They then drove away, and Frank went back to the
office which was now in semi-darkness, many of the lights
having been turned out. Codrington came out of Bel-
lamy's room and put his hand on Frank's shoulder and
walked with him into what had once been the reporters'
room. It was now only one of the death chambers.
"Luttrell," said Codrington, "I can't believe it. I re-
fuse to believe that the paper has stopped. It is a hor-
rible nightmare. It cannot be true."
He sat down and put his hands to his head.
"Good God," he said, "it is too horrible !"
In little groups the men went out of the building out
into Fleet Street, where they shook hands, and then went
home to tell the bad news to women who had been sitting
up in loneliness.
In the streets there were groups of compositors. Some
of them were cursing Benjamin Harrison with fierce
oaths. Others were too broken to say anything, but stood
listening in a helpless, hopeless way to their comrades.
Then they too separated, and, with a "Good-night, all,"
went to the little houses in mean streets, where their
children lay sleeping.
Luttrell and Codrington were the last men left in the
office. They stayed talking for an hour. Codrington was
a mere ghost of a man. His face was ashen grey and his
eyes were sunken in their sockets. But he seemed loth
to leave the office, and sat smoking cigarettes and indulg-
ing in a melancholy retrospect and in a still more melan-
choly forecast of the future.
"To me," he said, "this is utter and irretrievable ruin.
404 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
I have nothing left but my personality, which seems a
poor thing to-night/'
And, indeed, for the first time since Frank had known
him Codrington spoke naturally and simply. The calam-
ity had stripped him of his elegant affectations. Then at
last he went with Luttrell down the office steps, and in
the street they turned and looked up at the dark and
silent building.
"Dead ! Dead !" said Codrington, in a broken voice. He
raised his hat as though in the presence of death, and
then, with a wave of the hand to Luttrell, strode away.
CHAPTER XX
THE downfall of the paper was a surprise and grief to
the public. Indeed, it was remarkable how much praise
was given to it now that it was dead. Liberals who had
never subscribed to it said that its debacle was no less
than a tragedy to the Party. Liberal papers which had
carefully abstained from quoting it, not wishing to give
a free advertisement to a rival, published leading articles
in which it was declared that the disappearance of this
morning journal was an incalculable loss to the English
Press. Even from Conservative papers there came trib-
utes to the high ideals, the unswerving honesty, the fair
play, the brilliant literary style, and the fine tone of their
"talented contemporary." As in the case of many public
men, the virtues of the paper were only recognised when
it had gone to the grave.
But only one London newspaper had a word of sym-
pathy for all those men and women who, it said, "had
gone into the street, and, in the present condition of the
newspaper world, may find it no easy thing to obtain
new places. Inevitably to many of these journalists there
will be a time of anxiety, disappointment and hardship."
That expression of sympathy did not exaggerate the
situation. Not within the living memory of Fleet Street
had there been the downfall of so great a paper with its
staff. The news of its death had come as a blow not only
to the men and women in the Fleet Street office, but to
many journalists scattered over Europe the special cor-
respondents in Paris, Berlin, Rome and other capitals,
who came hurrying homewards with heavy hearts, to
405
406 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
increase the ranks of the outcasts, and to make the rivalry
among them more deadly.
Perhaps the most pitiable thing in the calamity was
this competition among comrades in misfortune, who by
the law of self-preservation were bound to strive for
places coveted by others as much, or more, in need of
them. There was an invasion of every newspaper office
in London, and it is recorded in the annals of Fleet Street
that one editor of a Conservative paper received no less
than nineteen visits in one morning from the staff of The
Liberal. To each of the applicants he returned the same
answer : "Very sorry, my staff is far too large already."
Several editors, and not those of the hardest hearts, re-
fused to see any members of the shipwrecked crew.
They had no vacant posts, and it was waste of time to
say sympathetic things.
Some men like Luttrell and Codrington had too much
pride or too little "push" to send in a card to a single
newspaper office.
"What's the good, my dear fellow?" said Codrington.
"Let us at least wait until the crowd has cleared off a
little. Then, perhaps, some office-boy will die of eating
too many brandy-balls, and you or I may be given his
empty stool."
Frank Luttrell was suffering severely from reaction
after a month's excitement, and had already abandoned
hope. He could only brood over the cruelty of his fate.
Just as success had been within his grasp it had been
snatched out of his hands by fickle fortune. He had been
broken on the wheel of Fleet Street and flung into the
dust-heap. This was the reward of his days of arduous
work, of his humiliations, of his daily loss of self-respect !
It would have been better for him if he had stayed at the
Abbey School teaching the elements of Latin grammar
to young louts. At least he would not have met Kath-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 40^
erine Halstead and lived in a dream from whidi he had
now awakened to the cold reality of failure.
He had been brought to such a low condition of mind
that he shirked meeting his old colleagues at the ren-
dezvous which they made in the smoking-room of a Fleet
Street tavern, and shut himself in his own room calcu-
lating how long his small savings would keep him this
side of starvation, and shedding weak tears when he
thought of the miserable prospect in front of him. With
so many experienced and well-known journalists looking
for jobs, he did not buoy himself up with any false hope
that he would receive a favourable hearing from any edi-
tor in London.
He sat down and tried to write some special articles
and short stories, or Spectator essays. He would not
show the white feather, if he could help it, and it was
just possible that he could "keep his end up/' as he called
it, by freelance work as in the old days before he joined
the Rag. He had learnt a good deal since that time, and
it ought to come easy to him.
But Frank Luttrell found to his increasing terror, like
many other writers of temperament who have suffered
from the shock of disaster, that his brain refused to work.
His imagination seemed as dead as his old paper. He had
not a single idea in his head, and he could not even write
a paragraph of decent English. He smoked innumerable
pipes, which still further hastened the ruin of his nerves,
was devilishly tempted to take to drink, and only re-
sisted the temptation because he had a photograph of
Katherine Halstead on his mantelpiece, and her image
in his heart. Within a few weeks of the death of the
paper, he was well along that dark road which leads ta
the dreadful abyss of melancholia.
It was owing to Edmund Grattan that Frank was saved
from that tragedy. Grattan was the Great Heart of these
408 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
days to more than one member of the Rag. Although
for years he had lived an adventurous life and must have
passed through many periods of almost starvation pov-
erty, it appeared, according to his own statement, that
the luck had been his way of late, and that he had a
"stocking" full to the brim of gold pieces of the realm.
He was almost blatant in his boast of wealth, and to hear
him talk one might have imagined that this seedily-
dressed little man who lived in a Soho slum had more
money than he knew what to do with. The truth was,
as Luttrell afterwards discovered, that he had a bank
balance of exactly one hundred pounds, and his bragging
of secret hoards was only to give him an excuse to lend
five-pound notes to friends whom he knew to be desti-
tute.
He had come round to Frank's room early on the morn-
ing after the catastrophe and endeavoured to rouse his
friend's spirits by optimistic assertions that as far as
Luttrell was concerned this was the very finest thing
that could have happened to him. Luttrell, he said, was
too fine a blade to be put to chopping wood. And varying
his metaphor he went on to say that Pegasus in a news-
paper cart had been a sorry sight to him. Frank was
too good for Fleet Street, and- he strongly advised him
to abandon regular journalism, in which he would always
be the slave of men with small minds, and be his own
master as an essayist, novelist, playwright and historian,
for all of which lines of literature he had such richly-
endowed qualities.
Frank in spite of his woe was obliged to smile at this
exaggeration of his talents, but he shook his head and said
that he had no desire to live in a fool's paradise. He
had already experienced the life of a freelance, and he
had found it a Quixotic game of tilting at windmills.
Grattan inquired with the utmost friendliness into the
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 409
state of his finances, and finding that Frank had only a
few pounds between him and the streets, immediately
pulled out a cheque-book and a stylographic pen and de-
manded to know how much he would like to go on with.
"Look here, Grattan," said Frank rather fiercely, "if
you think I'm going to sponge on you you're jolly well
mistaken. Put that book in your pocket and leave me a
little self-respect, for heaven's sake."
Grattan swore a number of lurid oaths and called him
many bad names on account of his haughtiness.
"If I can't lend you a trifle when you're down on your
luck," he said, "you're not the true friend I always took
you to be. Why, man, I tell you it will be a kindness to
relieve me temporarily of some of this filthy lucre! It
will all go in wild and disgraceful orgies if you don't take
care of it. Sure, and you wouldn't ruin a man's soul for
the sake of your tuppenny-ha'penny pride?"
Frank thrust the little Irishman into a chair, took his
pipe out of his pocket, and poked it in his mouth, ex-
actly as if he had been an Aunt Sally.
"Have some of my 'baccy," he said, "and don't talk
skybosh."
Nevertheless, Grattan's visits, which were frequent
and at all sorts of odd hours for sometimes he would
do a devil's tatoo on Frank's door before he was out of
bed in the morning, and at other times sing "Molly Bawn"
on the staircase as he came up late at night were very
cheering to a man who, when alone, stayed too long with
his elbows on the table and his head in his hands staring
at the blank paper before him on which he saw dismal
pictures. At times he resented the Irishman's visits, and
was inclined to damn his impertinence for intruding so
often. For, like all neuropaths (and Frank at this time
was certainly in the first stages of neurasthenia), he
found a subtle pleasure in brooding over his own wretch-
410 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
edness. It is only now, looking back upon those black
days, that Frank realises all that Grattan did for him,
by coming with indomitable cheeriness into his rooms and
dragging him out into the streets for a luncheon at a
Soho restaurant, or for a cup of tea at the club.
Margaret Hubbard was another cheerful soul who was
a friend in need to some of those colleagues who had
given her the nickname of "Mother." She had the same
trouble with Katherine as Grattan with Frank, for Kath-
erine's highly-strung temperament had suffered more than
she knew at the time of the crisis, and immediately after-
wards she fell into a kind of weakness as though all her
strength had been taken from her. The doctor spoke
very seriously about the first stages of tuberculosis, to
which Margaret Hubbard said "Fiddlesticks!" much to
the astonishment and indignation of the Harley Street
physician, to whom Margaret paid two guineas, grudging-
ly, for what seemed to her words of extreme stupidity.
Perhaps Margaret was right when she said that it was
merely a case of "rundown nerves." Perhaps, however,
she was more scared by the doctor's words than she al-
lowed herself to appear. Frank suspected more than
once that she had been weeping in secret, but if that were
so she kept her tears to her own chamber, and to Frank,
Codrington, Grattan and others who called to inquire
after Katherine and to spend an hour or two in Shaftes-
bury Avenue when Katherine became a little stronger
and was allowed out of bed she had always a serene and
smiling face, and spoke words of dauntless courage.
This woman was stronger in misfortune than many of
the men, and she bullied them heartily for their lack of
grit. When Frank was pessimistic she "pitched into
him," as she called it, until he began to see things in a
more rosy light, and to believe that after all he need not
be so wretched. When the days passed and Codrington
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 411
was still without work, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for
something to turn up, she stung him with sarcasm and
desired him to tell her how long he would keep his tailor
at bay, and whether he thought that God would work a
special miracle for him and pay his debts.
"It is disgraceful," she said one night to both Codring-
ton and Frank. "You young men have no self-respect.
If you can't get on to another paper just yet, why don't
you write novels, or plays, or stories for the Family Her-
old Supplement, or penny dreadfuls, or advertisements
for Pink Pills? Something anything rather than be-
moaning your fate. Do you know what I am doing to
keep my end up?"
"No," said Codrington, "something wonderful, I am
sure. Is it a secret?"
"A secret ? No. I am typing a work on The Relation
of Vermin to the Distribution of Bubonic Plague.' Nine-
pence a thousand is my rate of pay, and the learned pro-
fessor wants me to do it for sixpence, but I told him
I would rather starve than be a blackleg. I am getting
quite fascinated in the physiology of fleas. I had no idea
they were such remarkable creatures."
Codrington shuddered and expressed the deepest sym-
pathy with Margaret Hubbard for having to do such ter-
rible work, which might blunt her beautiful sensibilities.
But she cut him short by saying that she was proud and
happy to be earning a little money in those hard times,
and as for her "beautiful sensibilities," she would have
him know that she did not belong to the period of Jane
Austen's young women.
These words had an effect upon both the men to whom
they were spoken. They made Frank feel thoroughly
ashamed of himself, and that night, in order to prove to
Margaret Hubbard that he was at least trying "to keep
his end up," he went back and finished the last chapter
412 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
of that queer, unconventional, auto-biographical romance
Which had interested him exceedingly for several weeks
and then had lain unfinished, accumulating dust on his
desk. He packed up the manuscript in brown paper and
sent it by post to Margaret Hubbard with a rather self-
conscious, apologetic note, begging her to burn it if it
bored her, or to advise him where to send it if she thought
it was a little bit interesting. Above all things, he trusted
to her honour not to show it to Katherine, because she
would certainly find it an inexhaustible subject for satire.
Katherine herself had spoken words to him that day
which had made him desperately anxious to get some
kind of work to do. He had brought her some flowers,
and they had been alone together for an hour or two
while Margaret Hubbard was busily typing herself tired
in the next room.
Katherine was sitting up in a high-backed, tapestried
chair, and she looked very beautiful, in Frank's eyes, with
her head leaning back on a cushion, and her hands, rather
frail and transparent, grasping the arms of the chair.
"Frank," she said, suddenly, after they had been talking
about all that was being suffered by their poor colleagues
who were still without work, "why don't you make haste
and get rich ?"
"Ah!" said Frank, smiling woefully. "Why, indeed?"
Then he said after a pause, "What would you have me
do if I were in that enviable position ?"
"You needn't be so very rich," she said. "But if you
had a little money to play about with, shall I tell you what
I would like you to do?"
"Yes," he said, drawing his chair nearer, and bending
towards her. "Yes."
"I would like you to take me away, a long way from
here to the Cornish coast, I think, or to some place
where the sea is, and where there are nice little old cot-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 413
tages with thatched roofs, and with flowers in the gardens,
and with old people sunning themselves, and children play-
ing, and I think a hill or two somewhere in the back-
ground. I should like to get away from London for a
while."
"And you would like me to go with you ?" said Frank
eagerly, and as joyfully as though the money were in his
pocket to carry out this blessed notion.
"If you were very nice to me," she said.
"Katherine!" said Frank, putting his hand on hers.
"That is a divine dream I" Then he said almost in an-
guish, "Oh, Lord, how can I make it come true!"
"Write something good and brilliant," said Katherine.
"You can do it if any one can."
"You are like Grattan," said Frank, "who tries to buck
me up by calling me a universal genius."
"Oh, not universal," said Katherine, who was always
candid. "But I think you might work out a comer for
yourself. That imagination of yours must surely have a
little kingdom of its own."
These words, which came so soon after Margaret's
stimulating bullying, sent Frank home with a new deter-
mination to conquer his deadly depression and play the
man. The first fruit of his resolution was, as we have
seen, to finish his story and send it to Margaret Hubbard.
His next struggle over his painful irresolution and morbid
inactivity was to walk to Fleet Street (he economised in
'bus fares) and join the rendezvous of his old colleagues
in the smoking-room of the wine tavern where they
dropped in day by day to compare notes, to commiserate
each other in a pleasurable, melancholy way, to report
progress or failure in their endeavours to obtain new jobs
and to envy the amazing good fortune of those who had
found new spheres of activity. It occurred to Frank,
truely enough, that only in the society of his fellows
414 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
would he hear the gossip of journalism and of any pos-
sible openings in which he might have a chance of getting
a place.
There was something rather moving and rather good
in this society of comrades in misfortune. The public
which they had served so faithfully for, after all, jour-
nalists are not the least important of public servants
did not trouble about them, did not even know their
names. Nobody opened a public subscription for these
shipwrecked mariners of Fleet Street, though they had
kept the flag flying while the good ship was sinking and
done "Birkenhead drill" until the lights went out. But
they still clung to their old comradeship on the desert
island of life where there were precious few bread-trees
and no milk or honey. Unlike the Swiss Family Robin-
son they did not discover all kinds of precious treasures
washed up by the kindly waves.
But, at least, they did not indulge like some ship-
wrecked mariners in cannibalism, and most of them were
eager to do a good turn to a colleague provided they
would not thereby cut their own throats. In a nation
of individualists the first person singular was bound to
be of supreme importance, but to the honour of the staff,
which called itself "late of the Rag" it must be said that
they developed a kindly altruism in misfortune.
For instance, when Phillimore had applied for an edi-
torial appointment which, by the blessing of God, had
just become vacant owing to the death of its previous
holder, at a ripe old age (for Fleet Street) of fifty-seven,
Phillimore, who was rejected on account of his delicate
health, immediately passed the word round to his col-
leagues, and no one was more genuine in his congratula-
tions than he when the place was given to one of the sub-
editors of the old paper, who kept a large family at Brix-
ton and an old mother and father in a Perthshire cottage.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 415
Phillimore, who had only a wife and three beautiful chil-
dren, consoled himself for being turned down by the
thought that a more needy man had got the luck. At
the same time Phillimore was badly broken up, and when
Luttrell found him sitting in the smoking-room with half-
a-dozen of his old colleagues, the former literary editor
of the Rag was looking very white and woebegone.
In the downfall, distinctions of rank had been abol-
ished, and noble editors were not above accepting a drink
from junior reporters, or leader-writers from "subs."
whom they had snubbed in office. Perhaps it would have
been wiser if so many drinks had not been offered all
round. But it was on the principle of taking in each
other's washing like the old French emigres in England,
and although it came to the same thing in the long run, it
was pleasant for a fellow to say, "Have a drink, old
man," or "Come and have a bite with me, old chap ; it is
my shout to-day/' knowing full well that the compliment
would be returned.
As the days passed, and the weeks, the assembly be-
came smaller. In spite of the congested condition of
Fleet Street, some of the men actually did find new
places. Brandon, for instance, had been quickly snapped
up by a halfpenny paper, which had watched his criminal
investigation work with admiration. Birkenshaw, the
little sporting editor, had become an exalted being in
charge of the greatest sporting page in any newspaper in
England. Quin, the dramatic critic, had set up a dra-
matic agency and was doing a big business in lovely ladies.
Vicary, the news-editor, had walked from one side of
Fleet Street to the other, and had hung up his hat in
an office which had long endeavoured to seduce him from
the now defunct paper by offers of a prodigious salary.
Vicary made use of his good fortune in the noblest way
by bringing in several of his old subordinates, which un-
416 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
fortunately brought on to the street four or five men who
had grown old on the staff of the other paper. He was no
doubt justified in calling them deadheads, but the tragedy
of a deadhead is not less tragic.
Silas Bellamy had done his best for his men, and had
written round to many editors recommending this man
or that for an appointment. But whether it was that an
editor out of office is little better than a dead donkey, or
whether there was a cruel prejudice against men who had
been associated with a failure, the truth is, that in only
a few cases did Bellamy's recommendations bear fruit.
Frank himself received, a few days after Margaret Hub-
bard's lecture, the kindest note from Bellamy telling him
to go round to the office of an illustrated weekly paper,
where the proprietor would be pleased to see him. Frank
knew the paper, though he had never met the proprietor.
It was made up almost entirely of trivial little paragraphs
of social and theatrical gossip, with full-page photographs
of notable men and women and notorious actresses. It
occurred to him on the way that this kind of work would
be more uncongenial than reporting, and far more diffi-
cult to a man like himself, utterly ignorant of London
society and the lovely ladies of the musical comedies.
But he kept the appointment and had a miserable half-
hour with a middle-aged gentleman of Jewish appearance
and Saxon name, with oily curls all over his head, who
blinked at him with inquisitive little eyes and seemed more
anxious to know the secret history of the dead paper,
the cause of its downfall, and the salary of its editor,
than to discover the qualifications of Frank Luttrell for
the position of sub-editor on his own weekly paper. But
during the last five minutes, after Frank had disap-
pointed him by professing (what was almost the truth)
a blank ignorance of these details, the gentleman with
the greasy curls cross-examined him sharply and ag-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 417
gressively about his own work and achievements, and
then rising and shaking hands with him said that he was
convinced that Luttrell was too good for the job.
Frank went out into the street profoundly relieved that
this at least would not be his shelter from starvation.
Better to starve than to be the slave of such a task-master.
So he thought then with a pride that was destined to be
humbled. It is so easy to say "better to starve" when
there is still a jingling guinea or two to change into rump
steak and rolls and butter.
But when four more weeks had passed and he was still
without work, and when he had to go round in a hurry
to Grattan's rooms in Soho to borrow the five-pound note
which he had refused so scornfully some time ago, he was
desperately sincere in saying that he would be thankful
for thirty shillings as a tram-conductor. Grattan laughed
hilariously at hisabject despair, and told him many thrill-
ing tales of the way in which he had been stranded with-
out money in half the capitals of Europe. Such experi-
ences had not given him a wrinkle on his forehead. They
had only braced him up and given him the joy of adven-
ture. When it had been quite essential to his bodily health
to get a little ready money he had always found a way,
and his pen had always responded to the call. He lent
Frank the five pounds in a deliciously crinkly note, and
then, without much discussion on the subject, but taking
command of the situation in a masterful way, sent round
a hand-cart to Staple Inn, shifted Frank's private belong-
ings into it his books, pictures, papers, pipes, and clothes
and had them taken round to Newport Buildings, Soho.
"You're coming to stay with me for a while, my boy,"
he said. "I know it is delightful to live like an aristocrat
in rooms once inhabited by William the Conqueror or
Richard Cceur de Lion, but you can't afford such luxuries
at the present time. Besides, it will be a great joy to
418 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
me to have your company, and I'm pandering to my own
selfishness. . . . Oh, of course, you will have to pay your
share, but I give my customers credit."
Grattan at this time was doing a series of startling arti-
cles on "The Anarchist Haunts of Europe" for an Ameri-
can paper which paid him the princely price of ten pounds
an article. He wrote them as a rule in bed between ten
and one o'clock in the morning, and afterwards went out
on visits to clubs ranging from the Garibaldian in the
Italian quarter to the Bath Club in Dover Street, where
he met English peers, or exiled foreigners, or Fleet Street
journalists, or attaches of foreign embassies and other
people of high and low rank, who were delighted to give
him a luncheon in return for the boon of his company
and conversation. Frank therefore did not see much of
him although he shared his rooms, but whenever Grattan
came home his cheeriness and almost womanly kindness
he even went so far as to black Frank's boots one morn-
ing had an invigorating effect upon his "parlour-board-
er." Frank actually succeeded in writing some light arti-
cles which were accepted in two of the magazines, and
in spite of Grattan's almost violent protests handed over
the cheques received for them as part payment for board
and lodging. This had a good effect in restoring his
self-respect, and in giving him a little self-confidence.
But he was still without any immediate, or indeed any re-
mote, prospect of getting back regularly into Fleet Street,
and as the days passed he tried to face as bravely as he
could the painful fact that he would have to find some
other line of work. Perhaps after all he would have to
go back to school-mastering.
Then a wonderful thing happened to him.
One morning he received a note from Margaret Hub-
bard, enclosing a type-written letter.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 419
DEAR FRANK (wrote Margaret),
"It is nearly two months since you sent me that manu-
script called Richard Dream-a-Day. I dare say you have
wondered why I have been such an unconscionable time
in reading it, and of course with your usual diffidence you
have not said a word to me about it. (I have often seen
the question trembling on your lips, but, oh no, it was
never spoken!) Well, Mr. Dick Dream-a-Day, because,
of course, it is yourself all the time, I now write to tell
you that I read it at one sitting. It took me from three
in the afternoon until two in the morning, with inter-
vals for refreshment and odds and ends, such as tucking
up Katherine in bed. When I finished it I found my eyes
were* all wet with tears, and I haven't cried over a book
for years. My dear Frank, my dear boy, you have writ-
ten a beautiful thing. It is all true and all charming,
and all your good, simple, nice, kind self. If I were not
in love with some one else I should be very much in
love with you, after reading this. Indeed, I am very
much in love with you, and I am sure the somebody else
will not mind.
"Well, now I must confess to a little plot. I did not
keep that manuscript mouldering in my drawer. I sent
it off with a letter a hot one, I can tell you, and palpitat-
ing with emotion, as we journalists say to a man who
was once a friend of mine and is now a publisher there-
fore of course no longer my friend. I told him that if he
did not make you a good offer for the work he would be a
bigger fool than I knew him to be. Enclosed is his an-
swer. The wretch has kept me waiting six weeks for it.
It is of course a monstrously absurd price he names in
fact, the fellow is a criminal but in this world there are
harrows and toads under them. Publishers are the har-
rows. Anyhow, in the circumstances, you may care to
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
accept. I am sure the book will create a sensation, and
then you can get better terms next time.
"Yours, with the deepest admiration,
"MARGARET HUBBARD."
The enclosed letter was from the publisher, who wrote
as follows
"My DEAR MOTHER HUBBARD (Will you forgive me for
using the old name?)
"I have read the manuscript called Richard Dream-a-
Day by your friend Mr. Francis Luttrell, and I have
also obtained reports upon it from two of my readers.
We concur in thinking that, in spite of certain weaknesses
of construction and a somewhat emotional style, the
story has distinct merits and shows real promise. The
novel market is very bad just now, and first novels have
but a poor chance. I am, however, willing to offer Mr.
Luttrell 50 (Fifty Pounds) on account of a ten per
cent, royalty and provided he gives us the offer of his
next two novels on terms to be arranged between us.
I think it is due to me, and to you, to say that this decision
is influenced by your own recommendation, and by that
very pleasant friendship which is still so delightful a
memory to
"Yours very sincerely,
"JOHN BURLINGTON.
"PS. In view of what you tell me, I shall be willing
to pay the 50 on the completion of the agreement/'
To Frank Luttrell these letters were astounding and
full of joy. It seemed to him that Margaret Hubbard
had worked a miracle in his favour. For a little while he
read the words on those pieces of notepaper again and
again. He felt intoxicated, almost drunk with delight.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 421
He yelled out to Grattan who was in his bedroom, and
the Irishman, coming in hastily, dressed in a ragged old
robe of blue silk which had once belonged to a Chinese
mandarin, found him standing in front of the fire-place
with a flushed face and burning eyes.
"Grattan!" he said, thrusting the letters into his
friend's hands, "Grattan, read! Oh, it is too good! It
is too good !"
Then he sat down in a chair, and put his face in his
hands and burst into tears.
It was very stupid of him, of course, very weak and
womanish, but the fellow had been feeding on despair
for three months, and this gift of success and hope, com-
ing so suddenly and unexpectedly, had been too much for
him.
Fifty pounds was not a prodigious sum. It would not
keep him in the lap of luxury for more than a few
months. But to Luttrell, who since the death of the
paper had not earned a tenth of that sum, it seemed riches
beyond the dreams of avarice. But it meant more than
that. It gave him, in addition to the boundless possibili-
ties of that ten per cent, royalty (Luttrell was innocent
of publishers' accounts and of the average sale of the
average novel), the promise of a literary career outside
Fleet Street in which he had been, by bad luck, a failure.
John Burlington had bound him to submit his next two
novels, "on terms that should be arranged between them."
That in itself was a promise of great things. One of the
big London publishers thought it worth his while to bind
him over to that clause in the agreement. It was a proof
that he believed in the future of the author of Richard
Dream-a-Day. And Frank Luttrell, whom Margaret
Hubbard called Dick Dream-a-Day in her letter, proved
his right to the nick-name.
Talking it over with Grattan, who was almost as joyful
422 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
as Frank himself and much more noisy in the expression
of his joy, Frank mentioned one phrase of the letter
which had perplexed him.
"What does Mother Hubbard mean by saying that she
is in love with somebody else?"
"Ah !" said Grattan thoughtfully, "I wonder/'
It was two weeks afterwards that Frank learnt the
meaning of that phrase. The interpretation was given
to him on the night when he received the cheque for fifty
pounds from his publisher, and when he went round to
the flat in Shaftesbury Avenue with a bunch of white
flowers, just as in the old days before the death of the
paper. The door was opened by the middle-aged woman
who looked after the flat. In answer to his question she
said that Miss Katherine was "hout," but that Miss Mar-
garet was in the "droring room" with Mr. Grattan. Frank
was surprised to hear that Grattan was there. He had
left Soho two hours ago without saying that he was on his
way to Shaftesbury Avenue.
Frank strode through the passage as a privileged visitor
and went into the room without being announced. But
he stopped short at the door with a little ejaculation of
amazement. Grattan was in a chair by the fireside, and
Margaret Hubbard was sitting on the floor with her head
on his knees.
"Come in, Frank," said Margaret quietly.
"Am I in the way?" said Frank, feeling strangely em-
barrassed.
Margaret got up and came towards him. Her face
was flushed with a warm colour, and there was a beautiful
light in her eyes.
"You will never be in the way, when Edmund Grat-
tan and I sit by the fireside," she said. Then she stretched
out her hands, and said, "Frank, we will take you into
our little secret. Not even Katherine knows, but you
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 423
shall know. . . . Edmund Grattan and I are going to be
married."
"Great Scott !" said Frank boyishly. "You don't mean
to say so !"
Margaret laughed at him, a sweet low, joyous laugh.
"It is surprising, isn't it? ... Every one and myself
thought I should live and die an old maid. . . . But, oh,
I am so glad, Frank. I did so hate loneliness and lack
of love."
She broke down a little and laughed through tears,
and said, "The little Irishman has taken pity on me."
Frank could say nothing but "Mother Hubbard!
Mother Hubbard !" in a husky voice, and then he kissed
her hand, and afterwards went over to Grattan, who was
looking like a school-boy, caught in the act of stealing
apples, and grasped both his hands, and said, "I can
hardly believe it. It is like a fairy-tale ! Anyhow, thank
God for it. You and Mother Hubbard will be a perfect
pair."
He said other foolish things not knowing what he was
saying, but his excitement and gladness were pleasing to
those two lovers, who spoke of themselves as "old
fogeys."
Later on in the evening Grattan made Frank's pulse
beat by saying, "We'll have a double marriage, my boy
Mother Hubbard and I, and you and Katherine; and all
the boys and girls of Fleet Street shall come to our wed-
ding and throw old shoes at us."
"By Jove," said Frank, "that would be pretty "good,
wouldn't it ?"
Then he told them of a little plan that had come into
his head a day or two ago, and he asked them whether
they thought it would be pleasing to Katherine. It seemed
to him that it was no use hanging round Fleet Street any
longer. The street did not want him. It had no use for
424 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
him. But away down in the country there was an old
Rectory with heaps of spare room, and a father and
mother who were always writing to him to come back.
The Rectory was in the heart of Somersetshire, in the
most lovely country, and the garden was full of flowers.
It seemed to him that if Katherine would marry him, and
share the old home which would be rent free to them,
they could be as happy as birds. He would write his
novels and anything else that came into his head, and
Katherine could write special articles, or nothing at all
if she felt inclined to drop her pen and take to gardening.
And with even the smallest income they would be quite
comfortable, and live quietly, and enjoy peace and liberty.
. . . How did the notion strike them?
Margaret said the notion struck her famously. It
would be the best thing in the world for Katherine, and
quite the best thing for Frank. They would get away
from the toil and turmoil of Fleet Street, and have elbow-
room for their two little white souls.
Frank did not say anything on the subject to Katherine
that night when she came home from a visit to Bellamy
and his wife. She seemed rather excited by the visit to
"the Chief," as they used to call him, and when Mother
Hubbard told her the great secret about Edmund Grattan
she flung her arms round the woman who had been more
than a sister to her, and for the rest of the evening she
was so absorbed in the idea of a married Mother Hubbard
and of a Papa Grattan that Frank did not have a little
ghost of a chance to put forward his own idea.
That chance came on the following day when Edmund
Grattan took Margaret to the Zoo, to do a little courting,
as he called it in his whimsical way. It seemed to Frank
highly characteristic of both these good people that they
should choose such a place for such a purpose. He could
imagine that afternoon's "courting." Grattan would cer-
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 425
tainly buy buns for the bears, and sprats for the sea-
lions, and he would moralise in the monkey-house, and
Margaret and he would enjoy themselves in a quiet way
as if they were children out for a holiday. He afterwards
learnt that his imagining had not been wrong, for they
had done all these things, and had even gone for a ride on
the elephant, hand in hand.
Their absence left him alone with Katherine. He no-
ticed that she was looking unusually well and seemed
in brighter spirits than she had shown since the death
of the paper. They had a merry and delightful time
toasting tea-cakes together, both down on their knees
before the drawing-room fire with their heads close to-
gether, and afterwards, when they came to eat the cakes,
Frank was careful to hide the burnt sides which had un-
fortunately gone against the bars while he was watching
how beautiful Katherine's face was in the ruddy firelight.
But Katherine detected these secret sins, and as a punish-
ment made him eat the results of his own carelessness.
She said it would have been an admirable punishment to
King Alfred. Afterwards they cleared away the tea-,
things and washed them up, because the old woman had
got a day off, and this duty seemed to Frank a foretaste
of the joys of domesticity with Katherine to which he
looked forward as he might to heaven, had he been more
pious than he was.
It was afterwards in the drawing-room, when the blinds
had been drawn and the lamp turned up, that Frank said
what he had been longing to say. Katherine gave him
the opening by talking of his novel, which she had just
read in proof form the publisher had been generously
quick in getting it into type and admired with an en-
thusiasm as warm as that of Margaret, who had been its
fairy godmother.
"When are you going to write the next?" she asked.
426 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
And Frank, after a short pause, said, "Pretty soon, I
think, if you will help me, Katherine."
She raised her eyebrows a little, and laughed and said,
"I? Why, what can I do to help you, Frank?"
He said that she could do everything; and then, ner-
vously at first, but afterwards glowing with enthusiasm
for what was his brightest dream, put forward that
scheme which he had outlined to Margaret and Grattan.
He had often described his own home to Katherine and
Margaret, but never before with such tenderness and elo-
quence. He told her of the garden with its broad, smooth
lawn, with the old beach-tree in the middle, and of the
winding paths that went through the little wood at the
bottom, which his father called the "arboretum," and of
the flower-beds on the sunny side of the house, from
which a fragrant scent came through the open windows.
Beyond the lawn were hayfields, and then a yard-wide
stream, and then, stretching away into a purple distance, a
sweep of rising ground, girdled by high woods which
were caught on fire by the sun in the afternoons. The
village was a dear old place too, with little thatched cot-
tages built of yellow stone two and three centuries ago,
and with a farm-house much older, and barns which had
stored grain under their timbered roofs when Elizabeth
was queen. Katherine would revel in all this. It would
be a change from Fleet Street! And there in the Rec-
tory was his quiet old father, who would treat her with
his exquisite, old-fashioned courtesy, though he would be
very shy of her at first and his mother, who was still
almost young, and who would take her to her heart at first
sight, and be mother and sister and servant to her; for
her great pleasure was to wait upon other people, and to
mend or make their clothes, and to cook dainty things,
and in her quiet, "unfussy" way to give them every com-
fort in the house. Frank would love to see Katherine
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 427
and his mother together. They would be good friends,
and she would not be dull while he pegged away at his
novels and other literary work, and earned an income
which, in the country, would keep them out of poverty.
"Katherine," said Frank. "How does the idea strike
you?"
While he had been speaking she had sat with her head
slightly turned away from him, with her pointed chin
dug into the palm of her hand, and with her eyes gazing
thoughtfully into the fire. She listened to him quietly
and without interruption his words flowed from his lips
and when he finished she gave a little quivering sigh,
but otherwise was silent.
"It would be an idyll," said Frank. "What do you say
to it?"
When she turned her head and looked up into his face
he saw that her eyes were moist with tears.
"Frank," she sajd, "you make me feel a very wicked
woman."
He threw his head back and laughed, but his eyes had a
scared look in them. He was rather frightened by
Katherine's queer gravity.
"No, don't laugh," she said quickly ; "I mean it."
"What do you mean? What has my idea got to do
with your alarming wickedness ?"
He spoke lightly, but he felt chilled. His words had
not made Katherine's eyes dance with that gladness which
he had hoped to see in them.
"My poor Frank," said Katherine, "you think I am jest-
ing. . . . Oh, I wish it were nothing but a jest! When
you were speaking just now, making up that beautiful
fairy-story of me and you in the quiet country, I won-
dered for a little while whether I could make it come
true."
Frank was on his knees before Her, and took the hand
428 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
that twisted and untwisted a handkerchief on her lap, and
put his arms round her waist.
"Make it come true," he said. "For God's sake make it
came true. Why not ?"
"Because it is a fairy-tale," said Katherine, "and it
could never happen in real life. Shall I tell you what
would happen?"
"Don't tell me anything cruel," he said.
"The truth is always rather cruel in this world. . . .
This is what would happen, my poor Frank. You would
earn a hundred pounds a year at the very most "
"It would be enough !"
"And at the worst, because your next novel might be
a failure, nothing at all. We should be pensioners, any-
how, on your father and mother, who are poor them-,
selves. That would be unbearable if we had any pride
and I am very proud. . . . And because I am proud,
Frank, nothing would happen as you have said. I should
quarrel with your mother, for instance "
"It couldn't be done," said Frank. "Nobody could
quarrel with her."
"I should," said Katherine firmly, as if she had made
up her mind to quarrel. "I should love her, I know, if
I went to visit her now and again, but not if I were
living with you in her house. She would never forget
that she is your mother, and I should never forget that
I was your wife."
Frank would have argued the point. Like all men he
could not understand this point of view. But Katherine
put her hand over his mouth, and went on with her dread-
ful tale of truth."
"The country would be exquisite at first. Oh, I could
smell those flowers when you talked about them! I
should love to go into the country for a month three
months. But after three months, six months, a year I
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 429
should hate it and go mad. The silence, the dark nights,
the lonely woods, the same village street, the same vil-
lage faces, the narrow village gossip, the squire with his
same old stories, the squire's wife in her one silk dress,
the utter exile from all the thrill of life oh, it would be
impossible to me, I could not bear it."
"We would come back to town," said Frank. "We
would take a flat in the centre of things."
"We could not afford it," said Katherine. "We should
be too poor."
"Who knows ?" said Frank with desperate cheerfulness.
"I may be rich and famous by that time."
"But supposing you were not? Supposing we were
still so poor that I had to cook the meals and nurse the
babies oh yes, there might be babies."
"I pray God there may be babies," said Frank.
"No," said Katherine, "not on 120 a year. I am not
cut out for it."
She burst into tears and said, "That is why I said I
was wicked, Frank. If I were good and simple, like
you, I would take all the risks and be glad of all the
drudgery. If I were good, your fairy-tale would all seem
true to me. . . . But I am not good . . . and I know it
would never come true."
"Well, let us drop the fairy-tale," said Frank, very
gloomily. "What do you want to do, Katherine?"
"I only want one thing."
"Tell me," he said, very gently. "I am not a cad. I
will try to do anything to make you happy."
"I want to go back to Fleet Street."
"Is that the secret?" said Frank, rather bitterly.
"Are you one of those people who can never leave it?"
"Yes, I am one of those people."
She spoke quickly and rather feverishly.
"I must go back. I shall never settle down to the
430 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
hum-drum after all the rush and scurry of things. It
is in my blood now. I must be seeing things and doing
things. I want the old adventures, all the friends, and
the good fun, and the hard work, and the long hours, and
the indignities and the joys of journalism. Frank, don't
you understand? You have been a journalist. You
know what it means ?"
"Yes," he said. "I understand."
He understood only too well. He too hankered to be
in the turmoil again, and because he was outside he had
tried to forget it and build up this " fairy-tale," as Kath-
erine called it, of a quiet country life. But even when
he had spoken with glowing enthusiasm of his old home
and peaceful countryside a little voice had whispered to
him that it would be a life of exile and loneliness. What
could he say without lying? He would not lie, and so
he said to Katherine, "I understand." ,
After a little while, when they were less emotional,
Katherine went to a drawer in a cabinet and took out a
letter which she handed to Frank.
"Read it," she said.
Frank read it as if it were his death-warrant. It was
a letter from Silas Bellamy, telling Katherine that upon
his recommendation the editor of a Conservative daily
paper was willing to engage her as a lady reporter, at a
salary of 4 a week.
Frank folded up the note in its first creases, and handed
it back.
"And you will accept?" he said.
She looked at him in a curious, wistful way.
"Do you ask me to refuse? ... If so, I will, Frank."
He was silent for a moment, and then said quite
quietly and bravely
"A T o, I do not ask you. For your sake I hope you
will accept. It is a good offer."
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 431
Katharine slipped down on her knees and put her arms
about him.
"Frank," she said, "don't look so sad. You hurt me
with your white face. We are both young ... in a few
years perhaps "
Frank Luttrell spoke in a low voice, and the words
were to himself rather than to the girl whose arms were
clinging to him.
"I shall be out in the cold/* he said.
Frank stayed two months longer in London, but he was
very miserable, and his low spirits prevented him from
doing any successful work. Katherine had gone to her
new place, and he saw but little of her, as she was out
early and late. At last he decided to accept the urgent en-
treaties of his father and mother to go home to them.
Although in London he was not in Fleet Street, and his
prophecy to Katherine was fulfilled. He was "out in the
cold." Most of his old colleagues had found corners for
themselves many of them on sadly- reduced salaries in
positions of less distinction. Even the rendezvous in the
Fleet Street tavern had been discontinued, and when
Frank went there one day, he drank a cup of coffee in
loneliness and the waiter told him that "all the gentlemen
had disappeared one by one. ... It makes a difference
to me, sir."
It made a greater difference to Frank, because it
brought home to him rather cruelly that he was a derelict
in Fleet Street. He was now eager and anxious to get
away into the country where, perhaps, he would not feel
the loss of his old associates and work so acutely. He
stayed only for one event. He was best man to Edmund
Grattan on his marriage with Margaret Hubbard. They
were married at St. Ethelburga's Catholic Church, and
it was a journalistic wedding. Many members of Frank's
432 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
old paper were present, and journalists from other papers
who had affectionate regards towards the little Irish-
man, and in their time had been among "Mother Hub-
bard's" unruly boys. The most remarkable figure in
church was that of Christopher Codrington, whose great
height always distinguished him in an assembly. He
adorned a grey frock suit of the most elegant style.
Obviously it was the first appearance in public of clothes
worthy of their wearer, and an honour to their tailor.
Frank, who stood next to him, noticed that he said his
prayers into a new silk hat of noble architecture and as-
tonishing brilliance. Evidently he was very prosperous.
When Frank had a chance of speaking to him Codrington
said that happily he had been favoured by a little sun-
shine in his leaden-hued existence. Through the influence
of a friend he had obtained an appointment as advertise-
ment writer to the Hilarity Restaurant, and he found it
more profitable than ordinary journalism. He begged
Frank, earnestly, to turn his attention to the gentle art of
advertising.
After the ceremony Margaret was very full of tender-
ness and gladness and kissed Frank on the forehead in
the vestry, whispering to him that her cup of joy would
have been full to the brim if Katherine and he had stood
before the altar with them and made "a double event."
Unfortunately Katherine was not even in the church, for
she had been sent off to describe another wedding of more
public interest, and the law of Fleet Street had to be
obeyed.
But she was at home in the evening at Shaftesbury
Avenue, where Edmund Grattan and Margaret Hubbard
had their first supper as man and wife. Grattan had
taken over the flat, and it was understood that Katherine
was to stay with them.
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 433
Frank said good-bye to those three friends quietly
enough, though his heart was very full.
"I am going off into the country to-morrow," he said,
"and if I have any luck I hope to get on with a second
novel."
Katherine was rather silent after that, and in the hall,
when she helped him on with his coat, she seemed loth
to let him go.
"Don't stay away too long, Frank," she said, "and write
to me every day."
For a few moments they clung to one another, and he
kissed her as though he would never see her again. Then
he went away, and early next morning went down to his
old home in Somersetshire.
It was curious how quickly he seemed to slip back into
the old life again. His father was whiter and more
absent-minded. His mother's hair was streaked with sil-
ver threads, the dog had lost its teeth, village children
had grown up to be strapping lads and lasses who courted
in the lanes, two or three old familiar faces had gone
from the place for ever, but otherwise everything was the
same as when he had left it for the Abbey School at
King's Marshwood, and afterwards for Fleet Street. His
father still read the classics in the evening, with the back
of his chair against the table and the lampshade tilted
so that the light fell over his shoulder. His mother still
played the old tunes, dreaming at the far end of the big
room in half darkness. The bear-skin rug on which he
had lain as a boy had lost some of its hairs, but was still
there. On his bedroom shelf were the old dog-eared
books of his boyhood, with the green-backed volume of
Grimm's Fairy Tales. Everything was the same except
Frank himself, and he was not the same as in those early
days.
For a time he enjoyed the peace and beauty of the old
434 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
home, and his soul was refreshed and purified. But
gradually the quietude ceased to be a balm to him and be-
came an irritant. Sometimes, when he went for a walk
in the woods, the stillness was almost terrible. He
yearned for the roar of traffic, he would have given half
a sovereign to hear the jingle- jangle of a hansom cab.
He had strange psychological experiences. Though
Fleet Street was a hundred and twenty miles away he
was haunted always by the thought of it. If a church
bell struck six he would say to himself "the night men
are just coming in." When he lay awake at night and
heard the clock of his father's church chime twelve he
would think "the first edition is just going to press."
When the village postman brought the Daily Telegraph
he would open its pages and its headlines would give him
a kind of nostalgia. "Great fire in the City." He might
have been there watching the flames and seeing the work
of rescue. 'The Kaiser at the Guildhall." That was a
scene he would have been sent to if the Rag had not gone
under. Each event of everyday history reminded him of
the old colleagues who were now on other papers, going
here, there and everywhere, interviewing, describing,
criticising. They were still the lookers-on behind the
scenes of life. He had been one of them, and now he
was out of it, out in the cold.
Katherine wrote to him three times a week, always
affectionately, always hurriedly swift, light-hearted, de-
lightful letters, full of the "shop," and the gossip, of the
street of adventure. He read them feverishly and
eagerly, as though their words were magic spells, but
each letter increased his restlessness, his yearning to get
back again to Katherine and life. His mother and father
understood a little of what was passing through his mind,
but only a little. They saw that he was fretful, and that
he did not settle down into the ruck of the old life. But
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 435
they put it all down to Katherine, whom he had described
to them in so many letters and about whom he was now
strangely silent. They could not understand that jour-
nalistic life could have any appeal to him. He described
some of the incidents of his career in Fleet Street, the
indignities and hardships of the profession, the squalor
and triviality of it all, and his father would say again
and again, "Ah, Frank, you are well out of it. It is not
the work for a gentleman."
Then his first novel came out and was well received
in the press, and obtained high praise from the clergy-
men's wives in the neighbourhood, who called in old-
fashioned vehicles in the hope of seeing the young literary
man whom they had known as a shy and silent boy. They
found him still taciturn, but quite polite and nice, and
they were rather proud of having a real novelist on their
list of acquaintances. Financially, however, the book was
not triumphantly successful. Frank received another
cheque for twenty pounds on account of royalties, and
that with a few odd guineas earned from time to time
by quiet essays which appeared in the paper which had
first encouraged his literary ambitions, the Spectator, was
all he earned during the first half-year of his exile.
But he now completed a second novel. It was a story
of London life again, with a stronger plot and a more
passionate interest. His father, to whom he read it out,
was frankly amazed that Frank should reveal such a
knowledge of the human heart, and was rather nervous
as to the way in which he had gained such an experience.
His mother, who was a delicate and discriminating critic,
did not care for it as much as she had liked Richard
Dream-a-Day, but admitted that it might be more popu-
lar. Frank sent it to the publisher of his first novel, and
at the end of another three weeks received an offer of
eighty pounds for the entire copyright. It was a blow
436 THE STREET OF ADVENTURE
to his hopes. He had believed that on the strength of his
first success his new book would be worth at least 150.
Even that would be poor payment for six months' work.
Certainly there was no living to be made by novel-writ-
ing.
But a few days later he was consoled for this disap-
pointment by a letter he received from Silas Bellamy,
offering him a place on a paper to which he had just been
appointed editor.
"I have not forgotten your work on the late lamented,"
wrote Bellamy, "and I shall be proud and glad if you will
join me again, at the same salary."
Frank sent him a telegram ten minutes after he had
read the letter.
"I accept with joy."
At the same time he sent a line to Katherine Halstead
"I am coming back to Fleet Street."
And so this story ends, not nicely finished off, with
wedding bells in the last line, as all good stories should,
but incomplete and unsatisfactory like so many stories of
real life. As the biographer of Frank Luttrell, journal-
ist, I should have been glad to have married him happily
to Katherine Halstead, but when I met him last week
in Fleet Street he was still a bachelor. Yet in spite of
being overworked and looking worn and rather worried,
he was resolutely cheerful with me.
I know him well enough to ask a plain question plainly,
and I said, "Frank, when are you going to be married to
Mistress Kate?"
He laughed in his boyish, nervous way, and flushed up
to the forehead.
"Perhaps you had better ask the lady," he said.
He spoke these words to avoid a direct answer, but I
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 437
have decided to act upon them. I shall talk seriously to
Katherine Halstead the very next time I see her. Frank
is too good a fellow to be spoilt by a girl who cannot make
up her mind.
THE END
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY