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 
 

 
 
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