not acted on his wire, but in a couple of hours their old rooms would be ready. 'Mr.
Harris will perhaps take care of you till then,' he added. 'I have to see-'
The vagueness of the arrangements confirmed my suspicions of Clapton's irresponsibility and increased my sympathy with the queenly girl. Of course, I was only too glad to be of service. I drove the ladies first to my rooms to get rid of my luggage. Though I had not wired, my rooms were all ready, swept and garnished; and the mother and daughter came in and had tea and afterwards I took them to Kettners, a good Bohemian restaurant, for dinner. I left them at eleven o'clock in their rooms and got a long kiss from Laura in the passage; I felt well repaid. As soon as I was alone and rehearsed the happenings of the day, as was my custom, I saw I had no time to lose. 'If you want the girl,' I said to myself, 'you'll have to win a position quickly.' Clearly I felt that now both the father and the mother would be linked against me.
They might, probably would, turn the cold shoulder and make it unpleasant for me even to call. Besides, I must not lose time and energy courting Laura; this was the determining thought: I must get to work at once and without encumbrance of any kind. That night I wrote to Laura fully, saying I would not see her for three months and telling her why: I would ask her to marry me within the year. She answered, saying she understood and would wait. My choice of her was so absolute that I took it for granted that she had chosen me with the same complete certitude. Yet I felt I must win as soon as possible and win big.
Next morning I went down to Chapman, the publisher. What would he give me for a book on my experiences in western America as a cowboy, etc.? He listened to me and told me he might give?. 100. 'But it's only because I know you,' he added. 'Usually we expect the author to help us in bringing out his first book.' In half an hour I learned a good deal of the practice of publishing and found reason to echo Byron's caustic reply to Murray, who sent him a Bible instead of a check. Byron returned the book with one alteration. He had written in the word: 'Now Barrabas was a 'publisher',' instead of the Biblical 'robber.'
No hope of a fortune through a book. Five days in every week I spent now on this trail, now on that, but London business was better organized than business in the United States at that time and so again and again I found the hoped-for outlet was a blind alley. At length, after nearly a month of disappointments, I went down to the stock exchange and sought for a place as a clerk in a broker's office. I found that only one clerk in each office had the entree to the floor of the House, a privileged position again, to conquer which would cost at least a year's hard work. Besides, except the house of a German-Jew, not a single stockbroker seemed to want my services. But the Jew wanted many German letters written and I was more than willing to do them after hours; but the pay offered was only three pounds a week, and I stood hesitating. On my birthday, the fourteenth of February, I resolved to take Klein's offer and wrote to him that as soon as I had settled some business I'd be round, certainly within a week.
All this time I had been working steadily on the Spectator and growing there in influence. On each Saturday and Sunday I wrote two articles that always appeared; indeed, now I could control their position, for one day Hutton had taken me downstairs and introduced me to Meredith Townsend, his partner, saying that in the holidays, when he (Hutton) was away, he'd be glad if Townsend would use me in his (Hutton's) place.
'He knows half a dozen languages,' said Hutton, 'and he corrects proofs as carefully as a born reader.' Townsend assured me of his interest, and while Hutton was away I got a good deal of editorial work to do on the Spectator and came to know Townsend intimately. In many respects he was the complement of Hutton. He had spent many years in the East and knew China fairly well. As Hutton was profoundly religious, so Townsend cared chiefly for success. Hutton believed with all his soul and mind that mankind was growing in goodness and grace to some divine fulfilment. Townsend was certain that 'man in the loomp was bad,' as Tennyson's Northern Farmer had it, and must come to a bad end. But the two men together fairly filled the English ideal at once sentimental and practical, and so the paper came to power and influence and wealth, notwithstanding the fact that save for a smattering of French, neither editor knew anything of modern Europe or America, nor of modern art and literature. I was really needed by them, and had I started with them a year or two sooner, or continued a year or two longer, I might have brought it to a partnership and the paper to a wider success. But when Hutton wanted to know if twenty-five pounds would satisfy me for the extra editorial work I had done, I smiled and assured him his good word was all I wanted and that I was fully paid with the six pounds a week I made from my articles. I knew how to win, if I didn't know when I would win. However, my chance came, as always, at the last moment.
One day I was in the Fortnightly office when Escott, coming up the stairs, met Chapman in the passage between their two rooms. After a word or two of greeting, Escott said loudly, 'I think your protege will get the editorship of the Evening News. I gave him a warm letter to Coleridge Kennard, the banker, who, I understand, foots all the bills.'
When he came into the room I had to report to him the results of a mission he had entrusted me with. The topic of the day was 'The Housing of the Poor.'
Lord Salisbury had written an article in favour of the idea in The Nineteenth Century magazine, and Escott, egged on by Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical leader, had sent Archibald Forbes, the famous war correspondent, to Hatfield to report on what Lord Salisbury had done on his own estate for the rehousing of his poor. Forbes had sent in a most sensational report. He described houses in the village of Hatfield with vitriol in his pen instead of ink; one diningroom he pictured, I remember, where 'feculent filth dripped on the table during meals.' The whole paper was a savage attack on Salisbury and his selfish policy. It frightened Escott, and when I pointed out that the antithetical rhetoric really weakened Forbes's case, he asked me, 'Would you go down to Hatfield and check Forbes's account,' adding, 'I have spoken to Mr. Chamberlain about you and your articles in the Spectator and he hopes you'll undertake the job.'
Of course I went down to Hatfield at once with a proof of Forbes's article in my pocket. In the very first forenoon I found that the house where the 'feculent filth dripped' didn't belong to Lord Salisbury at all, but to a leading Radical in the village. At the end of the day I was able to write that Forbes had only visited one house belonging to Lord Salisbury of the thirty he had described.
I then called on Lord Salisbury's agent and told him I had been sent to ascertain the truth: 'Would he give it to me?' Would he?
He was a thorough-going admirer of Lord Salisbury, whom he described as probably the best landlord in England.
'Lord Salisbury's not rich, you know,' he began, 'but as soon as he came into the title and property he went over every one of the six hundred houses on the estate: he found four hundred needed rebuilding; we decided that he could only afford to rebuild thirty a year. The same evening he wrote me that he could not accept rent for any of the four hundred houses we had condemned, and when the houses were rebuilt he would only take three per cent of the cost as rental. I'll show you one or two of the houses that are still to be rebuilt,' he added. 'I shouldn't mind living in them.'
I then showed him Archibald Forbes's paper, without disclosing the writer's name. 'Lies,' he cried indignantly, 'all lies and vile libels. If only all noblemen acted to their tenants and dependents as Lord Salisbury does, there would not be a radical in England,' and I half-agreed with him.
Now I reported the whole investigation to Escott and he said, 'You must tell Chamberlain about it: he'll be dreadfully disappointed for he had picked Forbes. But I am enormously obliged to you; you must let me pay your expenses, at any rate. I'll get it from Joseph,' he added, laughing. 'Shall we say twenty pounds?'
'Say nothing,' I replied, 'but give me a letter recommending me for the editorship of the Evening News and we'll call it square.'
'With a heart and a half.' cried Escott. 'I'll give you the best I can write and a tip besides. Get Hutton of the Spectator to write too about your editorial qualities and see Lord Folkestone about the place, for though Kennard pays, Lord Folkestone is really the master. Kennard wants a baronetcy and Lord Folkestone can get it for him for the asking.' Of course I acted on Escott's advice at once. Hutton gave me an excellent letter, declaring that he had used me editorially and hardly knew how to praise me as I deserved. The same evening I sent off all the letters. Two days after I got a note from Lord Folkestone, saying that Mr. Kennard was out of town, but if I'd meet him at the office of the Evening News in Whitefriars Street in the morning, he'd show me round and we'd have a talk. Of course I accepted the invitation and left my letter within an hour at Lord Folkestone's house in Ennismore Gardens, then hastened off to Escott at once to find out all about Lord Folkestone.
I found that as soon as his father died, he would be Earl of Radnor with a rentroll of at least?. 150,000 a year. 'The eldest son's called Lord Folkestone by courtesy, for they own nearly the whole town and this Lord Folkestone married Henry Chaplin's sister. She's a great musician, has a band of her own made up of young ladies
