The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

'I certainly went there with that intention,' admitted Lancelot. 'I thought I'd catch Brahmson himself in the evening-he's never in when I call in the morning.'

Peter groaned.

'Quixotic as ever! You can't have been long in London then?'

'A year.'

'I suppose you'd jump down my throat if I were to ask you how much is left of that-' he hesitated, then turned the sentence facetiously-'of those twenty thousand shillings you were cut off with?'

'Let this vile den answer.'

'Don't disparage the den; it's not so bad.'

'You are right-I may come to worse. I've been an awful ass. You know how lucky I was while at the Conservatoire-no, you don't. How should you? Well, I carried off some distinctions and a lot of conceit, and came over here thinking Europe would be at my feet in a month. I was only sorry my father died before I could twit him with my triumph. That's candid, isn't it?'

'Yes; you're not such a prig after all,' mused Peter. 'I saw the old man's death in the paper-your brother Lionel became the bart.'

'Yes, poor beggar, I don't hate him half so much as I did. He reminds me of a man invited to dinner which is nothing but flowers and serviettes and silver plate.'

'I'd pawn the plate, anyhow,' said Peter, with a little laugh.

'He can't touch anything, I tell you; everything's tied up.'

'Ah, well, he'll get tied up, too. He'll marry an American heiress.'

'Confound him! I'd rather see the house extinct first.'

'Hoity, toity! She'll be quite as good as any of you.'

'I can't discuss this with you, Peter,' said Lancelot, gently but firmly. 'If there is a word I hate more than the word heiress, it is the word American.'

'But why? They're both very good words and better things.'

'They both smack of the most vulgar thing in the world-money,' said Lancelot, walking hotly about the room. 'In America there's no other standard. To make your pile, to strike ile-oh, how I shudder to hear these idioms! And can any one hear the word heiress without immediately thinking of matrimony? Phaugh! It's a prostitution.'

'What is? You're not very coherent, my friend.'

'Very well, I am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster up its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let the family perish with honour.'

'But the daughters of oil-strikers are sometimes very charming creatures. They are polished with their fathers' oil.'

'You are right. They reek of it. Pah! I pray to Heaven Lionel will either wed a lady or die a bachelor.'

'Yes; but what do you call a lady?' persisted Peter.

Lancelot uttered an impatient snarl, and rang the bell violently. Peter stared in silence. Mary Ann appeared.

'How often am I to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?' snapped Lancelot. 'You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I had time to play parlour games with you.'

Mary Ann silently went to the mantel-piece, handed him the matches, and left the room without a word.

'I say, Lancelot, adversity doesn't seem to have agreed with you,' said Peter, severely. 'That poor girl's eyes were quite wet when she went out. Why didn't you speak? I could have given you heaps of lights, and you might even have sacrificed another scrap of that precious manuscript.'

'Well, she has got a knack of hiding my matches all the same,' said Lancelot, somewhat shamefacedly. 'Besides, I hate her for being called Mary Ann. It's the last terror of cheap apartments. If she only had another name like a human being, I'd gladly call her Miss something. I went so far as to ask her, and she stared at me in a dazed, stupid, silly way, as if I'd asked her to marry me. I suppose the fact is she's been called Mary Ann so long and so often that she's forgotten her father's name-if she ever had any. I must do her the justice, though, to say she answers to the name of Mary Ann in every sense of the phrase.'

'She didn't seem at all bad-looking, anyway,' said Peter.

'Every man to his taste!' growled Lancelot. 'She's as platt and uninteresting as a wooden sabot.'

'There's many a pretty foot in a sabot,' retorted Peter, with an air of philosophy.

'You think that's clever, but it's simply silly. How does that fact affect this particular sabot?'

'I've put my foot in it,' groaned Peter, comically.

'Besides, she might be a houri from heaven,' said Lancelot; 'but a houri in a patched print frock-' He shuddered and struck a match.

'I don't know exactly what houris from heaven are, but I have a kind of feeling any sort of frock would be out of harmony-!'

Lancelot lit his pipe.

'If you begin to say that sort of thing we must smoke,' he said, laughing between the puffs. 'I can offer you lots of tobacco-I'm sorry I've got no cigars. Wait till you see Mrs. Leadbatter-my landlady-then you'll talk about houris. Poverty may not be a crime, but it seems to make people awful bores. Wonder if it'll have that effect on me? Ach Himmel! how that woman bores me. No, there's no denying it-there's my pouch, old man-I hate the poor; their virtues are only a shade more vulgar than their vices. This Leadbatter creature is honest after her lights-she sends me up the most ridiculous leavings-and I only hate her the more for it.'

'I suppose she works Mary Ann's fingers to the bone from the same mistaken sense of duty,' said Peter, acutely. 'Thanks; think I'll try one of my cigars. I filled my case, I fancy, before I came out. Yes, here it is; won't you try one?'

'No, thanks, I prefer my pipe.'

'It's the same old meerschaum, I see,' said Peter.

'The same old meerschaum,' repeated Lancelot, with a little sigh.

Peter lit a cigar, and they sat and puffed in silence.

'Dear me!' said Peter, suddenly; 'I can almost fancy we're back in our German garret, up the ninety stairs, can't you?'

'No,' said Lancelot, sadly, looking round as if in search of something; 'I miss the dreams.'

'And I,' said Peter, striving to speak cheerfully, 'I see a dog too much.'

'Yes,' said Lancelot, with a melancholy laugh. 'When you funked becoming a Beethoven, I got a dog and called him after you.'

'What? you called him Peter?'

'No, Beethoven!'

'Beethoven! Really?'

'Really. Here, Beethoven!'

The spaniel shook himself, and perked his wee nose up wistfully towards Lancelot's face.

Peter laughed, with a little catch in his voice. He didn't know whether he was pleased, or touched, or angry.

'You started to tell me about those twenty thousand shillings,' he said.

'Didn't I tell you? On the expectations of my triumph, I lived extravagantly, like a fool, joined a club, and took up my quarters there. When I began to realise the struggle that lay before me, I took chambers; then I took rooms; now I'm in lodgings. The more I realised it, the less rent I paid. I only go to the club for my letters now. I won't have them come here. I'm living incognito.'

'That's taking fame by the forelock, indeed! Then by what name must I ask for you next time? For I'm not to be shaken off.'

'Lancelot.'

'Lancelot what?'

'Only Lancelot! Mr. Lancelot.'

'Why, that's like your Mary Ann!'

'So it is!' he laughed, more bitterly than cordially; 'it never struck me before. Yes, we are a pair.'

'How did you stumble on this place?'