Bertram Cope’s Year

few days⁠—no great hurry about it. But on Sunday evening he wrote and asked if he might not call round on me instead. My name is not in the telephone-book; neither, as I found out, was his. So I used up a sheet of paper, an envelope, and a stamp⁠—just such as I am now using on you⁠—to tell him that he might indeed. I put in the ‘indeed’ for cordiality, hoping he wouldn’t think I had slighted his invitation. On Monday evening he came round⁠—I must have reached him by the late afternoon delivery. Need I say that he had to take this poor place as he found it? But there was no sign of the once-over⁠—no tendency to inventory or appraise. He sat down beside me on the couch just as if he had no notion that it was a bed (and a rather rocky one, at that), and talked about my row of books, and about music and plays, and about his own collection of curios⁠—all in a quiet, contained way, yet intent on me if not on my outfit. Well, it’s pleasant to be considered for what you are rather than for what you have (or for what few poor sticks your landlady may have); and I rather liked his being here. Certainly he was a change from my students, who sometimes seem to exclude better timber.

“Needless to say, he repeated his invitation, and last evening I shunted Middle English (in which I have a lot to catch up) and walked round to him. Very adequately and handsomely lodged. Really good bachelor quarters (I hadn’t known for certain whether he was married or not). A stockbroker of a sort, I hear⁠—but not enough to hurt, I should guess. He has a library and a sitting-room. Like me, he sleeps three-quarters, but he doesn’t have to sit on his bed in the daytime. And he has a bathrobe of just the sort I shall have, when I can afford it. He has got together a lot of knickknacks and curios, but takes them lightly.

“ ‘Sorry I’ve only one big armchair,’ he said, handing me his cigarette-case and settling me down in comfort; ‘but I entertain very seldom. I should like to be hospitable,’ he went on; ‘⁠—I really think it’s in me; but that’s pretty much out of the question here. I have no chef, no dining-room of my own, no ballroom, certainly.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps, before very long, I shall have to make a change.’

“He asked me about Freeford, and I didn’t realize until I was on my way back that he had assumed my home town just as he had assumed my lodging. Well, all right; I never resent a friendly interest. He sat in a less-easy chair and blew his smoke-rings and wondered if I had been a small-town boy. ‘I’m one, too,’ he said; ‘⁠—at least Churchton, forty years⁠—at least Churchton, thirty years ago, was not all it is today. It has always had its own special tone, of course; but in my young⁠—in my younger days it was just a large country village. Fewer of us went into town to make money, or to spend it.’⁠ ⁠…

“And then he asked me to go into town, one evening soon, and help him spend some. He suggested it rather shyly; à tâtons, I will say⁠—though French is not my business. He offered a dinner at a restaurant, and the theatre afterwards. Did I accept? Indeed I did. Think, Arthur! after all the movies and restaurants round the elms and the fountain (though you don’t know them yet)! I will say, too, that his cigarettes were rather better than my own.⁠ ⁠…

“I suppose he is fully fifty; but he has his young days, I can see. Certainly his age doesn’t obtrude⁠—doesn’t bother me at all, though he sometimes seems conscious of it himself. He wears eyeglasses part of the time⁠—for dignity, I presume. He had them on when I came in, but they disappeared almost at once, and I saw them no more.

“He asked me about my degree⁠—though I didn’t remember having spoken of it. I couldn’t but mention ‘Shakespeare’⁠—as the word goes; and you know that when I mention him, it always makes the other man mention Bacon. He did mention Bacon, and smiled. ‘I’ve studied the cipher,’ he said. ‘All you need to make it go is a pair of texts⁠—a long one and a short one⁠—and two fonts of type, or their equivalent in penmanship. Two colors of ink, for example. You can put anything into anything. See here.’ He reached up to a shelf and brought down a thin brown square notebook. ‘Here’s the alphabet,’ he said; ‘and here’⁠—opening a little beyond⁠—‘is my use of it: one of my earliest exercises. I have put the first stanza of “Annabel Lee” into the second chapter of Tom Jones. ’ He ignored the absent eyeglasses and picked out the red letters from the black with perfect ease. ‘Simplest thing in the world,’ he went on; ‘anybody can do it. All it needs is time and patience and care. And if you happen to be waggishly or fraudulently inclined you can give yourself considerable entertainment⁠—and can entertain or puzzle other people later. You don’t really believe that “Bacon wrote Shakespeare”?’

“Of course I don’t, Arthur⁠—as you very well know. I picked out the first line of ‘Annabel Lee’ by arranging the necessary groupings among the odd mixture of black and red letters he exhibited, and told him I didn’t believe that Bacon wrote Shakespeare⁠—nor that Shakespeare did either. ‘Who did, then?’ he naturally asked. I told him that I would grant, at the start and for a few seasons, a group of young noblemen and young gentlemen; but that some one of them (supposing there to have been more than that one) soon distanced all the rest and presently became the edifice before which the manager from Stratford was only the façade. He⁠—this ‘someone’⁠—was a noble and a