Oswald Bastable.
Noël Bastable.
Business very private indeed.
Then we waited on the stone stairs; it was very draughty. And the man in the glass case looked at us as if we were the museum instead of him. We waited a long time, and then a boy came down and said—
“The Editor can’t see you. Will you please write your business?” And he laughed. I wanted to punch his head.
But Noël said, “Yes, I’ll write it if you’ll give me a pen and ink, and a sheet of paper and an envelope.”
The boy said he’d better write by post. But Noël is a bit pigheaded; it’s his worst fault, so he said—
“No, I’ll write it now.” So I backed him up by saying—
“Look at the price penny stamps are since the coal strike!”
So the boy grinned, and the man in the glass case gave us pen and paper, and Noël wrote. Oswald writes better than he does; but Noël would do it; and it took a very long time, and then it was inky.
“Dear Mr. Editor—I want you to print my poetry and pay for it, and I am a friend of Mrs. Leslie’s; she is a poet too.
He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn’t read it going upstairs; and he wrote “Very private” outside, and gave the letter to the boy. I thought it wasn’t any good; but in a minute the grinning boy came back, and he was quite respectful, and said—
“The Editor says, please will you step up?”
We stepped up. There were a lot of stairs and passages, and a queer sort of humming, hammering sound and a very funny smell. The boy was now very polite, and said it was the ink we smelt, and the noise was the printing machines.
After going through a lot of cold passages we came to a door; the boy opened it, and let us go in. There was a large room, with a big, soft, blue-and-red carpet, and a roaring fire, though it was only October; and a large table with drawers, and littered with papers, just like the one in Father’s study. A gentleman was sitting at one side of the table; he had a light moustache and light eyes, and he looked very young to be an editor—not nearly so old as Father. He looked very tired and sleepy, as if he had got up very early in the morning; but he was kind, and we liked him. Oswald thought he looked clever. Oswald is considered a judge of faces.
“Well,” said he, “so you are Mrs. Leslie’s friends?”
“I think so,” said Noël; “at least she gave us each a shilling, and she wished us ‘good hunting!’ ”
“Good hunting, eh? Well, what about this poetry of yours? Which is the poet?”
I can’t think how he could have asked! Oswald is said to be a very manly-looking boy for his age. However, I thought it would look duffing to be offended, so I said—
“This is my brother Noël. He is the poet.”
Noël had turned quite pale. He is disgustingly like a girl in some ways. The Editor told us to sit down, and he took the poems from Noël, and began to read them. Noël got paler and paler; I really thought he was going to faint, like he did when I held his hand under the cold-water tap, after I had accidentally cut him with my chisel. When the Editor had read the first poem—it was the one about the beetle—he got up and stood with his back to us. It was not manners; but Noël thinks he did it “to conceal his emotion,” as they do in books.
He read all the poems, and then he said—
“I like your poetry very much, young man. I’ll give you—let me see; how much shall I give you for it?”
“As much as ever you can,” said Noël. “You see I want a good deal of money to restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Bastable.”
The gentleman put on some eyeglasses and looked hard at us. Then he sat down.
“That’s a good idea,” said he. “Tell me how you came to think of it. And, I say, have you had any tea? They’ve just sent out for mine.”
He rang a tingly bell, and the boy brought in a tray with a teapot and a thick cup and saucer and things, and he had to fetch another tray for us, when he was told to; and we had tea with the Editor of the Daily Recorder. I suppose it was a very proud moment for Noël, though I did not think of that till afterwards. The Editor asked us a lot of questions, and we told him a good deal, though of course I did not tell a stranger all our reasons for thinking that the family fortunes wanted restoring. We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away he said again—
“I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you think they’re worth?”
“I don’t know,” Noël said. “You see I didn’t write them to sell.”
“Why did you write them then?” he asked.
Noël said he didn’t know; he supposed because he wanted to.
“Art for Art’s sake, eh?” said the Editor, and he seemed quite delighted, as though Noël had said something clever.
“Well, would a guinea meet your views?” he asked.
I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion, and I’ve read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, or joy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noël standing staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and he went white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing
