XXII.

“Well, how are your sales?” cried Lord Ottercove as Frank crossed the threshold--a dangerous step, perhaps symbolical--into his office.

“Low--still low. Seven copies a day.”

“Low average,” agreed the newspaper baron.

“I know why it doesn’t sell.”

“Why?”

“It’s a poor novel. That’s why. Poor stuff.”

“Dam’ poor stuff,” agreed Lord Ottercove. “That’s why I am interested in it.”

The author looked up at him in surprise.

“Any fool can sell a good novel. But it takes genius to sell a poor book. That’s why I like pushing it.”

“That is why I come to see you, hoping you may succeed in pushing it.”

“When I like a fellow,” the baron said in loud, robust tones, his light-grey eyes glinting jovially, “there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for him! You saw the boy who was in my office when you came in? You know who he is?”

“Who?”

“The business-manager of all my newspapers.”

“That boy?”

“That boy. He’s seventeen. You heard our business conversation?”

“It was like machine-gun fire.”

“That’s how I do my business!” said Lord Ottercove. “That boy, the business-manager of all my newspapers, was a page, what they call a bell boy out there, at the Metropole in San Francisco four months ago. He took my luggage up, switched on the light, drew the curtains, unstrapped my suitcase, took out the slippers. I had forgotten Gilbert on the road, and this solicitude and efficiency in the bell boy touched me to the heart. ‘Good boy,’ I said. ‘Good heart. Kind soul.’

“‘I have a reason for it, sir,’ he said.

“‘What reason?’

“‘I want a job from you.’

“‘Well, look here,’ I said, ‘you come to England one of these days, into my office, and I will give you a job.’

“He came a month after, worked his passage, you know, and found his way into my office. ‘I’ve come for that job, sir.’

“‘Well, look here,’ I said, ‘I want a business-manager who can manage all the business of all my newspapers. Can you manage it? If you can’t manage it I will make you a lift boy.’

“‘I’ll manage it,’ he said. And, by George, he does! You’ve heard our conversation?”

“Like rapid fire.”

“That’s how I do my business!”

“You don’t let them climb up?”

“No. I put a good boy up. And if he isn’t any good I pull him down.”

“I’d like to get as much out of you as that bell boy.”

“And why not? I am a man of money, and I am bored to hell, and your rotten book amuses me.”

“Quite. But you’ve a personality so charming and magnetic and you like to talk about yourself and you do it so engagingly that as a rule one forgets about one’s ulterior motives and becomes disinterested!”

“Well, look here,” said Lord Ottercove, “we must do something about that book of yours. We’ll have to advertise it. As a rotten book. The rottenest book of the century. What do you say to that?”

“Might take on.”

“Sure to do!”

The success of this strategem, however, proved social rather than financial. A few nights later, Lord Ottercove, after talking to Frank of himself till midnight, suddenly rose and said: “I am taking you to-night to a ball.”

“Are you really! Had I better ring up Cynthia and ask her to come along too?”

“Oh, no! You’ll be bored to death with her. She’s all right for love and that sort of thing. But never take her out with you. She used to bore me stiff before she married you. Now let us go.”

As the chariot was turning into a side lane, the baron suddenly leaned over to his companion. “I must tell you before the chariot comes to a stop, for it may interest you as a novelist, that where I am taking you now is Society. Not quite the real society, but the lighter Mayfair Michael Arlen sort, somewhat polluted with actors and such. Bohemian and the like, and chorus girls. I am doing this to help you with atmosphere and local colour--invaluable for you, as a recorder of contemporary customs, to get first-hand and red hot.”

“You are too kind.”

They had scarcely had their coats removed from them when the hostess appeared at the door and quickly whispered something to Lord Ottercove who, acting on the hint, said to Frank in a hushed undertone: “Whiz like mad across the hall!”

Frank did as he was bid, and, rejoining him in the drawing-room, “You see,” Lord Ottercove explained, “we tried to get you safely past Lady Kennan and Mrs. Ashton who, having heard of your being acclaimed the author of the rottenest novel of the century, had come out into the hall to snap you up on your arrival. It’s the sort of rare distinction that they are all out to secure for their _salons_. There are three great literary hostesses in London: Lady Kennan, Mrs. Ashton, and Lady Isabel Croft, where you are to-night. The three hostesses tend to frequent one another’s parties and they stand out in the hall to snatch away a literary novelty before the hostess has had time to warn and welcome him, and your being acclaimed the rottenest author of our time was something quite unusual; they are all mad to have you. Now go and talk to them.”

Lord Ottercove was borne away by a couple of hearty men, while Lady Isabel, a tall, excited woman, came up to Frank and welcomed him effusively. “I’ve put the two there off the scent, said you hadn’t arrived yet, so they are waiting in the hall. I am so glad you’ve come. Rex rang me up this afternoon. ‘Shall I bring you a literary prodigy, a man who’s written the rottenest book of our time and century?’ ‘Actually _the_ rottenest? Oh, do, Rex darling, do!’ I said, ‘and see that he isn’t kidnapped at the door.’ But you’ve escaped their claws beautifully. That was a gallant dash across the hall. Now come and have something to eat; you deserve it.” And she pressed champagne and caviare sandwiches upon him, and then led him into another room full of over-powdered, over-painted, over-talkative women here and there dotted by a white-black figure of a man, and she made him sit beside her on the floor very uncomfortably so that he was afraid that his shirt front having blown out, would next blow open and the studs fly out on to the parquet. And she introduced him to an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer: “Johnny, this is Mr. Dickin, who wrote the rottenest novel of our time.”

The ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer beamed with delight and shaking Frank, who had jumped up from the floor, heartily by the hand, said: “Have you written the rottenest book of our time? Excellent! Haw! haw! haw!”

“Come,” said the hostess, “I’ll introduce you to my daughters. I have two lovely daughters. They’ve heard all about you and are thrilled at the idea of meeting you. Pamela, this is Mr. Dickin.”

Pamela was blonde and serious and interested in literature. “Now are you _the_ rottenest novelist?” she asked. “Because this afternoon I met a man who said that he was even more rotten than you.”

“I cannot believe it,” said Frank.

“Now what do you want to do?” asked the hostess. “Do you want to eat or drink or smoke or dance or--?”

“Dance.”

“Pamela, take him upstairs and dance with him.”

Pamela took him upstairs into the music-room and on the way thither introduced him to people sitting out on the steps.

“This is Eleonor de Jones.”

“Oh, but we know him!” Eleonor exclaimed.

“Mr. Dickin. Mr. Raymond Mosquito.”

“Have you written the rottenest novel?” Eleonor asked.

“I must have done.”

“How splendid!” And she wrung from him before she let him go the promise to attend her baby’s christening.

“Raymond’s been adopted, then?” he asked Pamela while they danced upstairs.

“Yes. They will be married very soon now. Have you seen the baby?”

“A boy?”

“A boy. The image of Raymond. Isn’t he beautiful?”

“He has Eva’s eyes. His sister’s,” Frank added as Pamela did not seem to know who he was speaking of. While he danced on with Pamela, who was blonde, Maisy, her younger sister, even more blonde, talked to him all the time, while dancing with another. “Who are you?” she kept asking him, and he would not tell.

As he was going, she held him back by the hand. “Don’t go,” she said. “Oh, don’t go. I’ve found out who you are,” she looked into his eyes long and intently. “It couldn’t be better!”