CHAPTER IX.

IN CASE OF WAR.

As the winter settled over Europe--here with gloom and fog, there with bright keen frosts and dazzling snow--the feeling of anxiety respecting affairs in the East slowly subsided. The general conviction was that Russia would not move against her hereditary Moslem enemy until the winter was over; for even hatred, sturdy weed though it may be, is killed by cold.

Theodore Trist, fresh from those mysterious Oriental lands which are so much more romantic from a distance, gave no opinion upon the matter, because he was a practical business-man, and fully aware of the market value of his observations.

By ten o'clock on the morning following the soirée of the Ancient Artists, he alighted from a hansom cab opposite the huge office of the journal to which his pen was pledged. A few moments later he was shaking hands uneffusively with the editor. This gentleman has been introduced before, and men at his age change little in appearance or habit. His vast head was roughly picturesque as usual, his speech manly and to the point.

'Glad to see you back,' he said, in a business-like way. 'Sit down. None the worse, I hope?' he added, in a softer tone, and accompanied his observation with a keen glance. 'None the worse for the smell of powder again?'

'No,' was the answer. 'That smell never did any man much harm.'

The editor smiled, and drew some straggling papers together upon his desk.

'I want,' said Trist, after a pause, 'to make a lot of money.'

'Ah!'

'Enough,' continued Trist gravely, 'to put into something secure, and ensure a steady income in the piping times of peace.'

The editor clasped his large hands gravely with fingers interlocked, and placed them on the desk in front of him.

'That,' he said, with raised eyebrows, 'is bad.'

'But natural,' suggested the younger man.

'When a man of your age suddenly expresses a desire for something which...'

'He has never had,' remarked Trist meekly.

'Which he has never had or wished for, it is suggestive of a change--a radical change--in that man's plan of life.'

Trist raised his square shoulders slightly and respectfully.

'Now,' continued the editor, in his most solid and convincing way, 'you--Theodore Trist--are the most brilliant war-correspondent of a brilliant and war-like generation. You are, besides that, a clever fellow--perhaps an _exceptionally_ clever fellow. But, my friend, there are many clever fellows in the world. It is an age of keen competition, and the first man in the race must never look back to see whose step it is that he hears behind him. We live in a time of specialities, and we must be content with specialities. You are a born war-correspondent, and I suppose your ambition is to prove that you can do something else--write a novel, or edit a religious periodical--eh?'

Trist laughed, and returned the gaze of a pair of remarkably bright eyes without hesitation.

'No,' he answered. 'I am content with the mark I have made, but there is not sufficient money to be gained at it, considering how much it takes out of a man. I am as strong as a horse yet, but I have noticed that there are some of us who, considering their years, are not the men they should be. It is a desperately hard life, and we are constantly required. If I live ten years longer, I shall be laid on the shelf, as far as active service goes.'

The editor looked much relieved, and, moreover, made no pretence of concealing his feelings.

'I have thought of that,' he said. 'Of course, we will take you on the editorial staff.'

'Now...?'

The elder man raised his head, and the kindly gray eyes searched his companion's face.

'Ah!' he said slowly. '_That_ is your game. Have you lost your nerve?'

'No.'

'Then you contemplate some great change in your plan of life.'

'Hardly,' returned Trist, with some deliberation; 'but I want to be prepared for such an emergency.'

'I am very sorry to hear it.'

'Why?'

'Because you are too young yet. And ... and, my boy, I don't want to lose the best war-correspondent that ever crossed a saddle.'

The object of this honest flattery shrugged his shoulders.

'There are plenty more coming on.'

The great man shook his head.

'Do you mean to tell me,' he asked, 'that you are going to turn your back upon a splendid career, and take up journalism? Why, my dear fellow, even at my age I would willingly change my chair for your saddle, and men say that I am at the top of the journalistic tree. Come, be candid; why are you giving up active service?'

'Because I am wanted at home, and because I must find some means of making a steady income.'

'Will you take my advice?' asked the elder man humbly.

They were like two friendly gladiators, these immovable journalists, each conscious of the strength that lay behind the gentle manner of the other, both anxious to avoid measuring steel.

Trist laughed good-humouredly.

'I will not promise.'

'No; that would be asking too much from a man who has made his own way with his own hands. My advice is: do nothing until the necessity arises. At the first rumour of war we will talk this over again. In the meantime, let us wait on events. You will write your leaders as usual, and I suppose you are busy with something in book form?'

'If,' answered Trist, 'there is war in Turkey, I will go, because I told you that I would, but that will be my last campaign.'

The editor looked at him with kindly scrutiny; then he scratched his chin.

'Why?' he asked deliberately, and with a consciousness of exceeding the bounds of polite non-interference.

'I cannot tell you--yet.'

There was a slight pause, during which neither moved, and the stillness in that little room which lay in the very heart of restless London was remarkable.

The editor looked very grave. There were no papers on his desk requiring immediate attention, but he held his pencil within his strong fingers ready, as it were, to add his notes to any news that might come before him. The responsibility of a great journalist is only second to that of a Prime Minister in a country like England, where the voice of the people is heard and obeyed. Had this man turned his attention to politics, he would perhaps have attained the Premiership; but he was a journalist, and from that small silent room his fiats went forth to the ready ears of half a nation. Few men read more than one newspaper, and we have not yet got over the weakness of attaching undue importance to words that are set in type; consequently the influence of an important journal over the mind of the nation to which it dictates is practically incalculable.

'You know,' said this modern Jove at length, 'as well as I do that there _will_ be war as soon as the winter is over.'

In completion of his remark he nodded his vast head sideways, vaguely indicating the East.

'Yes,' was the meek answer; 'that is so--a war which will begin in a one-sided way, and last longer than we quite expect; but I will go.'

'I fancy,' remarked the editor after some reflection, 'that Russia will make a very common mistake, and underrate, or perhaps despise, her adversary.'

Trist nodded his head.

'They are sure to do that,' he said; 'but I suppose they will win in the end.'

'And you will be on the losing side again.

'Yes; I shall be on the losing side again.

Both men relapsed into profound meditation. Trist's meek eyes were fixed on the soft Turkey carpet--the only suggestion of ease or luxury about the room. The editor glanced from time to time at his companion's strong face, and occupied himself with making small indentations in his blotting-pad with the point of a blacklead pencil.

'Trist,' he said at length, 'I cannot do without you in this war.'

'The war has not come yet. Many things may happen before the spring; but I will not play you false. You need never fear that.'

Then he rose and buttoned his thick coat; for, like all great travellers, he wrapped himself up heavily in England. It is only very young and quite inexperienced men who gather satisfaction from the bravado of wearing no top-coat in winter.

'Good-bye,' he said; 'I must go up to the publishers.'

'Good-bye,' replied the editor heartily; 'look in whenever you are passing. I hope to see you one night soon at the Homeless Club; they are going to give you a dinner, I believe.'

'Yes; I heard something of it. It is very good of them, but embarrassing, and not strictly necessary.'

Trist passed out of the small room into a long passage, and thence into what was technically called the shop--a large apartment, across which stretched a heavily-built deal counter, and of which the atmosphere was warm with the intellectual odour of printing-ink.

The door-keeper, who persisted, in face of contradiction, in his conviction that Mr. Trist was a soldier, drew himself stiffly up and saluted as he held open the swing-door. It was one of those cold blustering days which come in early November. A dry biting south-east wind howled round every corner, and disfigured most physiognomies with patches of red, more especially in the nasal regions. Nevertheless, the air was clear and brisk--just the day to kill weak folks and make strong people feel stronger.

With his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his thick coat, the war-correspondent wandered along the crowded pavement of the Strand, rubbing shoulders with beggar and genius indifferently.

He was not a man much given to useless reflections or observations upon matters climatic, and so absorbed was he in his thoughts that he would have been profoundly surprised to learn that a biting east wind was withering up humanity. He looked into the shops, and presently became really interested in a display of rifles exposed in the unpretending window of a small establishment.

It is strange how the sight of those tools or instruments with which we have at one time worked for our living affects us. The present writer has seen an old soldier handle a bayonet in a curious reflective way which could not be misunderstood. The ancient warrior's face, in some subtle sense, became hardened, and his manner changed. I myself grasp a rope differently from men who have never trodden a moss-grown deck, and the curve of the hard strands within my fingers tells a tale of its own, and brings back, suddenly, ineffaceable pictures of the great seas.

Theodore Trist stood still before the upright burnished barrels which the poet has likened to organ-pipes, and to his mind there came the memory of their music, and the roar of traffic round him was almost merged into the grand, deep voice of cannon. It is in the midst of death that men realize fully the glorious gift of life, and those who have known the delirious joy of battle--have once tasted, as it were, the cup of life's greatest emotion--are aware that nothing but a battle-field can bring that maddening taste to their lips again.

This contemplative man breathed harder and deeper as his eyes rested on lock and barrel, and for some time he stood hearing nothing round him, seeing nothing but the instruments of death.

'Yes,' he murmured as he turned away at length. 'I _must_ go to the Russian war. _One_ more campaign, and then ... then who knows?'