Part 13

“It is the _Adventures of Odysseus_,” said the boy, with the blood springing to his cheeks. Even as he spoke he speculated as to what dire fate would overtake him for having dared to expose his sacred intercourse with heroes to the scorn of the great world out of doors; yet he was fain to marvel also that one such as his mentor should not recognize at a glance the nature of his crime.

“Who’s he?” said his mentor sternly. “Who in the name of thunder is Odys---- Stars above! I never saw such rum-looking stuff in my life. I should say it is a pretty fair imitation of a bad dream.”

“I k-k-know it is an offence against the gods,” said the culprit, with a scared face, “to bring the sacred words of Homer into the great world out of doors; but you do not know how he sustains me in my heavy tasks.”

“Homer, did you say?” inquired his mentor incredulously. “Homer; why then, that’s Greek!”

“Oh y-y-yes,” said the boy, his fear yielding somewhat to bewilderment that one of his mentor’s attainments should ply him with a question so unnecessary.

“You are not going to come it over James Dodson, my son, that you read Greek,” said that gentleman, renouncing his own magisterial air for one of protest and astonishment.

“I b-b-bear every word of all the sacred writings of Homer imprinted in my heart,” said the boy, with only a partial understanding of Mr. Dodson’s very visible surprise. “P-p-perchance after the callow days of our childhood have passed, when the mind is like sand, it is a violation of the dream knowledge that has grown up all about our hearts to turn yet again to those pages in which the great wonders were first revealed to us. But even to this hour I love to gaze on the printed pages which these long years have lain in my soul.”

Mr. Dodson paid no heed to the strange and incoherent phrases which proceeded from the lips of William Jordan, Junior. He was too greatly preoccupied with an examination of the curious volume that was now in his hands. After turning it over and inspecting it inside and out a look of immense perplexity settled upon his wizened countenance.

“My aunt!” he said, “it _is_ Homer.”

He looked from the book to the boy, from the boy to the book.

“Luney,” he said, with slow-drawn solemnity, “you beat cock-fighting, you do.”

The boy quailed under a gaze, whose blank surprise he misinterpreted as some more truculent emotion.

“Why, do you know, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “it takes Pa himself all his time to read Homer without a crib.”

This contribution to national biography awoke no response in the breast of the boy.

“And yet, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, in a voice that had a thrill of emotion in it, “here are you in your dinner hour reading it as naturally as I read the _Sporting Times_. Let me look at you, you lunatic.”

Mr. Dodson grasped his _protégé_ by the chin in the manner in which a veterinary surgeon grasps a horse, and peered somewhat aggressively into the gentle and pale countenance of William Jordan, Junior.

“Well, all I can say is, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, after he had conducted his researches with a thoroughness which made the subject of them tremble, “all I can say is you can’t be such a blighter as you look.”

William Jordan, Junior, could frame no reply to this profound judgment.

“How old are you, Luney?” Mr. Dodson inquired.

“E-eighteen years and f-fifty-nine days, sir,” stammered William Jordan, Junior.

“My aunt!” said Mr. Dodson, with incredulity, “you don’t look a day more than twelve and a half. You might travel half-fare on the District Railway.”

Suddenly Mr. Dodson clenched his hands.

“Luney,” said he vehemently, “do you suppose if _I_ were you _I_ should be sitting down-stairs on a high stool? Not me. You ought to go far, my son, you ought. But you never will. You haven’t got it about you; and,” concluded Mr. Dodson grimly, “it is a good thing for some of us you ain’t.”

Having permitted himself a freedom of speech which he felt to be highly injudicious, Mr. Dodson returned Homer to the boy without seeing fit to administer further physical correction, and retired to the fire-place to stand with his back thereto and his coat-tails outspread, that favourite attitude of so many searching intellects, and proceeded, in his own phrase, “to take his bearings.”

Mr. Dodson’s first and most natural instinct was to heighten his already considerable reputation as an after-luncheon _raconteur_, by advertising this new facet to the character of him upon whom he had bestowed the title of “The Marvel.” But however great his thirst for the notoriety of a little brief applause, the mature outlook of the man of the world was soon able to correct it. “Mum is the word, my son,” said the philosopher, as the warmth of the fire communicated itself pleasantly to his being. “Mum is the word. If it should come to the ears of Octavius that that kid reads Greek in his luncheon hour for his own amusement, he will go up-stairs and no earthly power can prevent it. And,” he added, “if that kid does go up-stairs where will you be, Matthew Arnold Dodson?”

The philosopher did not deem it necessary to frame a reply to these reflections, but sauntered across the room to the high stool on which was seated the subject of them.

“Luney,” he said, slowly and impressively, “you are a highly-educated youth, I quite recognize that, but it is not considered the thing to read Greek in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. I have only one word of advice to give you. If by any chance you should _ever_ let Pa catch you reading it, it will mean serious trouble for you, my son, for you must not forget that it is as much as Pa himself can do to read Homer in the original.”

It reassured Mr. Dodson’s sense of propriety to observe that the boy had already returned the opprobrious volume to his pocket. “Let us hope he will keep it there,” he said under his breath piously.

That evening, as the clock told the hour of seven, William Jordan, Junior, was honoured by the most signal act of condescension on the part of his mentor that had as yet been vouchsafed to him.

“Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, “your best way to Milton Street, E.C., is to go down the Strand and to take a ’bus from Ludgate Circus. I am going down the Strand myself; if you like we will toddle down together.”

A few minutes later William Jordan, Junior, might have been discerned walking down the Strand in association with his mentor. The eminent worldling had his arm within that of his _protégé_.

“Luney,” he said, “out of office hours you can call me Jimmy.”

As they went their way, with the whole of the conversation furnished entirely by one only of the parties to it, Mr. Dodson produced an elaborate silver case.

“Smoke?” he said.

“Oh n-n-no,” said the boy, startled in much the same way as he would have been had he been asked whether he committed murders.

“Pity,” said Mr. Dodson, as he selected a cigarette from the silver case with the unmistakable air of the connoisseur. “Ought to. Great thing for the nerves. Though perhaps you are not troubled with ’em. I shouldn’t say myself that you lived at very high pressure.”

At the end of Fleet Street master and pupil parted company.

“Ta ta, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, with a genial wave of the hand. “I go round the corner to the station. Nice time for the 7.50 to Peckham. That’s your ’bus--the green one. Ta ta; one of these days we will do a music-hall together.”

Mr. Dodson stood to watch the frail figure enter the green ’bus.

“Absolutely the rummest kid I ever struck,” said he. “Fancy a thing like that able to read Homer in the original! Well, I will say this--he don’t put on side about it like most chaps would.”

With this reflection the philosopher turned the corner, immediately to engage in a war of words, in which he did not come off second best, with the driver of a “growler,” who nearly ran over him as he stepped somewhat unwarily off the pavement.

XXI

In the course of the following week an announcement was made which marked an epoch in the history of the great publishing house of Crumpett and Hawker.

However, before this event had burgeoned forth upon the counting-house staff, Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with whose individual destiny it was concerned, continued to live in that condition of soul-distraction, to which it would seem even the most philosophic minds are susceptible, which is known as hope deferred.

All the week Mr. Dodson had waited in vain to be summoned into the presence of authority, to receive the seal of official recognition to which he felt his mature talents were unquestionably entitled. He had set his heart upon the dethronement of young Davis. To that other accomplished worldling, who in mere point of age was a year older than himself, he never referred without the prefix “young.” But the misdemeanour of which that successful adventurer had been convicted, of smoking in the room of the head of the firm, had not as yet borne the fruit that Mr. Dodson had confidently predicted. Mr. Davis was still enthroned in high places, triumphant still in his original deceit; every morning he appended his signature in the time-book, G. Eliot Davis, 9.15, not the least among the Olympians whose seat was on the second storey; while Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, in every way his superior in moral and mental attainment, still languished in the comparative obscurity of the counting-house below.

On two occasions during that week had Mr. Dodson walked into the Strand during the luncheon hour, and had purchased an extremely pungent cigar, for which he had disbursed the sum of one penny. Armed with this implement he had stolen up-stairs in the absence of the staff during the hour of luncheon, and had smoked it grimly and relentlessly in the middle of the sanctuary of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Melancholy to relate, however, in spite of the physical pangs endured by the heroic Mr. Dodson, who in the very act of informing William Jordan, Junior, that “that young Davis had been smoking again in Octavius’s room,” had to make a sudden and somewhat undignified exit to the back of the building--in spite of such tribulations as these the wicked, in the person of G. Eliot Davis, continued to flourish in that time-honoured fashion which has been celebrated by Holy Writ.

“Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, with an unaffected pathos in his voice, when the second of these heroic efforts to dethrone the unrighteous had been fraught with no other compensation than that of suffering of a purely physical kind, which is too often the reward of human nature’s disinterestedness, “Luney, it fairly turns me sick to see that young Davis walk up those stairs. I shouldn’t mind, you know, I shouldn’t mind at all if he had played the game. But he got where he is by a trick, and it is doing him no kindness to try to gloss it over.”

Upon the delivery of this altogether admirable piece of morality touched by emotion, Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, for the second time that afternoon, retired to the back of the building with a haste which scarcely harmonized with his natural dignity.

As he returned with an unwonted pallor upon a countenance which as a rule bore evidence of being soundly nourished, whom should he meet, as if by the irony of circumstance, but Mr. G. Eliot Davis descending the stairs. For once the eminent philosopher and man of the world seemed to lack the moral strength to encounter one whom he could only regard in the light of a successful adventurer. Therefore he strove to escape without attempting to outface a demeanour, which in his view was flown to an exaggerated degree with the insolence of office. This afternoon, however, he was not able to control the fates.

“Dodson,” said Mr. G. Eliot Davis, in the tone which Mr. Dodson made a point of describing as “insufferable”; “Dodson,” said Mr. Davis, “perhaps it may interest you to know that Mr. Octavius’s personal translation of Homer’s Odyssey will be issued to the Trade on Monday next.”

“Thank you, Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, with the self-command that the great display on great occasions. “I am glad to know that, very glad indeed.”

Mr. Dodson’s official duties should have led him there and then into the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker; but as he stood to watch the small but stout, erect, and prosperous form of Mr. G. Eliot Davis saunter out of the front entrance of No. 24 Trafalgar Square, an idea flashed across that Napoleonic brain.

Therefore, instead of returning to admonish William Jordan, Junior, for omitting to inscribe the courtesy prefix to the name of a peer’s daughter in returning the manuscript copy of her verses, Mr. Dodson also sauntered forth of No. 24 Trafalgar Square. He turned the first corner and entered the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel. Presiding over that hall of public entertainment was the lady of the scarlet blouse and yellow earrings. This afternoon the blouse was heliotrope, and she wore no earrings.

“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, “I want something to pull me together. It must be up to proof, but it must leave no odour.”

“I always say you can’t do better than brandy,” said Chrissie, with the assured yet quiet air of the unmistakable expert. “Of course, some prefer a John Collins, or an American, or a Dog Toby, but I am not partial to so much fancy work myself.”

“Same here,” said Mr. Dodson. “But there must be no odour--none whatever.”

“You shall have a toothful of the Waterloo, as your face seems familiar,” said Chrissie benignly.

“You are a good sort, Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, with a small display of emotion that became him perfectly. “I shall not forget you.”

“My size is nine and a quarter,” said the lady, as with extreme precision she measured out a small quantity of a curiously-coloured liquid from a very mysterious-looking bottle. “Jimmy, I must say you do look a bit below yourself. Has the moon come up yet?”

“Not yet,” said Mr. Dodson in a tone of amiable deprecation. He was greatly indebted to the kindness of the lady in the heliotrope blouse, but her question was alien to his dignity, as was also the situation in which he found himself. Even at this period of his career all those attributes were clearly developed which in after years brought him so much distinction in political life.

“Well, if you will smoke El Destinkers at one and fourpence a hundred,” said the lady in the heliotrope blouse.

“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson impressively, after swallowing the brandy at a single gulp, “you _should_ know that I am physically incapable of doing anything of the kind.”

“I can smell it from here,” said the lady in the heliotrope blouse.

“I know it is not considered the thing to contradict a lady,” said Mr. Dodson, withdrawing two steps from the buffet, “but you appear to have paid me the compliment of forgetting the commercial traveller who has just gone out. So long. Be good.”

Mr. Dodson sauntered out of the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel with the inimitable nonchalance of bearing which many, besides the lady in the heliotrope blouse, never failed to admire.

Before returning to his official duties at No. 24 Trafalgar Square, Mr. Dodson went in quest of a chemist, whom he found a few doors up the street. Of him he purchased a pennyworth of pungent pink lozenges, which immediately he proceeded to suck. He then re-entered the premises of the eminent publishing house; but instead of going forthwith to admonish William Jordan, Junior, he proceeded to wash his face, to part his hair in the middle with much care, and to re-adjust his necktie.

These preliminaries accomplished, Mr. Dodson walked very slowly and erectly up to the second storey. He entered the small ante-chamber at the head of the stairs, which was dedicated to the sole use of the vigilant guardian of these Olympian altitudes, one G. Eliot Davis.

“Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, peering within, “is Mr. Octavius in his room?”

“Yes, Dodson, he is,” said Mr. Davis.

“Alone, Davis?”

“Alone, Dodson.”

“Thank you, Davis.”

“Don’t mention it, Dodson.”

Upon the conclusion of this exchange of courtesies, which an impartial observer might have considered as a trifle elaborated on both sides, Mr. Dodson knocked smartly and boldly, yet withal respectfully, upon the portals of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Mr. Dodson entered the august presence briskly, but closed the door after him with delicacy and with self-possession.

Mr. Octavius Crumpett was seated at the table in close proximity to the fire. Every letter and document, every book, every small article was arranged upon it with scrupulous nicety. The head of the firm was enjoying the academic pleasure of running a paper-knife through the close-pressed leaves, within a chaste and scholarly binding, of his personal translation of the Odyssey, which was to be issued to an expectant world upon the following Monday.

Mr. Octavius Crumpett looked up urbanely from his insidious and alluring occupation. A slight frown of perplexity almost seemed to cloud for a moment that serene brow. In his boundless conscientiousness Mr. Octavius Crumpett conceived it to be his duty to be able to remember the name of each individual member of his staff, however lowly or obscure his station. For an instant he almost feared that he had forgotten the name of the individual before him. But this moment of doubt, of almost tremulous perplexity, which did him such credit as a man, as the head of a house of eminent publishers, as an enlightened patron of labour, passed almost as soon as it appeared, for a weak wet glint of the afternoon sun suddenly illumined the wizened countenance of the young gentleman who stood before him; and as if touched by inspiration Mr. Octavius Crumpett remembered that the name of the young gentleman was Matthew Arnold Dodson.

“Well, Mr. Dodson?” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in that tone and manner which were ever the despair and admiration of his staff.

Mr. M. A. Dodson, who had already shown his consummate breeding by waiting for his chief to speak first, as though he were a royalty incarnate, bowed slightly from his full height, which was hardly more than four feet ten inches, and said in a very carefully modulated voice, “I apologize, sir, for my intrusion, but I learn that your personal translation of the Odyssey is to be issued to the Trade on Monday next.”

“That is in accord with existing arrangements, I believe,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a masterly implication that his well-cut diction dealt merely with human nature’s daily food.

“Well now, sir,” said Mr. M. A. Dodson, whose mellifluous accent might have sounded a little ingratiating had it been used by a less able practitioner, “I am taking the freedom of asking _you_, sir, whether I might purchase my own private copy this evening. The fact is, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson added, in a burst of humble yet half-whimsical self-revelation, “I can hardly possess my soul in patience until Monday next. May I ask, sir, would it be _infra dignitatem_ if I were to obtain my own copy this evening? I am particularly anxious to have the opportunity of studying the entire achievement--I feel sure, sir, I am justified in applying beforehand that much-abused word--before the journals of professional criticism, which are very excellent in their way, which I needn’t tell _you_, sir, I read every week, have had the opportunity of swaying my private judgment.”

Mr. Octavius Crumpett paused, with his solid silver paper-knife suspended in the air, to listen to this masterful piece of elocution on the part of Mr. M. A. Dodson. As the delicately enunciated phrases fell from those gently simpering lips, quite as they would have proceeded from those of the listener himself, an emotion of pleasure and gratitude percolated through the entire being of this good and benign gentleman. That portion of his being which was arrayed in a waistcoat of immaculate whiteness rose and fell in visible accord with the internal harmony. The traditions of the house of Crumpett and Hawker were never so secure as in the keeping of even one of the latest additions to its clerical staff. By some mysterious means the rarefied air of that establishment had wrought already upon one of the least considerable of its members.

“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, speaking with obvious emotion, “it will--ah, give me _immense_ pleasure if you will accept the first copy of my--ah, little book.”

“It will delight me, sir, of course, to accept the first copy,” said Mr. M. A. Dodson, speaking with a quiet dignity and a mature reserve which became him superbly; “it will _overwhelm_ me with honour, but if my acceptance of the first copy could in any way be misconstrued--that is, sir, I mean to say, the freedom I have been guilty of in coming here this afternoon to speak to you on the subject could be misconstrued--I should greatly prefer to obtain the first copy by purchase in the usual manner. And after all, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson concluded, with an arch smile, “if you will permit me to say it, sir, the labourer is worthy of his hire. If this custom, sir, became in any sense general of an author giving away his own works, every author, sir, would either have to become his own publisher, or every publisher would have to become his own author.”

The glow behind the immaculate waistcoat of Mr. Octavius Crumpett was heightened to such a degree by these scruples, and by the cultivated terms in which they gained expression, that the good man was fain to embody it by beaming like a seraph.

“Pray, my dear Mr. Dodson,” purred his august employer, “do not vex a nice conscience with scruples that are not in the least necessary. I shall be _charmed_ if you will allow me to present you with the first copy of my--ah, little book. Will you kindly ask Mr. Davis to give you one of the copies set apart for review? and if, Mr. Dodson, you will take an early opportunity of telling me _precisely_ what you think about it I shall be honoured indeed, for I perceive, Mr. Dodson, that you have a real and deep love of letters.”

The manner in which Mr. M. A. Dodson took leave of Mr. Octavius Crumpett was entirely worthy, in the amplest sense, of two such ornaments of their age. As the head of the firm watched the close-knit figure of Mr. M. A. Dodson recede through the door of his room, he said for his own private delectation: “This house undoubtedly has an atmosphere of its own. It seems to exude an aroma. That is a very remarkable youth; a youth of precocious attainment. He talks like a book.”

Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with his hand on the door of Mr. G. Eliot Davis, said to himself, “I never talk to Octavius without wanting to run straight out into the street to beat out the brains of a little boy in a sailor suit.”