A Knight on Wheels Part 28

THE Euston Road, which is perhaps the most funereal thoroughfare in Europe, furnishes their first glimpse of London to fully fifty per cent of all who visit our capital.

Philip was no stranger to London, for he had spent his youth in the wilds of Hampstead; and later on, like most young men, had formed a tolerably intimate acquaintance with that portion of the metropolis which lies within a radius of one mile of Piccadilly Circus. Still, as his cab hurried away from the unspeakable hideousness of Euston Station and turned into that congeries of tombstone-makers' yards and unsavoury lodging-houses which const.i.tutes the Euston Road, even Coventry seemed pleasantly rural by comparison. Most of us are inclined to feel like this at the outset of a new undertaking. Fortunately we can support ourselves through this period with the reflection that every success worth winning is approached by a Euston Road of some kind.

Philip's first few weeks in the London offices were a prolongation of this journey. The young gentleman in the show-room proved to be unspeakably offensive and incompetent; the Yorks.h.i.+reman in the repairing-shop was incredibly obstinate and secretive. The staff were slack, and the premises dirty. Letters were not answered promptly, and the accounts were in a shocking mess. Finally, every soul in the place (with the possible exception of the lady typist) greeted the intrusion of the new manager with undisguised hostility.

Philip, reminding himself of the period of time in which Rome was not built, set to work, in his serious methodical fas.h.i.+on, to master departmental details. He went through the repair-shop first, and mindful of Mr. Mablethorpe's admonition to observe People rather than Things, spent much time in studying the characters of each of the men employed.

As a result of his investigations two mechanics, props of their Union, were tersely informed that unless their standard of performance was raised at least one hundred per cent, their services would not be required after the end of the current month.

Next came a brief but painful interview with Mr. Murgatroyd, the Yorks.h.i.+reman, on the subject of perquisites and commissions. The motor industry lends itself to the acquirement of pickings more, perhaps, than any other trade of to-day, and the long-headed Mr. Murgatroyd had made good use of the opportunities thrown in his way for something like ten years. Henceforth, Philip explained to him, there must be no more clandestine _douceurs_ from tyre-agents, no more strictly private rebates on consignments of petrol, and no more piling-up of unconsidered trifles in customers' bills. Before undertaking a repairing contract of any magnitude, Mr. Murgatroyd must present a detailed estimate of the cost, and the work was not to be put in hand until the estimate was approved and countersigned by the owner of the car.

To this Mr. Murgatroyd replied almost tearfully that if Mr. Meldrum proposed to run the establishment upon Sunday-school lines, the sooner they put up the shutters the better.

"Does that mean that you want to resign your post, Mr. Murgatroyd?"

asked Philip hopefully.

Mr. Murgatroyd was not to be caught.

"Not at all, sir," he said. "I dare say we shall take a little time to get used to one another's ways, that's all; but in the end I'm sure we shall rub along grandly."

What Mr. Murgatroyd meant was:--

"You are a new broom. In a short time your youthful zeal for reform will have abated, and we can then slip back unto the old comfortable groove.

For the present I must make a show of complying with your idiotic commands."

Philip understood this, and calculated that six months of commercial austerity would set his manager looking for a softer berth. Both sides having thus decided to wait and see, the interview terminated.

Philip next introduced his broom into the somewhat Augean garage.

Car-washers were straitly informed that their duty was to wash cars and not to rifle the tool-boxes and door-pockets thereof. The current price of that fluctuating commodity, petrol, as fixed from day to day by the brigands who hold the world's supply in the hollow of their unclean hands, was chalked up in a conspicuous position every morning, in order that consumers might purchase at the market price and not at one fixed by the foreman. Sundry members of that well-organized and far-reaching Society for the Acquisition of Other People's Property--the brotherhood of chauffeurs who used the garage--were put through a brief but drastic course of instruction in the elementary laws of _meum and tuum_; and one particularly enterprising member of the craft, to whose possession a new and expensive jack, recently the property of a gentleman from the country who drove his own car, was traced after a systematic and quite unexpected official enquiry, was directed to remove himself and his vehicle to other quarters as an alternative to prosecution.

Having in the s.p.a.ce of three weeks achieved a degree of unpopularity almost incredible to a man who has. .h.i.therto encountered only the genial side of his fellow creatures, Philip turned from the garage to the office. Here his troubles were of a different kind. Commercial arithmetic had no terrors for him; the systematic filing of correspondence and the compilation of cross-references appealed readily to his orderly soul. His difficulties arose not so much from these mechanical aids to commerce as from the human agents in charge of them.

Mr. Atherton, the young gentleman who presided over the show-room, was, as already indicated, a square peg. The careers open to a younger son of a well-connected but impecunious house are strictly limited in number.

Presuming, as is probably the case, that the family resources are already fully taxed in maintaining his elder brother in the army, and that he himself is debarred through insufficiency of grey matter from entering one of the three learned professions, our young English friend is forced to the inevitable conclusion that he must earn his living in some less distinguished field of effort.

"Not in _trade_, of course, dear," says his lady mother, with the air of a female Euclid throwing off an elementary and self-evident axiom. "But anything else you like."

The unsophisticated observer might be excused for imagining that the maternal proviso extinguishes our young friend's prospects of a career altogether. Not so. To the upper cla.s.ses of England there are trades and trades. You may become a land-agent, for instance, without loss of caste; presumably because you cannot possibly make any money out of being a land-agent. You may also become a stockjobber, possibly because a stockjobber's earnings cannot by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as the fruit of honest toil. You may go to Ceylon, or Canada, or California, and there, in the decent obscurity of a foreign clime, live by the work of your own hands. You may even go upon the stage, in a gentlemanly sort of way. But you must not go into trade. You must not buy or sell merchandise in the open market; though, as stated above, you are perfectly at liberty to sell what you have not got, and buy what you could not pay for if you received it, in the world of Bulls and Bears.

However,--no one seems to know why, but the undisputable fact remains,--you may sell automobiles for a living and remain a gentleman.

It is not known who discovered this providential law of nature, but ever since its establishment well-born young men have swarmed into the profession; and now the humblest purchaser of an automobile may quite reasonably hope to have his cheque endorsed, and mayhap a cigar accepted, by the descendant of a duke.

The innovation has proved a commercial success, too, or we may be sure that it would not have endured in the unsentimental economic world for a twelvemonth. _Pace_ Mr. Mablethorpe, the immaculate young man who attends to our wants in show-rooms knows his business. He is a fair mechanic, a fearless driver, and an excellent salesman. Customers of his own walk of life confide their wants to him as to a brother, while plutocratic but plebeian patrons frequently purchase a more expensive car than they originally contemplated through fear of losing his good opinion.

But there are exceptions, and Mr. Atherton was one. He was grossly ignorant of the elements of mechanics, he was unbusinesslike in his management of correspondence, and he was rude to customers without being impressive. He was also a frequent absentee from his post on matinee days. The indoor staff, down to the very office-boy, took their tone from him; with the result that Philip, in the execution of his duty in the office and show-room, was enabled without any difficulty whatever to eclipse the degree of unpopularity already achieved by him in the garage and repair-shop. But he ploughed resolutely on his way.

In order to be near his work he rented a small flat in Wigmore Street, and furnished it according to his ideals of what was requisite and necessary. He cooked his own breakfast, and took his other meals at Frascati's.

Each afternoon an elderly and incompetent female called, and--to employ her own grim expression--did for him. That is to say, she consumed what was left of Philip's breakfast, and made his bed by the simple expedient of restoring the bedclothes to their overnight position.

His bedroom furniture he bought _en suite_ in Tottenham Court Road, for seven pounds fifteen. In his sitting-room he installed a large table, upon which to draw up plans and specifications, and an armchair. It did not occur to him that he required any more furniture. He cooked his food at a gas-stove and ate it off a corner of this table, sitting on the arm of the chair. The sole ornament, upon his mantelpiece was a model of the Meldrum Carburettor, recently perfected and patented. He made no friends and went nowhere. A woman would have (and ultimately did) shed tears over his _menage_. But he was happy enough. Things, not People, still held him bound.

And yet he was not utterly at peace with his world. It is said that a woman is always happy unless she has something to make her unhappy, but that a man is never happy unless he has something to make him happy. Up to this period of his life Philip had never had to hunt for the sources of happiness. His work, and the ever-developing interests of youth, had kept him well supplied. But now, at times, he was conscious of a shortage. Under the increasing cares of existence mere _joie de vivre_ becomes insufficient as a driving-power, and demands augmentation.

Philip's present life--if we except odd hours in the evening devoted to the perfection of the Meldrum inventions--was an ungrateful business at best. He had few friends, and was not of the breed which can solace itself with the companions.h.i.+p that can be purchased in great cities. And therefore he began, inevitably, to draw his necessary happiness from the bank of the Future. Most of us come to this in time, for few there be that are fortunate enough to be able to subsist year in year out upon current income. When we are young we draw upon the Future, and when we are old we fall back (please G.o.d) upon the Past. So Philip began to live for the day on which his reforms should come to fruition, and the work in the London offices find itself running forward on oiled wheels. As for the Present--it was a rotten business, but difficulties were made to be overcome. _En avant!_

But beyond these practical aspirations lay a fairer region. Philip was in love. Not with any material pink-and-white charmer, but, after the perfectly healthy and natural manner of the young man before he grows cynical or _blase_ with experience, with Love itself. Only that. At present he was more concerned with the abstract than the concrete. At this period he was inclined to regard matrimony much as a child regards cake--namely, as a consummation to be achieved only after a long mastication of bread-and-b.u.t.ter. At present he was in the thick of the bread-and-b.u.t.ter. But when he had worked strenuously for perhaps ten years, he would a.s.suredly encounter his Lady--he had no clear idea what she was like, but he was absolutely confident of her existence--and would marry her. Then he would be paid in full. Troubles would be halved and joys doubled, and life itself would be the sweeter for the long years of hard service and clean living and high endeavour that lay at present between the dream and its fulfilment.

Meanwhile he was content to hitch his wagon to a star and proceed with the day's work. Business first.

CHAPTER XVII

PEOPLE

FOR six months Philip continued to give rope to his esteemed colleagues Messrs. Atherton and Murgatroyd, and within that period the pair duly hanged themselves.

Mr. Murgatroyd went first. For a whole winter he waited patiently for Philip's reforming zeal to spend itself; and then, finding that things were no better but rather grew worse, he retired from the conflict like a prudent man, and invested his not inconsiderable savings in a wayside garage upon a lonely stretch of the Great North Road, where motorists, who are always in a hurry, would not be disposed to haggle over the price of petrol or the cost of tyre-repairs.

He parted from Philip without rancour, and another and younger man was sent up from headquarters to take his place.

Mr. Atherton was not so easy to eject, and was only disposed of in the fulness of time and by the process of filling up the cup. But he went at last, and the change of atmosphere throughout the entire establishment was most noticeable. The two clerks and the office-boy carried out their duties with what is known in transatlantic business circles as "a punch"; the books were put in order; accounts were straightened out; business increased; headquarters said encouraging things. For the present Philip decided not to ask for a successor to Atherton. He felt that he wanted to run the whole Universe single-handed in those days.

Of course there were still crumpled rose-leaves. There was Brand, for instance--Brand of the repairing-shop. He was a strenuous worker and an admirable mechanic, but he suffered intermittently from a severe form of the popular disease of the day--the disease which has its roots in the British national policy of educating a man sufficiently to make him discontented with his lot and then leaving off. Brand was a Socialist, or a Revolutionist, or an Anarchist. Philip could never find out which, and the muddled but pertinacious Brand could never enlighten him. The most noticeable feature of his malady was an over-copious supply of what the repairing-shop as a whole termed "back-chat." Mr. Brand was a stalwart upholder of what he called the dignity of labour. He declined to be patronised; he smelt patronage as an Orangeman smells Popery. He also refused to accept an order with any degree of cheerfulness; though, to do him justice, once he had expressed his opinion of it and the degradation which he incurred in accepting it, he usually carried it out with efficiency and dispatch. To one who knows his job almost anything can be forgiven. We shall hear of Mr. Brand again.

Then there was Alfred, the office-boy. He was a stunted but precocious child, with a taste for music of a vibratory nature. He believed firmly in the adage that a merry heart goes all the way, and whistled excruciatingly from dawn till dusk. His _tremolo_ rendering of "All That I Ask is Love" appeared to afford him the maximum of human enjoyment.

The departure of Mr. Atherton involved him in some financial loss, for he had been employed by that vicarious sportsman to execute turf commissions on his behalf with an unostentatious individual who conducted his business in the private bar of an una.s.suming house of call in Wardour Street. Consequently he considered it only just to make things unpleasant for the new manager. This object he accomplished in divers ways, which will be obvious to any schoolboy. Philip suffered in silence, for he was disinclined to further dismissals, and, moreover, could not help liking the impudent youth. His patience was rewarded; for one day, with incredible suddenness, the nuisance ceased, and Master Alfred became almost demonstrative in his a.s.siduity and doglike in his affection. Presently the mystery was unfolded. Alfred had discovered that that usurper, that tyrant, that slave-driver, Mr. Meldrum, was the identical P. Meldrum who had scored the winning try for the Harlequin Football Club against Blackheath on the previous Sat.u.r.day afternoon. One day, after office hours, almost timidly, he approached his employer and presented a pet.i.tion from his own club, the Willesden Green Vampires, humbly praying that the great Meldrum would honour this unique brotherhood by consenting to become one of its Vice-Presidents. Philip's heart warmed at the compliment, and he complied gladly. He achieved further and lasting popularity among the Vampires of Willesden Green by officiating as referee in their annual encounter with the Stoke Newington Hornets. Verily the road to the heart of healthy young-manhood is marked in plain figures.

A third and by no means unattractive rose-leaf was Miss Jennings, the typist. She troubled Philip considerably at first. He found her presence disturbing. To him it seemed fundamentally wrong that a man should sit in a room with his hat on while a young and ladylike girl stood waiting at his elbow for orders. He endeavoured to remedy these anomalies by removing his hat in Miss Jennings's presence and rising from his seat whenever she entered his private room--courtesies which his typist secretly regarded as due to weakness of intellect rather than the instinct of chivalry, though she valued them in her heart none the less.

It was a long time, too, before Philip grew accustomed to dictating letters. His first incursion into this enterprise gave him an uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He began by ringing for Alfred, and asking him to request Miss Jennings to be so good as to come and speak to him for a moment. His message was delivered by that youthful humourist with elaborate ceremony,--this was in the pre-Willesden-Green days,--coupled with a confident a.s.surance that it portended either a proposal of marriage or "the sack." Miss Jennings's reply Philip did not catch, for only Alfred's raucous deliverances could penetrate closed doors, but it effectually silenced that young gentleman's guns. His only discernible retort was "Suffragette!"

Presently Miss Jennings appeared, slightly flushed, and shut the door behind her.

"You want me, Mr. Meldrum?" she asked.

Philip rose to his feet.

"Yes. Would you mind taking down one or two letters for me, Miss Jennings?" he said.

"Oh, is that all?" replied Miss Jennings, quite composed again. "Mr.

Atherton usually just shouts. I'll go and get my things."

She returned with her writing-pad, and taking a chair at Philip's elbow, sat down and regarded him with an indulgent smile.

Philip began, huskily:--

_The Britannia Motor Company, Limited, Oxford Street, London, October._