The City of Beautiful Nonsense Part 11

"I don't know," said John--"my watch is all smashed up. It's just on one I should think."

"As much as that? I must be moving on. Shall we get on a 'bus?"

The very thing. John acquiesced readily. He had nothing; a careful calculation of what he had spent that morning will account for that.

But his friend could pay. It was his turn.

They mounted the stairs and took a front seat behind the driver.

"You'll have to pay for me to-day," said John. "My pockets are empty till I get a cheque changed."

The blood mounted to the face of his friend. For a moment he looked as though his beautiful hat were too tight for his head. He felt in his pocket. Then he produced a little stamp case, with gold mounted corners and one penny stamp inside.

"I'm awfully sorry," said he--"I--I've only got a penny stamp." He rose quickly to his feet.

John laughed--laughed loudly.

"What are you going to do?" said he.

"Well--get off," said his friend.

"Sit down," said John--"there's no hurry."

"Have you got twopence, then?"

"No--not a farthing. But we're getting into Town, aren't we? We've got nothing to grumble at."

When the 'bus had travelled another hundred yards or so, John stood up.

"Now, you come downstairs," said he. The friend followed obediently.

The conductor was inside punching tickets. John looked in.

"Does this 'bus go to Paddington Station?" he asked inquiringly.

"No--Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, and Strand."

"What a nuisance," said John--"Come on--we'd better get off."

They descended on to the road, and the friend, immaculate, top-hatted and befrocked, took his arm.

"I see," he said, and he looked back to measure the distance with his eye.

There are more people in London with only a penny in their pockets than you would imagine.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHAPEL OF UNREDEMPTION

The next morning was one of promise. For half an hour before the time appointed for his meeting, John was waiting, seated upon a penny chair, thinking innumerable thoughts, smoking innumerable cigarettes.

Sometimes he felt the money that was in his pocket, running his finger nail over the minted edge of the half crowns and florins to distinguish them from the pennies. No woman, whatever franchise she may win, will ever understand the delight of this. You must have a pocket in your trousers and keep your money there--even gold when you possess it--to appreciate the innocent joy of such an occupation as this. Men have really a deal to be grateful for.

That morning, John had money. He even had gold. He had p.a.w.ned his gold watch-chain, intending, if the opportunity arose, to ask Jill to lunch.

The watch, as you know, was smashed up. That is a technical term in use amongst all gentlemen and sensitive people, having this great advantage that it may be taken literally or not, at will. No one who uses the term has ever been so much in want of shame as to define it.

You may wonder why it is that the watch and not the chain should get smashed up first. It is the watch that tells the time. But then, it is the chain that tells you have got the watch that tells the time, and in this life one has always to be considering that there would be no maiden all forlorn if it were not for the house that Jack built. The chain will always be the last to go, so long as those three bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s continue to hang over that suspicious-looking shop in the dingy side street.

John's watch had been smashed up for some weeks; but little boys and little girls in the street still flattered him by asking to be told the time.

With one eye searching for a distant clock while your hand pulls out the latch key which depends upon the chain, giving it the weight of a reason to stay in the pocket, you can easily deceive the eyes of these unsuspecting little people in the street. If you discover the distant clock, all well and good. If not, then a hundred devices are left open to you. You can guess--you can tell it by the sun, but, and if you are conscientious, you can apologise and say your watch has stopped. And last of all, if it is a nice little person with eyes in which a laugh is always a-tip-toe, you may dangle the key in front of their face, and with their merriment experience the clean pleasure of honesty.

A quality about John that was interesting, was his ability to antic.i.p.ate possibilities. Perhaps a man's mind runs instinctively to the future, and it is the woman who lives in the past.

When Mrs. Rowse awakened him in the morning, he sat up in bed with the glowing consciousness that something was to happen that day. Something had been arranged; some appointment was to be kept; some new interest had entered his life which was to take definite shape that very day.

He asked Mrs. Rowse the time--not as one who really wishes to know it, but as it were a duty, which must sooner or later be accomplished.

Directly she said a quarter to nine, he remembered. Jill! The Lady of St. Joseph! That morning she was going to tell him how much she liked his story.

He sat up at once in bed.

"Mrs. Rowse! I shall want my coffee in half an hour. Less! Twenty minutes!"

In twenty minutes, he was dressed. Allowance must be made if he chose a sock that matched a tie or spent a moment of thought upon the selection of a s.h.i.+rt to go with them. Vanity, it is, only to do these things for your own approval; but when all consciously, you stand upon the very threshold of romance, it may be excused you if you consider yourself in the reflexion of the door. It is the man who, wandering aimlessly through the streets in life, looks in at every mirror that he pa.s.ses, who is abominable. That is the vanity of which the prophet spoke. The prophet, himself, would have been the first to set straight the tie, or rearrange the 'kerchief of the lover who goes to meet his mistress.

Even John smiled at himself. The socks matched the tie so absolutely; it was ludicrous how well they matched. There was no rough, blue serge suit that day. Out of the depths of the wardrobe came a coat well brushed and kept. Then he went in to breakfast.

During the meal, Mrs. Rowse lingered about in the sitting-room, dusting things that might easily have escaped notice. John, reading his paper, at last became aware of it with a rush of blood to his cheeks. She had paid the day before for the was.h.i.+ng--three and elevenpence.

If you go to a laundry in the environment of Fetter Lane, it is like putting your clothes in p.a.w.n. You can't get them back again until the bill is paid, and there are times when that is inconvenient.

That was why Mrs. Rowse was lingering. She had paid for the was.h.i.+ng.

Whenever money was due to her, she lingered. It is a subtle method of reproach, a gentle process of reminder which at first scarcely explains itself.

On the first occasion when she had adopted it, John had thought she was losing her memory, that her wits were gathering. Out of the corner of his eye, he had nervously watched her going aimlessly about the room, dusting the same object perhaps six separate times. When a woman is paid seven s.h.i.+llings a week for keeping one's rooms tidy, such industry as this might well be a sign of madness.

At length, unable to bear it any longer, John had said that he thought she had done enough. Despairingly then, she had folded up the duster, put it away, taken an unconscionable time in the pinning on of that black, shabby hat, and finally, but only when at the door itself, she had said:

"Do you think you could spare my wages to-day, sir?"

Now she was lingering again. But he had come to know the signs and meanings of the process. This time, John knew it was the was.h.i.+ng. He watched her covertly from behind his paper, hoping against hope that she might tire; for he had not got three and elevenpence, nor three halfpence in the world. But a master in the art of lingering does not know what it means to tire. Just when he thought she must have finished, when she had done all the gla.s.s on the mantel-piece for the second time, she went out of the room to the cupboard on the landing where John kept his two-hundredweight of coal and returned with all the rags and pots of paste necessary for the cleaning of the bra.s.s.

Here he gave in; the siege was over. Under cover of the newspaper, he detached the latch key from his watch-chain, slipped it into his pocket and rose, concealing the chain within his hand.

"I'm just going out," he said--"for a few moments. Can you wait till I get back?"

She looked as though she could not, as if it were rather encroaching upon the limit of her time to ask her to stay longer, but----