Peeps at People Part 4

"One pound eight," said I.

"I'll be down," he replied, instantly, and drawing his n.o.ble brow in out of the wet, he slammed the window to, and, if the squeaking sounds I heard within meant anything, slid down the banisters in order not to keep me waiting longer than was necessary. He opened the door, and in a moment we stood face to face.

"Mr. Alfred Austin?" said I.

"The same, O Lady Journalist, I'm glad to take you by the fist-- Particularly since I've heard You offer one pun eight per word."

said he, cordially grasping me by the hand.

"Come right up and make yourself perfectly at home, and I'll give you an imitation of my daily routine, and will answer whatever questions you may see fit to ask. Of course you must be aware that I am averse to this sort of thing generally. The true poet cannot permit the searchlight of publicity to be turned upon his home without losing something of that delicate--"

"Hold on, Mr. Austin," said I. "I don't wish to be rude, but I am not authorized to pay you seven dollars apiece for such words as these you are uttering. If you have any explanations to offer the public for condescending to let me peep at you while at work, you must do it at your own expense."

A shade of disappointment pa.s.sed over his delicate features.

"There's a hundred guineas gone at a stroke," he muttered, and for an instant I feared that I was to receive my conge. By a strong effort of the will, however, the laureate pulled himself together.

"If that's the case, O Yankee fair, Suppose we hasten up the stair, Where every day the Muses call, And waste no words here in the hall,"

said he. And then he added, courteously: "I am sorry the elevator isn't running. It's one of these English elevators, you know."

"Indeed?" said I. "And what is the peculiarity of an English elevator?"

"Like Britons 'neath the foeman's serried guns, The British elevator never runs, For like the brain of the Scottish Thane, The Thane, you know, of Cawdor, Our lifts are always out of order,"

he explained. "It's very annoying, too, particularly when you have to carry poems up and down stairs."

"You should let your poems do their own walking, Mr. Austin," said I.

"I beg your pardon," said he. "But how can they?"

"Those I've seen have had feet enough for a centipede," said I, as dryly as I could, considering that I was still dripping with fog.

The laureate scratched his head solemnly.

"Quite so," he said, at length. "But come, let us hasten."

We hastened upward, and five minutes later we were in the sanctum. It was a charming room. A complete set of the British Poets stood ranged in chronological sequence on the table. A copy of _Hood's Rhymster_, well thumbed, lay open on the sofa, and a volume of popular quotations lay on the floor beside the poet's easy-chair.

A full-length portrait of her Majesty the Queen, seven inches high and sixteen wide, hung over the fireplace, and beneath it stood a charming bust of the late Lord Tennyson with the face turned towards the wall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'A BEAUTIFUL WORKSHOP,' SAID I"]

"A beautiful workshop," said I. "Surely one sees now the sources of your inspiration."

"'Tis true my dear. 'Tis very, very true.

Here in my sanctum, high above the pave, ma'am, I can't help doing all the things I do, Not e'en my great immortal soul to save, ma'am.

You see, a man who daily has to write Of things of which Calliope doth side-talk, Must get above the earth and leave the wight Who dully plods along along the sidewalk,"

he answered. "That's why I live under the roof instead of hiring chambers on the ground-floor. Up here I am not bothered by what in one of my new poems I shall call 'Mundane Things.' Rather good expression that, don't you think? The first draft reads:

"'Mundane things, mundane things, Hansom cabs and finger rings, Drossy glitter and glittering dross, May I never come across Merely mundane, mundane things.'

"Rather clever, to be tossed off on a scratch pad while taking a shower-bath, eh?"

"Yes," said I. "What suggested it?"

"The merest accident. I got some soap in my eye and was about to give way to my temper, when I thought to myself that the true poet ought to rise above petty annoyances of that nature--in other words, above mundane things."

"Wonderfully interesting," I put in. "Was your appointment a surprise to you, Mr. Austin?"

"Surprise? Nay, nay, my lovely maid.

Pray why should I surprised be?

Despite that Fortune's but a fickle jade, I knew the thing must come to me, For in these days commercial, don't you see, From eyes like mine no thing can e'er be hid; And when they advertised for poetry, 'Twas I put in the very lowest bid,"

he replied. "You see, as a newspaper man I knew what rates the other poets were getting. There was Swinburne getting seven bob a line, and Sir Edwin Arnold asking a guinea a yard, and old Kipling grinding it out for one and six per quatrain, and Watson doing sonnets on the Yellow North, and the Red, White, and Blue East, and the Pink Sow'west, at five pounds a dozen. So when Salisbury rang me up on the 'phone and said I'd better put in a bid for the verse contract, I knew just how to arrange my rates to get the work."

"You had a great advantage over the others," said I.

"Which shows the value of a newspaper training. Newspaper men know everything," he said. "I had but one fear, and that was your American poets. They are hustlers, and I didn't know but that some enterprising American like Russell Sage or Barnum & Bailey would form a syndicate and corner America's poem-supply, and bowl my wickets from under me. Working together, they could have done it, but they didn't know their power, thank Heaven!--if I may borrow an Americanism."

"Well, Mr. Austin," said I, rising, "I am afraid I shall have to go. I fear your words have already exceeded the appropriation. Ah--how much do I owe you?"

The laureate took from beneath his chin a small golden object that looked like a locket. Opening it, he scanned it closely for a moment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONSULTING HIS CHINOMETER]

"My chinometer says nine hundred and sixty-three words. Let us call it a thousand--I don't care for trifles," said he.

"Very well," I replied. "That is $7000 I owe you."

"Yes," he said. "But of course I allow you the usual discount."

"For what?" said I.

"Cash," said he. "Poole does it on clothes, and I've adopted the system.

It pays in the end, for, as I say in my next ode to the Queen, to be written on the occasion of her Ruby Jubilee, 'A sovereign in hand is worth two heirs-presumptive in the bush.'"

"In other words, cash deferred maketh the heart sick."

"Precisely. I'll put that motto down in my note-book for future use."

"I thank you for the compliment," said I, as I paid him $5950.

"Good-bye, Mr. Austin."

"Good-bye, Miss Witherup," said he. "Any time when you find you have a half hour and 1000 to spare come again.

"Say au revoir, but not good-bye, For why?