took me to the bow-window with gentle solicitude, and waited for me to
proceed.

At first she encouraged me, for I faltered over my opening words. But
as I warmed to my work, and as my embarrassment left me, she no longer
spoke. Her eyes were fixed intently upon the blue space beyond the
lilac.

I read on and on, till at length my voice trailed over the last line,
rose gallantly at the last fence, the single word _Curtain_, and
abruptly broke. The strain had been too much for me.

Tenderly my mother drew me to the sofa; and quietly, with closed
eyelids, I lay there until, in the soft cool of the evening, I asked
for her verdict.

Seeing, as she did instantly, that it would be more dangerous to deny
my request than to accede to it, she spoke.

"That there is an absence, my dear Margie, of any relationship with
life, that not a single character is in any degree human, that passion
and virtue and vice and real feeling are wanting - this surprises me
more than I can tell you. I had expected to listen to a natural,
ordinary, unactable episode arranged more or less in steichomuthics.
There is no work so scholarly and engaging as the amateur's. But in
your play I am amazed to find the touch of the professional and
experienced playwright. Yes, my dear, you have proved that you happen
to possess the quality - one that is most difficult to acquire - of
surrounding a situation which is improbable enough to be convincing
with that absurdly mechanical conversation which the theatre-going
public demands. As your mother, I am disappointed. I had hoped for
originality. As your literary well-wisher, I stifle my maternal
feelings and congratulate you unreservedly."

I thanked my mother effusively. I think I cried a little.

She said affectionately that the hour had been one of great interest to
her, and she added that she would be glad to be consulted with regard
to the steps I contemplated taking in my literary future.

She then resumed her book.

I went to my room and re-read the last letter I had had from James.

_The Barrel Club,
Covent Garden,
London._

MY DARLING MARGIE, - I am writing this line simply and solely for
the selfish pleasure I gain from the act of writing to you. I know
everything will come right some time or other, but at present I am
suffering from a bad attack of the blues. I am like a general who
has planned out a brilliant attack, and realises that he must fail
for want of sufficient troops to carry a position, on the taking of
which the whole success of the assault depends. Briefly, my position
is like this. My name is pretty well known in a small sort of way
among editors and the like as that of a man who can turn out fairly
good stuff. Besides this, I have many influential friends. You see
where this brings me? I am in the middle of my attacking movement,
and I have not been beaten back; but the key to the enemy's position
is still uncaptured. You know what this key is from my other letters.
It's the stage. Ah, Margie, one acting play! Only one! It would mean
everything. Apart from the actual triumph and the direct profits, it
would bring so much with it. The enemy's flank would be turned, and
the rest of the battle would become a mere rout. I should have an
accepted position in the literary world which would convert all the
other avenues to wealth on which I have my eye instantly into royal
roads. Obstacles would vanish. The fact that I was a successful
playwright would make the acceptance of the sort of work I am doing
now inevitable, and I should get paid ten times as well for it. And
it would mean - well, you know what it would mean, don't you? Darling
Margie, tell me again that I have your love, that the waiting is not
too hard, that you believe in me. Dearest, it will come right in the
end. Nothing can prevent that. Love and the will of a man have always
beaten Time and Fate. Write to me, dear.

_Ever your devoted
James._

How utterly free from thought of self! His magnificent loyalty forgot
the dreadful tension of his own great battle, and pictured only the
tedium of waiting which it was my part to endure.

I finished my letter to James very late that night. It was a very long
and explanatory letter, and it enclosed my play.

The main point I aimed at was not to damp his spirits. He would, I knew
well, see that the play was suitable for staging. He would, in short,
see that I, an inexperienced girl, had done what he, a trained
professional writer, had failed to do. Lest, therefore, his pique
should kill admiration and pleasure when he received my work, I wrote
as one begging a favour. "Here," I said, "we have the means to achieve
all we want. Do not - oh, do not - criticise. I have written down the
words. But the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you. But
for you I should never have begun it. Take my play, James; take it as
your own. For yours it is. Put your name to it, and produce it, if you
love me, under your own signature. If this hurts your pride, I will
word my request differently. You alone are able to manage the business
side of the production. You know the right men to go to. To approach
them on behalf of a stranger's work is far less likely to lead to
success. I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to be
produced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own. Claim
the authorship, and all will be well."

Much more I wrote to James in the same strain; and my reward came next
day in the shape of a telegram: "Accept thankfully. - Cloyster."

Of the play and its reception by the public there is no need to speak.
The criticisms were all favourable.

Neither the praise of the critics nor the applause of the public
aroused any trace of jealousy in James. Their unanimous note of praise
has been a source of pride to him. He is proud - ah, joy! - that I am to
be his wife.

I have blotted the last page of this commonplace love-story of mine.

The moon has come out from behind a cloud, and the whole bay is one
vast sheet of silver. I could sit here at my bedroom window and look at
it all night. But then I should be sure to oversleep myself and be late
for breakfast. I shall read what I have written once more, and then I
shall go to bed.

I think I shall wear my white muslin tomorrow.

_(End of Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative.)_


PART TWO


James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative


CHAPTER 1

THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA


It is curious to reflect that my marriage (which takes place today
week) destroys once and for all my life's ambition. I have never won
through to the goal I longed for, and now I never shall.

Ever since I can remember I have yearned to be known as a Bohemian.
That was my ambition. I have ceased to struggle now. Married Bohemians
live in Oakley Street, King's Road, Chelsea. We are to rent a house in
Halkett Place.

Three years have passed since the excellent, but unsteady, steamship
_Ibex_ brought me from Guernsey to Southampton. It was a sleepy,
hot, and sticky wreck that answered to the name of James Orlebar
Cloyster that morning; but I had my first youth and forty pounds, so
that soap and water, followed by coffee and an omelette, soon restored
me.

The journey to Waterloo gave me opportunity for tobacco and reflection.

What chiefly exercised me, I remember, was the problem whether it was
possible to be a Bohemian, and at the same time to be in love. Bohemia
I looked on as a region where one became inevitably entangled with
women of unquestionable charm, but doubtful morality. There were supper
parties.... Festive gatherings in the old studio.... Babette....
Lucille.... The artists' ball.... Were these things possible for a
man with an honest, earnest, whole-hearted affection?

The problem engaged me tensely till my ticket was collected at
Vauxhall. Just there the solution came. I would be a Bohemian, but a
misogynist. People would say, "Dear old Jimmy Cloyster. How he hates
women!" It would add to my character a pleasant touch of dignity and
reserve which would rather accentuate my otherwise irresponsible way of
living.

Little did the good Bohemians of the metropolis know how keen a recruit
the boat train was bringing to them.

* * * * *

As a _pied-a-terre_ I selected a cheap and dingy hotel in York
Street, and from this base I determined to locate my proper sphere.

Chelsea was the first place that occurred to me. There was St. John's
Wood, of course, but that was such a long way off. Chelsea was
comparatively near to the heart of things, and I had heard that one
might find there artistic people whose hand-to-mouth, Saturnalian
existence was redolent of that exquisite gaiety which so attracted my
own casual temperament.

Sallying out next morning into the brilliant sunshine and the dusty
rattle of York Street, I felt a sense of elation at the thought that
the time for action had come. I was in London. London! The home of the
fragrant motor-omnibus and the night-blooming Hooligan. London, the
battlefield of the literary aspirant since Caxton invented the printing
press. It seemed to me, as I walked firmly across Westminster Bridge,
that Margie gazed at me with the lovelight in her eyes, and that a
species of amorous telepathy from Guernsey was girding me for the
fight.

Manresa Road I had once heard mentioned as being the heart of Bohemian
Chelsea. To Manresa Road, accordingly, I went, by way of St. James's
Park, Buckingham Palace Road, and Lower Sloane Street. Thence to Sloane
Square. Here I paused, for I knew that I had reached the last outpost
of respectable, inartistic London.

"How sudden," I soliloquised, "is the change. Here I am in Sloane
Square, regular, business-like, and unimaginative; while, a few hundred
yards away, King's Road leads me into the very midst of genius,
starvation, and possibly Free Love."

Sloane Square, indeed, gave me the impression, not so much of a suburb
as of the suburban portion of a great London railway terminus. It was
positively pretty. People were shopping with comparative leisure,
omnibus horses were being rubbed down and watered on the west side of
the Square, out of the way of the main stream of traffic. A postman,
clearing the letter-box at the office, stopped his work momentarily to
read the contents of a postcard. For the moment I understood Caesar's
feelings on the brink of the Rubicon, and the emotions of Cortes "when
with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific." I was on the threshold of
great events. Behind me was orthodox London; before me the unknown.

It was distinctly a Caesarian glance, full of deliberate revolt, that I
bestowed upon the street called Sloane; that clean, orderly
thoroughfare which leads to Knightsbridge, and thence either to the
respectabilities of Kensington or the plush of Piccadilly.

Setting my hat at a wild angle, I stepped with a touch of
_abandon_ along the King's Road to meet the charming, impoverished
artists whom our country refuses to recognise.

My first glimpse of the Manresa Road was, I confess, a complete
disappointment. Never was Bohemianism more handicapped by its setting
than that of Chelsea, if the Manresa Road was to be taken as a
criterion. Along the uninviting uniformity of this street no trace of
unorthodoxy was to be seen. There came no merry, roystering laughter
from attic windows. No talented figures of idle geniuses fetched pints
of beer from the public-house at the corner. No one dressed in an
ancient ulster and a battered straw hat and puffing enormous clouds of
blue smoke from a treasured clay pipe gazed philosophically into space
from a doorway. In point of fact, save for a most conventional
butcher-boy, I was alone in the street.

Then the explanation flashed upon me. I had been seen approaching. The
word had been passed round. A stranger! The clique resents intrusion.
It lies hid. These gay fellows see me all the time, and are secretly
amused. But they do not know with whom they have to deal. I have come
to join them, and join them I will. I am not easily beaten. I will
outlast them. The joke shall be eventually against them, at some
eccentric supper. I shall chaff them about how they tried to elude me,
and failed.

The hours passed. Still no Bohemians. I began to grow hungry. I sprang
on to a passing 'bus. It took me to Victoria. I lunched at the
Shakespeare Hotel, smoked a pipe, and went out into the sunlight again.
It had occurred to me that night was perhaps the best time for trapping
my shy quarry. Possibly the revels did not begin in Manresa Road till
darkness had fallen. I spent the afternoon and evening in the Park,
dined at Lyons' Popular Cafe (it must be remembered that I was not yet
a Bohemian, and consequently owed no deference to the traditions of the
order); and returned at nine o'clock to the Manresa Road. Once more I
drew blank. A barrel-organ played cake-walk airs in the middle of the
road, but it played to an invisible audience. No bearded men danced
can-cans around it, shouting merry jests to one another. Solitude
reigned.

I wait. The duel continues. What grim determination, what perseverance
can these Bohemians put into a mad jest! I find myself thinking how
much better it would be were they to apply to their Art the same
earnestness and fixity of purpose which they squander on a practical
joke.

Evening fell. Blinds began to be drawn down. Lamps were lit behind
them, one by one. Despair was gnawing at my heart, but still I waited.

Then, just as I was about to retire defeated, I was arrested by the
appearance of a house numbered 93A.

At the first-floor window sat a man. He was writing. I could see his
profile, his long untidy hair. I understood in a moment. This was no
ordinary writer. He was one of those Bohemians whose wit had been
exercised upon me so successfully. He was a literary man, and though he
enjoyed the sport as much as any of the others he was under the
absolute necessity of writing his copy up to time. Unobserved by his
gay comrades, he had slipped away to his work. They were still watching
me; but he, probably owing to a contract with some journal, was obliged
to give up his share in their merriment and toil with his pen.

His pen fascinated me. I leaned against the railings of the house
opposite, enthralled. Ever and anon he seemed to be consulting one or
other of the books of reference piled up on each side of him. Doubtless
he was preparing a scholarly column for a daily paper. Presently a
printer's devil would arrive, clamouring for his "copy." I knew exactly
the sort of thing that happened. I had read about it in novels.

How unerring is instinct, if properly cultivated. Hardly had the clocks
struck twelve when the emissaries - there were two of them, which showed
the importance of their errand - walked briskly to No. 93A, and knocked
at the door.

The writer heard the knock. He rose hurriedly, and began to collect his
papers. Meanwhile, the knocking had been answered from within by the
shooting of bolts, noises that were followed by the apparition of a
female head.

A few brief questions and the emissaries entered. A pause.

The litterateur is warning the menials that their charge is sacred;
that the sheets he has produced are impossible to replace. High words.
Abrupt re-opening of the front door. Struggling humanity projected on
to the pavement. Three persons - my scribe in the middle, an emissary on
either side - stagger strangely past me. The scribe enters the purple
night only under the stony compulsion of the emissaries.

What does this mean?

I have it. The emissaries have become over-anxious. They dare not face
the responsibility of conveying the priceless copy to Fleet Street.
They have completely lost their nerve. They insist upon the author
accompanying them to see with his own eyes that all is well. They do
not wish Posterity to hand their names down to eternal infamy as "the
men who lost Blank's manuscript."

So, greatly against his will, he is dragged off.

My vigil is rewarded. No. 93A harbours a Bohemian. Let it be inhabited
also by me.

I stepped across, and rang the bell.

The answer was a piercing scream.

"Ah, ha!" I said to myself complacently, "there are more Bohemians than
one, then, in this house."

The female head again appeared.

"Not another? Oh, sir, say there ain't another wanted," said the head
in a passionate Cockney accent.

"That is precisely what there is," I replied. "I want - - "

"What for?"

"For something moderate."

"Well, that's a comfort in a wiy. Which of 'em is it you want? The
first-floor back?"

"I have no doubt the first-floor back would do quite well."

My words had a curious effect. She scrutinised me suspiciously.

"Ho!" she said, with a sniff; "you don't seem to care much which it is
you get."

"I don't," I said, "not particularly."

"Look 'ere," she exclaimed, "you jest 'op it. See? I don't want none of
your 'arf-larks here, and, what's more, I won't 'ave 'em. I don't
believe you're a copper at all."

"I'm not. Far from it."

"Then what d'yer mean coming 'ere saying you want my first-floor back?"

"But I do. Or any other room, if that is occupied."

"'Ow! _Room_? Why didn't yer siy so? You'll pawdon me, sir, if
I've said anything 'asty-like. I thought - but my mistake."

"Not at all. Can you let me have a room? I notice that the gentleman
whom I have just seen - - "

She cut me short. I was about to explain that I was a Bohemian, too.

"'E's gorn for a stroll, sir. I expec' him back every moment. 'E's
forgot 'is latchkey. Thet's why I'm sitting up for 'im. Mrs. Driver my
name is, sir. That's my name, and well known in the neighbour'ood."

Mrs. Driver spoke earnestly, but breathlessly.

"I do not contemplate asking you, Mrs. Driver, to give me the
apartments already engaged by the literary gentleman - - "

"Yes, sir," she interpolated, "that's wot 'e wos, I mean is. A literary
gent."

"But have you not another room vacant?"

"The second-floor back, sir. Very comfortable, nice room, sir. Shady in
the morning, and gets the setting sun."

Had the meteorological conditions been adverse to the point of
malignancy, I should have closed with her terms. Simple agreements were
ratified then and there by the light of a candle in the passage, and I
left the house, promising to "come in" in the course of the following
afternoon.


CHAPTER 2

I EVACUATE BOHEMIA
_(James Orlebar Cloister's narrative continued)_


The three weeks which I spent at No. 93A mark an epoch in my life. It
was during that period that I came nearest to realising my ambition to
be a Bohemian; and at the end of the third week, for reasons which I
shall state, I deserted Bohemia, firmly and with no longing, lingering
glance behind, and settled down to the prosaic task of grubbing
earnestly for money.

The second-floor back had a cupboard of a bedroom leading out of it.
Even I, desirous as I was of seeing romance in everything, could not
call my lodgings anything but dingy, dark, and commonplace. They were
just like a million other of London's mean lodgings. The window looked
out over a sea of backyards, bounded by tall, depressing houses, and
intersected by clothes-lines. A cats' club (social, musical, and
pugilistic) used to meet on the wall to the right of my window. One or
two dissipated trees gave the finishing touch of gloom to the scene.
Nor was the interior of the room more cheerful. The furniture had been
put in during the reign of George III, and last dusted in that of
William and Mary. A black horse-hair sofa ran along one wall. There was
a deal table, a chair, and a rickety bookcase. It was a room for a
realist to write in; and my style, such as it was, was bright and
optimistic.

Once in, I set about the task of ornamenting my abode with much vigour.
I had my own ideas of mural decoration. I papered the walls with
editorial rejection forms, of which I was beginning to have a
representative collection. Properly arranged, these look very striking.
There is a good deal of variety about them. The ones I liked best were
those which I received, at the rate of three a week, bearing a very
pleasing picture, in green, of the publishing offices at the top of the
sheet of note-paper. Scattered about in sufficient quantities, these
lend an air of distinction to a room. _Pearson's Magazine_ also
supplies a taking line in rejection forms. _Punch_'s I never cared
for very much. Neat, I grant you; but, to my mind, too cold. I like a
touch of colour in a rejection form.

In addition to these, I purchased from the grocer at the corner a
collection of pictorial advertisements. What I had really wanted was
the theatrical poster, printed and signed by well-known artists. But
the grocer didn't keep them, and I was impatient to create my proper
atmosphere. My next step was to buy a corncob pipe and a quantity of
rank, jet-black tobacco. I hated both, and kept them more as ornaments
than for use.

Then, having hacked my table about with a knife and battered it with a
poker till it might have been the table of a shaggy and unrecognised
genius, I settled down to work.

I was not a brilliant success. I had that "little knowledge" which is
held to be such a dangerous thing. I had not plunged into the literary
profession without learning a few facts about it. I had read nearly
every journalistic novel and "Hints on Writing for the Papers" book
that had ever been published. In theory I knew all that there was to be
known about writing. Now, all my authorities were very strong on one
point. "Write," they said, very loud and clear, "not what _you_
like, but what editors like." I smiled to myself when I started. I felt
that I had stolen a march on my rivals. "All round me," I said to
myself, "are young authors bombarding editors with essays on Lucretius,
translations of Martial, and disquisitions on Ionic comedy. I know too
much for that. I work on a different plan." "Study the papers, and see
what they want," said my authorities. I studied the papers. Some wanted
one thing, apparently, others another. There was one group of three
papers whose needs seemed to coincide, and I could see an article
rejected by one paper being taken by another. This offered me a number
of chances instead of one. I could back my MSS. to win or for a place.
I began a serious siege of these three papers.

By the end of the second week I had had "Curious Freaks of Eccentric
Testators," "Singular Scenes in Court," "Actors Who Have Died on the
Stage," "Curious Scenes in Church," and seven others rejected by all
three. Somehow this sort of writing is not so easy as it looks. A man
who was on the staff of a weekly once told me that he had had two
thousand of these articles printed since he started - poor devil. He had
the knack. I could never get it. I sent up fifty-three in all in the
first year of my literary life, and only two stuck. I got fifteen
shillings from one periodical for "Men Who Have Missed Their Own
Weddings," and, later, a guinea from the same for "Single Day
Marriages." That paper has a penchant for the love-interest. Yet when I
sent it my "Duchesses Who Have Married Dustmen," it came back by the
early post next day. That was to me the worst part of those grey days.
I had my victories, but they were always followed by a series of
defeats. I would have a manuscript accepted by an editor. "Hullo," I
would say, "here's the man at last, the Editor-Who-Believes-In-Me. Let
the thing go on." I would send him off another manuscript. He would
take it. Victory, by Jove! Then - _wonk_! Back would come my third
effort with the curtest of refusals. I always imagined editors in those
days to be pettish, whimsical men who amused themselves by taking up a
beginner, and then, wearying of the sport, dropped him back into the
slime from which they had picked him.

In the intervals of articles I wrote short stories, again for the same
three papers. As before, I studied these papers carefully to see what
they wanted; then worked out a mechanical plot, invariably with a
quarrel in the first part, an accident, and a rescue in the middle, and
a reconciliation at the end - told it in a style that makes me hot all
over when I think of it, and sent it up, enclosing a stamped addressed
envelope in case of rejection. A very useful precaution, as it always
turned out.

It was the little knowledge to which I have referred above which kept