Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (113 page)

Had the sentry been a man of swift and penetrating observation — which he wasn’t — he might have asked the question in more serious a tone. For he would have remarked that the Imp’s black eyes were resting lovingly upon a rain-water-pipe, giving to a skilful climber easy access to the terrace underneath the Prince’s windows.

“I would like to see him,” said the Imp.

“Friend o’ yours?” asked the sentry.

“Well, not exactly,” admitted the Imp. “But there, you know, everybody’s talking about him down our street.”

“Well, yer’ll ‘ave to be quick about it,” said the sentry. “‘E’s off to-night.”

Tommy’s face fell. “I thought it wasn’t till Friday morning.”

“Ah!” said the sentry, “that’s what the papers say, is it?” The sentry’s voice took unconsciously the accent of those from whom no secret is hid. “I’ll tell yer what yer can do,” continued the sentry, enjoying an unaccustomed sense of importance. The sentry glanced left, then right. “‘E’s a slipping off all by ‘imself down to Osborne by the 6.40 from Waterloo. Nobody knows it—’cept, o’ course, just a few of us. That’s ‘is way all over. ‘E just ‘ates—”

A footstep sounded down the corridor. The sentry became statuesque.

At Waterloo, Tommy inspected the 6.40 train. Only one compartment indicated possibilities, an extra large one at the end of the coach next the guard’s van. It was labelled “Reserved,” and in the place of the usual fittings was furnished with a table and four easy-chairs. Having noticed its position, Tommy took a walk up the platform and disappeared into the fog.

Twenty minutes later, Prince Blank stepped hurriedly across the platform, unnoticed save by half a dozen obsequious officials, and entered the compartment reserved for him. The obsequious officials bowed. Prince Blank, in military fashion, raised his hand. The 6.40 steamed out slowly.

Prince Blank, who was a stout gentleman, though he tried to disguise the fact, seldom found himself alone. When he did, he generally indulged himself in a little healthy relaxation. With two hours’ run to Southampton before him, free from all possibility of intrusion, Prince Blank let loose the buttons of his powerfully built waistcoat, rested his bald head on the top of his chair, stretched his great legs across another, and closed his terrible, small eyes.

For an instant it seemed to Prince Blank that a draught had entered into the carriage. As, however, the sensation immediately passed away, he did not trouble to wake up. Then the Prince dreamed that somebody was in the carriage with him — was sitting opposite to him. This being an annoying sort of dream, the Prince opened his eyes for the purpose of dispelling it. There was somebody sitting opposite to him — a very grimy little person, wiping blood off its face and hands with a dingy handkerchief. Had the Prince been a man capable of surprise, he would have been surprised.

“It’s all right,” assured him Tommy. “I ain’t here to do any harm. I ain’t an Anarchist.”

The Prince, by a muscular effort, retired some four or five inches and commenced to rebutton his waistcoat.

“How did you get here?” asked the Prince.

“’Twas a bigger job than I’d reckoned on,” admitted Tommy, seeking a dry inch in the smeared handkerchief, and finding none. “But that don’t matter,” added Tommy cheerfully, “now I’m here.”

“If you do not wish me to hand you over to the police at Southampton, you had better answer my questions,” remarked the Prince drily.

Tommy was not afraid of princes, but in the lexicon of her harassed youth “Police” had always been a word of dread.

“I wanted to get at you.”

“I gather that.”

“There didn’t seem any other way. It’s jolly difficult to get at you. You’re so jolly artful.”

“Tell me how you managed it.”

“There’s a little bridge for signals just outside Waterloo. I could see that the train would have to pass under it. So I climbed up and waited. It being a foggy night, you see, nobody twigged me. I say, you are Prince Blank, ain’t you?”

“I am Prince Blank.”

“Should have been mad if I’d landed the wrong man.”

“Go on.”

“I knew which was your carriage — leastways, I guessed it; and as it came along, I did a drop.” Tommy spread out her arms and legs to illustrate the action. “The lamps, you know,” explained Tommy, still dabbing at her face—”one of them caught me.”

“And from the roof?”

“Oh, well, it was easy after that. There’s an iron thing at the back, and steps. You’ve only got to walk downstairs and round the corner, and there you are. Bit of luck your other door not being locked. I hadn’t thought of that. Haven’t got such a thing as a handkerchief about you, have you?”

The Prince drew one from his sleeve and passed it to her. “You mean to tell me, boy—”

“Ain’t a boy,” explained Tommy. “I’m a girl!”

She said it sadly. Deeming her new friends such as could be trusted, Tommy had accepted their statement that she really was a girl. But for many a long year to come the thought of her lost manhood tinged her voice with bitterness.

“A girl!”

Tommy nodded her head.

“Umph!” said the Prince; “I have heard a good deal about the English girl. I was beginning to think it exaggerated. Stand up.”

Tommy obeyed. It was not altogether her way; but with those eyes beneath their shaggy brows bent upon her, it seemed the simplest thing to do.

“So. And now that you are here, what do you want?”

“To interview you.”

Tommy drew forth her list of questions.

The shaggy brows contracted.

“Who put you up to this absurdity? Who was it? Tell me at once.”

“Nobody.”

“Don’t lie to me. His name?”

The terrible, small eyes flashed fire. But Tommy also had a pair of eyes. Before their blaze of indignation the great man positively quailed. This type of opponent was new to him.

“I’m not lying.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Prince.

And at this point it occurred to the Prince, who being really a great man, had naturally a sense of humour, that a conference conducted on these lines between the leading statesman of an Empire and an impertinent hussy of, say, twelve years old at the outside, might end by becoming ridiculous. So the Prince took up his chair and put it down again beside Tommy’s, and employing skilfully his undoubted diplomatic gifts, drew from her bit by bit the whole story.

“I’m inclined, Miss Jane,” said the Great Man, the story ended, “to agree with our friend Mr. Hope. I should say your
métier
was journalism.”

“And you’ll let me interview you?” asked Tommy, showing her white teeth.

The Great Man, laying a hand heavier than he guessed on Tommy’s shoulder, rose. “I think you are entitled to it.”

“What’s your views?” demanded Tommy, reading, “of the future political and social relationships—”

“Perhaps,” suggested the Great Man, “it will be simpler if I write it myself.”

“Well,” concurred Tommy; “my spelling is a bit rocky.”

The Great Man drew a chair to the table.

“You won’t miss out anything — will you?” insisted Tommy.

“I shall endeavour, Miss Jane, to give you no cause for complaint,” gravely he assured her, and sat down to write.

Not till the train began to slacken speed had the Prince finished. Then, blotting and refolding the paper, he stood up.

“I have added some instructions on the back of the last page,” explained the Prince, “to which you will draw Mr. Hope’s particular attention. I would wish you to promise me, Miss Jane, never again to have recourse to dangerous acrobatic tricks, not even in the sacred cause of journalism.”

“Of course, if you hadn’t been so jolly difficult to get at—”

“My fault, I know,” agreed the Prince. “There is not the least doubt as to which sex you belong to. Nevertheless, I want you to promise me. Come,” urged the Prince, “I have done a good deal for you — more than you know.”

“All right,” consented Tommy a little sulkily. Tommy hated making promises, because she always kept them. “I promise.”

“There is your Interview.” The first Southampton platform lamp shone in upon the Prince and Tommy as they stood facing one another. The Prince, who had acquired the reputation, not altogether unjustly, of an ill-tempered and savage old gentleman, did a strange thing: taking the little, blood-smeared face between his paws, he kissed it. Tommy always remembered the smoky flavour of the bristly grey moustache.

“One thing more,” said the Prince sternly—”not a word of all this. Don’t open your mouth to speak of it till you are back in Gough Square.”

“Do you take me for a mug?” answered Tommy.

They behaved very oddly to Tommy after the Prince had disappeared. Everybody took a deal of trouble for her, but none of them seemed to know why they were doing it. They looked at her and went away, and came again and looked at her. And the more they thought about it, the more puzzled they became. Some of them asked her questions, but what Tommy really didn’t know, added to what she didn’t mean to tell, was so prodigious that Curiosity itself paled at contemplation of it.

They washed and brushed her up and gave her an excellent supper; and putting her into a first-class compartment labelled “Reserved,” sent her back to Waterloo, and thence in a cab to Gough Square, where she arrived about midnight, suffering from a sense of self-importance, traces of which to this day are still discernible.

Such and thus was the beginning of all things. Tommy, having talked for half an hour at the rate of two hundred words a minute, had suddenly dropped her head upon the table, had been aroused with difficulty and persuaded to go to bed. Peter, in the deep easy-chair before the fire, sat long into the night. Elizabeth, liking quiet company, purred softly. Out of the shadows crept to Peter Hope an old forgotten dream — the dream of a wonderful new Journal, price one penny weekly, of which the Editor should come to be one Thomas Hope, son of Peter Hope, its honoured Founder and Originator: a powerful Journal that should supply a long-felt want, popular, but at the same time elevating — a pleasure to the public, a profit to its owners. “Do you not remember me?” whispered the Dream. “We had long talks together. The morning and the noonday pass. The evening still is ours. The twilight also brings its promise.”

Elizabeth stopped purring and looked up surprised. Peter was laughing to himself.

STORY THE SECOND — William Clodd appoints himself Managing Director

Mrs. Postwhistle sat on a Windsor-chair in the centre of Rolls Court. Mrs. Postwhistle, who, in the days of her Hebehood, had been likened by admiring frequenters of the old Mitre in Chancery Lane to the ladies, somewhat emaciated, that an English artist, since become famous, was then commencing to popularise, had developed with the passing years, yet still retained a face of placid youthfulness. The two facts, taken in conjunction, had resulted in an asset to her income not to be despised. The wanderer through Rolls Court this summer’s afternoon, presuming him to be familiar with current journalism, would have retired haunted by the sense that the restful-looking lady on the Windsor-chair was someone that he ought to know. Glancing through almost any illustrated paper of the period, the problem would have been solved for him. A photograph of Mrs. Postwhistle, taken quite recently, he would have encountered with this legend: “
Before
use of Professor Hardtop’s certain cure for corpulency.” Beside it a photograph of Mrs. Postwhistle, then Arabella Higgins, taken twenty years ago, the legend slightly varied: “
After
use,” etc. The face was the same, the figure — there was no denying it — had undergone decided alteration.

Mrs. Postwhistle had reached with her chair the centre of Rolls Court in course of following the sun. The little shop, over the lintel of which ran: “Timothy Postwhistle, Grocer and Provision Merchant,” she had left behind her in the shadow. Old inhabitants of St. Dunstan-in-the-West retained recollection of a gentlemanly figure, always in a very gorgeous waistcoat, with Dundreary whiskers, to be seen occasionally there behind the counter. All customers it would refer, with the air of a Lord High Chamberlain introducing
débutantes
, to Mrs. Postwhistle, evidently regarding itself purely as ornamental. For the last ten years, however, no one had noticed it there, and Mrs. Postwhistle had a facility amounting almost to genius for ignoring or misunderstanding questions it was not to her taste to answer. Most things were suspected, nothing known. St. Dunstan-in-the-West had turned to other problems.

“If I wasn’t wanting to see ‘im,” remarked to herself Mrs. Postwhistle, who was knitting with one eye upon the shop, “‘e’d a been ‘ere ‘fore I’d ‘ad time to clear the dinner things away; certain to ‘ave been. It’s a strange world.”

Mrs. Postwhistle was desirous for the arrival of a gentleman not usually awaited with impatience by the ladies of Rolls Court — to wit, one William Clodd, rent-collector, whose day for St. Dunstan-in-the-West was Tuesday.

“At last,” said Mrs. Postwhistle, though without hope that Mr. Clodd, who had just appeared at the other end of the court, could possibly hear her. “Was beginning to be afraid as you’d tumbled over yerself in your ‘urry and ‘urt yerself.”

Mr. Clodd, perceiving Mrs. Postwhistle, decided to abandon method and take No. 7 first.

Mr. Clodd was a short, thick-set, bullet-headed young man, with ways that were bustling, and eyes that, though kind, suggested trickiness.

“Ah!” said Mr. Clodd admiringly, as he pocketed the six half-crowns that the lady handed up to him. “If only they were all like you, Mrs. Postwhistle!”

“Wouldn’t be no need of chaps like you to worry ‘em,” pointed out Mrs. Postwhistle.

“It’s an irony of fate, my being a rent-collector, when you come to think of it,” remarked Mr. Clodd, writing out the receipt. “If I had my way, I’d put an end to landlordism, root and branch. Curse of the country.”

“Just the very thing I wanted to talk to you about,” returned the lady—”that lodger o’ mine.”

“Ah! don’t pay, don’t he? You just hand him over to me. I’ll soon have it out of him.”