“We have sixteen peers on the staff. Which was you referring to?”
“I wish to see Lord Copper.”
“Ho. Cyril, show this gentleman to a chair and give him a form.”
A minute blue figure led William to a desk and gave him a piece of paper. William filled it in.”Mr. Boot wishes to see Lord Copper. Subject: great crested grebes.”
Cyril took the paper to the concierge, who read it, looked searchingly at William and mouthed, “Fetch the gentleman.”
William was led forward.
“You wish to see Lord Copper?”
“Yes, please.”
“Ho, no you don’t. Not about great crested grebes.”
“And badgers too,” said William. “It is rather a long story.”
“I’ll be bound it is. Tell you what, you go across the street and tell it to Lord Zinc at the Daily Brute office. That’ll do just as well, now won’t it?”
“I’ve got an appointment,” said William, and produced his telegram.
The concierge read it thoughtfully, held it up to the light, and said “Ah”; read it again and said: “What you want to see is Mr. Salter. Cyril, give the gentleman another form.”
Five minutes later William found himself in the office of the Foreign Editor.
It was an encounter of great embarrassment for both of them. For William it was the hour of retribution; he advanced, heavy with guilt, to meet whatever doom had been decreed for him. Mr. Salter had the more active part. He was under orders to be cordial and spring Lord Copper’s proposal on the poor hick when he had won his confidence by light conversation and heavy hospitality.
His knowledge of rural life was meager. He had been born in West Kensington and educated at a large London day-school. When not engaged in one or other capacity in the vast Megalopolitan organization he led a life of blameless domesticity in Welwyn Garden City. His annual holiday was, more often than not, spent at home; once or twice when Mrs. Salter complained of being run down, they had visited prosperous resorts on the East Coast. “The country,” for him, meant what you saw in the train between Liverpool Street and Frinton. If a psycho-analyst, testing his associations, had suddenly said to Mr. Salter the word “farm,” the surprising response would have been “Bang,” for he had once been blown up and buried while sheltering in a farm in Flanders. It was his single intimate association with the soil. It had left him with the obstinate though admittedly irrational belief that agriculture was something alien and highly dangerous. Normal life, as he saw it, consisted in regular journeys by electric train, monthly checks, communal amusements and a cozy horizon of slates and chimneys; there was something un-English and not quite right about “the country,” with its solitude and self-sufficiency, its bloody recreations, its darkness and silence and sudden, inexplicable noises; the kind of place where you never know from one minute to the next that you might not be tossed by a bull or pitch-forked by a yokel or rolled over and broken up by a pack of hounds.
He had been round the office canvassing opinions about the subjects of conversation proper to countrymen. “Mangel-wurzels are a safe topic,” he had been told, “only you mustn’t call them that. It’s a subject on which farmers are very touchy. Call them roots…”
He greeted William with cordiality. “Ah, Boot, how are you? Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure before. Know your work well of course. Sit down. Have a cigarette or”—had he made a floater?—“or do you prefer your churchwarden?”
William took a cigarette. He and Mr. Salter sat opposite one another. Between them, on the desk, lay an open atlas in which Mr. Salter had been vainly trying to find Reykjavik.
There was a pause, during which Mr. Salter planned a frank and disarming opening. “How are your roots, Boot?” It came out wrong.
“How are your boots, root?” he asked.
William, glumly awaiting some fulminating rebuke, started and said, “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean brute,” said Mr. Salter.
William gave it up. Mr. Salter gave it up. They sat staring at one another, fascinated, hopeless. Then:
“How’s hunting?” asked Mr. Salter, trying a new line. “Foxes pretty plentiful?”
“Well we stop in the summer, you know.”
“Do you? Everyone away, I suppose?”
Another pause: “Lot of foot and mouth, I expect,” said Mr. Salter hopefully.
“None, I’m thankful to say.”
“Oh.”
Their eyes fell. They both looked at the atlas before them.
“You don’t happen to know where Reykjavik is?”
“No.”
“Pity. I hoped you might. No one in the office does.”
“Was that what you wanted to see me about?”
“Oh no, not at all. Quite the contrary.”
Another pause.
William saw what was up. This decent little man had been deputed to sack him and could not get it out. He came to the rescue. “I expect you want to talk about the great crested grebe.”
“Good God, no,” said Mr. Salter, with instinctive horror, adding politely, “At least not unless you do.”
“No, not at all,” said William, “I thought you might want to.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Salter.
“That’s all right then.”
“Yes, that’s all right…” Desperately: “I say, how about some zider?”
“Zider?”
“Yes. I expect you feel like a drop of zider about this time, don’t you? We’ll go out and have some.”
The journalists in the film had been addicted to straight rye. Silent but wondering William followed the Foreign Editor. They shared the lift with a very extraordinary man, bald, young, fleshless as a mummy, dressed in brown and white checks, smoking a cheroot. “He does the Sports page now,” said Mr. Salter apologetically, when he was out of hearing.
In the public house at the corner, where the Beast reporters congregated, the barmaid took their order with surprise. “Cider? I’ll see.” Then she produced two bottles of sweet and fizzy liquid. William and Mr. Salter sipped suspiciously.
“Not quite what you’re used to down on the farm, I’m afraid.”
“Well to tell you the truth I don’t often drink it. We give it to the haymakers of course and I sometimes have some of theirs.” Then, fearing that this might sound snobbish, he added, “My Uncle Bernard drinks it for his rheumatism.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t sooner have something else?”
“No.”
“You mean you wouldn’t?”
“I mean I would.”
“Really?”
“Really; much sooner.”
“Good for you, Garge,” said Mr. Salter, and from that moment a new, more human note was apparent in their relationship; conversation was still far from easy but they had this bond in common, that neither of them liked cider.
Mr. Salter clung to it strenuously. “Interesting you don’t like cider,” he said. “Neither do I.”
“No,” said William. “I never have since I was sick as a small boy, in the hay field.”
“It upsets me inside.”
“Exactly.”
“Now whisky never did anyone any harm.”
“No.”
Interest seemed to flag. Mr. Salter tried once more. “Make much parsnip wine down your way?”
“Not much…” It was clearly his turn now. He sipped and thought and finally said: “Pretty busy at the office I expect?”
“Yes, very.”
“Tell me—I’ve often wondered—do you keep a machine of your own or send out to the printers.”
“We have machines of our own.”
“Do you? They must work jolly fast.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, you have to get it written and printed and corrected and everything, all on the same day, otherwise the news would become stale. People would have heard it on the wireless, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“D’y
ou do much of the printing yourself?”
“No. You see I’m the Foreign Editor.”
“I suppose that’s why you wanted to find Reyjkavik.”
“Yes.”
“Jolly difficult knowing where all these places are.”
“Yes.”
“So many of them I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Never been abroad myself.”
This seemed too good an opening to be missed. “Would you like to go to Ishmaelia?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“Not at all. For one thing I couldn’t afford the fare.”
“Oh, we would pay the fare,” said Mr. Salter, laughing indulgently.
So that was it. Transportation. The sense of persecution which had haunted William for the last three hours took palpable and grotesque shape before him. It was too much. Conscious of a just cause and a free soul he rose and defied the nightmare. “Really,” he said, in ringing tones, “I call that a bit thick. I admit I slipped up on the great crested grebe, slipped up badly. As it happened it was not my fault. I came here prepared to explain, apologize and, if need be, make reparation. You refused to listen to me. @Good God, no@ you said, when I offered to explain. And now you calmly propose to ship me out of the country because of a trifling and, in my opinion, justifiable error. Who does Lord Copper think he is? The mind boggles at the vanity of the man. If he chooses to forget my eighteen months’ devoted and unremitting labor in his service, he is, I admit, entitled to dismiss me…”
“Boot, Boot old man,” cried Mr. Salter. “You’ve got this all wrong. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, you have no more ardent admirer than Lord Copper. He wants you to work for him in Ishmaelia.”
“Would he pay my fare back?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Oh, that’s rather different… Even so it seems a silly sort of scheme. I mean, how will it look in Lush Places when I start writing about sandstorms and lions and whatever they have in Ishmaelia? Not lush, I mean.”
“Let me tell you about it at dinner.”
They took a taxicab down Fleet Street and the Strand to the grill room where the Beast staff always entertained when they were doing so at the paper’s expense.
“Do you really want tinned salmon?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Quite sure.”
Mr. Salter regarded his guest with renewed approval and handed him the menu.
The esteem William had won by his distaste for cider and tinned salmon, survived the ordering of dinner. William did not, as had seemed only too likely, demand pickled walnuts and Cornish pasties; nor did he, like the Buda-Pest correspondent whom Mr. Salter had last entertained in his room, draw attention to himself by calling for exotic Magyar dishes and, on finding no one qualified to make them, insist on preparing for himself, with chafing dish and spirit lamp, before a congregation of puzzled waiters, a nauseous sauce of sweet peppers, honey and almonds. He ordered a mixed grill and while he was eating Mr. Salter attempted, artfully, to kindle his enthusiasm for the new project.
“See that man there, that’s Pappenhacker.”
William looked and saw.
“Yes?”
“The cleverest man in Fleet Street.”
William looked again. Pappenhacker was young and swarthy, with great horn goggles and a receding stubbly chin. He was having an altercation with some waiters.
“Yes?”
“He’s going to Ishmaelia for The Twopence.”
“He seems to be in a very bad temper.”
“Not really. He’s always like that to waiters. You see he’s a communist. Most of the staff of The Twopence are—they’re University men, you see. Pappenhacker says that every time you are polite to a proletarian you are helping to bolster up the capitalist system. He’s very clever of course, but he gets rather unpopular.”
“He looks as if he were going to hit them.”
“Yes, he does sometimes. Quite a lot of restaurants won’t have him in. You see, you’ll meet a lot of interesting people when you go to Ishmaelia.”
“Mightn’t it be rather dangerous?”
Mr. Salter smiled; to him, it was as though an Arctic explorer had expressed a fear that the weather might turn cold. “Nothing to what you are used to in the country,” he said. “You’ll be surprised to find how far the war correspondents keep from the fighting. Why Hitchcock reported the whole Abyssinia campaign from Asmara and gave us some of the most colorful, eyewitness stuff we ever printed. In any case your life will be insured by the paper for five thousand pounds. No, no, Boot, I don’t think you need to worry about risk.”
“And you’d go on paying me my wages?”
“Certainly.”
“And my fare there and back, and my expenses?”
“Yes.”
William thought the matter over carefully. At length he said: “No.”
“No?”
“No. It’s very kind of you but I think I would sooner not go. I don’t like the idea at all.” He looked at his watch. “I must be going to Paddington soon to catch my train.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Salter. “I don’t think you have fully understood the situation. Lord Copper is particularly interested in your work and, to be frank, he insists on your going. We are willing to pay a very fair salary. Fifty pounds a week was the sum suggested.”
“Gosh,” said William.
“And think what you can make on your expenses,” urged Mr. Salter. “At least another twenty. I happened to see Hitchcock’s expense sheet when he was working for us in Shanghai. He charged three hundred pounds for camels alone.”
“But I don’t think I shall know what to do with a camel.”
Mr. Salter saw he was not making his point clear. “Take a single example,” he said. “Supposing you want to have dinner. Well, you go to a restaurant and do yourself proud, best of everything. Bill perhaps may be two pounds. Well, you put down five pounds for entertainment on your expenses. You’ve had a slap-up dinner, you’re three pounds to the good, and everyone is satisfied.”
“But you see I don’t like restaurants and no one pays for dinner at home anyway. The servants just bring it in.”
“Or supposing you want to send flowers to your girl. You just go to a shop, send a great spray of orchids and put them down as @Information@.”
“But I haven’t got a girl and there are heaps of flowers at home.” He looked at his watch again. “Well, I’m afraid I must be going. You see I have a day-return ticket. I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll consult my family and let you know in a week or two.”
“Lord Copper wants you to leave tomorrow.”
“Oh. I couldn’t do that anyway, you know. I haven’t packed or anything. And I daresay I should need some new clothes. Oh, no, that’s out of the question.”
“We might offer a larger salary.”
“Oh, no thank you. It isn’t that. It’s just that I don’t want to go.”
“Is there nothing you want?”
“D’you know, I don’t believe there is. Except to keep my job in Lush Places and go on living at home.”
It was a familiar cry; during his fifteen years of service with the Megalopolitan Company Mr. Salter had heard it upon the lips of countless distressed colleagues; upon his own. In a moment of compassion he remembered the morning when he had been called from his desk in Clean Fun, never to return to it. The post had been his delight and pride; one for which he believed he had a particular aptitude… First he would open the morning mail and sort the jokes sent him by the private contributors (one man sent him thirty or forty a week) into those that were familiar, those that were indecent, and those that deserved the half-crown postal order payable upon publication. Then he would spend an hour or two with the bound Punches noting whatever seemed topical. Then the ingenious game began of fitting these legends to the funny illustrations previously chosen for him by the Art Editor. Serene and delicate sunrise on a da
y of tempest! From this task of ordered discrimination he had been thrown into the ruthless, cut-throat, rough and tumble of the Beast Woman’s Page. From there, crushed and bedraggled, he had been tossed into the editorial chair of the Imperial and Foreign News… His heart bled for William but he was true to the austere traditions of his service. He made the reply that had silenced so many resentful novices in the past.
“Oh, but Lord Copper expects his staff to work wherever the best interests of the paper call them. I don’t think he would employ anyone of whose loyalty he was doubtful, in any capacity.”
“You mean if I don’t go to Ishmaelia I get the sack?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Salter. “In so many words that is exactly what I—what Lord Copper means… Won’t you have a glass of port before we return to the office?”
Three
An oddly placed, square window rising shoulder high from the low wainscot, fringed outside with ivy, brushed by the boughs of a giant monkey-puzzle; a stretch of faded wallpaper on which hung a water color of the village churchyard painted in her more active days by Miss Scope, a small shelf of ill-assorted books and a stuffed ferret, whose death from rat-poisoning had over-shadowed the whole of one Easter holiday from his private school—these, according as he woke on his right or left side, greeted William daily at Boot Magna.
On the morning after his interview with Mr. Salter, he opened his eyes, relieved from a night haunted by Lord Copper in a hundred frightful forms, to find himself in black darkness; his first thought was that there were still some hours to go before daylight; then as he remembered the season of the year and the vast, semi-conscious periods through which he had passed, in the intervals of being pursued down badger runs in the showy plumage of the great crested grebe, he accepted the more harrowing alternative that he had been struck blind; then that he was mad, for a bell was ringing insistently a few inches, it seemed, from his ear. He sat up in bed and found that he was bare to the waist; totally bare, he learned by further researches. He stretched out his arm and found a telephone; as he lifted it, the ringing stopped; a voice said, “Mr. Salter on the line.” Then he remembered the awful occurrence of the previous evening.