2
A grey sadness surged over Bill Dawlish. The sun hid itself behinda cloud, the sky took on a leaden hue, and a chill wind blewthrough the world. He scanned Shaftesbury Avenue with a jaundicedeye, and thought that he had never seen a beastlier thoroughfare.Piccadilly, however, into which he shortly dragged himself, waseven worse. It was full of men and women and other depressingthings.
He pitied himself profoundly. It was a rotten world to live in,this, where a fellow couldn't say _noblesse oblige_ withoutupsetting the universe. Why shouldn't a fellow say _noblesseoblige?_ Why--? At this juncture Lord Dawlish walked into alamp-post.
The shock changed his mood. Gloom still obsessed him, but blendednow with remorse. He began to look at the matter from Claire'sviewpoint, and his pity switched from himself to her. In the firstplace, the poor girl had rather a rotten time. Could she be blamedfor wanting him to make money? No. Yet whenever she made suggestionsas to how the thing was to be done, he snubbed her by saying_noblesse oblige_. Naturally a refined and sensitive young girlobjected to having things like _noblesse oblige_ said to her. Wherewas the sense in saying _noblesse oblige_? Such a confoundedly sillything to say. Only a perfect ass would spend his time rushing aboutthe place saying _noblesse oblige_ to people.
'By Jove!' Lord Dawlish stopped in his stride. He disentangledhimself from a pedestrian who had rammed him on the back. 'I'll doit!'
He hailed a passing taxi and directed the driver to make for thePen and Ink Club.
The decision at which Bill had arrived with such dramaticsuddenness in the middle of Piccadilly was the same at which somecenturies earlier Columbus had arrived in the privacy of his home.
'Hang it!' said Bill to himself in the cab, 'I'll go to America!'The exact words probably which Columbus had used, talking thething over with his wife.
Bill's knowledge of the great republic across the sea was at thisperiod of his life a little sketchy. He knew that there had beenunpleasantness between England and the United States inseventeen-something and again in eighteen-something, but thatthings had eventually been straightened out by Miss Edna Mayand her fellow missionaries of the Belle of New York Company,since which time there had been no more trouble. Of Americancocktails he had a fair working knowledge, and he appreciatedragtime. But of the other great American institutions he wascompletely ignorant.
He was on his way now to see Gates. Gates was a comparativelyrecent addition to his list of friends, a New York newspapermanwho had come to England a few months before to act as his paper'sLondon correspondent. He was generally to be found at the Pen andInk Club, an institution affiliated with the New York Players, ofwhich he was a member.
Gates was in. He had just finished lunch.
'What's the trouble, Bill?' he inquired, when he had deposited hislordship in a corner of the reading-room, which he had selectedbecause silence was compulsory there, thus rendering it possiblefor two men to hear each other speak. 'What brings you charging inhere looking like the Soul's Awakening?'
'I've had an idea, old man.'
'Proceed. Continue.'
'Oh! Well, you remember what you were saying about America?'
'What was I saying about America?'
'The other day, don't you remember? What a lot of money there wasto be made there and so forth.'
'Well?'
'I'm going there.'
'To America?'
'Yes.'
'To make money?'
'Rather.'
Gates nodded--sadly, it seemed to Bill. He was rather a melancholyyoung man, with a long face not unlike a pessimistic horse.
'Gosh!' he said.
Bill felt a little damped. By no mental juggling could he construe'Gosh!' into an expression of enthusiastic approbation.
Gates looked at Bill curiously. 'What's the idea?' he said. 'Icould have understood it if you had told me that you were going toNew York for pleasure, instructing your man Willoughby to see thatthe trunks were jolly well packed and wiring to the skipper ofyour yacht to meet you at Liverpool. But you seem to have sordidmotives. You talk about making money. What do you want with moremoney?'
'Why, I'm devilish hard up.'
'Tenantry a bit slack with the rent?' said Gates sympathetically.
Bill laughed.
'My dear chap, I don't know what on earth you're talking about.How much money do you think I've got? Four hundred pounds a year,and no prospect of ever making more unless I sweat for it.'
'What! I always thought you were rolling in money.'
'What gave you that idea?'
'You have a prosperous look. It's a funny thing about England.I've known you four months, and I know men who know you; but I'venever heard a word about your finances. In New York we all wearlabels, stating our incomes and prospects in clear lettering.Well, if it's like that it's different, of course. There certainlyis more money to be made in America than here. I don't quite seewhat you think you're going to do when you get there, but that'sup to you.
'There's no harm in giving the city a trial. Anyway, I can giveyou a letter or two that might help.'
'That's awfully good of you.'
'You won't mind my alluding to you as my friend William Smith?'
'William Smith?'
'You can't travel under your own name if you are really seriousabout getting a job. Mind you, if my letters lead to anything itwill probably be a situation as an earnest bill-clerk or aneffervescent office-boy, for Rockefeller and Carnegie and that lothave swiped all the soft jobs. But if you go over as Lord Dawlishyou won't even get that. Lords are popular socially in America,but are not used to any great extent in the office. If you try tobreak in under your right name you'll get the glad hand and beasked to stay here and there and play a good deal of golf anddance quite a lot, but you won't get a job. A gentle smile willgreet all your pleadings that you be allowed to come in and savethe firm.'
'I see.'
'We may look on Smith as a necessity.'
'Do you know, I'm not frightfully keen on the name Smith. Wouldn'tsomething else do?'
'Sure. We aim to please. How would Jones suit you?'
'The trouble is, you know, that if I took a name I wasn't used toI might forget it.'
'If you've the sort of mind that would forget Jones I doubt ifever you'll be a captain of industry.'
'Why not Chalmers?'
'You think it easier to memorize than Jones?'
'It used to be my name, you see, before I got the title.'
'I see. All right. Chalmers then. When do you think of starting?'
'To-morrow.'
'You aren't losing much time. By the way, as you're going to NewYork you might as well use my flat.'
'It's awfully good of you.'
'Not a bit. You would be doing me a favour. I had to leave at amoment's notice, and I want to know what's been happening to theplace. I left some Japanese prints there, and my favouritenightmare is that someone has broken in and sneaked them. Writedown the address--Forty-three East Twenty-seventh Street. I'llsend you the key to Brown's to-night with those letters.'
Bill walked up the Strand, glowing with energy. He made his way toCockspur Street to buy his ticket for New York. This done, he setout to Brown's to arrange with the committee the details of hisdeparture.
He reached Brown's at twenty minutes past two and left it again attwenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hallporter had handed him a telephone message. The telephoneattendants at London clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. Theone in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paperthe words: '1 p.m. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call uponMr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a messageconsisting of two words: 'Good news.'
It was stimulating. The probability was that all Jerry Nicholswanted to tell him was that he had received stable informationabout some horse or had been given a box for the Empire, but forall that it was stimulating.
Bill looked at his watch. He could spare half an hour. He set outat
once for the offices of the eminent law firm of Nichols,Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols, of which aggregation of Nicholseshis friend Jerry was the last and smallest.