CHAPTER XIV.
A CHANGE OF LUCK.
Quite apart from all that came of it, this visit to Guildford wassomething of a psychological experience at the time. The devotion ofHarry Ringrose to his first school had been for years second only tohis love for his old home, and now that the old home was his no longer,the old school was the place he loved best on earth. He knew it when hesaw the well-remembered building once more in the golden light of thatsummer's evening. He knew it when he knelt in the school chapel andheard the most winning of human voices reading the school prayers. Thechapel was new since Harry's day, but the prayers were not, and theyreminded him of his own worst acts since he had heard them last. Mr.Innes sang tenor in the hymn, as he had always done, and Harry kept hisear on the voice he so loved; but the hymn itself was one of his oldfavourites, associated for ever with his first school, and it remindedhim too. He looked about him, among the broad white collars, theinnocent pink faces, and the open, singing mouths. He wondered which ofthe boys were leaving this term, and if one of them would leave withbetter resolutions than he had taken away with him seven years before... and yet.... He had not been worse than others, but better perhapsthan many; and yet there seemed no measure to his vileness, therecertainly was none to his remorse, as he knelt again and prayed as heseemed never to have prayed since he was himself a little boy there atschool. Then the organ pealed, and Mr. Innes went down the aisle withhis grave fine face and his swinging stride. Mrs. Innes and Harry wentnext; the masters followed in their black gowns; and they all formedline in the passage outside, and the boys filed past and shook handsand said good-night on their way up to the dormitories.
Harry's visit extended over some days, and afterwards he used sometimesto wish that he had cut it short after the first delightful night. Hewas a creature of moods, and only a few minutes of each day were spentin chapel. It was a novel satisfaction to him to smoke his pipe withhis old schoolmaster, to talk to him as man to man, and he knew toolate that he had talked too much. He did not mean to be bombastic abouthis African adventures, but he was anxious that Mr. Innes shouldrealise how much he had seen. Harry was in fact a little self-consciouswith the man he had worn in his heart so many years, a littledisappointed at being treated as an old boy rather than as a young man,and more eager to be entertaining than entertained. So when he came tothe end of his own repertoire he related with enthusiasm some of theexploits of Gordon Lowndes. But the enthusiasm evaporated in theprocess, for Mr. Innes did not disguise his disapproval of the type ofman described. And Harry himself saw Lowndes in a different lighthenceforth; for this is what it is to be so young and impressionable,and so keenly alive to the influence of others.
The best as well as the strongest influence Harry had ever known wasthat of Mr. Innes himself. He felt it as much now as ever he haddone--and in old days it had been of Innes that he would think in hisremorse for wrongdoing, and how it would hurt Innes that a boy of hisshould fall so far short of his teaching. It never occurred to him thenthat his hero was probably a man of the world after all, capable ofhuman sympathy with human weakness, and even liable to human error onhis own account. Nor did this strike him now--for Harry Ringrose was asyet too far from being a man of the world himself. The old idolatry wasas strong in him as ever. And the old taint of personal emulation stilltook a little from its worth.
"If only I could be more like you!" he broke out when Mr. Innes hadspoken a kind, strong word or two as Harry was going. "I used to try sohard--I will again!"
"What, to get like me?" said Innes with a laugh. "I hope you'll be amuch better man than I am, Harry. But it's time you gave up trying tobe like anybody."
"How do you mean?" asked Harry, his enthusiasm rather damped.
"Be yourself, old fellow."
"But myself is such a poor sort of thing!"
"Never mind. Try to make yourself strong; but don't think aboutyourself. Don't you see the distinction? Only think about doing yourduty and helping others; the less you dwell upon yourself, the easierthat will be. Good-bye, old fellow. Let me know how you get on."
"Good-bye, sir," said Harry. "You don't know how you help me! You aresending me away with a new thought altogether. I will do my best. Iwill indeed."
"I know you will," said Mr. Innes.
So ended the visit.
* * * * *
The new thought made its mark on Harry's character, but it was not allthat he brought away with him from Guildford. The visit fired a trainof sufficiently important material results, though the fuse burntslowly, and for weeks did not seem to be burning at all. Harry cameaway with the match in his pocket, in the shape of a letter ofintroduction to a firm of scholastic agents.
Mr. Innes had by no means encouraged his old boy to try to become aschoolmaster; he feared that the two years in Africa would tell againstHarry rather than in his favour, and then without a degree there wasabsolutely no future. He thought better of Harry's chances inliterature. It was he who had encouraged the boy's very earliestliterary leanings and attempts, and he took the kindest view of theaccepted verses, of which he was shown a copy; but when he heard of themany failures which had followed that one exceeding small success, andof all the repulses which Harry had met with in the City, his oldmaster was silent for some minutes, after which he sat down at his deskand wrote the introduction there and then.
"These fellows will get you something if anybody can," he had said;and, indeed, the gentlemen in question, on whom Harry called on his wayback to Kensington, seemed confident of getting him something withoutdelay. He had come to them in the very nick of time for next term'svacancies. They would send him immediately, and from day to day,particulars of posts for which he could apply; they had the filling ofso many, there was little doubt but that he would obtain what he wantedbefore long. Their charge would be simply five per cent. on the firstyear's salary, which would probably be fifty pounds, or sixty if theywere lucky.
Harry went home jubilant. The agents had taken down his name and hisfather's name without question or comment. They declined to regard theyears in Africa as a serious disqualification, much less since he hadbeen a tutor there; and Harry began to think that Mr. Innes had takenan unnecessarily black view of his chances. He knew better in a fewweeks' time.
It is true that at first he had a thick letter every day, containingthe promised particulars of several posts. How used he grew to theclerk's mauve round hand, to the thin sheets of paper damp from thegelatine that laid each opening before Heaven knew how manyapplicants--to the unvarying formula employed! The Reverend So-and-So,of Dashton, Blankshire, would require in September the services of ajunior master, possessing qualifications thereupon stated with thesalary offered. The vacant posts were in all parts of the country, andthe sanguine Harry pictured himself in almost every county in Englandwhile awaiting his fate in one quarter after another. In few cases werethe qualifications more than he actually possessed, for he was at leastcapable of taking the lowest form in a preparatory school, while hecould truthfully describe himself as being "fond of games." But theagents' clients would have none of him, and as time went on the agents'envelopes grew thin with single enclosures, and came to hand only oncein a way.
And yet several head-masters wrote kindly answers to Harry'sapplication, and two or three seemed on the verge of engaging him. Someinterviewed him at the agents' offices, and one had him down toluncheon at his school, paying Harry's fare all the way intoHertfordshire and back. Another only rejected him because Harry was nota fast round-hand bowler, and a fast round-hand bowler wasessential--not for the school matches, in which the masters took nopart, but for the town, for which they played regularly every Saturday:the music-master bowled slow left, and fast right was indispensable atthe other end. But the failures that were all but successes were onlythe harder to bear, and the bitter fact remained that the lad was nomore wanted in the schoolroom than in the office. It struck himsometimes as a grim commentary on the education he had himselfreceived.
A thousand or two had been spent upon it, and he had not leftschool a dunce. He knew as much, perhaps, as the average boy on goingup to the university from a public school, and of what use was it tohim? It did not enable him to earn his bread. He felt some bitternessagainst the system which had taught him to swim only with the life-beltof influence and money. It had been his fate to be pitched overboardwithout one.
Not that he was idle all this time. In the dreadful dog-days, when nonebut the poor were left in London, and the heat in the little flatbecame well-nigh insupportable, so that poor Mrs. Ringrose was quiteprostrate from its effects, her son sat in his shirt and trousers andplied his pen again in sheer desperation. He wrote out the trueincident which he had been advised would make a capital magazinearticle if written down just as he told it. So he tried to do so; andsent the result to _Uncle Tom_. It came back almost by return of post,with a civil note from the Editor, saying that he could not use thestory as the end was so unsatisfactory. It was unsatisfactory becausethe story happened to be true, and the author never thought of meddlingwith the facts, though he weighted his work with several immaterialpoints which he had forgotten when telling the tale verbally. He nowflew to the opposite extreme, and dashed off a brief romanceunadulterated by a solitary fact or a single instance of originalobservation. This was begun with ambitious ideas of a match with someshilling monthly, but it was only offered to the penny weeklies, andwas burnt unprinted some few months later.
One day, however, the day on which Harry went down to Hertfordshire ata pedagogue's expense, and was coming back heavy with the knowledgethat he would not do, the spirit moved him to invest a penny in a comicpaper with a considerable vogue. He needed something to cheer him up,and for all he knew this sheet might be good or bad enough to make himsmile; it was neither, but it proved to be the best investment he hadever made. It contained a conspicuous notice to contributors, and anumber of sets of intentionally droll verses on topics of the week.Before Harry got out at King's Cross he had the rough draft of such aproduction on his shirtcuff; he wrote it out and sent it off thatnight; and it appeared in the very next issue of that comic pennyworth.
And this time Harry felt that he had done something that he could doagain; but days passed without a word from the Editor, and it lookedvery much as though the one thing he could do would prove to be unpaidwork. At length he determined to find out. The paper's strange name was_Tommy Tiddler_ ("St. Thomas must be your patron saint," said Mrs.Ringrose), and its funereal offices were in a court off the Strand.Harry blundered into the counting-house and asked to see the Editor, atwhich an elderly gentleman turned round on a high stool and viewed himwith suspicion. What did he want with the Editor?
"I had a contribution in the last issue," said Harry, nervously,"and--and I wanted to know if there would be any payment."
"But that has nothing to do with the Editor," said the old gentleman."That is my business."
He got down from his stool and produced a file of the paper, in whichthe price of every contribution was marked across it, with the writer'sname in red ink. Harry was asked to point out his verses, and with athrill he saw that they were priced at half-a-sovereign. In anotherminute the coin was in his purse and he was signing the receipt with ahand that shook.
"Monday is our day for paying contributors," the old gentleman said."In future you must make it convenient to call or apply in writing onthat day."
In future!
On his way out he had to pass through the publishing department, wherestacks of the new issue were being carried in warm from the machines.It was not on sale until the following day, but Harry could not resistasking to look at a copy, for he had sent in a second set of verses onthe appearance of the first. And there they were! He found theminstantly and could have cried for joy.
The Inner Circle was never a slower or more stifling route than on thatAugust afternoon; neither was Harry Ringrose ever happier in his lifethan when he alighted before the train stopped at High Street,Kensington. He had done it two weeks running. He knew that he could goon doing it. He was earning twenty-six pounds a year, and earning it inan hour a week! He almost ran along the hot street, and he took thestairs three at a time. As he fumbled with his latch-key in hisexcitement, he heard talking within and had momentary misgivings; buthis lucky day had dawned at last: the visitor was Fanny Lowndes.