“I did.”
“You never said so.”
“There was nothing worth bucking about.”
“I didn’t know.” She looked at me with rather more interest. “That was brave of you.”
“I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.”
“What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine.” She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. “I dare say I am merely a foolish woman with a young girl’s fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man!”
“Why should you not?” I cried. “It is women like you who brace men up. Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men ought to MAKE their own chances, and not wait until they are given. Look at Clive – just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I’ll do something in the world yet!”
She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. “Why not?” she said. “You have everything a man could have, – youth, health, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad – so glad – if it wakens these thoughts in you!”
“And if I do – ”
Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. “Not another word, sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn’t the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.”
And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who – who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it?
And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.
Chapter II
Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger
I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead.
“Well, Mr Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well,” said he in his kindly Scotch accent.
I thanked him.
“The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?”
“To ask a favor.”
He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. “Tut, tut! What is it?”
“Do you think, sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good copy.”
“What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr Malone?”
“Well, sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would suit me.”
“You seem very anxious to lose your life.”
“To justify my life, sir.”
“Dear me, Mr Malone, this is very – very exalted. I’m afraid the day for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the ‘special meesion’ business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there’s no room for romance anywhere. Wait a bit, though!” he added, with a sudden smile upon his face. “Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What about exposing a fraud – a modern Munchausen – and making him rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?”
“Anything – anywhere – I care nothing.”
McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes.
“I wonder whether you could get on friendly – or at least on talking terms with the fellow,” he said, at last. “You seem to have a sort of genius for establishing relations with people – seempathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious of it myself.”
“You are very good, sir.”
“So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of Enmore Park?”
I dare say I looked a little startled.
“Challenger!” I cried. “Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! Wasn’t he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?”
The news editor smiled grimly.
“Do you mind? Didn’t you say it was adventures you were after?”
“It is all in the way of business, sir,” I answered.
“Exactly. I don’t suppose he can always be so violent as that. I’m thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. There’s something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazetteshould work it.”
“I really know nothing about him,” said I. “I only remember his name in connection with the police-court proceedings for striking Blundell.”
“I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr Malone. I’ve had my eye on the Professor for some little time.” He took a paper from a drawer “Here is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:
‘Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs Academy; Edinburgh University. Bri-tish Museum Assistant, 1892. Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of’ – well, quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type – ‘Sociйtй Belge, American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association’ – so on, so on! – ‘Publications: “Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck Skulls”; “Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution”; and numerous papers, including “The Underlying Fallacy of Weissmannism,” which caused heated discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.’
“There, take it with you. I’ve nothing more for you to-night.”
I pocketed the slip of paper.
“One