"Don't you know," he went on, looking at Richard's plate—"don't you know that tea and ham together are frightfully indigestible?"
"I never have indigestion."
"No matter. You soon will have if you eat tea and ham together. A young man should guard his digestion like his honour. Sounds funny, doesn't it? But it's right. An impaired digestive apparatus has ruined many a career. It ruined mine. You see before you, sir, what might have been an author of repute, but for a wayward stomach."
"You write?" Richard asked, interested at once, but afraid lest Mr. Aked might be cumbrously joking.
"I used to." The old man spoke with proud self-consciousness.
"Have you written a book?"
"Not a book. But I've contributed to all manner of magazines and newspapers."
"What magazines?"
"Well, let me see—it's so long ago. I've written for 'Cornhill.' I wrote for 'Cornhill' when Thackeray edited it. I spoke to Carlyle once."
"You did?"
"Yes. Carlyle said to me—Carlyle said to me—Carlyle said—" Mr. Aked's voice dwindled to an inarticulate murmur, and, suddenly ignoring Richard's presence, he pulled a book from his pocket and began to finger the leaves. It was a French novel, "La Vie de Bohème." His face had lost all its mobile expressiveness.
A little alarmed by such eccentricity, and not quite sure that this associate of Carlyle was perfectly sane, Richard sat silent, waiting for events. Mr. Aked was clearly accustomed to reading while he ate; he could even drink with his eyes on the book. At length he pushed his plates away from him, and closed the novel with a snap.
"I see you're from the country, Larch," he said, as if there had been no lapse in the conversation. "Now, why in God's name did you leave the country? Aren't there enough people in London?"
"Because I wanted to be an author," answered Richard, with more assurance than veracity, though he spoke in good faith. The fact was that his aspirations, hitherto so vague as to elude analysis, seemed within the last few minutes mysteriously to have assumed definite form.
"You're a young fool, then."
"But I've an excellent digestion."
"You won't have it if you begin to write. Take my word, you're a young fool. You don't know what you're going in for, my little friend."
"Was Murger a fool?" Richard said clumsily, determined to exhibit an acquaintance with "La Vie de Bohème."
"Ha! We read French, do we?"
Richard blushed. The old man got up.
"Come along," he said peevishly. "Let's get out of this hole."
At the pay-desk, waiting for change, he spoke to the cashier, a thin girl with reddish-brown hair, who coughed—
"Did you try those lozenges?"
"Oh! yes, thanks. They taste nice."
"Beautiful day."
"Yes; my word, isn't it!"
They walked back to the office in absolute silence; but just as they were going in, Mr. Aked stopped, and took Richard by the coat.
"Have you anything special to do next Thursday night?"
"No," said Richard.
"Well, I'll take you to a little French restaurant in Soho, and we'll have dinner. Half a crown. Can you afford?"
Richard nodded.
"And, I say, bring along some of your manuscripts, and I'll flay them alive for you."
CHAPTER VI
An inconstant, unrefreshing breeze, sluggish with accumulated impurity, stirred the curtains, and every urban sound—high-pitched voices of children playing, roll of wheels and rhythmic trot of horses, shouts of newsboys and querulous barking of dogs—came through the open windows touched with a certain languorous quality that suggested a city fatigued, a city yearning for the moist recesses of woods, the disinfectant breath of mountain tops, and the cleansing sea.
On the little table between the windows lay pen, ink, and paper. Richard sat down to be an author. Since his conversation with Mr. Aked of the day before he had lived in the full glow of an impulse to write. He discerned, or thought he discerned, in the fact that he possessed the literary gift, a key to his recent life. It explained, to be particular, the passion for reading which had overtaken him at seventeen, and his desire to come to London, the natural home of the author. Certainly it was strange that hitherto he had devoted very little serious thought to the subject of writing, but happily there were in existence sundry stray verses and prose fragments written at Bursley, and it contented him to recognise in these the first tremulous stirrings of a late-born ambition.
During the previous evening he had busied himself in deciding upon a topic. In a morning paper he had read an article entitled "An Island of Sleep," descriptive of Sark; it occurred to him that a similar essay upon Lichfield, the comatose cathedral city which lay about thirty miles from Bursley, might suit a monthly magazine. He knew Lichfield well; he had been accustomed to visit it from childhood; he loved it. As a theme full of picturesque opportunities it had quickened his imagination, until his brain seemed to surge with vague but beautiful fancies. In the night his sleep had been broken, and several new ideas had suggested themselves. And now, after a day of excited anticipation, the moment for composition had arrived.
As he dipped his pen in the ink a sudden apprehension of failure surprised him. He dismissed it, and wrote in a bold hand, rather carefully—
MEMORIES OF A CITY OF SLEEP.
That was surely an excellent title. He proceeded:—
On the old stone bridge, beneath which the clear, smooth waters of the river have crept at the same pace for centuries, stands a little child, alone. It is early morning, and the clock of the time-stained cathedral which lifts its noble gothic towers scarce a hundred yards away, strikes five, to the accompaniment of an unseen lark overhead.
He sat back to excogitate the next sentence, staring around the room as if he expected to find the words written on the wall. One of the gilt-framed photographs was slightly askew; he left his chair to put it straight; several other pictures seemed to need adjustment, and he levelled them all with scrupulous precision. The ornaments on the mantelpiece were not evenly balanced; these he rearranged entirely. Then, having first smoothed out a crease in the bedcover, he sat down again.
But most of the beautiful ideas which he had persuaded himself were firmly within his grasp, now eluded him, or tardily presented themselves in a form so obscure as to be valueless, and the useful few that remained defied all attempts to bring them into order. Dashed by his own impotence, he sought out the article on Sark, and examined it afresh. Certain weekly organs of literature had educated him to sneer at the journalism of the daily press, but it appeared that the man who wrote "An Island of Sleep" was at least capable of expressing himself with clearness and fluency, and possessed the skill to pass naturally from one aspect of his subject to another. It seemed simple enough. …
He went to the window.
The sky was a delicate amber, and Richard watched it change to rose, and from rose to light blue. The gas-lamps glared out in quick succession; some one lowered the blind of a window opposite his own, and presently a woman's profile was silhouetted against it for a moment, and then vanished. A melody came from the public house, sung in a raucous baritone to the thrumming of a guitar; the cries of the playing children had now ceased.
Suddenly turning into the room, he was astonished to