第133章

Slowly, surely, steadily I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of the sad eyes, would seek to lure me from my work. But for my vehement determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back my honesty, my desire--growing day by day, till it became almost a physical hunger--to feel again the pressure of Norah's strong white hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows what then he might have made of me: politician, minor poet, more or less able editor, hampered by convictions--something most surely of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare--my humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its return--I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark; but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted--but there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid, I had established a reputation.

"Madness!" argued practical friends. "You would be throwing away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence. The one you know you can do, the other--it would be beginning your career all over again."

"You would find it almost impossible now," explained those who spoke, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. "The world would never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh--or stop away."

Drawn by our mutual need of sympathy, "Goggles" and I, seeking some quiet corner in the Club, would pour out our souls to each other. He would lay before me, at some length, his conception of Romeo--an excellent conception, I have no doubt, though I confess it failed to interest me. Somehow I could not picture him to myself as Romeo. But I listened with every sign of encouragement. It was the price I paid him for, in turn, listening to me while I unfolded to him my ideas how monumental literature, helpful to mankind, should be imagined and built up.

"Perhaps in a future existence," laughed Goggles, one evening, rising as the clock struck seven, "I shall be a great tragedian, and you a famous poet. Meanwhile, I suppose, as your friend Brian puts it, we are both sinning our mercies. After all, to live is the most important thing in life."

I had strolled with him so far as the cloak-room and was helping him to get into his coat.

"Take my advice"--tapping me on the chest, he fixed his funny, fishy eyes upon me. Had I not known his intention to be serious, I should have laughed, his expression was so comical. "Marry some dear little woman (he was married himself to a placid lady of about twice his own weight); "one never understands life properly till the babies come to explain it to one."

I returned to my easy-chair before the fire. Wife, children, home!

After all, was not that the true work of man--of the live man, not the dreamer? I saw them round me, giving to my life dignity, responsibility. The fair, sweet woman, helper, comrade, comforter, the little faces fashioned in our image, their questioning voices teaching us the answers to life's riddles. All other hopes, ambitions, dreams, what were they? Phantoms of the morning mist fading in the sunlight.

Hodgson came to me one evening. "I want you to write me a comic opera," he said. He had an open letter in his hand which he was reading. "The public seem to be getting tired of these eternal translations from the French. I want something English, something new and original."

"The English is easy enough," I replied; "but I shouldn't clamour for anything new and original if I were you."

"Why not?" he asked, looking up from his letter.

"You might get it," I answered. "Then you would be disappointed."

He laughed. "Well, you know what I mean--something we could refer to as 'new and original' on the programme. What do you say? It will be a big chance for you, and I'm willing to risk it. I'm sure you can do it. People are beginning to talk about you."

I had written a few farces, comediettas, and they had been successful.

But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it can mar him. A comic opera above all other forms of art--if I may be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject--demands experience.

I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my hope--growing each day fainter--to take the theatrical public by storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright.

"It's very simple," urged Hodgson. "Provide Atherton plenty of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing is done."

"I'll tell you what," continued Hodgson, "I'll take the whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We'll have a coach, and leave the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to study them.

You'll be able to have a talk with them and get to know just what they can do. Atherton has ideas in his head; he'll explain them to you.

Then, next week, we'll draw up a contract and set to work."

It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my role of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic opera.

A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start.

"Nothing wrong, is there?" enquired the leading lady, in a tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her cab. "It isn't a fire, is it?"

"Merely assembled to see you," explained Mr. Hodgson, without raising his eyes from his letters.

"Oh, good gracious!" cried the leading lady, "do let us get away quickly."

"Box seat, my dear," returned Mr. Hodgson.