The Man Who Lost Himself.

by H. De Vere Stacpoole.

PART I

CHAPTER I

JONES

It was the first of June, and Victor Jones of Philadelphia was seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, London, defeated in his first really great battle with the thing we call life.

Though of Philadelphia, Jones was not an American, nor had he anything of the American accent. Australian born, he had started life in a bank at Melbourne, gone to India for a trading house, started for himself, failed, and become a rolling stone. Philadelphia was his last halt.

With no financial foundation, Victor and a Philadelphia gentleman had competed for a contract to supply the British Government with Harveyised steel struts, bolts, and girders; he had come over to London to press the business; he had interviewed men in bra.s.s hats, slow moving men who had turned him over to slower moving men. The Stringer Company, for so he dubbed himself and Aaron Stringer, who had financed him for the journey, had wasted three weeks on the business, and this morning their tender had been rejected. Hardmans', the Pittsburg people, had got the order.

It was a nasty blow. If he and Stringer could have secured the contract, they could have carried it through all right, Stringer would have put the thing in the hands of Laurenson of Philadelphia, and their commission would have been enormous, a stroke of the British Government's pen would have filled their pockets; failing that they were bankrupt. At least Jones was.

And justifiably you will say, considering that the whole business was a gigantic piece of bluff--well, maybe, yet on behalf of this bluffer I would put it forward that he had risked everything on one deal, and that this was no little failure of his, but a disaster, naked and complete.

He had less than ten pounds in his pocket and he owed money at the Savoy. You see he had reckoned on doing all his business in a week, and if it failed--an idea which he scarcely entertained--on getting back third cla.s.s to the States. He had not reckoned on the terrible expenses of London, or the three weeks delay.

Yesterday he had sent a cable to Stringer for funds, and had got as a reply: "Am waiting news of contract."

Stringer was that sort of man.

He was thinking about Stringer now, as he sat watching the guests of the Savoy, Americans and English, well to do people with no money worries, so he fancied. He was thinking about Stringer and his own position, with less than ten pounds in his pocket, an hotel bill unreceipted, and three thousand miles of deep water between himself and Philadelphia.

Jones was twenty-four years of age. He looked thirty. A serious faced, cadaverous individual, whom, given three guesses you would have judged to be a Scotch free kirk minister in mufti; an actor in the melodramatic line; a food crank. These being the three most serious occupations in the world.

In reality, he had started life, as before said, in a bank, educated himself in mathematics and higher commercial methods, by correspondence, and, aiming to be a millionaire, had left the bank and struck out for himself in the great tumbling ocean of business.

He had glimpsed the truth. Seen the fact that the art of life is not so much to work oneself as to make other people work for one, to convert by one's own mental energy, the bodily energy of others into products or actions. Had this Government contract come off, he would have, and to his own profit, set a thousand hammers swinging, a dozen steel mills rolling, twenty ships lading, hammers, mills and ships he had never seen, never would see.

That is the magic of business, and when you behold roaring towns and humming wharves, when you read of raging battles, you see and read of the work of a comparatively small number of men, gentlemen who wear frock coats, who have never handled a bale, or carried a gun, or steered a ship with their own hands. Magicians!

He ordered a whisky and soda from a pa.s.sing attendant, to help him think some more about Stringer and his own awful position, and was taking the gla.s.s from the salver when a very well dressed man of his own age and build who had entered by the pa.s.sage leading up from the American bar drew his attention.

This man's face seemed quite familiar to him, so much so that he started in his chair as though about to rise and greet him. The stranger, also, seemed for a second under the same obsession, but only for a second; he made a half pause and then pa.s.sed on, becoming lost to sight beyond the palm trees at the entrance. Jones leaned back in his chair.

"Now, _where_ did I see that guy before?" asked he of himself. "Where on earth have I met him? and he recognised me--where in the--where in the--where in the--?"

His memory vaguely and vainly searching for the name to go with that face was at fault. He finished his whisky and soda and rose, and then strolled off not heeding much in what direction, till he reached the book and newspaper stand where he paused to inspect the wares, turning over the pages of the latest best seller without imbibing a word of the text.

Then he found himself downstairs in the American bar, with a champagne c.o.c.ktail before him.

Jones was an abstemious man, as a rule, but he had a highly strung nervous system and it had been worked up. The unaccustomed whiskey and soda had taken him in its charge, comforting him and conducting his steps, and now the bar keeper, a cheery person, combined with the champagne c.o.c.ktail, the cheeriest of drinks, so raised his spirits and warmed his optimism, that, having finished his gla.s.s he pushed it across the counter and said, "Give me another."

At this moment a gentleman who had just entered the bar came up to the counter, placed half a crown upon it and was served by the a.s.sistant bar keeper with a gla.s.s of sherry.

Jones, turning, found himself face to face with the stranger whom he had seen in the lounge, the stranger whose face he knew but whose name he could not remember in the least.

Jones was a direct person, used to travel and the forming of chance acquaintanceships. He did not hang back.

"'Scuse me," said he. "I saw you in the lounge and I'm sure I've met you somewhere or another, but I can't place you."

CHAPTER II

THE STRANGER

The stranger, taking his change from the a.s.sistant bar tender, laughed.

"Yes," said he, "you have seen me before, often, I should think. Do you mean to say you don't know where?"

"Nope," said Jones--he had acquired a few American idioms--"I'm clear out of my reckoning--are you an American?"

"No, I'm English," replied the other. "This is very curious, you don't recognise me, well--well--well--let's sit down and have a talk, maybe recollection will come to you--give it time--it is easier to think sitting down than standing up."

Now as Jones turned to take his seat at the table indicated by the stranger, he noticed that the bar keeper and his a.s.sistant were looking at him as though he had suddenly become an object of more than ordinary interest.

The subtlety of human facial expression stands unchallenged, and the faces of these persons conveyed the impression to Jones that the interest he had suddenly evoked in their minds had in it a link with the humorous.

When he looked again, however, having taken his seat, they were both washing gla.s.ses with the solemnity of undertakers.

"I thought those guys were laughing at me," said Jones, "seems I was wrong, and all the better for them--well, now, let's get to the bottom of this tangle--who are you, anyway?"

"Just a friend," replied the other, "I'll tell you my name presently, only I want you to think it out for yourself. Talk about yourself and then, maybe, you'll arrive at it. Who are you?"

"Me," cried Jones, "I'm Victor Jones of Philadelphia. I'm the partner of a skunk by name of Stringer. I'm the victim of a British government that doesn't know the difference between tin plate and Harveyised steel. I'm a man on the rocks."

The flood gates of his wrath were opened and everything came out, including the fact of his own desperate position.

When he had finished the only remark of the stranger was:

"Have another."

"Not on your life," cried Jones. "I ought to be making tracks for the consul or somewhere to get my pa.s.sage back to the States--well--I don't know. No--no more c.o.c.ktails. I'll have a sherry, same as you."

The sherry having been despatched, the stranger rose, refusing a return drink just at that moment.

"Come into the lounge with me," said he, "I want to tell you something I can't tell you here."

They pa.s.sed up the stairs, the stranger leading the way, Jones following, slightly confused in his mind but full of warmth at his heart, and with a buoyancy of spirit beyond experience. Stringer was forgotten, the British Government was forgotten, contracts, hotel bills, steerage journeys to the States, all these were forgotten. The warmth, the sumptuous rooms, and the golden lamps of the Savoy were sufficient for the moment, and as he sank into an easy chair and lit a cigarette, even his interest in the stranger and what he had to say was for a moment dimmed and diminished by the fumes that filled his brain, and the ease that lapped his senses.