"Yes," he replied; "he has not been up to the mark for some time. But you will find difficulty in making him take a holiday. He is a devil for working--ha, ha!"

This "ha, ha!" did not mean very much. There was no mirth in it. It was a species of punctuation, and implied that Mr. Morgan had finished his remark.

"I will ring for him now and see what he says about it."

Mr. Bodery extended his chubby white hand and touched a small gong.

Almost instantaneously the silent door opened and a voice from without said, "Yess'r." A small boy with a mobile, wicked mouth stood at attention in the doorway.

"Has Mr. Vellacott gone?"

"No--sir!" In a tone which seemed to ask: "Now _is_ it likely?"

"Where is he?"

"In the shop, sir."

"Ask him to come here, please."

"Yess'r."

The small boy closed the door. Once outside he placed his hand upon his heart and made a low bow to the handle, retreating backwards to the head of the stairs. Then he proceeded to slide down the banister, to the trifling detriment of his waistcoat. As he reached the end of his perilous journey a door opened at the foot of the stairs, and a man's form became discernible in the dim light.

"Is that the way you generally come downstairs, Wilson?" asked a voice.

"It is the quickest way, sir!"

"Not quite; there is one quicker, which you will discover some day if you overbalance at the top!"

"Mr. Bodery wishes to see you, please sir!" The small boy's manner was very different from what it had been outside the door upstairs.

"All right," replied Vellacott, putting on the coat he had been carrying over his arm. A peculiar smooth rapidity characterised all his movements. At school he had been considered a very "clean" fielder. The cleanness was there still.

The preternaturally sharp boy--sharp as only London boys are--watched the lithe form vanish up the stairs; then he wagged his head very wisely and said to himself in a patronising way:

"He's the right sort, he is--no chalk there!"

Subsequently he balanced his diminutive person full length upon the bal.u.s.trade, and proceeded to haul himself laboriously, hand over hand, to the top.

In the meantime Christian Vellacott had pa.s.sed into the editor's room.

The light of the lamp was driven downwards upon the table, but the reflection of it rose and illuminated his face. It was a fairly handsome face, with eyes just large enough to be keen and quick without being dreamy. The slight fair moustache was not enough to hide the mouth, which was refined, and singularly immobile. He glanced at Mr. Bodery, as he entered, quickly and comprehensively, and then turned his eyes towards Mr. Morgan. His face was very still and unemotional, but it was pale, and his eyes were deeply sunken. A keen observer would have noticed, in comparing the three men, that there was something about the youngest which was lacking in his elders. It lay in the direct gaze of his eyes, in the carriage of his head, in the small, motionless mouth.

It was what is vaguely called "power."

"Sit down, Vellacott," said Mr. Brodery. "We want to have a consultation." After a short pause he continued: "You know, of course, that it is a dull season just now. People do not seem to read the papers in August. Now, we want you to take a holiday. Morgan has been away; I shall go when you come back. Say three weeks or a month. You've been over-working yourself a bit--burning the candle at both ends, eh?"

"Hardly at both ends," corrected Vellacott, with a ready smile which entirely transformed his face. "Hardly at both ends--at one end in a draught, perhaps."

"Ha, ha! Very good," chimed in Mr. Morgan the irrepressible. "At one end in a draught--that is like me, only the draught has got inside my cheeks and blown them out instead of in like yours, eh? Ha, ha!" And he patted his cheeks affectionately.

"I don't think I care for a holiday just now, thanks," he said slowly, without remembering to call up a smile for Mr. Morgan's benefit.

Unconsciously he put his hand to his forehead, which was damp with the heat of the printing-office which he had just left.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Bodery gravely, emphasising his remarks with the pencil, "you have one thing in life to learn yet--no doubt you have many, but this one in particular you must learn. Work is not the only thing we are created for--not the only thing worth living for. It is a necessary evil, that is all. When you have reached my age you will come to look upon it as such. A little enjoyment is good for every one. There are many things to form a brighter side to life.

Nature--travelling--riding--rowing----"

"And love," suggested the sub-editor, placing his hand dramatically on the right side of his broad waistcoat instead of the left. He could afford to joke on the subject now that the gra.s.s grew high in the little country churchyard where he had laid his young wife fifteen years before. In those days he was a grave, self-contained man, but that sorrow had entirely changed his nature. The true William Morgan only came out on paper now.

Mr. Bodery was right. Christian had yet to learn a great lesson, and unconsciously he was even now beginning to grasp its meaning. His whole mind was full of his work, and out of those earnest grey eyes his soul was looking at the man who was perhaps saving his life.

"We can easily manage it," said the editor, continuing his advantage. "I will take over the foreign policy article. The reviewing you can do yourself, as we can always send you the books, and there is no pressing hurry about them. The general work we will manage somehow--won't we, Morgan?"

"Of course we will; as well as and perhaps better than he could do it himself, eh? Ha, ha!"

"But seriously, Vellacott," continued Mr. Bodery, "things will go on just as well for a time. When I was young I used to make that mistake too. I thought that no one could manage things like myself, but in time I realised (as you will do some day) that things went on as smoothly when I was away. Depend upon it, my boy, when a man is put on the shelf, worn out and useless, another soon fills his place. You are too young to go on the shelf yet. To please me, Vellacott, go away for three weeks."

"You are very kind, sir--" began the young fellow, but Mr. Bodery interrupted him.

"Well, then, that is settled. Shall we say this day week? That will give you time to make your plans."

With a few words of thanks Christian left the room. Vaguely and mechanically he wandered upstairs to his own particular den. It was a disappointing little chamber. The chaos one expects to find on the desk of a literary man was lacking here. No papers lay on the table in artistic disorder. The presiding genius of the room was method--clear-headed, practical method. The walls were hidden by shelves of books, from the last half-hysterical production of some vain woman to the single-volume work of a man's lifetime. Many of the former were uncut, the latter bore signs of having been read and studied. The companionship of these silent friends brought peace and contentment to the young man's spirit. He sat wearily down, and, leaning his chin upon his folded arms, he thought. Gradually there came into his mind pictures of the fair open country, of rolling hills and quiet valleys, of quiet lanes and running waters. A sudden yearning to breathe G.o.d's pure air took possession of his faculties. Mr. Bodery had gained the day. In the room below Mr. Morgan wrote on in his easy, comfortable manner. The editor was still thoughtfully playing with his pencil. The sharp little boy was standing on his head in the pa.s.sage. At last Mr. Bodery rose from his chair and began his preparations for leaving. As he brushed his hat he looked towards his companion and said:

"That young fellow is worth you and me rolled into one."

"I recognised that fact some years ago," replied the sub-editor, wiping his pen on his coat. "It is humiliating, but true. Ha, ha!"

CHAPTER IV

BURDENED

Christian Vellacott soon descended the dingy stairs and joined the westward-wending throng in the Strand. In the midst of the crowd he was alone, as townsmen soon learn to be. The pa.s.sing faces, the roar of traffic, and the thousand human possibilities of interest around him in no way disturbed his thoughts. In his busy brain the traffic of thought, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, crossing and recrossing, went on unaffected by outward things. A modern poet has confessed that his muse loves the pavement--a bold confession, but most certainly true. Why does talent gravitate to cities? Because there it works its best--because friction necessarily produces brilliancy. Nature is a great deceiver; she draws us on to admire her insinuating charms, and in the contemplation of them we lose our energy.

Christian had been born and bred in cities. The din and roar of life was to him what the voice of the sea is to the sailor. In the midst of crowded humanity he was in his element, and as he walked rapidly along he made his way dexterously through the narrow places without thinking of it. While meditating deeply he was by no means absorbed. In his active life there had been no time for thoughts beyond the present, no leisure for dreaming. He could not afford to be absent-minded. Numbers of men are so situated. Their minds are required at all moments, in full working order, clear and rapid--ready, shoes on feet and staff in hand, to go whithersoever they may be called.

Although he was going to the saddest home that ever hung like a mill-stone round a young neck, Christian wasted no time. The glory of the western sky lay ruddily over the river as he emerged from the small streets behind Chelsea and faced the broad placid stream. Presently he stopped opposite the door of a small red-brick house, which formed the corner of a little terrace facing the river and a quiet street running inland from it.

With a latch-key he admitted himself noiselessly--almost surrept.i.tiously. Once inside he closed the door without unnecessary sound and stood for some moments in the dark little entrance-hall, apparently listening.

Presently a voice broke the silence of the house. A querulous, high-pitched voice, quavering with the palsy of extreme age. The sound of it was no new thing for Christian Vellacott. To-night his lips gave a little twist of pain as he heard it. The door of the room on the ground floor was open, and he could hear the words distinctly enough.

"You know, Mrs. Strawd, we have a nephew, but he is always gadding about, I am sure; he has been a terrible affliction to us. A frothy, good-for-nothing boy--that is what he is. We have not set eyes on him for a month or more. Why, I almost forget his name!"

"Christian, that is his name--a most inappropriate one, I am sure,"

chimed in another voice, almost identical in tone. "Why Walter should have given him such a name I cannot tell. Ah! sister Judith, things are different from what they used to be when we were younger!"