Douglas went off, fortified with many directions, and laughing heartily.

He found Spargetti's, and seated himself at a tiny table in a long low room, blue already with cigarette smoke. They brought him such a luncheon as he had never eaten before. Grated macaroni in his soup, watercress and oil with his chicken, a curious salad and a wonderful cheese. Around him was the constant hum of gay conversation. Every one save himself seemed to have friends here, and many of them. It was indeed a very ordinary place, a cosmopolitan eating-house, good of its sort, and with an excellent connection of lighthearted but impecunious foreigners, who made up with the lightness of their spirits for the emptiness of their purses. To Douglas, whose whole upbringing and subsequent life had been amongst the dreariest of surroundings, there was something about it all peculiarly fascinating. The air of pleasant abandonment, the subtle aroma of gaiety allied with irresponsibility, the strange food and wine, well cooked and stimulating, delighted him.

His sole desire now was for a companion. If only those men--artists, he was sure they were--would draw him into their conversation. He had plenty to say. He was ready to be as merry as any of them. A faint sense of loneliness depressed him for a moment as he looked from one to another of the long tables. All his life he had been as one removed from his fellows. He was weary of it. Surely it must be nearly at an end now. Some of the children of the great mother city would hold out their hands to him. It was not alms he needed. It was a friend.

"Good morning."

Douglas looked up quickly. A newcomer had taken the vacant place at his table.

CHAPTER VIII

THE AUTHOR OF "NO MAN'S LAND"

Douglas returned his greeting cordially. His _vis-a-vis_ drew the menu towards him and studied it with interest. Setting it down he screwed a single eyegla.s.s into his eye and beamed over at Douglas.

"Is the daily grind O. K.?" he inquired suavely.

Douglas was disconcerted at being unable to answer a question so pleasantly asked.

"I--beg your pardon," he said, doubtfully. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

The newcomer waved his hand to some acquaintances and smiled cheerfully.

"I see you're a stranger here," he remarked. "There's a _table-d'hote_ luncheon for the modest sum of eighteenpence, which is the cheapest way to feed, if it's decent. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I thought perhaps you might have sampled it."

"I believe I have," Douglas answered. "I told the waiter to bring me the ordinary lunch, and I thought it was very good indeed."

"Then I will risk it. Henri. Come here, you scamp."

He gave a few orders to the waiter, who treated him with much respect.

Then he turned again to Douglas.

"You have nearly finished," he said. "Please don't hurry. I hate to eat alone. It is a whim of mine. If I eat alone I read, and if I read I get dyspepsia. Try the oat biscuits and the Camembert."

Douglas did as the newcomer had suggested.

"I am in no hurry," he said. "I have nothing to do, nor anywhere to go."

"Lucky man!"

"You speak as though that were unusual," Douglas laughed, "but I was just thinking that every one here seems to be in the same state. Some one once told me that London was a city of sadness. Who could watch the people here and say so?"

The newcomer screwed in his eyegla.s.s and looked deliberately round the room.

"Well," he said, "this is a resort of the poor, and the poor are seldom sad. It is the unfortunate West-Enders who carry the burdens of wealth and the obligation of position, who have earned for us the reproach of dulness. Here we are on the threshold of Bohemia. Long life and health to it."

He drank a gla.s.s of Chianti with the air of a connoisseur tasting some rare vintage.

Douglas laughed softly.

"If the people here are poor," he said, "what about me? I p.a.w.ned my watch because I had had nothing to eat since yesterday."

His new friend sighed and stuck his fork into an olive.

"What affluence," he sighed, meditatively. "I have not possessed a watch for a year, and I've only ninepence in my pocket. They give me tick here. Foolish Spargetti. Long may their confidence last!"

A companion in impecuniosity. Douglas looked at his neat clothes and the flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, and wondered.

"But you have the means of making money if you care to."

"Have I?" The eyegla.s.s was carefully removed, the small wizened face a.s.sumed a lugubrious aspect. "My friend," he said, "in a measure it is true--but such a small measure. A cold-blooded and unappreciative editor apprises my services at the miserable sum of three pounds a week.

I have heard of people who have lived upon that sum, but I must confess that I never met one."

"You are a writer, then?" Douglas exclaimed, eagerly.

"I am a sort of hack upon the staff of the _Ibex_. They set me down in a corner of the office and throw me sc.r.a.ps of work, as you would bones to a dog. It is not dignified, but one must eat and drink--not to mention smoking. Permit me, by-the-bye, to offer you a cigarette, and to recommend the coffee. I taught Spargetti how to make it myself."

Douglas was listening with flushed cheeks. The _Ibex_! What a coincidence!

"You are really on the staff of the _Ibex_?" he exclaimed.

The other nodded.

"I hold exactly the position," he said, "that I have described to you.

My own impression is, that without me the _Ibex_ would not exist for a month. That is where the editor and I differ, unfortunately."

"It seems so odd," Douglas said. "Some time ago I sent a story to the _Ibex_, and it was accepted. I have been looking for it to appear every week."

The shrewd little eyes twinkled into his.

"What was the t.i.tle?"

"'No Man's Land.' Douglas Jesson was the name."

The newcomer filled Douglas's gla.s.s with Chianti from his own modest flask.

"Waiter," he said, "bring more wine. My friend, Douglas Jesson, we must drink together. I remember your story, for I put the blue chalk on it myself and took it up to Drexley. It is a meeting this, and we must celebrate. Your story will probably be used next week."

Douglas's eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed. The flavour of living was sweet upon his palate. Here he was, who, only twelve hours ago, had gone skulking in the shadows looking out upon life with terrified eyes, tempted even to self-destruction, suddenly in touch once more with the things that were dear to him, realising for the first time some of the dreams which had filled his brain in those long, sleepless nights upon the hill-top. He was a wanderer in Bohemia, welcomed by an older spirit. Surely fortune had commenced at last to smile upon him.

"You are on a visit here?" his new friend asked, "or have you come to London for good?"

"For good, I trust," Douglas answered, smiling, "for I have burned my boats behind me."

"My name is Rice, yours I know already," the other said. "By-the-bye, I noticed that the postmark of your parcel was Feldwick in the Hills, somewhere in c.u.mberland, I think. Have you seen the papers during the last few days?"

Douglas's left hand gripped the table, and the flush of colour, which the wine and excitement had brought into his cheeks, faded slowly away.

The pleasant hum of voices, the keen joy of living, which, a moment before, had sent his blood flowing to a new music, left him.