A Knight on Wheels Part 5

"He sounds a funny man," mused Peggy. "I shall talk to Mother about him.

I must go now. It is getting dark."

She slipped off the gate, and Philip perceived, for the first time, that for all her youthfulness she was half a head taller than himself.

"Where do you live?" enquired Philip, forgetting his previous intentions.

"Over there, where the lamp-posts are. Goodnight, Phil!"

"Good night, Pegs!"

The children shook hands gravely. Both desired most ardently to ask the same question; but Philip was restrained by his principles (now returning hurriedly to duty), and Miss Peggy by maidenly reserve. But each secretly made the same resolution at the same moment.

II

Philip found his uncle smoking a pipe in a big armchair before the study fire. He was jotting down calculations on a blotting-pad.

"The opposite s.e.x has its uses, Philip," he said. "To-day, thanks to the sentimental credulity of a number of estimable but credulous females, we have raked in forty-seven pounds ten. With that sum we shall be able to do some real good."

"How are you going to spend it this week, Uncle Joseph?" asked Philip.

"Considering the season of the year, I think the best thing I can do is to devote practically all of it to Christmas benevolences--chiefly of the coal-and-blanket order. I have no quarrel with the very young, and I don't like to think of any child, male or female, going hungry or cold on Christmas Day. You can do a lot with forty-seven pounds ten, Philip.

For about fourpence you can distend a small stomach to its utmost capacity, and you can wrap it up and keep it warm for very little more.

What a blessed thing it is that these misguided females have some one to divert their foolish offerings into wise channels. This very week, but for us, forty-seven pounds ten would have dropped into the banking-account of some professional beggar, or gone to bolster up some perfectly impossible enterprise, such as the overthrow of the Church of Rome or the conversion of the Jews."

Uncle Joseph laughed whimsically.

"There is a touch of humour about it all," he said. "It would appeal to the editor of the 'Searchlight.' I must tell him all about it some day--when I go out of business! Yes, we'll stick to coal-and-blanket charities at present, Philip. After Christmas I want to tackle the question of emigration again. Now get your writing-pad. I want to dictate rough copies of the letters for next Monday."

Uncle Joseph filled a fresh pipe, and began to stimulate his epistolary faculties by walking about the room. Philip silently took his seat at the table.

"Aubrey Buck must go," was Uncle Joseph's first announcement. "Let us make a start upon his successor. His name shall be Arthur Brown, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Trinity is so big that it is very hard to trace all its late Fellows, especially if their name is Brown. John's is good, too, but we did very well with a Johnian missionary to Central Patagonia a couple of years ago, and we must divide our favours impartially. Now, take this down:--

"_Dear Madam,--Not long ago I was like yourself--a personality in the world of letters. Not of letters such as this, which (between you and I) it is with the utmost repugnance that I have brought myself to sit down and address to a fellow-scribe_--

"That's a purposely turgid and ungrammatical sentence, but she won't know. It does me good to dictate it--

"--_but of the great world of Literature, where the rarest spirits a.s.semble and meet together_--

"That's out of the Prayer Book, and fits in rather well there--

"--_spirits that live as G.o.ds, and take sweet counsel together._

"That last bit is King David, but she will probably think it is Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x--

"_The busy life that you lead, as one of the protagonists of modern thought_--

"She won't know what a protagonist is, but it will please her to be called one--

"--_deprives me of the hope that you can possibly have found time to glance through my poor works. Yet, believe me, even I have had my little circle. I, too, have walked in the groves of the Academy with my cl.u.s.ter of disciples, striving to contribute my mite to the sum-total of our knowledge._

"Now we might come to the point, I think--

"_But my course is run; my torch extinguished. Two years ago I was attacked by paralysis of the lower limbs_--

"Always say 'lower limbs' when talking to a lady, Philip--

"--_lower limbs, followed by general prostration of the entire system. I am now sufficiently recovered to don my armour once more; but alas! my occupation is gone. My Fellowship expired six months ago, and has not been renewed. My pupils are dispersed to the corners of the earth. Entirely without private means, I have migrated to London, where I am endeavouring to eke out an existence in a populous but inexpensive quarter of the town--the existence of a retired scholar and gentleman, save the mark!--_

"That's a good touch, Philip!

"_--by clerical work._

"No, don't put that. She will think clerical means something to do with the Church. Say 'secretarial' instead--

"_Have you any typing you could give me to do? I hate asking, and I know that you know I hate asking; but there is a subconscious, subliminal bond, subjective and objective,--_

"I don't know what that means, but it sounds splendid--

"_--that links together all brothers of the pen; and I venture to hope that in appealing to you, of all our great brotherhood, I shall not appeal in vain._

"We had better wind up with a cla.s.sical quotation of some kind,"

concluded Uncle Joseph. "She will expect it from a Don with paralytic legs, I fancy. Reach me down that Juvenal, Philip. I have a notion. Yes, here we are:--

"_Possibly you may ask, and ask with justice, why the University has done nothing for me. I did make an appeal to the authorities; but--well, a man hates to have to appeal twice for a thing that should by rights be granted without appeal at all; and I desisted. The University is rich and respectable; I am worn-out and shabby. What could I do?_

_Plurima sunt quae Non homines audent pertusa dicere laena._

"Get that down right, Philip. She may take it to some educated person to get it translated."

"What does it mean, Uncle Joseph?" asked Philip, carefully copying out the tag.

"It means, roughly, that a man with patches on his trousers cannot afford to ask for much. Now to wind up:--

"_So I pray you--not of your charity, but of your good-comradeship--to send me a little work to do. The remuneration I leave to you. I am too dest.i.tute--and perhaps too proud--to drive a bargain._ _Yours fraternally, Arthur Brown._

"Put 'Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.' You can add the Islington address when James Nimmo has fixed it up. Then type it out. Do about seventy copies. I have been going through the lady members of the Authors' Society, and have picked out most of its female geniuses. Now for next week's list for the Kind Young Hearts! Three or four of the old items can stand--particularly Papodoodlekos: he is a very lucrative old gentleman--but the others must come out. I shall not send the revised list, though, to your friend--what was that humourist's name?"

"Mr. Julius Mablethorpe," said Philip.

"That's the man. Now I think of it, I have read some novels by him. I shall not send him the revised list, but I am grateful to him, all the same, for one or two useful hints. That scheme for sending children to the seaside ought not to have gone in at this time of year. The foolishness of the average female philanthropist is so stupendous that one grows careless. Instead, we will subst.i.tute a League of Playground Helpers--a band of interfering young women whose primary act of officiousness shall be to invade the East End and instruct slum-children in the art of playing games scientifically and educatively. There's a great rage for that sort of thing just now, though how one can make a mud-pie, or play hop-scotch, or throw kittens into a ca.n.a.l scientifically and educatively beats me. Still, the idea is good for a few postal orders."

The list was completed, to a running accompaniment of this sort, and Philip began to put away his writing materials.

Uncle Joseph glanced at the clock.

"There is just time for one more letter before dinner," he said. "I am going to ring the changes on Tommy Smith a trifle. Next week, I think, instead of writing to grown-ups, he must send an ill-spelt but touching appeal to some little girls. About a dozen will do--the children of wealthy or t.i.tled widows. The difficulty will be to get hold of the brats' Christian names. However, we will work it somehow. We might say 'Little Miss So-and-So,' or, 'The Little Girl who lives with Mrs.

So-and-So.' Either will look childish and pretty. Just take this down, and we'll see how it sounds:--