Grey Town Part 15

"Not looking for them, but quite prepared for them in a just cause. Did you read my speech last night?"

"I have not found time," stammered the sporting editor, while Desmond O'Connor sat listening with a broad smile on his face.

"Oblige me by reading it. It represents my policy, and the policy of this paper. We call a spade a spade on 'The Mercury.' Just read that speech, and then sit down and write about Caprice. You can mention the running of Bailiff in the Hurdles at the same time. If the stewards won't do their duty, 'The Mercury' will point it out to them."

In this manner was Gerard introduced to the policy of Denis Quirk and his paper. He was, however, a smart man, quite capable of grasping a situation when it was demonstrated to him. In a few weeks' time the clever division began to read the accounts of their acts of brigandage with fear and trembling; obsequious stewards became more alert, and less timid in dealing with glaring acts of fraud, while threats were openly indulged in, and actions for libel suggested. But Denis Quirk and his paper went on their prescribed course, regardless of threats, and awaiting libel actions that failed to come.

There was no lack of excitement in Grey Town in those days. Men did not go about wearily, and sigh because there was nothing in the papers.

There were times of stress and battle in the town when Denis Quirk and "The Mercury" fought with sloth, indifference, and vested interests; times when he was rarely at home with the old people, because he had many and important things to do, to say, and to write about in the town.

But Gerard dropped quietly into a position of family friend and confidential adviser at "Layton." He was introduced by Denis Quirk, and, being a man of comparative leisure, it became his habit to spend a part of his leisure at the house, and to accompany Mrs. Quirk and Kathleen O'Connor when they went out to find amus.e.m.e.nt. To this Denis Quirk readily a.s.sented, for he was more at ease among the men and women who worked than among those who played. Desmond O'Connor, too, was shouldering the burden of stern responsibility, and someone had to look after Mrs. Quirk and Kathleen. Who could better do this than Gerard, a harmless and pleasant man in Denis Quirk's eyes?

This was the first male friendship of Kathleen O'Connor. Here was a man who told her the history of his lifetime, not discursively, but in fragments dropped here and there. There is pleasure, entertainment, and pathos in every man's life, no matter who he may be. Gerard had lived more adventurously than many others. He was a man who could make love charmingly, one who had been liberally educated. There were many pleasing reminiscences, many sad incidents in his past, and he had a happy method of speaking of such events.

This is the manner in which love sometimes comes to man and woman, not, as it is often pictured, as a sudden pa.s.sion, but slowly and in stages.

Gerard loved easily and lightly; he had already had his grand pa.s.sions, and the current of his life ran none the less pleasantly because of them. To make love to a pretty girl was nothing to him, merely another pa.s.sing incident. But a man was an event to Kathleen O'Connor, an admirer something hitherto unknown. She had laughed and flirted with boyish admirers, as girls do; but such events are mere ripples on the surface of pa.s.sion. The love and admiration of a man are to such things a vast upheaval of the depths of the ocean.

There was at this time one person who cordially disliked Gerard, probably the only one in Grey Town. This was Molly Healy, and she had great difficulty to find a reason for her antipathy to the sporting editor of "The Mercury." After her first meeting with Gerard, she expressed her sentiments to Kathleen O'Connor unreservedly, as was her way.

"I couldn't bear to have that man near me," she said.

Kathleen was, in those days, perfectly unbia.s.sed in her opinion of Gerard. He was to her merely a new acquaintance, but she found him pleasant and well-informed. Laughingly, she asked:

"Why not?"

"He is too spick and span for me," said Molly, "and altogether too smiling. He has got no soul."

These sentiments she cherished doggedly, and expressed on every occasion, to his face and behind his back. As the romance began to take possession of Kathleen, she found it hard not to resent Molly's criticism. Mrs. Quirk went so far as to scold Molly relentlessly for her expressions of dislike, but the girl only laughed at her:

"Sure, you are too young and innocent. You don't know the wickedness there is in the world. But I have been taking lessons from every guttersnipe and old good-for-nought in the town. There's wickedness in Gerard's eye, and in his nose too."

Desmond O'Connor was a particular friend of his brother scribe, but the acquaintance was not for the boy's good. Gerard taught him to drink more than he should, and to gamble for money that he could not afford to lose. While these facts were unknown in the semi-retirement of "Layton,"

they speedily came to Molly Healy's ears. She acted with a customary impulse that was imprudent with such a nature as Desmond O'Connor's. One morning on his way to "The Mercury" office he was stopped by Molly.

"Desmond," she said, "what is this I am hearing of you?"

Desmond met her laughingly, for he seldom took Molly Healy seriously.

"Something wonderful?" he said.

"Something you should be ashamed of! Look there at old Mason."

She pointed to where an old man was crossing the road, a dilapidated wreck of humanity, for Mason was the champion drunkard of Grey Town.

"It is such an old man as that you will become," said Molly.

Desmond flushed crimson at her words, and he turned in repressed fury on her.

"Mind your own business," he said. "Reform your old age pensioners, and kindly allow me to look after myself."

Therewith he went on his way, leaving her to look after him with tears in her eyes.

"Wouldn't I give my life for Desmond!" she thought, as she watched him until he turned a corner. For his part, indignation overcame every other feeling. He was sufficiently young to resent interference, and to forget for the moment the bonds of friendship that bound him to Molly Healy.

Turning to climb upwards to the Presbytery, the girl met Denis Quirk.

Like Kathleen O'Connor, Molly Healy was not quite sure how she regarded the manager of "The Mercury." He was always brusque and unapproachable, yet she infinitely preferred his att.i.tude to the polish of Gerard.

"Looking at Desmond?" he laughed.

"And why not? Isn't it a pleasure to look at a handsome man?" she answered.

"I hope you gave him a good talking to. My mother says that Molly Healy is the one that can do that," he said.

"Wait until you are standing for Parliament, and then you will see what Molly Healy can do," she replied. "But you should look after that boy, or he will get into mischief so deep that there will be no getting him out."

"I have an eye on him, never fear," he said, and left her abruptly, to her infinite amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Denis Quirk has no manners, but he doesn't mean any harm," she told her brother. "It is only his way; a hard crust, but a good wholesome crumb."

That very morning Denis Quirk summoned Desmond into his room.

"See here," he said, "we are not teetotal on this paper, but we know where to stop. It's time you stopped. Make a note of that."

"Perhaps I had better go," cried Desmond in a pa.s.sion.

"I don't actually say that, for there's good stuff in you, but if you can't behave, you can't go too soon," said Denis.

Cairns was standing near the door, and he heard these exchanges. He had a very kindly feeling for Desmond, and when the reporter came from Denis Quirk's room Cairns drew him into his own.

"Quirk is blunt, but he is true," he said. "He sees that you are going the way of many another real good fellow, and he wants to pull you up short. Don't ruin a promising life, Desmond. Give Gerard a wide berth; he's a bad companion for a man like you."

"Gerard is a good fellow. What have you against him?" cried Desmond.

"He is altogether too good a fellow for a penniless reporter that has a place to win in the world," said Cairns.

"He is the only white man in Grey Town!" said Desmond.

Remonstrance was thrown away on the boy. One night he staggered into the office in a half-drunken condition, and the following day he disappeared into the dark oblivion that we term "the world," taking with him a letter of recommendation from Cairns to the editor of a metropolitan paper.

"I recommend you for your talent, not for your bad habits. See that you cure them, or Smythe will shoot you out as Quirk has done," said Cairns.

But he gave the boy five pounds to help him while he was looking for work.

Desmond O'Connor was the first victim to the friendship of John Gerard.

There were other young men who owed their downfall to him, not that he bore any one of his victims malice; he was merely a man with a full purse, and a lover of good-fellowship. "Let the young beggars look after themselves. All that I ask is good company. It is not my place to teach men morals," he said to one who remonstrated with him.

In the same spirit he continued to court Kathleen O'Connor, enjoying placidly the game of love, and perfectly regardless as to the result.