Piccadilly Jim Part 23

"I cannot deny it."

"I think your father is a darling," said Ann inconsequently.

Jimmy had buried himself in the directory again.

"The D's," he said. "Is it possible that posterity will know me as Bayliss the Dermatologist? Or as Bayliss the Drop Forger? I don't quite like that last one. It may be a respectable occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me. The sentence for forging drops is probably about twenty years with hard labour."

"I wish you would put that book away and go on with your lunch,"

said Ann.

"Perhaps," said Jimmy, "my grandchildren will cl.u.s.ter round my knee some day and say in their piping, childish voices, 'Tell us how you became the Elastic Stocking King, grandpa!' What do you think?"

"I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are wasting your time, when you ought to be either talking to me or else thinking very seriously about what you mean to do."

Jimmy was turning the pages rapidly.

"I will be with you in a moment," he said. "Try to amuse yourself somehow till I am at leisure. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself an anecdote. Think of life. No, it's no good. I don't see myself as a Fan Importer, a Gla.s.s Beveller, a Hotel Broker, an Insect Exterminator, a Junk Dealer, a Kalsomine Manufacturer, a Laundryman, a Mausoleum Architect, a Nurse, an Oculist, a Paper-Hanger, a Quilt Designer, a Roofer, a Ship Plumber, a Tinsmith, an Undertaker, a Veterinarian, a Wig Maker, an X-ray apparatus manufacturer, a Yeast producer, or a Zinc Spelter." He closed the book. "There is only one thing to do. I must starve in the gutter. Tell me--you know New York better than I do--where is there a good gutter?"

At this moment there entered the restaurant an Immaculate Person.

He was a young man attired in faultlessly fitting clothes, with shoes of flawless polish and a perfectly proportioned floweret in his b.u.t.tonhole. He surveyed the room through a monocle. He was a pleasure to look upon, but Jimmy, catching sight of him, started violently and felt no joy at all; for he had recognised him. It was a man he knew well and who knew him well--a man whom he had last seen a bare two weeks ago at the Bachelors' Club in London.

Few things are certain in this world, but one was that, if Bartling--such was the Vision's name--should see him, he would come over and address him as Crocker. He braced himself to the task of being Bayliss, the whole Bayliss, and nothing but Bayliss. It might be that stout denial would carry him through.

After all, Reggie Bartling was a man of notoriously feeble intellect, who could believe in anything.

The monocle continued its sweep. It rested on Jimmy's profile.

"By Gad!" said the Vision.

Reginald Bartling had landed in New York that morning, and already the loneliness of a strange city had begun to oppress him. He had come over on a visit of pleasure, his suit-case stuffed with letters of introduction, but these he had not yet used. There was a feeling of home-sickness upon him, and he ached for a pal. And there before him sat Jimmy Crocker, one of the best. He hastened to the table.

"I say, Crocker, old chap, I didn't know you were over here. When did you arrive?"

Jimmy was profoundly thankful that he had seen this pest in time to be prepared for him. Suddenly a.s.sailed in this fashion, he would undoubtedly have incriminated himself by recognition of his name. But, having antic.i.p.ated the visitation, he was able to say a whole sentence to Ann before showing himself aware that it was he who was addressed.

"I say! Jimmy Crocker!"

Jimmy achieved one of the blankest stares of modern times. He looked at Ann. Then he looked at Bartling again.

"I think there's some mistake," he said. "My name is Bayliss."

Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. It was a perfectly astounding likeness, but it was apparent to him when what he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him. He was confused. He blushed. It was deuced bad form going up to a perfect stranger like this and pretending you knew him. Probably the chappie thought he was some kind of a confidence johnnie or something. It was absolutely rotten! He continued to blush till one could have fancied him scarlet to the ankles. He backed away, apologising in ragged mutters. Jimmy was not insensible to the pathos of his suffering acquaintance's position; he knew Reggie and his devotion to good form sufficiently well to enable him to appreciate the other's horror at having spoken to a fellow to whom he had never been introduced; but necessity forbade any other course. However Reggie's soul might writhe and however sleepless Reggie's nights might become as a result of this encounter, he was prepared to fight it out on those lines if it took all summer. And, anyway, it was darned good for Reggie to get a jolt like that every once in a while. Kept him bright and lively.

So thinking, he turned to Ann again, while the crimson Bartling tottered off to restore his nerve centres to their normal tone at some other hostelry. He found Ann staring amazedly at him, eyes wide and lips parted.

"Odd, that!" he observed with a light carelessness which he admired extremely and of which he would not have believed himself capable. "I suppose I must be somebody's double. What was the name he said?"

"Jimmy Crocker!" cried Ann.

Jimmy raised his gla.s.s, sipped, and put it down.

"Oh yes, I remember. So it was. It's a curious thing, too, that it sounds familiar. I've heard the name before somewhere."

"I was talking about Jimmy Crocker on the ship. That evening on deck."

Jimmy looked at her doubtfully.

"Were you? Oh yes, of course. I've got it now. He is the man you dislike so."

Ann was still looking at him as if he had undergone a change into something new and strange.

"I hope you aren't going to let the resemblance prejudice you against _me_?" said Jimmy. "Some are born Jimmy Crockers, others have Jimmy Crockers thrust upon them. I hope you'll bear in mind that I belong to the latter cla.s.s."

"It's such an extraordinary thing."

"Oh, I don't know. You often hear of doubles. There was a man in England a few years ago who kept getting sent to prison for things some genial stranger who happened to look like him had done."

"I don't mean that. Of course there are doubles. But it is curious that you should have come over here and that we should have met like this at just this time. You see, the reason I went over to England at all was to try to get Jimmy Crocker to come back here."

"What!"

"I don't mean that _I_ did. I mean that I went with my uncle and aunt, who wanted to persuade him to come and live with them."

Jimmy was now feeling completely out of his depth.

"Your uncle and aunt? Why?"

"I ought to have explained that they are his uncle and aunt, too.

My aunt's sister married his father."

"But--"

"It's quite simple, though it doesn't sound so. Perhaps you haven't read the _Sunday Chronicle_ lately? It has been publishing articles about Jimmy Crocker's disgusting behaviour in London--they call him Piccadilly Jim, you know--"

In print, that name had shocked Jimmy. Spoken, and by Ann, it was loathly. Remorse for his painful past tore at him.

"There was another one printed yesterday."

"I saw it," said Jimmy, to avert description.

"Oh, did you? Well, just to show you what sort of a man Jimmy Crocker is, the Lord Percy Whipple whom he attacked in the club was his very best friend. His step-mother told my aunt so. He seems to be absolutely hopeless." She smiled. "You're looking quite sad, Mr. Bayliss. Cheer up! You may look like him, but you aren't him he?--him?--no, 'he' is right. The soul is what counts.

If you've got a good, virtuous, Algernonish soul, it doesn't matter if you're so like Jimmy Crocker that his friends come up and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather an advantage, really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and pretend to be Jimmy Crocker, who had come over after all in a fit of repentance, she would be so pleased that there would be nothing she wouldn't do for you. You might realise your ambition of being adopted by a millionaire. Why don't you try it? I won't give you away."

"Before they found me out and hauled me off to prison, I should have been near you for a time. I should have lived in the same house with you, spoken to you--!" Jimmy's voice shook.

Ann turned her head to address an imaginary companion.

"You must listen to this, my dear," she said in an undertone. "He speaks _wonderfully!_ They used to call him the Boy Orator in his home-town. Sometimes that, and sometimes Eloquent Algernon!"

Jimmy eyed her fixedly. He disapproved of this frivolity.