The Call of the Town Part 4

"Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know."

"Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert always talks about,"

answered Henry, brightening.

"That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor Smith--with the accent on the Trev. There's such a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's got to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to be buried in the crowd."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor Smith," replied Henry, who, it will be seen, was beginning to know something of the social graces.

"Right you are, young 'un," said the breezy one. "I'm just back from my fortnight's holidays. Been to London, don't you know. Jolly time.

Thought I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See you later, and tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off. Big case on at the police court this morning."

Mr. Smith--Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please--was indeed a person who had a.s.sumed considerable importance in Henry's mind before he met him face to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom good Mrs. Filbert set much store.

"'E's that smart," she told Henry the first night he had stayed beneath her roof "there's no sayin' what he don't know. He writes a many fine things in the _Guardian_, specially 'is story of the Mop, which my Tommy read out quite easy-like last October."

"He'll be a journalist, then," Henry suggested.

"Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways, e's a heditor or a reporter or somethink. The _Guardian_ pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must be clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody likes Mr. Trevor."

It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune that had brought him to the very house where one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and although keenly disappointed at the melancholy falling off in his actual experience of life under the aegis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his vision of what that was to be, he now looked forward to meeting Mr.

Trevor Smith with the hope that he might point the way to better things.

The exact position of that local representative of the Fourth Estate is best defined as district reporter. The paper which employed him was published in the busy industrial centre of Wheelton, some twenty-five miles distant, where it maintained a struggling existence as the _Wheelton Guardian_.

It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column of notes on men and affairs in the Stratford district every week, to supply reports of the local police court proceedings, munic.i.p.al meetings, and so forth, and also to canva.s.s for advertis.e.m.e.nts, the few hundred copies of the paper sold in Stratford every week, thanks to these attractions, being mendaciously headed _Stratford Guardian_.

What the district reporter--who occasionally hinted that he was really the editor when he saw a chance to impress a stranger thereby--called "the office," was a desk in the back premises of the news-agent and fancy-goods-shop whence the _Guardian_ was distributed weekly.

Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of his business to be well liked, and if there was a good deal of humbug about him, he was still excellent value to the _Guardian_ for the twenty-one shillings which the proprietors of that journal paid him each week. One does not expect genius for a guinea a week; not even the ability to write English. But it is a mistake to suppose the latter is ever required of a district reporter. The essential qualifications are a working knowledge of shorthand and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor Smith was deficient in neither; certainly not in the latter quality. He was generously impressed with the magnitude of his importance, and had chosen the Miltonic motto for his "Stratford Notes and Comments":

"GIVE ME THE LIBERTY TO KNOW, TO THINK, AND TO UTTER FREELY ABOVE ALL OTHER LIBERTIES."

He took this liberty whenever he knew that the weight of local opinion tended in a certain direction. At other times he was lavish in his use of complimentary adjectives concerning every one he wrote about, from the Mayor to the town crier. No wonder he was popular.

The notes which appeared in the _Guardian_ during its reporter's holiday were from another hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty pen was at work again. It is one of the strangest experiences that comes to the writing man--this interest of the layman in anyone who writes words that are printed. We seldom feel interested in the personality of the man who made our watch, but the fellow who wrote the report of the tea-meeting we attended last week--ah, there's something to stir the blood!

Now that they had met, these two, Henry was throbbing with excitement to hear what his new friend had to tell him of life and its wonders. Nor was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the youth.

"By Jove, London's the place," he observed to Henry as he dug his teeth into a juicy tart--one of many received that day in Henry's weekly hamper from home. "London's the place! Just fancy, I saw the huge building of the _Morning Sunburst_, Johnnies at the door in livery, hundreds of people running out and in; and the chap that edits that paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week reporter on that rag the _Stratford Times_, which isn't a patch on the _Guardian_."

"He must be very clever."

"Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty small beer in Stratford,"

pursued the lively Trevor, helping himself to a third tart from Henry's store. "Then there's Wilkins of the _Pictorial Globe_, a glorious crib--fifteen hundred a year, I'll bet. He used to run that rocky little rag-bag the _Arden Advertiser_. You should see his office in the Strand.

By gum--a palace, my boy, a palace!"

"But perhaps he knows all about pictures."

"Pictures! He doesn't know a wall-poster from a Joshua Reynolds!"

"Then how do they get these grand situations?"

"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But, I say, your mater knows how to make ripping good fruit-cakes."

"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his thoughts were far away, where Luck the G.o.ddess reigned. "And do you intend to go to London some day--to stay, I mean?"

"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha! as the heavy villain hath it. Everybody gets his chance, don't you know. For all that, there's many a jolly good journalist never gets a show in Fleet Street. But what's the row?" he exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out in the evening quiet.

Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump and hose being wheeled along the street from the police station across the way, and a crowd of youngsters running after it.

"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy, by Jingo! Come along with me. There's ten bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot, and it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near the station."

He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him, intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the _Times_ reporter; his ten shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely enough. They were as good as spent already--a new hat for one thing, and some new neckties for another.

The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of twenty lines in next morning's _Birmingham Gazette_--twenty glowing lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith--twenty lines in which the "conflagration" burned again.

He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment.

Here was Life.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES

UP to the night of the fire, Henry had only been dreaming of what he wished to do in the world of work. Unless one of his age has had his fate sharply settled for him by being placed at some trade or profession--for which he is usually unsuited--by the masterful action of his parents, he has, at best, a nebulous vision of the path he will pursue.

With natural instinct, and aided by the accident of Edward John's business relations in Stratford, Henry had looked to literature through the gateway of the book-shop--of all, the most unlikely. But he had been shorn speedily of his illusions in that quarter.

A month in the establishment of Mr. Ephraim Griggs had left him wondering if he were a footstep nearer his goal than he had been before he bade farewell to Hampton. If the Temple of Literature which he had builded in his brain had not exactly crumbled into nothingness, it was no longer possible to rub shoulders with the slatternly Griggs and the insipid Pemble, and still to dream dreams such as had held his mind when he determined to fare forth an adventurer into the unknown realms of Bookland.

The weeks dragged on wearily. So rude had been Henry's experience of the second-hand book-shop, in disgust he had almost concluded that after all there was as much glory in his father's business as in that of Mr.

Griggs. Trevor Smith, however, had appeared on the scene at an opportune moment, and sent his thoughts off at a tangent.

Clearly, journalism was the high road to literature. It enabled one to get into print, and that, at least, was a great matter.

Already the agreeable Trevor could pose as Henry's literary G.o.dfather.

He had allowed him to write one or two simple notes about the visit of a circus to the town and the annual flower-show, and these had actually appeared in type in the _Guardian_.

The fact that Trevor had twice borrowed half-a-crown from his fellow-lodger, and had twenty times forgotten to repay, while he had also a.s.similated innumerable examples of Mrs. Charles's baking, had probably something to do with his readiness in opening his columns to the youth. But that did not in the least detract from the bursting joy with which Henry read his own little paragraphs a score of times; nor did Edward John suspect that the first appearance of his young hopeful in the splendour of print was due to such advent.i.tious aid.

Henry's masterpiece was a letter to the editor of the _Guardian_ protesting against the charge of sixpence exacted for admission to view the grave of Shakespeare. This was signed "Thespian," at the suggestion of Trevor, who never by any chance wrote of actors or of the theatre, but always of "sons of Thespis," or of "the temple of Thespis." Quite a lively correspondence ensued in the columns of the paper, and it was a great delight to Henry that he and Trevor Smith alone knew who the correspondents were. Between them they did it all. Oh, Henry was learning what journalism meant!

"Take my word for it, Henry, journalism's your game," his merry mentor a.s.sured him. "That last par of yours about the Christ Church m.u.f.fin-struggle is nearly as good as I could have done myself. You're cut out for a journalist as sure as eggs is eggs. All that you want is an opportunity to show what's in you."