The Divine Fire Part 69

"That's all very well; but you should 'ave a solid standby, over and above."

"Literature doesn't leave much room for anything over and above."

"That's where you're making a mistake. Wot you want is variety of occupation. There's no reason why you shouldn't combine literature with a more profitable business."

"I can't make it combine with any business at all."

"Well, I can understand your being proud of your profession."

"Can you understand my profession being proud of me?"

Isaac smiled. Yes, he could well understand it.

"And," said he, "I can understand your objection to the shop."

"I haven't any objection to the shop."

"Well--then there's no reason why we shouldn't come to an agreement.

If I don't mind owning that I can't get on without your help, you might allow that you'd get on a bit better with mine."

"Why, _aren't_ you getting on, father?"

"Well, considering that my second-'and business depended on you entirely--and that that's where the profits are to be made nowadays--That's where I'm 'andicapped. I can't operate without knowledge; and from hour to hour I've never any seecurity that I'm not being cheated."

Isaac would gladly have recalled that word. Keith met it with silence, a silence more significant than any speech; charged as it was with reminiscence and reproof.

"Now, what I propose--"

"Please don't propose anything. I--I--I can't do what you want."

Keith positively stammered in his nervous agitation.

"Wait till you hear what I want. I'm not going to ask you to make catalogues, or stand behind the counter, or," he added almost humbly, "to do anything a gentleman doesn't do." He looked round the room. The materials of the furnishing were cheap; but Keith had appeased his sense of beauty in the simplicity of the forms and the broad harmony of the colours. Isaac was impressed and a little disheartened by the refinement of his surroundings, a refinement that might be fatal to his enterprise. "You shall 'ave your own private room fitted up on the first floor, with a writing table, and a swivel chair. You needn't come into contact with customers at all. All I want is to 'ave you on the spot to refer to. I want you to give me the use of those brains of yours. Practically you'd be a sleeping partner; but we should 'alve profits from the first."

"Thanks--thanks" (his voice seemed to choke him)--"it's awfully good and--and generous of you. But I can't."

"Why not?"

"I've about fifteen reasons. One's enough. I don't like the business, and I won't have anything to do with it."

"You--don't--like--the business?" said Isaac, with the air of considering an entirely new proposition.

"No. I don't like it."

"I am going to raise the tone of the business. That's wot I want you for. To raise the tone of the business."

"I should have to raise the tone of the British public first."

"Well--an intelligent bookseller has a good deal of influence with customers; and you with your reputation, there's nothing you couldn't do. You could make the business anything you chose. In a few years we should be at the very head of the trade. I don't deny that the house has been going down. There's been considerable depression. Still, I should be in a very different position now, Keith, if you hadn't left me. And in the second-hand department--_your_ department--there are still enormous--e_nor_mous--profits to be made."

"That's precisely why I object to my department, as you call it. I don't approve of those enormous profits."

"Now look 'ere. Let's have a quiet talk. We never have 'ad, for you were always so violent. If you'd stated your objections to me in a quiet reasonable manner, there'd never have been any misunderstanding.

Supposing you explain why you object to those profits."

"I object, because in nine cases out of ten they're got by trading on another person's ignorance."

"Of course they are. Why not? If he's ignorant, it's only fair he should pay for his ignorance; and if I'm an expert, it's fair I should get an expert's profits. It's all a question of buying and selling. He can't sell what he hasn't got; and I can't sell what I haven't got.

Supposing I've got knowledge that he hasn't--if I can't make a profit out of _that_, what can I make a profit out of?"

"I can't say. My own experience of the business was unfortunate. It struck me, if you remember, that some of your profits meant uncommonly sharp practice."

"Talk of ignorance! Really, for a clever fellow, Keith, you talk a deal of folly. There's sharp practice in every trade--in your own trade, if it comes to that. Supposing you write a silly book, and some of your friends boom it high and low, and the Public buys it for a work of genius--well--aren't you making a profit out of other people's ignorance? Of course you are."

"I haven't made _much_ profit that way--yet."

"Because you're unbusiness-like. Well. I'm perfectly willing to believe your objections are conscientious. But look at it another way.

I'm a G.o.d-fearing, religious-minded man" (unconsciously he caressed his soft hat, the hat of a Methodist parson, as he spoke), "is it likely I'd continue in any business I couldn't reconcile to my conscience?"

"I've no doubt you've reconciled it to your conscience. That's hardly a reason why I should reconcile it to mine."

"That means that you'll let me be ruined for want of a little advice which I'd 'ave paid you well for?"

"If my advice is all you want, you can have it any day for nothing."

"Wot you get for nothing is worth just about wot you get it for. No.

Mine was a fair business proposal, and either you come into it or you stay out."

"Most decidedly I prefer--to stay out."

"Then," said Isaac suddenly, "I shall have to give up the shop."

"I'm most awfully sorry."

"There's no good your being sorry if you won't help me."

"I would help you--if I could."

"If you could!" He paused. Prudence plucked him by the sleeve, whispering that never while he lived must he breathe the word Insolvency; but a wilder instinct urged him to disclosure. "Why--it rests with you to keep me out of the Bankruptcy Court."

Keith said nothing. He had held out against the appeal to his appet.i.tes; it was harder to withstand this call on his finer feelings.

But if the immediate effect of the news was to shock and distress him, the next instant he was struggling with a shameful reflection. For all his shame it was impossible not to suspect his father of some deeper, more complicated ruse.

Isaac sat very still, turning on his son a look of concentrated resentment. Keith's youth was hateful to him now; it withheld pitilessly, implacably, the life that it was in its hands to give.

Meanwhile Keith wrestled with his suspicion and overcame it.

"Look here, father, I'll do what I can. I'll come round to-morrow and look into things for you, if that's any good."

The instant he had made the offer he was aware of its futility. It was not for his business capacity that he was valued; and he never had been permitted to interfere with the finances of the shop. The suggestion roused his father to a pa.s.sion that partook of terror.