CONSCIENCE
Taggart sat up. The scoop under the ranger’s fence, cannily selected for his sleeping place, was overhung by branches, and the birds of Hyde Park were at matins already. His watch had gone the way of his other belongings during the last three months, and he could only assume from the meagre light that it was but little after dawn. He was not grateful to the birds; he would be hungry long before a breakfast coming from he hardly knew where. But he listened to them with interest. This was the first night he had passed in the open, and, like all amateurs, he felt a kind of triumph at having achieved vagrancy in spite of the law, the ranger, and the dew. He was a Northumbrian, too, and his ‘tail still up,’ as he expressed it. Born in a town, Taggart had not much country lore—at sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, his knowledge stopped; but he enjoyed the bobbery the little beggars were kicking up, and, though a trifle stiff perhaps, he felt ‘fine.’
He lit his pipe, and almost at once his brain began to revolve the daily problem of how to get a job, and of why he had lost the one he had.
Walking, three months ago, burly, upright, secure and jolly, into the room of his chief at the offices of ‘Conglomerated Journals, Ltd.,’ he had been greeted with:
“Morning, Taggart. Georgie Grebe is to give us an article for the Lighthouse. He won’t be able to write it, of course. Just do me a column he could sign—something Grebeish. I want a feature of that sort every week now in the Lighthouse; got half a dozen really good names. We simply must get it on its legs with the big Public.”
Taggart smiled. Georgie Grebe! The name was a household word—tophole idea to get him!
“Did he ever write a line in his life, sir?”
“Don’t suppose so—but you know the sort of thing he would write; he gets nothing for it but the Ad. The week after I’ve got Sir Cutman Kane—you’ll want to be a bit careful there; but you can get his manner from that book of his on murder trials. He hasn’t got a minute—must have it devilled; but he’ll sign anything decently done. I’m going to make ’em buy the Lighthouse, Taggart. Get on to the Grebe article at once, will you.”
Taggart nodded, and, drawing from his pocket some typewritten sheets of paper, laid them on the bureau.
“Here’s your signed leader, sir; I’ve gingered it a bit too much, perhaps.”
“Haven’t time to look at it; got to catch a train.”
“Shall I tone it down a little?”
“Better perhaps; use your judgment. Sit here, and do it now. Good-bye; back on Friday.”
Reaching for his soft hat, assisted into his coat by Taggart, the chief was gone.
Taggart sat down to pencil the signed leader.
‘Good leader,’ he thought; ‘pity nobody knows I write ’em!’
This devilling was quite an art, and, not unlike art, poorly enough paid. Still, not bad fun feeling you were the pea and the chief only the shell—the chief, with his great name and controlling influence. He finished pencilling, O.K.’d the sheets, thought, ‘Georgie Grebe! what the deuce shall I write about?’ and went back to his room.
It was not much of a room, and there was not much in it except Jimmy Counter, smoking a pipe and writing furiously.
Taggart sat down too, lit his own pipe, took a sheet of paper and scrawled the words ‘Georgie Grebe Article’ across the top.
Georgie Grebe! It was a scoop! The chief had a wonderful flair for just the names that got the Public. There was something rather beautifully simple about writing an article for a man who had never written a line—something virginal in the conception. And when you came to think of it, something virginal in the Public’s buying of the article to read the thoughts of their idol, Georgie Grebe. Yes, and what were their idol’s thoughts? If he, Taggart, didn’t know, nobody would, not even the idol! Taggart smiled, then felt a little nervous. Georgie Grebe—celebrated clown—probably he hadn’t any thoughts! Really, there was something very trustful about the Public! He dipped his pen in ink and sat staring at the nib. Trustful! The word had disturbed the transparency of his mental process, as a crystal of peroxide will disturb and colour a basinful of water. Trustful! The Public would pay their pennies to read what they thought were the thoughts of Georgie Grebe. But——! Taggart bit into the pipe stem. Steady! He was getting on too fast. Of course Georgie Grebe had thoughts if he signed them—hadn’t he? His name would be reproduced in autograph, with the indispensable portrait. People would see by his features that he must have had them. Was the Public so very trustful then? The evidence was there all right. Fraudulent? This was just devilling, there was nothing fraudulent about ‘devilling’—everybody did it. You might as well say those signed leaders written for the chief were fraudulent. Of course they weren’t—only devilled! The Public paid for the thoughts of the chief, and there they were since he signed them. Devilled thoughts! And yet! Would the public pay if those leaders were signed A. P. Taggart? The thoughts would be the same—and very good. They ought to pay—but—would they? He struck another match, and wrote:
“I am no writer, ladies and gentlemen. I am—believe me—a simple clown. In balancing this new pole upon my nose I am conscious of a certain sense of fraud——”
He crossed out the paragraph. That word again—must keep it from buzzing senselessly round his brain like this! He was only devilling; hold on to ‘devilling’; it was his living to devil—more or less—just earning his living—getting nothing out of it! Neither was Georgie Grebe—only the Ad.! Then who was getting something out of it? ‘Conglomerated Journals’! Out of Georgie Grebe’s name; out of the chief’s name below the devilled leaders—a pretty penny! Well, what harm in making the most of a big name? Taggart frowned. Suppose a man went into a shop and bought a box of pills, marked ‘Holloway,’ made up from a recipe of ‘Tompkins’—did it matter that the man thought they were Holloway’s, if they were just as good pills, perhaps better? Taggart laid down his pen and took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Gosh!’ he thought, ‘never looked at it this way before! I believe it does matter. A man ought to get the exact article he pays for. If not, any fraud is possible. New Zealand mutton can be sold as English. Jaeger stuffs can have cotton in them. This Grebe article’s a fraud.’ He relit his pipe. With the first puff his English hatred of a moral attitude or ‘swank’ of any sort beset him. Who was he to take stand against a custom? Didn’t secretaries write the speeches of Parliamentary ‘big-bugs’? Weren’t the opinions of eminent lawyers often written by their juniors, read over and signed? Weren’t briefs and pleadings devilled? Yes; but all that was different. In such cases the Public weren’t paying for expression, they were paying for knowledge; the big lawyer put his imprimatur on the knowledge, not on the expression of it; the Cabinet Minister endorsed his views, whether he had written them out or not, and it was his views the Public paid for, not the expression of them. But in this Grebe article the Public would not be paying for any knowledge it contained, nor for any serious views; it would pay for a peep into the mind of their idol. ‘And his mind will be mine!’ thought Taggart; ‘but who’d pay a penny to peep into that?’ He got up, and sat down again.
With a Public so gullible—what did it matter? They lapped up anything and asked for more. Yes! But weren’t the gullible the very people who oughtn’t to be gulled? He rose again, and toured the dishevelled room. The man at the other table raised his head.
“You seem a bit on your toes.”
Taggart stared down at him.
“I’ve got to write some drivel in the Lighthouse for Georgie Grebe to sign. It’s just struck me that it’s a fraud on the Public. What do you say, Jimmy?”
“In a way. What about it?”
“If it is, I don’t want to do it—that’s all.”
His colleague whistled.
“My dear chap, here am I writing a racing article ‘From the Man in the Paddock’—I haven’t been on a racecourse for years.”
“Oh! well—that’s venial.”
“All’s venial in our game. Shut your eyes, and swallow. You’re only devilling.”
“Ga!” said Taggart. “Give a thing a decent label, and it is decent.”
“I say, old man, what did you have for breakfast?”
“Look here, Jimmy, I’m inclined to think I’ve struck a snag. It never occurred to me before.”
“Well, don’t let it occur to you again. Think of old Dumas; I’ve heard he put his name to sixty volumes in one year. Has that done him any harm?”
Taggart rumpled his hair, reddish and rather stiff.
“Damn!” he said.
Counter laughed.
“You get a fixed screw for doing what you’re told. Why worry? Papers must be sold. Georgie Grebe—that’s some stunt.”
“Blast Georgie Grebe!”
He took his hat and went out; a prolonged whistle followed him. All next day he spent doing other jobs, trying to persuade himself that he was a crank, and gingerly feeling the mouths of journalists. All he got was: Fuss about nothing! What was the matter with devilling? With life at such pressure, what else could you have? But with the best intentions he could not persuade himself to go on with the thoughts of Georgie Grebe. And he remembered suddenly that his father had changed the dogmas of his religion at forty-five, and thereby lost a cure of souls. He was very unhappy; it was like discovering that he had inherited tuberculosis. On Friday he was sent for by the chief.
“Morning, Taggart; I’m just back. Look here, this leader for to-morrow—it’s nothing but a string of statements. Where’s my style?”
Taggart shifted his considerable weight from foot to foot.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I thought perhaps you’d like to put that in yourself, for a change. The facts are all right.”
The chief stared.
“My good fellow, do you suppose I’ve got time for that? Anybody could have written this; I can’t sign it as it stands. Tone it up.”
Taggart took the article from the chief’s hand.
“I don’t know that I can,” he said; “I’m——” and stopped.
The chief said kindly:
“Ill?”
Taggart disclaimed.
“Private trouble?”
“No.”
“Well, get on with it, then. How’s the Grebe article turned out?”
“It hasn’t.”
“How do you mean?”
Taggart felt his body stiffening.
“Fact is, I can’t write it.”
“Good gracious, man, any drivel will do, so long as it’s got a flavour of some sort to carry the name.”
Taggart swallowed.
“That’s it. Is it quite playing the game with the Public, sir?”
The chief seemed to loom larger suddenly.
“I don’t follow you, Taggart.”
Taggart blurted out: “I don’t want to write anyone else’s stuff in future, unless it’s just news or facts.”
The chief’s face grew very red.
“I pay you to do certain work. If you don’t care to carry out instructions, we can dispense with your services. What’s the matter with you, Taggart?”
Taggart replied with a wry smile:
“Suffering from a fit of conscience, sir. Isn’t it a matter of commercial honesty?”
The chief sat back in his swivel chair and gazed at him for quite twenty seconds.
“Well,” he said at last in an icy voice, “I have never been so insulted. Good-morning! You are at liberty.”
Taggart laid down the sheets of paper, walked stiffly to the door, and turned.
“Awfully sorry, sir, can’t help it.”
The chief bowed distantly, and Taggart went out.
For three months he had enjoyed liberty. Journalism was overstocked; his name not well known. Too shy and proud to ask for recommendation from ‘Conglomerated Journals,’ he could never bring himself to explain why he had ‘got the hoof.’ Claim a higher standard of morality than his fellows—not he! For two months he had carried on pretty well, but the last few weeks had brought him low indeed. Yet the more he brooded, the more he felt that he had been right, and the less inclined he was to speak of it. Loyalty to the chief he had insulted by taking such an attitude, dislike of being thought a fool, beyond all, dread of ‘swanking’ kept him silent. When asked why he had left ‘Conglomerated Journals’ he returned the answer always: “Disagreement on a point of principle,” and refused to enter into details. But a feeling had got about that he was a bit of a crank; for, though no one at ‘Conglomerated Journals’ knew exactly why he had vanished, Counter had spread the news that he had blasted Georgie Grebe, and refused to write his article. Someone else had done it. Taggart read the production with irritation. It was jolly bad. Inefficient devilling still hurt one who had devilled long and efficiently without a qualm. When the article which had not been written by Sir Cutman Kane appeared—he swore aloud. It was no more like the one Sir Cutman would have signed if Taggart had written it than the boots of Taggart were like the boots of the chief, who seemed to wear a fresh pair every day, with cloth tops. He read the chief’s new leaders with melancholy, spotting the many deficiencies of style supplied to the chief by the poor devil who now wrote them. His square, red, cheerful face had a bitter look while he was reading; and when he had finished, he would rumple his stiff hair. He was sturdy, and never got so far as calling himself a fool for his pains; but, week by week, he felt more certain that his protest had been in vain.
Sitting against the ranger’s palings, listening to the birds, he had a dreamy feeling about it all. Queer creatures, human beings! So damned uncritical! Had he not been like that himself for years and years? The power of a label—that was what struck him, sitting there. Label a thing decently, and it was decent! Ah! but, ‘Rue by any other name would smell as sour!’ Conscience!—it was the deuce!
1922.