CHAPTER XXXIV UNSKILLED LABOUR OF A NEW KIND
"A newspaper is as untruthful as an epitaph."
—Barwell.
I had never seen an omnibus. I did not know that it was necessary to take off my hat when entering a dwelling. I had never used a fork when eating. I had never been introduced to a lady; to me the approved form of introduction was a mystery. My boots had not been blackened for years. I wore my first collar when setting out for London. It nearly choked me. Since leaving Glenmornan I had rarely been inside an ordinary dwelling house. Most of the time I had lived under God's sky, the roof of a byre, and the tarred wooden covering of the navvies' shack at Kinlochleven. I had, it is true, seen the inside of a drawing-room and a dining-room—through the window. I lacked knowledge of most of the things which most people know and which really do not matter. I went to London a greenhorn gloriously green.
Outside Euston station I asked a man the way to Fleet Street. He inquired if I was going to walk or take an omnibus. Omnibus! I had never heard of an omnibus; he might have asked me if I intended to ride on a pterodactyl! I said that I was going to walk, and the stranger gave me several hints as to the direction which I should follow. Even if I had understood what he was saying, I am certain that I could not have remembered the directions. When he finished, he asked me for the price of his breakfast. This I understood, and gave him threepence, which pleased the man mightily.
It was funny that the first man accosted by me in London should ask for the price of a meal. The prospects of making a fortune looked poor at the moment.
I walked to Fleet Street, making inquiries from policemen on the way. This was safest, and I hadn't to pay for a meal when my questions were answered. By ten o'clock I found myself at the office of the Dawn, and there I met the editor.
The editor was a Frenchman, short of stature and breath. His figure was ridiculously rotund, and his little legs were so straight that they looked as if they were jointless. He would not have made much of a show on a ten-hour shift in the cutting of Kinlochleven, and though Fleet Street knows that he is one of the ablest editors in London I had not much respect for the man when I first saw him. He was busily engaged in looking through sheets of flimsy when I entered, and for a few minutes he did not take much notice of me. He called me Pim, asked me several questions about the navvies, my politics and writings. He looked annoyed when I said I was a socialist.
"A writer among navvies, and a navvy among writers; is that it?" asked the news-editor when I entered his office, a stuffy little place full of tobacco smoke. "You see that we have heard of you here. Going to try your hand at journalism now, are you? Feeling healthy and fit?"
He plied me with several questions relating to my past life, took no heed of my answers and, fumbling amongst a pile of papers, he drew out a type-written slip.
"I have a story for you," he said. "A fire broke out early this morning in a warehouse in Holborn. Go out and get all the facts relating to it and work the whole affair up well. If you do not know where Holborn is, make enquiries."
I met a third man, a young, clean-shaven, alert youth, in the passage outside the news-editor's door.
"Are you Flynn?" he asked, and when I answered in the affirmative he shook hands with me. "My name is Barwell," he continued. "I am a journalist like yourself. What the devil caused you to come here?"
I had no excuses to offer.
"You might have stayed where you were," said Barwell. "You'll find that a navvies' office is much better than a newspaper office. Have you had lunch?"
"No," I answered. It was now nearly one o'clock, but I had not had breakfast yet. I had never been inside a restaurant in my life, and the daintily-dressed waitresses and top-hatted feeders deterred me from entering that morning. I might have done something unbecoming and stupid, and in a strange place I am sensitive and shy.
"Come along then. We'll go out together and feed."
We entered a restaurant in the Strand, and my friend ordered lunch for two. During the course of the meal I suffered intense mental agony. The fork was a problem, the serviette a mystery, and I felt certain that everybody in the place was looking at me.
"The news-editor has asked me to write an account of a fire in Holborn," I said to Barwell when we had eaten, "Do you know where Holborn is?"
"The whole account of the fire is given in the evening papers," said Barwell. "Therefore you do not require to go near the place."
"You mean——"
"Exactly what you are going to say," said the young man looking at the copy of the evening paper which he had bought at the door when entering. "You can write your story now and get the facts from this. Have you a pencil and notebook?"
"No."
"If you are going to take up journalism they are the initial and principal requirements. Beyond a little tact and plenty of cheek you require nothing else. A conscience and a love of truth are great drawbacks. Are you ready?"
He handed me a pencil and notebook.
"Now begin. The opening sentence must be crisp and startling; and never end your sentences with prepositions."
"But I know nothing about the fire," I expostulated.
"Oh! I've forgotten." He picked up the paper which he had absent-mindedly kicked under the table. "Now you are all right. Get your facts from this rag, but write the story in your own way. You'll find this good training if ever you've got to weave out lies of your own. Meanwhile I've three or four novels to review."
As he spoke he opened a parcel which he had brought along with him, and took out several books which he regarded critically for a moment.
"Are they worth reading?" I asked.
"I do not know."
"You do not know and you're going to review them!"
"It's bad policy to read a book before you review it," he answered. "It is apt to give rise to prejudice. This volume," taking up one in his hand as he spoke, "The Woman who Fell, is written by a personal friend of the editor. I must review it favourably. This one, In the Teeth of the Tempest, is written by a strong supporter of the Liberal Government. The Dawn is tory, the author is liberal, therefore his work must be slated. See?"
"But your own opinion——"
"What the devil do I need with an opinion of my own?"
Thereupon Barwell reviewed the books which he had not read and I muddled through an account of the fire which I had not seen, and when we had finished we took our way into the street again.
Although it was barely past three o'clock, the early December night had now fallen. Fleet Street was a blaze of light and a medley of taxi-cabs and omnibuses. Except for the down-at-heel mendicant, and the women who had more paint than modesty, everybody was in a great hurry.
"What do you think of it all, Flynn?" asked Barwell suddenly. "Isn't it a great change from your past life? London! there's no place like it in all the world! Light loves and light ladies, passion without soul, enjoyment without stint, and sin without scandal or compunction."
"Only those with some idea of virtue can sin with compunction," I said. This thought came to me suddenly, and Barwell looked surprised at my words.
"By Jove! that's so," he answered, scribbling my remark down on his notebook. "Well, what is your opinion of London, all that you have seen of it?"
"What the devil do I want with an opinion?" I asked, quoting his own words.
"Quite so; but we are now speaking in a confidential, not in a journalistic sense. Do you not think that it is a heavenly privilege to be allowed to write lies for a kingdom of fools within ninety-eight million miles of the sun? You'll fall in love with London directly, old man, for it is the centre of the universe. The world radiates outwards from Charing Cross and revolves around the Nelson column. London is the world, journalism is the midden of creation."
"Do you really think that men are acting in a straightforward manner by writing unfair and untruthful articles for the public?" I asked.
"The public is a crowd of asses and you must interest it. You are paid to interest it with plausible lies or unsavoury truths. An unsavoury truth is always palatable to those whom it does not harm. Our readers gloat over scandal, revel in scandal, and pay us for writing it. Learn what the public requires and give it that. Think one thing in the morning and another at night; preach what is suitable to the mob and study the principle of the paper for which you write. That's how you have to do it, Flynn. A paper's principle is a very subtle thing, and it must be studied. Every measure passed in Parliament affects it, it oscillates to the breezes of public opinion and it is very intangible. The principle of a daily paper is elusive, old man, damned elusive. Come in and have a whisky and soda."
"Not elusive but changeable, I suppose," I said, alluding to his penultimate remark as we stood at the bar of the wine shop. "The principles of the Dawn are rather consistent, are they not?"
"The principles oscillate, old man. Your health, and may you live until newspapers are trustworthy! Consistent, eh? Some day you'll learn of the inconsistencies of Fleet Street, Flynn. Here the Jew is an advocate of Christianity, the American of Protection, the poet a compiler of statistics, the penny-a-liner a defender of the idle rich, and the reporter with anarchistic ideas a defender of social law and order. Here charlatans, false as they are clever, play games in which the pawns are religion and atheism, and make, as suits their purpose, material advantages of the former or a religion of the latter. Fleet Street is the home of chicanery, of fraud, of versatile vices and unnumbered sins. It is an outcome of the civilisation which it rules, a framer of the laws which it afterwards destroys or protects at caprice; without conscience or soul it dominates the world. Only in its falseness is it consistent. Truth is further removed from its jostling rookeries than the first painted savage who stoned the wild boar in the sterile wastes of Ludgate Circus."
Barwell's gestures were as astonishing as his eloquence. One hand clutched the lapel of his coat; in the other he held the glass of liquor which he shook violently when reaching the zenith of his harangue. The whisky splashed and sparkled and kept spurting over the rim of the glass until most of the contents were emptied on the floor. He hardly drank a quarter of the liquor. We went out, and once in the street he continued his vehement utterances.
"Take the Dawn for example," he said. "The editor is a Frenchman, the leader-writer a German, the American special correspondent an Irishman who came to England on a cattle boat and who has never ventured on the sea since. The Dawn advocates Tariff Reform, and most of the reporters are socialists. The leader-writer points out the danger of a German menace daily. What influences one of the Kaiser's subjects to sit down and, for the special benefit of the British nation, write a thrilling warning against the German menace? Salary or conscience, eh? The Dawn knows the opinions of Germany before Germany has formed an opinion, and gives particulars of the grave situation in the Far East before the chimerical situation has evolved from its embryological stages. Consistent, my dear fellow? It is only consistent in its inconsistencies. The reviewers seldom read the books which they review in its pages, and the quack suffers from the ills which through its columns he professes to cure. The bald man who sells a wonderful hair restorer, the cripple who can help the lame, and the anæmic pill-maker who professes ability to cure any disease, all advertise in the Dawn. A newspaper is as untruthful as an epitaph, Flynn."
"If you dislike the work so much why do you remain on the staff?" I asked.
"I do not dislike it. Being by nature a literary Philistine and vagabond journalist, I love the work. Anyhow, there is nothing else which I can do. If I happened to be placed on a square acre of earth fresh from the hands of the Creator, and given a spade and shovel to work with, what use could I make of those tools of labour? I could not earn my living with a spade and shovel. It was for the like of us that London and journalism were created."
For a while I was very much out of my place at my quarters in Bloomsbury, for it was in that locality that I obtained rooms along with Barwell. Everything in the place was a fresh experience to me; at the dinner-table I did not know the names of the dishes. The table napkins were problems which were new to me, and the frilled and collared maid-servant was a phenomena, disconcerting and unavoidable.
I who had cooked my own chops for the best part of seven years, I who had dined in moleskin and rags for such a long while, felt the handicap of dining inside four walls, hemmed with restraint, and almost choked with the horrible starched abomination which decency decreed that I should wear around my neck. It was very wearisome. Barwell was utterly careless and outraged custom with impunity, but I, who feared to do the wrong thing, always remained on the tenter-hooks of suspense. Barwell knew what should be done and seldom did it, while I, who was only learning the very rudimentary affectations of civilised society, took care to follow out the most stringent commands of etiquette whenever I became aware of those commands.
At the office of the Dawn I was reticent and backward. I lacked the cleverness, the smartness and readiness of expression with which other members of the staff were gifted. I had come into a new world, utterly foreign to me, and often I longed to be back again with Moleskin Joe on some long road leading to nowhere.
For a while my stories were not successful, although I made a point of seeing the things of which I wrote. I came back to the office every evening full of my subject, whether a florist's exhibition, a cat show, or a police court case, and sat down seriously to write my story. When half-written I tore it up seriously and began again. When satisfied with the whole completed account I took it to the sub-editor, who read it seriously and seriously threw it into the waste-paper basket. At the end of the first week I found that only two articles of mine had appeared in the Dawn. I had written eight.
"You write in too serious a vein for a modern paper," said the sub-editor.
When the spring came round I could feel, even in Fleet Street, the spell of the old roving days come over me; those days when Moleskin and I tramped along the roads of Scotland, thanking God for the little scraps of tobacco which we found in our pockets, while wondering where the next pipeful could be obtained! My heart went out to the old mates and the old places. I had a longing for the little fire in the darkness, the smell of the wet earth, the first glimpse of the bend in the road, and the dream about the world of mystery lying round the corner. When I went across Blackfriars Bridge, or along the Strand, on a cold, bracing morning, I wanted to walk on ever so far, away—away. Where to—it didn't matter. The office choked me, smothered me; it felt so like a prison. I wanted to be with Moleskin Joe, and often I asked myself, "Where is he now? what is my old comrade doing at this moment? Is the old vagabond still happy in his wanderings and his hopes of a good time coming, or has he finished up his last shift and handed in his final check for good and all?" Often I longed to see him again and travel with him to new and strange places.
Of my salary, now three pounds a week, I sent a guinea home to my own people every Saturday. Of course, now, getting so much, they wanted more. Journalism to them implied some hazy kind of work where money was stint-less and to be had for the asking. My other brothers were going out into the world now, and my eldest sister had gone to America. "I wish that I could keep them at home," wrote my mother. "You are so long away now that we do not miss you."
"Will you go down to Cyfladd, Flynn, and write some 'stories' about the coal strike?" asked the news editor one morning. "I think that you have a natural bent for these labour affairs. Your navvy stories were undoubtedly good, and even a spicy bit of socialism added to their charm."
"Spicy bit of socialism, indeed!" broke in the irrepressible Barwell. "The day will come when the working men of England shall invade London and decorate Fleet Street with the gibbeted bodies of hireling editors. Have you a cigarette to spare, Manwell?"
"You go down to Cyfladd, Flynn," said the news editor, handing his cigarette-case to Barwell. "See what is doing there and write up good human stories dealing with the discontent of the workers. Do not be afraid to state things bluntly. Tell about their drinking and quarrelling, and if you come across miners who are in good circumstance don't fail to write about it."
"But suppose for a moment that he comes across men who are really poor, men who may not have had enough wages to make both ends meet, what is he to do?" asked loquacious Barwell, the socialistic Philistine, who played with ideas for the mere sake of the ideas. "For myself, I do not believe in the right to strike, and I admire the man who starves to death without making a fuss. Why should uncultured and uneducated miners create a fuss if they are starved to death in order to satisfy the needs of honourable and learned gentlemen? What right has a common worker to ask for higher wages? What right has he to take a wife and bring up children? The children of the poor should be fattened and served up on the tables of the rich, as advocated by Dean Swift in an age prior to the existence of the Dawn. The children of the poor who cannot become workers become wastrels; the rich wastrels wear eye-glasses and spats. We have no place in the scheme of things for the wastrels who wear neither eye-glasses nor spats, therefore I believe that it would be good for the nation if many of the children of the poor were fattened, killed, and eaten. But I am wandering from the point. Let us look at the highly improbable supposition of which I have spoken. It is highly improbable, of course, that there are poor people amongst the miners, for they have little time to spend the money which they take so long to earn. Now and again they die, leaving a week's wages lying at the pay-office. I have heard of cases like that several times. These men, who are out on strike, may leave a whole week's pay to their wives and children when they die, and for all that they grumble and go out on strike! But we cannot expect anything else from uneducated workmen. I am wandering from the point again, and the point is this: Suppose, for an instant, that Flynn doesn't find a rich, quarrelsome, and drunken miner in Cyfladd, what is he to do? Return again?"
"You're a fool, Barwell!" said the news editor.
"Manwell, you're a confirmed fool," Barwell replied.
I put on my coat and hat, stuffed my gloves, which I hated, into my pocket, and went out into the street. The morning was dry and cold, the air was exhilarating and good to breathe. I gulped it down in mighty mouthfuls. It was good to be in the open street and feel the little winds whipping by in mad haste. Up in the office, steaming with cigarette smoke, it was so stuffy, so dead. Everything there was so artificial, so unreal, and I was altogether out of sympathy with all the individuals on the Dawn. "Do I like the Dawn?" I asked myself. I wanted to face things frankly at that moment. "Do I like journalism, or merely feel that I should like it?" But I made no effort to answer the question; it was not very important, and now I was walking hurriedly, trying to keep myself warm. Two things occurred to me at the same instant: I was short of money and I had not asked for my railway fare to Wales at the office. Where did the train start from? Was it Euston? I did not exactly know, and somehow it didn't seem to matter.
I would not go to Wales; I did not want to analyse my reasons for not going, but I was determined not to go. I felt that in going I would be betraying my own class, the workers. Moleskin Joe would never dream of doing a thing like that; why should I? I must make some excuse at the office, I thought, but asked myself the next instant why should I make any excuses? Besides, the office was like a prison; it choked me. I wanted to leave, but somehow felt that I ought not.
I found myself going along Gray's Inn Road towards my lodging-house. A girl opened a window and looked at me with a vacant stare. She was speaking to somebody in the room behind her and her voice trailed before me like a thin mist. She somewhat resembled Norah Ryan: the same white brow, the red lips, only that this girl had a sorrowful look in her eyes, as if too many weary thoughts had found expression there.
How often during the last four months had I thought of Norah Ryan. I longed for her with a mighty longing, and now that she was alone and in great trouble it was my duty to help her. I felt angry with myself for going up to London when I should have followed up my holier mission in Glasgow. What was fortune and fame to me if I did not make the girl whom I really loved happy? Daily it became clearer to me that I was earnestly and madly in love with Norah. We were meant for one another from childhood, although destiny played against us for a while. I would find her again and we would be happy, very happy, together, and the past would be blotted out in the great happiness which would be ours in the future. To me Norah was always pure and always good. In her I saw no wrong, no sin, and no evil. I would look for her until I found her, and finding her would do my best to make her happy.
The girl closed the window as I passed. I came to my lodgings, paid the landlady, and wrote to the Dawn saying that I was leaving London. I intended to tramp to the north, but a story of mine had just been published in —— and the money came to hand while I was settling with the landlady.
I learned later that Barwell went down to Wales. That night I set off by rail for Glasgow.