CHAPTER VIII
AN UPSETTING ARTICLE IN THE MORNING PAPER
Some few mornings after the events just recorded the Lady Mayoress sat down to breakfast in one of the most cosy of the morning-rooms in their private suite in the Mansion House. A very smart manservant of quite aristocratic appearance solemnly poured out some most fragrant coffee, and removed many covers from a most delicately appetising breakfast-table, as a preliminary to removing his aristocratic presence from the room altogether. There could be no doubt that the Lady Mayoress was a singularly pretty and attractive lady, and despite her well-dressed head of iron-grey hair, looked fully fifteen years younger than her age, which is invariably a pleasing reflection for a woman who has passed the age of forty-five.
The Lady Mayoress sipped her morning coffee, and in the absence of her husband the Lord Mayor, who was late for breakfast on this occasion, unfolded the morning newspapers and started leisurely to peruse their contents.
The Lady Mayoress, being exceedingly popular, and having taken a prominent part in a number of social functions, like most women, was never averse to reading any paragraphs which might chance to mention her sayings, doings, and, more particularly, her dress. The Lady Mayoress read on; there appeared to be very little in the particular paper she was perusing that interested her, so refolding it carefully the Lady Mayoress selected another morning paper, and opening it, smiled as she read in big print, "Audacious attack by Mr. Learnéd Bore."
"Ah!" commented the Lady Mayoress, "he certainly is a particularly audacious, as well as being a very naughty man, who makes fun of everything and everybody, but at least his articles and letters are always amusing." Thereupon the smiling lady gently stirred her coffee, folded the newspaper to the required place, and proceeded to enjoy Mr. Learnéd Bore's contribution to the morning journalism.
Suddenly the little silver coffee spoon dropped from the Lady Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings, mingled with pleasant apologies for being late.
Something in the expression of his wife's face, however, gave the worthy Lord Mayor an uncomfortable, apprehensive sort of feeling, the cheerful flow of his morning remarks died away in little sentences, as if the promise of their young life had been cut short.
The Lord Mayor chipped an egg nervously, and made a brave show of gulping his coffee.
"Well, Mum, you seem very interested in the morning paper," observed Sir Simon, with an assumption of hearty cheerfulness he was far from feeling.
Something in the expression of Mum's face seemed to baffle all analysis, as she continued to read without vouchsafing any answer. After a terrible pause the Lady Mayoress refolded the paper, and laying it upon the table, regarded her husband steadfastly with flushed face and sparkling eyes.
Sir Simon's heart seemed to sink into his boots.
"I thought you distinctly told me, Simon, when you returned, at what I can only describe as a most eccentric hour in the early morning, that you had been visiting an old friend."
"Quite right, my dear, I assure you I had. I'm right upon that point at any rate."
"You told me you had not been to a Pantomime," continued his wife, heedless of the interruption.
"No, my dear,—no Pantomime, I assure you; I never entered a theatre or a building of any such description."
"Apparently not," came the icy reply; "the Pantomime in this case appears to have taken place in the open air. Read that paper," commanded the Lady Mayoress, "and offer any suggestion you can find as to how I can keep up my position, or your position, whilst such a statement as this" (tapping the opened paper) "remains uncontradicted." Then the Lady Mayoress swept from the room.
Sir Simon groaned and closed his eyes before venturing to look at the offending article. He instinctively felt he was about to receive a shock without the necessary strength to bear it. Sir Simon gingerly unclosed one eye and read, "Audacious attack by Mr. Learnéd Bore." Sir Simon shivered and hastily closed the one eye he had opened. Then he valiantly tried both eyes and read by way of a second and happy headline, "The Lord Mayor revives Paganism in London." Sir Simon never knew how he finished that article. It was a most scurrilous attack.
All the biting satire and vitriolic irony that Mr. Learnéd Bore had so well at his command was here employed to compliment the Lord Mayor upon being acclaimed a great Christian in the afternoon after opening his New House for Children; whilst he was found at night like any Pagan of old worshipping one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, around whose mane he had hung a votive wreath of water-lilies, across whose unresponsive neck the Lord Mayor had wound his arms in supplication, imploring it that it might speak, and give a sign like the Oracle in Delphi.
Was the Lord Mayor of London the last of the great Pagans? asked the writer, or had he merely gone back a few thousand years in imagination, owing to the insidious suggestions of another Heathen Deity who had doubtless presided over the Wine-press with an unstinted hand earlier in the day during the banquet at the Guildhall? The writer dared to express a hope that it was merely a form of Civic debauchery emanating from the oft-replenished toasts of the Devil's cup, rather than a classical intoxication which if persisted in might plunge the whole of London once more into the perverted darkness of Pagan ages.
The Lord Mayor seized his hat and called for his carriage, and arrived at the Writer's chambers overlooking Trafalgar Square, purple in the face.
"Yes, I've read it, Dad," remarked the Writer as he observed Sir Simon's signs of almost apoplectic agitation. "It's very bad form, and what is worse it's very badly written."
"The pen is mightier than the sword," shouted Sir Simon, "and unfortunately the sword is out of date nowadays, or I would challenge him upon the spot; but, my boy, you have the pen, and you can use it, and a jolly sight better than the silly ass who wrote that article. Will you answer him for me?"
The Writer smiled and shook his head.
"No, Dad, that is exactly what he wants; he would get all the advertisement out of such a controversy that his soul craves for, and which is absolutely necessary for him now to keep up his reputation. I have something to suggest much better than that."
"What is it?" asked the Lord Mayor helplessly.
"Did you ever consider some of the characteristics of Ulysses, Dad?"
"Oh, they talked about him in my school-days, but I didn't have much schooling, you know; and what on earth has Ulysses to do with this?"
The Writer grinned. "Because, Dad, he possessed a remarkably wily gift of always finding his enemies' one vulnerable spot."
"Well?"
"I know at least two of Learnéd Bore's most vulnerable spots."
"Eh? Unbounded conceit and unlimited calumny?" questioned Sir Simon.
"No," rejoined the Writer, "I should say he was invulnerable upon those two points. However, two things he dreads more than anything else. He has a horror of ridicule when it is turned upon himself, and an unutterable and most unnatural hatred of all children."
"Well, I don't see how that helps me," rejoined the Lord Mayor.
The Writer looked at Sir Simon significantly, and spoke slowly and deliberately so that his words might have their full effect.
"Lose no time in bringing an action against him for libel; as a defendant he will be off his pedestal,—and at a disadvantage."
The Lord Mayor opened his eyes and whistled softly. "I never thought of that," he confessed; "and where does his horror of children come in?"
"The chief witness for your side will be little Ridgwell," suggested the Writer quietly; "it will be something that Learnéd Bore doesn't understand, has never encountered, and will not know how to deal with, and of the two I know whose story will be believed, however fantastic it sounds. The child will be the one who will score, they always do in Court, and I think that Learnéd Bore will live to gnash such teeth as he hasn't had pulled, and employ the venom of his remaining fangs upon some one else."
Sir Simon lay back in his chair and laughed heartily, and all his old good-humour seemed to be restored to him.
"'Pon my word," he declared, "it is a capital idea of yours. How shall
I commence the action?"
"I'll find the man for you and get Vellum and Crackles, the solicitors, to instruct him at once on the case. His name is Mr. Gentle Gammon, K.C., a famous barrister. He was at school with me, and afterwards at Oxford. Why, Dad, you must remember him, he returned home once with me and spent the Christmas holidays with us at Lancaster Gate. Mum thought an awful lot of him."
"I remember!" exclaimed Sir Simon excitedly; "meek manner, gentle voice, but the young devil always got his own way, I noticed, before any one even knew what he was after."
"He gets his own way rather more now than he did then, if possible, and by the same means. He always wins his cases too."
"Engage him," commanded Sir Simon, "engage him at once, my boy; and are you going to undertake to coach little Ridgwell?"
"Little Ridgwell won't want any coaching," chuckled the Writer. "I only want little Ridgwell to appear in Court and talk to them about the Pleasant-Faced Lion as he talks to me, and I think it will be a refreshing and unusual experience for them all; and I firmly believe for the first time in his life Mr. Learnéd Bore will not be able to find anything to say."
"It's very odd," remarked Sir Simon as he rose to take his departure, "really very odd that you should have mentioned that chap just now—what's his name—Ulysses; as far as I remember he was a very cunning person, uncannily cunning, and I'm afraid really quite underhand, so to speak, and sometimes deceitful in his methods; and do you know, my boy, you rather remind me of him, now I come to think of the matter."
The Writer grinned affably.
"And whilst we are upon this subject," pursued Sir Simon, "I should really like to know what explanation you gave to the policeman that night, that he considered so convincing and satisfactory."
"Even Ulysses didn't reveal all his wisdom, Dad. Good-bye."