THE BLUE GARDENIA.
(A Colourable Imitation.)
It was a splendid scarlet afternoon, and the little garden looked its gayest in the midsummer sunshine which streamed down its tiny paths. Yellow asters grew golden in the pale lemon light, whilst the green carnations which abounded everywhere seemed so natural that it was difficult to believe they had been wired on to the plants that morning by a London firm of florists. That was a plan on which Cecil Paragraph always insisted. As he was so fond of saying, Nature was a dear old thing, but she lacked inventiveness. It was only an outworn convention which objected to gilding the lily, or colouring the carnation. So the London florists always came each morning to convert the garden into a pink rhapsody.
Lord Archie (he was not a Lord really, but Cecil always insisted that a title was a matter of temperament) and Cecil were sitting out on the lawn. Clever conversation always takes place on the lawn. Cecil and Lord Archie smoked high-priced cigarettes. The witty characters always do.
"My dear Archie," said Cecil, "I have something important to tell you."
"If you were not Cecil Paragraph, that would mean that the milkman had called to have his account paid, or that Mary—or is it Martha?—had given notice. It's like letters headed 'Important,'—a prospectus of a gold mine, or a letter from a distant relative to say he's coming to stay the week-end. Saying 'week-end' always reminds me of the Baron de Book-Worms. I fancy myself haggling for a cheap ticket at a booking-office."
"Archie, you've prattled enough. Remember it is I who am expected to fill the bill. Archie, I am writing a book."
"A book? You will let me collaborate with you?"
"Collaboration is the modern method of evading responsibility. A genius moves in a cycle of masterpieces, but it is never a cycle made for two. It reminds me of the book by Mr. Rider Haggard and Mr. Lang. Too late Mr. Haggard found that he had killed the goose which laid the golden eggs. He had lost the notices which his collaborator could no longer write."
"But it is so much trouble to write a book. Would not a purple newspaper article effect your purpose?"
"One would think I was Mr. Athelstan Riley, or the Independent Labour Party, to hear you talk of effecting my purpose. But in any case the book's the thing."
"Tell me, Cecil, tell me about your book," said Lord Archie, with the ardour of a disciple of Cecil's.
"It will be called The Blue Gardenia. The title is one of the unemployed; it has nothing to do with the story."
"I fancy I remember that Mr. Barry Pain said that once before."
"No doubt. The clumsiness of acknowledgment is what makes the artist into an artisan. I am like Mr. Balfour, I do not hesitate to shoot—into my treasury the pearls of speech I have gathered from others, and then, Archie, I shall not lack the art of personal allusion. If my characters go out into the village and see the village clergymen, I shall make him the Archbishop of Canterbury. People like it. They say it's rude, but they read the book and repeat the rudeness. I shall be frankly rude. Minor poets and authors and actors will all be fair game. You suggest the publisher may object. To tell you the truth, ANY MAN will publish for me. The book will succeed—it is only mediocrities who indulge in failure—and the public will tumble over one another in their mad rush to be dosed with epigrams of genius."
"And I will write a flaming favourable notice in the Dodo."
"You will do me no such unkindness, I am sure, my dear Archie. To be appreciated is to be found out."
And so plucking as they went the green carnations of a blameless life, they went in to dinner.
The Tale of J. B.; or, "The Prisoner of Salta."—"J. B. is sly, Sir—devilish sly;" but the present J. B., not the Major Bagstock of Dombey and Son, but the minor Jabez Balfour, has not yet, as reported, managed to escape from the prison of Salta, the authorities having contrived to put a little Salt-a'pon his tail. Il y est, il y reste.
