ONE WAY WITH THEM.
Leeson is the best of living creatures (as so many of us are), but he has one detestable foible—he always wants to read something aloud. Now, reading aloud is a very special gift. Few men have it, and even of those few there are some who do not force it upon their friends; the rest have it not, and Leeson is of the rest.
In fact, it is really painful to listen to him, because he not only reads, but acts. If it is a woman speaking, he pipes a falsetto such as no woman outside a reciter's brain ever possessed. If it is a rustic, he affects a dialect from no known district. In emotional passages one does not dare to look at him at all, but we all cower with our heads in our hands, as though we were convicted but penitent criminals. So much for dramatic or dialogue pieces. When it comes to lyric poetry—his favourite form of literature—Leeson sings, or rather cantillates, swaying his body to the rhythm of the lines. If any of the poets could hear him they would become 'bus-conductors at once; it is as bad as that.
Otherwise Leeson is excellent company and one likes dining with him. But there's always hanging over one the dread that he may have alighted on something new and wonderful, and at any moment....
Directly I entered the house last week I was conscious that this had happened—Leeson had made another discovery. I had not been in the drawing-room for more than a minute, and had barely shaken hands with Mrs. Leeson, when he pulled from his pocket a thin book. I knew the worst at once: it had about it all the stigmata of new poetry. It was of the right deadly hue, the right deadly size, the right deadly roughness about the edges.
"I've got something here, my boy," he said. "The real stuff. Let me——"
Just at this moment the door opened and some guests entered.
"Never mind," he remarked to me, as he approached to welcome them; "later. It's wonderful—wonderful!"
Other guests arriving occupied him, and then a servant came in to say that he was wanted on the telephone.
He returned with the message that Captain Cathcart was sorry to say he could not possibly be there until a quarter-past eight. But please don't wait.
It was now five minutes past eight.
"What I suggest," said Leeson, "is that we do wait, and that we fill up the time by reading one or two poems by a new man that I've just discovered? They're simply wonderful!"
He drew out the book and we all composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs. Gaston, who is the insincerest creature on earth and has no thoughts beyond Auction Bridge, even going so far as to say, ecstatically, "A new poet! How heavenly!"
But Mrs. Leeson stopped it. "Oh, no," she said, "don't let us wait. Very likely Captain Cathcart will be later still." And with a sigh of relief that was almost audible we marched down to dinner.
I thought that Leeson cut the time over our cigars rather short, and we had no sooner returned to the drawing-room than he began again. "I won't keep you more than a few moments," he said, "but I very much want your opinion of a new poet I have discovered. I have his work here," and out came the deadly book, "and I want to read one or two brief things."
"Oh, George, dear," said Mrs. Leeson, "do you mind postponing that for a little? Miss Langton is very kindly going to sing for us, and she has to leave early."
Leeson accepted the situation with as much philosophy as he could muster.
As a rule I am bored by amateur, or indeed any, singing after dinner, but I looked at Miss Langton with an expression which a Society paper reporter might easily have misconstrued.
Long before she had finished we were all calling out, "Thank you! Thank you! Encore! Encore!"
Leeson alone was faint in his praises and his face fell to a lower depth when she began again.
No sooner had she finished and gone than he was planning another effort, but during the opportunity afforded by her departure we had, with great address, divided ourselves into such animated groups that Mrs. Leeson, like a tactful hostess, laid her hand on his arm and caused him again to postpone it.
He wandered forlornly from chair to chair, seeking an opening, and at last ventured to clear his throat and again ask if we would like to hear his new poet. "I assure you he's wonderful!"
But at this moment old Lady Thistlewood uttered a little cry and at once bells were rung for sal-volatile. Her ladyship, it seems, is subject to attacks of faintness.
When next Leeson made his proposal the Buntons rose and, expressing every variety of sorrow and regret, stated that they had no idea it was so late and they must really tear themselves away; Mrs. Bunton tactfully taking down the title of this dear new poet's book and its publisher.
This being the signal for the others to leave, I soon found myself alone.
"Now!" said Leeson with a triumphant expression. "Thank goodness they're out of the way and we're quiet and snug. Now you shall hear my poet." He felt for the book. "I tell you——" He stopped in dismay.
"I could have sworn it was in my pocket," he said, and began to hunt about the room.
"Where on earth can it be?" he said.
I helped him to look for it, but in vain.
"Perhaps Mrs. Bunton took it?" I suggested.
"I'm sure she didn't," he replied.
"Perhaps Mrs. Leeson has it?" I said.
But she had not. The last time she had seen it it was on the table after Mrs. Bunton copied the title.
Leeson was so utterly dejected that I felt almost sorry for him.
"Well," he said at last, "that's the strangest thing I ever heard of. What a disappointment! I did want you to hear it."
But it was precisely because I didn't that in my own pocket was the volume's present hiding-place. When the front door had closed behind me half-an-hour later, I slipped it into the letter-box.