He combed his glossy black beard with the fingers of one hand; a white hand it was, save where cigarettes had browned the first and second fingers; a hand that had never known physical toil, though its owner always addressed "working" men as one of themselves. He wore a fiery red necktie, and a fiery diamond on the little finger of the hand that combed his beard. A self-indulgent life in the city was telling on him, but Clement Blaine was still rather a fine figure of a man, in his coarse, bold way. He had a varnished look, and, dressed for the part, would have made a splendid stage pirate.
"It's odd you should have come to me to-day," he said. "Look here!"
He handed me a cutting from a daily paper.
At Holloway, yesterday afternoon, an inquest was held on the body of a man named Joseph Cartwright, who is said to have been a journalist. This man was found dead upon his bed, fully dressed, on Tuesday morning. The medical evidence showed death to be due to heart failure, and indicated alcoholism as the predisposing cause. A verdict was returned in accordance with the medical evidence.
"He was my assistant editor," said Clement Blaine, as I looked up from my perusal of this sorry tale.
"Really?" I said.
"Yes, a clever fellow; most accomplished journalist, but——" And Mr. Blaine raised his elbow with a significant gesture, by which he suggested the act of drinking.
Within the hour I had accepted an engagement as assistant editor of The Mass with the magnificent sum of two pounds a week by way of remuneration.
"It's poor pay," said Blaine. "And I only wish I could double it. But that's all it will run to at present, and—well, of course, it counts for something to be working for the cause as directly as we do in The Mass."
I nodded, not without qualms. My education made it impossible for me to accept unreservedly the most scurrilous features of the journal. But the cause was good—I was assured of that; and I would introduce improvements, I thought. I was still very inexperienced. Meantime, I was not to know the carking anxiety of the out-of-work. I could still pay my way at the Bloomsbury lodging. This was something.