VII
The memory of that evening at the Prides remained with Humphrey. It was his first glimpse into the social life, and he saw a home that was wholly delightful. Beaver had not under-estimated the hospitality of the Prides. They gave him a hearty welcome that made him feel at home at once. Tommy Pride met them in the passage, and after the first introductions he led the way to the sitting-room, where Mrs Pride was waiting. She was a woman of forty, buxom and charming. He saw, within a very few minutes, that her admiration of Tommy Pride knew no bounds, that she thought him splendid and flawless—that much he read from the way her brown eyes lit up when she gazed upon him, and the fond smile that marked her lips when she spoke to him.
The sitting-room was not a very large apartment, but it was furnished with unusual taste. There were books set in white enamelled bookcases—books that are permanent on the shelf, and not novels of a moment. There was chintz on the arm-chairs and green curtains hung over the window, and a few original black-and-white drawings and water-colours on the walls, papered in dark blue. The impression that the room gave to the visitor was one of peace and rest.
Humphrey was frankly disappointed in Tommy Pride. He had had a vague notion that everybody connected with a London newspaper was, of necessity, a person of fame. He knew the names of those who signed the articles in The Day, and he imagined he would find himself in the company of the great immortals. Somehow or other it had never crossed his mind that there were patient, toiling men—hundreds of them—who put out their best work day after day, year after year, without any hope of glory or fame, but simply for the necessities of life, as a bricklayer lays bricks—hundreds of men quite unknown outside the bounds of Fleet Street and the inner newspaper world.
"Well," Mrs Pride said to him; "so you're going to try your luck in London, Mr Quain?"
Humphrey nodded, and the conversation went into the channels of small talk. Beaver and he amused the Prides with recollections of Easterham and Mr Worthing, and Tommy Pride capped their recollections with some of his own.
"When I was on a little local paper once, we had a fellow named Smee, who thought he could write," said Tommy. "The editor was a hard, cruel sort of chap, without any sympathy for the finer side of literature—at least that was what Smee said. He used to sob all round the place, because he wanted to write great throbbing prose instead of borough-council meetings. One day Smee got his chance. The editor was ill, and there was a prisoner to be hanged in the county jail. Smee wrote the effort of his life. It went something in this way:—
"'Last Tuesday, under the blue vault of heaven, when the larks were singing their rhapsodies to the roseate dawn, at 8 A.M., like a sudden harbinger of horror, the black flag fluttered above the prison walls, showing that Alfred Trollop, aged forty-two, labourer, had suffered the last penalty of the law—viz., death.'"
"How's that for descriptive?" asked Tommy, smacking his lips. "'Viz., death.' A glorious touch, eh?" He leaned towards Humphrey. "Don't you bother about fine writing, Quain, or you'll break your heart. We keep a stableful of fine writers, and turn 'em loose when we want any high falutin' done."