And they would want young men, keen, shrewd young men, and so the day would come when he would fade away from the life of Fleet Street. And then—"Tommy and I are going to retire soon," Mrs Pride said, with a fond glance at her husband, "aren't we, Tommy?"
"She means to the workhouse, Beaver," Tommy remarked, with a grin.
"We're going to have a cottage in the country, and Tommy's going to write his book."
"No," said Beaver, incredulously.
"Do you write books, Mr Pride?" Humphrey asked.
"I? Lord, no! Not now. I once had an idea of writing books. I was just about your age. I believe I've even got the first chapter somewhere. But I've never written it. Whenever the missis and I get very depressed, we cheer ourselves up by talking of that book, and writing it in the country. By the way, do you know that deep down in the heart of every newspaper man there's a longing to write one book, and to live on two pounds a week in the country?"
"That'll do, Tommy," Mrs Pride interposed. "I won't have you spoil Mr Quain's evening any more. You're making him quite depressed. Don't pay any attention to him, Mr Quain, and have some cheese."
After supper they went back to the sitting-room, and Mrs Pride played to them, and Beaver sang in a shaky bass voice. Humphrey had never heard Beaver sing before. There was something grotesque about the singing. It took Humphrey by surprise. Beaver was the sort of man who, somehow or other, one imagined would sing in a high treble. He sang on and on, right through the portfolio of the "World's Favourite Songs," including "The Anchor's Weighed," "John Peel," "The Heart Bowed Down," and the rest of them. Pride sat in the arm-chair by the fireside, smoking a pipe, and nodding to the old melodies, while Humphrey gravitated to the book-shelves, and looked at some of the books.
He seemed to have left Easterham and his aunt far behind him in dim ages. A new feeling of responsibility came over him, as he sat there thinking of the morrow when his battle with Fleet Street was to begin. The future rested with him alone, and it gave him a delicious thrill of individuality to think of it.