He sat down when Logan had gone, and wrote a few notes on large sheets of paper. He was elaborating the scheme. ‘If collaboration consists in making objections, as the French novelist said, Logan is a rare collaborator,’ Merton muttered as he turned out the pallid lamp and went to bed.
Next morning, before dressing, he revolved the scheme. It bore the change of light and survived the inspiration of alcohol. Logan looked in after breakfast. He had no new objections. They proceeded to action.
II. FROM THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES
The first step towards Merton’s scheme was taken at once. The lady patronesses were approached. The divine Althæa instantly came in. She had enjoyed few things more since the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of Waterloo. Miss Nicky Maxwell at first professed a desire to open her coffers, ‘only anticipating,’ she said, ‘an event’—which Logan declined in any sense to anticipate. Lady Lochmaben said that they would have a lovely time as experimental students of society. Mrs. Brown-Smith instantly offered her own services as a Disentangler, her lord being then absent in America studying the negro market for detergents.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘he expects Brown-Smith’s brand to make an Ethiopian change his skin, and then means to exhibit him as an advertisement.’
‘And settle the negro question by making them all white men,’ said Logan, as he gracefully declined the generous but compromising proposal of the lady. ‘Yet, after all,’ thought he, ‘is she not right? The prophylactic precautions would certainly be increased, morally speaking, if the Disentanglers were married.’ But while he pigeon-holed this idea for future reference,
at the moment he could not see his way to accepting Mrs. Brown-Smith’s spirited idea. She reluctantly acquiesced in his view of the case, but, like the other dames, promised to guarantee, if applied to, the absolute respectability of the enterprise. The usual vows of secrecy were made, and (what borders on the supernatural) they were kept.
Merton’s first editions went to Sotheby’s, ‘Property of a gentleman who is changing his objects of collection.’ A Russian archduke bought Logan’s unique set of golf clubs by Philp. Funds accrued from other sources. Logan had a friend, dearer friend had no man, one Trevor, a pleasant bachelor whose sister kept house for him. His purse, or rather his cheque book, gaped with desire to be at Logan’s service, but had gaped in vain. Finding Logan grinning one day over the advertisement columns of a paper at the club, his prophetic soul discerned a good thing, and he wormed it out ‘in dern privacy.’ He slapped his manly thigh and insisted on being in it—as a capitalist. The other stoutly resisted, but was overcome.
‘You need an office, you need retaining fees, you need outfits for the accomplices, and it is a legitimate investment. I’ll take interest and risks,’ said Trevor.
So the money was found.