Monday came, and with it of course the unparallelable success of The Mongoose. By nine o’clock the boys and decrepit vendors engaged for its distribution had perforce to be replaced by stalwart commissionaires who could withstand the frantic mobbing of impatient purchasers. All that day, and well on into Tuesday night, the printing-press in Holywell was a-roaring; bales upon bales poured out hot from the linotype; motor-vans dashed serriedly towards the station where the mail-trains stood awaiting the provincial consignments.
Gaveston was not ungratified. He could feel the pulse of Oxford beating in his own. He was universally feted, save in the fast disappearing Liberal Club, which, by Thursday, could only boast its honorary and corresponding members; he was caricatured, but respectfully, in the University Gazette; he was thrice, but in vain, invited to stand as a candidate for the library committee of the Union; and the chairman of the Boating Club offered him an honorary Blue.
But his head was not turned by the exuberance and gusto and brio which surged around him. He remained simple, unaffected, friendly; daily with a laugh he would put all the credit on David’s deprecating shoulders; nightly he would cable reports of his progressive triumphs to his mother, who was passing the winter on Coney Island and making a deep impression on the Wall Street Five Hundred.
Triumphs grew cumulative with the weeks. The fourth number contained a ten-page supplement of Gav’s latest musical compositions (delicious morceaus which aptly combined the piquancy of Lulli with the modernity of Lalo), three coloured reproductions of paintings from his own brush, a direct invitation in leaded type to Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria to return and claim his rightful Throne, and details of a Free Insurance Scheme for Regular Readers. And the fifth number, due next term, was planned to surpass even this.
But meanwhile a pressing need devolved upon his Atlas-like shoulders. The dear room of staircase XVII, with all its associations, was grown too small for him! In the one moment of disloyalty to Wallace that he ever knew, he envied Lord Kirkcudbright his spacious suite in Ch. Ch. Coll. But careful searchings with the faithful David’s aid at length discovered the perfect lodgement.
“What a dream of a place!” was Gaveston’s exclamation when his eye first rested on Malmaison Lodge. And well did it deserve the tribute!
It was a little, low William IV house; over the leaning, whitewashed slopes of its walls wine-dark ivy, passion flowers and celandine, wistaria, magnolia and the cuckoo-haunted Virginy creeper stencilled the careful patterns of their rivalry. The floor sank modestly beneath the level of the tangled, towsled garden, three neat steps curtseyed to the prim Queen Anne doorway, and there was the most comical little mezzanine imaginable. No road led to Malmaison Lodge, for it lay remote in an unfrequented purlieu, and, like the gingerbread cottage in the faery tale, it looked forgotten but not neglected. There was something discreetly morganatic in its air: in such a spot might princes soothe their crown-chafed heads, or cardinals forget awhile the insistent kisses that wear away their jewelled rings. And to crown all, the landlady’s name was Mrs. Grimaldi. When Gav learned that, he declared that no other house would bear the looking at.
And a rare body Mrs. Grimaldi proved herself!