V
A VERY VULGAR CHAPTER
"Ingram, Paul. Will Paul Ingram communicate at once with 'P.,' 15, Darlaston Crescent? The matter is urgent, and concerns the future happiness of another."
Some day, when Paul Ingram is already a legend, the dipper into musty records who stumbles upon this heartrending appeal in issue after issue will imagine he has made a rare find. Always supposing another eventuality, which I sometimes seem to foresee, has not supervened, and that a reformed society, for security's sake, and as an earnest of its reformation, does not make a bonfire once for all of the records of its past depravity and madness.
Nothing, to me, affords fruit for such sad thought as to see unworldly folk taking advantage of the machinery of a world that is organized to crush them and their like out of existence. That Oxford graduate who seeks "congenial employment as amanuensis or secretary," the gentlewoman "thrown suddenly upon her own resources through financial loss" who is anxious for a post as nursery governess, as companion, as anything that will allay the fright and loneliness at her heart—("fond of children," she adds. Poor soul, one sees her casting a wistful glance into passing perambulators.) Do not the very compositors, I wonder, laugh as they set up such type? I was sorry indeed for that "other" whose happiness depended upon Ingram's resurrection.
Meantime I had given my word, and I was not idle. Every good journalist is a bit of a detective at heart, and I discovered a mournful zest in following Paul's calvary, step by step, from one lodging to another. Everywhere I found help and sympathy, and conceived a new regard for the maligned race of landladies. (Mrs. McNaughten, of course, is hors concours.)
"Ah! poor gentleman," said one grimy soul. "Well I remember the night he come. I knocked at the door to arst 'im if 'e wouldn't take somethin' 'eartenin' with 'is tea—a bloater, or a rasher—and there 'e wos, settin' with 'is 'ead down on the table. Money? Oh, a trifle of rent, sir. Wanted to leave 'is trunk be'ind; but there, live and let live's my motter. It went to my 'eart to 'ave 'im go—wanted care, 'e did—but you see, sir, me bein' only a workin' woman, and 'avin' a 'usband at 'ome with bronickal trouble——Thank you kindly, sir, sence you orfer it. You won't think no worst of me for takin' it, will you?"
At the very next stopping place—I had almost said stumbling place—the trunk came to hand. Strangely enough, he owed nothing here. I suppose at a certain point in misfortune a man flings his possessions from him as a swimmer flings his clothes.
"Took 'is things away in a bundle, wot there wos," said the mistress of this house, who was nursing and rocking a child as she spoke. "I ain't techt nothink," with a slight shiver. "If so be you're a friend of the party, you'd prabst better open it. The keys is upstairs. No: nothin' owin,' but I wasn't sorry w'en 'e went. Too strange in 'is manner. It goes agenst a 'ouse w'en things—you know wot I mean—'appens in it."
To Mrs. Purvis's secret disappointment, I believe, there was nothing in the trunk but a mass of torn paper and a queer brown-paper parcel that I seemed to recognize. It was addressed to the house near Golden Square, and the label was headed with the name of some legal firm in the West End. It was the manuscript of "Sad Company."