The unsophisticated observer might be excused for imagining that the maternal proviso extinguishes our young friend's prospects of a career altogether. Not so. To the upper classes of England there are trades and trades. You may become a land-agent, for instance, without loss of caste; presumably because you cannot possibly make any money out of being a land-agent. You may also become a stockjobber, possibly because a stockjobber's earnings cannot by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as the fruit of honest toil. You may go to Ceylon, or Canada, or California, and there, in the decent obscurity of a foreign clime, live by the work of your own hands. You may even go upon the stage, in a gentlemanly sort of way. But you must not go into trade. You must not buy or sell merchandise in the open market; though, as stated above, you are perfectly at liberty to sell what you have not got, and buy what you could not pay for if you received it, in the world of Bulls and Bears.
However,—no one seems to know why, but the undisputable fact remains,—you may sell automobiles for a living and remain a gentleman. It is not known who discovered this providential law of nature, but ever since its establishment well-born young men have swarmed into the profession; and now the humblest purchaser of an automobile may quite reasonably hope to have his cheque endorsed, and mayhap a cigar accepted, by the descendant of a duke.
The innovation has proved a commercial success, too, or we may be sure that it would not have endured in the unsentimental economic world for a twelvemonth. Pace Mr. Mablethorpe, the immaculate young man who attends to our wants in show-rooms knows his business. He is a fair mechanic, a fearless driver, and an excellent salesman. Customers of his own walk of life confide their wants to him as to a brother, while plutocratic but plebeian patrons frequently purchase a more expensive car than they originally contemplated through fear of losing his good opinion.
But there are exceptions, and Mr. Atherton was one. He was grossly ignorant of the elements of mechanics, he was unbusinesslike in his management of correspondence, and he was rude to customers without being impressive. He was also a frequent absentee from his post on matinée days. The indoor staff, down to the very office-boy, took their tone from him; with the result that Philip, in the execution of his duty in the office and show-room, was enabled without any difficulty whatever to eclipse the degree of unpopularity already achieved by him in the garage and repair-shop. But he ploughed resolutely on his way.
In order to be near his work he rented a small flat in Wigmore Street, and furnished it according to his ideals of what was requisite and necessary. He cooked his own breakfast, and took his other meals at Frascati's.
Each afternoon an elderly and incompetent female called, and—to employ her own grim expression—did for him. That is to say, she consumed what was left of Philip's breakfast, and made his bed by the simple expedient of restoring the bedclothes to their overnight position.
His bedroom furniture he bought en suite in Tottenham Court Road, for seven pounds fifteen. In his sitting-room he installed a large table, upon which to draw up plans and specifications, and an armchair. It did not occur to him that he required any more furniture. He cooked his food at a gas-stove and ate it off a corner of this table, sitting on the arm of the chair. The sole ornament, upon his mantelpiece was a model of the Meldrum Carburettor, recently perfected and patented. He made no friends and went nowhere. A woman would have (and ultimately did) shed tears over his ménage. But he was happy enough. Things, not People, still held him bound.
And yet he was not utterly at peace with his world. It is said that a woman is always happy unless she has something to make her unhappy, but that a man is never happy unless he has something to make him happy. Up to this period of his life Philip had never had to hunt for the sources of happiness. His work, and the ever-developing interests of youth, had kept him well supplied. But now, at times, he was conscious of a shortage. Under the increasing cares of existence mere joie de vivre becomes insufficient as a driving-power, and demands augmentation. Philip's present life—if we except odd hours in the evening devoted to the perfection of the Meldrum inventions—was an ungrateful business at best. He had few friends, and was not of the breed which can solace itself with the companionship that can be purchased in great cities. And therefore he began, inevitably, to draw his necessary happiness from the bank of the Future. Most of us come to this in time, for few there be that are fortunate enough to be able to subsist year in year out upon current income. When we are young we draw upon the Future, and when we are old we fall back (please God) upon the Past. So Philip began to live for the day on which his reforms should come to fruition, and the work in the London offices find itself running forward on oiled wheels. As for the Present—it was a rotten business, but difficulties were made to be overcome. En avant!
But beyond these practical aspirations lay a fairer region. Philip was in love. Not with any material pink-and-white charmer, but, after the perfectly healthy and natural manner of the young man before he grows cynical or blasé with experience, with Love itself. Only that. At present he was more concerned with the abstract than the concrete. At this period he was inclined to regard matrimony much as a child regards cake—namely, as a consummation to be achieved only after a long mastication of bread-and-butter. At present he was in the thick of the bread-and-butter. But when he had worked strenuously for perhaps ten years, he would assuredly encounter his Lady—he had no clear idea what she was like, but he was absolutely confident of her existence—and would marry her. Then he would be paid in full. Troubles would be halved and joys doubled, and life itself would be the sweeter for the long years of hard service and clean living and high endeavour that lay at present between the dream and its fulfilment.
Meanwhile he was content to hitch his wagon to a star and proceed with the day's work. Business first.