MR. BODIE (fancying himself). For walking uninvited into the abode of a law-abiding London citizen, with whom I have not the pleasure of being acquainted.
POLICEMAN (after thinking this out). But I’m the one as has done that, sir.
MR. BODIE (with neat surprise). So you are, I beg your pardon, officer.
(With pardonable pride in himself MR. BODIE turns on the light. The studio, as we can now gather from its sloped roof, is at the top of a house; and its window is heavily screened, otherwise we might see the searchlights through it, showing that we are in the period of the great war. Though no one speaks of MR. BODIE’S pictures as Bodies, which is the true test of fame, he is sufficiently eminent not to have works of art painted or scratched on his walls, mercy has been shown even to the panels of his door, and he is handsomely stingy of draperies. The Venus stands so prominent that the studio is evidently hers rather than his. The stove has been brought forward so that he can rest his feet on it, which ever of his easy chairs he is sitting in, and he also falls over it at times when stepping back to consider his latest failure. On a shelf is a large stuffed penguin, which is to be one of the characters in the play, and on each side of this shelf are two or three tattered magazines. We had hankered after giving MR. BODIE many rows of books, but were well aware that he would get only blocks of wood so cleverly painted to look like books that they would deceive everyone except the audience. Everything may be real on the stage except the books. So there are only a few magazines in the studio (and very likely when the curtain rings up it will be found that they are painted too). But MR. BODIE was a reader; he had books in another room, and the careworn actor must suggest this by his manner.
Our POLICEMAN is no bookman; we who write happen to have it from himself that he had not bought a book since he squeezed through the sixth standard: very tight was his waist that day, he told us, and he had to let out every button. Nevertheless it was literature of a sort that first brought him into our ken. He was our local constable: and common interests, as in the vagaries of the moon, gradually made him and us cease to look at each other askance. We fell into the way of chatting with him and giving him the evening papers we had bought to read as we crossed the streets. One of his duties was to herd the vagrant populace under our arches during air-raids, and at such times he could be properly gruff, yet comforting, like one who would at once run in any bomb that fell in his beat. When he had all his flock nicely plastered against the dank walls he would occasionally come to rest beside us, and thaw, and discuss the newspaper article that had interested him most. It was seldom a war-record; more frequently it was something on the magazine page, such as a symposium by the learned on ‘Do you Believe in Love at First Sight?’ Though reticent in many matters he would face this problem openly; with the guns cracking all around, he would ask for our views wistfully; he spoke of love without a blush, as something recognised officially at Scotland Yard. At this time he had been in love, to his own knowledge, for several weeks, but whether the god had struck him at first sight he was not certain; he was most anxious to know, and it was in the hope of our being able to help him out that he told us his singular story. On his face at such times was often an amazed look, as if he were staring at her rather than at us, and seeing a creature almost beyond belief. Our greatest success was in saying that perhaps she had fallen in love at first sight with him, which on reflection nearly doubled him up. He insisted on knowing what had made us put forward this extraordinary suggestion; he would indeed scarcely leave our company that night, and discussed the possibility with us very much as if it were a police case.
Our policeman’s romance, now to be told, began, as we begin, with his climbing up into MR. BODIE’S studio. MR. BODIE having turned on the light gave him the nasty look that means ‘And now, my man, what can I do for you?’ Our POLICEMAN, however, was not one to be worsted without striking a blow. He strode to the door, as he has told us, and pointed to a light in the passage.)
POLICEMAN (in his most brow-beating voice, so well known under the arches). Look here, sir, it’s that.
MR. BODIE. I don’t follow.
POLICEMAN. Look at that passage window. (With natural pride in language.) You are showing too much illumination.
BODIE. Oh! well, surely—