So, like many another youngster in the far lands, he heard the voice of London calling through every book and newspaper he read. It was a siren voice, devoid of accent. The Wyoming wooing, too, became a serious matter; hence, like one of the dove-eyed oxen he knew so well, he stampeded in sudden panic, realized his personal possessions, and, in the vernacular of Sioux Pass, “lit out for the nearest depot, an’ boarded an east-bound train.”
He had now been in England a month, in London a week. From the landing-stage at Liverpool he had gone to visit the country cousins who superintended his childhood and education after the death of his mother, that lady having been stricken down by the hand which killed her soldier husband at Dargai. He found the cousins snug in their Bedfordshire nest. The squire-like head of the household wondered dully why any man should quit a place where he could “get on” to seek a precarious livelihood in a land which was “rapidly going to the dogs.” David certainly received more encouragement from the younger members of the family, especially from a bright-eyed maiden of eighteen, who thought London “awfully jolly,” and vowed a literary career to be “quite too devey for anything.”
But David was level-headed enough to see that the verdict of squire and maid were equally unfavorable.
Then followed a few days in a big hotel. He paid a round of useless calls at the offices of magazines that, to his certain knowledge, printed all sorts of rubbishy articles about cow-boy life, but opposed a phalanx of commissionaires against a man who could not only round up an infuriated herd, but could also describe the feat deftly with a pen. Ultimately, he resolved to lay siege to the citadel which he was unable to storm, and pitch his camp over against the tents of the enemy. He took a furnished flat, “with plate and linen, gas-stove, electric light, bath H. and C.,” for six months.
In thus becoming a Londoner, he encountered the first quaint anomaly of London life. When he drove up to the door of the most fashionable hotel in the West End, and deposited a couple of portmanteaus in a bed-room after signing the register, he was permitted to run a bill for a week, at least, without let or hindrance; but when he offered to pay cash in advance for the flat, he met with a demand for “references.”
The agent was firm but explanatory. “It is not my client, but the over-landlord, who makes that stipulation,” he said. “In fact, the letting is wholly in my hands, as the late tenant is dead; but, for certain reasons, the residuary legatees wish to keep the place in its present condition until the lease expires a year hence.”
“Did the late tenant die there?” asked David.
“Well—yes—fully five months since; there have been other occupants subsequently, and the terms are so reasonable—”
“What did he, or she, die of?” persisted David. He was accustomed to reading men’s faces, and he had caught a certain fluttering of the agent’s eyelids.