Douglas Kelly was in when Jimmy called again at the club. "The waiter gave me your card and I supposed you would come along soon. You look a bit doleful. What are you going to drink?... That was a good article of yours in the Whitehall Gazette this evening."
Jimmy set his glass down suddenly. "I haven't seen it; in fact, I was expecting to find the manuscript waiting for me when I got back."
Kelly laughed. "So that's the reason of the dumps? The postman drops 'em through the letter-box with a kind of sickening thud, and you feel there's nothing left to live for, unless it's to kill the editor. I went through it all, until I made 'em understand they must have my signature at my own price. Still, you haven't done so badly in the few days you've been home. Dodgson tells me they've got another article of yours in type. Here, Romsey," he hailed a man who had just come in, whose face somehow seemed familiar to Jimmy, "I want to introduce you to an old colleague of mine, Grierson, who is going to knock spots out of you all."
The new-comer grinned. "I've seen him knocking spots out a nigger in Oxford Street already. It'll be in the next edition of the Evening Post, 'Outrageous assault on an African Prince.' I happened to be passing and got seven shillings-worth of copy out of it," he added, turning to Jimmy. "I left your name out, though. But, you see, the Evening Post believes in a man and a brother, and sacks its boys if it finds they have been vaccinated; so the story exactly suited them. The Prince, too, has just sold the gold-mining rights of his native swamp, and has held a reception in Exeter Hall, so he in himself was good stuff for us." Then he gave Kelly a moderately truthful account of what had occurred.
Kelly did not laugh. "It won't go down here, Jimmy, that sort of thing. Of course you were right; it's an abominable scandal to let these niggers loose; but at home people'll never understand it. If your name were to come out, you would be done, right away. And," he looked at him keenly, "your lady friends should know better than to be alone in that part of Oxford Street. Well, Romsey, are you going to pay for the drinks out of your seven shillings, or am I? Then I'm going to put Jimmy up for the club, and you can second him."
CHAPTER IX
That day Jimmy did not go back to his lodgings. Instead, he sent a wire to Mrs. Benn, and went to dine and spend the night with the Kellys, although he did not get away from the club until he had been introduced to a score of journalists to whom his host described him as an old colleague. As a result they were an hour late for dinner when they reached the flat.
"It doesn't matter; my wife won't mind," Kelly remarked cheerfully as they went up in the lift, and, a few moments later, when he met Mrs. Kelly Jimmy saw that her husband was speaking the truth.