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The Survivor, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 11. Douglas Guest Gets His "Chance" |
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_ CHAPTER XI. DOUGLAS GUEST GETS HIS "CHANCE" There followed a time then when the black waters of nethermost London closed over Douglas's head. He struggled and fought to the last gasp, but in the end the great stream carried him away on her bosom, and with scarcely a sob he watched all those wonderful rose-coloured dreams of his fade away into empty space. He was one of the flotsam and jetsam of life. No one would have the work of his brains, and his unskilled hands failed to earn anything for him save a few dry crusts. He had made desperate efforts to win a hearing. Whilst his few pence lasted, and his inkpot was full, he wrote several short stories, and left them here and there at the offices of various magazines. He had no permanent address, he would call for the reply, he said; and so he did, till his coat burst at the seams and his boots gave out. Then he gave it up in despair. It was his work that was wrong, he told himself. What had seemed well enough to him amongst the Cumberland hills was crude and amateurish here. He was a fool ever to have reckoned himself a writer. It was the _Ibex_ which had misled him. He cursed the _Ibex_, its editor, and all connected with it. That was at the time when he had sunk lowest, when it seemed to him, who, only a few days ago, had looked out upon life a marvellous panorama of life and colour and things beautiful, that death after all was the one thing to be desired. Yet he carried himself bravely through those evil days. Every morning he stripped and swam in the Serpentine, stiff enough often after a night spent out of doors, but ever with that vigorous desire for personal cleanliness which never left him even at the worst. As soon as his clothes fell into rags about him he presented the strange appearance of a tramp whose face and hands were spotless, and who carried himself even till towards the end with a sort of easy grace as though he were indeed only masquerading. But there came a time when the luck of the loafer went against him. From morning to night he tramped the streets, willing to work even till his back was broken, but unable to earn a copper. The gnawings of hunger roused something of the wild beast in him. A fiercer light burned in his eyes, his thin lips curled into hard, stern lines. He loitered about the Strand, and the crowds of theatre-goers in their evening dresses, borne backwards and forwards in cabs and carriages, and crowding the pavements also, stirred in him a slow, passionate anger. The bitter inequalities of life, its flagrant and rank injustices, he seemed for the first time to wholly realise. A Banquo amongst the gay stream of people who brushed lightly against him every moment. He lost for the time that admirable gift of sympathetic interest in his fellows which had once been his chief trait. His outlook upon life was changed. To the world which had misused him so he showed an altered front. He scowled at the men, and kept his face turned from the women. What had they done, these people, that they should be well-dressed and merry, whilst the aching in his bones grew to madness, and hunger gnawed at his life strings. One night, with twitching fingers and face drawn white with pain, he turned away from the crowded streets towards Westminster, sank into a seat, and, picking up the half of a newspaper, read the smug little account of a journalist who had spent a few hours a day perhaps in the slums. As he read he laughed softly to himself, and then, clutching the paper in his hands, he walked away to the Embankment, up Northumberland Avenue, and into the Strand. After a few inquiries he found the offices of the newspaper, and marched boldly inside. A vast speculation, the enterprise of a millionaire, the _Daily Courier_, though it sold for a halfpenny, was housed in a palace. In a gothic chamber, like the hall of a chapel, hung with electric lights and filled with a crowd of workers and loungers, Douglas stood clutching the fragment of newspaper still in his hand, looking around for some one to address himself to--a strange figure in his rags, wan, starving, but something of personal distinction still clinging to him. A boy looked over a mahogany partition at him and opened a trap window. "Well?" he asked sharply. "Do you want papers to sell? This is the wrong entrance for that, you know." "I want to see some one in authority," Douglas said; "the sub-editor, if possible." It was a democratic undertaking, this newspaper, with its vast circulation and mighty staff, and visitors of all sorts daily crossed its threshold. Yet this man's coat hung about him in tatters, and his boots were almost soleless. The boy hesitated. "What business?" he asked curtly. "I will explain it--to him--in a moment," Douglas answered. "If he is busy, one of the staff will do. I am in no hurry. I can wait." The boy closed the trapdoor and withdrew. In a few minutes a young man, smartly dressed, with sparse moustache and a pince-nez, came out of a door opposite to Douglas. "Want to see me?" he inquired tersely. "I'm an assistant editor." Douglas held out the fragment of paper. "I've just read that," he said. "Picked it up on a seat." The man glanced at it and nodded. "Well?" "It's badly done," Douglas said, bluntly. "The man's only sat down on the outside of the thing and sketched. It isn't real. It couldn't be. No one can write of starvation who merely sees it written in the faces of other people. No one can write of the homeless who is playing at vagabondage." The assistant editor looked his visitor up and down, and nodded quietly. "Well?" "If this sort of thing is likely to interest your readers," Douglas said, "give me pen and paper and I will write of the thing as it is. I am homeless, and I am starving. The loneliness that your man writes of so prettily, I will set down in black and white. Man, I am starving now, and I will write it down so that every one who reads shall understand. I have slept under arches and on seats, I have lain dreaming with the rain beating in my face, and I have seen strange things down in the underneath life where hell is. Give me a chance and I will set down these things for you, as no one has ever set them down before." Douglas gave a little lurch, swayed, and recovered himself with an effort. The sub-editor looked at him with interest. "Do you drink?" he asked quietly. "No," Douglas answered. "I'm faint for want of food, that's all. Give me pen and ink, and if you can use what I write, pay me for it. You don't stand to lose anything, and I'm--I'm--" The sub-editor took a small piece of gold from his pocket and interrupted him. "That's all right," he said. "We'll see what you can do anyway. But you must have something to eat first. Let me give you this on account; now go straight away and get a feed and a glass of wine. I'll have a room ready for you when you get back." Douglas drew a little breath. His fingers closed upon the piece of gold. There was a glare in his eyes which was almost wolfish. He had dared to let his thoughts rest for a moment upon food. He, who was fighting the last grim fight against starvation. He spoke in a whisper, for his voice was almost gone. "How do you know that I shall come back?" "I am content to risk it," the sub-editor answered, smiling. "Come back in an hour's time and ask for Mr. Rawlinson." Douglas staggered out, speechless. There was a sob sticking in his throat and a mist of tears before his eyes. _ |
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