The Sailor

God knew he had paid a price for Aladdin's lamp. A week ago that night he had seen performed at the Blackhampton Lyceum the first play of his life, "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp." He had sat in the pit, Dinkie Dawson one side of him, Ginger the other. He had now his own wonderful lamp. It was glowing and burning, a mass of dull fire, in the right-hand corner of his brain. It was a talisman which had come to him at the cost of blood and tears; a magic gift of heaven that he must guard with life itself.

On and on he went. Now and again the face of Ginger tried to overthrow him, but the presence of the talisman meant much to him now…

After weary hours his pace began to fail. There were no more houses as far as he could tell. Grass was under his feet; bushes of furze and a clean smell of earth enveloped him. The darkness was less, but everything was very still. Suddenly he felt strangely tired. And then an awful feeling crept upon him.

A low wooden seat was near, and he sat on it. It was still dark, and the weather was particularly chill February. As he drew his overcoat across his knees, he was overmastered by a sense of terror. Somehow it seemed more subtle and more deadly than all the fear he had ever known; of Auntie, of Jack the Ripper, of the Chinaman, of the Old Man, of the Island of San Pedro, of Duckingfield Britannia, of even that blood-stained visage of which he could still catch glimpses in the darkness. It was a stealthy distrust of Aladdin's lamp, the wonderful talisman glowing like a star in the right-hand corner of his brain.

Long he sat in the February small hours. He would wait for the light, having neither inclination nor strength to continue his journey into regions unknown. It grew very cold. And then a new fear crept over him. He felt he was going to become very ill.

However, he determined to use all the force of his will. This feeling was pure imagination, he was sure. He would put it out of his mind. It was a matter of life and death not to be ill now. And not for a moment must he think of dying, now a wonderful talisman had been given him which was about to unlock the doors of worlds beyond his own.

With fierce determination he rose from the seat unsteadily. And as he did so he saw the cold, cold light of the morning paling the tops of the distant trees. He began to move forward again. He would have to keep going somehow if he was not to be overtaken by darkness and eclipse. Whatever he did, he must hold on to his identity. Whatever he did, he must keep secure the treasure rare and strange that was now within himself.

Suddenly in the light of the dawn, he made out a man's figure coming towards him. It was a policeman.

"What place do they call this, mister?"

"Barnes Common."

They moved on slowly in their opposite ways.

BOOK III

BEING

I

Barnes Common seemed a very large place. The Sailor was afraid he would not be able to keep on much longer, but he had learned endurance in his six years before the mast. Weeks and months together he had just kept on keeping on while he had sailed the terrible seas. At that time there was no magic talisman to hold him to his course, there was neither hope nor faith of the world to be. But now it was otherwise. Surely he had no reason to give in, just as a new heaven and a new earth were opening before his eyes.

He came presently to a row of houses. A road was beyond and traffic was passing along it. The hope of a coffee stall sprang to his mind. He walked doggedly along the road, until at a point where it was merged in an important thoroughfare he came upon a cabman's shelter. And there within, in answer to his faith, were the things he sought. Through the open door was a fire, a smell of steaming fluids, of frying meats, and an honest bench on which to enjoy them.

He asked no leave, but stumbled in and at the beck of his powerfully stimulated senses ordered a kingly repast, and spread both hands before the fire. Sausages and mashed potatoes were brought to him and he sat down to eat, just as a very cheerful looking cabman entered with a face of professional red, and wearing apparel not unworthy of an arctic explorer.

The cabman ordered a cup of cocoa and a "doorstep," and that justice might be done to them sat on the bench by the young man's side. A little while they ate in silence, for both were very hungry. Then under the influence of food and a good fire the cabman talked. His sociability enabled the Sailor to ask an important question.

"Can you tell me, mister, of lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man?"

"What sort o' lodgings are you wantin', mister?" The cabman was favorably impressed by the young man's air of politeness.

"Lodgings clean and decent," said the Sailor.

"I know that," said the cabman urbanely, "but what do you want to pay fur 'em?"

The Sailor reflected. There were nineteen sovereigns and twelve half-sovereigns in his belt; all the same, he was enough of a landsman to know the value of money.

"I want to live cheap," he said, with extreme simplicity. "Just as cheap as I can, and be clean and decent, too."

The cabman let his large wise eyes flow over the Sailor, and quietly took his measure as became a veteran of the town.

"Ever tried Bowdon House?"

The Sailor shook his head.

The cabman ruminated.

"Tizzey a day fur your cubicle an' the use o' the kitchen fire."

The young man was not insulted, although the cabman feared he might have been, so good were his clothes, so gravely courteous his aspect.

"O' course," said the cabman, "it ain't Buckingham Palace, it's no use purtendin' it is."

"So long as it's clean and decent," said the Sailor.

"I give you my word for that. Never stayed there myself, but I know them as has."

The Sailor nodded.

"O' course, it ain't the Sizzle. I don't say that all on 'em moves in high circles, that would be tellin' a lie, but if you don't mind all sorts there's wuss homes, they tell me, in this metropolus, than Bowdon House."

The young man said he would try it, anyway, if it wasn't far.

"It's at the back o' Victoria," said the cabman. "Can't miss it if you go sharp to the left at the second turnin' past the station."

Henry Harper had to confess that he didn't know the way to Victoria Station.

"It's quite easy," said the cabman. "Buss 14 that goes by here will set you down at Victoria. Then do as I say, or ask a bobby to put you right."

Armed with these instructions, Henry Harper presently set out for Bowdon House. Feeling much better for a good meal and human intercourse, he found it without difficulty. Bowdon House was a large and somber building. Its exterior rather abashed the Sailor. But a sure instinct warned him that now he could not afford to be abashed by anything. Therefore he entered and boldly paid the sum of sixpence for a vacant cubicle.

The beds might not be equal to the Sizzle, but they were clean and decent undoubtedly, and not too hard for a sailor. You could have a bath for a penny, you could keep your own private frying pan, you were allowed the use of the kitchen range to cook any food you liked to buy, and a comfortable place was provided where you could sit and eat it. The company was mixed, it was true, as the cabman had said, but these were solid advantages, and the chief of them at the moment, in the opinion of Henry Harper, was that you could go to bed when you liked and stay there forever if only you continued to pay your six-pence a night.

The first thing the young man did was to have a hot bath. He then hired for a penny a nightgown, as clean and decent as his cubicle, and within a very short time was in a sleep so long and deep that it banished entirely the new fear that had crept into his brain.

About five o'clock in the evening he awoke a new man. After a toilet as careful as the absence of a razor and a hairbrush would permit, he found his way to the common room. He felt extremely hungry, but the outlay of another six-pence, brought him a pot of tea, some brown bread and butter, and a slice of meat pie.

There was only one other patron in the common room, and he at once attracted Henry Harper's curiosity. This individual was engaged in toasting a muffin at the large and clear fire, and even with the Sailor's experience of Miss Foldal in this kind, he had never seen one of these delightful articles dealt with in a manner of such sacerdotal delicacy.

A blue china plate was warming before the fire, and the muffin was presently placed on it, soaked in butter in true Miss Foldal style, and brought to table piping hot. The young man had chosen a place as near the fire as he could get, and the muffin expert took a place opposite, poured out a brew of tea from his own blue china teapot, and to the Sailor's amazement squeezed a little lemon juice into it.

This Sybarite was eating his first piece of muffin with an air of feminine elegance when he suddenly caught the young man's eye. The limpid glance seemed to stimulate his own blue orb to a mild and calm curiosity. The Sybarite looked the young man up and down, but continued to eat his muffin with a kind of apostolic pleasantness, which somehow recalled to Henry Harper the Reverend Rogers and a certain famous tea-party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall in his distant youth.

Presently, to Henry Harper's grave surprise, the muffin eater was pleased to discourse a little of men and things.

The Sailor in his genuine modesty was flattered, moreover he was charmed. Never in all his wanderings had he heard a man discourse in this way. It might have been Klondyke himself – at times there was an odd resemblance to that immortal in the occasional grace notes of the Sybarite. Yet it was a suggestion rather than a resemblance. This was a kind of composite of Klondyke and the Reverend Rogers, a Klondyke raised to a higher intellectual power.

Of course, this was only one aspect of the Sybarite, and that the least important, because with every allowance for the sacred memory of the Reverend Rogers, the person opposite was quite the most wonderful talker Henry Harper had ever heard in his life.

Had the Sailor heard the music of Palestrina, which at that period was a pleasure to come, he might have imagined he was listening to it. The voice of the Sybarite was measured yet floating, his phrases were endless yet perfectly rounded and definite, there was a note of weariness, older than the world, yet there was a charm, a lucidity, a mellow completeness that was perfectly amazing. The Sailor, with a wonderful talisman now burning bright in his soul, was enchanted.

This remarkable person owned, with a sort of frankness which was not frankness at all, that there were just two things he could do of practical utility. One, it seemed, was to toast a muffin with anybody, the other was to make the perfect cup of tea. Here he ended and here he began. He had also the rather unacademic habit of quoting dead languages in a manner so remarkably impressive as to bewilder the Sailor.

Henry Harper listened with round eyes. He devoured the Sybarite. His talisman seemed to tell him that he was on the verge of worlds denied to the common run of men. This remarkable person had even a private language of his own. He used words and phrases so charged with esoteric meanings that they somehow seemed to make the Aladdin's lamp burn brighter in the Sailor's soul. He had a knowledge of books comprehensive and wonderful, of all ages and countries apparently, yet when the young man ventured to ask timidly, but with a sort of pride in his question, whether he had read the "Pickwick Papers," the answer overthrew him completely.

"God forbid," said the Sybarite.

Henry Harper was utterly defeated. And yet he was charmed. Here was a depth far beyond Miss Foldal, who had suggested that he should get a ticket for the Free Library in order to be able to read Charles Dickens.

"I suppose, sir" – the "sir" would have had the sanction of Ginger, the perfect man of the world – "I suppose, sir, you don't think much of Charles Dickens?"

After all, that was what the Sybarite really meant.

"Not necessarily that. He is simply not in one's ethos, don't you know."

The Sailor was baffled completely, but in some way he was a shrewd young man. He had soon decided that it would be wiser to listen than attempt to talk himself.

The Sybarite was fastidious but he was not shy. He liked to speak out of the depths of his wisdom to a fit audience if the spirit was on him. He knew that he talked well, even beautifully; the immortal flair of the artist was there; and in this strange young man with the deep eyes was the perfect listener, and that was what the soul of the Sybarite always demanded.

The Sailor listened with a kind of fascinated intensity; also he watched all that the Sybarite did with a sense of esthetic delight. His lightest movements, like his voice, were ordered, feline, sacramental. It made no difference whether he was toasting muffins, buttering them, or merely eating them; whether he was pouring out tea or conveying it in a blue china cup to his lips, it was all done in a manner to suggest the very poetry of motion. And when it came to a matter of rolling a cigarette, which it presently did, the almost catlike grace of the long and slender hands that were so clean and kept so perfectly, touched a chord very deep in the Sailor.

The name of this wonderful person, as the Sailor learned in the course of the next two days, was Mr. Esme Horrobin. He had been formerly a fellow and tutor of Gamaliel College, Oxford; he let out much pertaining to himself in the most casual way in an exegesis which was yet so neutral that it seemed to be more than wisdom itself. Also he did not shrink from impartial consideration of an act which circumstances had imposed upon him.

"It was one's duty to resign, I assure you." As the enchanted hours passed, the discourse of the Sybarite grew more intimate, so rapt and so responsive was the young man with the deep eyes in his elemental simplicity. "It was most trying to have to leave one's warm bed in the middle of winter at eight o'clock, to breakfast hastily, merely for what? Merely to sustain an oaf from the public schools in a death grapple with an idyll of Theocritus. There's a labor of Sisyphus for you. We Horrobins are an old race; who knows what mysteries we have profaned in the immortal past! I hope I make myself clear."

Mr. Horrobin was not making himself at all clear, but the Sailor was striving hard to keep track of him. The Sybarite, a creature of intuitions when in the full enjoyment of "his personal ethos," was ready to help him to do so.

"We Horrobins are what is called in the physical world born-tired. We are as incapable of continuous effort as a dram drinker is of total abstinence. This absurd cosmos of airships and automobiles bores us to tears. A mere labor of Sisyphus, I assure you, my dear fellow. The whole human race striving to get to nowhere as fast as it can in order to return as quickly as possible. And why? I will tell you. Man himself has profaned the mysteries. The crime of Prometheus is not yet expiated on our miserable planet. Take my own case. I am fit for one thing only, and that is to lie in bed smoking good tobacco with my books around me, translating the 'Satyricon' of Petronius Arbiter. It seems an absurd thing to say, but given the bed, the tobacco, the books, and the right conjunction of the planetary bodies, which in these matters is most essential, and I honestly believe I am able to delve deeper into the matchless style of Petronius than any other person living or dead."

The Sailor was awed. The "Satyricon" of Petronius Arbiter was whole worlds away from Miss Fordal.

"Whether I shall ever finish my translation is not of the slightest importance. Personally, I am inclined to think not. That is one's own private labor of Sisyphus. It won me a fellowship and ultimately lost it me. Let us assume that I finish it. There is not a publisher or an academic body in Europe or America that would venture to publish it. Rome under Nero, my dear fellow, the feast of Trimalchio. And assuming it is finished and assuming it is published, it will be a thing entirely without value, either human or commercial. And why? Because there is no absolute canon of literary style existing in the world. It is one labor of Sisyphus the more for a man to say this is Petronius to a world for whom Petronius can never exist. Do I make myself clear?"

The Sailor was silent, but round eyes of wonder were trained upon the blue-eyed, yellow-bearded face of Mr. Esme Horrobin. The Sybarite, agreeably alive to the compliment, sighed deeply.

"It may have been right to resign one's fellowship, yet one doesn't say it was. It may not have been right, yet one doesn't say it was not. At least, a fellowship of Gamaliel in certain of its aspects is better than bear-leading the aristocracy, and a person of inadequate resources is sometimes driven even to that."

The next morning, the Sailor retrieved his bag from the cloak room at Marylebone Station, to which he went by bus from Victoria without much difficulty. He felt wonderfully better for his day's rest, and much fortified by the society of Mr. Esme Horrobin. Friendship had always been precious to Henry Harper. There was something in his nature that craved for it, yet he had never been able to satisfy the instinct easily. But this inspired muffin eater opened up a whole world of new and gorgeous promise now that he had Aladdin's lamp to read him by. Mr. Esme Horrobin was what Klondyke would have called a high-brow. But he was something more. He was a man who had the key to many hidden things.

When the Sailor had brought his bag to Bowdon House, the first thing he did was to find Marlow's Dictionary. Miss Foldal had presented him with her own private copy of this invaluable work, and the name Gwladys Foldal was to be seen on the flyleaf. "Ethos" was the first word he looked up, but it was not there. He then sought "oaf," whose definition was fairly clear. Then he went on to "bear-leading" and to "aristocracy." These proved less simple. Their private meanings were plain, more or less, but to correlate them was beyond the Sailor's powers, nor did it fall within the scope of Marlow's Dictionary to explain what the Sybarite meant when he spoke of bear-leading the aristocracy.

II

Henry Harper's acquaintance with Mr. Esme Horrobin had important consequences. That gentleman's interest deepened almost to a mild liking for the young man. He was a type new to the Sybarite; and he might have taken pleasure in his primitive attitude to life had it been possible for such a developed mind to take pleasure in anything.

The company at Bowdon House was certainly mixed, but Mr. Esme Horrobin was a miracle of courtesy to all with whom he came in contact. He had a smile and a nod for a bricklayer's laborer, a bus conductor out of a billet, a decayed clerk or a reformed pickpocket. No matter who they were, his charming manners intrigued them, but also kept them at their distance. When he fell into the language of democracy, which he sometimes did for his own amusement, it was always set off by an access of the patrician to his general air. By this simple means he maintained the balance of power in the body politic. He had grasped the fact that every man is at heart a snob. Even the young man who had followed the sea accepted Mr. Esme Horrobin's estimate of Mr. Esme Horrobin.

Indeed, the Sailor was absorbing Mr. Esme Horrobin at every pore. He felt it to be a liberal education to sit at the same table, and when he went to his cubicle there were at least half a dozen carefully remembered words to look up in Marlow's Dictionary. But it would not do to linger in the land of the lotus. He must find a means of earning a living.

It occurred to the Sailor on the morning of his third day at Bowdon House, that he might ask Mr. Horrobin for a little advice on the matter. But he did not find it easy to do so. The young man was very shy. It was one thing to listen to Mr. Horrobin, but quite another to talk to him. However, after tea on the third evening, when no one was by, he screwed up courage and boldly asked whether Mr. Horrobin knew of a billet for a chap who didn't mind hard work, or how such a thing could be obtained.

Frankly Mr. Horrobin did not. It was the first time in his life that he had been met by any such problem. The problem for Mr. Horrobin had always been of a very different kind. His tone seemed to express the unusual when he asked the young man if he had any particular form of occupation in view.

"I'd like something to do with literature, sir," said Henry Harper, venturing timidly upon a new word.

"Ah." Mr. Horrobin scratched a yellow-whiskered chin. It was very ironical that a young man who had asked whether he read Dickens should now seek advice upon such a matter.

"Do you mean reading literature, my dear fellow, writing literature, or selling literature?"

The young man explained very simply that it was the selling of literature he had in mind.

"Ah," said Mr. Esme Horrobin gravely. But he had a kind heart. And if he really took to a person, which he very seldom did, he had the sort of disposition that is mildly helpful. And he had taken to this young man, therefore he felt inclined to do what he could for him.

Mr. Horrobin rolled and lit a cigarette. After five minutes' hard thought inspiration came. Its impact was almost dramatic, except that in no circumstances was Mr. Esme Horrobin ever dramatic.

"I really think," he said, "I must give you a line to Rudge, my bookseller, in the Charing Cross Road. He is a man who might help you; at least he may know a man who might help you. Yes, a little line to Rudge. Pray remind me tomorrow."

The young man was filled with gratitude. But he allowed his hopes to run too high. Even a little line to Rudge the bookseller was not a thing to compass in this offhand way. Tomorrow in the mouth of Mr. Esme Horrobin was a very comprehensive term. It was Tomorrow that he was going to complete his translation of the "Satyricon" of Petronius; it was Tomorrow that he would return to the world in which he was born; it was Tomorrow that he would rise earlier and forswear the practice of smoking and reading in bed. Therefore, with the promised letter to Rudge the bookseller burning a hole in his mind the young man spent a very anxious tomorrow waiting for Mr. Esme Horrobin to emerge from his cubicle.

"No use asking for Mr. Orrobin," he was told finally by the groom of the chambers, a man old and sour and by nature the complete pessimist. "It's one of his days in bed. He'll not put his nose outside his cubicle until tea time."

That discreet hour was on the wane before Mr. Horrobin was to be seen at work with a kettle, a caddy, and a toasting fork. Even then he was in such conversational feather that it was nearly three hours later before the young man was able to edge in a timid reminder.

"I have not forgotten," said Mr. Horrobin, all charm and amenity. "But remind me tomorrow. I will write most gladly to Rudge. He is quite a good fellow."

The Sailor grew desperate. It seemed impossible to live through a second tomorrow of this kind.

"If I get a bit of paper and an envelope and a pen and ink, will you have any objection to writing the letter now, sir?"

"My dear fellow" – the grace notes were languid and delicate – "I shall be delighted. But why tonight? It hardly seems worth while to trouble about it tonight."

But the young man rose from the common room table with almost a sensation of fear upon him, and ran to his cubicle, where all the materials for a little line to Rudge the bookseller had been in readiness since eight o'clock that morning.

Mr. Horrobin smiled when they were brought to him, a smile half weariness, half indulgent patronage. Even then it was necessary to consume two more cigarettes before he could take the extreme course of addressing Rudge the bookseller. Finally, he was addressed as follows:

Mr. Esme Horrobin presents his compliments to Mr. Rudge, and will be glad if he can find employment on his staff, or on that of any bookselling friends, for the bearer, whom he will find clean, respectful, obliging, and anxious to improve himself.

The letter was composed with much care and precision, and written in a hand of such spiderlike elegance as hardly to be legible, notwithstanding that every "t" was crossed and every comma in its place. Then came the business of sealing it. Mr. Horrobin produced a tiny piece of red sealing wax from some unsuspected purlieu of himself; a prelude to a delicately solemn performance with a wax vesta, which he took from a silver box at the end of his watch chain, and a signet ring which he gracefully removed from a finger of his right hand.