by A. A. Milne
We sat one August evening on a garden seat at the end of the croquet-lawn, Father and I, facing the less Elizabethan wing of the house. Father had his notebook out, and was checking figures: adding this up, subtracting that, and telling me the result. Twiddling the head of a croquet-mallet between my feet, my eyes on the ground, I said ‘Oh, yes,’ and ‘Yes,’ and ‘I see’ in a reserved, rather obstinate voice. We were settling my future.
Father was convinced now that I was not good enough for the Civil Service. If there was a doubt in his mind, it was whether I was good enough to be a schoolmaster, to carry on this great preparatory school which he had built up. Still, he would give me the chance. A year in Germany studying the latest educational systems, a year or two at a public-school, then to Streete Court, first as assistant-master, then as junior partner, finally in full control: he had it all worked out in his notebook: the salary I should get at first, my share of income as partner, the allowance to be paid to him when he retired, the compensation to be made to my brothers for inheriting the whole patrimony, the value of the inheritance in fifteen years’ time when I should be my own master, all obligations discharged. Blue-black ink, red ink, little ticks in pencils, as he checked each item: a labour of love and pride and hope that morning in his study while I fooled about on the fashionable beach with the prettiest of the many pretty visitors to Westgate.
‘Well, dear, what do you think of it?’
‘It’s all right. It’s very generous.’ I said it reluctantly. The prettiest of the pretty visitors lived in London. I was going to Germany. It seemed wrong.
‘Well, you must think it over. I don’t want to hurry you.’
In front of us was the long north wing, with the big schoolroom which Father had added to it when first Streete Court had climbed beyond that obstinate twenty-mark where it had stayed so long (and, it seemed, so hopelessly) . . . into the thirties and then the forties . . . and then the fifties: until now it could hold its own with all the fashionable schools of Thanet, this dream of the little Kilburn schoolmaster, B.A. (Lond.), with his old-fashioned clothes and his old-fashioned beard. He leant back, his notebook on his knees, looking over the quiet lawns to all the ugly schools through which he had struggled on his way to this loved place, and again he was on his knees to God, as he had been every night of his life, in gratitude for the fulfilment to which he had been led.
‘Father?’
‘Yes, dear?’
‘I think I–I think I–I’d like to try to be a writer.’
‘It’s for you to decide.’
‘Yes . . . I think I have decided.’
Father closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket. How much of heartache was hidden in it and put away for ever?
‘How do you mean to set about it?’
‘I thought I’d just go up to London and–and write.’
‘Write what?’
‘Well–anything. Everything.’
‘Just think a moment, darling, of all the people who want to write, and who think they can write, and how very few of them—’
‘Naturally I’m thinking of the very few of them.’
‘We can’t all be Dickenses, you know.’
‘Dickens isn’t the only man who has made a living by writing.’
‘Even Mr Wells had to do other work for a long time before he could support himself by writing.’ Father had called him ‘Mr Wells’ to me when I was eight; he would go on calling him Mr Wells.
‘Wells hadn’t got any money. I’ve got £300 or so. Haven’t I? I mean you said–I mean I know it’s your money, and it’s awfully good of you, but you did say–I mean the others had a thousand pounds.’
‘I think it’s £٣٢٠. Of course that would help.’
‘But, Father dear, three-twenty, just think, I could live for three years on that if I had to, and do you mean to say that in three years I couldn’t–why I nearly had a whole series in Punch when I was still at Cambridge, I mean everybody thought I was going to, and it isn’t as if–I mean I did edit The Granta, and people do read The Granta in London. Besides, there’s—’ I stopped suddenly.
‘What, dear?’
‘Nothing. Anyhow I know I can do it. Three years!’ In three years I could be editor of Punch, of The Times, of—should I? Yes, for Ken’s sake—of The Cornhill, of anything you like, my dear Father. Look at me. There is nothing I can’t do.
‘Then you want to go to London and take rooms there. Would you live with Barry?’
‘Good Heavens, no. Sorry. Ken will be in London this year, but I wouldn’t even live with him. I must be alone.’
‘You do understand, don’t you, that you have no more money to come after this three hundred? And it will be too late then to be a schoolmaster. You’ll just have to be a bank-clerk.’
It had always been held over us, I don’t know why, this threat of servitude in a bank. Other sons might be told that they would have to enlist, or emigrate, if they failed in their chosen profession; even to sweep a crossing; but from childhood we had been taught that it was in banks that human driftwood ultimately grounded. What qualifications were necessary for a bank-clerk other than that of being a disappointment to his father we never discovered.
‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘But I can do it. I know.’
Father went in to tell Mother. I went in to write a letter. What I had been about to say was ‘Besides, there’s Harmsworth.’ But I thought that I would write to him first, just to make sure.
2
Alfred Harmsworth had been a boy at Henley House. He was one of those boys who seem full of intelligence out of school hours and devoid of intelligence in them. A master’s natural deduction is that the boy is idle: ‘Could do better’ he writes in his report. Father didn’t condemn Harmsworth as idle, he condemned himself for not being able to discover where this obviously clever boy’s interests lay. Harmsworth came to him one day and asked if a school paper could be started, because other schools had them, and he knew a little printer round the corner who would do it very cheaply. Father said that a school paper was a good idea, but it took up too much of a headmaster’s time. Perhaps one day when he was less busy—
‘That’s all right, sir,’ said Harmsworth eagerly. ‘I’ll do it all. You shan’t be bothered, I promise.’
Now I think that nine headmasters out of ten would have pointed out that, even as it was, this boy was continually failing to pass the necessary examinations, and that there was an obvious use which could be made of his spare time. Father was the tenth headmaster. Here, at last, was something which the boy was keen on doing. Then let him do it. So the first number of the Henley House School Magazine was published: ‘Edited by Alfred C. Harmsworth.’ On that day, one may say, the Northcliffe Press was born.
Harmsworth, as the world knows, was a very brotherly man. Almost as soon as he was earning a living for himself he was earning a living for a multitude of brothers. At about the time when he was giving us pennies at Penshurst Place, he was particularly concerned with the education of a younger brother, Albert. While we were buying ourselves sweets in Penshurst, Harmsworth was telling Father of the struggle he was having to educate and bring up his family. Every penny that Answers brought in, and as yet nobody knew whether it was to be a success or failure, must go back into the paper; and yet here was young Albert—
‘I’ll take him for you,’ said Father. ‘When Answers is a success, you can pay me my fees, but we’ll say nothing about them for the present.’
‘And suppose it isn’t a success?’ said Harmsworth, not supposing any such thing.
‘In that case we’ll go on saying nothing about them.’
So Albert came to Henley House, and a delightful boy he was. Quite a good bowler too: off-break. And when, after a few anxious months, Answers was fairly on its feet, Harmsworth, with many expressions of gratitude, discharged his debt.
The first cou
ntry house which Harmsworth bought when he was approaching millionairedom was at St. Peter’s in Thanet. A few miles away, struggling to keep his school above water, was Father at Streete Court. Father, in adversity and prosperity alike, was grateful to God for His mercies, but he was too simple and modest to expect much from his fellow-men. Yet even he was a little hurt (when he thought of it) that the Great Man next door never drove over to see his old schoolmaster; never gave so much as an English Essay Prize to his old school. However, that was the way of the world.
But there came a day when, for the first time, he did appeal to Harmsworth for help. He was anxious about the lease of Streete Court. The freehold was not his, and any buildings which he put up, such as the gymnasium and, later, a sanatorium, became the property of the landlord and the subject, at the end of each seven year’s lease, of additional rent. It was essential that he should buy the freehold as soon as possible. The price was about £٧,٠٠٠.
Father said nothing. There was only one person who could help him. So Harmsworth was asked if he would buy Streete Court, and become Father’s landlord until the day when Father had saved enough to buy it back from him. In this way, he would have, at any rate, security of tenure. Harmsworth replied that he had so much of his money tied up, and so many claims upon it, that he was unfortunately unable . . . and so on.
Father said nothing. It was the first occasion in his life on which he had asked for help, and he felt sad and silent and ashamed. Mother said a good deal. Harmsworth became ‘that man.’ Even as a boy he had always been–all the things he wouldn’t have been if he had answered the letter differently. If I had said aloud ‘Besides, there’s Harmsworth,’ Father would have shaken his head and said with a little smile, ‘Oh no, dear,’ and Mother would have laughed scornfully and said, ‘That man!’
But I didn’t feel quite the same about it. I did understand that one might be a millionaire, and yet not want to invest £7,000 in a particular way at a particular moment; I thought that, however good a schoolmaster Father had been to Harmsworth, it was, after all, his job to be a good schoolmaster. One isn’t grateful (at least, I never see why one should be) to a doctor for curing one’s influenza or to a baker for selling good bread. I thought that Father and Mother over-estimated the affection and gratitude which old pupils should feel for them. And though it was true that Father had been exceptionally kind to Harmsworth in the matter of his brother, was it not precisely to Father’s son that Harmsworth would wish to repay this kindness? How delightful for both of us if he did. For to a young man who knew nobody ‘knowing Harmsworth’ was the best of all introductions to Fleet Street.
So I wrote to him.
It was a difficult letter to write, and I don’t suppose I did it very well. I couldn’t just say ‘I’m coming to London, and I want a job.’ Besides I was not sure that I did want a job. I wanted to be a free-lance, with (it sounds unpleasant, but it must have been in my mind) a pull over other free-lances as regards the Harmsworth papers. Most of all, I wanted some word of encouragement which I could show to Father and Mother as assurance of my capacity to earn a living; as proof also, perhaps, that I had been right and they wrong about Harmsworth. What, in fact, I said to him was that, after editing The Granta, I was coming to London to write, and that I hoped the fact that he had patted my head as a child wouldn’t influence his editors against any articles which I might send to them. Silly, but the best I could do.
The answer came a fortnight later. It said that in Sir Alfred’s absence abroad my letter had been forwarded to Mr Philip Gibbs, the Literary Editor of The Daily Mail, ‘to whom the articles you mention should be sent.’
I did not show this letter to Father; I did not send any articles to Mr Philip Gibbs. I felt as Father had once felt, ashamed of my own letter. Whether Harmsworth ever received it, and returned it with instructions to the office, or whether he knew nothing of it, I never heard. I told myself that I had really only written to ‘that man’ for my parents’ sake, and that I was glad that the great name I was going to make for myself would be made without his or anybody’s help. I pictured him on his knees a few years hence begging me to edit all his papers for him. Proudly I should refuse. . . .
3
With Mother’s help I furnished two rooms in Temple Chambers at the bottom of Bouverie Street. This, I thought, would be convenient when I became editor of Punch. Breakfast was provided at a price; I lunched at an ABC and dined at The Cock in Fleet Street. When I was not eating I was writing: no day without its thousand words, sent off to this paper or that. I was, proud thought, a free-lance. To-day such apprenticeship seems less usual. Wordsworth, in what one might be forgiven for not recognizing as deathless poetry, writes of his ‘instinctive humbleness maintained even by the very name and thought of printed books and authorship.’ Humbleness is now better under control, ‘the dread awe of mighty names’ has been ‘softened down,’ and the young graduate begins his career at once as gossip-writer or critic. Perhaps it is as well; for how else could he live whose traditional playground, the evening press, has been torn from him? In my day there were eight fields open to his practice. Now there are but three and even in these three he may not intrude on the reservations of the qualified. For to-day genius is rewarded rather than encouraged. The ‘mighty name’ is acquired as a going concern. What makes it go is of no moment to the editor.
I knew nobody in Fleet Street, but Rudie Lehmann had given me introductions to T. A. Cook of The Daily Telegraph and J. B. Atkins of The Manchester Guardian. Cook had one piece of advice for me: ‘Never accept less than two guineas a thousand’; and to any free-lance of to-day I will add: ‘Never accept advice like this.’ The important thing at first is to be printed. In those days a guinea a thousand was the usual rate, and I was thankful to get it. So far I hadn’t got it. Atkins asked me to lunch. He was friendly and charming, and sorry that he couldn’t do much for me. He did what he could. He sent me a press invitation to the first appearance in England of Consul, the Man Monkey, and another to a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society. I did them both in one afternoon. Consul’s performance struck me as the more human but there wasn’t much in it. I may have muddled the two ‘stories’ up. However it was, both Atkins and I realized that I was not meant for a reporter.
Meanwhile my first free-lance contribution had been accepted. Sherlock Holmes had just ‘returned’ in The Strand Magazine after his duel with Moriarty. I wrote a burlesque of this, which I sent to Punch. Punch refused it, and I sent it to Vanity Fair. I can remember the last two lines of the dialogue between Holmes and Watson:
‘And Moriarty?’ I said. ‘What of him?’
‘There was no such man,’ said Holmes. ‘It was merely the name of a soup.’
To my delight the ‘stamped addressed envelope enclosed’ did not come back at once, and I was hopeful as usual that, when it did, it might contain my first proof. Ken was now in London, a qualified solicitor just entering his first office. We were dining together at a nondescript club which he had joined. Waiting for him in the smoking-room I picked up Vanity Fair, wondering on which page of it, one day, my parody might appear. To my utter disappointment I found that somebody had forestalled me; somebody else had written a Holmes parody. No doubt people were doing it all over England at that time. Jealously I read the opening paragraph. Dash the man, he had even got my first joke, about the Persian slipper! I read on . . . and then suddenly with beating heart glanced at the end:
‘“There was no such man,” said Holmes. “It was merely the name of a soup.” A. A. M.’
First pale with the shock of it, then red with embarrassment, I glanced nervously round the room. My secret was out. Was everybody looking at me? Even now when I see my name in the paper, I feel that the world is intruding unduly on my privacy. I ought to be anonymous: we all ought to be anonymous. When I give my name in a shop, I give it with an ill-grace. This first appearance of my initials in a London paper which all London coul
d read filled me with a ridiculous shame.
Only for a moment of course. Then I read the article through lingeringly: line by matchless line, loving every beautiful word of it.
I read it through twice more before Ken came; once as the old gentleman in the next chair, once as his wife for whom he would go out and buy a copy, as soon as he had read it. It seemed just as good to them as it had to the author. Then Ken came in. He was, of course, as excited and happy as I. Since I was now a millionaire, we resolved to celebrate the event. After the best dinner the Club could provide, and a bottle of something to ‘wash it down’ (as other writers were saying), we went to the St James’ Theatre and saw George Alexander in Saturday to Monday. In the Royal box sat King Edward and Queen Alexandra; in the next box sat George and Mary, Prince and Princess of Wales. I tried to think that they too had just read Vanity Fair, and had felt that the occasion should be celebrated. Anyhow, there they were; it was a great evening. At the end of the month I received my first cheque, which was to pay for all this. Fifteen shillings.
4
These were the great days of Tariff Reform. Joseph Chamberlain was stumping the country; Arthur Pearson, his chief henchman, was putting fresh heart into the readers of The Daily Express and The St James’ Gazette by telling them that Tariff Reform meant Work for All–or, if they preferred it, as they probably did, Games for All, Pianos for All, Bicycles for All and Cheaper Wool. In the music-hall Mrs Brown Potter was reciting the Tariff Reform National Anthem, which went, as far as I can remember it, like this:
I pledge my word the Empire wants Protection,
I pledge my word that by (pom-pom) Protection we shall gain;
I pledge my word ’twill cure all disaffection
(or win the next Election–or something):
These are the words of Joseph Chamberlain.
What (if anything) this lacked in imperial vision or economic argument was forgotten in the beauty of the reciter and a communal feeling–‘Good old Joe!’ It is doubtful whether it made any converts.