by Unknown
As the dignified event now draws nigh which must end our little book, this seems a fitting moment to call again on Mr. Anon and ask him for a record of his two years’ travail. A Bibliography of his doings in this period finds some seventy articles in the ‘St. James’s,’ nearly all of which, though they were of course unsigned, I seem to recognize by their titles, though the very skilful compiler, Mr. Herbert Garland, can have had nothing to guide him save the British Museum or ancient files. I know of as many more, so this makes at least a hundred and forty accepted in those two years. I am sure that far more than twice that number had the sadder fate of rejection, though the second year gave Anon much more reason to rejoice than the first. Greenwood must have had at least four hundred hurled at him by the fast bowler, Anon. Those we have selected are mainly from the first two years, because before the end thereof Anon became, as we shall see, of less importance to me. The bibliographer gives a list of over two hundred such contributions used by other journals in the second, third, and fourth years, besides the many that still went to the ‘St. James’s.’ He has no record of course of those declined. I think eight hundred is a mild estimate for Anon’s four years. As there were also published by the end of the fourth year five books (some with a good deal of St. James’s matter in them), ‘Better Dead,’
‘Auld Licht Idylls,’
‘When a Man’s Single,’
‘An Edinburgh Eleven,’ and ‘A Window in Thrums,’ they cannot be called four years of idleness. He was a humble atom was Mr. Anon, but I am glad he worked so hard.
One of his stand-by’s was his friend Riach, editor of the ‘Edinburgh Evening Dispatch,’ but the man who altered all things for me, by admitting signed articles, was Robertson Nicoll of the ‘British Weekly.’ My first article for him (on Dr. Alexander Whyte, the famous Scottish divine) appeared on July 1, 1887, almost as important a date to me as that of fully two years earlier when the rooks began to build at St. Paneras Station. According to our bibliographer I wrote fifty or sixty articles for the ‘British Weekly.’ Nicoll also set me to the writing of books and got them published, and for the rest of his life was the wisest and kindest of counsellors; but the great thing he did for me was his putting an end to the anonymity, pushing Anon out and letting me in.
Farewell, Anon. You were not overworked in those strenuous years, nor except perhaps during the early months were you underfed. Soon (as it seems now) you got out of buns and cheese into luscious ‘chips,’ and so onward, ever onward, pertinacious soul, to chops and ale. Few freelances have been so fortunate as you, though you had your tremors. Your philosophy, so far as I can see through the mists, was to be always at it with your pen and let the skies fall if they chose. Would you have looked up, Anon? You knew not what was going on around you, nor apparently cared to know. To-day I read books about your times written by authors not then born, and yours is the blame if those books are novel and engrossing to me, as if they treated of strange happenings in foreign lands instead of about the London of which I was a part. You were in the throng of National Events and International Convulsions, vast Social Reforms, the rise and fall of Parties, Women were getting Ready, the Religion of the Prosperous had passed from Golf to Lawn Tennis, there were Balls and Jubilees and Junketings, there were Members in the Clock Tower, and you only noticed them as you looked up to dip. Your only concern with them was that if they crowded Oxford Street with processions you took your afternoon walk that day in the Euston Road among the monumental masons. How long were you wound up to go, Anon? Were you truly alive as you ticked away unheard? How long would your coat have been on fire before you noticed it? O spare and diligent crumb, I know that in those two years some sort of ecstasy was drumming in your minute inside, but I have forgotten what it was.
We had some good old miserable times together, hadn’t we? Do you remember how we followed the postman from door to door, under the moon, in rain, in fog, to see him drop our fate into the letterbox or heartlessly go by? It fell as soft as pound notes when it was a proof, and like a damn when it was itself come back again. We may have had our discords, you and I, but can we ever forget that we sat as one on the box at St. Paneras Station? Wherever you now may be, wouldn’t you for old times’ sake rather listen to a rook than to a skylark?
I am glad it is I who ask the questions and not you who put them to me. I daresay you are curious about what happened after I edged you to the door. There was my grand ambition to do things instead of writing about them. Did I do them? No, Anon, I never did. To do something grandly perilous before settling down — was the phrase yours or mine? In your day it was to be Africa with Joseph Thomson, and later it was to be the Antarctic with Captain Scott, whom you never knew, but who was to become in after years my best of friends. A letter from him to me written in the tent in which he and his comrades died, is, I suppose, my most precious possession. No, I never went with either of them. You are right, it might have made a man of me. I suppose you are just as you were when Gilmour sketched you, but I question whether you would know me; gone lethargic, Anon, and indifferent, and walk with my staff behind my back, always a bad sign. You may ask me a question or two, though I don’t promise to answer them. Grenville Street? No, I didn’t stay on long after you had departed. The pound a day? Yes, I thought you would be curious about that. It goes on, Anon, and more; indeed it was more before you and I parted company. Gilmour, whom you called Gilray, what do you want to know about him? Ah yes, I remember now that you were still hanging around when Gilmour began to be so obstreperous about the cheques. When the cheques arrived like rich relations a change did come over me, Anon, and I was as reckless in money matters as you once were provident. In the end Gilmour got his way and I joined a Bank. He is my great friend still.
Surely there is one other thing you want to know about? Yes, the Hat. The Hat was yours rather than mine; it would sadden me if you did not want to know what became of the Hat. Well, the Bank did for the Hat. If you want to learn more about this curious matter read my remaining pages. You are already familiar with those that are about the Bank; they may indeed be called your last article, though the title is changed. I suppose it was you who went into the Bank that day and I who came out. What happened afterwards, however, will be new to you. Read it and then haste away from me. I love you in retrospect, but two years were quite enough of you. Go back to St. Pancras in the early morning and meet some new freelance stepping from the train and be as helpful to him as you were to me. Begone, sweet Anon, begone.
CHAPTER XXIV
“FROM ST. PANCRAS TO THE BANK.”
“I now proceed to tell how a literary hand opens a Bank Account. The requisites are recklessness tempered with stratagem, a devoted but maddened friend, time to elaborate your plot, an ingratiating manner, and cheques. I propose to show how the affair can be brought to a successful issue by describing my own adventures; and I may add as a guarantee of good faith that my cheque-book is lying before me as I write.
From the time my joining a bank was in contemplation until the scheme was hatched would be about three months. Long before this, however, my devoted friend Gilray and I had been closeted occasionally on the subject but without deciding on any line of action beyond the old one, namely, that I should continue giving him small crossed cheques, for which he should hand me as much cash as he could get for them. It was, if I remember aright, a hole in my waistcoat pocket that finally decided me to begin the practical proceedings. My devoted friend had got me sovereigns galore in exchange for some cheques, and they had gnawed a hole in my waistcoat pocket, through which they forced a way into the lining and ran round me like mice in a wall. To get at them I had to tilt myself to this side and that, much as we used to play the game of pigs in clover, and often (even in public places) with the same result — defeat at the sty. Instead of paying my creditors promptly, I had to invite them to listen while I gave myself a jerk. From this dilemma I proposed to extricate myself by following the now familiar arrangement of selling more cheques to
my devoted friend; but though I had worried him successfully for long by appeals to his finer feelings, he finally rebelled, and said that as far as he was concerned I must open negotiations with a bank or starve. Of course he had me in his power, and I yielded, though with misgivings, for I have ever liked to go on in the old bad ways. We sat far on into various nights discussing which bank would be most easily duped, and other details. We finally decided to make our first attempt on a Bank several of the Directors of which were favourably known to him as not being good business men. He also consented to continue getting as much as possible for my cheques until we had outwitted the Banker. The scene of our plot, it is interesting to remember, was a house in Dash Street where I now resided in splendour, the room with the two windows.
For some weeks I did not see Gilray, and I began to hope that my momentary tangles were to go on in the old way. I also found an entry into the lining of my waistcoat, and, as a result, had the unwonted pleasure of asking all the persons I knew, except Gilray (whom I now scorned), to a festive function. Too soon I found myself impecunious, and had to write a begging letter to him offering some cheques at half price (for ready money). He gave me a paltry sum, but announced at the same time that it was the last, and that we must both now turn over a new leaf. He also said that the Bank (it was not his bank — he is a shrewd fellow) had consented (to oblige him) to let me open an account. This was the First Step. How he managed it I do not know; but during those three weeks he must have been working hard for me. He is well acquainted with Bankers, their ways, their vulnerable points, where to find them, when to strike and how to play them. It is astounding to hear him talk about stocks and shares and gold being up and down as easily as one could reel off an article. Though he seems, however, to have shown in this matter a knowledge of men (or rather of Bankers) that is almost gruesome, he has his weak points like another, and by praising his acumen I succeeded in wheedling him out of one more tenner. I then ordered him to cease talking about Bank Accounts, or to leave my rooms.
He bided his time, and in another three weeks I was in a condition to listen to what he (with money in a box that had a lid to it) called reason. We now approach Step Two towards opening a Bank Account. I feared Step Two would mean a great deal of anguish for me, such as going to houses where I should meet the Directors, having to take an unnerving lady in to dinner and being asked financial posers. This made me anxious, for my appearance is against me, and I take banks like clubs, where the committees blackball all candidates except those who are unknown to them. (I am safe to be elected to the Athenæum.) I pointed this out to Gilray, who was beginning to show traces of arrogance, but he replied that he had more sense than to let the Directors meet me before they were too compromised to be able to draw back. In short, Step Two had already been taken without my cognizance. Step Three (a very troublesome step this) was the arrangement of all my cheques one on top of another. I put off taking this step as long as possible, and then I made two steps of it; (a) consisted in searching my envelopes, boxes, drawers, pockets and other likely places for cheques, of which I had a number, though all for small amounts. I had intentionally hidden them here and there, for one must be careful with cheques; (b) consisted in signing my name on the back of each. I then sallied forth in a fury to an eating-house where I had arranged to meet my devoted friend; thence after a light repast we were to proceed to the Bank. My devoted friend, finding that I had only got as far as (a) (a trick of mine to put off the visit to the Bank), insisted on our completing (b) in the restaurant. We therefore had our table cleared, by a stern order from Gilray who can awe the most majestic people, and proceeded to the orderly arrangement of the cheques amid breathless silence, the people at the other tables laying down their knives and forks, and the waiters gathering round us open-mouthed, as the pile grew bigger and its items tended to float. I wrote my name on the back of each of my cheques (this is compulsory), and then passed it to my Business Man, who made marks on a piece of paper. When all was over, he said there were fifty-two cheques. As I had made it fifty in the room with two windows we counted again, and this time we both found there were fifty-two. We then left the restaurant, the waiters looking at us strangely. It was now two o’clock, and the sky a dull grey with moving clouds. We have now come to Step Four — the Bank itself. As we set off upon our singular adventure my mentor may be conceived striding a little in front of me and occasionally looking behind him. Piccadilly Circus was full of wayfarers, passing this way and that. Around us was the roar of traffic, above us that grey sky with the clouds. Strange to say, as we neared the Bank in Pall Mall East it was my friend who became the more despondent. Perhaps mine was a Dutch courage; but it served. He murmured that Step Four would perhaps make a miserly calculating man of me, and that somehow he preferred me as I had been. If I wanted, he said, to go on in the old harum-scarum way, there was still time. But I clenched my teeth, and into the Bank we marched.
Have you ever been in a bank? I had only time to glance furtively around me when we were shown into a small room. The door was quickly closed, and we were alone with the Bankers. My first reflection was that the window could not be more than five feet from the ground. Then I saw that Gilray was introducing me to the Bankers. Bankers are of medium height, slightly but firmly built, forty or forty-one years of age, and stand in an easy attitude, with nothing about them to suggest their vocation save that they keep their hands in their trouser-pockets. They have pleasant voices, but you do not catch what they say, and all that is expected of you is to bow when they have completed a sentence. You also hand over your cheques and sign your name twice on different pieces of paper, so as to give them some sort of a pull over you, and then after a last look at you which is rather trying, they hand you your cheque-book. Cheque-books are in blue covers and are of a shape which makes them wobble in the hand like a trout.
At this moment, which should have been the ‘crowning moment,’ everything threatened to go plop, for they began to talk to each other on everyday topics, leaving me out of it, and the idiotic Gilray, losing his head, collected his hat and stick. They probably saw from my face that I was not to be trifled with, and presently one asked with assumed lightness whether I would like anything now, and if so how much. I said firmly that I should like ten pounds (in gold); and I got it too, without their knowing I would have closed with them if they had said that five would be more convenient. I soon wished that I had tried them with fifteen. I did all this myself without the least help from Gilray, and then I made off quickly in a cab, dropping him carelessly at his home, for I had no further need of him.
Though you must already see that a Bank Account is a good thing to scheme for, I have not yet shown how useful it is. The ten pounds referred to is not (as those without banking knowledge may assume) all I got for my fifty-two cheques. When it was exhausted, I went back to the Bank, taking care to go immediately after I thought the officials had lunched (that I might catch them in a knightly mood). I fixed on the youngest Cashier, and in a devil-may-care sort of way, but without a word, I slipped a cheque beneath his rail. It was an anxious moment. ‘Gold or notes?’ he asked. ‘Gold,’ I said calmly. (Always be careful to say gold.) The next time I doubled the sum and got it again. I never pay for anything now, I give cheques instead. I sometimes feel that this cannot last, for I have no hold on the Bank, and some day doubtless they will find out something damaging to me in those two signatures I gave them. While it lasts, however, I know nothing equal to a Bank Account. No literary hand should be without one.”
ENVOI
THAT is how it was, except of course that Gilmour’s services had consisted in exchanging cheques with me; as he was such a good friend I naturally wanted in the article to put him in the worst light. The restaurant was the Monico and the bank Barclay’s branch in Pall Mall East. I am not sure that the sky was a dull grey, but the rest is accurate. I chanced to hear afterwards that Tennyson had read the account aloud at a garden party, and this naturally pleased me and pleases me sti
ll.
Thus, however, ends the Hat. Unless the gentle reader is dull in the uptake he will not need to be told why. As soon as you have a bank account you no longer need to have a silk hat. To cut any considerable dash in London as a freelance you must have one or the other, but it is a mark of the pretentious to have both. Such at least was my feeling, and though I continued to visit my Greenwood it was henceforth in a billycock. I was grateful for all the Hat had done for me, but relieved to be able to return it to its box, whence it has long since flown, I know not whither. I should like to think that Anon balances it once more on his head as good-luck to the newcomer whom he is awaiting at St. Pancras. I referred to it in the following words at a great dinner given to Greenwood in the year 1907 (with a bunch of violets from Mr. Meredith), when I for that occasion made a last reappearance as Anon: —
‘I dare not say in public how much I love Mr. Greenwood. He invented me. I owe almost everything to him. I bought my first silk hat to impress him the day I came to London. I never wore it except when I made my periodic advances upon the “St. James’s.” I like to think that it had its effect on him. There was a legend that he could not smoke a cigar without putting a pen-nib through it, and that he preferred your pen-nib. I do not know whether his immediate neighbours, Mr. Morley and Mr. Asquith and Lord Crewe, have pens with them this evening, but if so they are no longer the pens they were. I was only a freelance, but once I had a sublime week of assisting in that newspaper office, and Mr. Greenwood’s cigars turned my attention to smoking. I did not smoke in those days, I abominated the practice, but my game was to study his weaknesses, and so I took to writing favourably on that topic. I wrote so many articles about my lady nicotine (who was really his lady) that I made a book of them. Long afterwards I read the book and was so fascinated by its pictures of the delights of tobacco that I took to smoking. If I were writing a guide to London I — would put three stars to the name of Greenwood. There are many others of us, a whole line of anonymous Tom Smiths passing in their first silk hat, the Greenwood Hat. In honour tonight of the Beginner’s Friend we take off every hat we ever had; but, O Greenwood, it is because of those first silk hats that we love you best. They are old and battered now, but dying they salute you.’