I grew tired of penny-a-lining. Had I been of a saving disposition it might have worked out better. One week, I would earn two pounds—another week three. And then, by some peculiar economic law I could never understand, my expenditure would be precisely that same sum. The following week, my takings might total only a few shillings. How could a gentleman live! The work necessitated constant running about—hurrying here and there. I recall the idea I formed of what would constitute competence, beyond which a man need take no thought: it was, whenever one was tired or bored, to be able to jump upon a 'bus, indifferent as what the fare might be.
I tried school-mastering. One did not in those days have to be possessed of diplomas and certificates. I obtained an assistant mastership at a Day and Boarding School in the Clapham Road. English and mathematics were my department. But it seemed to include most things: my chief, a leisurely old gentleman, confining himself to the classics and theology. My duties included also “general supervision” of the boarders, the teaching of swimming and gymnastics, and of proper deportment during our daily walk round Clapham Common, and at church on Sundays. It was up to me to see that each boy did really drop his threepenny bit into the bag; but I have the suspicion that one or two of them, occasionally, may have been too clever for me. I had to wear gloves and a top hat; and once a week I had an evening out. The house-and parlour-maid, combined, a jolly little thing, only laughed at me. “Now you know what it's like,” she said, “and when you're married you can tell your wife.” Things have changed since then, I am informed. I stuck it for a term. My shorthand had suffered for want of practice. The House of Commons' gallery loomed distant. I answered advertisements. For secretarial work my shorthand was sufficient. I could have been secretary to Herbert Spencer. A friend in London to whom he had deputed the business, tested and approved me. I was to have gone down to Brighton the next week. I was eager and excited. But my sister, when I told her, was heartbroken. The stage had been a long way towards perdition, and journalism a step further. After Herbert Spencer, what hope could remain for my salvation? During my days of evil fortune, I had hidden myself from friends and relatives; writing lying letters from no address. I had caused her much suffering, I knew, and shrank from inflicting another blow. I saw Herbert Spencer's friend—I forget his name—and told him. He laughed, but was sure that Mr. Spencer would think that I had done right. So, instead, I became secretary to a builder in the north of London. He was a wonderful old fellow. He could neither read nor write; but would think nothing of undertaking a ten-thousand-pound contract. He had invented an hieroglyphic that his bank accepted as his signature. He would write it with the pen grasped firmly in his fist and, after each completion, would pause and take a deep breath. His memory was prodigious. Until I came, he had kept no accounts whatever. Every detail of his quite extensive business had its place in his head; and according to common report no one had ever succeeded in doing him out of a halfpenny. I tried to reform him. At first he was grateful; but after a time grew worried and dejected. Until one Saturday, he planked down five weeks' wages in front of me and, assuring me of his continued friendship, begged me as a personal favour to take myself off. My next job was with a firm of commission agents. People in India—white or coloured it mattered not—sent us orders, accompanied by cheques; and we got the things and packed them into tin-lined cases and despatched them. The idea suggested in our advertisement was that we possessed a staff of expert buyers, rich in knowledge and experience: but I did most of it. I bought for far-off ladies their dresses, boots, and underwear, according to accompanying measurements. I matched their hair and chose their birthday presents for their husbands—at least, so one hopes. I selected wines and cigars for peppery old Colonels—I take it they were peppery. I judged what guns would be most serviceable to them for tiger-shooting or for hippopotami; and had saddles made for them under my own eye. It was interesting work. I felt myself a sort of universal uncle; and honestly I did my best. I was sorry when my employer left suddenly for South America. From there I went to a firm of Parliamentary agents. Society is fearfully and wonderfully contrived. It is calculated that out of every apple, between the time it leaves the tree and is finally eaten, eleven people got a bite. When public necessity requires that a new railway line should be constructed, a new tramway laid, or a new dock built, Parliamentary sanction must very properly be obtained. This might be a simple affair. The promoters might present their case before three or four intelligent members of the House of Lords, and the needful business be at once set going. But then nobody would get anything out of it; excepting only those that did the work and the people who would benefit by the result of their enterprise. This would never do. What would become of the parasites? Opposition must be whipped up. Somehow or another, briefs must be found, marked anything up to a thousand guineas, for half-a-dozen eminent K.C.'s. The case must be argued for a couple of years, providing bills of costs for half-a-dozen Parliamentary firms, fees and expenses for expert advisers, engineers, surveyors, newspaper men. When everyone has gorged his fill and new prey is in sight, it can suddenly be discovered that really, as a matter of fact, there is nothing whatever to be said against the scheme—and never was. Maybe a hundred thousand pounds or so has been added to the cost of it. The affair ends in a dinner where everybody proposes a vote of thanks to everybody else, and thanks God for the British Constitution.
Later, I drifted to a solicitor's office. Memoirs of any old family solicitor should make good reading. Almost in every dust-covered, black tin box there lurks a story. Now and again I would open one, re-arrange its contents. Bundles of old faded letters; fly-blown miniatures and photographs. Purchase of Harlowe Manor, together with adjoining lands, April 1832. Draft mortgage. Foreclosed 11.8.'69. Cosgrove v. Cosgrove and Templeton, with note as to custody of children. Ellenby decd.—provision for Laura and two children secured under separate deed. Crown v. Manningham, with cutting from The Morning Post describing scene in Court. A will enclosing an advertisement for one Munroe George Hargreaves, and across it in red ink “Never discovered.” And so on. Slowly I would close the lid. The shadowed shapes I had unloosed would fade into their hiding-place.
“Ouida” was one of our clients. Once a year, she would leave her beloved Florence to spend a few weeks in London. Her books earned her a good income, but she had no sense of money. In the course of a morning's stroll she would, if in the mood, order a thousand pounds' worth of goods to be sent to her at the Langham Hotel. She never asked the price. She was like a child. Anything that caught her fancy she wanted. Fortunately for herself, she always gave us as a reference. I would have to go round and explain matters. One or two of the less expensive articles we would let her have. She would forget about the others.
I remember having to answer an inquiry as to whether Alfred Harmsworth was likely to prove a desirable tenant for a room in Chancery Lane at thirty pounds a year. My instructions were to reply “guardedly.” But it turned out all right. It was there he started Answers.
We had a client, the Lord Lieutenant of a Welsh county. One day, in Pembroke, he saw a little fisher girl. He took her up on his shoulder and carried her to her home. He arranged with her parents that she should be sent abroad to school; and when she was eighteen he would marry her. The programme was carried out, but it proved an unhappy marriage. He was nearly fifty by then and, as may be guessed, a somewhat eccentric person. He died a few years afterwards, leaving her two thousand a year, provided she never remarried. She was a handsome young woman, and solved the problem by going out to America with a cousin, a young sailor. Only instead of her taking his name, he took hers.