When a Man's Single: A Tale of Literary Life

'But why,' asked Rob, 'did he turn the cheese into an oil-painting?'

'Ah, there you have the journalistic instinct again. You see a cheese is too plebeian a thing to form the subject of an article in the Scalping Knife, so Simms made a painting of it. He has had my Chinese umbrella from several points of view in three different papers. When I play on his piano I put scraps of paper on the notes to guide me, and he made his three guineas out of that. Once I challenged him to write an article on a straw that was sticking to the sill of my window, and it was one of the most interesting things he ever did. Then there was the box of old clothes and other odds and ends that he promised to store for me when I changed my rooms. He sold the lot to a hawker for a pair of flower-pots, and wrote an article on the transaction. Subsequently he had another article on the flower-pots; and when I appeared to claim my belongings he got a third article out of that.'

'I suppose he reads a great deal?' said Rob.

'He seldom opens a book,' answered Rorrison; 'indeed, when he requires to consult a work of reference he goes to the Strand and does his reading at a bookstall. I don't think he was ever in the British Museum.'

Rob laughed.

'At the same time,' he said, 'I don't think Mr. Noble Simms could get any copy out of me.'

Just then some one shuffled into the passage, and the door opened.

CHAPTER IX MR. NOBLE SIMMS

The new-comer was a young man with an impassive face and weary eyes, who, as he slouched in, described a parabola in the air with one of his feet, which was his way of keeping a burned slipper on. Rorrison introduced him to Rob as Mr. Noble Simms, after which Simms took himself into a corner of the room, like a man who has paid for his seat in a railway compartment and refuses to be drawn into conversation. He would have been a handsome man had he had a little more interest in himself.

'I thought you told me you were going out to-night,' said Rorrison.

'I meant to go,' Simms answered, 'but when I rang for my boots the housekeeper thought I asked for water, and brought it, so, rather than explain matters to her, I drank the water and remained indoors.'

'I read your book lately, Mr. Simms,' Rob said, after he had helped himself to tobacco from Simms's pouch, 'Try my tobacco,' being the Press form of salutation.

'You did not buy the second volume, did you?' asked Simms, with a show of interest, and Rob had to admit that he got the novel from a library.

'Excuse my asking you,' Simms continued, in his painfully low voice; 'I had a special reason. You see I happen to know that, besides what went to the libraries, there were in all six copies of my book sold. My admirer bought two, and I myself bought three and two-thirds, so that only one volume remains to be accounted for. I like to think that the purchaser was a lady.'

'But how did it come about,' inquired Rob, while Rorrison smoked on imperturbably, 'that the volumes were on sale singly?'

'That was to tempt a public,' said Simms gravely, 'who would not take kindly to the three volumes together. It is a long story, though.'

Here he paused, as if anxious to escape out of the conversation.

'No blarney, Simms,' expostulated Rorrison. 'I forgot to tell you, Angus, that this man always means (when he happens to have a meaning) the reverse of what he says.'

'Don't mind Rorrison,' said Simms to Rob. 'It was in this way. My great work of fiction did fairly well at the libraries, owing to a mistake Mudie made about the name. He ordered a number of copies under the impression that the book was by the popular novelist, Simmons, and when the mistake was found out he was too honourable to draw back. The surplus copies, however, would not sell at all. My publisher offered them as Saturday evening presents to his young men, but they always left them on their desks; so next he tried the second-hand book-shops, in the hope that people from the country would buy the three volumes because they looked so cheap at two shillings. However, even the label "Published at 31s. 6d.: offered for 2s.," was barren of results. I used to stand in an alley near one of these book-shops, and watch the people handling my novel.'

'But no one made an offer for it?'

'Not at two shillings, but when it came down to one-and-sixpence an elderly man with spectacles very nearly bought it. He was undecided between it and a Trigonometry, but in the end he went off with the Trigonometry. Then a young lady in grey and pink seemed interested in it. I watched her reading the bit about Lord John entering the drawing-room suddenly and finding Henry on his knees, and once I distinctly saw her smile.'

'She might have bought the novel if only to see how it ended.'

'Ah, I have always been of opinion that she would have done so, had she not most unfortunately, in her eagerness to learn what Henry said when he and Eleanor went into the conservatory, knocked a row of books over with her elbow. That frightened her, and she took to flight.'

'Most unfortunate,' said Rob solemnly, though he was already beginning to understand Simms – as Simms was on the surface.

'I had a still greater disappointment,' continued the author, 'a few days afterwards. By this time the book was marked "Very Amusing, 1s., worth 1s. 6d."; and when I saw a pale-looking young man, who had been examining it, enter the shop, I thought the novel was as good as sold. My excitement was intense when a shopman came out for the three volumes and carried them inside, but I was puzzled on seeing the young gentleman depart, apparently without having made a purchase. Consider my feelings when the shopman replaced the three volumes on his shelf with the new label, "924 pp., 8d.; worth 1s."'

'Surely it found a purchaser now?'

'Alas, no. The only man who seemed to be attracted by it at eightpence turned out to be the author of John Mordaunt's Christmas Box ("Thrilling! Published at 6s.: offered at 1s. 3d."), who was hanging about in the interests of his own work.'

'Did it come down to "Sixpence, worth ninepence"?'

'No; when I returned to the spot next day I found volumes One and Three in the "2d. any vol." box, and I carried them away myself. What became of volume Two I have never been able to discover. I rummaged the box for it in vain.'

'As a matter of fact, Angus,' remarked Rorrison, 'the novel is now in its third edition.'

'I always understood that it had done well,' said Rob.

'The fourth time I asked for it at Mudie's,' said Simms, the latter half of whose sentences were sometimes scarcely audible, 'I inquired how it was doing, and was told that it had been already asked for three times. Curiously enough there is a general impression that it has been a great success, and for that I have to thank one man.'

'The admirer of whom you spoke?'

'Yes, my admirer, as I love to call him. I first heard of him as a business gentleman living at Shepherd's Bush, who spoke with rapture of my novel to any chance acquaintances he made on the tops of buses. Then my aunt told me that a young lady knew a stout man living at Shepherd's Bush who could talk of nothing but my book; and on inquiry at my publisher's I learnt that a gentleman answering to this description had bought two copies. I heard of my admirer from different quarters for the next month, until a great longing rose in me to see him, to clasp his hand, to ask what part of the book he liked best, at the least to walk up and down past his windows, feeling that two men who appreciated each other were only separated by a pane of glass.'

'Did you ever discover who he was?'

'I did. He lives at 42 Lavender Crescent, Shepherd's Bush, and his name is Henry Gilding.'

'Well?' said Rob, seeing Simms pause as if this was all.

'I am afraid, Mr. Angus,' the author murmured in reply, 'that you did not read the powerful and harrowing tale very carefully, or you would remember that my hero's name was also Henry Gilding.'

'Well, but what of that?'

'There is everything in that. It is what made the Shepherd's Bush gentleman my admirer for life. He considers it the strangest and most diverting thing in his experience, and every night, I believe, after dinner, his eldest daughter has to read out to him the passages in which the Henry Gildings are thickest. He chuckles over the extraordinary coincidence still. He could take that joke with him to the seaside for a month, and it would keep him in humour all the time.'