'No,' said the gentleman himself, on seeing Rob start, 'my name is not Tennyson. It is, indeed, Murphy. Tennyson and the other fellows, who are ambitious of literary fame, pay me so much a page for poems to which they put their names.'
At this point the applause became so deafening that Simms and Rob, who had been on their way to another room, turned back. An aged man, with a magnificent head, was on his feet to describe his first meeting with Carlyle.
'Who is it?' asked Rob, and Simms mentioned the name of a celebrity only a little less renowned than Carlyle himself. To Rob it had been one of the glories of London that in the streets he sometimes came suddenly upon world-renowned men, but he now looked upon this eminent scientist for the first time. The celebrity was there as a visitor, for the Wigwam cannot boast quite such famous members as he.
The septuagenarian began his story well. He described the approach to Craigenputtock on a warm summer afternoon, and the emotions that laid hold of him as, from a distance, he observed the sage seated astride a low dyke, flinging stones into the duck-pond. The pedestrian announced his name and the pleasure with which he at last stood face to face with the greatest writer of the day; and then the genial author of Sartor Resartus, annoyed at being disturbed, jumped off the dyke and chased his visitor round and round the duck-pond. The celebrity had got thus far in his reminiscence when he suddenly stammered, bit his lip as if enraged at something, and then trembled so much that he had to be led back to his seat.
'He must be ill,' whispered Rob to Simms.
'It isn't that,' answered Simms; 'I fancy he must have caught sight of Wingfield.'
Rob's companion pointed to a melancholy-looking man in a seedy coat, who was sitting alone glaring at the celebrity.
'Who is he?' asked Rob.
'He is the great man's literary executor,' Simms replied: 'come along with me and hearken to his sad tale; he is never loth to tell it.'
They crossed over to Wingfield, who received them dejectedly.
'This is not a matter I care to speak of, Mr. Angus,' said the sorrowful man, who spoke of it, however, as frequently as he could find a listener. 'It is now seven years since that gentleman' – pointing angrily at the celebrity, who glared in reply – 'appointed me his literary executor. At the time I thought it a splendid appointment, and by the end of two years I had all his remains carefully edited and his biography ready for the Press. He was an invalid at that time, supposed to be breaking up fast; yet look at him now.'
'He is quite vigorous in appearance now,' said Rob.
'Oh, I've given up hope,' continued the sad man dolefully.
'Still,' remarked Simms, 'I don't know that you could expect him to die just for your sake. I only venture that as an opinion, of course.'
'I don't ask that of him,' responded Wingfield. 'I'm not blaming him in any way; all I say is that he has spoilt my life. Here have I been waiting, waiting for five years, and I seem farther from publication than ever.'
'It is hard on you,' said Simms.
'But why did he break down in his story,' asked Rob, 'when he saw you?'
'Oh, the man has some sense of decency left, I suppose, and knows that he has ruined my career.'
'Is the Carlylean reminiscence taken from the biography?' inquired Simms.
'That is the sore point,' answered Wingfield sullenly. 'He used to shun society, but now he goes to clubs, banquets, and "At Homes," and tells the choice things in the memoir at every one of them. The book will scarcely be worth printing now.'
'I dare say he feels sorry for you,' said Simms, 'and sees that he has placed you in a false position.'
'He does in a way,' replied the literary executor, 'and yet I irritate him. When he was ill last December I called to ask for him every day, but he mistook my motives; and now he is frightened to be left alone with me.'
'It is a sad business,' said Simms, 'but we all have our trials.'
'I would try to bear up better,' said the sad man, 'if I got more sympathy.'
It was very late when Simms and Rob left the Wigwam, yet they were amongst the first to go.
'When does the club close?' Rob asked, as they got into the fresh air.
'No one knows,' answered Simms wearily, 'but I believe the last man to go takes in the morning's milk.'
In the weeks that followed Rob worked hard at political articles for the Wire, and at last began to feel that he was making some headway. He had not the fatal facility for scribbling that distinguishes some journalists, but he had felt life before he took to writing. His style was forcible if not superfine, and he had the faculty that makes a journalist, of only seeing things from one point of view. The successful political writer is blind in one eye.
Though one in three of Rob's articles was now used, the editor of the Wire did not write to say that he liked them, and Rob never heard any one mention them. Even Simms would not read them, but then Simms never read any paper. He got his news from the placards, and bought the Scalping Knife, not to read his own articles, but to measure them and calculate how much he would get for them. Then he dropped them into the gutter.
Some weeks had passed without Rob's seeing Simms, when one day he got a letter that made him walk round and round his table like a circus horse. It was from the editor of the Wire, asking him to be in readiness to come to the office any evening he might be wanted to write. This looked like a step toward an appointment on the staff if he gave satisfaction (a proviso which he took complacently), and Rob's chest expanded, till the room seemed quite small. He pictured Thrums again. He jumped to Mary Abinger, and then he distinctly saw himself in the editorial chair of the Times. He was lying back in it, smoking a cigar, and giving a Cabinet minister five minutes.
Nearly six months had passed since Rob saw Miss Abinger – a long time for a young man to remain in love with the same person. Of late Rob had been less given to dreaming than may be expected of a man who classifies the other sex into one particular lady and others, but Mary was coming to London in the early summer, and when he thought of summer he meant Mary. Rob was oftener in Piccadilly in May than he had been during the previous four months, and he was always looking for somebody. It was the third of June, a day to be remembered in his life, that he heard from the editor of the Wire. At five o'clock he looked upon that as what made it a day of days, but he had changed his mind by a quarter past.
Rob had a silk hat now, and he thrust it on his head, meaning to run downstairs to tell Simms of his good fortune. He was in the happy frame of mind that makes a man walk round improbabilities, and for the first time since he came to London he felt confident of the future, without becoming despondent immediately afterwards. The future, like the summer, was an allegory for Miss Abinger. For the moment Rob's heart filled with compassion for Simms. The one thing our minds will not do is leave our neighbours alone, and Rob had some time before reached the conclusion that Simms's nature had been twisted by a disappointment in love. There was nothing else that could account for his fits of silence, his indifference to the future. He was known to have given the coat off his back to some miserable creature in the street, and to have been annoyed when he discovered that a friend saw him do it. Though Simms's walls were covered with engravings, Rob remembered all at once that there was not a female figure in one of them.
To sympathise with others in a love affair is delightful to every one who feels that he is all right himself. Rob went down to Simms's rooms with a joyous step and a light heart. The outer door stood ajar, and as he pushed it open he heard a voice that turned his face white. From where he stood paralysed he saw through the dark passage into the sitting-room. Mary Abinger was standing before the fireplace, and as Rob's arm fell from the door, Simms bent forward and kissed her.