Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/639

 fancy of the moment. Brown-Smith arose, donned the sombrero and the long paletot, saw to it that his tobacco pouch and Britannia metal fusee box were well stocked, and, walking into the street, hailed a hansom. That was his constant habit. If ever he went further away from home than to his club, which was just round the corner, he went in a hansom. He hated railway carriages and omnibuses, and if he by rare chance tried to go any where on foot he succeeded only in losing himself, and had finally to call on a cabman to extricate him from the London maze. He had a handsome income of his own; indeed, if he had had a head for business, instead of rhyming, he might have been a wealthy man, and this was his sole extravagance. He was scarcely seated when the poetic spring began to show that it was wound up, and, whilst the cab clattered down Wellington-street and over Waterloo-bridge, the poet began to manufacture verses:—

There at least was a beginning, and it hit the feeling of the moment. The measure, as the practised in such matters will observe, lends itself to gravity or gaiety, and the bard might glide from either to either, and might rumble along in sleepy musing between whiles. He got a verse in embryo out of a crowd of little children who danced about an organ, on the top of which a misanthropic ape scratched the hind quarter of disdain with the hand of dejection. Then in due time the lines of houses broke and scattered, and the cab ran between green fields. The poet filled and lit his pipe, and straightway the poetic spring gave another whirl:—

Then he was conscious of his old sweet heart's face. She looked in on him like an actual bodily presence, and surprised him. Another verse came quite naturally, and others flowed easily after it, though he gave them rather a disingenuous turn perhaps, considering the business which took him afield that morning:—

It was not altogether true, but the bard was not going to be over-sentimental. He was getting perilously near the fifties for one thing, and he was going out, of motive aforethought, to look at his old sweetheart's house. Perhaps, if he had formed no such purpose, he might have chosen another measure, and another method of expression. But, in the circumstances, if he must touch his ghost at all, perhaps it was well not to lay a finger of too much stress upon it. It slept, and had slept for many years. It would hardly pay to do more than half awaken it. He went on with his verse-spinning, and in a dreary, half-regretful way was happy. He did not often say a humorous thing, but his whole turn of mind was humorous, and he had never dared to take himself too seriously. Once in a way he had given his whole soul to a woman, but she had never cared for him, and he had been sent out of her presence with a sore heartache, which had faded away little by little into a tranquil regret with a sense of romance around it. These melancholies of the middle-aged are not unpleasant.

The journey came to an end, and the cabman pulled up quite naturally at a publichouse of the better sort, and Brown-Smith was welcomed at the door. Could he have luncheon there by and by? Anything would serve. A little cold meat and a salad? That would do. Their home-brewed was greatly esteemed in the neighbourhood, the curtseying landlady assured him. He would essay a glass at once, and so would the cabman. The cabman being appealed to, touched the brim of his hat and expressed a husky preference for something short. "Two of gin, if you please, ma'am." The bard drank his beer meditatively and slowly, and filled his pipe anew. He had meant to inquire of his old sweetheart's whereabouts. That was a simple thing enough, but the presence of the cabman somehow made it difficult, and when the driver had withdrawn with instructions to stable and feed his horse, and get a snack for himself in the tap-room, it seemed too late to proffer the inquiry. Brown-Smith was shy, in fine, and had a fear which he