The Green Overcoat/Chapter 8

stared at the pile of letters. He remembered that it was a Saturday—a free day! He groaned at such freedom.

Fame is like the trumpet she bears. The trumpet has for the civilian an exhilarating sound; for the house near barracks, too familiar with it, a mechanical one; for the mounted trooper at reveillée it has nothing but a hideous blare.

Fame had come to Professor Higginson under her less pleasing aspect. He marvelled that so much fame had already risen. He trembled at what The Howl might now raise. A paltry lapse of memory! A thing that might happen to anyone! And now all this!

Professor Higginson had under-estimated his position in the scientific world of guess-work.

There are not many Professors of Psychology. Only three have written books. That his own should have been translated into several languages had in the past given him pleasure, for he was a provincial man, and in that curious mixture which makes your academic fellow the funny thing he is, the enormity of false pride jostles a very real simplicity.

He opened one letter, then another, then another: he intended to answer each laboriously at some length with his own hand. He had said nothing of confidence or of privacy to any man, and these letters were the first-fruits of what might be to come!

The Howl is read by all England before nine. There is a post comes into Ormeston at three in the afternoon. By that post, amid a mass of material which it appalled him to observe, and which included every kind of advertisement from every sort of tout, there was shot at the Philosopher over two hundred letters of more material kind.

He purposed an attempt to answer even these in as much detail as his first batch and with his own hand. His Great Adventure was becoming a matter of appreciable interest to himself, and half to conquer, in some moments, his anxiety and dread. There came interludes—as he sat that afternoon opening envelope after envelope, and scribbling notes for replies—when he really felt as though what he were writing was true, and could describe with glowing precision all that strange psychic phase in which the Sub-Conscious self kicks up its heels and gambols at random unrestrained by the burden of objectivity.

Two letters in particular he wrote with the utmost care. One to a Cabinet Minister—an inveterate meddler who dabbled in such things in the intervals of his enormous occupations—the other to an ex-Cabinet Minister—another inveterate meddler who also dabbled in such things in the intervals of his.

Professor Higginson had never written to such great men before. He worked really hard, and he composed two masterpieces. Upon the addressing of his first ten envelopes he spent the best part of twenty minutes with books of reference at his side. He wrote courteously and at enormous length to a Great Lady whose coronet stood out upon the paper like a mountain, and whose signature he could yet hardly accept as real, so tremendous a thing did it seem to him that such an one as She should have entered his life.

He wrote in extraordinary French to the great Specialist at Nancy who had written to him in English. He wrote in English to the great Specialist of Leipsic who had written to him in a German he did not understand, but whose signature and European name warranted the nature of the reply. So passed all Saturday's leisure.

Then came Sunday morning—and a perfect ocean of post!

It was a mass of correspondence which no two secretaries could have dealt with in thirty-six hours, and which he left hopelessly upon his table until some expert friend might tell him how such heaps were cleared.

His immense work of the day and of the night before in answering the Great had left him weary and already disgusted with his new public position. His terrors returned.

He had overstrained himself. The room was blurred before him. He rose from his breakfast and thought to take the air—but the empty Sabbath streets brought him no relief.

The Sunday Popular Papers were hot on his trail. Their great flaring placards stood outside the news shops.

"Is there a Heaven?" in letters a foot long, and underneath, "Professor Higginson says 'Yes,'" almost knocked him down as they stared at him from one hoarding. In the loud bill outside a chapel he saw his name set forth as the "subject of the discourse," and before he could snatch away his eyes he had caught the phrase: "The First Witness." All were welcome. … He was the First Witness! … Oh, God!

He could not pursue his walk. He felt (quite unnecessarily) that the mass of the people whom he passed noted him, and spoke of him among themselves as the Author of the Great Revelation. He wished again for the hundredth time that he had never meddled with a lie. Then Satan jerked the bit: Professor Higginson remembered what the truth would have brought him; he thought of the dock. And then he ceased to wish for anything at all.

Just as he was turning back from that via dolorosa of newspaper placards and sermon-notices in the public street, he remembered the mass of correspondence, and at that moment Heaven sent him a friend—it was Babcock. The set face and hard, bepuffed eyes seemed to shine on him like a light of doom; the great loose mouth seemed eager and hungry to devour a victim of such eminence.

Professor Higginson did not let him take the offensive.

"Babcock," he almost shouted in his agony, "you know about letters and things?"

Babcock never looked bewildered. He nodded his head determinedly and said—

"Go on."

"Well," continued Professor Higginson, fiercely determined that the great subject should not turn up, and talking as though by steam, "letters, you know about letters, letters, hundreds and hundreds of them. Must deal with them, must deal with them this morning—now!" he almost screamed.

The heavy Babcock rapidly diagnosed the case within his mind. He forbore to exasperate the patient.

"That 's all right," he said about as soothingly as ogres can. "That 's all right. What you want is a shorthand writer."

"Two!" shouted Higginson, still dragging his companion along.

But the heavy Babcock had organising power.

"What 's the good of two?" he said contemptuously. "You haven't got two mouths—nor two brains either," he added unnecessarily.

"I want help!" said Professor Higginson wildly. "Help!"

"What you want," said the heavy Babcock, with a solid mental grip that mastered his victim, "is someone to open all those letters, and sort 'em out, one from the other, and see what ought to be said, eh? Kind of thing that ought to be said. Got a telephone?"

"No—yes—no," said Professor Higginson as he reached his door.

"You ought to have—a man of your position," said Babcock. They had reached the door. "I 'll come in and help you," he added.

He did so. He set to work at once did Babcock—strongly and well. He reproved his unhappy colleague again for not having a telephone, sent out a servant in a cab with the address of a shorthand writer and of a typist, newspaper people obtainable of a Sunday, and he ordered a machine. Then he proceeded with tremendous rapidity to slice open the great heap of envelopes with a butter knife.

He sorted out their contents at a pace that appalled and yet fascinated the Professor of Psychology. By the time the assistants had come he had them in four heaps:—

Then did he take it upon himself without leave to call out to the shorthand writer—

"First sentence—I hope you will excuse my dictating this letter—'The pressure of my correspondence during the last few days has been as you may imagine far too great, etc., etc.'"

It was a noble, rotund, convenient sentence. It had done work in its time. Higginson listened, more fascinated than ever.

"Thirty copies of that, please," said Babcock sharply. Then he condescended to explain.

"That 'll come after the 'Dear Sir or Madam.'"

Higginson nodded and added faintly—

"Or 'My Lady,' or whatever it may be."

"Yes," said Babcock, suddenly glancing at him with a gimlet look, "after the opening thing whatever it is, 'My Lord Duke, or My Lord Cardinal, Excellence, or My Lord Hell-to-Pay.'"

He busied himself again with the papers.

"Those," he said, shuffling rapidly a body of over forty and suddenly tearing them across, "that 's trash; principally lunatics. I can tell 'em by the hand."

Higginson gazed on helplessly; he thought such destruction imprudent, but he said nothing.

"These," went on Babcock, groaning with intelligent interest, and licking his forefinger to deal with the papers, "these are refusals."

He turned leaf after leaf as though he were counting Bank Notes, and decided upon the lot.

"Yes; all refusals."

"May I look?" said Professor Higginson a little weakly.

"Yes, if you like," said Babcock, throwing over the pile without looking up, and turning to the next.

The Professor discovered that his colleague was right enough. They were invitations all of them, and not invitations to accept. Over a third were from money-lenders. He made a plaintive appeal to keep certain of these last, whose gorgeous crests, ancient names, and scented paper fascinated him. Babcock merely grunted and said, putting his hand upon another much smaller pile—

"These are money, Higginson, money."

He read them out. An offer to write for a magazine; a much more lucrative offer to write for The Only Daily Paper—but to write exclusively—and so forth.

"That 's the one to take," said Babcock, he pulled out a note with an American heading, ticked it, and tossing it to the Professor, said—

"Shall I answer it for you?"

"No," said Higginson, trying to be firm.

"Oh, very well then," said Babcock, "dictate it yourself."

And the Professor with infinite verbiage gratefully accepted an exclusive article of three thousand words for the sum of £250.

It was the turn of the Big-Wigs, and the learned Babcock with unerring eye skipped an actor and a Duchess of equal prominence, and fished out The Great Invitation.

It was the first document upon which he had condescended to linger, and though it was short, he spent some moments over it. His face grew grave.

"That 's a big thing!" he said solemnly, handing it over almost with reverence to the Professor of Psychology.

The Professor read a good London address simply stamped upon a good piece of note paper. He saw a signature, "Leonard Barclay," which he vaguely remembered in some connection or other. He read an invitation to deliver an address for the Research Club upon any day he might choose, but if possible during the next week. The Research Club would take for the occasion the large room at Gorton's. That was all.

"Lucky beast!" murmured Babcock, not quite loud enough for the typist to hear, as he fixed the reading Higginson with his eye.

The reading Higginson laid down the letter, nodded inanely, and said—

"Well, ought I to take that, Babcock? Who are the Research Club?"

"Who are the Research Club? Wuff! What a man! They make men!" said Babcock bitterly, "that 's what they are! Do you mean to say you don't know?" he went on, leaning over and talking earnestly in a low tone. "Do you mean to say you haven't heard of the Research Club?"

"Somewhere, I dare say," said Professor Higginson confusedly.

But he hadn't. It was a great moment for Babcock. He had not been among the "nuts" for nothing.

"Come," said he, like a man who is leading up to a great business, "you know who Leonard Barclay is?"

"No—yes," said Professor Higginson.

"Just like your telephone," sneered Babcock. "You don't know. Well, I 'll tell you. Leonard Barclay 's the private secretary of Mrs. Camp, and he 's the man who started the Connoisseurs in Bond Street, and who wrote the book about Colombo. Now do you understand? "

Professor Higginson dared not say he didn't. But he still looked helpless.

"Good God, man!" Babcock went at him again, "he 's in the very middle of it. I 've known invitations from the R.C. sent by lots of people, but never by him!"

"Oh!" said Higginson, with an appearance of comprehension, though in truth the mysteries of our plutocracy were for him mysteries indeed. "Is he in Parliament?"

"Parliament!" sneered Babcock. "You 'll be asking me if he 's the Lord Mayor next. He 's Leonard Barclay. … Oh, curse it! He 's it! He 's in the middle of the pudding. Why, man alive, he made" (and Babcock with glorious indiscretion quoted right off the reel) "the Under-Secretary for the Post Office, the General in command of the 5th Army Corps, the Permanent Commissioner of Fine Arts, and a Bishop—a Bishop who really counted."

He paused for breath, and he emphasised his words slowly as he leant back again.

"Do you know, Higginson, that Leonard Barclay was the man who let Lord Cowfold leave the country? "

"What!" said the astonished and provincial Professor. "What do you mean? … Lord Cowfold?—why, he was at Ormeston only last May opening the Bulldog Club."

"Well, he 's in Assisi now," said Babcock grimly, "Assisi in Italy; and he can thank Leonard Barclay that he 's not in Dartmoor—Dartmoor in Devonshire. Lord, man, you 're in luck!"

"But I don't understand," began Professor Higginson, and then he was silent.

"Well, then, I 'll tell you," said Babcock, gloating in triumph, "though it 's difficult to believe you! The Research Club is Bakewell and the Prime Minister and Fittleworth and Capley and about twenty more like that, and when you talk before it, you don't only talk before it, Higginson, you talk before anything that counts in Europe and happens to be in England at the time."

"But I never heard of it," said his colleague impotently, with the feeling as he said it that that was no great proof of anything.

"No," answered Babcock grimly, "one doesn't always hear of those things."

He jotted down a few words in pencil on a bit of paper and shoved it over to the Professor.

"There," he said, "copy that out in your own hand. I wouldn't type-write a thing of that sort if I were you—and write it on the University paper."

Professor Higginson peered at the note and read—

",

"I shall really be very happy. I think Wednesday a very good night. Shall we call it Wednesday? Unless I hear from you I shall take it for granted; and at Gorton's. The usual hour, I suppose?"

Professor Higginson gasped.

"But isn't that very familiar, Babcock," he said doubtfully.

"Yes, it is," said Babcock, "that 's the point."

"And I don't know the hour," said Higginson, still hesitating.

"But I do," said Babcock. "It 's half-past five. Listen, Higginson, and don't be a fool. That 's how men are made in this country. Do as I tell you."

Professor Higginson, wondering vaguely how he could be "made," and what happened when a man was so dealt with by those that govern us, took a sheet of the University paper, and wrote out carefully that horribly familiar note. He hesitated at the superscription.

"What is he?" he asked.

"Who?" said Babcock.

"Why, this Mr., this something Barclay."

"You 've got it there, you fool," said Babcock without courtesy. "Leonard Barclay, Leonard Barclay, Esq. Simple enough, isn't it? "

"I thought," murmured Professor Higginson, "I didn't know—er it was possible that he might have had a"

"Father?" blurted out Babcock. "Not that I know of. No one knows where he comes from, 'xcept Mrs. Camp, and she comes from Chicago."

With which words Babcock, the fallen angel, stared before him in reverie, and saw rising upon the background of that dull provincial room all his old lost paradise: the glories of the Merschauer's house in Capon Street, and the big day at Cowfold House, and the crowds, and the lights that surround our masters and his.

Thus it was that there fell upon this worthy, stilted and hitherto rather obscure provincial pedant the Great Chance of English life: to receive a note from the private secretary of the widow of Mr. Camp, of Chicago, and to speak before the Research Club, where, as it seems, Men are Made!