The House with the Twisted Chimneys/Chapter 2

It was on the fourth day that I got the idea; I mean the fourth day of Terry Burns' stay in town.

He had dropped in to see me on each of these days, for one reason or other: to tell me what Sir Humphrey said, to sneer at the treatment, to beg a cigarette when his store had given out, or something else equally important. I, true to my bargain with Caroline, had given up all my engagements in order to brighten Terry Burns.

I was reading the Times when a thought popped into my head. I shut my eyes and studied its features. They fascinated me.

It was morning, and presently my patient, unawares, strolled in for the eleven o'clock eggnog prescribed by Sir Humphreys and offered by me.

He drank it. When he had pronounced it good, I asked him casually how he was. No change; at least, none that he noticed, except that he always felt better, more human in my society. That was because I was a bit fed up with life, too, and didn't try to cheer him.

“On the contrary,” I said, “I was just wondering whether I might ask you to cheer me up. I've thought of something that might amuse me. Yes, I'm sure it would! Only I'm not equal to working out the details alone. If I weren't afraid it would bore you”

“Of course it wouldn't, if it would amuse you!” His eyes lit up. “Tell me what it is you want to do.”

“I'm almost ashamed! It's so childish. But it would be fun.”

“If I could care to do anything at all, it would be something childish. Besides, I believe you and I are rather alike in several ways. We have the same opinions about life. We're both down on our luck.”

I gave myself a mental pat on the head. I ought to succeed on the stage if it ever came to that!

“Well,” I hesitated. “I got the idea from an article in the Times. There's something on the subject every day in every paper I see, but it never occurred to me till now to get any fun out of it. It's the housing problem, you know. Not the one for the working classes. I wouldn't be so mean as to spoof them or the nouveaux pauvres, of whom I am one. It's for the nouveaux riches. They're fair game.”

“What do you want to do to them?” asked Terry Burns.

“Play a practical joke. Then dig myself in and watch the result. Perhaps there'd be none. In that case the joke would be on me.”

“And on me if we both went in for the experiment. We'd bear the blow together.”

“It wouldn't kill us! Listen! I'll explain. It's simply idiotic! But it's something to do, something to make one wake up in the morning with a little interest to look forward to. The papers all say that everybody is searching for a house to be sold or let furnished, and that there aren't any houses. On the other hand, if you glance at the advertisement sheets of any newspaper, you ask yourself if every second house in England isn't asking to be disposed of! Now, is it only a 'silly-season' cry, this grievance about 'no houses,' or is it true? What fun to concoct an absolutely adorable ad, describing a place with every perfection, and see what applications one would get! Would there be thousands or just a mere dribble or none at all? Don't you think it would be fun to find out and to read the letters, if there were any? People would be sure to say a lot about themselves. Human nature's like that! Or, anyhow, we could force their hands by putting in the advertisement that we would let our wonderful house only to the right sort of tenants. No others need apply.”

“But that would limit the number of answers and our fun,” said Terry. On his face glimmered a grin. After all, the boy in him had been scotched, not killed.

“Oh, no,” I argued. “They'd be serenely confident that they and they alone were the right ones. Then, when they didn't hear from the advertiser by return, they'd suppose that some one more lucky had got ahead of them. Yes, we're on the right track! We must want to let our place furnished. If we wished to sell, we'd have no motive in trying to pick and choose our buyer. Any creature with money would do. So our letters would be tame as Teddy bears. What we want is human documents!”

“Let's begin to think out our ad!” exclaimed the patient, sitting up straighter in his chair. Already two or three haggard years seemed to have fallen from his face. I might have been skillfully knocking them off with a hammer!

Like a competent general, I had all my materials at hand: Terence Burns' favorite brand of cigarettes, matches warranted to light without damns, a notebook, several sharp, soft-leaded pencils, and some illustrated advertisements cut from Country Life, to give us hints.

“What sort of house have we?” Terry wanted to know. “Is it town or country, genuine Tudor, Jacobean, Queen Anne, or Georgian?”

“Oh, country! It gives us more scope,” I cried. “And I think Tudor's the most attractive. But I may be prejudiced. Courtenaye Abbey, our place in Devonshire, is mostly Tudor. I'm too poor to live there. Through Mr. Carstairs it's let to a sort of cousin of mine who did cowboying in all its branches in America, coined piles of oof in something or other, and came over here to live when he'd collected enough to revive an old family title. But I adore the abbey.”

“Our house shall be Tudor,” Terry assented. “It had better be historic, hadn't it?”

“Why not? It's just as easy for us, Let's have the oldest bits earlier than Tudor, what?”

“By Jove! Yes! King John. Might look fishy to go behind him!”

So, block after block, by suggestion, we two architects of the aërial school built up the noble mansion we had to dispose of. With loving and artistic touches we added feature after feature of interest as inspirations came. We were like benevolent fairy godparents at a baby's christening, endowing our ward with all possible perfections.

Terry noted down our ideas at their birth lest we should forget them under pressure of others to follow, and, after several discarded efforts, we achieved an advertisement which combined every attribute of an earthly paradise.

This is the way it ran:

We were both enraptured with the result of our joint inspirations. We could simply see the marvelous moated grange, and Terry thought that life would be bearable, after all, if he could live there. “What a pity it didn't exist!” he sighed. I consoled him by saying that there were perhaps two or three such in England. To my mind, Courtenaye Abbey was as good, though moatless.

We decided to send our darling to six leading London newspapers, engaging a box at the office of each for the answers, the advertisement to appear each day for a week. In order to keep our identity secret even from the discreet heads of advertising departments, we would have the replies called for, not posted. Terry's man, Jones, was selected to be our messenger, and had to be taken more or less into our confidence. So fearful were we of being too late for to-morrow's papers that Jones was rushed off in a taxi with instructions before the ink had dried on the last copy.

Our suspense was painful until he returned with the news that all the advertisements had been in time and that everything was satisfactorily settled. The tidings braced us mightily, but the tonic effect was brief. Hardly had Terry said “Thanks, Jones. You've been very quick” when we remembered that to-morrow would be a blank day. The newspapers would publish T. B.'s advertisement to-morrow morning, It would then be read by the British public in the course of eggs and bacon. Those who responded at once, if any, would be so few that it seemed childish to think of calling for letters that night.

“I suppose, if you go the rounds in the morning of the day after to-morrow, it will be soon enough,” Terry remarked to Jones with the restrained wistfulness of a child on Christmas Eve asking at what hour Santa Claus is due to start.

I also hung upon Jones' words, but still more eagerly upon Terence Burns' expression.

“Well, sir,” said the man, his eyes on the floor—I believe to hide a joyous twinkle—“that might be right for letters. But what about the telegrams?”

“Telegrams?” we both echoed in the same breath.

“Yes, sir. When the managers, or whatever they were, had read the advertisement, they were of opinion there might be telegrams. In answer to my question, the general advice was to look in and open the boxes any time after twelve noon to-morrow.”

Terry and I stared at each other. Our hearts beat. I knew what his was doing by the state of my own. He who would have sold his life for a song, a really worth-while song, was eager to preserve it at any price till his eyes had seen the full result of our advertisement.

Telegrams!

Could it be possible that there would be telegrams?