The Professional Prince/Chapter 5

At the end of the street, they came to a cab rank. The Earl of Bastable called a cab.

“I'm going for a stroll in the park to clear my head,” said the prince.

He crossed the road briskly and went up the street opposite. He soon reached the park, and went straight to the bank of the Serpentine. Save for an early-bathing enthusiast, diving furiously from a plank, he seemed to have it to himself, and enjoyed it none the less for that. Then, coming round the corner of a shrubbery, he found a young man with his hands in his pockets, gazing into the water with an air of moody despair.

In the ten paces between them, the prince's quick eyes took in the young man's lean and hungry look, the frayed shabbiness of his clothes, the cracks across the tops of his boots, the three days' beard on his chin, his air of drooping lassitude. The prince felt strongly that he was out of keeping with the fresh morning.

He stopped and began:

“If you will pardon my suggestion, it would be a mere waste of time to try to drown yourself here. The water is too shallow.”

The young man turned, flushed faintly, scowled, and said:

“Devilishly funny, aren't you?”

“It has always been my vice,” the prince admitted gravely.

“Go away and cure yourself!” snapped the young man.

The prince laughed; this spirit in adversity pleased him.

“I wouldn't have intruded on your apparently mournful reflections if I hadn't had another suggestion to make,” he went on amiably.

The young man looked at him over his shoulder, and the prince's smile seemed to disarm him somewhat; his scowl grew less fierce.

“I was going to beg you to give me the pleasure of your company at breakfast,” said the prince.

There was a slight, convulsive movement of the young man's lips; he hesitated for a few seconds; then he said:

“Thank you. I shall be delighted to accept.”

“Good,” said the prince. He looked up and down the park, measuring the distance, and added: “We're nearer Bayswater than Hyde Park Corner, We'll get a cab there.”

They went on slowly for about fifty yards; then the prince began:

“By the way, Mr.”

“Thelsmere—John Thelsmere.”

“My name is Stuart—John Stuart—the same unlucky Christian name. I've read in a book that tobacco is helpful to still the pangs of hunger. Do you think a cigarette or a cigar”

“I believe a cigarette would make another man of me,” said the young man eagerly. “I haven't smoked for three days.”

The prince gave him a cigarette. He lighted it, inhaled deeply, and breathed out the smoke slowly.

“What a cigarette!” he exclaimed. “The last I smoked were wicked woodbines.”

By the time he had smoked half of it, he was walking almost briskly.

They came out into Bayswater and took a taxicab to Half Moon Street. The prince led his new acquaintance into the dining room, where the table was set with a simple supper.

“I'm going to give you two biscuits and no more for the moment,” he said. “Then, I think, after a hot bath and a change of linen, you might safely have something more substantial in the way of food. I believe a little food to begin with is the proper treatment for real hunger. I read it in a book.”

“Then it must be true—though painful,” said Thelsmere, gazing wolfishly at the cold chicken.

John Thelsmere's story was not the commonest in London, but it was common enough. The son of a country doctor, he had gone to a public school and gained a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford. On leaving Oxford, he had obtained a post as assistant master in a preparatory school. That had been bad enough, but having, at the end of two years, saved sixty pounds, he had come to London and tried to earn his living as author and journalist. With this sixty pounds and perhaps another forty earned by writing, he had struggled on for nineteen months, only to find himself at the end of them on the bank of the Serpentine at four in the morning, with empty pockets and the hunger of a winter wolf.

“So, you see, I've made a howling mess of it,” he said at the end of his story.

“Why don't you go back to your schoolmastering?” asked the prince, who had listened to him with genuine interest.

Thelsmere shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “Like most people who write, I've become a confirmed gambler. The game has got into my blood, and I can leave it only by the Thames, the Serpentine, or the workhouse infirmary. Pneumonia from exposure, you know.”

The prince smiled upon him with warm approval and said:

“That's the proper sporting spirit.” He paused; then added: “But supposing you were beginning the game afresh, do you think you could win?”

“Starting it again with that sixty pounds in the bank, I could,” said Thelsmere confidently.

The prince tapped the table gently, considering Thelsmere. Then he announced:

“Well, as an American acquaintance of mine puts it, I'll stake you.”

“Stake me?” asked Thelsmere.

“He once called it 'grubstaking.'”

From his hip pocket he drew out the notes and checks he had brought away from the flat of Mr. Stallworthy-Miller. He took from them three twenty-pound notes and laid them beside Thelsmere's plate. Then he said thoughtfully:

“And you'll want a fresh outfit. Let's call it a hundred.”

He put two more notes on the other three.

Thelsmere stared at the notes; put out his hand; drew it back.

“B-b-but it' s a hundred p-p-pounds!” he said in a scared voice.

“Yes. Put it in your pocket,” the prince ordered with his delightful smile.

“But what am I to do for it?”

“Astonish the world with immortal works,” laughed the prince.

“B-b-but how can I take it?” Thelsmere's face was working curiously.

“I should take it with my hand if I were you,” suggested the prince, smiling again. “Call it a loan to be repaid when Fortune smiles really broadly on you.”

Thelsmere put the notes in the breast pocket of his ragged jacket with fumbling fingers. He looked dazed.

“I don't know how to thank you,” he muttered.

“Then, for goodness' sake, don't try!” said the prince earnestly. “I would so much rather you ate, instead.”

Thelsmere looked at him hard, there were tears in his eyes.

“You're a damned good chap!” he said.

It was another Thelsmere, a Thelsmere who trod the pavement like a conqueror, who walked down Half Moon Street to Piccadilly soon after ten o'clock. Food, drink, tobacco, and, above all, five pieces of crinkling paper, had transformed the world.

He walked briskly to Lloyd's Bank in St. James' Street, paid four of the notes into his account—he had a balance of one shilling there—and changed the fifth into five-pound notes and gold. As he came out into the street, a pretty girl, a very pretty girl, passing, recognized him, stopped short, smiling, and held out her hand.

“Why, Miss Stuart!” he cried, and shook her hand warmly.

“How are you, Mr. Thelsmere?” she asked, and her dark-blue eyes shone on him kindly. “We haven't met for an age—not since we were beginning our London careers in those lodgings in the Harleyford Road.” She hesitated, looking him over, and added: “I—I hope you're getting on all right.”

“I wasn't, but I am. This morning my luck turned, and now things are looking first rate,” he said cheerfully. “But let's go into this tea shop and compare careers over its innocuous coffee. I see from your pretty clothes that you're succeeding.”

She turned into the shop. “I was,” she said. “But I've just lost my job in 'The Skating Girl'—the usual brute of a manager.”

“I'm sorry to hear that!” he exclaimed, with quick sympathy.

“Oh, it's all right. I've saved money enough to carry me on for months. Besides, I've got friends now.”

“I'm very glad to hear it,” he said heartily.

They went into the smoking room and sat down at a table. He ordered coffee; she took a cigarette case from her vanity bag and lighted a cigarette. They related their adventures since their last meeting—her tale of success, his of failure.

At the end of it, he said:

“It's a curious thing, but the man who is financing my fresh start is of the same name as yourself—John Stuart.”

“I have a brother John.”

“My benefactor lives at 88a Half Moon Street.”

“But my brother's living at 88a Half Moon Street,” she said in some surprise. “I learned only last week, from his landlady at Sudbury, that he had moved there. Did you say he was financing your fresh start?”

“Yes.”

“That isn't like John.” Her brow wrinkled in a perplexed frown. “What is your friend like?”

He gave an accurate description of John Stuart, and ended:

“Of course he's exactly like Charles II.”

“But it is John!” she cried in yet greater perplexity. “Where did you come across him?”

“On the bank of the Serpentine at four o'clock this morning—in evening dress.”

“At four o'clock in the morning—in evening dress! John couldn't possibly do such a thing!”

“And he took me home, fed me, clothed me—underneath, you know—and lent me a hundred pounds to begin the world afresh with.”

“Oh, that's quite incredible! It wasn't John.” She spoke with profound conviction. “But it is odd that he should have the same name, and be so like him, and live at the same address.”

Again she questioned him minutely about his benefactor's appearance—his face, his eyes, his hair, his hands, his feet, his voice, and his manners. She could not for a moment believe that he had a charming smile.

In the end she said:

“It is John, or it's some one in John's skin. I'm certainly going to look into it.”

“You certainly ought to,” said Thelsmere. “But don't go till after lunch. He didn't get to bed till half past four, and he said that he meant to have eight hours' sleep.”

“But that again isn't a bit like John!” she exclaimed. “If he went to bed at a quarter past seven in the morning, he'd get up at half past. He prides himself on silly things like that. All the same, I won't go till after lunch. He'll be in a good temper then—if it is John. He always loved his meals!”