The Thirteenth Column

KNEW Charles Backerton Salemaker fairly intimately. He was a young man, mild-eyed, fair-haired, good-tempered, and—before he went on to the staff of Home Happiness—conscientious. He was fond of describing himself as a good all-round journalist. I was one of the people who saw him last before his unfortunate and mysterious disappearance; and as far as anyone can know why he disappeared, I know it.

I think the trouble really began when Home Happiness, an excellent magazine, supplied a long-felt want. The very first number supplied it fully; after that first number hardly anybody seemed to want any more. The streets of London were filled with crowds of people who were doing without the last issue of Home Happiness, and not minding it. Wherever the English language—or any other language—was spoken, there were earnest men and women who had never heard of the magazine, and did not even want to hear of it. And yet the editor was a man of talent. When hardly anybody bought his second number, he sent round a paragraph to the other papers to the effect that their esteemed contemporary, Home Happiness, was rapidly securing the first place among weekly journals of the domestic class. It is true that the other papers never inserted that paragraph, not considering it to be altogether funny enough, but still the thing showed enterprise. Then again, when the third number did not sell quite so well as the second, he advertised Home Happiness at all the railway stations as "A success unprecedented in the history of journalism!" Some people called this also enterprise, and some called it something shorter. And, finally, the editor did a very clever thing when he secured, at a moderate salary, the services of Charles Backerton Salemaker. Salemaker loved work; he worked willingly, and he was—at one time, at any rate—a conscientious man.

The paper started its first number with great profusion. In return for his salary, Salemaker was asked to write only one column a week, a column entitled "Politics for Papa." I know that he was uneasy about this, thinking and saying that he was afraid he was not really doing enough for the money he received. However, he did that column well. Any Liberal or any Conservative who read it would have found nothing with which it was possible to disagree. Salemaker said that it was written from the independent standpoint. Subsequently expenses were cut down; journalists fell off the staff of that paper like leaves before the blast, and their work was assigned to Salemaker without increase of salary.

When the art critic went, it was Salemaker who was appointed to write that delightful column "Through the Picture Galleries." "And this," he said to me, "gives me great pleasure, for I have never before had it practically recognised that I know something about art." I could understand that, and told him so. I do not think he was quite so pleased when he was given a third column to do every week, because the third column was called "Notes for the Nursery." "However," he said, "one can always read up a subject." He bought two second-hand medical works on the treatment of children, and quoted them alternately. The two medical works were diametrically opposed to each other on several important points, and in consequence there was a little trouble. He also invented a new game for infants, to be played with wax matches, and the editor got a furious post-card saying that if the author of "Notes for the Nursery" had the feelings of a mother, she would never have advocated a game which must lead to phosphorus-poisoning and incendiarism in the end. Salemaker said that he would be more careful in future, and the editor—to show that he still had confidence in him gave—him two more columns to write every week.

I met him in the street a fortnight afterwards, and he was not looking quite as enthusiastic as usual. "Well," I said, "how's the paper, and have you got the feelings of a mother yet?"

"The paper is beginning to turn the corner," he said. "It'll do very well in time. Of course, there is none of the silly extravagance that there was at first. The staff has been very much reduced."

"Then who does the work?"

"Well, I write eight columns for every number myself now, and the editor does most of the rest. Of course, it's no hardship to me; a good all-round journalist does not want to be tied down to one subject. Besides, the paper is practically turning the corner now."

I advised him not to overwork himself, and he hurried away to the office; I thought he seemed paler and thinner than he used to be.

That night, after dinner, I was alone in my chambers, when suddenly Salemaker arrived.

"It's a terrible business!" he exclaimed, as he came in at the door. He did not look himself. He seemed indignant and distraught. He was wearing his hat very much on the back of his head. I gently removed his hat, made him sit down, gave him something to smoke, and asked him what was the matter.

"It's a perfectly terrible business. I've just come from the office. I wanted to consult you," he said, rather incoherently.

"I see," I said. "The success unprecedented in the history of journalism is going to stop—going to put up its poor, unhappy shutters."

"Nothing of the kind. The paper is now, as a matter of fact, definitely turning the corner."

"Do you know," I asked, "that you've already told me that twice to-day?"

He sighed.

"Have I?" he said drearily, "Very likely. I've got into the habit of saying it whenever I hear the paper mentioned. Let me tell you what's happened. We've got a column in the paper called 'The Height of Fashion,' a column for women, you understand."

"Quite so."

"Well, it used to be written by a lady journalist, a Miss Catling. It was one of the most popular features of the paper. Now the editor, on the plea of economy, has turned her off, or, rather, asked her to write gratuitously. She says she won't work for nothing, and she doesn't care. She says she shall go and be a new woman, and write an improper novel. You can see she's cut up about it."

"Well," I said, "I'm sure your sympathy with her does you credit, and if the editor discontinues the most popular feature, it may retard the progress of the paper, but after all"

"Stop!" he said irritably, "that isn't it at all. 'The Height of Fashion' is to come out every week as usual, but the scandalous—the absurd—I may say the unspeakable thing about it is, that I've got to write it! He laughed bitterly. "I, Charles Backerton Salemaker—moi qui vous parle—have got to write a fashion article for women. Think of it! Picture it!"

"Why don't you protest?"

"Protest? What else do you think I've been doing at the office except protesting? Heaven knows I don't mind work. I give them plenty for their money. I write the politics, the art, and the nursery notes, and other things besides, and I've never complained. I told you that I did eight columns a week. That was a lie. I wrote eleven then, and I have just had two more put on to me. 'The Height of Fashion' makes the thirteenth. I lied to you because I was ashamed to say how much I did. I had high principles once, but Home Happiness has about done for them. You see, publishers won't send us books for review—say they've never heard of us. Theatre managers won't send us tickets. What's the consequence? I review books I've never read, and criticise plays I've never seen; I always notice them favourably, and so I've never been found out. Last night I wrote an obituary of a man who isn't dead, and some 'Genuine Experiences of a Detective,' which I never was. But that was honesty itself compared with what the editor wants now. Besides," he added, more quietly and reflectively, "it will be a very difficult thing to write that article without being bowled out."

I said that the subject was probably much easier than was generally supposed. I had known some girls who appeared to be singularly, impressively stupid, and yet they thoroughly understood fashions.

"Ah, yes," he said, "it is not so much a question of brains as a question of instinct. All women have the instinct. You think the subject easy? I'll guarantee you don't even understand the elements of it, the mere question of structure, letting alone ornamentation. Here's a thing which may happen any day, and I've seen it myself: The top half of a woman's dress has two rows of buttons and button-holes; one row is genuine, practical, and works; the other row is pure 'fake,' just put on out of exuberance. Can you tell me which is which? No, you can't, and I can't, but a girl of twelve could without looking. Then there are dresses which can never be put on at all—at least, one would say so if there wasn't a woman inside them. How did the woman get there? The only possible explanation is that she was melted down, poured in through the collar, and allowed to set. I say that it is the only possible explanation, but I am perfectly well aware that it is not the right one. And you can't ell me the right one. I don't know and can't find out the bare elements of the subject."

"Then why didn't you tell the editor so?"

"I did," said Salemaker, pacing excitedly up and down the room. "He's a married man, and has got two sisters into the bargain to my certain knowledge. He lives in the atmosphere of it. He would only have to leave the women in a room together, and nature would do the rest. They would begin to talk clothes, and he could have his clerk at the keyhole to take it all down in shorthand. That would give him something to go upon. As for me, I have not got one living female relation. However, he wouldn't hear of doing it himself. He said he had enough to do already. He told me that a good all-round journalist could write any article on anything."

"You said yourself once that you would tackle any subject if you were allowed half an hour to read it up."

"Certainly, but this is the one subject that you can't read up. You can't get it out of a book, because any book upon the subject would be out of date before it could be published."

"Can't you get it out of other papers?"

"Even then you can't be certain of being up to date. I tell you—and you can believe it or not, as you like—that the shape of a sleeve has been known to change completely in a single night. Of course, the other papers would give me the right vocabulary—words like 'selvage,' and 'ruching,' and things of that kind."

"M'yes. They wouldn't tell you what they meant."

"No. There you are again; the thing's too difficult."

"Look here," I said, "you must know some good-natured woman of the world—one of the kind that likes young men one of the kind that believes that journalism is connected with authorship, and authorship is connected with romance. You had better go to her, tell her frankly what your position is, and ask her" He interrupted me. "You are being perfectly useless to me," he said, with clenched teeth and studied calm. "If you know me at all, you must know that I would sooner be boiled alive in non-corrosive ink and have my blue-black carcase eaten by half-caste Kaffirs, than let any woman of my acquaintance know that I had been even asked to do anything so presumptuous and immodest. If I attempt this article at all, it will be to prove to the editor that I really am an all-round journalist, and you must understand that I don't want it talked about."

"Certainly. But if you're going to write the article, how do you propose to get your information?"

"I can't say exactly. I shall look in the windows of the big shops, and take notes of the people in the Park. Then the managers of the shops would tell me something in return for a gratuitous advertisement. I thought, perhaps, you might have some other notion."

"No," I said, "I'm afraid I am not of much use. However, I can say that I am sincerely sorry for you."

He shook my hand warmly on leaving, and thanked me. "If anything should happen," he said hopelessly, "it will, at any rate, be a consolation to me that I have had your sympathy. Good-night." He had no sooner shut the door behind him than he opened it again, and put his head in, "You don't happen to know what a basque is, do you?" he asked in a melancholy voice, "No? Well, it doesn't matter. It's only one thing out of many. Good-night again." He looked very depressed, as if he had some presentiment that he had undertaken a task beyond his powers, and evil would come of it.

Three times on the following day I saw Salemaker. The first time was in the morning, outside the Law Courts. He was walking very fast in the direction of the west, and seemed more energetic than on the previous day. He came up to me, and said at once in rather a peremptory way, "What's accordion-pleating?"

I confessed that I didn't know.

"That's just like you," he said impatiently. "You never do know anything. I can't stop."

He hurried on. I noticed that he was carrying under his arm two or three of the feminine journals.

Later in the day I found him staring into the windows of a big shop in Regent Street where they sold bonnets. As for his appearance, I can only say that he looked like a desperate man. "I am glad to see you," he said gloomily. "If you'd come a minute later, it would have been all over. I should have broken that window, thrown the bonnets and things into the street and trampled on them. I have been thinking about doing it for the last five minutes."

"Look here, Salemaker," I said, "you've been over-working yourself. You wouldn't get yourself into this condition if you didn't take things so seriously."

"I'll give you a sovereign," he replied, "to stick your foot through that window. Go on. Do it. Nobody's looking. I can't do it myself, because it would injure the paper if I got into the police-courts. You've got no position to speak of, and it wouldn't matter if you did it. If you don't want the sovereign, do it out of friendship. There's a hat at the back trimmed with two shoe-buckles and a split humming-bird. If I could tear that in half and throw it under an omnibus I should feel better."

"Control yourself," I said firmly, "I'm going to take you to the club, and give you tea, and, so far as it is humanly possible, stop you from behaving like a lunatic. What have you been doing all day?"

"I have been collecting material for an article entitled 'The Height of Fashion.' That's what has brought me to this. You won't do this little thing to oblige me? Just what I thought. You call yourself a Bohemian, and as a matter of fact you're eaten up with respectability." With some difficulty I persuaded him to come with me to the club. There I gave him tea and consolatory cigarettes. When he was a little calmer, I pressed him to tell me his experiences. He did so, with some reluctance.

"I began," he said, "by going to Bond Street. I found a window there with just the right kind of clothes in it. They were so ugly as to be almost indecent. That was why I knew they were all right; they couldn't have been exhibited at all if they hadn't had style. They must have been simply saturated with style. Besides, Bond Street's always all right, anyhow. So I pulled out my note-book, and it was just then I saw her with her green eyes fixed on me."

"What her?"

"Miss Catling. Didn't I mention it? I believe she must have been lying in ambush there. She saw, of course, what I was doing, saw it at a glance. I was doing her work. She just bowed, and came at me like an angry cow. I took off my hat and walked quickly away. She pursued. I quicked [sic] my pace, and got on to an omnibus. She got on to another omnibus immediately behind it. I waited a few seconds, and then stepped off my 'bus. So I got clear away."

"But how? When she saw you get off the one 'bus, why didn't she get off the other, if she wanted to catch you?"

"Because she had paid her penny and couldn't bring herself to take less than the full pennyworth. Women mostly like value for their money. I had counted on that. As I say, I had got clear off, but I believe the incident spoilt my nerve. After that I had no intention of going anywhere in particular, but I found myself in front of another big shop window in Oxford Street. I pulled myself together. I decided to go in, say that I wanted the latest news about the fashions, and offer in return for the information a gratuitous advertisement of the firm. Well, I went in. Inside there was a tall stately man. He smiled at me just as if he wanted to be a friend to me, and yet all the time his stateliness seemed to be a kind of bar between us."

Here Salemaker paused, and buried his head in his hands.

"Well," I said, "what next?"

"I lost my pluck suddenly. I tried to speak about Home Happiness, but I couldn't. He asked me what he could have the pleasure of doing for me, and I stammered out something about elastic. It was the only thing I could think of. He took me up to a counter with a proud, beautiful girl behind it, and I said, 'Elastic, please.' The girl said, 'How many yards would you require?' I didn't know anything about that, and so I said twopenny worth. Then I thought that seemed rather a poor thing to say to a girl in that position, and so I altered it to sixpenny worth. She said, 'Certainly, and what kind of elastic?' How was I to know that there were two kinds of elastic? However, I said, 'The kind they use for catapults.' She went behind a sort of desk, and stopped there patiently for some time. She may have gone there to laugh, or she may not. After a few minutes she came back and remarked, 'Elastic you said, I think?' Then she began to measure it out. I took it away in a whitey-brown paper parcel, and everybody stared at me. When I got outside the shop I threw the parcel down on the pavement, in a fit of irritation, I suppose. A boy picked it up and handed it back to me again. Then I went on to the Park. I thought I might make some notes of the dresses there, and also get rid of the parcel. I sat down on a chair, paid my penny, and got out my note-book. I made notes of three dresses that I saw. These are the notes:

"‘No. 1. Black.

"‘No. 2. A kind of brown. Buttons on it.

"‘No. 3. A sort of bluish. Looked as if it hurt.'

"It struck me then that I was not getting enough detail. I had only jotted down the general effect. A woman was sitting opposite me with a good many things on; so I began to sketch them. I was absorbed in my sketching, but I remember that I did have a shadowy idea that the woman was beginning to look uneasy. Presently she got up. It was out of sheer absent-mindedness (I was only thinking of the sketch) that I said to her, 'Sit down again. I've not done with you yet.' A policeman was passing near, and she went to speak to him."

"Well?"

"Oh, I didn't stop. There didn't seem to be anything to stop for. I was out of the Park and into a hansom before the woman had finished with the policeman. I told the man to drive fast to Charing Cross. In my hurry and confusion I had forgotten to leave the elastic behind me, and when I had paid the cabman I found that I was still grasping the parcel in my hand. That didn't matter. I left the elastic in a flower-pot at a restaurant where I lunched."

"But this thirteenth column. What have you done towards it?"

"I've read the fashion papers, but that's about all. Since luncheon I've been doing nothing but stare into shop windows. They muddled my head more than you can possibly understand, and they caused in addition a distinct amount of nervous irritation. Perhaps you noticed it when you met me just now."

"Look here," I said, "you'd better give up the whole thing. You can't possibly do this column, and you'd better write to your editor and say so."

He would not take my advice.

"A good all-round journalist can write an article on anything," he said obstinately. "I'm going off to write my article now—this minute."

"But do be reasonable," I said. "Why attempt the impossible?"

"It's not impossible," be answered, as he picked up his hat. "Observation is no good. I've found that out. Study is also no good. The male man can find out nothing about the female fashions in those ways. But I have just thought of a third course—thought of it while I was talking to you—and I am now going to try it." He put on his hat. "On the whole," he added, "it is perhaps as well that you refused to smash that window for me. You may have been right: and I daresay I spoke too harshly when I said that you were respectable. I was much worried at the time, and you must make allowances. I shall bring you the article to look at to-night. Au revoir." He did bring me the article, and it was the last time that I ever saw Charles Backerton Salemaker. Possibly, as he said in a subsequent letter, I shall never see him again. That night he looked radiant, triumphant, happy in the pride of achievement. He brought with him several type-written sheets. They were the article in question, which he had just completed.

"First of all," he said, "let me explain the theory on which the article is written. The novelist works both from observation and imagination. He overhears some chance remark in the street, and from that, with the help of imagination, he constructs a character—even an entire novel. I've worked on the same lines. I've taken as my starting-point the little that I remember of the fashion papers and the shop windows, and I've allowed my imagination to play all around it."

He began to read the first sheet. It was to the effect that the season would soon be at an end, and that the autumn would follow with its beautiful foliage, and subsequently he and other high-bred English girls would give themselves up to a round of country-house visiting.

"That's all very well," I observed, "but it's not fashions."

"No; that's the introduction."

"Well, cut the introduction."

He turned over a few sheets and read as follows:

"‘In the meantime the Park every Sunday looks very gay and smart. One of the best dressed women that I have seen there lately is unquestionably Lady B. She wore a coat and skirt of Irish guipure of a dull bronze colour, with tabs of eau-de-nil silk bordered with passementerie. The same colour was repeated in the accordion-pleating on the pom-pom, and the whole was surmounted by a hat of vieux rose surah, trimmed with skunk?' What do you think of that?"

"I must confess that it sounds just like the real thing."

"Quite so. And it's all imagination. Here's another bit: 'An equally tasteful confection was worn by a lady of a rather more matronly type. The skirt, cut after the present approved fashion, was of petunia face-cloth, shot with bombazine; this was suitably allied with a cape of Roman satin of a somewhat deeper tinge, edged with brown Siberian dachshund, and having a deep Empire collar of amber velvet cut V-shape.’"

I did not care to hear any more. I thought then, and still think, that it sounded all right. Apparently it was not all right, as the following extract from a letter I received from Salemaker two days later will show:

"You will never see me again. It is all over. The editor apparently showed my copy to his wife, and has written to ask me what I mean by sending a cowardly and offensive parody in place of the work that he ordered. He has told me to call and, if possible, explain. I shall not do so. I do not think that I can look him, or anybody else, in the face again. I feel that I am rightly punished for my presumption. It was wrong of me, in my pride in my own versatility, to have undertaken that thirteenth column. Everything is against me now. I went into a restaurant the other day, and there was Miss Catling lurking behind some tea and a large bun. I dashed out, jumped on to a 'bus, and found that the woman whose clothes I had so mistakenly attempted to sketch in the Park was sitting opposite to me. I cannot escape from my unspeakable shame. Fate reaches out a long arm of coincidence and collars me at every turn. That attempt to write the thirteenth column seems to have swelled up and filled my entire life. Before the sun has set I shall probably find myself in the same railway carriage with the proud girl that sold me so much elastic. But I must risk that. England has become too small for me, and I must go."

The remainder of the letter was purely personal. That week Home Happiness announced that its fashion article was unavoidably crowded out, but would appear in the next number. There never was a next number. In the following week the whole of Home Happiness was crowded out, and it never appeared again.

Meanwhile the friends and relations of Charles Backerton Salemaker are getting very anxious, and any information as to his whereabouts would be thankfully received.