OMEGA, CERTAINLY NOT!

Miss Sylvia Mablethorpe—"also known to the police," to quote her unfeeling papa, as Dumpling, Dumps, Daniel Lambert, and the Tichborne Claimant—sat upon the high wall which enclosed the demesne of Red Gables, gazing comfortably up and down the long white road. In her lap lay cherries, in her hand a novel. It was a hot summer afternoon. She had exchanged greetings with the local policeman, various school-children, and the curate, all of whom had passed by upon their several errands within the last half-hour. For the moment the road was clear, and Dumps had leisure to resume the pursuit of literature.

But she had barely covered half a page when there fell upon her ears the sound of a horse's hoofs. Dumps, however, did not raise her eyes from the not very interesting volume before her, though it may be noted that she had looked up readily enough upon the advent of the curate, the policeman, and the school-children. All of which was a sign that Dumps was growing up. Indeed, she had left school a month ago, and was to go abroad in a few weeks to undergo that mysterious feminine process known as "finishing."

The clatter of hoofs grew louder, slowed down, and came to a stealthy stop just opposite to that part of the wall whereon Dumps was seated. She looked up lazily, to find a pleasantly sunburned youth of twenty-two removing his cap.

"Hello, Derek!" she observed casually. "That you?"

Master Derek blushed guiltily.

"Yes," he said. "Good-afternoon. I only got back from Aldershot last night."

"Oh. Have you been away?" enquired the heartless Dumps.

"Four months," replied Derek, in tones of respectful reproach.

"And now you are home for the holidays?" remarked Miss Mablethorpe brightly.

"Long leave," Derek corrected her, in a humble voice.

"What fun it must be," continued Sylvia, "living in a tent for weeks and doing nothing."

Second Lieutenant Rayner, who had just spent four strenuous months under canvas or on manoeuvres, ending with a route march in which his battalion had covered a hundred and twenty miles in four days, smiled wanly. No man is a hero to the girl with whom he has played in infancy.

"Topping weather, isn't it?" he observed presently.

Dumps agreed, sunning herself luxuriously.

"Does your mare eat cherries?" she asked.

"No, but I do," said Derek with great boldness.

Dumps threw him down a couple, and continued:

"I am waiting for Dad. He is correcting proofs—very cross. When he has finished we are going out in Boanerges."

"Have you still got Boanerges?" asked Derek incredulously.

"Yes, but he is on his very last legs. We have a new car coming."

"What sort?"

"A Britannia. It has been specially selected for us," said Dumps with pride, "by—by an official of the company. The front seat is being put a little forward, so that I can drive."

A few years ago Master Derek Rayner would have greeted this announcement with some exceedingly witty and caustic comments. Now he merely murmured reverentially:—

"I expect you will make a ripping little chauffeur."

"I shouldn't wonder," agreed Dumps complacently. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, just for a ride," said Derek. "Are your people quite well?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Tell Mrs. Mablethorpe I was asking for her, will you?"

"I will make a point of it," said the impervious Dumps. Then, relenting slightly, she enquired: "Are you going to tennis at Oatlands on Thursday?"

"Yes," said Derek eagerly. "Would you mind being my partner in the mixed doubles?"

"Is that a sudden inspiration?" asked Dumps.

"No, really. I have been meaning to ask you for weeks. That's why I rode over here this afternoon," blurted out Derek.

"I thought you said you were just out for a ride," remarked Miss Mablethorpe. (It is quite a mistake to suppose that it is only small boys who are cruel to the humbler members of creation.)

Derek floundered helplessly, and was dumb. From afar came the melodious toot of a well-modulated Gabriel horn. Dumps sat up, and looked sharply up the road.

"Well, anyway, will you be my partner?" asked Derek, lifting his eyes once more. He was surprised and not a little gratified to observe that Miss Sylvia had turned excessively pink.

"Yes—perhaps. No. All right," replied the girl shortly. "I must go now. Good-bye. See you on Thursday."

By way of intimating that the audience was terminated, Miss Mablethorpe swung her ankles—they had grown quite slim these days—over the wall and disappeared with a thud. Mr. Rayner, on the whole much puffed up, galloped away.

Two minutes later an automobile, consisting chiefly of a chassis, with a single wooden seat lashed to the frame, slid to a standstill outside the gates of Red Gables. On the back of the seat, in bold letters, was painted the legend, "Britannia Motor Company, Coventry." In the seat sat Philip.

The car had hardly stopped when the gates were swung open and Dumps appeared, smiling welcome.

"Hallo, Philip!" she said. "Is this our new car?"

"Not quite," said Philip, surveying his dingy but workmanlike equipage. "This is my service-car. They are sending yours on Monday."

By this time the girl had clambered on to the back of the chassis and ensconced herself on the petrol-tank. Philip, turning the car in through the gates, drove up the short straight avenue to the front door. The purring of the big engine ceased, and the pair, having alighted, passed arm-in-arm, like brother and sister, into the presence of Mr. Mablethorpe.

That excellent but volcanic author was discovered tearing his hair with one hand, and digging holes in a long galley proof (employing a fountain-pen as a stiletto) with the other.

"Hallo, Philip!" he began at once. "Will you have a bet with me?"

"Certainly," said Philip. "What about?"

"I bet you one million pounds," said Mr. Mablethorpe with great precision, "that the condemned printing-firm employed by my unmentionable publishers has taken into its adjectival employment an asterisked staff of obelised female compositors. Consequently I shall have to retire to an asylum. It is a nuisance, because I have just bought a new automobile."

"How are you so certain about the female compositors?" asked Philip.

The author pathetically flapped the long printed slip in his face.

"I don't mind correcting misprints," he said. "I am used to it. Male compositors cannot spell, of course; in fact, very few of them can read. But they do understand stops; at least, they put in the stops that an author gives them. The female of the species, on the other hand, only recognises the existence of two—the comma and the note of exclamation. These she drops into the script as she would drop cloves into an apple-tart—a handful or two when she has finished setting up the type. At least, I suppose so. She also sets her face against the senseless custom of using capital letters to begin a sentence. Otherwise she is admirably suited to her calling. Look at this!"

He exhibited a corrected proof—a mass of red ink and marginal profanity.

"I am feeling better now," he said. "I have written both to the publisher and printer. The letter to the printer was particularly good. Have a cigarette? What have you come to see us for—business or pleasure?"

"Business," said Philip.

"Public or private?"

Philip considered.

"Private."

Mr. Mablethorpe turned to his daughter.

"Inquisitive female," he thundered, "avaunt!"

"Oh, it's not private to Dumps," said Philip. "I have been offered a new billet, that's all."

"Then let us all sit down and argue about it," proposed Mr. Mablethorpe with zest. He threw his proofs on the floor. "My wife is upstairs, reading the mendacious prospectus of a new Continental spa, and I don't suppose she will develop the symptoms it professes to cure much before six o'clock. Go ahead, Philip."

"The directors want me to take charge of the London offices," said Philip.

"What are the London offices, where are they, and why do they require taking charge of?" enquired Mr. Mablethorpe categorically. Like all unmethodical and scatter-brained persons he cherished a high opinion of himself as a man of affairs.

"The London offices," said Philip, "are in Oxford Street. They consist of a show-room, full of new cars—the Company gets most of its orders through this show-room—and a biggish garage and repairing-shop at the back, opening into somewhere in Soho."

"And do they want you to tell untruths in the show-room or wash cars in the garage?" enquired Mr. Mablethorpe.

Dumps stiffened indignantly, but Philip laughed.

"They want me to boss the whole place," he said. "Hitherto they have had a man in charge of the show-room and another in charge of the garage, and there has been everlasting trouble between them. I gather that the show-room man is young—an old public-school boy—"

"I know! Wears white spats, and sends for an underling to open the bonnet of a car when a customer asks to see the works," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "Go on."

"And the repair-shop man is elderly and Yorkshire and a ranker. I fancy they parted brass-rags from the start, with the result that working expenses are too high—"

"Surprising!" murmured Mr. Mablethorpe.

"—And I have been told off to go to town and supervise the pair of them," concluded Philip. "Shall I?"

"Why not?"

"Well—I shall be giving up my other work, you know."

"What is your other work? Describe one of your ordinary days in detail."

Philip did so. When he had finished, Mr. Mablethorpe said:—

"Well, if that is the sort of life your tastes incline to, why not go the whole hog and get ten years' penal servitude right away? That strikes me as an equally suitable and much more economical method of satisfying your desires. Consider! You would get ten years of continuous employment, of a kind almost identical with your present occupation, and the State—people like me—would maintain you into the bargain. No rates, no taxes, no extortionate tradesmen, no women of any kind! Regular hours, rational diet, and free spiritual consolation! What more could a man ask? True, your hours of work would be shorter than at present, but I dare say that if you were good they would allow you an extra go at the oakum when no one else was using it. That's the plan, Philip! Put the thing on a business footing at once, and get arrested! Don't overdo it, of course. It is no use committing a crime they could hang you for: that would be trop de zÈle. Supposing you burn down the Houses of Parliament—or, better still, the Imperial Institute—or get to work on some of your personal friends with a chopper, and carve ten years' worth out of them. Start on Dumps here. She would make a capital subject for experiment."

Miss Mablethorpe turned to the visitor with an apologetic smile.

"He will be all right presently," she said, indicating her parent. "He is always a little strange in his manner after correcting proofs."

She was right. Presently Mr. Mablethorpe, who had been ranting about the room, to the detriment of waste-paper baskets and revolving bookcases, sat down and said:—

"And you are reluctant to give up your present berth, Phil?"

"Yes," said Philip, "I am. You see," he added a little shyly, "it's my work."

"Quite so," agreed Mr. Mablethorpe, suddenly serious. "You believe that work is the key of life. Labor omnia vincit—eh?"

Philip nodded, but Dumps enquired:—

"What does that mean, please?"

Her father translated, and continued:—

"Philip, let me tell you something. You are in danger of becoming a specialist. Life, roughly, is made up of two ingredients—Things and People. At present you are devoting yourself entirely to Things—to Work, in fact. How many years have you lived in Coventry?"

"About five."

"Very good. And how many people do you know there? I am not referring to your fellow stokers. I mean people outside the place. How many?"

Philip pondered, and shook his head.

"I don't know," he said.

"Half a dozen?"

"Perhaps."

"There you are, right away!" said Mr. Mablethorpe, with the intensely satisfied air of one who has scored a point. "You have spent five years in a place, and barely know half a dozen people there. You are becoming a specialist, my son—a specialist in Things. That is all wrong. You are lop-sided. Man was never intended to devote himself to Things, to the exclusion of People—least of all you, with your strong gregarious instincts and human sympathies. Isn't that true?"

Philip considered. Long dormant visions were awakening within him. His thoughts went back to the days when he had decided to follow the calling of a knight-errant. That decision had not occupied his attention much of late, he reflected.

"And therefore," continued Mr. Mablethorpe, "I counsel you to go to London and take up the new billet. Go and reason with the Yorkshire foreman, and pulverize the gentleman in spats, and argue with creditors—go and study People. Study the way they walk, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they drink. You won't like them. They will shirk their work, or blow in your face, or tell you anecdotes which will make you weep. But they will restore your balance. They will develop the human side of you. Then you will be really rather an exceptional character, Philip. Very few of us are evenly balanced between Things and People. All women, for instance, have a permanent list toward People. Things have no meaning for them. A triumph of engineering, or organisation, or art, or logical reasoning, makes no appeal whatever to a woman's enthusiasm. She may admire the man who achieves them, of course, but only because he happens to have sad eyes, or a firm mouth, or a wife in an asylum. If the personal touch be lacking, Things simply bore Woman. I once showed an aunt of mine—a refined and intelligent woman—round the finest cathedral in England, and the one solitary feature of the whole fabric which interested her was a certain stall in the choir, where a grandnephew of hers had once sat for eighteen months as a choir-boy! Yes, women are undoubtedly lopsided. Men, as a whole, are predisposed the other way—which largely accounts for what is known as sex-antagonism. Heaven help all novelists if no such thing existed!"

"Shop!" remarked the unfilial Dumps.

Mr. Mablethorpe, recalled to his text, continued:

"Very well, then. We agree that Things—by which we mean Work—are not the Alpha and Omega of Life. Alpha, perhaps; Omega, certainly not."

"Don't you mean, 'Archibald, Certainly Not!' Daddy?" enquired Miss Dumps, referring to a popular ditty of the moment. Mr. Mablethorpe took no heed.

"Labor omnia vincit," he said, "is only half a truth. There is another maxim in the same tongue which supplies the other half. You can easily commit it to memory if you bear in mind the fact that it ends a pentameter, while the other ends a hexameter. It is: Omnia vincit amor."

He translated for the benefit of his unlearned daughter, and swept on.

"Now, consider. If it is true that Work conquers All, and equally true that Love conquers All, what must be our logical and inevitable conclusion?"

It was Dumps who answered.

"That Love and Work come to the same thing in the end," she said. Her eyes met Philip's, and dropped quickly.

Mr. Mablethorpe nodded his head gravely.

"Philip," he said, "you hear the words of this wise infant? They are true. That is why I want you to go and mix with People. You are getting a bit too mechanical in your conception of Life. You are in danger of becoming an automaton. You must cultivate your emotions a bit—Love, Hate, Pity, Joy, Sorrow—if you want to turn into a perfectly equipped Man. Taking them all round, it is impossible to get to know one's fellow creatures without getting to love them. That is the secret which has kept this old world plodding along so philosophically for so many centuries. So start in on People, my son. Go to London and take up that appointment. You will regret your old workshop at times. Machinery is never illogical, or unreasonable, or ungrateful; and though it may break your arms and legs, it will never try to break your heart. Still, it is only machinery. If you want to attain to the supreme joys of Life you will have to be prepared for the deep sorrows too, and you can only meet with these things by consorting with human beings. You have discovered for yourself—or think you have—that labor omnia vincit. Go on now until you realise the meaning of the other phrase of which I spoke. When that happens you will have found yourself. You will be poised and balanced. In short, my son, you will be a Man. Now let us scramble for muffins."