PEOPLE

For six months Philip continued to give rope to his esteemed colleagues Messrs. Atherton and Murgatroyd, and within that period the pair duly hanged themselves.

Mr. Murgatroyd went first. For a whole winter he waited patiently for Philip's reforming zeal to spend itself; and then, finding that things were no better but rather grew worse, he retired from the conflict like a prudent man, and invested his not inconsiderable savings in a wayside garage upon a lonely stretch of the Great North Road, where motorists, who are always in a hurry, would not be disposed to haggle over the price of petrol or the cost of tyre-repairs.

He parted from Philip without rancour, and another and younger man was sent up from headquarters to take his place.

Mr. Atherton was not so easy to eject, and was only disposed of in the fulness of time and by the process of filling up the cup. But he went at last, and the change of atmosphere throughout the entire establishment was most noticeable. The two clerks and the office-boy carried out their duties with what is known in transatlantic business circles as "a punch"; the books were put in order; accounts were straightened out; business increased; headquarters said encouraging things. For the present Philip decided not to ask for a successor to Atherton. He felt that he wanted to run the whole Universe single-handed in those days.

Of course there were still crumpled rose-leaves. There was Brand, for instance—Brand of the repairing-shop. He was a strenuous worker and an admirable mechanic, but he suffered intermittently from a severe form of the popular disease of the day—the disease which has its roots in the British national policy of educating a man sufficiently to make him discontented with his lot and then leaving off. Brand was a Socialist, or a Revolutionist, or an Anarchist. Philip could never find out which, and the muddled but pertinacious Brand could never enlighten him. The most noticeable feature of his malady was an over-copious supply of what the repairing-shop as a whole termed "back-chat." Mr. Brand was a stalwart upholder of what he called the dignity of labour. He declined to be patronised; he smelt patronage as an Orangeman smells Popery. He also refused to accept an order with any degree of cheerfulness; though, to do him justice, once he had expressed his opinion of it and the degradation which he incurred in accepting it, he usually carried it out with efficiency and dispatch. To one who knows his job almost anything can be forgiven. We shall hear of Mr. Brand again.

Then there was Alfred, the office-boy. He was a stunted but precocious child, with a taste for music of a vibratory nature. He believed firmly in the adage that a merry heart goes all the way, and whistled excruciatingly from dawn till dusk. His tremolo rendering of "All That I Ask is Love" appeared to afford him the maximum of human enjoyment. The departure of Mr. Atherton involved him in some financial loss, for he had been employed by that vicarious sportsman to execute turf commissions on his behalf with an unostentatious individual who conducted his business in the private bar of an unassuming house of call in Wardour Street. Consequently he considered it only just to make things unpleasant for the new manager. This object he accomplished in divers ways, which will be obvious to any schoolboy. Philip suffered in silence, for he was disinclined to further dismissals, and, moreover, could not help liking the impudent youth. His patience was rewarded; for one day, with incredible suddenness, the nuisance ceased, and Master Alfred became almost demonstrative in his assiduity and doglike in his affection. Presently the mystery was unfolded. Alfred had discovered that that usurper, that tyrant, that slave-driver, Mr. Meldrum, was the identical P. Meldrum who had scored the winning try for the Harlequin Football Club against Blackheath on the previous Saturday afternoon. One day, after office hours, almost timidly, he approached his employer and presented a petition from his own club, the Willesden Green Vampires, humbly praying that the great Meldrum would honour this unique brotherhood by consenting to become one of its Vice-Presidents. Philip's heart warmed at the compliment, and he complied gladly. He achieved further and lasting popularity among the Vampires of Willesden Green by officiating as referee in their annual encounter with the Stoke Newington Hornets. Verily the road to the heart of healthy young-manhood is marked in plain figures.

A third and by no means unattractive rose-leaf was Miss Jennings, the typist. She troubled Philip considerably at first. He found her presence disturbing. To him it seemed fundamentally wrong that a man should sit in a room with his hat on while a young and ladylike girl stood waiting at his elbow for orders. He endeavoured to remedy these anomalies by removing his hat in Miss Jennings's presence and rising from his seat whenever she entered his private room—courtesies which his typist secretly regarded as due to weakness of intellect rather than the instinct of chivalry, though she valued them in her heart none the less.

It was a long time, too, before Philip grew accustomed to dictating letters. His first incursion into this enterprise gave him an uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He began by ringing for Alfred, and asking him to request Miss Jennings to be so good as to come and speak to him for a moment. His message was delivered by that youthful humourist with elaborate ceremony,—this was in the pre-Willesden-Green days,—coupled with a confident assurance that it portended either a proposal of marriage or "the sack." Miss Jennings's reply Philip did not catch, for only Alfred's raucous deliverances could penetrate closed doors, but it effectually silenced that young gentleman's guns. His only discernible retort was "Suffragette!"

Presently Miss Jennings appeared, slightly flushed, and shut the door behind her.

"You want me, Mr. Meldrum?" she asked.

Philip rose to his feet.

"Yes. Would you mind taking down one or two letters for me, Miss Jennings?" he said.

"Oh, is that all?" replied Miss Jennings, quite composed again. "Mr. Atherton usually just shouts. I'll go and get my things."

She returned with her writing-pad, and taking a chair at Philip's elbow, sat down and regarded him with an indulgent smile.

Philip began, huskily:—

The Britannia Motor Company, Limited, Oxford Street, London, October.

Miss Jennings sat patiently waiting.

"I know that bit," she intimated gently.

Philip apologised, and continued hurriedly:—

"Dear Sir—No, I expect you know that bit, too."

"That bit's all right," said Miss Jennings calmly. "I wasn't to know who you were writing to. It might have been your wife."

Philip, who had not hitherto realised that it was possible for a man to correspond with the wife of his bosom by means of a machine operated by a third party, apologised again, and added quite gratuitously that he was not married.

Miss Jennings, having secured the information she required, smiled forgivingly, and the dictation proceeded.

We are in receipt of your letter of October the fourteenth.

"They usually say 'esteemed communication,'" said Miss Jennings.

"Thank you," said Philip humbly. "Please correct it." Miss Jennings did so. Philip, regarding the curving neck and prettily coiled hair close beside him, found himself wondering why such a beautiful thing as a young girl should be compelled to work for a living.

Miss Jennings looked up, and caught his eye.

"Well?" she enquired shortly.

Philip coloured guiltily, and continued:—

The cylinders you mention are cast in pairs, and their internal diameter is one hundred millimetres, or—

He paused again. It seemed to him monstrous that a woman should be compelled to waste her youth taking down dry technical stuff like this, when she ought to be outside in the sunshine. If a woman must earn her bread, at least let her do work that was woman's work and not man's leavings. Her real mission, of course, should be to stand apart from the struggle for existence, rendering first aid to her man when he was stricken and companionship when he was weary. But to sit—

Miss Jennings looked up again.

"We can go faster than this," she observed severely. "I'm a trained stenographer."

Philip, collecting himself, dictated an elaborate formula for ascertaining the indicated horse-power of the engine under discussion, at a pace which caused the trained stenographer to pant for breath.

When he had finished, he said:—

"There are two more letters to do, Miss Jennings, but perhaps you would like to rest for a moment."

"No, thank you," said Miss Jennings. "I'm not made of sugar."

Possibly this statement was made—as many feminine statements of the kind are made—in order to be contradicted. More probably it was intended as a test of character. Whatever it was, it failed to intrigue Philip.

"Very well, then," he said, and proceeded to dictate another letter.

"Of course I see how it is, Mr. Meldrum," said Miss Jennings, unbending a little as their joint task came to an end. "You have not been accustomed to working with a woman, and you think she can't work the same as a man. You'll soon find out your mistake. She works twice as hard, and makes less fuss about it."

"I am sure she does," said Philip meekly.

"It's kind of you," proceeded Miss Jennings maternally, "to consider my feelings; but we shall get through a great deal more work if you look on me simply as a machine."

"I do not think that would be possible," said Philip. "I could not do my own work properly if I thought you were not comfortable."

For a moment Miss Jennings eyed her employer keenly.

"Well, try, anyway," she urged. Experience had taught her to beware of gentlemen who were too solicitous about her comfort, and she had not yet taken Philip's complete measure. "I've been earning my living for five years now—ever since I was sixteen," she added carelessly—"and I have found that we do our work better and are much more friendly and comfortable when the gentleman I am working for doesn't worry too much about whether I want a cushion for my back, and that sort of thing."

"I see you are an independent lady," said Philip, smiling.

"Independent? Yes, that's me," agreed Miss Jennings. "You wouldn't take me for a Suffragette, though, would you?" she added, with a tinge of anxiety in her voice.

"I don't think I have ever met one."

"Well, go to one of their meetings—the Park on Sunday, or somewhere—and you won't want to meet one twice. What they're to gain by it all beats me, let alone the show they make of themselves. A woman has enough trouble coming to her in life, without going out in a procession and asking for it. That's how I look at it. Well, I'll go and type these letters."

Miss Jennings's presence gradually ceased to affect Philip's powers of concentration, and he soon dropped into the habit of regarding her as she had asked to be regarded,—namely, as part of the office furniture,—though he persisted in certain small acts of consideration not usually offered to articles of upholstery. Miss Jennings, finding that her defensive attitude was entirely unnecessary, promptly set out with the perversity of her sex—or perhaps quite unconsciously—to stimulate her employer's interest in her. It was a pleasant and quite innocuous diversion, for Philip was usually far too busy to take notice of her little coquetries, and had far too much regard for the sanctity of the unprotected female to respond to them if he did.

He had grown so accustomed to regarding his typist as a mechanical adjunct to the office typewriter that he suffered a mild shock when one day Miss Jennings remarked:—

"So Mr. Atherton's gone? Well, he was no more use than nothing in the office, but he wasn't a bad sort—not if you took him the right way and kept him in his place."

"He was a friend of yours, then?" said Philip.

"Well, he used to take me out sometimes."

"Where to?"

"Oh, the White City, or a theatre. It's a nice change to be taken out by a gentleman sometimes. When you go by yourself with your sister," explained Miss Jennings, "you go in the pit. When any one like Mr. Atherton took me it was reserved seats and dinner somewhere first. I love the theatre. Don't you?"

"I don't go very often," confessed Philip.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it is because I have no one to go with."

Miss Jennings collected her papers and rose.

"Well, I must finish these," she said. "Will there be anything more this morning, Mr. Meldrum?"

"Thank you, that is all."

Philip surveyed the retreating form of Miss Jennings with thoughtful eyes, and his heart smote him. By evicting the incapable Mr. Atherton he had deprived this plucky, chirpy little city sparrow of one of her most cherished recreations.

"Oh—Miss Jennings," he said nervously.

Miss Jennings turned.

"Would you care to come to the theatre with me?"

Miss Jennings's slightly anÆmic features broke into a frank smile.

"It's no good my pretending I don't want to go to the theatre when I do," she remarked; "so why not say so? Where shall we go?"

"Anywhere you please."

"When?"

"To-night, if you like."

Miss Jennings considered.

"I must see if my sister's to be at home," she said. "There are just two of us, and one always stays in of an evening with mother. May I use the telephone? My sister is with Goswell Brothers, in Finsbury Circus."

"Certainly," said Philip.

Miss Jennings sat down at the roll-top desk and took the receiver off the hook. She flatly declined to accept the assurance of the operator at the exchange that the number she required,—

and in the incredible space of four minutes succeeded in establishing telephonic communication with a place of business almost a mile away. A much briefer but equally decisive encounter with the Finsbury Circus office-boy ended with the production of Miss Jennings's sister, who was forthwith addressed:—

"That you, May dear?"

"T'ck, t'ck," replied the instrument.

"I want to go out to-night. Can you stay in with mother, or are you doing anything?"

Apparently the reply was satisfactory, for Miss Jennings turned to Philip.

"That will be all right, Mr. Meldrum," she said.

They dined at Gatti's, and went on to the Gaiety. Philip dropped readily into the etiquette of the amphitheatre stalls, and provided Miss Jennings with chocolates and lemon squashes during the interval. Halfway through the second act he decided that this was the pleasantest evening he had spent since he came to London. What Miss Jennings thought of it all he did not know, for she did not tell him. Having speared her hat to the back of the seat in front and dabbed her hair into position, she sat absolutely silent, with her eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the stage. For the time her perpetual companion, the typewriter, was forgotten, and she lived and moved in the world of romance, where ladies were always fair and gentlemen either gallant or entertaining. Occasionally, without removing her gaze, she would call her host's attention, by a half-unconscious gesture, to some particularly attractive item of the entertainment.

When all was over she sighed resignedly and preceded Philip out into the roaring Strand. Philip, scanning the street for a disengaged cab, asked her where she lived. Miss Jennings gave him an address in Balham.

"We had better walk down to the Embankment," he said. "We might pick up a taxi or a hansom outside the Savoy."

Miss Jennings murmured something perfunctory about the facilities offered to the public by the London General Omnibus Company, and then accompanied him to the Embankment.

Presently a hansom was secured, and Philip handed his guest in, at the same time furtively paying the driver.

"Good-night," said Miss Jennings, "and thank you."

They shook hands, for the first time in their acquaintanceship. The cabman and his horse, however, did not know this, and immediately feigned a studious interest in something on the Surrey side of the river.

Philip walked home, and let himself into his dark and silent flat. On turning up the light he found that the lady who "did" for him had omitted to clear the breakfast-table. He accordingly set to work to wash up himself, knowing full well that the task would be even less congenial to-morrow morning.

As he groped philosophically in his tiny pantry for a dish-cloth, it occurred to him that to a lonely man female society is a very helpful thing. And he was right. For it is so helpful that though a man may, and often does, exist contentedly enough without it, once he has tasted thereof he must have it always or feel forever helpless.

And yet, every day, refined young women are surprised, and shocked, and indignant, when a brother in London suddenly telegraphs home to say that he has married a girl out of a tea-shop.