“I should never have come to you,” he said, making a furious dash under his signature, “only that I’ve been rather annoyed and upset.”

“She was clearly in the wrong, I suppose?”

“Absolutely!” he declared, with emphasis. “It’s made me feel that I want to get away for a time from everything and everybody. And yours is the only establishment of its kind. Cheque’s all right, I hope?”

“I hope so, too,” said the voice. And called out, “Pass one!” A curtain pulled aside and the young man, his chin out determinedly, moved. “Take the four slips, please. You’ll have to fill them in.”

A reading candlestick with a reflector stood in the corner of the dark room, which had a faint scent of burnt hay, and he went across to it carefully, but not so carefully as to escape collision, in which a hassock appeared to be the less injured party. An extended easy-chair permitted itself to be seen within reach of the shaded light, and he sat upon this and read the instructions printed at the head of slip Number One. “Please Write Distinctly” prefaced the three or four precise and dogmatically worded rules. He took a pencil, wrote out his desire, and settled back in the long chair. A hand presented to him a pipe that looked a ruler, and he took two short whiffs.

His feeling of accumulated annoyance vanished on realising the instant result. Here he was, in the very centre of the old-fashioned winter he had ordered, stamping up and down in the snow that powdered the courtyard; through the archway he identified the main thoroughfare as Holborn. A cheerful cloud and an agreeable scent of coffee came from the doorway, and through the doorway came also at intervals apprehensive travellers, who gave a look of relief on discovering that the stage coach had not set off without them. Ostlers brought sturdy horses from the stables, horses that seemed anxious to do right, but somehow failed at every point to conciliate the men, who on their side did not attempt to hide opinions. The youth advanced across the cobble-stones and inquired at what hour the stage coach was supposed to start; the ostler gave an answer almost identical in terms with the fierce denunciation used to the animals. The coarseness staggered him until he remembered the year, and the absence of education in the lives of the class to which the ostler belonged. He turned to speak to the driver.

“Not what I call cold,” answered the driver, snatching a piece of straw from a truss and starting to chew it. “Remember January in ’27?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“That was a teaser,” said the coachman. He gave four slaps to each shoulder. “Snowed up jest afore we got to Reading. No chance of escape. Not a bit of food after the third day. Fortunately, the guard was a plumpish man; Tom Bates his name was; the chap who’s with us to-day is thin, I’m sorry to say. Bates’s widow took it very well, considerin’ how onreasonable some women are. Course, the passengers made a collection for her. Tottled up poor Tom, they did, and paid for him at the rate of eightpence a pound. As she very properly remarked, it isn’t every widow that can say of her late husband that he was worth his weight in copper.”

The young man offered his cigar-case, and the driver, with a dexterous scoop, took the whole of the contents and dropped them into one of his enormous pockets.

“It’s the outside passengers that suffer most,” the driver went on. “You recollect that case of a gen’leman on the box-seat a year ago this very day? Don’t say you never ’eerd tell of him! He belonged to a banking firm in Lombard Street, and he started, just as you might, from this very spot, cheerful and warm and as pleased with himself as anybody could wish to be. Talked a bit at first, but before we were ten miles out he had left off, and when we got twenty miles out I gave him a jerk with the butt end of my whip like this, and— What do you think?”

“I should imagine that he resented the impertinence.”

“He might have done all that you say,” remarked the driver, slapping one of the horses, “only he was froze. Froze stiff.”

“Bless my soul!” cried the young man. “What a shocking end!”

“That wasn’t the end, bless you. Tried all we knew to bring back his circulation, but nothing seemed any use, and it wasn’t until we got to a oast-house and got the hop-driers to put him in the oven—”

“Hops in December?”

“It was a late year,” said the driver calmly. “Everything were behindhand. But what I was going to say was this. You’ve got a box-seat. There’s a gen’leman in there drinking his second cup, with something in it, and he’s a good-natured chap, and he’s willing to change his inside seat for yours. Say the word, and it’s done!”

The youth congratulated himself upon his acuteness in seeing through the device, but later, when he ducked his head on the stage coach going through the archway and adjusting his muffler, made a polite reference to the weather and its possibilities, the driver, who was smoking one of the cigars, responded only with a grunt. He tried again as they took a corner rather narrowly, and this time the driver made no response of any kind. Later, when a hackney coach called out something derisive, he ventured to suggest a retort, and then the driver hinted plainly that he was not in the mood for conversation, that if he should change his views he would make intimation of the circumstance; in the meantime the young man had better talk quietly to himself, or address his remarks to one of the other passengers. The youth, giving up with regret the impression that all stagecoach drivers were communicative, cheery, and dispensers of merry anecdotes, turned to a fellow-traveller seated behind.

“Seasonable weather.”

“What you say?”

“I said,” mentioned the young man deferentially, “it was seasonable weather.”

“When?” asked the passenger behind.

“Now. At the present time. I mean that, whether you agree with me or not, the weather to-day is weather that—”

“Do you know what you do mean?”

“I know what I’m driving at,” he asserted, becoming somewhat nettled; “but apparently I don’t make sufficient allowance for lack of intelligence on your part.”

“If it didn’t mean taking my hands out of my pocket,” said the passenger behind, “I’d knock your head clean off your shoulders. That’s what I’d do to you. Clean off your shoulders!”

They pulled up at a roadside inn, and the young man, thoughtful and slightly moody after these rebuffs, brightened as he swung himself down with assistance from the axle and, stamping to and fro, endeavoured to restore circulation. Two ladies, one old and one young, stepped from the interior of the coach and looked around distractedly. He went forward and asked whether he could be of any service.

“Lunch?” he echoed. “Why, of course! I declare I had nearly forgotten lunch. Pray follow me. The others have preceded us, but doubtless—”

“We are greatly indebted to you, sir,” declared the elder lady. “My niece is unused to any but the most delicate refinements of life, and it is on her account rather than my own that I ventured to appeal to you.”

“I could wish for no greater honour,” he said, bowing, “than to render assistance to beauty.” The girl blushed, and looked very properly at the ground.

“We had a most objectionable travelling companion, so different from the class my niece and myself mix with. Her grandfather, you will be interested, perhaps, to hear, was no less a person than—”

“Aunt, dear?”

“Yes, my love.”

“Food!”

In the largest room (which seemed too small for its sudden rush of custom) male passengers were feeding themselves noisily and screaming, with mouths full, to the dazed serving-maids and to the apoplectic landlady; they gave a casual glance at the two ladies and their escort, and made no effort to give space at the one table. The young man appealed; they jerked him off impatiently. One continued an anecdote after the interruption.

“If there are any gentlemen present,” said the youth, in a loud voice, “will they be so good as to note that here are two ladies, desirous of obtaining some refreshment before proceeding on the journey.”

There was a pause, and the sulky passenger who had travelled in the second seat looked up from his tankard, which he had nearly finished.

“Did you say ‘if’?”“That was the first word of my remark, sir.”

“Then here’s my answer to you!”

The ladies shrieked and fainted. The youth, wiping from his face the contents of the sulky man’s tankard, demanded whether any one possessed a brace of pistols. Willing hands pressed forward, showing an eagerness to assist that had hitherto been absent. As the serving-maids brought burnt feathers to the two lady passengers, he strode out to a snow-covered field at the back, the conductor in attendance, the rest tossing coins on the way to decide who should have the honour of supporting the sulky man. The coachman, restored to cheerfulness, paced the ground with laborious exactitude.

“Are you ready, gentlemen? Then at the word ‘Three.’ One, two—”

He filled in the second form, with a determination to get as far away as possible from the winter of years ago. The ruler-like pipe was again handed to him; he took this time but a single whiff, for it occurred to him that in his first experiment he had perhaps erred on the side of extravagance. There was no need to give himself a series of shocks.

The youth went down Great Portland Street in such good humour with himself that he greatly desired to confer a benefit on somebody, to assist some one less fortunate. He looked about for an old woman selling matches, or for a boy shivering in the attempt to dispose of newspapers, and unable to find either, searched for a narrow side-street, where he might hope to have better success. Here again he received a check, for Devonshire Street and Weymouth Street and New Cavendish Street had disappeared, and in their place he found one broad, straight thoroughfare; he made inquiries and found it was called J & C. This he did not mind, and, indeed, it seemed an excellent arrangement when, anticipating that the next street would be J & D, he found this to be the case. But he still wanted to play the part of Lord Bountiful, and to satisfy his appetite for benevolence, and it pained him—although on broad grounds this should have furnished gratification—that up to the present he had discovered none who varied in apparent prosperity; not a high-level by any means, but, so far as he could perceive, an unmistakable level. Little variation existed in costume.

“I hope you will excuse me—” he began.

“What’s that?”

“You must pardon me, please, for speaking, but—”

“Whom do you want?”

“I can scarcely give the name, but if you will permit me to explain, I think I could make it clear to you, sir.”

“Don’t chatter,” interrupted the man curtly. “And don’t call me sir. You’re as good as I am.”

“I don’t know,” retorted the youth, with spirit, “why you should think it necessary to mention the fact!”

“Because you had apparently forgotten it.”

“Don’t go for a moment. I only wish to ask one question. Where are the poor?”

“Spell it!”

The young man complied; the other shook his head. They took to the edge of the broad pavement; the centre appeared to be rigidly reserved for those who were youthful and walked with a certain briskness, whilst either side was used by elderly folk, and by those whose movements were deliberate. The young man gave further details.

“I see what you mean now,” said the other. “There was a story about a man like yourself in one of the journals the other day. He, too, had been away in a distant colony for his health.”

“One of the humorous journals?”

“All of our journals are humorous. Any paragraph or column in which a pleasing strain of the ludicrous does not appear is blacked out by the censor. It isn’t always very clever, but it has to be as clever as can be reasonably expected for thirty-two and six a week.”

“One pound twelve and sixpence?”

“The rate fixed by the central governing body,” said the other. “Every man on leaving school receives a wage of thirty-two and six a week, and in this way all the old class distinctions have vanished, the yawning spaces between the clever and the foolish, the industrious and the indolent have been bridged. The sum was fixed—this may interest you—because it was found that a narrow majority existed of those earning less than that amount, and the injustice of the change was therefore lessened.”

“Not sure that I quite follow you,” he said politely, “but it’s exceedingly good of you to take so much trouble. I’m not delaying you from your work?”

“So long as I do thirty hours a week, it doesn’t matter when I do them.”

“An ideal existence!”

“Exactly!” cried the man, with triumph. “That’s what we have been aiming at! Just what we have achieved. Nothing short of perfection is good enough for us. If there’s any sensible criticism you can pass upon our present conditions, we shall be ready to consider it.”

“That reminds me!” he exclaimed. “I miss the poor, especially at this time of the year, when I feel generous. But of course it’s all to the good to have altered that. Only where are the children? I should like to see some children.”

“You’ll have to manage without them, unless you can get a special permit from the Minister of Education in Whitehall. In the old days parents were, I believe, allowed to bring up children in almost any manner they thought fit, and some of the results were exceedingly unsatisfactory. Let me see!” He considered for a few moments, detaining the other with one hand; his brow wrinkled with the effort of thought. “Pinner!” he exclaimed; “I rather think Pinner is the nearest. You’ll find about five thousand youngsters in the Infant Barracks there.”

“I can do with less,” he remarked. “What I want is about three or four, nephews and nieces if possible; just enough to play at charades, and musical chairs, and games of some one going out of the room—” The other smiled pityingly. “Going out of the room whilst the rest think of a man alive, and then the person who has been outside comes in and puts questions, and gradually guesses who it is. Surely they still play at it.”

“My dear sir, under the old scheme, a child wasted valuable years. Now we arrange that not a single opportunity shall be missed. Go to any of the barracks and you will find that every child, providing it has begun to speak, can give quite a pretty little lecture on, say, milk, with all the latest scientific facts relating to the subject. Each youngster is made to realise the value of moments. ‘Time is Flying’ are the words that form the only decoration on the walls of the dormitories.”

“I have it!” he cried. Folk going by stopped and raised eyebrows at this outbreak of irritation; a small crowd gathered. “Now I see why you make your journals amusing. You learn nearly everything in your early days, but you omit to learn how to laugh. When you are grown up, you have to adopt the most determined means in order to—” He went on with excitement as he addressed the increasing circle around him. The frowns and the murmurs did not prevent him from speaking his mind, and he commenced to whirl his arms. “I tell you what it is. I came here expecting to find happiness. The present didn’t suit me and I thought I’d try the past and the future. I declare you’re worse than anything.”

The crowd closed in. The man to whom he had been speaking tugged at his sleeve; he gave a sharp jerk and disengaged himself.

“And the conceit of you is the most unsatisfactory feature of the whole situation. What have you to be proud about? Here you are in the New Year, and not one of you is showing any special signs of amiability towards his fellow-man; you can’t look back to a cosy family gathering; you have bought no presents, and you have received none. If you knew how much you had lost, you would never rest until you had— But I suppose you are too sensible. Ah, you don’t like to be accused of that!”

They took him at a run through the straight street that in his time had been curved and called Regent, crying as they went, “To the fountain, to the fountain!” Almost dazed by the swiftness, and nearly choked by the grip at the back of his collar, he nevertheless recognised that their intentions were not friendly, and he endeavoured to struggle and make escape. He heard the sound of ice being smashed.

“Now then, boys. Altogether!”

A dozen pair of hands competed for the honour of ducking him; they seized his wrists, elbows, head, ankles.

“Can’t read this,” said the voice. “You’ve written it so badly.”

“Not my best penmanship,” he admitted tremblingly. “What it’s intended for is—” He wrote it afresh. “If I’m’ giving too much trouble, you can tear it up and let me go. I can easily find what I want, once I’m outside. How’s the time going?”

The smallest boy, overcoated and muffled to the eyes, had been dispatched to meet visitors at the station, and a good deal of anxiety existed in the household when one of his sisters mentioned a grisly fear that he would talk too much on the way, betraying facts which should be hidden and guarded as secrets. His mother declared Franky had too much common sense to make a blunder of the kind, and, giving a final look-round in the dining-room, expressed a hope that there would be room for everybody. She had no doubts concerning food supplies, and, indeed, any one who peeped into the kitchen, and saw the two noble birds there, would have been reassured on this point; the cold pies formed an excellent reserve in case the birds should be reduced, by the invaders, to ruins. The young man, looking on, without being seen, noticed the eldest girl (whom he loved) standing perilously on a high chair to give a touch with duster to a frame, and nearly screamed an urgent appeal for care; it was a relief to see her step down to the safety of the carpet. He was wondering whether he would come into the pleasant household, and found some encouragement in the circumstance that she took a particular interest in her reflection in the mirror; left alone for a moment, she selected his card from the rest which crowded the mantelpiece and kissed it. She also peeped behind the screen, and counted the crackers there; when her mother called, requesting to be done up at the back, she went immediately. A dear girl; he could scarce remember why or how he had found an excuse for quarrelling.

Voices of youngsters outside the front door, and the small brother rattling at the letter-box in his impatience. One of the two maids, answering, found herself as nearly as possible bowled over in the narrow hall, saving herself by clutching at a peg of the hat-stand and allowing the inrush to sweep by and through to the drawing-room. All the children loaded with parcels, which they dropped on the way, and all shouting: “Many happy returns, many happy returns!” and demanding the immediate production of an aunt, and several cousins, paying no regard whatever to the reminders from elders that they had formally promised to behave like little ladies and gentlemen.

The hostess came down in a stately way, pretending to be unaware of the fact that she was wearing a new dress. The visitors had experienced some amazing adventures on the journey, and they told them in chorus, with many interruptions, given in solo form and made up of urgent amendments concerning unimportant details. Such funny people they had met in the train, to be sure; somehow at this time of the year one always encountered the most extraordinary folk. And just as they started, who should come rushing along the platform, just too late to catch the train, but Mr.—

“Oh, here you are!” turning to the eldest girl, who had entered the room, to be instantly surrounded and tugged in every direction by the youngsters. “We were just telling your mother that your friend— Oh, look at her blushing!”

“We’ll put dinner back twenty minutes,” said the mother, interposing on her daughter’s behalf. “That will give him time if he catches the next.”

“Perhaps he never meant to come by that train,” said Uncle Henry. “Very likely he’s gone off somewhere else. One can never depend on these bachelors.”

“Tease away,” said the girl courageously. “To tell you the truth, I rather like it.”

“In that case,” remarked the uncle, “I decline to proceed. If I can’t give annoyance, I shall simply shut up. Supposing I have a kiss instead.”

Tragic moments for the children who were being released from the control of neck-wraps and safety-pins and rubber shoes, for, apart from the tantalising scent of cooking, they had to endure the trial of saying nothing about the parcels brought. They clustered around the eldest girl, knowing this to be the surest quarter for entertainment, and she would have found a dozen arms few enough for the embraces they required; some of their questions she answered as though her mind were absent, and she glanced now and again, when everybody was talking, at the clock on the mantelpiece. A sharp knock at the front door made smiles come again to her features; the mother gave a warning word to the kitchen and met the young man in the hall, where the boys were helping him in the task of disengaging himself from his overcoat by pulling at it in all directions. He could not express his regrets at the missing of the train, but every one knew what motor-omnibuses were, and as he shook hands formally with the eldest girl (who appeared rather surprised, remarking to him, “Oh, is that you?”) an aunt began a moving anecdote concerning one of these conveyances which she had boarded on a recent afternoon opposite St. Martin’s Church. She asked the conductor as distinctly as she could speak whether it went to the Adelaide, and she felt certain that he replied, “Yes, lady,” but, happening to glance out later, found herself whirling along Marylebone Road, whereupon she, with great presence of mind, took her umbrella, prodded the conductor in the small of his back—

“If you please, ’m, dinner is served!”

There were chairs at the long table that had the shy appearance of having been borrowed from the bedroom, but only one of the children made a remark concerning this, and she found herself told that another word from her would result in a lonely return to home forthwith. They all declared they had plenty of room, and Uncle Henry accepted with modesty a position near to the birds with the comment that he could always manage to eat a couple; perhaps the others would not mind looking on whilst he enjoyed the pleasures of the table; the children, now accustomed to Uncle Henry’s humour, declined to be appalled by this threat, and, indeed, challenged him, offering the prize of one penny if he should consume the contents of the dishes, bones and all. They stopped their ears whilst he sharpened the big knife, and when he said, “Now, has any one got any preference?” the grown-ups gave a fine lesson in behaviour by declaring that they would be content with whatever portions were sent down to them. The maid, waiting at table, exhibited evidence of mental aberration over the task of handing plates in the right order of precedence, but wireless telegraphy from her mistress, and from the eldest daughter, gave instructions and averted disaster.

“Do look after yourself, Uncle Henry!”

Uncle Henry asserted that, but for this reminder, he would have neglected to fill his own plate, and one of the children, unable to reconcile the extreme selfishness hinted at in an earlier stage with the astonishing effacement now proclaimed, stared at him open-mouthed. The same child later on, after expressing loudly his determination not to be frightened when the plum-pudding—over a month old and the last of its race—was brought, surrounded by a purple blaze, found performance a harder task than that of hypothetical daring, and, burying his little head in the lap of the eldest daughter, gave way to tears, declining to resume the appearance of serenity until the flames had been blown out; he regained complete self-possession on finding in the portion served out to him a bright silver sixpence, and announced his intention of purchasing with that sum Drury Lane Theatre, together with the pantomime for the current year. The elder children listened with tolerance and gave a nod to the grown-ups, showing that they knew the sum would be altogether insufficient.

“Well,” said Uncle Henry, after he had resolutely turned his head away from the offer of a second meringue, “if I never have a worse dinner, I shan’t complain.”

“Beautifully cooked,” agreed the young man.

“Credit to whom credit is due,” asserted the hostess generously. “If Mary there hadn’t superintended—”

“Mother, dear!” protested the eldest girl.

Great jokes in trying to induce the ladies to smoke, but the men were left alone together with the eldest son of the family, who had not yet taken to cigarettes and was strongly recommended by the others never to begin. The eldest son found his views on tobacco, on the work of borough councils, on parliamentary procedure, and other topics, listened to with great deference by the young man visitor, who declared there was a great deal in the opinions held by the son of the family with which he felt able to agree. Nevertheless, it was he who first suggested that they should rejoin the company of the ladies.

He came out wonderfully so soon as games were started, but it appeared he could do little without the assistance of the eldest daughter. Together, they gave an exhibition of thought-reading, and, after whispered consultation, he, being out of the room whilst the children selected four figures, came in when called, and standing at the doorway whilst she appealed for order, gave the exact figures. Even Uncle Henry had to admit himself flabbergasted.

“Do tell us how it’s done?”

“Please!”

“Don’t believe you know yourselves!”

They declared it a secret which could not be lightly shared, but in giving way to the general appeal, explained that if the first figure was (say) one, then she had used a sentence beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, such as:

“All quiet, please!”

If the next was two, she said:

“Be quiet, please!”

If the next was three:

“Can’t you be quiet!”

And so on. Parcels came in now and strings were cut, and presents given to the owner of the day. She thanked him very prettily for the brooch and pinned it at once near to her neck; he followed her out of the room to help in carrying the brown paper and to tell her that, when his birthday came, she could reciprocate by offering him the precious gift of herself. The quarrel had been all his fault. He was bending down to touch her lips when—

“No, thank you,” he said, tearing up the fourth slip. “The present time is good enough for me. Is this the way out?”

“Interesting to observe,” remarked the voice, as the curtain went back and showed the exit, “that our clients, however dissatisfied they may be in entering, are always perfectly content when they depart!”