Part 3

"My poor Merrill," said Ben, "I wish I could. But it's too late. I've got into this business and I must stick to it."

"Very well, then," said Merrill, "let me be your first client and get me a nice jolly curate, even if I have to pay for him myself."

X

Uncle Paul, however, approved, and Uncle Paul was a valuable ally. Uncle Paul was Mrs. Staveley's and Lady Collum's brother: a man of about sixty who had lived with his parents as long as they lived and then had taken rooms in Bayswater with a housekeeper. Naturally shy and unambitious, and made more shy by an unconquerable stammer, he had never gone into any business but remained home-keeping and retired, famous in the family for his mechanical skill. If a doll's house were required, Uncle Paul made it. His jig-saw puzzles had been marvels of difficulty before the term jig-saw was invented. With his lathe and other tools he added little improvements to most of the pieces of mechanism that shops carelessly put forth.

But his masterpieces were ships, possibly because his father had been a shipowner and much of Paul's odd time as a boy and youth had been spent in prowling about the vessels in harbour. The sea itself had no attraction for him; he was the worst of sailors; but by everything to do with ships he was fascinated.

From making models for young friends and testing them, he had come to sailing them himself, and was one of the most assiduous frequenters of the Round Pond, with the long wand of office proper to all Round Pond habitués who have Masters' Certificates.

That was his principal outdoor recreation. The only other motive that could take him from his abode was his love of music, instrumental rather than vocal, and the Queen's Hall knew few figures more intimately than this tall spare man, with a slight stoop, a pointed grey beard and highly magnifying gold-rimmed spectacles.

It has never been satisfactorily determined whether the saying about the darlings of the gods dying young means young in years or young in heart. But if it ought to run "Those whom the gods love are still young no matter when they die," then Uncle Paul was one of the elect.

"I think," he said, after listening to the outline of "The Beck and Call" project--and you must understand that whenever Uncle Paul spoke, it was with great difficulty, the words sometimes keeping distressingly out of reach for agonizing moments (during which, like so many sufferers from this impediment, he refused all assistance) or rushing out pellmell--"I think," he said, "it's a good scheme. Very amusing at any rate. You will meet such lots of odd people. And you will be doing something. I don't mean," he added hastily, "that you have not been busy up to now. We have all admired the way you kept house and devoted yourself to your father. But that was routine. Now you will be in the world and having adventures." He sighed. "What fun!" he said.

Ben amplified, and in the course of the story of the genesis of her plan mentioned Mrs. Lintot's remark that she would willingly pay an annual subscription for these vicarious London services.

"Yes," said Uncle Paul, "that's of the highest importance, a guarantee. Now what you have got to do is to write to all your friends explaining your scheme and offering to be at their service for a year at, say, three guineas each, and asking them to write to all their friends about it too, like one of these snowballs one reads of, or the American officer's prayer. Anybody living far out of London ought to find it well worth three guineas, and three guineas is nothing. Lots of them may drop off after the first year, but it would give you a start. If you get only sixty or seventy annual clients to begin with, that would ensure your rent. Some of these people would probably get their money's worth over and over again, even if others didn't. At the end of the year, you might have to raise the subscription, but in the first year you will be making your name and you can afford to be generous. I shall put down three guineas myself, but what for, I haven't the vaguest notion at the moment; and if I get no return I shan't grumble--for the unusual reason that it will be my own fault."

"I should hate to take three guineas from you," said Ben. "You couldn't possibly make so much use of me as that, and I'd rather do it for nothing."

"Hush!" said Uncle Paul. "Don't say such things. The dangerous words 'for nothing' must disappear from your vocabulary the moment you go into business."

"How horrid!" said Ben. "But I defy you to think of anything you could want from me. When you've got Mrs. Crosbie eating her head off, how could you need 'The Beck and Call'?"

"We'll see," said Uncle Paul. "Here's my cheque anyway. I want to be your first client."

XI

In the choice of business premises Ben showed not a little sagacity. I know, for I was with her.

She began by consulting a firm of house-agents, which, like so many of those necessary but unsatisfactory organizations, appeared to consist of twins--Messrs. Charger & Charger. What the evolution of a house-agent is, no one has ever discovered, but an addiction neither to industry nor to strict veracity seems to be an essential to their perfected state. All house-agents have youth and eloquence and make an attempt at social ease. The effrontery that accompanies the sale of motor-cars is never quite theirs: they do not actually puff tobacco smoke at their customers while leaning against the wall with their hands in their pockets, but they probably would like to.

Whether we saw either of the principals--either Charger or Charger--we never knew; but the place was full of glib young men who employed the first-person-singular in their conversations, each of whom in turn might have been Charger or Charger, but all of whom probably were not.

It was by disregarding their suggestions that Ben gradually arrived at a decision.

"I am thinking," she said, "of opening an office where advice can be sought on all kinds of domestic problems, and I want it to be in a wealthy residential district but not in a main street."

"Not in Piccadilly?" the young man asked.

"No, _not_ in a main street," said Ben.

"I have a very desirable upper part in Lower Regent Street," he said.

"_Not_ in a main street," Ben replied.

The young man turned over the pages of a register.

"How would you like Long Acre?" he inquired.

"Would you call that a wealthy residential district?" Ben replied.

"What about the Strand?" he asked.

"_Not_ in a main street," said Ben. "Besides, surely it must be in a part where women shop? The Strand is mostly full of men and tourists, isn't it? I know I personally have never been there except to a restaurant or a theatre."

"That's true," said the young man. "A shopping quarter. I understand. Somewhere off Oxford Street, you mean."

"Well, what have you got there?" Ben asked.

"I'm afraid I haven't anything," he said. "Or South Audley Street?"

"Yes," said Ben, "that's much better."

He looked through his register again.

"No," he said, "there's nothing there. But"--brightly--"what about the upper part of a garage near the Imperial Institute? I can recommend that most highly."

It was then that we came out.

Taking our fate into our own hands, we spent the afternoon in walking in likely places, and at last came upon an old book shop in Motcombe Street, which is near Knightsbridge and between the distinguished and far from poverty-stricken squares of Eaton and of Lowndes. At the side of the shop was a signboard in white and light green on which were the agreeable words:--

THE BOOKLOVERS' REST

In the window were rows on rows of volumes, old and less old, some opened at the title page and others at delectable coloured plates.

The shop was evidently new, judging by the paint; and from a window above it a notice emerged stating that the upper part was to let and was suitable for offices.

As we approached, a small and intensely waggish black spaniel dashed out of the door with all the excitement that such dogs manifest when their masters are coming too, and a moment later a fresh-looking young man in a tweed suit, without a hat, sauntered from the shop, crossed the road and surveyed the premises with a pleased proprietary eye. After a brief space he called "Patrick!" and there came to the doorway another young man, who had a more studious air and, we noticed, limped. The first young man said nothing but slightly extending both hands, elevated his thumbs to a vertical position.

"Good," said the lame one, and then all three retired to the recesses of the shop.

Meanwhile Ben's mind was working very quickly. Motcombe Street, she remarked, was only a few yards from the two great Knightsbridge drapers, and Sloane Street with all its millinery and boots and dressmakers was close by. If two young men thought it a good enough spot to establish themselves as second-hand book sellers, might it not be equally or even more suitable for our purposes? And especially so if she could induce a Knightsbridge or Sloane Street tradesman, or both, to allow her to put up a finger-board. At any rate, the rooms must be looked at.

In the course of the conversation that followed, Ben said that the only real drawback was that there was no private door. The upper part could be reached only through the shop. But neither Mr. Harford, the young man with the dog (whose name appeared to be "Soul"), nor Mr. St. Quentin, the young man with the limp, thought this a very serious objection.

"If _you_ don't mind," said Mr. Harford, "we shan't. You will probably have more customers than we, and we shall try and bag some of them."

"Yes," quoted Mr. St. Quentin, or Patrick, "'and those that came to scoff remained to pray.' In other words, if they can't get a governess or a chauffeur from you, they may stop on the way down to buy a cookery book from us."

"That's too one-sided," said Ben. "Equally why shouldn't people who can't find anything they want on your shelves, be sent upstairs to see what I can do for them?"

"Of course," said Mr. Harford. "Only yesterday, for example, we had an old boy from America. Americans, it seems, want either first editions of Conrad and Masefield, or something to do with Dr. Johnson. This was a Johnsonian, but he was also in need of a service flat. Now if you had been here I should have pushed him up and you would have fleeced him."

"Yes," said Mr. St. Quentin, "and then there was that rummy old bird this morning. She wanted a novel. Anything to pass the time, she said. But when she came to look round, there was nothing that she hadn't read or that she wanted to read. Dickens was too vulgar and Thackeray was too cynical. Meredith was too difficult and Hardy too sad. Trollope was too trivial and George Eliot too bracing. Wells was too clever and Bennett too detailed. Galsworthy was too long and Kipling too short. And so on. She ended by offering me a fiver for Jack's spaniel, which she called a 'doggy.' After I had repulsed the offer she asked me if I could tell her the best play that had a matinée to-day. The world's full of these drifters. Now if you had been here, I should have steered her to you."

"To waste my time?" Ben asked.

"Not a bit of it. She was rolling in money; all she needed was a directing mind, such as I am sure yours is. What she wanted was to get through the day, and you would have helped her, and business would result. As a matter of fact, she did buy something; she bought 'Tom Brown's School Days,' for the curious reason, into which I was far too wily to enquire further, that her dear father was at Winchester."

"One little point, Miss Staveley," said Mr. Harford. "You are setting up an advice bureau. Won't you give us your opinion on our signboard: do you think it reads all right?"

"It seems to me most alluring," said Ben; "unless possibly the word 'Rest' might lead people to stay too long."

"Well," said Mr. St. Quentin, "as a matter of fact we had a tussle over that and Jack won. I was for just 'Bookbuyers' Corner.'"

"Very pretty," said Ben.

"Yes," said Mr. Harford, "but as I very properly and acutely pointed out, this isn't a corner."

"Still--" Ben began.

"No," said Jack, "a corner's a corner."

"Very well," said his partner, "I give in; but what do you think he wanted on the sign as we now more or less have it? You won't credit it, Miss Staveley. Catch hold of something while I tell you."

"Ah, shut up," said Jack.

"He wanted 'Ye' instead of 'The.'"

"No!" said Ben, in horror.

"He did," said Patrick: "he actually and infernally did. Like a tea shop. He's not altogether a bad-looking man; he would have taken quite a decent degree but for the War; he has played cricket for his county; he induced me to become his partner; and yet he wanted 'Ye' instead of 'The.'"

"Can this be true?" Ben asked.

"Well, I stick to it," said Jack. "We are out to make a living and I know what people are. You might lose a few highbrows by saying 'Ye' but you'd get a bigger following generally. Still, Patrick here wouldn't give way. Well," he made an exaggerated gesture of fatalism, "we know what the reason will be if we're bankrupt, don't we, old Soul?" and he patted the waggish spaniel.

"And," said the lame one, "I haven't told you the worst. He came down one day with a design lettered by one of his architect friends,

'YE OLD BOOKE SHOPPE'

in which 'shop' had two _P_'s and an _E_. I haven't fully recovered yet----"

"It would have meant great business," said Jack, defiantly. "There's a fascination about that double P and that final E that lots of people find irresistible. No matter, the die is cast. By the way," he added to Ben, "I suppose you're calling yourself something?"

"I was thinking of 'The Beck and Call,'" said Ben. "I wanted a signboard rather like yours."

"Make it 'Ye,'" said Mr. Harford, "and you'll be a millionaire."

"No," said Ben. "I couldn't face my friends. It's bad enough as it is."

"And you'll take our upper part?" Mr. St. Quentin asked.

"I can't say at the moment," said Ben. "I must consider. But if I don't it will probably only be because I don't think either of you is serious enough to be my landlord."

But after the lawyers had done their worst with it, Ben signed an agreement.

XII

In assembling her staff Ben experienced a certain amount of luck in stumbling upon Miss Peterson.

Miss Peterson was one of those plain, capable but not originative women whose destiny it is to work loyally for others. And Ben was just the kind of other for whom they work with the most zeal and fidelity. From Miss Peterson's position as keeper of the outer office and the door, she came to be known as Jan, which was short for janitress, and but for her "The Beck and Call" would probably not have lasted a month. With her untiring devotion to buttress it, it turned the corner.

Jan arrived early and left late, and, what is more, refused to go out for lunch, but ate it furtively at her desk. Whether men eat too much lunch or women too little is a question that has never been settled; and as they are totally different creatures there is probably no need for any comparisons. Suffice it to say that Jan could not be induced to improve her scanty and hasty repast, and seemed to be fairly healthy on it. A certain element of self-sacrifice or even mortification was necessary to her happiness; she was a mixture of watchdog and nun. If ever she permitted herself a luxury or accepted an invitation to a party of pleasure, she did it as though performing a penance. Such was her own humility and her innate conviction that this is a vale of tears, and ought to be, that every happiness or delight was a cause of suspicion and surprise. Praise-God-Barebones and his companions planted the English soil deeper than they knew.

The only other member of the staff, at first, was a precocious London boy, certainly no Puritan, who was known by his own wish as Dolly. His real name was Arthur, which his friends, all as Cockney as himself, soon converted to Arfur, not only because that was their general tendency but because his surname Crowne set up an additional allurement to do so. Arfur Crowne in course of time was reduced, on the lines often followed in the evolution of nicknames, to 'arf a dollar, and from this it had been an easy gradation to Dolly.

Dolly's age was sixteen, and he was small for it. He was also old for it, in so far as dress and knowledge of the world, or at any rate of London, were concerned. He always wore a bowler hat and carried a cane, and in his possession, on view but never known to be worn, was a pair of smart tan gloves. In addition to an exhaustive acquaintance with London's houses of variety, even in the outlying districts, football heroes, cricket heroes, cinema stars and probably winners on the flat, Dolly could give you in a moment the number of the bus you needed for any route.

Where he got the money to visit so many places of entertainment, no one at first knew; for his wages could not well be large and there was no reason to suspect him of dishonesty. But he was so regularly in funds as to lead to the suspicion that he had private means and was working at "The Beck and Call" for a wager. So Tubby Toller maintained. And, as he said, it would be very dull to find out where the money came from, for one of the compensations in this dreary life of ours is the opportunity we get for wondering how other people can afford it.

But later the secret came out, for Mr. Harford gave it away. Mr. Harford's range of interests on the pleasant planet on which he found himself was, I ought to say, sufficiently wide to include the too often pathetic efforts to come in first on the part of those untrustworthy but beautiful animals with noble heads, glossy coats, and four slender legs on which most English men, and many English women, "have something" every day. It was Dolly's special privilege to meet in his lunch hour mysterious acquaintances with special information about the "three-thirty," and this information Mr. Harford was delighted to receive. Now and then, of course, the horse "went down," but in the main the two confederates did very well.

Dolly's post was by the telephone in the outer office, which, on occasions, could be connected with another instrument on Ben's desk; but his dominating desire and ambition was, by his own knowledge and discretion, to render any such connexion unnecessary. So far from sharing Jan's willingness to lunch in, Dolly was off, with his gloves and cane, immediately the clock struck one--to the Ritz or Savoy, according to Jack Harford. He was never late in returning, but sometimes stood on the step finishing a cigarette until the hands pointed to two.

Mr. Harford and Dolly may have been almost on an equality, but it was one of the jokes at "The Booklovers' Rest" that Dolly was too aristocratic to have any friendly relations with the boy--Ernie Bones--who opened and shut that abode of culture, and carried to the post such parcels as were dispatched, and once a month stuck stamps on myriad catalogues. But there are grades, right through the social scale, and Dolly stood on a plane far above Ernie's.

Ernie had never worn or carried gloves in his life. They would have looked as strange on him as a monocle in the eye of a London roadmender.

XIII

Aunt Agatha had of course to be told. Aunt Agatha was the widow of Sir Davenport Collum and Ben's mother's sister. Her opinion on any subjects whatever doesn't really matter, but Ben would not have been happy to have left her in ignorance.

"You mustn't think me narrow-minded," Aunt Agatha said, "because I'm not. Whatever else I may be, I'm not narrow-minded. But I really do think you might have chosen something better to do than to be a maid-of-all-work or a Jack-of-all-trades at the command of anyone with the money to pay your fee. You--you demean yourself. We should have dignity."

"Yes, aunt," said Ben, "but one must maintain oneself first. There is no dignity without independence."

"But surely--don't you remember Landseer's picture?" inquired Lady Collum.

"No, aunt. That was 'Dignity and Impudence,'" Ben replied.

"Yes, so it was. I had forgotten. And, after all, the words are very much alike. I can see it now. We had an engraving in the hall at home. Two dogs. Well, dear, as you were saying?"

"I was saying, aunt," Ben resumed, "that dignity without independence is only a shadow. What I want is to make my own living and 'The Beck and Call' seems to be a way. At any rate, it is worth trying."

"A horrid phrase," said Lady Collum. "'Beck and Call.' Why, it suggests dependence and nothing else. Servility even. You belong to every one but yourself; you will be London's errand girl."

"But if I don't mind that, what then?" Ben asked. "And besides, I shall reserve the right to select my jobs."

"Beggars," said Aunt Agatha, "cannot be choosers. There's a proverb to that effect and I am a great believer in proverbs. An apple a day--ah! how true!"

"Yes, aunt, but how miserable you would be if anything kept your own darling doctor away! And I believe it's really an onion, as a matter of fact."

"Onions undoubtedly are very healthy," said Lady Collum. "But what were we saying? Oh, yes. This office of yours. 'The To and Fro.' Where is it to be?"

"'The Beck and Call,' aunt," Ben corrected. "I have taken two rooms over an old book-shop in Motcombe Street."

"Taken them!" exclaimed Lady Collum, in horror. "I had no idea it had gone so far as that. What is the use of my giving you any advice if the deed is done? It's like locking the garage door after the car has been stolen."

"But I don't think I was asking you to advise me," said Ben. "I was merely telling you about it, because I thought you would like to know, and in case you knew of anyone who might want to make use of me."

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" exclaimed Lady Collum. "To think that it's all settled! You're plighted to it now."

"Yes, aunt," said Ben. "The die is cast. There is no looking back. We begin next Monday."

"Plighted!" murmured Lady Collum, dreamily. "What a beautiful word it might be! Can be. Why, my dear, don't you marry some nice man instead of opening offices?"

"Well, aunt, for one reason, no one that I cared for sufficiently has asked me," said Ben smiling.

"Then you have had a proposal or two?" said Lady Collum, eagerly. "I'm glad."

"Not very serious ones," Ben told her. "Only from Tommy Clinton."

"Oh, him!" said Aunt Agatha. "And yet you're very pretty," she went on. "What's the matter with the other young men? Let's see, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two," said Ben.

"That's a little late for the young ones," said Lady Collum, "or much too early. Hasn't any nice older man asked you?"

"No, aunt," said Ben, "and I don't know that I want one either. Marriage isn't everything. I can imagine an amusing business being far more entertaining than a husband. But surely you see," she went on more seriously, "that now that father's married again I must be independent. I can't possibly go on living at home."

"Ah, yes," said Lady Collum. "Of course. Poor child, yes. The cruel and ugly stepmother, my heart bleeds for you."

"But dear Aunt Agatha, she isn't cruel, and she isn't ugly," said Ben. "And I like her."

"That's your sweet nature," Lady Collum replied, "or her artfulness. And what about poor little Toby?" she resumed. "His home closed to him. I can't think what your father was about. Surely at sixty-three he might have continued to face life alone and then everything would be happy still, and poor little Toby not at the mercy of this heartless woman and you not driven out into the world to start 'The Hide and Seek.'"

"'Beck and Call,' aunt," Ben corrected. "And I haven't been driven out; I was glad to go."

"So you say," said Lady Collum. "But it's your kind heart. Anyway, it's that motherless child I'm thinking most about--poor Toby."