The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Whenever they came to the back door of Harrow House they all kissed
Violet.
'I've had a story accepted by the _Universal Magazine_,' said
James, casually.
'Have you, sir?' said Violet.
'It's a pretty good magazine. I shall probably do a great deal for it
from time to time. The editor seems a decent chap.'
'Does he, sir?'
'I shan't tie myself up in any way, of course, unless I get very good
terms. But I shall certainly let him see a good lot of my stuff. Jolly
morning, isn't it?'
He strolled on; and Violet, having sniffed the air for a few more
minutes with her tip-tilted nose, went indoors to attend to her work.
Five minutes later James, back in the atmosphere of chalk, was writing
on the blackboard certain sentences for his class to turn into Latin
prose. A somewhat topical note ran through them. As thus:
'The uncle of Balbus wished him to tend sheep in the Colonies
(_Provincia_).'
'Balbus said that England was good enough for him (_placeo_).'
'Balbus sent a story (versus) to Maecenas, who replied that he hoped to
use it in due course.'
His mind floated away from the classroom when a shrill voice brought
him back.
'Sir, please, sir, what does "due course" mean?'
James reflected. 'Alter it to "immediately,"' he said.
'Balbus is a great man,' he wrote on the blackboard.
Two minutes later he was in the office of an important magazine, and
there was a look of relief on the editor's face, for James had
practically promised to do a series of twelve short stories for him.
* * * * *
It has been well observed that when a writer has a story rejected he
should send that story to another editor, but that when he has one
accepted he should send another story to that editor. Acting on this
excellent plan, James, being off duty for an hour after tea, smoked a
pipe in his bedroom and settled down to work on a second effort for the
Universal.
He was getting on rather well when his flow of ideas was broken by a
knock on the door.
'Come in,' yelled James. (Your author is notoriously irritable.)
The new-comer was Adolf. Adolf was one of that numerous band of Swiss
and German youths who come to this country prepared to give their
services ridiculously cheap in exchange for the opportunity of learning
the English language. Mr Blatherwick held the view that for a private
school a male front-door opener was superior to a female, arguing that
the parents of prospective pupils would be impressed by the sight of a
man in livery. He would have liked something a bit more imposing than
Adolf, but the latter was the showiest thing that could be got for the
money, so he made the best of it, and engaged him. After all, an
astigmatic parent, seeing Adolf in a dim light, might be impressed by
him. You never could tell.
'Well?' said James, glaring.
'Anysing vrom dze fillage, sare?'
The bulk of Adolf's perquisites consisted of the tips he received for
going to the general store down the road for tobacco, stamps, and so
on. 'No. Get out,' growled James, turning to his work.
He was surprised to find that Adolf, so far from getting out, came in
and shut the door.
'Zst!' said Adolf, with a finger on his lips.
James stared.
'In dze garten zis morning,' proceeded his visitor, grinning like a
gargoyle, 'I did zee you giss Violed. Zo!'
James's heart missed a beat. Considered purely as a situation, his
present position was not ideal. He had to work hard, and there was not
much money attached to the job. But it was what the situation stood for
that counted. It was his little rock of safety in the midst of a
surging ocean of West Australian sheep. Once let him lose his grip on
it, and there was no chance for him. He would be swept away beyond hope
of return.
'What do you mean?' he said hoarsely.
'In dze garten. I you vrom a window did zee. You und Violed. Zo!' And
Adolf, in the worst taste, gave a realistic imitation of the scene,
himself sustaining the role of James.
James said nothing. The whole world seemed to be filled with a vast
baa-ing, as of countless flocks.
'Lizzun!' said Adolf. 'Berhaps I Herr Blazzervig dell. Berhaps not I
do. Zo!'
James roused himself. At all costs he must placate this worm. Mr
Blatherwick was an austere man. He would not overlook such a crime.
He appealed to the other's chivalry.
'What about Violet?' he said. 'Surely you don't want to lose the poor
girl her job? They'd be bound to sack her, too.'
Adolf's eyes gleamed.
'Zo? Lizzun! When I do gom virst here, I myself do to giss Violed vunce
vish. But she do push dze zide of my face, and my lof is durned to
hate.'
James listened attentively to this tabloid tragedy, but made no
comment.
'Anysing vrom dze fillage, sare?'
Adolf's voice was meaning. James produced a half-crown.
'Here you are, then. Get me half a dozen stamps and keep the change.'
'Zdamps? Yes, sare. At vunce.'
James's last impression of the departing one was of a vast and greasy
grin, stretching most of the way across his face.
* * * * *
Adolf, as blackmailer, in which role he now showed himself, differed in
some respects from the conventional blackmailer of fiction. It may be
that he was doubtful as to how much James would stand, or it may be
that his soul as a general rule was above money. At any rate, in actual
specie he took very little from his victim. He seemed to wish to be
sent to the village oftener than before, but that was all. Half a crown
a week would have covered James's financial loss.
But he asserted himself in another way. In his most light-hearted
moments Adolf never forgot the reason which had brought him to England.
He had come to the country to learn the language, and he meant to do
it. The difficulty which had always handicapped him hitherto--namely,
the poverty of the vocabularies of those in the servants' quarters--was
now removed. He appointed James tutor-in-chief of the English language
to himself, and saw that he entered upon his duties at once.
The first time that he accosted James in the passage outside the
classroom, and desired him to explain certain difficult words in a
leading article of yesterday's paper, James was pleased. Adolf, he
thought, regarded the painful episode as closed. He had accepted the
half-crown as the full price of silence, and was now endeavouring to be
friendly in order to make amends.
This right-minded conduct gratified James. He felt genially disposed
toward Adolf. He read the leading article, and proceeded to give a full
and kindly explanation of the hard words. He took trouble over it. He
went into the derivations of the words. He touched on certain rather
tricky sub-meanings of the same. Adolf went away with any doubts he
might have had of James's capabilities as a teacher of English
definitely scattered. He felt that he had got hold of the right man.
There was a shade less geniality in James's manner when the same thing
happened on the following morning. But he did not refuse to help the
untutored foreigner. The lecture was less exhaustive than that of the
previous morning, but we must suppose that it satisfied Adolf, for he
came again next day, his faith in his teacher undiminished.
James was trying to write a story. He turned on the student.
'Get out!' he howled. 'And take that beastly paper away. Can't you see
I'm busy? Do you think I can spend all my time teaching you to read?
Get out!'
'Dere some hard vord vos,' said Adolf, patiently, 'of which I gannot
dze meaning.'
James briefly cursed the hard word.
'But,' proceeded Adolf, 'of one vord, of dze vord "giss", I dze meaning
know. Zo!'
James looked at him. There was a pause.
Two minutes later the English lesson was in full swing.
* * * * *
All that James had ever heard or read about the wonderful devotion to
study of the modern German young man came home to him during the next
two weeks. Our English youth fritters away its time in idleness and
pleasure-seeking. The German concentrates. Adolf concentrated like a
porous plaster. Every day after breakfast, just when the success of
James's literary career depended on absolute seclusion, he would come
trotting up for his lesson. James's writing practically ceased.
This sort of thing cannot last. There is a limit, and Adolf reached it
when he attempted to add night-classes to the existing curriculum.
James, as had been said, was in the habit of taking coffee with Mr
Blatherwick in his study after seeing the boys into bed. It was while
he was on his way to keep this appointment, a fortnight after his first
interview with Adolf, that the young student waylaid him with the
evening paper.
Something should have warned Adolf that the moment was not well chosen.
To begin with, James had a headache, the result of a hard day with the
boys. Then that morning's English lesson had caused him to forget
entirely an idea which had promised to be the nucleus of an excellent
plot. And, lastly, passing through the hall but an instant before, he
had met Violet, carrying the coffee and the evening post to the study,
and she had given him two long envelopes addressed in his own
handwriting. He was brooding over these, preparatory to opening them,
at the very moment when Adolf addressed him.
'Eggscuse,' said Adolf, opening the paper.
James's eyes gleamed ominously.
'Zere are here,' continued Adolf, unseeing, 'some beyond-gombarison hard
vords vich I do nod onderstand. For eggsample--'
It was at this point that James kicked him.
Adolf leaped like a stricken chamois.
'Vot iss?' he cried.
With these long envelopes in his hand James cared for nothing. He
kicked Adolf again.
'Zo!' said the student, having bounded away. He added a few words in
his native tongue, and proceeded. 'Vait! Lizzun! I zay to you, vait!
Brezendly, ven I haf dze zilver bolished und my odder dudies zo
numerous berformed, I do Herr Blazzervig vil vith von liddle szdory
vich you do know go. Zo!'
He shot off to his lair.
James turned away and went down the passage to restore his nervous
tissues with coffee.
Meanwhile, in the study, leaning against the mantelpiece in moody
reflection, Mr Blatherwick was musing sadly on the hardships of the
schoolmaster's life. The proprietor of Harrow House was a long, grave
man, one of the last to hold out against the anti-whisker crusade. He
had expressionless hazel eyes, and a general air of being present in
body but absent in spirit. Mothers who visited the school to introduce
their sons put his vagueness down to activity of mind. 'That busy
brain,' they thought, 'is never at rest. Even while he is talking to
us some abstruse point in the classics is occupying his mind.'
What was occupying his mind at the present moment was the thoroughly
unsatisfactory conduct of his wife's brother, Bertie Baxter. The more
tensely he brooded over the salient points in the life-history of his
wife's brother, Bertie Baxter, the deeper did the iron become embedded
in his soul. Bertie was one of Nature's touchers. This is the age of
the specialist, Bertie's speciality was borrowing money. He was a man
of almost eerie versatility in this direction. Time could not wither
nor custom stale his infinite variety. He could borrow with a breezy
bluffness which made the thing practically a hold-up. And anon, when
his victim had steeled himself against this method, he could extract
another five-pound note from his little hoard with the delicacy of one
playing spillikins. Mr Blatherwick had been a gold-mine to him for
years. As a rule, the proprietor of Harrow House unbelted without
complaint, for Bertie, as every good borrower should, had that knack of
making his victim feel during the actual moment of paying over, as if