Chapter 9

After that I began to live, as one lives; and for forty-nine weeks. I
know it was forty-nine, because I got fifty-two atmospheres in all;
Callan's and Churchill's, and those forty-nine and the last one that
finished the job and the year of it. It was amusing work in its way;
people mostly preferred to have their atmospheres taken at their country
houses--it showed that they had them, I suppose. Thus I spent a couple
of days out of every week in agreeable resorts, and people were very
nice to me--it was part of the game.

So I had a pretty good time for a year and enjoyed it, probably because
I had had a pretty bad one for several years. I filled in the rest of my
weeks by helping Fox and collaborating with Mr. Churchill and adoring
Mrs. Hartly at odd moments. I used to hang about the office of the
_Hour_ on the chance of snapping up a blank three lines fit for a
subtle puff of her. Sometimes they were too hurried to be subtle, and
then Mrs. Hartly was really pleased.

I never understood her in the least, and I very much doubt whether she
ever understood a word I said. I imagine that I must have talked to her
about her art or her mission--things obviously as strange to her as to
the excellent Hartly himself. I suppose she hadn't any art; I am certain
she hadn't any mission, except to be adored. She walked about the stage
and one adored her, just as she sat about her flat and was adored, and
there the matter ended.

As for Fox, I seemed to suit him--I don't in the least know why. No
doubt he knew me better than I knew myself. He used to get hold of me
whilst I was hanging about the office on the chance of engaging space
for Mrs. Hartly, and he used to utilise me for the ignoblest things. I
saw men for him, scribbled notes for him, abused people through the
telephone, and wrote articles. Of course, there were the pickings.

I never understood Fox--not in the least, not more than I understood
Mrs. Hartly. He had the mannerisms of the most incredible vulgarian and
had, apparently, the point of view of a pig. But there was something
else that obscured all that, that forced one to call him a _wonderful_
man. Everyone called him that. He used to say that he knew what he
wanted and that he got it, and that was true, too. I didn't in the least
want to do his odd jobs, even for the ensuing pickings, and I didn't
want to be hail-fellow with him. But I did them and I was, without even
realising that it was distasteful to me. It was probably the same with
everybody else.

I used to have an idea that I was going to reform him; that one day I
should make him convert the _Hour_ into an asylum for writers of merit.
He used to let me have my own way sometimes--just often enough to keep
my conscience