Chapter 10 - Page 2

Polehampton's taken over the
_Bi-Monthly_; wants to get new blood into it, see? He'd take something.
I've been talking to him--a short series.... 'Aspects.' That sort of
thing." I tried to work myself into some sort of enthusiasm of
gratitude. I knew that Fox had spoken well of me to Polehampton--as a
sort of set off.

"You go and see Mr. P.," he confirmed; "it's really all arranged. And
then get off to Paris as fast as you can and have a good time."

"Have I been unusually cranky lately?" I asked.

"Oh, you've been a little off the hooks, I thought, for the last week or
so."

He took up a large bottle of white mucilage, and I accepted it as a sign
of dismissal. I was touched by his solicitude for my health. It always
did touch me, and I found myself unusually broad-minded in thought as I
went down the terra-cotta front steps into the streets. For all his
frank vulgarity, for all his shirt-sleeves--I somehow regarded that
habit of his as the final mark of the Beast--and the Louis Quinze
accessories, I felt a warm good-feeling for the little man.

I made haste to see Polehampton, to beard him in a sort of den that
contained a number of shelves of books selected for their glittering
back decoration. They gave the impression that Mr. Polehampton wished to
suggest to his visitors the fitness and propriety of clothing their
walls with the same gilt cloth. They gave that idea, but I think that,
actually, Mr. Polehampton took an aesthetic delight in the gilding. He
was not a publisher by nature. He had drifted into the trade and
success, but beneath a polish of acquaintance retained a fine awe for a
book as such. In early life he had had such shining things on a shiny
table in a parlour. He had a similar awe for his daughter, who had been
born after his entry into the trade, and who had the literary flavour--a
flavour so pronounced that he dragged her by the heels into any
conversation with us who hewed his raw material, expecting, I suppose,
to cow us. For the greater good of this young lady he had bought the
_Bi-Monthly_--one of the portentous political organs. He had, they said,
ideas of forcing a seat out of the party as a recompense.

It didn't matter much what was the nature of my series of articles. I
was to get the atmosphere of cities as I had got those of the various
individuals. I seemed to pay on those lines, and Miss Polehampton
commended me.

"My daughter likes ... eh ... your touch, you know, and...." His terms
were decent--for the man, and were offered with a flourish that
indicated special benevolence and a reference to the hundred pounds. I
was at a loss to account for his manner until he began to stammer out an