No More Learning

It's over and done with now, and none
of the syndicate know how hard up I was. Fire away. What's the exact
state of affairs as regards myself? "

"You had my wire? You've caught on here. People like your work
immensely. I don't know why, but they do. They say you have a fresh
touch and a new way of drawing things. And, because they're chiefly
home-bred English, they say you have insight. You're wanted by half a
dozen papers; you're wanted to illustrate books. "

Dick grunted scornfully.

"You're wanted to work up your smaller sketches and sell them to the
dealers. They seem to think the money sunk in you is a good investment.
Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public? "

"They're a remarkably sensible people. "

"They are subject to fits, if that's what you mean; and you happen to be
the object of the latest fit among those who are interested in what
they call Art. Just now you're a fashion, a phenomenon, or whatever you
please. I appeared to be the only person who knew anything about you
here, and I have been showing the most useful men a few of the sketches
you gave me from time to time. Those coming after your work on the
Central Southern Syndicate appear to have done your business. You're in
luck. "

"Huh! call it luck! Do call it luck, when a man has been kicking about
the world like a dog, waiting for it to come! I'll luck 'em later on. I
want a place to work first. "

"Come here," said Torpenhow, crossing the landing. "This place is a big
box room really, but it will do for you. There's your skylight, or
your north light, or whatever window you call it, and plenty of room to
thrash about in, and a bedroom beyond. What more do you need? "

"Good enough," said Dick, looking round the large room that took up a
third of a top story in the rickety chambers overlooking the Thames. A
pale yellow sun shone through the skylight and showed the much dirt of
the place. Three steps led from the door to the landing, and three
more to Torpenhow's room. The well of the staircase disappeared into
darkness, pricked by tiny gas-jets, and there were sounds of men talking
and doors slamming seven flights below, in the warm gloom.

"Do they give you a free hand here? " said Dick, cautiously. He was
Ishmael enough to know the value of liberty.

"Anything you like; latch-keys and license unlimited. We are permanent
tenants for the most part here. 'Tisn't a place I would recommend for a
Young Men's Christian Association, but it will serve. I took these rooms
for you when I wired. "

"You're a great deal too kind, old man. "

"You didn't suppose you were going away from me, did you? " Torpenhow put
his hand on Dick's shoulder, and the two walked up and down the room,
henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion.
They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. "That's some ruffian come up
for a drink," said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There
entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in
a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were
deep pouches under the eyes.

"Weak heart," said Dick to himself, and, as he shook hands, "very weak
heart. His pulse is shaking his fingers. "

The man introduced himself as the head of the Central Southern Syndicate
and "one of the most ardent admirers of your work, Mr. Heldar. I assure
you, in the name of the syndicate, that we are immensely indebted to
you; and I trust, Mr. Heldar, you won't forget that we were largely
instrumental in bringing you before the public. " He panted because of
the seven flights of stairs.

Dick glanced at Torpenhow, whose left eyelid lay for a moment dead on
his cheek.

"I shan't forget," said Dick, every instinct of defence roused in him.

"You've paid me so well that I couldn't, you know. By the way, when I am
settled in this place I should like to send and get my sketches. There
must be nearly a hundred and fifty of them with you. "

"That is er--is what I came to speak about. I fear we can't allow it
exactly, Mr. Heldar. In the absence of any specified agreement, the
sketches are our property, of course. "

"Do you mean to say that you are going to keep them? "

"Yes; and we hope to have your help, on your own terms, Mr. Heldar, to
assist us in arranging a little exhibition, which, backed by our name
and the influence we naturally command among the press, should be of
material service to you. Sketches such as yours----"

"Belong to me. You engaged me by wire, you paid me the lowest rates you
dared. You can't mean to keep them! Good God alive, man, they're all
I've got in the world! "

Torpenhow watched Dick's face and whistled.

Dick walked up and down, thinking. He saw the whole of his little stock
in trade, the first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the outset of
his campaign by an elderly gentleman whose name Dick had not caught
aright, who said that he represented a syndicate, which was a thing for
which Dick had not the least reverence. The injustice of the proceedings
did not much move him; he had seen the strong hand prevail too often in
other places to be squeamish over the moral aspects of right and wrong.

But he ardently desired the blood of the gentleman in the frockcoat,
and when he spoke again, it was with a strained sweetness that Torpenhow
knew well for the beginning of strife.

"Forgive me, sir, but you have no--no younger man who can arrange this
business with me? "

"I speak for the syndicate. I see no reason for a third party to----"

"You will in a minute. Be good enough to give back my sketches. "

The man stared blankly at Dick, and then at Torpenhow, who was leaning
against the wall. He was not used to ex-employees who ordered him to be
good enough to do things.

"Yes, it is rather a cold-blooded steal," said Torpenhow, critically;
"but I'm afraid, I am very much afraid, you've struck the wrong man. Be
careful, Dick; remember, this isn't the Soudan. "

"Considering what services the syndicate have done you in putting your
name before the world----"

This was not a fortunate remark; it reminded Dick of certain vagrant
years lived out in loneliness and strife and unsatisfied desires. The
memory did not contrast well with the prosperous gentleman who proposed
to enjoy the fruit of those years.

"I don't know quite what to do with you," began Dick, meditatively. "Of
course you're a thief, and you ought to be half killed, but in your case
you'd probably die. I don't want you dead on this floor, and, besides,
it's unlucky just as one's moving in. Don't hit, sir; you'll only excite
yourself. "

He put one hand on the man's forearm and ran the other down the plump
body beneath the coat. "My goodness! " said he to Torpenhow, "and this
gray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the
black hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet
dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This thing's soft all over--like
a woman. "

There are few things more poignantly humiliating than being handled by
a man who does not intend to strike. The head of the syndicate began to
breathe heavily. Dick walked round him, pawing him, as a cat paws a
soft hearth-rug. Then he traced with his forefinger the leaden pouches
underneath the eyes, and shook his head. "You were going to steal my
things,--mine, mine, mine! --you, who don't know when you may die. Write
a note to your office,--you say you're the head of it,--and order them
to give Torpenhow my sketches,--every one of them. Wait a minute: your
hand's shaking. Now! " He thrust a pocket-book before him. The note
was written. Torpenhow took it and departed without a word, while Dick
walked round and round the spellbound captive, giving him such advice as
he conceived best for the welfare of his soul. When Torpenhow returned
with a gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost soothingly, "Now,
I hope this will be a lesson to you; and if you worry me when I have
settled down to work with any nonsense about actions for assault,
believe me, I'll catch you and manhandle you, and you'll die. You
haven't very long to live, anyhow. Go! Imshi, Vootsak,--get out! " The
man departed, staggering and dazed. Dick drew a long breath: "Phew! what
a lawless lot these people are! The first thing a poor orphan meets is
gang robbery, organised burglary! Think of the hideous blackness of that
man's mind! Are my sketches all right, Torp? "

"Yes; one hundred and forty-seven of them. Well, I must say, Dick,
you've begun well. "

"He was interfering with me. It only meant a few pounds to him, but it
was everything to me. I don't think he'll bring an action. I gave him
some medical advice gratis about the state of his body. It was cheap at
the little flurry it cost him. Now, let's look at my things. "

Two minutes later Dick had thrown himself down on the floor and was deep
in the portfolio, chuckling lovingly as he turned the drawings over and
thought of the price at which they had been bought.

The afternoon was well advanced when Torpenhow came to the door and saw
Dick dancing a wild saraband under the skylight.

"I builded better than I knew, Torp," he said, without stopping the
dance. "They're good! They're damned good! They'll go like flame! I
shall have an exhibition of them on my own brazen hook. And that man
would have cheated me out of it! Do you know that I'm sorry now that I
didn't actually hit him? "

"Go out," said Torpenhow,--"go out and pray to be delivered from the
sin of arrogance, which you never will be. Bring your things up from
whatever place you're staying in, and we'll try to make this barn a
little more shipshape. "

"And then--oh, then," said Dick, still capering, "we will spoil the
Egyptians! "



CHAPTER IV

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung gray:
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.

But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away.

And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.
--In Seonee.

"WELL, and how does success taste? " said Torpenhow, some three months
later. He had just returned to chambers after a holiday in the country.

"Good," said Dick, as he sat licking his lips before the easel in the
studio.

"I want more,--heaps more. The lean years have passed, and I approve of
these fat ones. "

"Be careful, old man. That way lies bad work. "

Torpenhow was sprawling in a long chair with a small fox-terrier asleep
on his chest, while Dick was preparing a canvas. A dais, a background,
and a lay-figure were the only fixed objects in the place. They rose
from a wreck of oddments that began with felt-covered water-bottles,
belts, and regimental badges, and ended with a small bale of second-hand
uniforms and a stand of mixed arms. The mark of muddy feet on the dais
showed that a military model had just gone away. The watery autumn
sunlight was falling, and shadows sat in the corners of the studio.

"Yes," said Dick, deliberately, "I like the power; I like the fun; I
like the fuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the
people who make the fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they're a queer
gang,--an amazingly queer gang! "

"They have been good enough to you, at any rate. That tin-pot exhibition
of your sketches must have paid. Did you see that the papers called it
the 'Wild Work Show'? "

"Never mind. I sold every shred of canvas I wanted to; and, on my word,
I believe it was because they believed I was a self-taught flagstone
artist. I should have got better prices if I worked my things on wool or
scratched them on camel-bone instead of using mere black and white and
colour. Verily, they are a queer gang, these people. Limited isn't the
word to describe 'em. I met a fellow the other day who told me
that it was impossible that shadows on white sand should be
blue,--ultramarine,--as they are. I found out, later, that the man had
been as far as Brighton beach; but he knew all about Art, confound him.
He gave me a lecture on it, and recommended me to go to school to learn
technique. I wonder what old Kami would have said to that. "

"When were you under Kami, man of extraordinary beginnings? "

"I studied with him for two years in Paris. He taught by personal
magnetism. All he ever said was, 'Continuez, mes enfants,' and you had
to make the best you could of that. He had a divine touch, and he knew
something about colour. Kami used to dream colour; I swear he could
never have seen the genuine article; but he evolved it; and it was
good. "

"Recollect some of those views in the Soudan? " said Torpenhow, with a
provoking drawl.

Dick squirmed in his place. "Don't! It makes me want to get out there
again. What colour that was! Opal and umber and amber and claret and
brick-red and sulphur--cockatoo-crest-sulphur--against brown, with a
nigger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it all, and a decorative
frieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise sky. " He
began to walk up and down. "And yet, you know, if you try to give these
people the thing as God gave it, keyed down to their comprehension and
according to the powers He has given you----"

"Modest man! Go on. "

"Half a dozen epicene young pagans who haven't even been to Algiers will
tell you, first, that your notion is borrowed, and, secondly, that it
isn't Art. "

"This comes of my leaving town for a month. Dickie, you've been
promenading among the toy-shops and hearing people talk. "

"I couldn't help it," said Dick, penitently. "You weren't here, and it
was lonely these long evenings. A man can't work for ever. "

"A man might have gone to a pub, and got decently drunk. "

"I wish I had; but I forgathered with some men of sorts. They said they
were artists, and I knew some of them could draw,--but they wouldn't
draw. They gave me tea,--tea at five in the afternoon! --and talked about
Art and the state of their souls. As if their souls mattered. I've heard
more about Art and seen less of her in the last six months than in
the whole of my life. Do you remember Cassavetti, who worked for some
continental syndicate, out with the desert column?
He was a regular
Christmas-tree of contraptions when he took the field in full fig, with
his water-bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, housewife, gig-lamps,
and the Lord knows what all. He used to fiddle about with 'em and show
us how they worked; but he never seemed to do much except fudge his
reports from the Nilghai. See? "

"Dear old Nilghai! He's in town, fatter than ever. He ought to be up
here this evening. I see the comparison perfectly. You should have kept
clear of all that man-millinery. Serves you right; and I hope it will
unsettle your mind. "

"It won't. It has taught me what Art--holy sacred Art--means. "

"You've learnt something while I've been away. What is Art? "

"Give 'em what they know, and when you've done it once do it again. "

Dick dragged forward a canvas laid face to the wall. "Here's a sample
of real Art. It's going to be a facsimile reproduction for a weekly. I
called it 'His Last Shot. ' It's worked up from the little water-colour
I made outside El Maghrib. Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman,
up here with drink; I drored him, and I redrored him, and I redrored
him, and I made him a flushed, dishevelled, bedevilled scallawag, with
his helmet at the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his
eye, and the blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn't
pretty, but he was all soldier and very much man. "

"Once more, modest child! "

Dick laughed. "Well, it's only to you I'm talking. I did him just as
well as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the
art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn't
like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,--man being naturally
gentle when he's fighting for his life. They wanted something more
restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but
you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my 'Last
Shot' back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without
a speck on it. That is Art. I polished his boots,--observe the high
light on the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle,--rifles are
always clean on service,--because that is Art. I pipeclayed his
helmet,--pipeclay is always used on active service, and is indispensable
to Art. I shaved his chin, I washed his hands, and gave him an air of
fatted peace. Result, military tailor's pattern-plate. Price, thank
Heaven, twice as much as for the first sketch, which was moderately
decent. "

"And do you suppose you're going to give that thing out as your work? "

"Why not? I did it. Alone I did it, in the interests of sacred,
home-bred Art and Dickenson's Weekly. "

Torpenhow smoked in silence for a while. Then came the verdict,
delivered from rolling clouds: "If you were only a mass of blathering
vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,--I'd let you go to the deuce on your own
mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find
that to vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old
girl, then I bestir myself in your behalf. Thus! "

The canvas ripped as Torpenhow's booted foot shot through it, and the
terrier jumped down, thinking rats were about.

"If you have any bad language to use, use it. You have not. I continue.
You are an idiot, because no man born of woman is strong enough to take
liberties with his public, even though they be--which they ain't--all
you say they are. "

"But they don't know any better. What can you expect from creatures born
and bred in this light? " Dick pointed to the yellow fog. "If they want
furniture-polish, let them have furniture-polish, so long as they pay
for it. They are only men and women. You talk as if they were gods. "

"That sounds very fine, but it has nothing to do with the case. They are
they people you have to do work for, whether you like it or not. They
are your masters. Don't be deceived, Dickie, you aren't strong enough to
trifle with them,--or with yourself, which is more important.

"Moreover,--Come back, Binkie: that red daub isn't going
anywhere,--unless you take precious good care, you will fall under the
damnation of the check-book, and that's worse than death. You will get
drunk--you're half drunk already--on easily acquired money. For that
money and you own infernal vanity you are willing to deliberately turn
out bad work. You'll do quite enough bad work without knowing it. And,
Dickie, as I love you and as I know you love me, I am not going to let
you cut off your nose to spite your face for all the gold in England.
That's settled. Now swear. "

"Don't know," said Dick. "I've been trying to make myself angry, but
I can't, you're so abominably reasonable. There will be a row on
Dickenson's Weekly, I fancy. "

"Why the Dickenson do you want to work on a weekly paper? It's slow
bleeding of power. "

"It brings in the very desirable dollars," said Dick, his hands in his
pockets.

Torpenhow watched him with large contempt. "Why, I thought it was a
man! " said he. "It's a child. "

"No, it isn't," said Dick, wheeling quickly. "You've no notion what the
certainty of cash means to a man who has always wanted it badly. Nothing
will pay me for some of my life's joys; on that Chinese pig-boat, for
instance, when we ate bread and jam for every meal, because Ho-Wang
wouldn't allow us anything better, and it all tasted of pig,--Chinese
pig. I've worked for this, I've sweated and I've starved for this, line
on line and month after month. And now I've got it I am going to make
the most of it while it lasts. Let them pay--they've no knowledge. "

"What does Your Majesty please to want? You can't smoke more than you
do; you won't drink; you're a gross feeder; and you dress in the dark,
by the look of you. You wouldn't keep a horse the other day when I
suggested, because, you said, it might fall lame, and whenever you cross
the street you take a hansom. Even you are not foolish enough to suppose
that theatres and all the live things you can by thereabouts mean Life.
What earthly need have you for money? "

"It's there, bless its golden heart," said Dick. "It's there all the
time. Providence has sent me nuts while I have teeth to crack 'em with.
I haven't yet found the nut I wish to crack, but I'm keeping my teeth
filed. Perhaps some day you and I will go for a walk round the wide
earth. "

"With no work to do, nobody to worry us, and nobody to compete with? You
would be unfit to speak to in a week. Besides, I shouldn't go. I don't
care to profit by the price of a man's soul,--for that's what it would
mean. Dick, it's no use arguing. You're a fool. "

"Don't see it. When I was on that Chinese pig-boat, our captain got
credit for saving about twenty-five thousand very seasick little pigs,
when our old tramp of a steamer fell foul of a timber-junk. Now, taking
those pigs as a parallel----"

"Oh, confound your parallels! Whenever I try to improve your soul, you
always drag in some anecdote from your very shady past. Pigs aren't the
British public; and self-respect is self-respect the world over. Go
out for a walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, I say, if the
Nilghai comes up this evening can I show him your diggings? "

"Surely. " And Dick departed, to take counsel with himself in the rapidly
gathering London fog.

Half an hour after he had left, the Nilghai laboured up the staircase.
He was the chiefest, as he was the youngest, of the war correspondents,
and his experiences dated from the birth of the needle-gun. Saving only
his ally, Keneu the Great War Eagle, there was no man higher in the
craft than he, and he always opened his conversation with the news that
there would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring. Torpenhow laughed
as he entered.

"Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. Those little states are always
screeching. You've heard about Dick's luck? "

"Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, hasn't he? I hope you keep him
properly humble. He wants suppressing from time to time. "

"He does. He's beginning to take liberties with what he thinks is his
reputation. "

"Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don't know about his reputation, but
he'll come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing. "

"So I told him. I don't think he believes it. "

"They never do when they first start off. What's that wreck on the
ground there? "

"Specimen of his latest impertinence. " Torpenhow thrust the torn edges
of the canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the
Nilghai, who looked at it for a moment and whistled.

"It's a chromo," said he,--"a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! What
possessed him to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the note
that catches a public who think with their boots and read with their
elbows! The cold-blooded insolence of the work almost saves it; but
he mustn't go on with this. Hasn't he been praised and cockered up too
much? You know these people here have no sense of proportion. They'll
call him a second Detaille and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashion
lasts. It's windy diet for a colt. "

"I don't think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young
wolf a lion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a
shin-bone. Dick's soul is in the bank. He's working for cash. "

"Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn't see that the
obligations of the service are just the same, only the proprietors are
changed. "

"How should he know? He thinks he is his own master. "

"Does he? I could undeceive him for his good, if there's any virtue in
print. He wants the whiplash. "

"Lay it on with science, then. I'd flay him myself, but I like him too
much. "

"I've no scruples. He had the audacity to try to cut me out with a woman
at Cairo once. I forgot that, but I remember now. "

"Did he cut you out? "

"You'll see when I have dealt with him. But, after all, what's the
good? Leave him alone and he'll come home, if he has any stuff in him,
dragging or wagging his tail behind him. There's more in a week of life
than in a lively weekly. None the less I'll slate him. I'll slate him
ponderously in the Cataclysm. "

"Good luck to you; but I fancy nothing short of a crowbar would make
Dick wince. His soul seems to have been fired before we came across him.
He's intensely suspicious and utterly lawless. "

"Matter of temper," said the Nilghai. "It's the same with horses. Some
you wallop and they work, some you wallop and they jib, and some you
wallop and they go out for a walk with their hands in their pockets. "

"That's exactly what Dick has done," said Torpenhow. "Wait till he comes
back. In the meantime, you can begin your slating here. I'll show you
some of his last and worst work in his studio. "

Dick had instinctively sought running water for a comfort to his mood of
mind. He was leaning over the Embankment wall, watching the rush of the
Thames through the arches of Westminster Bridge. He began by thinking of
Torpenhow's advice, but, as of custom, lost himself in the study of the
faces flocking past. Some had death written on their features, and Dick
marvelled that they could laugh. Others, clumsy and coarse-built for
the most part, were alight with love; others were merely drawn and lined
with work; but there was something, Dick knew, to be made out of them
all. The poor at least should suffer that he might learn, and the rich
should pay for the output of his learning. Thus his credit in the world
and his cash balance at the bank would be increased. So much the better
for him. He had suffered. Now he would take toll of the ills of others.

The fog was driven apart for a moment, and the sun shone, a blood-red
wafer, on the water. Dick watched the spot till he heard the voice of
the tide between the piers die down like the wash of the sea at low
tide. A girl hard pressed by her lover shouted shamelessly, "Ah, get
away, you beast! " and a shift of the same wind that had opened the fog
drove across Dick's face the black smoke of a river-steamer at her berth
below the wall. He was blinded for the moment, then spun round and found
himself face to face with--Maisie.

There was no mistaking. The years had turned the child to a woman, but
they had not altered the dark-gray eyes, the thin scarlet lips, or the
firmly modelled mouth and chin; and, that all should be as it was of
old, she wore a closely fitting gray dress.

Since the human soul is finite and not in the least under its own
command, Dick, advancing, said "Halloo! " after the manner of schoolboys,
and Maisie answered, "Oh, Dick, is that you? " Then, against his will,
and before the brain newly released from considerations of the cash
balance had time to dictate to the nerves, every pulse of Dick's body
throbbed furiously and his palate dried in his mouth. The fog shut down
again, and Maisie's face was pearl-white through it. No word was spoken,
but Dick fell into step at her side, and the two paced the Embankment
together, keeping the step as perfectly as in their afternoon excursions
to the mud-flats. Then Dick, a little hoarsely--"What has happened to
Amomma? "

"He died, Dick. Not cartridges; over-eating. He was always greedy. Isn't
it funny? "

"Yes. No. Do you mean Amomma?