Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

gentleman not likely to interfere with him as long as he did his work steadily, and his companions were not only friendly but entertaining. If only Reginald could have a seat at this table too, Horace felt he could face the future cheerily. How, he wondered, was the poor fellow getting on that moment in his distant uncongenial work?

“You’re not obliged to read all the paragraphs, you know,” said Waterford, as Horace’s hand slackened amid these musings. “It’s a close shave to get done as it is, and he’s marked a frightful lot this morning.”

He was right. All the cuttings had to be taken out and pasted on sheets before twelve o’clock, and it took the three of them, hard at work with scissors and paste, to get the task accomplished. They talked very little, and joked still less; but when it was all done, like three honest men, they felt pleased with themselves, and decidedly amiable towards one another.

“Now Booms is going out for the grub, aren’t you, Booms? He’ll get some for you too, young ’un, if you like.”

“No, thanks; I’d be very glad, but I promised to have dinner with my brother—he’s a compositor here.”

“Lucky man!” groaned Booms. “Think of having nothing to do but pick up types instead of slaving like this every day!”

“See the sausages are hot this time, won’t you, Booms? And look alive, there’s a dear fellow.”

Booms retired sadly.

“Good-natured chap, Booms,” said Waterford; “rather a risk of imposing on him if one isn’t careful. He’s an awfully decent fellow, but it’s a sad pity he’s such a masher.”

“A what?” asked Horace.

“A masher. He mayn’t look it, but he goes it rather strong in that line after hours. He doesn’t mean it, poor soul; but he’s mixed up with some of our reporters, and tries to go the pace with them. I don’t care for that sort of thing myself, but if you do, he’s just your man. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?”

“Certainly not,” replied Horace, much impressed by this confidence and the revelation it afforded.

As Booms re-entered shortly afterwards, looking very gloomy, burdened with two plates, two mugs, and a sheaf of knives and forks under his arm, he certainly did not give one the impression of a very rakish character, and Horace could scarcely refrain from smiling as he tried to picture him in his after-hours character.

He left the couple to their sausages, and went out, in the vain hope of finding Reginald somewhere. But there was no sign of workmen anywhere, and, to his disgust, he ascertained from a passing boy that the compositors’ dinner-hour did not begin till he was due back at his work. Everything seemed to conspire to sever the two brothers, and Horace dejectedly took a solitary and frugal repast. He determined, at all hazards, to wait a minute after the bell summoning him back to work had ceased pealing, and was rewarded by a hasty glimpse of his brother, and the exchange of a few hurried sentences. It was better than nothing, and he rushed back to his room just in time to save his reputation for punctuality.

The afternoon passed scarcely less busily than the morning. They sat—and Booms had contrived to raise a third chair somewhere—with a pile of work in front of them which at first seemed hopeless to expect to overtake.

There were effusions to “decline with thanks,” and others to enter in a book and send up to the composing-room; there were some letters to write and others to answer; there were reporters’ notes to string together and telegrams to transcribe. And all the while a dropping fire of proofs and revises and messages was kept up at them from without, which they had to carry to their chief and deal with according to his orders.

Horace, being inexperienced, was only able to take up the simpler portions of this miscellaneous work, but these kept him busy, “hammer and tongs,” with scarcely time to sneeze till well on in the afternoon.

The Rocket, unlike most evening papers, waited till the evening before it appeared, and did not go to press till five o’clock. After that it issued later editions once an hour till eight o’clock, and on special occasions even as late as ten.

The great rush of the day, therefore, as Horace soon discovered, was over at five o’clock, but between that hour and seven there was always plenty to do in connection with the late editions and the following day’s work. At seven o’clock every one left except a sub-editor and one of the clerks, and one or two compositors, to see after the eight o’clock and any possible later edition.

“As soon as you get your hand in, young ’un, you’ll have to take your turn at late work. Booms and I take every other night now.”

Horace could say nothing against this arrangement, though it meant more separation from Reginald. At present, however, his hand not being in, he had nothing to keep him after the seven o’clock bell, and he eagerly escaped at its first sound to look for Reginald.

Not, however, till he had witnessed a strange sight.

About a quarter to seven Booms, whose early evening it was, showed signs of uneasiness. He glanced sorrowfully once or twice at the clock, then at Horace, then at Waterford. Then he got up and put his papers away. Finally he mused on a washhand basin in a corner of the room, and said dolefully,—

“I must dress, I think, Waterford.”

“All serene,” said Waterford, briskly, “the young ’un and I will finish up here.” Then nudging Horace, he added in a whisper, “He’s going to rig up now. Don’t pretend to notice him, that’s all.”

Booms proceeded to divest himself of his office coat and waistcoat and collar, and to roll up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, preparatory to an energetic wash. He then opened a small box in a corner of the room, from which he produced, first a clothes-brush, with which he carefully removed all traces of dust from his nether garments; after that came a pair of light-coloured “pats,” which he fitted on to his boots; then came a bottle of hair-oil, and afterwards a highly-starched “dicky,” or shirt-front, with a stud in it, which by a complicated series of strings the owner contrived to fasten round his neck so as to conceal effectually the flannel shirt-front underneath. Once more he dived, and this time the magic box yielded up what seemed to Horace’s uninitiated eyes to be a broad strip of stiff cardboard, but which turned out to be a collar of fearful and wonderful proportions, which, when once adjusted, fully explained the wisdom displayed by the wearer in not deferring the brushing of his trousers and the donning of his “pats” to a later stage of the proceedings. For nothing, not even a pickpocket at his gilt watch-chain with its pendant “charms,” could lower his chin a quarter of an inch till bed-time. But more was yet to come. There were cuffs to put on, which left one to guess what had become of Mr Booms’s knuckles, and a light jaunty necktie to embellish the “dicky.” Then, with a plaintive sigh, he produced a blue figured waistcoat, and after it a coat shaped like the coat of a robin to cover all. Finally there appeared a hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned, and dazzling in its glossiness, a pair of gay dogskin gloves, a crutch walking-stick, a pink silk handkerchief, and then this joint work of art and nature was complete!

“All right?” said he, in melancholy tones, as he set his hat a little on one side of his head, and, with his stick under his arm, began with his gloves.

Waterford got up and walked slowly and critically round him, giving a few touches here and there, and brushing a little stray dust from his collar.

“All right, dear boy. Mind how you go, and—”

“Oh!” groaned Booms, in tones of dire distress, “I knew I should forget something. Would you mind, Waterford?”

“What is it?”

“My glass—it’s in the box, and—and I should have got it out before I put the collar on. Thanks; I should have been lost without it. Oh! if I had forgotten it!”

With this awful reflection in his mind he bade a sorrowful good-night and walked off, with his head very erect, his elbows high up, and one hand fondling the nearly-neglected eyeglass.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Waterford, as he disappeared.

“It is—rot,” said Horace, emphatically. “Why ever don’t you laugh him out of it?”

“My dear boy, you might as well try to laugh the hair off his head. I’ve tried it a dozen times. After all, the poor dear fellow means no harm.”

“But what does he do now?”

“Oh, don’t ask me. According to his own account he’s the fastest man about town—goes to all the shows, hobnobs with all the swells, smokes furious cigars, and generally ‘mashes.’ But my private notion is he moons about the streets with the handle of his stick in his mouth and looks in a few shop windows, and gets half a dozen oysters for supper, and then goes home to bed. You see he couldn’t well get into much mischief with that collar on. If he went in for turn-downs I’d be afraid of him.”

The bell cut further conversation short, and in another minute Horace and Reginald were walking arm-in-arm in the street outside.

There was much to talk about, much to lament over, and a little to rejoice over. Horace felt half guilty as he told his brother of his good fortune, and the easy quarters into which he had fallen. But Reginald was in too defiant a mood to share these regrets as much as he would have done at any other time. As long as Durfy wanted to get rid of him, so long was he determined to stay where he was, and meanwhile in young Gedge he had some one to look after, which would make the drudgery of his daily work tolerable.

Horace did not altogether like it, but he knew it was no use arguing then on the subject. They mutually agreed to put the best face on everything before their mother. She was there to meet them at the door, and it rejoiced her heart to hear their brave talk and the cheery story of their day’s adventures. All day long her heart had gone out to them in yearnings of prayer and hope and love, and it repaid her a hundred-fold, this hour of happy meeting, with the sunlight of their faces and the music of their voices filling her soul.

As soon as supper was over Reginald suggested a precipitate retreat into the streets, for fear of another neighbourly incursion. Mrs Cruden laughingly yielded, and the trio had a long walk, heedless where they went, so long as they were together. They wandered as far as Oxford Street, looking into what shops were open, and interested still more in the ever-changing stream of people who even at ten o’clock at night crowded the pavements. They met no one they knew, not even Booms. But it mattered little to them that no one noticed them. They had one another, and there was a sense of security and comfort in that which before these last few weeks they had never dreamed of.

They were about to turn out of Oxford Street on their homeward journey when a loud shout close by arrested their attention. Looking round, they saw a boy with disordered dress and unsteady gait attempting to cross the road just as a hansom cab was bearing down at full speed on the place where he stood. They only saw his back, but it was evident he was either ill or dazed, for he stood stupidly where he was, with the peril in full-view, but somehow helpless to avoid it. The cabman shouted and pulled at his horse’s head. But to the horrified onlookers it was only too clear that