The Greatest Works of J. M. Barrie: 90+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). James Matthew Barrie
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Even the men we looked upon as certainties have fallen short of our expectations. There is Mallock, now, who said that life was not worth living. I called on him only last week, fully expecting him to meet me half-way."
"And he didn't?"
"Mallock was a great disappointment," said the stranger, with genuine pain in his voice.
He liked Mallock.
"However," he added, brightening, "his case comes up for hearing at the next meeting. If I have two-thirds of the vote we proceed with it."
"But how do the authorities take it?" asked Andrew.
"Pooh!" said the stranger.
Andrew, however, could not think so.
"It is against the law, you know," he said.
"The law winks at it," the stranger said. "Law has its feelings as well as we. We have two London magistrates and a minister on the executive, and the Lord Chief Justice is an honorary member."
Andrew raised his eyes.
"This, of course, is private," continued the stranger. "These men join on the understanding that if anything comes out they deny all connection with us. But they have the thing at heart. I have here a very kind letter from Gladstone—"
He felt in his pockets.
"I seem to have left it at home. However, its purport was that he hoped we would not admit Lord Salisbury an honorary member."
"Why not?"
"Well, the Society has power to take from its numbers, so far as ordinary members are concerned, but it is considered discourteous to reduce the honorary list."
"Then why have honorary members?" asked Andrew in a burst of enthusiasm.
"It is a necessary precaution. They subscribe largely too. Indeed, the association is now established on a sound commercial basis. We are paying six per cent."
"None of these American preachers who come over to this country are honorary members?" asked Andrew, anxiously.
"No; one of them made overtures to us, but we would not listen to him. Why?"
"Oh, nothing," said Andrew.
"To do the honorary list justice," said his companion, "it gave us one fine fellow in our honorary president. He is dead now."
Andrew looked up.
"No, we had nothing to do with it. It was Thomas Carlyle."
Andrew raised his hat.
"Though he was over eighty years of age," continued the stranger. "Carlyle would hardly rest content with merely giving us his countenance. He wanted to be a working member. It was he who mentioned Froude's name to us."
"For honorary membership?"
"Not at all. Froude would hardly have completed the 'Reminiscences' had it not been that we could never make up our minds between him and Freeman."
Youth is subject to sudden fits of despondency. Its hopes go up and down like a bucket in a draw-well.
"They'll never let me join," cried Andrew, sorrowfully.
His companion pressed his hand.
"Three black balls exclude," he said, "but you have the president on your side. With my introduction you will be admitted a probationer, and after that everything depends on yourself."
"I thought you must be the president from the first," said Andrew, reverently.
He had not felt so humble since the first day he went to the University and walked past and repast it, frightened to go in.
"How long," he asked, "does the period of probation last?"
"Three months. Then you send in a thesis, and if it is considered satisfactory you become a member."
"And if it isn't?"
The president did not say.
"A thesis," he said, "is generally a paper with a statement of the line of action you propose to adopt, subject to the Society's approval. Each member has his specialty—as law, art, divinity, literature, and the like."
"Does the probationer devote himself exclusively during these three months to his thesis?"
"On the contrary, he never has so much liberty as at this period. He is expected to be practising."
"Practising?"
"Well, experimenting, getting his hand in, so to speak. The member acts under instructions only, but the probationer just does what he thinks best."
"There is a man on my stair," said Andrew, after a moment's consideration, "who asks his friends in every Friday night, and recites to them with his door open. I think I should like to begin with him."
"As a society we do not recognise these private cases. The public gain is so infinitesimal. We had one probationer who constructed a very ingenious water-butt for boys. Another had a scheme for clearing the streets of the people who get in the way. He got into trouble about some perambulators. Let me see your hands."
They stopped at a lamp-post.
"They are large, which is an advantage," said the president, fingering Andrew's palms; "but are they supple?"
Andrew had thought very little about it, and he did not quite comprehend.
"The hands," explained the president, "are perhaps the best natural weapon; but, of course, there are different ways of doing it."
The young Scotchman's brain, however, could not keep pace with his companion's words, and the president looked about him for an illustration.
They stopped at Gower Street station and glanced at the people coming out.
None of them was of much importance, but the president left them alone.
Andrew saw what he meant now, and could not but admire his forbearance.
They turned away, but just as they emerged into the blaze of Tottenham Court Road they ran into two men, warmly shaking hands with each other before they parted. One of them wore an eye-glass.
"Chamberlain!" exclaimed the president, rushing after him.
"Did you recognise the other?" said Andrew, panting at his heels.
"No! who was it?"
"Stead, of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.'"
"Great God," cried the president, "two at a time!"
He turned and ran back. Then he stopped irresolutely. He could not follow the one for thought of the other.
Chapter IV
The London cabman's occupation consists in dodging thoroughfares under repair.
Numbers of dingy streets have been flung about to help him. There is one of these in Bloomsbury, which was originally discovered by a student while looking for the British Museum. It runs a hundred yards in a straight line, then stops, like a stranger who has lost his way, and hurries by another route out of the neighbourhood.
The houses are dull, except one, just where it doubles, which is gloomy.
This house is divided into sets of chambers and has a new frontage, but it no longer lets well. A few years ago there were two funerals from it within a fortnight, and soon afterward another of the tenants was found at the foot of the stair with his neck broken. These fatalities gave the house a bad name, as such things do in London.
It was here that Andrew's patron, the president, lived.
To the outcast from work to get an object in life is to be born again. Andrew bustled to the president's chambers on the Saturday