Despair's Last Journey Part 24

'You said distinctly,' said Pauer, '"gild the boots that lace the golden legs."'

'Ferry well,' said Darco. 'I zay zo. Vot _are_ you talking apout?'

Pauer looked at his watch.

'I must settle up and march, George,' he said 'If you carry that business through, let me know. I'm willing to join.'

He followed his circus, which, as Paul gathered, had made a start at five o'clock that morning, and Darco and his new secretary took train for London. The two had a second-cla.s.s carriage to themselves.

'You haf lodgings somevares--eh? Darco asked.

'In Charterhouse Square,'Paul answered.

'That is too far away,' said his employer. 'I lif at Hamp-stead. You must get lotchings glose by me. You haf got no money?'

'No money,' said Paul.

'That is a vife-bound node,' said Darco. 'Co to your lotchings and bay your pill. I shall stop it out of your zalery. Then you will gome to me at this attress.' He gave minute directions about omnibuses green and red and yellow, and all these Paul stored away in his memory as well as he could. 'Now, berhabs,' said his employer, 'you think I am a vool to gif you a vife-bound node. But if you are not honest I shall be rit of you jeaply, and I shall know at vonce.'

Paul fired a little at this.

'If you don't think I am to be trusted you had better not employ me.'

'That is all right,' said Darco. 'I am Cheorge Dargo. I do things my own vay. Look here. Are you vond of imidading beobles?'

'No,' said Paul; 'not that I know of.'

'Don't pegin on me,' said Darco. 'There is everypody thinks he gan imidade me. All the beobles in all my gombanies dry it on. But bevore you can imidade a man he must haf zome beguliaridies. Now, I hafen't got any beguliaridies, and zo it's no good drying to imidade me.'

They parted at the London terminus. Paul made his way to Charterhouse Square, where he was received with marked disfavour. He paid his bill, packed his trunk--a small affair which he could shoulder easily--and set put for Darco's house. It was a little house, but it stood by itself in a very trim garden, and it was furnished in a style which made Paul gasp. He had been very poorly bred, and he had never had access to such a place in all his life before. The bevelled Venetian mirrors in their gilded frames, the rose-coloured blinds, the rich brocades and glittering gilding of the chairs, the Chinese dragons in porcelain, the very tongs and poker and fire-shovel of cut bra.s.s, astonished him. He thought that his employer must be a Croesus. This faith was confirmed when he was called into the library, where there was a wealth of books, n.o.bly bound.

'That gollection,' said Darco, 'gost me two thousand bounds. I am still adding to it. Here is an original Bigvig, the Bigvig of Jarles Tickens, with all the green covers bound with it up. Here is "Ton Quigsotte,"

the first et.i.tion in Sbanish. Here is the "Dreacle Piple," berfect, from tidel page to the last line of Revelations. Here is efery blay-pill that has ever been issued at Her Majesty's Theatre from the time it vas opened until now.' He patted and fondled his treasure with a smiling pride and affection. 'They are not to be touched,' he said, 'on any bretext. Nopoty stobs in my house a minute who touches my books. I am Cheorge Dargo, ant ven I zay a thing I mean it' He pointed to a door.

'Through that,' he said, 'is a lafadory. You can vash your hands and gome and haf lunge.'

Paul obeyed, and at the luncheon-table was introduced to Mrs. Darco, a lean brunette, who by way of establis.h.i.+ng her own dignity was sulkily disdainful of the newcomer. He was glad to escape into the library, where Darco set him to work on more correspondence--an endless whirl of it, diversified with family skirmishes.

'Now, who the tevil has been mettling again with my babers? I haf dolt eferybody I will not haf my babers mettled.' Then a dash to the door, and an inquiry trumpeted up the stairway. 'Who the tevil has been mettling with my babers?'

Then a shrill inquiry from above.

'What's the matter, George?'

'Nothings. I know where I but it now. I will not haf my babers mettled.'

Then more dictation, the dictator waddling fiercely across the room and back again for ten minutes or so. Then a rush to the door, and a new call upstairs.

'Who the tevil---- Oh, it's all right I remember where

I put it.'

Then more dictation, and a third rush.

'Who the tevil----'

Then a hurricane of whirling skirts upon the stairs, and on a sudden Mrs. Darco, kneeling on the floor, wrestling both hands above her head, and shrieking. Mr. Darco darted and shook her as if she had been a doormat.

'Get ub! No volly--no volly!'

Mrs. Darco got up and walked soberly upstairs.

'It is klopulus hysteriga,' said Mr. Darco, with a startling calm. 'And that is the only way to dreat it But I will not haf my babers mettled.'

Then more dictation, until Paul's mind was crossed by a sudden recollection.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' he said, diving his hand into his pocket. 'I forgot to give you the change out of that five-pound note.'

'Keep it,' said Darco. 'You will haf to look resbegdable if you stay here. You will haf to puy things.'

'I don't like to take it, sir, until I have earned it.'

'Now,' said Darco, 'who do you subbose you are? If you want to stob here, you will do as you are dold to do. I am Cheorge Dargo. I do not sbeak to beobles dwice.'

'Oh, very well, sir,' said Paul, and went on writing from dictation.

'Now,'said Darco, 'you haf got all the attresses at the foot of the ledders. Attress an envelope for each ledder, and leave them all oben for my signature. I am going to zleep for half an hour.'

He plunged into an armchair, closed his eyes, and in a minute he was snoring regularly and deeply. Paul performed his task, and sat idle for a time. At the end of the stipulated half-hour Darco ceased to snore, opened his eyes, yawned and stretched as if he longed to fall in pieces, and instantly fell to work again. He made Paul read aloud the whole afternoon's correspondence, signed each sheet in a hand of clerk-like precision, but with a great deal more than clerk-like character in it, saw all the letters and envelopes stamped, rang the bell, and sent his correspondence to the post.

'Ant now,' he said, 'I haf got to pekin my day's work.' Paul stared a little, but made no answer. 'You had petter gome with me,' said Darco.

'It will help you to learn your business.'

Paul a.s.sisted his employer into the big fur coat, a.s.sumed his own and the shabby cap Pauer had given him, and went out at Darco's heels. A closed brougham waited in the street. They entered and were driven away.

It was nearing six o'clock by this time, and as they were driven downhill they came into a stratum of cold yellow fog, through which the gas-lamps stared with a bleared and drunken look. The vehicle rumbled along for some three-quarters of an hour, and pulled up in a shabby side-way strewn with cabbage-leaves and all manner of decaying vegetable offal Darco rolled out of the brougham, and plunged with a waddling swiftness into a narrow, ill-lit pa.s.sage which smelt of escaping gas.

Paul followed, and in half a minute found himself for the first time within the walls of a theatre and on the stage. The darkened auditorium loomed beyond the solitary T-bracket like a great sepulchre. A hundred people, more or less, were gathered on the stage.

'Act dwo!' roared Darco at the moment of his entrance. 'Glear for Act dwo.' People began to dribble into the outlying darkness. 'Do you hear?'

he stormed, clapping his hands together. 'Glear for Act dwo. Look here, ladies and chentlemen, I am Cheorge Dargo. I do not zay to anypoty twice.'

From the moment when he gripped the idea that this was a rehearsal the place was a fairyland to Paul. Darco stormed round, correcting everybody, acted for everybody, and a little man, who was barricaded behind an enormous moustache, and seemed to be second in command, echoed the chief's commands plaintively:

'Oh I say, now, why don't you? You got that cross marked down last night.'

'You're Binda, are you?' said Darco, addressing one pale and trembling young woman who had just tried an entrance. 'Veil, now, look here. I don't sbeak to beobles twice. Binda is a light, high-sbirited kirl She is all light and laughder and nonsense. See? She gums hob, skib, and chump. Like this.'

He waddled furiously to the wing and made the entrance. He was ludicrous, he was grotesque, but somehow he conveyed the idea he desired to convey. The girl tried again, but failed to satisfy him.

'Vere do you garry your prains?' he asked. 'In your boods?'