The hoarding

Front matter

Glass _P Z. 3_

Book ■ (3 c l f t Gopyriglit N n _ V\ a.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Chapter 1

Because I once told the story of a man in the cotton trade there has been thrust upon me a tale of a very different sort, yet with a background of com¬ mercialism. The man who told me the story knew, I think, two, if not three, of the chief people in it, and knew them fairly well. ‘‘ Advertising, ? ’ said this friend of mine once when in Weftport, “advertising, Elmslie, is now a—‘profession/ It’s their own word, the men who run it. And when you get something deeply enough established to give it a sort of right to call itself by that style (pretentious, perhaps?), you are likely to discover that many things are be¬ coming involved—deep things even of the heart. Every human business is bound to be charged, whether in its remoter or more obvious passages, with the stuff of human passions (a piece of cloth in a window—well, the physical seeming of some immortal made it, perhaps suffered to make it).”

And this so-called “profession” must now be sup¬ posed to have its human, even its spiritual, side— and its stories.

Well, here is the story as it was handed to me.

I have only this to add. I don’t accept responsi¬ bility for anything, and I am not writing to endorse the methods of a man who, for instance, found that the practice of his profession admitted of the use of the genius of one of the first of English painters.

And yet I suppose he would argue that twenty years of perfect art on the walls would reshape our psychology. However, what matter my view? This is his story, not mine. —R. Elmslie.

The story seems properly to begin with the record of one Higgs, “ex-service man,” and at this fateful hour in charge of a lift in Imperial Buildings, E.C.— a small man with red peppery eyes. He stands out a sort of human absurdity, a grotesque, a mere figure of fun whose contribution, taken as we have to take it, is not at all in part with what follows. A man of an infinite stupidity, his story has to be reconstructed —and in terms other than his own.

He wasn’t without his philosophy. “Them as is et the top, they’re et the bottom. It’s es they begin to go up that they comes dahn. A floor at a time. And them es is et the top, you’ll find on the grahnd floor.”

The wars in which he had taken a part understood to be distinguished, were securely hidden in the dark recesses of the Past. “Ex-service” has no reference to our last war; but the criticism of the controlling powers was not very different from what it has come to be in these times. To the mind of Higgs these powers were presented as intriguing, oppressive, and obscurely in league with Circumstance and Environ¬ ment for his own undoing.

“They likes to dahn yer. When I ’es to turn to on me own I starts a fish and chips. I calls it the ‘Imperial Fish and Chips.’ Did anybody ’elp me— try to ’elp? Naw! The public, es yer call it, went to a long-nosed feller in the next street wot also ’ed a fish and chips—a sheeny, a dirty sheeny. There weren’t no encouragement for what they call enter¬ prise. Nen! I always thought I’d like to ’ev a little business—puppy fancyin’, costering, or them there fish and chips. And there’s naw chawnce for nobody nahdays. Nen! Threawing money away.”

He’d talk like that of blighted ambitions. Perhaps it was an ironical direction of Fate that this very man should be witness—first, most relevant witness -—to the rise of another ambition lifting itself from a foundation little less obscure than his own. For one morning brought into the handsome marble hall of that A section of Imperial Buildings in which Mr. Higgs stood, the figure of a young man. He was a tallish young man, overgrown, “weedy,” with a figure which had not yet taken shape, the shoulders being too close together—an effect accentuated by the badly fitting new clothes.

He had a long face and lanky black hair brushed back from the ears, clear grey eyes under black and rather remarkably arched eyebrows, a big, generous mouth, and good teeth. But the whole gesture of the man was that of youth—so much so, indeed, that it no sooner caught the observation of Mr. Higgs than it set up suspicions.

“Naw, yer don’t,” Mr. Higgs announced at once, seeing that the figure bore towards him. “Orfice boys can use the stairs.”

Since the incident came to possess the tragic sig¬ nificance of history, it is perhaps worth mentioning that even as the words left his lips Higgs had a premonition: he said so afterwards, and not so long afterwards.

“I beg your pardon.” The words, spoken slowly, even idly, had an inflexion of curiosity.

“I said,” repeated Higgs rather shrilly, and he did not easily run to shrillness, 4 ‘that a norffice boy--”

“Meaning me?”

Higgs became aware of two grey eyes that con¬ centrated upon him with a force that he found dis¬ concerting.

“Meanin’ you,” answered Higgs.

“I don’t think you mean me,” said the young man rather gently.

“But I do mean you. A norffice boy like you-”

“Yes, like me, but not me. I don’t think I’d mean me if I were you.”

Confused by this dialectical thrust, Mr. Higgs still struggled to maintain his original place in the situa¬ tion. He stood still now, arms akimbo, slightly swell¬ ing his cheeks, trying to discover with what kind of creature he had to do. He was like a bull in that sunny corner of Europe where it is accounted no more cruel to torment furious cattle in a ring than to worry timid stags with hounds. There stood Mr. Higgs, the hull, with the first dart in its shoulder, puffily taking stock of the position, meditating a charge, but uncertain and suspicious.

4 4 Mean you. Why shouldn ’t I mean you f ’ ’ he got out at last.

4 4 Because, ” said the youth still gently , 4 4 it mightn’t be a very good thing—for you. You see, you’re, after all, the servant of the tenants.” His blandness had become something in the nature of a miracle to the perturbed Higgs.

There he stood, that boy, to the dull eye of Higgs still a boy in his teens—with only those curiously deep, observant eyes, and a jaw oddly firm and devel¬ oped for one of his years, to give character or dignity to his appearance. It wasn’t sense nohow, the con¬ fused mind of Higgs was telling himself, that this ’ere feller should be standing there talking to ’im; and still this intolerable phenomenon of youth, ram¬ pant, copious, redundant, unconquerable, pervasive, stood there, a portent, a calamity pendulous; and still he went on speaking.

44 You are paid so much a week—I don’t know how much—not a great deal, but then probably you don’t deserve a great deal. ’ ’

44 ’Ere—nen o’ thet; and es to what I deserve, let me learn you, me lad, I’ve served me country. If it wasn’t for the likes of me, the likes of you would be —would be ”

“Oh, no we wouldn’t!” put in the youth calmly. “That’s hot air—pure hot air. Where are your medals, by the way?—or perhaps they forgot to give ’em to you. No!” with quiet assurance, “I thought not.” For Mr. Higgs was puffing in silent fury; he was now nearly helpless. There were lots of things he would like to have done, but more than anything else he would have liked to discover why he did none of the things he wanted to do—throw the boy out, throttle him, even turn about and leave him where he stood. But words, if not the words he precisely wanted, seemed to come through his lips at last.

“Medals. Medals, think I wear my medals-”

“No. Quite straight, I don’t. But, look here—” the manner of the youth had changed suddenly—the tone was firmer, less gentle—“I didn’t come here to talk all day about your medals that don’t exist; you remember your manners when you’re addressing a tenant! ’ ’

“Tenant!” screamed Higgs in a wonderful cres¬ cendo in which alarm and confusion mingled with fury. “Tenant!” He really thought he’d got a point at last. “You’re not a tenant!”

“At the moment—no. But,” continued this as¬ tonishing and imperturbable young man, “ it is really largely your fault that I’m not. You’re keeping me back. I’m not a tenant at this moment; but I shall be one by to-morrow.”

“ You! ” If Mr. Higgs had meant the monosyllable to express contempt he had failed of his intention. The thing was more like helpless terror than anything else. Of course, what this norffice boy said was all me eye; but the faice of ’im and what an idea: *e was glad it was me eye because to ’ave ’im about every day when ten minutes of ’im had nearly been too much—well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

But it seemed that the obscure and hideous pur¬ pose which this strange youth had professed was not a mere profession.

“You seem to doubt me. I suppose you can’t understand anybody wanting to live in the same building as yourself. And there I am with you. You really show your intelligence in that-”

“Not so much abaht it! I never said nothing of the kind. I-”

“Oh, don’t be modest, and, if I may say it, don’t talk so much! And look here, Henderson-”

“My nime isn’t ’Enderson,” Mr. Higgs began to declare wildly. It might have been supposed that he had been given the name of some notorious contem¬ porary homicidal maniac by his revulsion from it. “My name’s ’Iggs, and you’d better know it.”

“I didn’t call you ’Enderson; that’s the first point. I don’t think much of ’Iggs as a name; that’s the second point. The third point is where is the care¬ taker who has the letting of the offices? I’ve got an order to view No. 47 top floor back.”

“Why didn’t yer sye so before?” said Mr. Higgs sulkily. The impossible seemed to be true: this ’ere lad—don’t look as if ’e ’ad ’is first shave yet—was after an orffice; and now, suddenly, a new idea oc¬ curred and his manner visibly changed—became steadier, more amiable. For if, later, he could im¬ pose the idea on the secretary of the company owning the building that he’d found the tenant there’d be a small fee for him.

“ You dawn’t need to werry about thet there care¬ taker. ’E’s out, as a matter of fact. 1 ken get the key outer the desk yonder and ren you up in a minute —sir. 77

The last came unwillingly, but he was now out to conciliate.

‘ ‘ Very well. Move, man, move. 7 7

Mr. Higgs suddenly became the functionary— stepped into his lift, made a dramatic movement in the cage in order by the motion alone to welcome the new tenant within, and at the same time to offer him a service both devoted and lifelong, and when the youth had entered, with a gesture that was histrionic¬ ally distinguished, pulled the lever which set the lift in motion.

“ You mustn’t expect a big orfice,” he began at once, to discount any objections which might later be raised. “It ain’t a big orfice; but there’s been some nice fortunes been begun in it, I 7 m told, though I can’t swear not ’eving been ’ere that many years, along of being ex-service and then trying fish an’ chips. But the last gentleman e’s down on the first floor already, and ’e ’ll be arfter the ground floor before long if ’e goes on doin’ as well as ’e’s doin’ now. ’ ’

“What’s his line?” asked the youth suddenly. It might have occurred to an observer that in the ges¬ ture which went with that inquiry now there was something that you might have called spring, pounce; you might, indeed, have got the idea that the young man saw something that he wanted.

“ Ts line is pills, ’ ’ answered Mr. Higgs. “ ’E’s Peter’s Pills for the Pulse. That’s ’oo ’e is.”

“I see; and”—for they were arrived by this at the top landing—“that’s 47, I take it. Not much of a place.”

“ No, but you ain’t seen inside. There’s views inside.”

“Views of what?”

“Views of other people’s winders, other people’s businesses. An’ don’ you despise thet. It done Pills for the Pulse naw ’arm. No, en’ I mean it. ’E was

ep ’ere in this winder one dye-” Mr. Higgs had

unlocked the door and had led the way into a small room (“Fifteen by twelve,” he called it) with two small, grimy windows commanding the view he’d described. Imperial Buildings were arranged on the empty square principle, and people in back rooms could, on all sides but their own, see people in other back rooms on every level. There was a sort of spir¬ itual indecency in this general exposure. The dread¬ ful masquerade of the human soul had here to be maintained through the day if secrets were to be. kept. But this fact was not one which affected Mr. Higgs. ‘ 4 ’E was in this winder one dye, ’ ’ continued the liftman, “and ’e looks out, and dahwn below.

orpysite, in block D thet is, ’e could see a chep—one of them cheps, wot d’yer call ’em?—with col¬ ours-”

“A painter?”

“No, not a painter. I don’ mean a feller that does work. ’’

“ Artist ?”

“Thet’s it, thet’s it—them that uses colours but don’t never do no work. Well there was this artist feller in the orfice dawhn there with a big piece of paper. It was an advert, that’s what it was.”

“A what?” The eagerness once before observ¬ able in the face of the young man was showing again.

“Advert. What you sees on the walls. Pictures to try to make you bay things. Not thet there’s anything in it that ever I could see. I bought some ‘Grip’ as they call it once, cos I seen it advertised— stuff that they say makes yer strong enough to jump. It never done me no good, and then there was-”

“But what about the artist?” broke in the young man impatiently.

4 4 Aren’t I telling yer ? ’E was ’olding up a picture 5 e’d been droring. And ’e was ’olding it up in that orfice because why—because that there orfice is the orfice of Beech, the ad. agents.”

“Who?—the what?” Again that excitement in the younger man.

“Beech, the ad. agents. Son of ’is father—that’s all ’e is. Naw ideas. Well, there was that young feller with ’is picture—it was a picture of a bloke that ’ed just taken a pill. But this was the thing abaht the picture—the bloke ’ad a grin—it was a grin that met you, so to speak. It would go right acrost the street. I dessay you seen it—though you didn’t see it cos Beech’s took it up for ’im.”

“You mean-”

“I mean Beech turned it dahn. Old-feshioned. Thet’s ’im all over. And the young feller—decent enough young feller I’m told, and not ’is fault that ’e was only an artist—was beginning to wrap it up. But that grin that ’e’d stuck on ’is bloke in the pic¬ ture was big enough to go right through the winder; an’ so it did, and it went right up till it met young Pills for the Pulse standing in ’is winder up ’ere. Well, if Beech didn’t see anything in that grin, Pills for the Pulse ’e did. An’ ’e seems to ’ev guessed what ’ed ’appened, and thet the feller was turned dahn, for he jest rens out o’ ’is orfice, ’its the bell for me, and I comes up at once (as I always do for tenants), and then dahn we goes together. And two minutes later there ’e was beck with a feller with long yeller ’air and a parcel what ’e called a portyfolio. And they didn’t mind me ’earing. ‘I saw they turned you down/ says Pills, ‘an I saw thet what they didn’t want was wot I did want, so you’d better come along up and talk abaht it. And so they did. Of course I didn’t hear no more. But in a week thet grin was all over the plyce on the placards. And, look ’ere. ’Ere’s the most remarkable thing!” Mr. Higgs, charmed and intrigued by the interest which he had evidently aroused in his listener, flut¬ tered an oil-stained dexter finger towards the youth;

n it seemed as if there was now being approached a climax so striking that the natural artist trembled lest he should fail in justice to the vast conception. “Yes, ’ere’s the most remarkable thing. That grin being everywhere and me feeling a bit queer, one night I—I bought them there Pills for the Pulse myself. ’ ’

It was at this junction that there came the most astonishing occurrence of the whole incident—the occurrence which stands out for ever in a mind not vivid, not quick in its reactions to Life. Mr. Higgs found his hand gripped. True, he did not under¬ stand the slow, whimsical smile in the face of the young man, nor the sufficiently obscure words spoken—

“You’re the man we are all watching!”

But, bemused though he felt, Higgs was gratified enough to attempt an answer.

4 ‘ Didn’t I tell you ? Where, I sez, would the likes of you be without the likes of me serving in them there outposts of the-”

“No, no, Higgs,” broke in the young man with his odd enigmatical smile. “Outposts my eye! It’s because you’re the wise, advertisement-reading, money-spending public that I’m on to you-”

“Yer mean,” began Mr. Higgs doubtfully, reluc¬ tantly surrendering the supposed tribute to his ser¬ vices in India. “Yer mean because I bought them there pills?”

“Exactly, because you bought them there pills,” said the young man with great calm. He seemed to find a subtle pleasure in using in bis own mouth the precise inflexions of the being on whom he found himself spending some curious interest. “And be¬ cause you bought them there pills, and because I like your face, I’m going to take this ’ere office.”

“Yes, sir. Thank yer, sir.” Mr. Higgs had an extraordinary sense of gratification; it was extraor¬ dinary because it was so completely unlike any kind of gratification he had ever experienced before.

For he could not in the least explain the circum¬ stances in which he was being made the recipient of the commendations which were gratifying him so much. But he had an idea that when the young man said he would take the office the young man ought to be thanked in an official manner. He (Higgs) conceived of himself as standing there now in place of the entire board of directors of Imperial Cham¬ bers Ltd.; and there was the possibility of the fee.

“If you’re taking the plyce, sir, I s’pose you wouldn’t mind taking it from me, as you might say; me being the agent—matter of small commish comes into it, if you see what I mean. ’ ’

“Oh, yes! Certainly, Higgs. I knew I’d get it— Higgs! Yes, Higgs, you can say that you let the place to me—that you swept away my objections in the torrents of your eloquence.”

“Dunno what yer mean abaht torrents. Never ’ad no torrents”—Mr. Higgs seemed to think that he must not own to torrents—“but if you’ll kindly say I let the orfice it’ll be orl right for me.”

“I will. That’s settled. Make your mind easy.

I’ll take possession to-morrow. And now you can run me down.’ ’

The journey to the ground took a minute only. It was on the ground floor that Higgs remembered something.

“You’ll be seeing the company’s secretary, I ex¬ pect. But in case yer don’t—in case I’m awsked— what would be the nime!”

He didn’t know, because Fate cannot always be at our ear whispering to us that here is something rele¬ vant to the profound and tragic interpretation of life as we may some day come to write it—he didn’t know that he should have dismissed much else from his mind to dwell the more fully upon this fact that now, for the first time, he heard this name spoken by the bearer of it.

“The name,” said the young man, half turning, for he had already started towards the exit, “is Boxrider—Richard Boxrider.”

CHAPTER 11

If you should want to trace Boxrider’s remoter origins you could do so, I suppose, by going down to Minton, N.E.—that last place on earth, that wide greyness in the panorama of London—“London over the border/’ you are taught to call it—some¬ thing too neutral to be mistaken for the London of colours and blacknesses—a place where men move, indistinguishable before that background to an end mysterious with that truest mystery which has suc¬ ceeded, not in holding curiosity at bay, but in never letting it have being; and yet a place where each man is supported by the moral dignity of his own secret.

The Flatts Road Schools—one of those giant insti¬ tutions where young human nature is dealt with on the mass production principle—it was there that he seems to have got such schooling as he did get. Asked to discuss him in the light of subsequent his¬ tory, a bemused pale man with a narrow face, long nose and the pince-nez, badly balanced, that goes with the type, who admitted having been a master in the school, could be got to talk. He had a curi¬ ously spent air, and when he smiled, touching as he did his little straggly grey black beard, the smile struck you as being like the muscular reaction of the dead.

But he could certainly be got to talk. He had not turned out so many successes in the world that he could ignore those he had presented. He saw, he said, the greater part of the youth whom he’d tried to imbue with his few intellectual principles, in the shops of the district or carrying bricks up ladders or bestriding coal wagons. He used to wonder, hav¬ ing only an insecure philosophy, whether it was really worth the labour. “There’s that Walets now. I really put in a bit o’ work on him, and I thought he’d be some good. Figures were things he could play with—never knew a lad of his age more con¬ fident. But he sits on a lorry and doesn’t add two and two once a week, unless it’s to see he hasn’t been cheated of his wages. And there’s that George Smith. Quite a fist for freehand drawing. And seemed to like it too. But it’s been no use to him since he’s been on the bread round. And Peters— that boy was a reader. He found out I’d a few books. ‘And could you lend them, sir?’ Well, I did. He’s read all Dickens and he’s read history too. And blest if I didn’t set him on to the ‘Ancient Mariner.’ And what’s more he liked it. . . . When he came round to mend the roof, or rather to hold the ladder for the skilled man that did the job, ‘Reading still?’ I ask him. ‘Well, no,’ he says. ‘Can’t say I’ve got much time. . . . ’ They always run to that. No time. ‘No time for Eternity,’ as the old evangelists used to say. And I’m not sure they were not right. ...”

He spoke with a weariness that made those who heard him wonder if anything in the man now throbbed in unison with the great human reality sig¬ nified in the story of any beginning.

‘ 4 But, well, yes, Boxrider makes a change. Though mind you”—he paused, pushed his head forward in a way he had and, in continuing to speak, lowered his voice— 4 ‘mind you, I don’t know that I under¬ stood him.” He spoke as a man does who knows details without their interpretation. “With those others now you knew where you were. With him . . . extraordinary fellow. Persistence though; that was the thing at the bottom. Of course he’d got what you call a nose. No, not for learning. I don’t mean exactly what you’d call learning. Use¬ ful knowledge—that was what he seemed to be after. He began presently on my library. Finished it off in three months. But it was one night when he came in to borrow a book that I began to know what he was after. ‘Got any books on pictures?’ he asked. ‘Not many. You’re not interested in pictures, though, are you?’ I said, and I laughed, for he’d been no good at freehand. ‘No. But I wanted to know about that stuff we used to learn. What was it called?—Perspective?’ ‘So you do want to draw?’ ‘No, sir, I don’t,’ he says, ‘but I’ll show you. Come to the window.’

“I was sufficiently puzzled. But I went to the window, and down in the street at the corner to which his finger pointed there was one of those ad¬ vertisement hoardings. ‘See that, sir,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m interested in; I want to know how far away the things on that poster can he seen.’ ‘Do you think of painting things like that, Boxrider?’ I asked him. ‘No, I don’t—but I might pay other people to do that some day.’

“I didn’t say outright, ‘What do you mean by that?’ and there wasn’t much more talk. I was puz¬ zled, I admit, but not very greatly interested. I’ve so many of these boys going through my hands. A good fellow though, very scrupulous, I remember, in spite of being so cute; an unusual combination, I’ve found.” He went on talking slowly, drearily. He’d not been profoundly stirred by that first reve¬ lation of a young intent. Perhaps he ought not to have been. But the thing had, and has, its relevance to this story, of course.

“I didn’t hear news of him for a bit: lost sight of him, though I believe he was living at the old ad¬ dress; and then I heard he was in Jenkyns’—you know—on the Broadway. ‘Jenkyns’ Stores for Nearly Everything,’ as they’re called now. It was that boy who was responsible for the ‘nearly.’ Old Jenkyns was telling me about it. Boxrider, he said, came in one morning to ‘see the chief.’

“ ‘I thought,’ says Jenkyns, ‘he looked as if he’d the cheek for anything. But when he said he wanted a job, I gave him a chance as a junior hand in the toy department. But I soon found he was not the ordi¬ nary kind of junior hand. He’d been there a week when the department manager brought him to me. “This young man wants to speak to you.” I was a bit busy, so I says, ‘ Out with it. ’

“ ‘I’ve a suggestion,’ he says. ‘You call your stores “Jenkyns for Every thing. ’ ’ Why don’t you call it “Jenkyns for Nearly Everything?” ’

“ ‘Why on earth should I do that?’ I barked. I was a bit hit off my coco, but you know that lad was the kind that you couldn’t ignore—put outside, so to speak.

“ ‘Everybody says “for everything,” and it’s not true. Nobody’s thought of saying “nearly every¬ thing.” ’

“ ‘Oh, I see!’ says I. ‘Well, you’d better skip back to your work now and think about something else. ’

“ ‘But,’ says Jenkyns. ‘7 didn’t think about something else. I thought about that lad’s proposi¬ tion. And I saw he was right. We gave up a little and we got a lot. I tried the new style—and we’re known from one end of London to the other now by that name. It’s become a catchword that goes with my name. Only yesterday there was a leader in the “Daily Views,” and that said Downing Street is becoming like Jenkyns’ Stores, the place for nearly everything. . . . And there you are,’ goes on Jen¬ kyns. ‘Well, I used to give him some of our ads. to design after that—only we don’t do a great deal in that line of course. We’ve a big local trade, but not one that advertises a lot. All the same, I was thinking of finding him some kind of a job in my office—when he comes in one day and says he wants to give notice.

“ ‘Notice?’ says I. ‘Aren’t you satisfied?’

“ ‘It isn’t that, sir/ he said, ‘I’m going to begin on my own.’

“ ‘What, as a General Stores—because-’

“ ‘No, sir,’ he cut in, ‘as a publicity expert. Go¬ ing into the City and—I hope when you do want a little job doing you’ll remember me.’ ”

CHAPTER 111

I

Well, there he was duly established, you might say. There was a legend up and down those stairs within a week, or, one might more appropriately put it, up and down that lift. For Higgs, arbitrary as youth ordinarily found him to be, had decided in favour of that there young man up there; and the explanation of that approval was not alone to be found in the mere psychological one that Higgs’ mind instinctively rendered reverence to tenants— that his conception of the mere word “tenant” was of something that w^as set forth in capitals, in the way a king’s title ran. No, I should say, from what I’ve heard, that Higgs was a judge of character, and that even then Higgs was vaguely aware of the presence of circumstances dramatic and distin¬ guished. Briefly, I’m pretty sure that that man, looking out of his pair of red eyes, knew that he looked at a Beginning. And so he whispered; and the whispers crept up and down that lift. There were men on those dim staircases who took the legend from their liftman as he safely delivered them in their narrow doorways.