Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a
limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there
seemed good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn
out novels year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers
would acquire the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the
libraries and bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he
had discarded the baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of
Mark.
"Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able
but unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle
splendour, but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being
alliterative, conjures up a vision of some one strong and beautiful
and good, a sort of blend of Georges Carpentier and the Reverend
What's-his-name."
One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on
the third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some
length, for the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a
rectory garden looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing
at greater length the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long
line of rectors and archdeacons, when she discovers for the first
time that the postman is attractive.
"Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars
and the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the East Essex News. Their eyes
met, for the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be
quite the same again. Cost what it might she felt that she must
speak, must break the intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on
them. 'How is your mother's rheumatism?' she said."
The author's labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a
maidservant.
"A gentleman to see you, sir," said the maid, handing a card with
the name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; "says it's important."
Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor's
mission was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the
name Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience.
Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead,
cold grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching
purpose. He had a large book under his arm, and there seemed every
probability that he had left a package of similar volumes in the
hall. He took a seat before it had been offered him, placed the
book on the table, and began to address Mellowkent in the manner of
an "open letter."
"You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books--"
"I am engage on a book at the present moment--rather busily
engaged," said Mellowkent, pointedly.
"Exactly," said the intruder; "time with you is a commodity of
considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value."
"They have," agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch.
"That," said Caiaphas, "is why this book that I am introducing to
your notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. 'Right
Here' is indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary
encyclopaedia, or I should not trouble to show it to you. It is an
inexhaustible mine of concise information--"
"On a shelf at my elbow," said the author, "I have a row of
reference books that supply me with all the information I am likely
to require."
"Here," persisted the would-be salesman, "you have it all in one
compact volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to
look up, or the fact you desire to verify, 'Right Here' gives you
all that you want to know in the briefest and most enlightening
form. Historical reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let
us say. Here we are: 'Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer.
Born 1369, burned at Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund
universally blamed.'"
"If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected
the Suffragettes," observed Mellowkent.
"Poultry-keeping, now," resumed Caiaphas, "that's a subject that
might crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we
have all about it: 'The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal
instinct in the Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure.
Ducklings for the early market, how fattened.' There, you see,
there it all is, nothing lacking."
"Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could
hardly be expected to supply."
"Sporting records, that's important, too; now how many men, sporting
men even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in
any particular year? Now it's just a little thing of that sort--"
"My dear sir," interrupted Mellowkent, "there are at least four men
in my club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given
year, but what horse ought to have won and why it didn't. If your
book could supply a method for protecting one from information of
that sort it would do more than anything you have yet claimed for
it."
"Geography," said Caiaphas, imperturbably; "that's a thing that a
busy man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over.
Only the other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the
Black Sea instead of the Caspian; now, with this book--"
"On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable
and up-to-date atlas," said Mellowkent; "and now I must really ask
you to be going."
"An atlas," said Caiaphas, "gives merely the chart of the river's
course, and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now Right
Here gives you the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the
prevalent types of fish, boatmen's slang terms, and hours of sailing
of the principal river steamers. If gives you--"
Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitiless
salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installed
himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares.
A spirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why
could he not live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why
must he sit here weakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing
tirade, why could he not be Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments,
and meet this man on level terms?
A sudden inspiration flashed across his.
"Have you read my last book, The Cageless Linnet?" he asked.
"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas tersely.
"Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to," exclaimed
Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; "published at six
shillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in
chapter five that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in
the birch copse waiting for Harold Huntingdon--that is the man her
family want her to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but
she does not discover that till chapter fifteen. Listen: 'Far as
the eye could stretch rolled the mauve and purple billows of
heather, lit up here and there with the glowing yellow of gorse and
broom, and edged round with the delicate greys and silver and green
of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown butterflies fluttered
above the fronds of heather, revelling in the sunlight, and overhead
the larks were singing as only larks can sing. It was a day when
all Nature--"
"In 'Right Here' you have full information on all branches of Nature
study," broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his
voice for the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration,
reclamation of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal
with the varied interests of life--"
"I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, The
Reluctance of Lady Cullumpton," said Mellowkent, hunting again
through the bookshelf; "some people consider it my best novel. Ah,
here it is. I see there are one or two spots on the cover, so I
won't ask more than three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you
how it opens:
"'Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room,
her eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her
lips trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand
she carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood.
Something snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan
into a dozen pieces.'
"There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at
once that there's something afoot."
"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas sullenly.
"But just think what a resource they are," exclaimed the author, "on
long winter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a
strained ankle--a thing that might happen to any one; or if you were
staying in a house-party with persistent wet weather and a stupid
hostess and insufferably dull fellow-guests, you would just make an
excuse that you had letters to write, go to your room, light a
cigarette, and for three-and-ninepence you could plunge into the
society of Beatrice Lady Cullumpton and her set. No one ought to
travel without one or two of my novels in their luggage as a stand-
by. A friend of mine said only the other day that he would as soon
think of going into the tropics without quinine as of going on a
visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in his kit-bag. Perhaps
sensation is more in your line. I wonder if I've got a copy of The
Python's Kiss."
Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that
thrilling work of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no
time to waste on monkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and
departed. He made no audible reply to Mellowkent's cheerful "Good
morning," but the latter fancied that a look of respectful hatred
flickered in the cold grey eyes.
_________
-THE END-
[Hector Hugh Munro] Saki's short story: Mark
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