Part 4 (1/2)

”Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know.”

”Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert always talks about,”

answered Henry, brightening.

”That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor Smith--with the accent on the Trev. There's such a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's got to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to be buried in the crowd.”

”I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor Smith,” replied Henry, who, it will be seen, was beginning to know something of the social graces.

”Right you are, young 'un,” said the breezy one. ”I'm just back from my fortnight's holidays. Been to London, don't you know. Jolly time.

Thought I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See you later, and tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off. Big case on at the police court this morning.”

Mr. Smith--Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please--was indeed a person who had a.s.sumed considerable importance in Henry's mind before he met him face to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom good Mrs. Filbert set much store.

”'E's that smart,” she told Henry the first night he had stayed beneath her roof ”there's no sayin' what he don't know. He writes a many fine things in the _Guardian_, specially 'is story of the Mop, which my Tommy read out quite easy-like last October.”

”He'll be a journalist, then,” Henry suggested.

”Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways, e's a heditor or a reporter or somethink. The _Guardian_ pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must be clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody likes Mr. Trevor.”

It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune that had brought him to the very house where one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and although keenly disappointed at the melancholy falling off in his actual experience of life under the aegis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his vision of what that was to be, he now looked forward to meeting Mr.

Trevor Smith with the hope that he might point the way to better things.

The exact position of that local representative of the Fourth Estate is best defined as district reporter. The paper which employed him was published in the busy industrial centre of Wheelton, some twenty-five miles distant, where it maintained a struggling existence as the _Wheelton Guardian_.

It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column of notes on men and affairs in the Stratford district every week, to supply reports of the local police court proceedings, munic.i.p.al meetings, and so forth, and also to canva.s.s for advertis.e.m.e.nts, the few hundred copies of the paper sold in Stratford every week, thanks to these attractions, being mendaciously headed _Stratford Guardian_.

What the district reporter--who occasionally hinted that he was really the editor when he saw a chance to impress a stranger thereby--called ”the office,” was a desk in the back premises of the news-agent and fancy-goods-shop whence the _Guardian_ was distributed weekly.

Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of his business to be well liked, and if there was a good deal of humbug about him, he was still excellent value to the _Guardian_ for the twenty-one s.h.i.+llings which the proprietors of that journal paid him each week. One does not expect genius for a guinea a week; not even the ability to write English. But it is a mistake to suppose the latter is ever required of a district reporter. The essential qualifications are a working knowledge of shorthand and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor Smith was deficient in neither; certainly not in the latter quality. He was generously impressed with the magnitude of his importance, and had chosen the Miltonic motto for his ”Stratford Notes and Comments”:

”GIVE ME THE LIBERTY TO KNOW, TO THINK, AND TO UTTER FREELY ABOVE ALL OTHER LIBERTIES.”

He took this liberty whenever he knew that the weight of local opinion tended in a certain direction. At other times he was lavish in his use of complimentary adjectives concerning every one he wrote about, from the Mayor to the town crier. No wonder he was popular.

The notes which appeared in the _Guardian_ during its reporter's holiday were from another hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty pen was at work again. It is one of the strangest experiences that comes to the writing man--this interest of the layman in anyone who writes words that are printed. We seldom feel interested in the personality of the man who made our watch, but the fellow who wrote the report of the tea-meeting we attended last week--ah, there's something to stir the blood!

Now that they had met, these two, Henry was throbbing with excitement to hear what his new friend had to tell him of life and its wonders. Nor was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the youth.

”By Jove, London's the place,” he observed to Henry as he dug his teeth into a juicy tart--one of many received that day in Henry's weekly hamper from home. ”London's the place! Just fancy, I saw the huge building of the _Morning Sunburst_, Johnnies at the door in livery, hundreds of people running out and in; and the chap that edits that paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week reporter on that rag the _Stratford Times_, which isn't a patch on the _Guardian_.”

”He must be very clever.”

”Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty small beer in Stratford,”

pursued the lively Trevor, helping himself to a third tart from Henry's store. ”Then there's Wilkins of the _Pictorial Globe_, a glorious crib--fifteen hundred a year, I'll bet. He used to run that rocky little rag-bag the _Arden Advertiser_. You should see his office in the Strand.

By gum--a palace, my boy, a palace!”