I can," said Richard, perhaps a little annoyed, until he recollected that Mr. Aked had used exactly the same phrase on a previous occasion.
"I'll pay for the wine."
"Not at all—"
"I'll pay for the wine," Mr. Aked repeated decisively.
"All right. You told me about this Soho place before, if you remember."
"So I did, so I did, so I did."
"What made you turn back?"
"A whim, young friend, nothing else. Take my arm."
Richard laughed aloud, for no reason in particular, except that he felt happy. They settled to a brisk walk.
* * * * *
The restaurant was a square apartment with a low and smoky beamed ceiling, and shining brass hat-pegs all round the walls; above the hat-pegs were framed advertisements of liqueurs and French, Italian, and Spanish wines. The little tables, whose stiff snowy cloths came near to touching the floor at every side, gleamed and glittered in the light of a fire. The place was empty save for an old waiter who was lighting the gas. The waiter turned a large, mild countenance to Mr. Aked as the two entered, and smiling benignly greeted him with a flow of French, and received a brief reply in the same language. Richard failed to comprehend what was said.
They chose a table near the fire. Mr. Aked at once pulled a book from his pocket and began to read; and Richard, somewhat accustomed by this time to his peculiarities, found nothing extraordinary in such conduct. This plain little restaurant seemed full of enchantment. He was in Paris,—not the great Paris which is reached via Charing Cross, but that little Paris which hides itself in the immensity of London. French newspapers were scattered about the room; the sound of French voices came musically through an open door; the bread which was presently brought in with the hors d'oeuvre was French, and the setting of the table itself showed an exotic daintiness which he had never seen before.
Outside a barrel organ was piercingly strident in the misty dusk. Above the ground-glass panes of the window, Richard could faintly descry the upper storeys of houses on the opposite side of the road. There was a black and yellow sign, "Umberto Club," and above that a blue and red sign, "Blanchisserie française." Still higher was an open window from which leaned a young, negligently dressed woman with a coarse Southern face; she swung a bird-cage idly in her hand; the bird-cage fell and was swallowed by the ground glass, and the woman with a gesture of despair disappeared from the window; the barrel organ momentarily ceased its melody and then struck up anew.
Everything seemed strangely, delightfully unsubstantial, even the meek, bland face of the waiter as he deftly poured out the soup. Mr. Aked, having asked for the wine list, called "Cinquante, Georges, s'il vous plait," and divided his attention impartially between his soup and his book. Richard picked up the "Echo de Paris" which lay on a neighbouring chair. On the first page was a reference in displayed type to the success of the feuilleton "de notre collaborateur distingué," Catulle Mendès. How wondrously enticing the feuilleton looked, with its descriptive paragraphs cleverly diversified by short lines of dialogue, and at the end "CATULLE MENDÈS, à suivre. Réproduction interdite!" Half Paris, probably, was reading that feuilleton! Catulle Mendès was a real man, and no doubt eating his dinner at that moment!
When the fish came, and Georges had gently poured out the wine, Mr. Aked's tongue was loosed.
"And how has the Muse been behaving herself?" he began.
Richard told him, with as little circumlocution as pride would allow, the history of the last few sterile months.
"I suppose you feel a bit downhearted."
"Not in the least!" answered Richard, bravely, and just then his reply was approximately true.
"Never feel downhearted?"
"Well, of course one gets a bit sick sometimes."
"Let's see, to-day's the 30th. How many words have you written this month?"
"How many words!" Richard laughed. "I never count what I do in that way. But it's not much. I haven't felt in the humour. There was the funeral. That put me off."
"I suppose you think you must write only when the mood is on you." Mr. Aked spoke sarcastically, and then laughed. "Quite a mistake. I'll give you this bit of advice and charge nothing for it. Sit down every night and write five hundred words descriptive of some scene which has occurred during the day. Never mind how tired you are; do it. Do it for six months, and then compare the earlier work with the later, and you'll keep on."
Richard drank the wisdom in.
"Did you do that once?"
"I did, sir. Everyone does it that comes to anything. I didn't come to anything, though I made a bit of money at one time. But then mine was a queer case. I was knocked over by dyspepsia. Beware of dyspepsia. I was violently dyspeptic for twenty years—simply couldn't write. Then I cured myself. But it was too late to begin again." He spoke in gulps between mouthfuls of fish.
"How did you cure yourself?"
The man took no notice of the question, and went on:—
"And if I haven't written anything for twenty years, I'm still an author at heart. In fact, I've got something 'in the air' now. Oh! I've always had the literary temperament badly. Do you ever catch yourself watching instinctively for the characteristic phrase?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean."
"Eh?"
Richard repeated what he had said, but Mr. Aked was absorbed in pouring out another glass of wine.
"I wish you'd tell me," Richard began, after a pause, "how you first began to write, or rather to get printed."
"My dear little friend, I can't tell you anything new. I wrote for several years and never sold a line. And for what peculiar reason, should you think? Simply because not a line was worth printing. Then my things began to be accepted. I sold a story first; I forget the title, but I remember there was a railway accident in it, and it happened to come before the editor of a magazine just when everyone was greatly excited about a railway smash in the West of England. I got thirty shillings for that."
"I think I should get on all right enough if only I could sell one thing." Richard sighed.
"Well, you must wait. Why, damn it all, man!"—he stopped to drink, and Richard noticed how his hand shook. "How long have you been working seriously? Not a year! If you were going in for painting, you surely wouldn't expect to sell pictures after only a year's study?" Mr. Aked showed a naïve appreciation of himself in the part of a veteran who deigns to give a raw recruit the benefit of vast experience.
"Of course not," assented Richard, abashed.
"Well, then, don't begin to whine."
After the cheese Mr. Aked ordered coffee and cognac, and sixpenny cigars. They smoked in silence.
"Do you know," Richard blurted out at length, "the fact is I'm not sure that I'm meant for writing at all. I never take any pleasure in writing. It's a confounded nuisance." He almost trembled with apprehension as he uttered the words.
"You
