doubt it, my dear fellow,—I do not in the least doubt it. But a simple ‘gentleman’ is a long way below—or above—an Earl. Have it which side you choose!—because it really doesn’t matter nowadays. We have come to a period of history when rank and lineage count as nothing at all, owing to the profoundly obtuse stupidity of those who happen to possess it. So it chances, that as no resistance is made, brewers are created peers of the realm, and ordinary tradesmen are knighted, and the very old families are so poor that they have to sell their estates and jewels to the highest bidder, who is frequently a vulgar ‘railway-king’ or the introducer of some new manure. You occupy a better position than such, since you inherit your money with the farther satisfaction that you do not know how it was made.”
“True!” I answered meditatively,—then, with a sudden flash of recollection I added—“By the way I never told you that my deceased relative imagined that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that this vast fortune of his was the material result!”
Lucio burst into a violent fit of laughter.
“No! Not possible!” he exclaimed derisively—“What an idea! I suppose he had a screw loose somewhere! Imagine any sane man believing in a devil! Ha, ha, ha! And in these advanced days too! Well, well! The folly of human imaginations will never end! Here we are!”—and he sprang lightly out as the brougham stopped at the Grand Hotel—“I will say good-night to you, Tempest. I’ve promised to go and have a gamble.”
“A gamble? Where?”
“At one of the select private clubs. There are any amount of them in this eminently moral metropolis—no occasion to go to Monte Carlo! Will you come?”
I hesitated. The fair face of Lady Sibyl haunted my mind,—and I felt, with a no doubt foolish sentimentality, that I would rather keep my thoughts of her sacred, and unpolluted by contact with things of lower tone.
“Not to-night;”—I said,—then half smiling, I added—“It must be rather a one-sided affair for other men to gamble with you, Lucio! You can afford to lose,—and perhaps they can’t.”
“If they can’t, they shouldn’t play,”—he answered—“A man should at least know his own mind and his own capacity; if he doesn’t, he is no man at all. As far as I have learned by long experience, those who gamble like it, and when they like it, I like it. I’ll take you with me to-morrow if you care to see the fun,—one or two very eminent men are members of the club, though of course they wouldn’t have it known for worlds. You shan’t lose much—I’ll see to that.”
“All right,—to-morrow it shall be!”—I responded, for I did not wish to appear as though I grudged losing a few pounds at play—“But to-night I think I’ll write some letters before going to bed.”
“Yes—and dream of Lady Sibyl!” said Lucio laughing—“If she fascinates you as much when you see her again on Thursday you had better begin the siege!”
He waved his hand gaily, and re-entering his carriage, was driven off at a furious pace through the drifting fog and rain.
IX
My publisher, John Morgeson,—the estimable individual who had first refused my book, and who now, moved by self-interest, was devoting his energies assiduously to the business of launching it in the most modern and approved style, was not like Shakespeare’s Cassio, strictly ‘an honourable man.’ Neither was he the respectable chief of a long-established firm whose system of the cheating of authors, mellowed by time, had become almost sacred;—he was a ‘new’ man, with new ways, and a good stock of new push and impudence. All the same, he was clever, shrewd and diplomatic, and for some reason or other, had secured the favour of a certain portion of the press, many of the dailies and weeklies always giving special prominence to his publications over the heads of other far more legitimately dealing firms. He entered into a partial explanation of his methods, when, on the morning after my first meeting with the Earl of Elton and his daughter, I called upon him to inquire how things were going with regard to my book.
“We shall publish next week,”—he said, rubbing his hands complacently, and addressing me with all the deference due to my banking account—“And as you don’t mind what you spend, I’ll tell you just what I propose to do. I intend to write out a mystifying paragraph of about some seventy lines or so, describing the book in a vague sort of way as ‘likely to create a new era of thought’—or, ‘ere long everybody who is anybody will be compelled to read this remarkable work,’—or ‘as something that must be welcome to all who would understand the drift of one of the most delicate and burning questions of the time.’ These are all stock phrases, used over and over again by the reviewers,—there’s no copyright in them. And the last one always ‘tells’ wonderfully, considering how old it is, and how often it has been made to do duty, because any allusion to a ‘delicate and burning question’ makes a number of people think the novel must be improper, and they send for it at once!”
He chuckled at his own perspicuity, and I sat silent, studying him with much inward amusement. This man on whose decision I had humbly and anxiously waited not so many weeks ago was now my paid tool,—ready to obey me to any possible extent for so much cash,—and I listened to him indulgently while he went on unravelling his schemes for the gratification of my vanity, and the pocketing of his extras.
“The book has been splendidly advertised”—he went on; “It could not have been more lavishly done. Orders do not come in very fast yet—but they will,—they will. This paragraph of mine, which will take the shape of a ‘leaderette,’ I can get inserted in about eight hundred to a thousand newspapers here and in America. It will cost you,—say a hundred guineas—perhaps a trifle more. Do you mind that?”
“Not in the least!” I replied, still vastly amused.
He meditated a moment,—then drew his chair closer to mine and lowered his voice a little.
“You understand I suppose, that I shall only issue two hundred and fifty copies at first?”
This limited number seemed to me absurd, and I protested vehemently.
“Such an idea is ridiculous!” I said—“you cannot supply the trade with such a scanty edition.”
“Wait, my dear sir, wait,—you are too impatient. You do not give me time to explain. All these two hundred and fifty will be given away by me in the proper quarters on the day of publication,—never mind how,—they must be given away—”
“Why?”
“Why?” and the worthy Morgeson laughed sweetly—“I see, my dear Mr Tempest, you are like most men of genius—you do not understand business. The reason why we give the first two hundred and fifty copies away is in order to be able to announce at once in all the papers that ‘The First Large Edition of the New Novel by Geoffrey Tempest being exhausted on the day of publication, a Second is in Rapid Preparation.’ You see we thus hoodwink the public, who of course are not in our secrets, and are not to know whether an edition is two hundred or two thousand. The Second Edition will of course be ready behind the scenes, and will consist of another two hundred and fifty.”
“Do you call that course of procedure honest?” I asked quietly.
“Honest? My dear sir! Honest?” And his countenance wore a virtuously injured expression—“Of course it is honest! Look at the daily papers! Such announcements appear every day—in fact they are getting rather too common. I freely admit that there are a few publishers here and there who stick up for exactitude and go to the trouble of not
