My life and loves Vol. 2 Read online

  newsboys had assembled for the first edition. They talked loudly and seemed discontented, so I went in among them and asked one for his opinion.

  "There's a bloody bill!" cried the youngster disdainfully. He couldn't have been more than twelve, shoving the Evening News contents bill in my face.

  "A bloody bill; how do you expect us to sell papers on that?"

  "What's wrong with it?" I asked.

  "Nothing right!" was the reply. "Hain't there been a battle and great slaughter? Look at this Daily Telegraph bill. There's a real bill for ye; that'll sell paipers! Ours won't!"

  Of course I saw the difference at once, so I took the boy critic and a friend of his into my office and with the paper before us sat down to get out a new and sensational bill. Then I sent for the chief sub-editor, Abbott, and showed him the difference. To my amazement he defended his quiet bill. "It's a Conservative paper," he said, "and doesn't shout at you."

  The boy critic giggled. "You come out to sell paipers," he cried, "and you'll soon hev' to shout!"

  The end of it was that I gave the boy ten shillings and five to his friend and made them promise to come to me each week with the bills, good and bad.

  Those kids taught me what the London hapenny public wanted and I went home laughing at my own high-brow notions.

  The ordinary English public did not want thoughts but sensations. I had begun to edit the paper with the best in me at twenty-eight; I went back in my life, and when I edited it as a boy of fourteen I began to succeed. My obsessions then were kissing and fighting: when I got one or other or both of these interests into every column, the circulation of the paper increased steadily.

  I was awakened every morning at seven with breakfast and the papers: I could hardly get up earlier, as the milk did not come till seven. One morning my Telegraph told me that there had really been a battle in Egypt and of course the English had won. While driving to the office I cut out and arranged the account in The Telegraph and bettered it here and there with reports taken from the Daily Chronicle and The Times. I was at the office before eight, but no sub-editors came till nearly nine. That didn't matter so much, but the compositors only began to drift in at eight-fifteen. At once I set them to work and by nine I had put the whole paper together, with one short leading article instead of two long ones, and a good bill.

  The first edition sold over ten thousand; I told the sub-editors not to be caught napping again and informed the printers that they had all to be present at eight sharp. They promised willingly. My boy critic was on the job and congratulated me and gave me, incidentally, a new idea. "Some days," he said, "the news of a victory comes into the Telegraph between four in the morning, when they go to press, and ten, and then they bring out a speshul edition. My brother works on the Telegraph; he's a compositor and he'd give me the first pull of any speshul stuff and I could bring it to you. If your paiper is ready, you could taike the news and be out almost as soon as the Telegraph.

  Then you'd sell; oh my! 'twould be a holy lark!"

  I fell in with the idea, told him he should have a sovereign to share with his brother every time he succeeded, and gave him my address: he was to come for me in a cab whenever he got such news. By extra pay I induced three "comps" to come in at six in the morning, and downstairs Maltby and his assistant and Tibbett and his brother were always on hand at the same hour.

  One morning the little imp came for me. In half an hour I was in the office and had given the report of a big battle from the Telegraph word for word to the comps. They worked like fiends; indeed, the spirit was such that the comp who ought to have gone downstairs with the news called to his two chums to tail on to the rope and jumped into the letter-lift, which would have practically fallen five stories had not the chums clung on to the pulleys at the cost of bleeding fingers. In ten minutes, the Evening News was selling on the street, and, as it happened, selling before the Telegraph's special edition. We could have sold hundreds of thousands, had the old machines been able to turn them out. As it was, we sold forty or fifty thousand and Fleet Street learned that a new evening paper was on the job.

  About noon that day I had a visitor, Mr. Levi Lawson, owner of the Telegraph, a little, fat, rubicund Jew of fifty or sixty, fuming with anger that his thunder had been stolen. I soon saw that he only suspected that we were out before him, for he informed me that I must never reproduce more than 30 per cent of a Telegraph article, even when I published the fact that the account was taken from their columns and gave them full credit. I showed him that I had stated in my preliminary story that the Telegraph correspondent was usually the best. That seemed to appease him, and as I knew my zeal had led me too far, I told him that I always meant to give the original purveyor of the news twenty minutes' start.

  Just as Lawson was going out, conciliated, in came Lord Folkestone. I introduced Lawson to him and Lawson told him the story, adding, "You've a smart editor in this American; he'll do something." When Folkestone heard the whole story and how the "comp" had risked his life in his eagerness to save half a minute, he had the men up and thanked them and took me off to lunch, saying I must tell the whole story to Lady Folkestone. He confided to me on the way that Lady Folkestone couldn't stand Ken-nard: "He's not very kindly, you know!"

  Lady Folkestone at that time was a large lady of forty-odd, who was as kind and wise as she was big. Henry Chaplin, her brother, the Squire of Lincolnshire, as he was called, was one of those extraordinary characters that only England can produce. Had he been educated, he would have been a great man; he was spoiled by having inherited a great position and fifty or sixty thousand pounds a year. He was handsome, too, tall and largely built, with a leonine aspect. Everyone in the eighties told you how he had fallen desperately in love with a pretty girl, who on the eve of marriage ran away with the Marquis of Hastings. Chaplin at once went on the turf in opposition to the Marquis; a few years later he got a great horse in Hermit, who burst a blood vessel ten days before the Derby. The Marquis plunged against Hermit: for the first time the Derby was run in a snow storm (God's providence coming in to help righteous indignation) and Hermit won. On settling day the Marquis blew his brains out, or what stood for them, and Chaplin was vindicated. I don't know what became of the lady, but Chaplin went into the House of Commons and soon developed an ore rotunda style of rhetoric that sometimes deformed a really keen understanding of life. I knew him as a most lavish spender; he used to order special trains to take his guests to his country house, and his claret was as wonderful as his Comet port. He had read a good deal, too, but he had never forced himself to read anything that did not appeal to him, and so he was far too self-centred in opinion, with curious lacunae of astounding ignorance.

  An Englishman through and through, with all the open-handed instincts of a conquering and successful race, and with a deep-rooted love of fair play and surface sentimentalities of all sorts that no one could explain, such as the English taste in men's dress and a genuine indifference to every other art. I have said a lot about Henry Chaplin because his sister was curiously like him in essentials, as generous-kindly and sweet-minded as possible, with at bottom an immense satisfaction in her privileged position. She loved music genuinely, yet when I talked of Wagner's astonishing genius, she seemed to have absolutely no comprehension of it.

  Her daughter was tall and pretty, the son, too, a fine specimen so far as looks went, but with no conception of what I had begun to call to myself the first duty, which consists in developing the mind as harmoniously as the body.

  Such self-development increases one's power enormously, but is as easy and dangerous to overdo as it is easy and dangerous to overdevelop a muscle.

  English society I learned to know through the unvarying kindness of the Folkestones: it struck me as superficial always and of the Middle Ages in its continual reference to a Christian, or rather a Pauline, standard of morals, which sat oddly on a vigorous, manly race.

  When my month was up I was able to show that I had increased the efficien
cy of the Evening News staff and had saved to boot some five thousand pounds yearly of expenses, while adding nearly as much to the revenue.

  Thereupon the directors engaged me for three years as managing director at a salary of a thousand pounds a year and expenses, with a proviso that if I made the paper pay in the time, I should have a fifth of the net profits and an engagement for ten years, or for life, as Kennard suggested.

  At once I felt I had won. I could marry now or just go on with the work: why didn't I seek out Laura and marry her? Simply because I had seen her twice at different theatres with the same sturdy, handsome American. The last time, coming out behind her mother, he had taken hold of her bare arm and she had rewarded his lover-like gesture with that smiling gift of herself I knew so well and valued so highly. No, I was not jealous, I said to myself, but I was in no hurry to put my head in the noose. So I worked with all my might at the paper and went out in the evenings. Folkestone had taken me to Poole's, his tailor's, and I was fairly well turned out. I was not a society favorite but already excited some interest, due chiefly to Folkestone's chivalrous backing.

  I don't remember exactly how I came to know Arthur Walter of The Times, but we soon became great friends and I spent half my summers at his country house near Finchampstead. Mrs. Walter, too, took me up and was very kind to me, and I came to regard the whole household with real affection. Already I could tell them stories of a London life they knew little or nothing about, the life of the coulisses.

  Sir Charles Dilke I got to know intimately through the paper and I may as well tell the story here, for he made me know Chamberlain and the Radical party with fruitful consequences.

  A Mr. Crawford, f a man of some position, suddenly filed a petition for divorce and named the Radical baronet, Sir Charles Dilke, as co-respondent.

  To my astonishment, the mere accusation was like an earthquake: London talked of nothing else. Folkestone gave me the aristocratic view. "Dilke," he said, "was known as a loose fish. The scandal would ruin him with his constituents, but nobody in society would think any the worse of him." I saw the chance of a journalistic sensation, so I wrote to Dilke at once, saying that if I could do him any good, the Evening News would help him to put his case properly before the public. At once he replied, begging me to come to see him in his house in Sloane Street. He met me there next morning with outstretched hands. "Your belief in my innocence," he began, "has been the greatest encouragement to me."

  "Good God!" I cried. "Innocent! Like everyone else I thought you guilty; it's the politician I came to help, not the innocent."

  At once he smiled, "We can talk then without affectation," and we did. I soon discovered that he took the whole thing far more seriously than I did or than Lord Folkestone. "A verdict against me means rum to my career in Parliament," he declared.

  "But the great Duke of Wellington," I objected, "wrote to Fanny who threatened to publish his letters: 'Dear Fanny, publish and be damned.'"

  "An aristocratic society then," replied Dilke, "rather enjoyed a scandal; today the middle classes rule, and adultery to them is as bad as murder."

  "Let's make fun of the whole thing," I proposed, "and so lighten the consequences."

  "Very kind of you," replied Dilke. "It may help, but it won't save me."

  In the next weeks I got to know Dilke well. He was one of the few men I met in London who knew French thoroughly and could speak it as a Frenchman with fluency and a perfect accent, but in spite of this advantage, he knew very little of French literature or art. He lived in politics, and though hardworking, he was not well read, even in English, and anything but brilliant.

  From time to time I met at his house all sorts of people like Jusserand, now French ambassador at Washington, and Harold Frederic, the brilliant American journalist and writer, and Edward Grey, Dilke's understudy as a minister for foreign affairs; Rhoda Broughton, too, the novelist and a host of others. For Dilke was a rich man with many intellectual interests and a tinge as I have said, of French culture. He had inherited not only the Athenaeum journal from his father, but also miniatures of Keats that I esteemed more highly. This admiration of mine astonished him and he was good enough to offer me a beautiful specimen. "If you would let me give you something for it-" I hesitated.

  "What would it be worth?" he asked.

  "I'd give you a hundred pounds willingly," I replied.

  "Is it worth as much as that?" he exclaimed.

  "If I had it, I'd not take a thousand for it," I cried.

  "Really!" he said, but no longer pressed it on me, for Dilke was anything but generous.

  The great question for Dilke in the divorce case was, should he go into the witness box and deny the adultery or not. He never discussed it with me till the trial was on; then at noon one day he called at my office and put the matter before me. Naturally I told him that he must go into the box and deny it. Any gentleman would have to do that for a lady, even if the liaison had been so notorious that his denial would only cause a smile. Thereupon Dilke told me that he had talked the matter over with Joseph Chamberlain in a room in the Law Courts and that Chamberlain had insisted that he mustn't go into the box.

  "Dilke," I cried, "it is surely worse than foolish to go to your rival for advice.

  Chamberlain and Dilke are the two Radical leaders. Fancy Dilke accepting Chamberlain's counsel." Dilke hemmed and hawed and beat about the bush, but at last confessed.

  "You see," he said, "my name was often coupled with the name of Mrs.

  Crawford's mother when I was young in London, and people might be horrified at the idea that I would corrupt my own daughter."

  "Good God!" I cried. "That does complicate the affair. But no English judge would allow any question, even in cross-examination, that would tend to discover such a pot of roses."

  "It doesn't horrify you?" asked Dilke. "I thought Chamberlain would have a fit when I told him."

  "I wouldn't have told him," I said. "But do you think she is your daughter? Is there any likeness, or attraction?"

  "No nothing," he replied. "The Greeks, you know, thought nothing of incest.

  Some indeed say that the highest type of Greek beauty was evolved through the father going with the daughter, the brother with the sister-"

  "We can discuss that another time," I said, "and I would like to, because I have some strange facts on it. The consanguinity is supposed to produce greater beauty, but certainly less strength and less intellect; but now I can only beg you to go into the box. If you don't, Stead and the other Radical journalists will get after you and declare that your abstention is a proof of your guilt. It is probable, too, that the judge will express the same opinion and then the fat would be in the fire. The nonconformist conscience would get on its hind legs and howl."

  Everyone remembers that in spite of my good advice, which I urged with all my power, Dilke funked the witness box, let the case go by default against him, and the judge said that his abstention must be taken as a confession:

  "Every gentleman would repel such an accusation with horror." Yet this righteous judge had heard Mrs. Crawford in the witness box declare that Dilke insisted on bringing a Mrs. Rogerson to their bed when she was in it,

  "And Mrs. Rogerson," she added, "was an old woman and Dilke's old flame!"

  British prudery pretended not to know what this second string to Dilke's bow could possibly mean, but in the best class of society the matter was fully discussed.

  While I was defending Dilke as well as I could, John Corlett of the Pink 'Un', the London paper distinguished for its free speech, came to me and said, "You know Dilke and all about this case of Crawford." I admitted that I knew a good deal about it. "Can't you do something funny on it for me? You know we can sail near the wind, but mustn't make the sails shiver."

  An idea came into my head and I gave it to Corlett. "Put in any comment about the case you like," I said, "and then sketch a little palette bed in the simplest of small bedrooms, because that is where Dilke assures me that he sle
eps. Put two pillows on the bolster and leave the sketch for the first week with the caption, 'An Exact Reproduction of Sir Charles Dilke's Bedroom!'"

  "That won't set the Thames on fire," said Corlett. "Still, the idea has a little piquancy."

  "But think what you would be able to do next week," I said, "when you put in great letters that you made one mistake in the picture of Dilke's bedroom last week, that you are happy to be able to rectify it this week. Then reproduce the picture again exactly, putting, however, three pillows on the bolster instead of two."

  "I will send you fifty quid for that," said Corlett. "That's the best thing I've heard for a h-1 of a while." And he kept his word. I always liked John Corlett. There was no nonsense about him, and he was a first-rate paymaster.

  One quality Sir Charles Dilke had of greatness, a quality rare even in England and almost unknown among American politicians: he judged men with astounding impartiality. He knew the House of Commons better than anyone I ever met, with the solitary exception of Lord Hartington, and I was a fairly good judge of this accomplishment, for from the moment I became editor of the Evening News, I began to go to the House of Commons three or four times a week and listen to all the debates from the "Distinguished Strangers' Gallery."

  There and in the lobbies I met all sorts and conditions of men from Captain O'Shea and Biggar to Mr. Parnell and Count Herbert Bismarck.

  One incident about Dilke I must not forget to relate. As soon as the result of his trial was made known, Mrs. Mark Pattison, the widow of the famous rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, cabled to him from India, "I believe in your complete innocence and am returning to marry you at once."

  This recalls a story that was hatched in Oxford, I believe, about Mark Pattison, the famous Grecian and his pretty young blonde wife, who had surrounded herself with a band of young Fellows and scholars, which seemed at variance with the pedantic tone of the elderly head. One day an old friend found Pattison walking in the college garden, lost in thought. "I hope I'm not interrupting," he said, after vainly trying to interest the Rector.