Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [56]
Printers to the Trade.
Bones fell back in the padded depths of his writing chair.
“Now, you’ve done it,” he said hollowly, and threw the card back again.
It fell behind Ali, and he turned his back on Bones and stooped to pick up the card. It was a target which, in Bones’ then agitated condition, he could scarcely be expected to resist.
Bones spent a sleepless night, and was at the office early. By the first post came the blow he had expected – a bulky envelope bearing on the flap the sign-manual of Messrs Seepidge & Soomes. The letter which accompanied the proof enclosed merely repeated the offer to sell the business for fifteen thousand pounds.
“This will include,” the letter went on, “a great number of uncompleted orders, one of which is for a very charming series of poems which are now in our possession, and a proof-sheet of which we beg to enclose.”
Bones read the poems and they somehow didn’t look as well in print as they had in manuscript And, horror of horrors – he went white at the thought – they were unmistakably disrespectful to Miss Marguerite Whitland! They were love poems. They declared Bones’ passion in language which was unmistakable. They told of her hair which was beyond compare, of her eyes which rivalled the skies, and of her lips like scarlet strips. Bones bowed his head in his hands, and was in this attitude when the door opened, and Miss Whitland, who had had a perfect night and looked so lovely that her poems became pallid and nauseating caricatures, stepped quietly into the room.
“Aren’t you well, Mr Tibbetts?” she said.
“Oh, quite well,” said Bones valiantly. “Very tra-la-la, dear old thing, dear old typewriter, I mean.”
“Is that correspondence for me?”
She held out her hand, and Bones hastily thrust Messrs Seepidge & Soomes’ letter, with its enclosure, into his pocket.
“No, no, yes, yes,” he said incoherently. “Certainly why not this is a letter dear old thing about a patent medicine I have just taken I am not all I was a few years ago old age is creeping on me and all that sort of stuff shut the door as you go in.”
He said this without a comma or a full-stop. He said it so wildly that she was really alarmed.
Hamilton arrived a little later, and to him Bones made full confession.
“Let’s see the poems,” said Hamilton seriously
“You won’t laugh?” said Bones.
“Don’t be an ass. Of course I won’t laugh, unless they’re supposed to be comic,” said Hamilton. And, to do him justice, he did not so much as twitch a lip, though Bones watched his face jealously.
So imperturbable was Hamilton’s expression that Bones had courage to demand with a certain smugness: “Well, old man, not so bad? Of course, they don’t come up to Kipling, but I can’t say that I’m fearfully keen on Kipling, old thing. That little one about the sunset, I think, is rather a gem.”
“I think you’re rather a gem,” said Hamilton, handing back the proofs. “Bones, you’ve behaved abominably, writing poetry of that kind and leaving it about. You’re going to make this girl the laughing-stock of London.”
“Laughing-stock?” snorted the annoyed Bones. “What the dickens do you mean, old thing? I told you there are no comic poems. They’re all like that.”
“I was afraid they were,” said Hamilton. “But poems needn’t be comic,” he added a little more tactfully, as he saw Bones’ colour rising, “they needn’t be comic to excite people’s amusement. The most solemn and sacred things, the most beautiful thoughts, the most wonderful sentiments, rouse the laughter of the ignorant.”
“True, true,” agreed Bones graciously. “And I rather fancy that they are a little bit on the most beautiful side, my jolly old graven image. All heart outpourings you understand – but no, you wouldn’t understand, my old crochety one. One of these days, as I’ve remarked before, they will be read by competent judges…midnight oil, dear old thing – at least, I have electric light in my flat. They’re generally done after dinner.”
“After a heavy dinner, I should imagine,” said Hamilton with asperity. “What are you going to do about it Bones?”
Bones