We Two [106]
during the interview; I should like to see you doing the dignified journalist."
"I wouldn't have you for the world!" said Erica, laughing. Then, growing grave again, "Oh, Tom! How I wish it were over! It's worse than three hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one."
"Appalling prospect!" said Tom. "I can exactly picture what it will be. BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be a sort of editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike."
"No," said Erica, laughing. "He'll be a neat little dapper man, very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal."
"Tell him at once that you hero-worship Sir Michael Cunningham, the statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'"
"Tom, do be quiet!" said Erica. "I wish you had never thought of that horrid name."
"Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it. If you like, you can offer the pun on reasonable terms to Mr. Bircham."
"Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this?" said Erica, with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck. "We must be quite near."
"Nearer than near," said Tom. "Now then, left wheel! Here we are, you see. It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green like the sea-green Robespierre. Go in looking as pretty as that, and Mr. Squeers will graciously accept your services, unless he's sand-blind."
"What a tease you are. Do be quiet!" implored Erica. And then, in what seemed to her an alarmingly short time she was actually left by herself to beard the lion, and a clerk was assuring her that Mr. Bircham was in, and would she walk upstairs.
For reasons best known to himself, the editor of the "Daily Review" had his private room at the very top of the house. A sedate clerk led the way up a dingy staircase, and Erica toiled after him, wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she reached the end. On one of the landings she caught sight of a sandy cat and felt a little reassured at meeting such an every-day creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she passed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have picked it up and taken it with her. That would have been undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room only a very observant person could have discovered in her frank, self-possessed manner any trace of nervousness.
So different was Mr Bircham from their preconceived notions that she could almost have laughed at the contrast. He was very tall and pompous, he wore a lank brown wig which looked as if it might come off at any moment, he had little keen gray eyes which twinkled, and a broad mouth which shut very closely; whether it was grim or humorous she could not quite decide. He was sitting in a swivel chair, and the table strewn with letters, and the desk with its pigeon holes crammed with papers, looked so natural and so like her father's that she began to feel a reassuring sense of fellowship with this entire stranger. The inevitable paste-pot and scissors, the piles of newspapers, the books of reference, all looked homelike to her.
Mr. Bircham rose and bowed rather formally, motioned her to a seat, and swung round his own seat so that they faced one another. Then he scanned her from head to foot with the sort of appraising glance to which she was only too well accustomed a glance which said as plainly as words: "Oh!" So you are that atheist's daughter are you?"
But whatever impression Erica made upon Mr. Bircham, not a muscle of his face altered, and he began to discuss business in a most formal and business-like way. Things did not seem very hopeful, and Erica began to doubt more and ore whether she had the smallest chance of acceptance. Something in the dry formal manner of the editor struck a chill to her heart. So much, so very much depended on this interview, and already the prospect seemed far from hopeful.
"I should like to see some of
"I wouldn't have you for the world!" said Erica, laughing. Then, growing grave again, "Oh, Tom! How I wish it were over! It's worse than three hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one."
"Appalling prospect!" said Tom. "I can exactly picture what it will be. BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be a sort of editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike."
"No," said Erica, laughing. "He'll be a neat little dapper man, very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal."
"Tell him at once that you hero-worship Sir Michael Cunningham, the statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'"
"Tom, do be quiet!" said Erica. "I wish you had never thought of that horrid name."
"Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it. If you like, you can offer the pun on reasonable terms to Mr. Bircham."
"Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this?" said Erica, with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck. "We must be quite near."
"Nearer than near," said Tom. "Now then, left wheel! Here we are, you see. It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green like the sea-green Robespierre. Go in looking as pretty as that, and Mr. Squeers will graciously accept your services, unless he's sand-blind."
"What a tease you are. Do be quiet!" implored Erica. And then, in what seemed to her an alarmingly short time she was actually left by herself to beard the lion, and a clerk was assuring her that Mr. Bircham was in, and would she walk upstairs.
For reasons best known to himself, the editor of the "Daily Review" had his private room at the very top of the house. A sedate clerk led the way up a dingy staircase, and Erica toiled after him, wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she reached the end. On one of the landings she caught sight of a sandy cat and felt a little reassured at meeting such an every-day creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she passed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have picked it up and taken it with her. That would have been undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room only a very observant person could have discovered in her frank, self-possessed manner any trace of nervousness.
So different was Mr Bircham from their preconceived notions that she could almost have laughed at the contrast. He was very tall and pompous, he wore a lank brown wig which looked as if it might come off at any moment, he had little keen gray eyes which twinkled, and a broad mouth which shut very closely; whether it was grim or humorous she could not quite decide. He was sitting in a swivel chair, and the table strewn with letters, and the desk with its pigeon holes crammed with papers, looked so natural and so like her father's that she began to feel a reassuring sense of fellowship with this entire stranger. The inevitable paste-pot and scissors, the piles of newspapers, the books of reference, all looked homelike to her.
Mr. Bircham rose and bowed rather formally, motioned her to a seat, and swung round his own seat so that they faced one another. Then he scanned her from head to foot with the sort of appraising glance to which she was only too well accustomed a glance which said as plainly as words: "Oh!" So you are that atheist's daughter are you?"
But whatever impression Erica made upon Mr. Bircham, not a muscle of his face altered, and he began to discuss business in a most formal and business-like way. Things did not seem very hopeful, and Erica began to doubt more and ore whether she had the smallest chance of acceptance. Something in the dry formal manner of the editor struck a chill to her heart. So much, so very much depended on this interview, and already the prospect seemed far from hopeful.
"I should like to see some of