Julian lit his pipe.
“Not at all,” he said. “Count the number of people who must necessarily be in the secret from the beginning. There are your publishers, Prodder and Way. Then there are the editors of the magazine which publishes your Society dialogue bilge, and of all the newspapers, other than the Orb, in which your serious verse appears. My dear Jimmy, the news that you and George Chandos were the same man would go up and down Fleet Street and into the Barrel like wildfire. And after that the paragraphs.”
I saw the truth of his reasoning before he had finished speaking. Once more my spirits fell to the point where they had been before I hit upon what I thought was such a bright scheme.
Julian’s pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit it again, and spoke through the smoke:
“The weak point of your idea, of course, is that you and George Chandos are a single individual.”
“But why should the editors know that? Why shouldn’t I simply send in my stuff, typed, by post, and never appear myself at all?”
“My dear Jimmy, you know as well as I do that that wouldn’t work. It would do all right for a bit. Then one morning: ‘Dear Mr. Chandos,—I should be glad if you could make it convenient to call here some time between Tuesday and Thursday.—Yours faithfully. Editor of Something-or-other.’ Sooner or later a man who writes at all regularly for the papers is bound to meet the editors of them. A successful author can’t conduct all his business through the post. Of course, if you chucked London and went to live in the country–-“
“I couldn’t,” I said. “I simply couldn’t do it. London’s got into my bones.”
“It does,” said Julian.
“I like the country, but I couldn’t live there. Besides, I don’t believe I could write there—not for long. All my ideas would go.”
Julian nodded.
“Just so,” he said. “Then exit George Chandos.”
“My scheme is worthless, you think, then?”
“As you state it, yes.”
“You mean–-?” I prompted quickly, clutching at something in his tone which seemed to suggest that he did not consider the matter entirely hopeless.
“I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you and George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to provide George with separate flesh and blood of his own, there’s no reason–-“
“By Jove! you’ve hit it. Go on.”
“Listen. Here is my rough draft of what I think might be a sound, working system. How many divisions does your work fall into, not counting the Orb?”
I reflected.
“Well, of course, I do a certain amount of odd work, but lately I’ve rather narrowed it down, and concentrated my output. It seemed to me a better plan than sowing stuff indiscriminately through all the papers in London.”
“Well, how many stunts have you got? There’s your serious verse—one. And your Society stuff—two. Any more?”
“Novels and short stories.”
“Class them together—three. Any more?
“No; that’s all.”
“Very well, then. What you must do is to look about you, and pick carefully three men on whom you can rely. Divide your signed stuff between these three men. They will receive your copy, sign it with their own names, and see that it gets to wherever you want to send it. As far as the editorial world is concerned, and as far as the public is concerned, they will become actually the authors of the manuscripts which you have prepared for them to sign. They will forward you the cheques when they arrive, and keep accounts to which you will have access. I suppose you will have to pay them a commission on a scale to be fixed by mutual arrangement. As regards your unsigned work, there is nothing to prevent your doing that yourself—’On Your Way,’ I mean, whenever there’s any holiday work going: general articles, and light verse. I say, though, half a moment.”
“Why, what?”
“I’ve thought of a difficulty. The editors who have been taking your stuff hitherto may have a respect for the name of James Orlebar Cloyster which they may not extend to the name of John Smith or George Chandos, or whoever it is. I mean, it’s quite likely the withdrawal of the name will lead to the rejection of the manuscript.”
“Oh no; that’s all right,” I said. “It’s the stuff they want, not the name. I don’t say that names don’t matter. They do. But only if they’re big names. Kipling might get a story rejected if he sent it in under a false name, which they’d have taken otherwise just because he was Kipling. What they want from me is the goods. I can shove any label on them I like. The editor will read my ghosts’ stuff, see it’s what he wants, and put it in. He may say, ‘It’s rather like Cloyster’s style,’ but he’ll certainly add, ‘Anyhow, it’s what I want.’ You can scratch that difficulty, Julian. Any more?”
“I think not. Of course, there’s the objection that you’ll lose any celebrity you might have got. No one’ll say, ‘Oh, Mr. Cloyster, I enjoyed your last book so much!’”
“And no one’ll say, ‘Oh, do you write, Mr. Cloyster? How interesting! What have you written? You must send me a copy.’”
“That’s true. In any case, it’s celebrity against the respite, obscurity against Miss Goodwin. While the system is in operation you will be free but inglorious. You choose freedom? All right, then. Pass the matches.”
Chapter 12
THE FIRST GHOST (James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)
Such was the suggestion Julian made; and I praised its ingenuity, little thinking how bitterly I should come to curse it in the future.
I was immediately all anxiety to set the scheme working.
“Will you be one of my three middlemen, Julian?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Thanks!” he said; “it’s very good of you, but I daren’t encroach further on my hours of leisure. Skeffington’s Sloe Gin has already become an incubus.”
I could not move him from this decision.
It is not everybody who, in a moment of emergency, can put his hand on three men of his acquaintance capable of carrying through a more or less delicate business for him. Certainly I found a difficulty in making my selection. I ran over the list of my friends in my mind. Then I was compelled to take pencil and paper, and settle down seriously to what I now saw would be a task of some difficulty. After half an hour I read through my list, and could not help smiling. I had indeed a mixed lot of acquaintances. First came Julian and Malim, the two pillars of my world. I scratched them out. Julian had been asked and had refused; and, as for Malim, I shrank from exposing my absurd compositions to his critical eye. A man who could deal so trenchantly over a pipe and a whisky-and-soda with Established Reputations would hardly take kindly to seeing my work in print under his name. I wished it had been possible to secure him, but I did not disguise it from myself that it was not.
The rest of the list was made up of members of the Barrel Club (impossible because of their inherent tendency to break out into personal paragraphs); writers like Fermin and Gresham, above me on the literary ladder, and consequently unapproachable in a matter of this kind; certain college friends, who had vanished into space, as men do on coming down from the ‘Varsity, leaving no address; John Hatton, Sidney Price, and Tom Blake.
There were only three men in that list to whom I felt I could take my suggestion. Hatton was one, Price was another, and Blake was the third. Hatton should have my fiction, Price my Society stuff, Blake my serious verse.
That evening I went off to the Temple to sound Hatton on the subject of signing my third book. The wretched sale of my first two had acted as something of a check to my enthusiasm for novel-writing. I had paused to take stock of my position. My first two novels had, I found on re-reading them, too much of the ‘Varsity tone in them to be popular. That is the mistake a man falls into through being at Cambridge or Oxford. He fancies unconsciously that the world is peopled with undergraduates. He forgets that what appeals to an undergraduate public may be Greek to the outside reader and, unfortunately, not compulsory Greek. The reviewers had dealt kindly with my two books (“this pleasant little squib,” “full of quiet humour,” “should amuse all who remember their undergraduate days”); but the great heart of the public had remained untouched, as had the great purse of the public. I had determined to adopt a different style. And now my third book was ready. It was called, When It Was Lurid, with the sub-title, A Tale of God and Allah. There was a piquant admixture of love, religion, and Eastern scenery which seemed to point to a record number of editions.