Rudyard Kipling - The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

"Monsieur has paid for all," said Madame. "To the pleasure of seeing Monsieur again."

The courtyard gate shut, and Dick hurried up the sandy street to the nearest gambling-hell, where he was well known. "If the luck holds, it's an omen; if I lose, I must stay here." He placed his money picturesquely about the board, hardly daring to look at what he did. The luck held.

Three turns of the wheel left him richer by twenty pounds, and he went down to the shipping to make friends with the captain of a decayed cargo-steamer, who landed him in London with fewer pounds in his pocket than he cared to think about.

A thin gray fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.

"It's a cheerful wilderness, and it hasn't the knack of altering much," Dick thought, as he tramped from the Docks westward. "Now, what must I do?"

The packed houses gave no answer. Dick looked down the long lightless streets and at the appalling rush of traffic. "Oh, you rabbit-hutches!" said he, addressing a row of highly respectable semi-detached residences. "Do you know what you've got to do later on? You have to supply me with men-servants and maid-servants,"—here he smacked his lips,—"and the peculiar treasure of kings. Meantime I'll clothes and boots, and presently I will return and trample on you." He stepped forward energetically; he saw that one of his shoes was burst at the side. As he stooped to make investigations, a man jostled him into the gutter. "All right," he said. "That's another nick in the score. I'll jostle you later on."

Good clothes and boots are not cheap, and Dick left his last shop with the certainty that he would be respectably arrayed for a time, but with only fifty shillings in his pocket. He returned to streets by the Docks, and lodged himself in one room, where the sheets on the bed were almost audibly marked in case of theft, and where nobody seemed to go to bed at all. When his clothes arrived he sought the Central Southern Syndicate for Torpenhow's address, and got it, with the intimation that there was still some money waiting for him.

"How much?" said Dick, as one who habitually dealt in millions.

"Between thirty and forty pounds. If it would be any convenience to you, of course we could let you have it at once; but we usually settle accounts monthly."

"If I show that I want anything now, I'm lost," he said to himself. "All I need I'll take later on." Then, aloud, "It's hardly worth while; and I'm going to the country for a month, too. Wait till I come back, and I'll see about it."

"But we trust, Mr. Heldar, that you do not intend to sever your

connection with us?"

Dick's business in life was the study of faces, and he watched the speaker

keenly. "That man means something," he said. "I'll do no business till

I've seen Torpenhow. There's a big deal coming." So he departed, making

no promises, to his one little room by the Docks. And that day was

the seventh of the month, and that month, he reckoned with awful

distinctness, had thirty-one days in it! It is not easy for a man of

catholic tastes and healthy appetites to exist for twenty-four days on

fifty shillings. Nor is it cheering to begin the experiment alone in

all the loneliness of London. Dick paid seven shillings a week for his

lodging, which left him rather less than a shilling a day for food and

drink. Naturally, his first purchase was of the materials of his craft;

he had been without them too long. Half a day's investigations and

comparison brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashed

potatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once or

twice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, with

mashed potatoes, they become monotonous. At dinner they are impertinent.

At the end of three days Dick loathed sausages, and, going, forth,

pawned his watch to revel on sheep's head, which is not as cheap as it

looks, owing to the bones and the gravy. Then he returned to sausages

and mashed potatoes. Then he confined himself entirely to mashed

potatoes for a day, and was unhappy because of pain in his inside. Then

he pawned his waistcoat and his tie, and thought regretfully of money

thrown away in times past. There are few things more edifying unto

Art than the actual belly-pinch of hunger, and Dick in his few walks

abroad,—he did not care for exercise; it raised desires that could not

be satisfied—found himself dividing mankind into two classes,—those

who looked as if they might give him something to eat, and those who

looked otherwise. "I never knew what I had to learn about the human

face before," he thought; and, as a reward for his humility, Providence

caused a cab-driver at a sausage-shop where Dick fed that night to leave

half eaten a great chunk of bread. Dick took it,—would have fought all

the world for its possession,—and it cheered him.

The month dragged through at last, and, nearly prancing with impatience, he went to draw his money. Then he hastened to Torpenhow's address and smelt the smell of cooking meats all along the corridors of the chambers. Torpenhow was on the top floor, and Dick burst into his room, to be received with a hug which nearly cracked his ribs, as Torpenhow dragged him to the light and spoke of twenty different things in the same breath.

"But you're looking tucked up," he concluded.

"Got anything to eat?" said Dick, his eye roaming round the room.

"I shall be having breakfast in a minute. What do you say to sausages?"

"No, anything but sausages! Torp, I've been starving on that accursed horse-flesh for thirty days and thirty nights."

"Now, what lunacy has been your latest?"

Dick spoke of the last few weeks with unbridled speech. Then he opened his coat; there was no waistcoat below. "I ran it fine, awfully fine, but I've just scraped through."

"You haven't much sense, but you've got a backbone, anyhow. Eat, and talk afterwards." Dick fell upon eggs and bacon and gorged till he could gorge no more. Torpenhow handed him a filled pipe, and he smoked as men smoke who for three weeks have been deprived of good tobacco.

"Ouf!" said he. "That's heavenly! Well?"

"Why in the world didn't you come to me?"

"Couldn't; I owe you too much already, old man. Besides I had a sort of superstition that this temporary starvation—that's what it was, and it hurt—would bring me luck later. It's over and done with now, and none of the syndicate know how hard up I was. Fire away. What's the exact state of affairs as regards myself?"

"You had my wire? You've caught on here. People like your work immensely. I don't know why, but they do. They say you have a fresh touch and a new way of drawing things. And, because they're chiefly home-bred English, they say you have insight. You're wanted by half a dozen papers; you're wanted to illustrate books."

Dick grunted scornfully.

"You're wanted to work up your smaller sketches and sell them to the dealers. They seem to think the money sunk in you is a good investment. Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?"

"They're a remarkably sensible people."

"They are subject to fits, if that's what you mean; and you happen to be the object of the latest fit among those who are interested in what they call Art. Just now you're a fashion, a phenomenon, or whatever you please. I appeared to be the only person who knew anything about you here, and I have been showing the most useful men a few of the sketches you gave me from time to time. Those coming after your work on the Central Southern Syndicate appear to have done your business. You're in luck."

"Huh! call it luck! Do call it luck, when a man has been kicking about the world like a dog, waiting for it to come! I'll luck 'em later on. I want a place to work first."