Олдос Хаксли - Antic Hay

'It may be rather difficult,' said Gumbril, shaking his head.

'It may,' Mr Boldero agreed. 'But difficulties are made to be overcome. We must pull the string of snobbery and shame: it's essential. We must find out methods for bringing the weight of public opinion to bear mockingly on those who do not wear our trousers. It is difficult at the moment to see how it can be done. But it will have to be done, it will have to be done,' Mr Boldero repeated emphatically. 'We might even find a way of invoking patriotism to our aid. "English trousers filled with English air for English men." A little far–fetched, perhaps. But there might be something in it.'

Gumbril shook his head doubtfully.

'Well, it's one of the things we've got to think about in any case,' said Mr Boldero. 'We can't afford to neglect such powerful social emotions as these. Sex, as we've seen, is almost entirely out of the question. We must run the rest, therefore, as hard as we can. For instance, there's the novelty business. People feel superior if they possess something new which their neighbours haven't got. The mere fact of newness is an intoxication. We must encourage that sense of superiority, brew up that intoxication. The most absurd and futile objects can be sold because they're new. Not long ago I sold four million patent soap–dishes of a new and peculiar kind. The point was that you didn't screw the fixture into the bathroom wall; you made a hole in the wall and built the soap–dish into a niche, like a holy water stoup. My soap–dishes possessed no advantages over other kinds of soap–dishes, and they cost a fantastic amount to instal. But I managed to put them across, simply because they were new. Four million of them.' Mr Boldero smiled with satisfaction at the recollection. 'We shall do the same, I hope, with our trousers. People may be shy of being the first to appear in them; but the shyness will be compensated for by the sense of superiority and elation produced by the consciousness of the newness of the things.'

'Quite so,' said Gumbril.

'And then, of course, there's the economy slogan. "One pair of Gumbril's Patent Small–Clothes will outlast six pairs of ordinary trousers." That's easy enough. So easy that it's really uninteresting.' Mr Boldero waved it away.

'We shall have to have pictures,' said Gumbril, parenthetically. He had an idea.

'Oh, of course.'

'I believe I know of the very man to do them,' Gumbril went on. 'His name's Lypiatt. A painter. You've probably heard of him.'

'Heard of him!' exclaimed Mr Boldero. He laughed. 'But who hasn't heard of Lydgate.'

'Lypiatt.'

'Lypgate, I mean, of course.'

'I think he'd be the very man,' said Gumbril.

'I'm certain he would,' said Mr Boldero, not a whit behindhand.

Gumbril was pleased with himself. He felt he had done some one a good turn. Poor old Lypiatt; be glad of the money. Gumbril remembered also his own fiver. And remembering his own fiver, he also remembered that Mr Boldero had as yet made no concrete suggestion about terms. He nerved himself at last to suggest to Mr Boldero that it was time to think of this little matter. Ah, how he hated talking about money! He found it so hard to be firm in asserting his rights. He was ashamed of showing himself grasping. He always thought with consideration of the other person's point of view—poor devil, could he afford to pay? And he was always swindled and always conscious of the fact. Lord, how he hated life on these occasions! Mr Boldero was still evasive.

'I'll write you a letter about it,' he said at last.

Gumbril was delighted. 'Yes, do,' he said enthusiastically, 'do.' He knew how to cope with letters all right. He was a devil with the fountain–pen. It was these personal, hand–to–hand combats that he couldn't manage. He could have been, he always felt, such a ruthless critic and satirist, such a violent, unscrupulous polemical writer. And if ever he committed his autobiography to paper, how breath–takingly intimate, how naked—naked without so much as a healthy sunburn to colour the whiteness—how quiveringly a sensitive jelly it would be! All the things he had never told any one would be in it. Confession at long range—if anything, it would be rather agreeable.

'Yes, do write me a letter,' he repeated. 'Do.'

Mr Boldero's letter came at last, and the proposals it contained were derisory. A hundred pounds down and five pounds a week when the business should be started. Five pounds a week—and for that he was to act as a managing director, writer of advertisements and promoter of foreign sales. Gumbril felt thankful that Mr Boldero had put the terms in a letter. If they had been offered point–blank across the luncheon table, he would probably have accepted them without a murmur. He wrote a few neat, sharp phrases saying that he could not consider less than five hundred pounds down and a thousand a year. Mr Boldero's reply was amiable; would Mr Gumbril come and see him?

See him? Well, of course, it was inevitable. He would have to see him again some time. But he would send the Complete Man to deal with the fellow. A Complete Man matched with a leprechaun—there could be no doubt as to the issue.

'DEAR MR BOLDERO,' he wrote back, 'I should have come to talk over matters before this. But I have been engaged during the last few days in growing a beard and until this has come to maturity, I cannot, as you will easily be able to understand, leave the house. By the day after to–morrow, however, I hope to be completely presentable and shall come to see you at your office at about three o'clock, if that is convenient to you. I hope we shall be able to arrange matters satisfactorily.—Believe me, dear Mr Boldero, yours very truly,

THEODORE GUMBRIL, JR.'

The day after to–morrow became in due course to–day; splendidly bearded and Rabelaisianly broad in his whipcord toga, Gumbril presented himself at Mr Boldero's office in Queen Victoria Street.

'I should hardly have recognized you,' exclaimed Mr Boldero as he shook hands. 'How it does alter you, to be sure!'

'Does it?' The Complete Man laughed with a significant joviality.

'Won't you take off your coat?'

'No, thanks,' said Gumbril. 'I'll keep it on.'

'Well,' said the leprechaun, leaning back in his chair and twinkling, bird–like, across the table.

'Well,' repeated Gumbril on a different tone from behind the stooks of his corn–like beard. He smiled, feeling serenely strong and safe.

'I'm sorry we should have disagreed,' said Mr Boldero.

'So am I,' the Complete Man replied. 'But we shan't disagree for long,' he added, with significance; and as he spoke the words he brought down his fist with such a bang, that the inkpots on Mr Boldero's very solid mahogany writing–table trembled and the pens danced, while Mr Boldero himself started with a genuine alarm. He had not expected them. And now he came to look at him more closely, this young Gumbril was a great, hulking, dangerous–looking fellow. He had thought he would be easy to manage. How could he have made such a mistake?

Gumbril left the office with Mr Boldero's cheque for three hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket and an annual income of eight hundred. His bruised right hand was extremely tender to the touch. He was thankful that a single blow had been enough.

Gumbril had spent the afternoon at Bloxam Gardens. His chin was still sore from the spirit gum with which he had attached to it the symbol of the Complete Man; he was feeling also a little fatigued. Rosie had been delighted to see him; St Jerome had gone on solemnly communicating all the time.

His father had gone out to dine, and Gumbril had eaten his rump steak and drunk his bottle of stout alone. He was sitting now in front of the open french windows which led from his father's workroom on to the balcony, with a block on his knee and a fountain–pen in his hand, composing advertisements for the Patent Small–Clothes. Outside, in the plane–trees of the square, the birds had gone through their nightly performance. But Gumbril had paid no attention to them. He sat there, smoking, sometimes writing a word or two—sunk in the quagmire of his own drowsy and comfortable body. The flawless weather of the day had darkened into a blue May evening. It was agreeable merely to be alive.