Antic Hay

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 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.