"A sudden repulsion seized me. "I must go now," I said, stopping. "I"d no idea I had come so far."

"He seemed as glad to be rid of me as I to be rid of him. "Oh, must yer," he said, holding out his hand. "Well, so long."

"We shook hands carelessly. He disappeared in the crowd, and that is the last I have ever seen of him."

"Is that a true story?" asked Jephson.

"Well, I"ve altered the names and dates," said MacShaughna.s.sy; "but the main facts you can rely upon."

CHAPTER X

The final question discussed at our last meeting been: What shall our hero be? MacShaughna.s.sy had suggested an author, with a critic for the villain. My idea was a stockbroker, with an undercurrent of romance in his nature. Said Jephson, who has a practical mind: "The question is not what we like, but what the female novel-reader likes."

"That is so," agreed MacShaughna.s.sy. "I propose that we collect feminine opinion upon this point. I will write to my aunt and obtain from her the old lady"s view. You," he said, turning to me, "can put the case to your wife, and get the young lady"s ideal. Let Brown write to his sister at Newnham, and find out whom the intellectual maiden favours, while Jephson can learn from Miss Medbury what is most attractive to the common-sensed girl."

This plan we had adopted, and the result was now under consideration.

MacShaughna.s.sy opened the proceedings by reading his aunt"s letter. Wrote the old lady:

"I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a soldier. You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to America with that _wicked_ Mrs. Featherly, the banker"s wife, was a soldier, and so was your poor cousin Robert, who lost eight thousand pounds at Monte Carlo. I have always felt singularly drawn towards soldiers, even as a girl; though your poor dear uncle could not bear them. You will find many allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old Testament (see Jer.

xlviii. 14). Of course one does not like to think of their fighting and killing each other, but then they do not seem to do that sort of thing nowadays."

"So much for the old lady," said MacShaughna.s.sy, as he folded up the letter and returned it to his pocket. "What says culture?"

Brown produced from his cigar-case a letter addressed in a bold round hand, and read as follows:

"What a curious coincidence! A few of us were discussing this very subject last night in Millicent Hightopper"s rooms, and I may tell you at once that our decision was unanimous in favour of soldiers. You see, my dear Selkirk, in human nature the attraction is towards the opposite. To a milliner"s apprentice a poet would no doubt be satisfying; to a woman of intelligence he would he an unutterable bore. What the intellectual woman requires in man is not something to argue with, but something to look at. To an empty-headed woman I can imagine the soldier type proving vapid and uninteresting; to the woman of mind he represents her ideal of man--a creature strong, handsome, well-dressed, and not too clever."

"That gives us two votes for the army," remarked MacShaughna.s.sy, as Brown tore his sister"s letter in two, and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket. "What says the common-sensed girl?"

"First catch your common-sensed girl," muttered Jephson, a little grumpily, as it seemed to me. "Where do you propose finding her?"

"Well," returned MacShaughna.s.sy, "I looked to find her in Miss Medbury."

As a rule, the mention of Miss Medbury"s name brings a flush of joy to Jephson"s face; but now his features wore an expression distinctly approaching a scowl.

"Oh!" he replied, "did you? Well, then, the common-sensed girl loves the military also."

"By Jove!" exclaimed MacShaughna.s.sy, "what an extraordinary thing. What reason does she give?"

"That there"s a something about them, and that they dance so divinely,"

answered Jephson, shortly.

"Well, you do surprise me," murmured MacShaughna.s.sy, "I am astonished."

Then to me he said: "And what does the young married woman say? The same?"

"Yes," I replied, "precisely the same."

"Does _she_ give a reason?" he asked.

"Oh yes," I explained; "because you can"t help liking them."

There was silence for the next few minutes, while we smoked and thought.

I fancy we were all wishing we had never started this inquiry.

That four distinctly different types of educated womanhood should, with promptness and unanimity quite unfeminine, have selected the soldier as their ideal, was certainly discouraging to the civilian heart. Had they been nursemaids or servant girls, I should have expected it. The worship of Mars by the Venus of the white cap is one of the few vital religions left to this devoutless age. A year or two ago I lodged near a barracks, and the sight to be seen round its huge iron gates on Sunday afternoons I shall never forget. The girls began to a.s.semble about twelve o"clock. By two, at which hour the army, with its hair nicely oiled and a cane in its hand, was ready for a stroll, there would be some four or five hundred of them waiting in a line. Formerly they had collected in a wild mob, and as the soldiers were let out to them two at a time, had fought for them, as lions for early Christians. This, however, had led to scenes of such disorder and brutality, that the police had been obliged to interfere; and the girls were now marshalled in _queue_, two abreast, and compelled, by a force of constables specially told off for the purpose, to keep their places and wait their proper turn.

At three o"clock the sentry on duty would come down to the wicket and close it. "They"re all gone, my dears," he would shout out to the girls still left; "it"s no good your stopping, we"ve no more for you to-day."

"Oh, not one!" some poor child would murmur pleadingly, while the tears welled up into her big round eyes, "not even a little one. I"ve been waiting _such_ a long time."

"Can"t help that," the honest fellow would reply, gruffly, but not unkindly, turning aside to hide his emotion; "you"ve had "em all between you. We don"t make "em, you know: you can"t have "em if we haven"t got "em, can you? Come earlier next time."

Then he would hurry away to escape further importunity; and the police, who appeared to have been waiting for this moment with gloating antic.i.p.ation, would jeeringly hustle away the weeping remnant. "Now then, pa.s.s along, you girls, pa.s.s along," they would say, in that irritatingly unsympathetic voice of theirs. "You"ve had your chance.

Can"t have the roadway blocked up all the afternoon with this "ere demonstration of the unloved. Pa.s.s along."

In connection with this same barracks, our char-woman told Amenda, who told Ethelbertha, who told me a story, which I now told the boys.

Into a certain house, in a certain street in the neighbourhood, there moved one day a certain family. Their servant had left them--most of their servants did at the end of a week--and the day after the moving-in an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a domestic was drawn up and sent to the _Chronicle_.

It ran thus:

WANTED, GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven. Wages, 6 pounds; no beer money. Must be early riser and hard worker. Washing done at home. Must be good cook, and not object to window-cleaning. Unitarian preferred.--Apply, with references, to A. B., etc.

That advertis.e.m.e.nt was sent off on Wednesday afternoon. At seven o"clock on Thursday morning the whole family were awakened by continuous ringing of the street-door bell. The husband, looking out of window, was surprised to see a crowd of about fifty girls surrounding the house. He slipped on his dressing-gown and went down to see what was the matter.

The moment he opened the door, fifteen of them charged tumultuously into the pa.s.sage, sweeping him completely off his legs. Once inside, these fifteen faced round, fought the other thirty-five or so back on to the doorstep, and slammed the door in their faces. Then they picked up the master of the house, and asked him politely to conduct them to "A. B."

At first, owing to the clamour of the mob outside, who were hammering at the door and shouting curses through the keyhole, he could understand nothing, but at length they succeeded in explaining to him that they were domestic servants come ill answer to his wife"s advertis.e.m.e.nt. The man went and told his wife, and his wife said she would see them, one at a time.

Which one should have audience first was a delicate question to decide.

The man, on being appealed to, said he would prefer to leave it to them.

They accordingly discussed the matter among themselves. At the end of a quarter of an hour, the victor, having borrowed some hair-pins and a looking-gla.s.s from our char-woman, who had slept in the house, went upstairs, while the remaining fourteen sat down in the hall, and fanned themselves with their bonnets.

"A. B." was a good deal astonished when the first applicant presented herself. She was a tall, genteel-looking girl. Up to yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton"s, and before that she had been under- cook for two years to the d.u.c.h.ess of York.

"And why did you leave Lady Stanton?" asked "A. B."

"To come here, mum," replied the girl. The lady was puzzled.

"And you"ll be satisfied with six pounds a year?" she asked.

"Certainly, mum, I think it ample."