PETER 
 
 HOMUNCULU5 
 
 GILBERT CANNAN 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 
 1934 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 6005.A61P4 
 
 Peter Homunculus, a "<|JC*;j',. 
 
 3 1924 013 593 714 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013593714 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
Peter Homunculus 
 
 A Novel 
 
 By 
 Gilbert Caiman 
 
 New York 
 
 DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909, by 
 duffield and company 
 
" Nemo repente optimus fit/' 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
Peter Homunculus 
 
 The sKop was tHe shabbiest of the cluster of its kind at 
 the Oxford Street end of Shaftesbury Avenue; a tiny 
 shop between a French bakery and a second-hand clothes 
 store. Over the window was written in letters faded and 
 worn the name " X. Cooper " ; to one side of this the 
 word " Bookseller," and to the other on a scroll the 
 words " Libraries bought and valued." Outside the 
 shop on a low trestle was a series of boxes containing 
 dilapidated books, each box surmounted with a ticket 
 proclaiming the price of its contents. In the window 
 were prints, dirty most of them, hung in a row on a 
 string — Louis XV. in Coronation Robes, Nell Gwyn 
 much decoUetee in her very decent fashion, David Gar- 
 rick as Richard III., Kemble as Hamlet. Below these 
 again were " Vanity Fair " caricatures on a sort of rack, 
 attached with drawing pins. There were six of them — 
 Mr. Gladstone, Disraeli, Lord Russell of Killowen, the 
 Shah of Persia, Tod Sloan, and Dhuleep Singh. The 
 Shah of Persia was purchasable for sixpence, or it might 
 have been eightpence, for the figure was ill-made, but 
 Mr. Gladstone's market value was two shillings, in spite 
 of Gordon and Home Rule. These six were merely to 
 whet the appetite, for at the end of the rack stood two 
 enormous piles of celebrities and notorious persons. 
 
 Low in the corner of the window where it was dirtiest 
 and half hidden by the book-boxes outside, a scrap of 
 
4 PETEK HOMUNCULUS 
 
 paper was attached by a gelatine lozenge. On this was 
 written "Boy Wanted" in blue pencil scrawled by a 
 hasty or a weary hand. 
 
 An old man in an overcoat rusty with age,"^and for so 
 long and so continuously worn as to cling to its owner's 
 meagre shape, hung over the book-boxes and fingered 
 the books, caressed those in calf with long, thin, dirty 
 fingers, fluttered the leaves of others and occasionally 
 with his forefinger cut the pages of a book uncut. It 
 was a hot day, but the old man shivered and shook. Of 
 the whole outside world he alone seemed to be alive to 
 the existence of the little shop. Others passed it by, 
 slouching Italians, provincials hurrying down from their 
 hotels and boarding-houses in Bloomsbury to Piccadilly 
 Circus, the centre of all things metropolitan; chauiFeurs 
 and mechanicians and men of the motor-car industry; 
 little sempstresses; Jews and Jewesses with black 
 bundles of clothes on their shoulder; loafers, touts; 
 smart women and women unfortunate; actresses; slat- 
 ternly women with babies in their arms; tourists with 
 red Baedekers in their hands, Germans, French, Ameri- 
 cans: boys whistling, shouting, running, hopping along 
 on one roller skate, making hideous noises with mouth 
 organs. Tradesmen's carts, motor cars, lorries, car- 
 riages, omnibuses rolled by. Over a roof opposite a 
 man suspended in mid-air was mending a telephone wire. 
 Some of the passers-by stopped to look at him, a crowd, 
 gaping, heads craned. It swelled and filled the path- 
 way. A pale melancholy-looking boy hurrying along, 
 pushing his way through the throng, jostled the old man 
 absorbed in the books and sent that in his hand flying. 
 The old man quailed and the boy tottered. He put out 
 a hand to steady himself, then stooped and picked up 
 
PETEEi HOMUNCULUS 5 
 
 the book. He looked at it: a battered green book, 
 Lecky's "Map of Life." He restored it to the old man, 
 looked at the worn face for a moment and said: 
 
 " Does he tell you how to get a living?" 
 
 " How — ^how to live." The old man spoke in a reedy 
 voice and had a slight stutter. " It's — it's difficult — 
 Heuh ! — I've — I've t-tried and I — ^know." 
 
 The old man seemed to think he had made a joke, for 
 he shook all over and creaked, and his lips worked 
 quickly in and out, while the skin round his eyes drew 
 up into innumerable wrinkles. He returned to the study 
 of the gentle philosophy of William Edward Hartpold 
 Lecky. The boy gave a long, loud whistle. He was 
 depressed by the enormous age of the old man. A girl 
 in the crowd eyed him, and, as he turned his eyes up 
 towards the man on the roof, he fell to wondering why 
 it was possible for women to be ugly. The girl had 
 half smiled at him, and he had seen that three of her 
 front teeth were missing. There came a gentle touch on 
 the arm. He was a little afraid that it was the girl, 
 and a sort of shudder ran through him. Again the touch 
 and he turned. 
 
 A policeman arrived on the scene and dispersed the 
 crowd. The boy was left with the old man. 
 
 " Didn't you say you were wanting to earn a living ?" 
 
 " I didn't, but I do." 
 
 " There's a boy wanted." A long yellow finger like 
 a piece of wood indicated the notice in the window. 
 
 The boy surveyed the notice with some contempt. The 
 shop seemed to him impossibly dirty. He read the name 
 of its owner, however, and turned to the old man again. 
 He was gone and the boy saw him hobbling down to- 
 wards Cambridge Circus, thin and bent, one shoulder 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 higher than the other, his whole body twisted. In the 
 sunlight his overcoat was vividly green. 
 
 Once more he read that a boy was wanted, and once 
 more that the keeper of the shop called himself X. 
 Cooper, and that libraries were bought and valued. The 
 initial X. seemed preposterous in conjunction with 
 Cooper, and the shop was certainly uninviting. It had 
 a dilapidated and musty air. It was dark. The Shah 
 of Persia was certainly the brightest spot in the window. 
 
 Again he read " Boy Wanted " — ^moved a little 
 towards the door, then stopped. It was better than noth- 
 ing, and there could be no harm in trying. The window 
 was dark enough to serve as a mirror in places. Kemble 
 as Hamlet provided the best reflection. He straightened 
 his red bow-tie, set his straw hat right, wished that his 
 collar was a little less frayed, the elbows of his blue 
 coat less shiny and that his right boot were not cracked. 
 He entered the shop. 
 
 At £rst he could see nothing. It was so dark. He 
 could smell dust and a queer scent which he knew for 
 rotting calf. Oddly he was conscious of a presence in 
 the place, though he could see no one, even when his 
 eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light. He 
 coughed, but evoked no answer. He knocked against 
 a shelf timidly, but still no answer. He was for re- 
 treating when a heavy snore came from the darkest cor- 
 rier behind a dwarf bookcase. He knocked again, more 
 loudly, but made no impression. He felt rather foolish' 
 standing there, but was roused to obstinacy and would 
 not budge. 
 
 A cat appeared and stood watching him with some 
 interest. He bent down and held out his hand, finger 
 and thumb together, towards the beast and said, " Pss— 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 7 
 
 Pss — Pss/' advancing towards it. It cringed from 
 him, then fled out into the street and stood looking 
 at him contemptuously, swinging its tail and blinking. 
 More than ever he felt foolish and yet more roused to 
 obstinacy. He turned his attention to the shop. There 
 were books everywhere. On shelves up to the ceiling 
 on all sides, crowding dwarf bookcases that jutted 
 out from the walls, piled on the floor, on chairs, on the 
 counter. On a desk in the corner opposite the street 
 door stood a ledger, open, and covered with dust. There 
 were entries in a large round hand on its pages, but 
 none for three months past; and dust lay thick on the 
 paper. Above it on the desk was a thick manuscript 
 book open, and in the same condition. The boy looked 
 at it and saw written in the same round handwriting — 
 " An apology for the Life of CoUey Gibber, written by 
 
 himself, quarto, pp. " The entry was cut short 
 
 and the writer's pen had raced down the page in a 
 straggling spidery line and ended in a splutter. He 
 blew the dust from the paper and turned back to find 
 entered the titles of books that he knew, arranged in 
 no sort of order, without reference to subject, nation- 
 ality, or date — rMaster Humphrey's Clock, Moliere, The 
 Girl with the Golden Eyes, translated by Ernest Dow- 
 son, Lady Windermere's Fan, Jorrocks and Mr. Sponge's 
 Sporting Tour, Old St. Paul's, Sartor Resartus, The 
 Daisy Chain, London Stage, Pierre Egan, Herrick's 
 Poems, Rabelais, Rousseau, and names of writers and 
 books in a hideous jumble, books that he had read, and 
 books that, from familiarity with their titles, he had con- 
 sidered as read. He was interested and at the same time 
 astonished with the realisation of the extent and quantity 
 of his reading. He had a pleasing sensation of famil- 
 
8 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 iarity in perusing the names of these great ones and their 
 works. From the catalogue he turned to the books them- 
 selves and found many of the greatest — Shelley, Words- 
 Worth, Aristophanes (in translation), Corneille and 
 Racine, Ibsen and Shakespeare. He was thrilled by 
 their names. He had read none of them except a little 
 Shakespeare, absurdly annotated at school, and one or 
 two plays of Racine. With these two he felt himself 
 familiar. For the rest he was content that their names 
 should give him a thrill: that seemed to be their func- 
 tion. Among people whom he had met in the few years 
 of his life, since, that is, he had considered himself of an 
 intelligent age, he admitted none to be his superiors. 
 In the presence of these great ones whose names were 
 household words he allowed himself the luxury of humil- 
 ity. He sat on the counter, dangling his long legs, and 
 opened a volume of Shakespeare — a large quarto edi- 
 tion bound in green cloth and illustrated in colour by 
 Sir John Gilbert. The book opened upon the tragedy 
 of " Hamlet." The boy had read the play. At school, 
 bored with the etymology of the notes, he had one day 
 begun to read the text, and, struck by the extraordinary 
 resemblance between the melancholy Prince and himself 
 had read avidly, with the result that he was punished 
 for the complete ignorance he displayed subsequently 
 as to the meaning of the line "unhouseled, disappointed, 
 unaneled," which the learned editor explained at some 
 length. Reading the play now, he remembered with 
 great satisfaction the compliments paid him by the ex- 
 aminer, a great man from one of the universities, upon 
 his answer to the question: "Discuss briefly the char- 
 acter of Hamlet. Do you consider him mad or sane?" 
 For a boy of fifteen, the examiner had said in his report, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 9 
 
 the answer was very remarkable. That was a year ago. 
 They had been proud of him that day, and they gave 
 him the prize for literature— a copy bound in red half 
 morocco — of the works of Felicia Hemans. He had 
 brought it with him to London. 
 
 He sat there on the counter dangling his legs with the 
 volume of Shakespeare open on his knees, and was lost 
 in contemplation of himself. He forgot his surround- 
 ings, his presence in London, everything that was imme- 
 diately happening to him. Not presented, like Hamlet, 
 with any momentous problem for hugging, his imagina- 
 tion turned to the events of the last months, reconstruct- 
 ing them, seeing them vividly, photographically exact, and 
 imderstanding them, seeing through them far more than 
 at the moment of their happening. He was particularly 
 interested in the contemplation of his father, of course 
 in relation to himself. He remembered a time when he 
 had worshipped his father, as a glorious and splendid 
 being, large as a tree, and hairy, with a moustache de- 
 licious to pull. He remembered how he had wept bit- 
 terly because his mother had struck his father. She said 
 he was drunk and Tiad struck him. The horror of it was 
 with the boy still, the sacrilege; he gasped, and tears 
 gathered in his large grey eyes. His imagination raced, 
 leaping years to the moment when the idolised father, 
 more drunk than usual, had come in from the shop to 
 the living-room, where his mother was laying the table 
 for dinner. He saw it clearly. His mother had boxed 
 his ears because he had left a toy elephant on the floor 
 so that she stumbled over it. She laid the cloth on the 
 table, and because there was a stain, a brown stain on it, 
 she reversed it. She was a stout woman, and as she 
 heaved and the cloth bellied up into the air something 
 
10 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 in her inner garments cracked. That put her out, and 
 as she was fidgeting with herself her husband had 
 come into the room. The boy remembered vividly the 
 relief of his entry, for his mother never struck him in 
 his father's presence. She flung a taunt at the man as 
 he stood there flushed and sniggering, leaning against 
 the door. There was considerable heat on both sides, 
 and in the end his father leaned across the table, smiling 
 horribly, and said these words to his mother : " You to 
 talk. You're any man's woman." There was some con- 
 fusion in the boy's mind as to subsequent events, for it 
 seemed in his recollection that immediately upon these 
 words his mother died. He had never dwelt upon their 
 meaning. He remembered being taken to see her dead, 
 and following something to a graveyard where, because 
 everybody was weeping, he also wept. He enjoyed 
 weeping, and death was ever after associated in his mind 
 with freedom, for after his mother's death his freedom 
 was amazing. As he thought over it again, sitting there 
 on the counter of Mr. Cooper's shop, it seemed a good 
 theory of death, that people die to set others free. He 
 endorsed it solemnly, was pleased with it. 
 
 He flew back to wild excursions into forests, early 
 loves, love-tokens, baby kisses, thefts, burnings, plunder- 
 ings, gorgeous lies; school and the tedium of school; 
 books and the pride of books, new worlds revealed; the 
 first shamed consciousness of sex, awful colloquies in 
 dark corners with other boys; hanging on to the grating 
 of the slaughter-house with others to watch a sheep 
 killed : the persecution of an idiot in the town whom some 
 imp had christened " Yellow Belly." He saw clearly the 
 crowd of urchins racing down the main street of the 
 little country town on market day, past the market hall 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 11 
 
 and stalls, past his father's shop, yelling after the fly- 
 ing idiot, " Yellow Belly, Yellow Belly. Who— stole— 
 the baby? " 
 
 Then his father again, more mysterious after his 
 mother's death, because less often seen; more drunk. 
 The explosion of his father's godhead, by his coming upon 
 him breaking open a little silver money-box, the property 
 of his elder brother, that held forty sixpence and then 
 burst — it never has burst, perhaps because forty six- 
 pence were never entrusted to it. He was j ust beginning 
 to enjoy again in retrospect the sensation of misery upon 
 the discovery of the paternal theft, when the absurdity 
 of his elder brother came upon him with such force as 
 to produce a chuckle. Ten years older than himself, 
 that brother, stupid at school, and a tailor now, master 
 of his father's business. Fools all of them, brother and 
 four sisters. Himself — another pair of shoes altogether. 
 Clever, they said of him at the Grammar school, whither 
 a scholarship from the board school had taken him. 
 Clever! Much they knew about it. He saw his master 
 again — fat, red-faced, red-moustached, bald, spectacled. 
 He used to come in after the mid-day interval with his 
 moustache matted with beer and food-droppings on his 
 waistcoat, sleepy, easy to bamboozle. And the sandy- 
 haired yotog man who used to try to make him learn 
 Algebra — a thin, timid young man who, as everyone in 
 the town knew, could not pass his intermediate examina- 
 tion in London, had tried four times: engaged to one of 
 the curate's six daughters. The boy snorted contemptu- 
 ously. He became indignant and waved his hands in 
 the air, twisted his upper lip in a sneer and twitched his 
 nose. He was thinking of how when his father died,— 
 he didn't die, but was found dead in a ditch — ^his brother 
 
12 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 had taken him away from school and insisted on his 
 going into the shops^ apprenticed to the tailoring. Two 
 months of it were too much. A violent scene with his 
 brother, during which all his sisters had wept^ a scene 
 of tender farewell with Elsie Atwood, the saddler's 
 daughter, and he had come to this great flaming London, 
 twenty pounds in his pocket, a Gladstone bag and his 
 few books done up in newspaper, and quartered himself 
 on an aunt — sister of his father, encountered for the 
 first time at the funeral, in her small house where she 
 took lodgers in a little street in Southwark. London 
 was very big, very expensive in the matter of travelling 
 and singularly little alive to the brilliant creature that 
 had come new to it. The vastness of London, the cruelty 
 of it, seized the boy, tugged at him, almost set him weep- 
 ing with rage. He had sought all sorts of employment 
 only to be rebuflPed. He scorned commerce and trade. 
 Of shops he had a horror. Shop! What tortures he 
 had suffered at school from issuing from a shop, birth 
 above a shop. With a jerk he realised that he was now 
 in a shop, but quickly consoled himself with the reflec- 
 tion that a bookshop was hardly in the category. 
 
 He turned to Shakespeare, and lighted on the scene 
 between Hamlet and Polonius. 
 
 Hamlet — ^Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is 
 to be one man picked out of ten thousand. 
 
 Polonius — That's very true, my lord. 
 
 Hamlet — For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, 
 being a God kissing carrion, — Have you a daughter? 
 
 Polonius — I have, my lord. 
 
 Hamlet — Let her not walk i' the sun; conception is 
 a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive: — 
 Friend, look to 't. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 13 
 
 He acted the scene, a querulous quavering voice for 
 Polonius and a voice deep as he could contrive for the 
 Prince simulating madness. He had seen players at 
 home, and once since his arrival in London had visited 
 the Surrey Theatre in the Waterloo Bridge Road, where 
 a drama with the alluring title, " Wine and Women," 
 had presented the triumph of virtue to his devouring 
 eyes. As Hamlet he roared, ranted and rolled his r's, 
 made play with his eyes and swept his hands majes- 
 tically through the air. A hand to his brow, he became 
 suddenly conscious that he was observed, and, quickly 
 turning, he saw above the dwarf bookcase in the dark 
 corner a head that seemed to hang in air. Thick grey 
 hair surrounded it like a cap, and two long locks hung 
 down over the square forehead. The eyebrows were 
 shaggy, black, one much higher than the other, as one 
 eye was larger than the other. One eye was huge, star- 
 ing, the other a little twinkling, glittering thing. Be- 
 tween them jutted straight from the forehead a huge 
 nose, red and swollen at the end, under which sprouted 
 a long straggling moustache. The mouth was hidden 
 under this, and the chin under a stubble of white hairs, 
 clipped with scissors, not shaven. This head wagged to 
 and fro above the dwarf bookcase, the great eye stared 
 and the little eye winked and the mouth emitted strange 
 noises between a snore and a growl. 
 
 The boy, a little afraid, laid Shakespeare on the 
 counter and slid to his feet, snatched his hat from his 
 head and stood waiting. The head wagged faster and 
 faster, but made no other sound than its snore and growl. 
 The boy moved nervously from one foot to the other, and 
 began to think of going. Suddenly an arm in a dirty 
 blue shirt-sleeve was shot over the bookcase pointing a 
 
14 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 finger, and from the fierce wagging head came a sur- 
 prisingly mild, soft voice. It said: 
 
 " Homunculus ! " 
 
 The boy was unable to discover whether the remark 
 called for a reply, for the word was unknown to him. A 
 chuckle came from the head and the finger beckoned. 
 The boy stood rooted. 
 
 "You — ^you wanted a boy?" he managed to say at 
 length. 
 
 "Heuh!" said the head. 
 
 " I'll come." 
 
 "Name?" said the head, 
 i " Peter Davies, sir." 
 
 " Peter Homunculus." 
 
 " Davies, sir." 
 
 "i^rist of Tuirro)?" 
 
 "ETv^«t, sir." 
 
 "Good. Where's Nicaragua?" 
 
 " Central America, sir." 
 
 " Spell Apopocatapetl." 
 
 Peter spelled it. 
 
 " Can you write? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Read? Add?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Add forty-five and sixty-three." 
 
 " Hundred and eight, sir." 
 
 The head looked inquiringly round the shop. 
 
 " Seen Demophoon? " 
 
 "What, sir?" 
 
 " The cat; she was thrown into the fire when she was 
 a kitten." 
 
 " She ran out when I came in." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 15 
 
 A pause. Then: 
 
 " Do you want a boy, sir? " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Do you want a boy? " 
 
 " The notice says so." 
 
 "Will I do, sir?" 
 
 " You'll do. Ten shillings a week." 
 
 " What's the work, sir? " 
 
 " Anything you can find to do. Where d'you live ? " 
 
 " Southwark, sir." 
 
 " You must live here." 
 
 "Where, sir?" 
 
 " Here, in the shop, or behind it. I do. Ain't it good 
 enough for you? " 
 
 The boy had an almost incontroUable desire to giggle, 
 but he turned it off into a sneeze. 
 
 " Got a cold? " said the head ferociously. 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " How old are you? " 
 
 " Sixteen." 
 
 " Had measles ? Mustn't have measles here. Babies 
 on the top floor. You're not a Londoner by your 
 accent." 
 
 " No, sir. Leicestershire, sir." 
 
 " I'm Warwick. Ask anyone in Warwick about the 
 Coopers. They'll tell you. I'm the last Cooper." And 
 the head chuckled. " When can you come? " 
 
 " To-night, sir." 
 
 " Good boy." 
 
 The arm was withdrawn and the head disappeared. 
 
 The boy shook himself, pinched his leg. Then he 
 said: 
 " Sir/' 
 
10 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 There was no answer. He peered round the bootcase 
 and saw that X. Cooper was asleep. He dared not rouse 
 him. 
 
 He returned to the counter and sat again, dangling 
 his legs, taking more interest in the shop. He seemed 
 to have become a part of it and dreamed of the improve- 
 ments he would make in it, the stir caused in the book 
 world by Peter Davies, Esq., and the fortune won by 
 the sale of books: of intimacy with great authors. He 
 noticed then for the first time that there was a glass- 
 panelled door leading into a parlour behind the shop with 
 a little window let into the wall for spying upon custo- 
 mers just as there was in the shop at home. He sup- 
 posed that the parlour would be much like that at home, 
 and took no immediate interest in it. He was interested 
 in the future : for him always the future was the present. 
 Just as without the slightest difficulty he had dropped 
 his brother and sisters at home, he was now prepared to 
 drop the aunt with whom he had lived since his arrival 
 in London. 
 
 The cat, Demophoon, returned to the shop, and finding 
 him still there, decided that as part of the establish- 
 ment it might be wise to conciliate him. She accordingly 
 jumped on to the counter and rubbed herself against 
 him, purring roundly. He stroked her, and noticed then 
 that she had only the crumpled remnant of an ear, and 
 that in patches her fur was thin. He had never before 
 heard of Demophoon, his reading of Greek authors being 
 confined to the Anabasis of Xenophon, and the fourth 
 book of the same author's wars. He was annoyed that 
 he had not heard of Demophoon, and repulsed the cat. 
 
 The cat leaped down. She showed no resentment, 
 being a wise animal, fully realising that her living de- 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS IT 
 
 pended upon the favour of tHe two-legged animals wliose 
 power seemed infinite. She retired behind the bookcase 
 and choosing a warm corner in the small of the back of 
 X. Cooper, curled up and went to sleep. 
 
 Peter took no further interest in her. He was pleased 
 with himself. Already his extraordinary merits had won 
 for him a competence of ten shillings a week and board 
 and lodging, in the very centre of the Metropolis; no 
 very great amount of work to do, and, if X. Cooper were 
 always asleep, certainly much freedom. Decidedly he 
 might have done worse. 
 
 A little pale young man entered the shop and asked 
 the price of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Peter took down Mr. Gladstone, found him marked 
 two shillings, and sold him for that price. He was for 
 rolling him up, but the young man insisted on carrying 
 him flat. In his eyes Mr. Gladstone seemed to have a 
 rare value. 
 
 " You're new here," he said to Peter. 
 
 " Just come." 
 
 " See you again. I often come." With that the 
 young man left the shop. 
 
 Peter hated him because he was well dressed, carried 
 himself with an air of confidence, and spoke with a re- 
 fined and almost mincing accent. 
 
 He discovered a till in the counter and placed the two 
 shillings therein. It had no other coins for company. 
 
 On consulting his watch, which he had bought for ten 
 shillings and sixpence out of his twenty pounds, Peter 
 discovered it to be nearly half-past five, and decided at 
 once to go down to Southwark, break the news to his 
 aunt and bring back his Gladstone bag and his books. 
 X. Cooper was still asleep. He left the shop quietly. 
 
18 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 shutting the door softly behind him, so that any customer 
 entering might waken the sleeping bookseller with the 
 jangling of the bell. In the glass of the door a hideous 
 Bunbury caricature mocked him. Glancing up to the 
 left he saw that the old man had returned to the study 
 of " The Map of Life." 
 
 He seemed to have grown older, his coat more green, 
 and he was bent lower over the book. 
 
 Peter walked away down towards Piccadilly Circus. 
 There was noticeably a swagger in his walk ; he was more 
 insolent and certainly more coxcombical than when he 
 had jostled against the old man in threading through 
 the crowd only an hour before. 
 
 Passing a boot shop near the theatres at the Piccadilly 
 end of the avenue, he observed that a sale was announced. 
 (He entered and bought himself a pair of brown boots for 
 eleven shillings and sixpence. When he came out he 
 wished that he had bought black, but was too timid to go 
 back to the gorgeous young Hebrew who had conde- 
 scended to sell them to him, and pursued his way 
 across the Circus to the Tube Railway station. He was 
 almost run down in crossing from the island by a smart 
 electric brougham, in which a beautiful actress was sit- 
 ting. The chauffeur yelled at him. He leaped forward 
 and turned. The actress, in alarm, had turned to look 
 at him. She was very beautiful. Peter thought he had 
 roused interest in her. In the station he stopped to 
 buy an evening paper, the serial story of which he had 
 followed with eagerness for a month. Among others 
 (he saw a picture postcard of the actress in the brougham. 
 She was in a stage costume, and the ingenious printer 
 had made her glitter with tinsel. Peter paid twopence 
 and became the owner of the card. At the foot of the 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS Id 
 
 picture he read her name — Miss Mary Dugdale. He 
 placed her in his right breast pocket, and then, upon 
 reflection that his heart was on the left side, transferred 
 her to the left breast pocket of his jacket. 
 
 He passed into the lift, and became absorbed in the 
 story of " The Mammon of Unrighteousness," by Alice 
 and Ethel Stubbs, a story cunningly concocted in ac- 
 cordance with the prescription of the controller of a 
 ring of such journals, passing from day to day through 
 violent events, each instalment concluding with a seem- 
 ingly irreparable catastrophe, after which the announce- 
 ment in italics " To be continued to-morrow " seemed to 
 be a concession to the unreasoning optimism and hopeful- 
 ness of the human race. Peter was duly thrilled with thd 
 day's catastrophe and properly relieved that the hero 
 and heroine were to enjoy a continued existence in spite 
 of it. He turned, between Waterloo and the Elephant, to 
 the other columns of the newspaper and read with languid 
 interest their combination of banality and picturesque 
 untruth, lies before which the inventions of Marco Polo 
 and Sir John Mandeville were pale. Under the heading 
 of " Plays and Players " he discovered a paragraph con- 
 cerning Miss Mary Dugdale. It ran : " Miss Mary 
 Dugdale, the charming young actress who took all Lon- 
 don by storm two years ago, and who, rumour says, is 
 engaged to be married to one of the richest of our gilded 
 youth, has been chosen by Mr. Bertram Bond to play 
 the lead in his new piece. This is this fortunate young 
 lady's first really fat part. Keep your eye on Mary." 
 The impertinence of the paragraphist roused Peter to 
 fury. He let the paper fall and trampled it underfoot. 
 A mechanic sitting next to him waited to see if hp had 
 really finished with it, then picked it up and became 
 
20 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 absorbed in the betting news and the predictions of 
 " Captain Spy." Peter meanwhile had remembered an 
 anecdote of a deceased and lamented actor who, in his 
 youth, upon witnessing a performance of Hamlet, had 
 there and then vowed that he would some day play the 
 role himself and would wed the lady who played Ophelia. 
 Both ambitions had been realised, the first successfully, 
 the second unhappily. However, Peter was unaware of 
 this, was indeed at an age to believe, in spite of all evi- 
 dence to the contrary, that marriage was inevitably a 
 state of happiness, and had entered upon a blissful 
 dream which was broken only by the grinding of the 
 brakes as the train drew into the Elephant and Castle 
 station. He descended and was conveyed in a crowded 
 lift, still dreaming, to the street. His jaw had dropped 
 and a vacant expression was in his eyes, the expression 
 which had provoked one of his sisters to implore him 
 upon a public occasion to try and look less like an 
 idiot. 
 
 Passing the Elephant and Castle he was narrowly 
 missed by an intoxicated man, blubberittg, who lunged 
 out from the swing doors, stood for a moment on the 
 curb swaying, drew a revolver from his pocket and shot 
 himself. Peter swung round on the report, saw the man 
 crumple up and fall, and a crowd spring up, as crowds 
 do in London, from nowhere. A nausea seized him, and 
 a coldness. On the point of tears he ran from the scene, 
 the vision of the man falling before him, the report ring- 
 ing in his ears, to the right down Newington Causeway 
 and the Borough High Street, under the railway bridge, 
 through dark streets and alleys to Trinity Square and on 
 down a grim street to the house of his aunt, Mrs. Daltry, 
 He tugged furiously at the bell, and, the door being 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS 21 
 
 opened, he plunged into the dimly lit hall, sent hats, walk- 
 ing-sticks, and umbrellas flying in his passage and stum- 
 bled down the dark stairs to the kitchen. There he sat 
 on a hard Windsor chair, the parcel containing his new 
 boots on his knees, and shivered, pale, uncanny, his lower 
 jaw working. 
 
 His aunt was engaged in the polite art of (Jrystoleum 
 painting, and at first paid no attention to him. When, 
 after five minutes, he had spoken no word, she looked up. 
 A glance at his face and she flew to him, shook him, felt 
 the iciness of his forehead, shook him again. Under- 
 standing nothing of his condition she instinctively put 
 her arms round him — she was a tiny, bird-like woman — 
 and held his head against her breast. The warmth of 
 human contact released feeling and the boy burst into a 
 passion of tears. She crooned over him, not much soft- 
 ness in her voice, dry withered woman as she was, and 
 pressed little pecking kisses with her thin lips on his 
 forehead. 
 
 He wailed: " The man shot himself." 
 
 " What man, dearie ? " 
 
 "He — ^he came out of the — ^the public house. And, 
 and sh — shot himself." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Yes. He was so near, and he crumpled up like — 
 like a doll when you — ^you make a hole in it and let the 
 — the sawdust out." 
 
 He was seeing it all again, feeling the shock of it. 
 His condition seemed not to improve, and for distrac- 
 tion she made him eat; fetched from a cupboard cold 
 meat, pickles, a Dutch cheese, round and red. He ate 
 and was comforted, but though she was curious, she 
 found him little inclined to tell her more and returned 
 
22 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 to her painting. It was for her a relief from the monot- 
 ony of attending to the domestic welfare of the two 
 commercial gentlemen and the ascetic young priest who 
 constituted her household. It was also a genteel occupa- 
 tion, not altogether without profit, for, in red or green 
 plush frames, they sometimes found a purchaser among 
 the newly married of the district. A childless woman, 
 she had welcomed the advent of the queer dreamy boy, 
 and according to her lights had been kind to him. She 
 was irritated by his inexplicable alternations of dark 
 misery, which was almost a stupor, and wild spirits. She 
 had no great opinion of his ability, and when he was 
 dismissed first from the insurance office and then from 
 the solicitor's office in which he had successively found 
 employment, she had begun seriously to be alarmed lest 
 he should rest permanently on her hands. He had given 
 fifteen of his twenty pounds into her keeping, and she 
 had used them to pay portions of long-standing accounts 
 with her butcher, and the little grocer at the street cor- 
 ner. She had sufi'ered pangs of conscience, but had 
 promised herself to refund the money at a time when 
 it should be more useful to the boy. Further, she con- 
 sidered herself entitled to some payment for his board 
 and lodging. He was acquiescent in all her suggestions 
 and found himself interesting as a " delicate " boy, who 
 had outgrown his strength. Thus she explained his un- 
 usual pallor to her lodgers. When reference was made 
 to the odd shape of his forehead she hinted darkly at 
 disease in infancy. 
 
 She looked up from her painting to the clock on the 
 mantelpiece. It was half-past six, time she began to 
 think of the curate's supper. She found the boy staring 
 st her. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 23 
 
 "Better?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " You're queer." 
 
 "I've got a place." 
 
 " Oh ! Hope you'll keep it this time." 
 
 " It's to live in." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 She had a momentary panic. If he left, he might ask 
 for the money. 
 
 " In a bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue. Cooper's 
 the name, and there's a cat with a crumpled ear. And 
 I'm to get ten shillings a week and my board and lodg- 
 ing." 
 
 "When— when do they want you?" 
 
 " There's only one — an old man. And I'm to go to- 
 night, I think. I don't know. He went to sleep again." 
 
 "Who did?" 
 
 " Mr. Cooper. He was asleep when I went in." He 
 recounted the adventure, beginning with the man on the 
 telephone wires and the old man in the green coat, omit- 
 ting no detail. 
 
 " Humph," said his aunt. She was dubious. She 
 had a horror of anything out of the ordinary, like aU 
 people whose experience has run in a narrow circle. She 
 had not learned that nothing is irreparable. Accordingly 
 she considered it her duty to harangue her nephew, who 
 paid no attention to the sense of the torrent of words, 
 hearing them only as a man dreaming in a wood hears 
 the babbling of a mountain stream hard by. His inseir- 
 sibility roused her to vixenish fury, her voice rose to a 
 scream so shrill that he could not avoid hearing these 
 words : 
 
 " You've made your bed. You must lie on it. If you 
 
24 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 go among these drunkards and thieves I'm done with 
 you. There ! " 
 
 'She folded her arms and held them tight under her 
 bosom, waiting for his rejoinder. He had grown accus- 
 tomed to these onslaughts. He looked up at her from 
 his plate on which he had been tracing designs with the 
 mustard spoon, wearily and with a heavy eye, and, ris- 
 ing slowly to his feet, said: 
 
 " It's getting late. I must go and pack." 
 
 " You're going then ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He left her and went up to the attic, which had been 
 his apartment since his residence in the house, brought 
 out his Gladstone bag from under the little folding bed 
 and laid out his belongings — a brown suit, half a dozea 
 collars, three red ties, two pairs of cuffs, a pair of red 
 felt slippers, a cap, two night gowns, three flannel shirts, 
 underwear, socks, hairbrush and comb, and his books — 
 the works of Felicia Hemans, Astronomy for Beginners, 
 Pickwick Papers, The Tower of London, Hamlet in a 
 school edition, Armadale, and an abridged edition of 
 Don Quixote. He stood for a moment surveying the pile, 
 surprised to find himself owner of so much, but taking 
 no pride in it. He had no instinct of possession, and 
 would quite contentedly have left everything behind. He 
 packed his bag, and leaving it in the hall on his way 
 went down to the kitchen to say good-bye to his aunt. 
 She received him uneasily, afraid lest he should ask for 
 his money. However, he held out his cheek to be kissed: 
 she rose on tiptoe and pecked at him. Without more he 
 turned and left her. As he reached the top of the stairs 
 conscience pricked her and she called to him. He did 
 not hear and she made no further effort in the direction 
 
PETERI HOMUNCULUS 25 
 
 of honesty, except to tell herself that it was perhaps 
 better for her to keep the money until such time as he 
 should need it. She knew for the present where he was 
 to be found, and if he chose to leave the bookshop with- 
 out communicating with her — ^well, that would be his 
 fault and not hers. 
 
 She turned to the frying of a steak and onions for 
 the curate, for whom alone among human beings she had 
 a real tenderness. The ascetic young parson suffered 
 agonies from her persistent attentions. 
 
 Peter returned to the shop by the same route as that 
 by which he had come. He was very tired, and the 
 Gladstone bag was heavy for his small strength. The 
 shock of the suicide outside the Elephant had left him 
 in the depths of misery. When, therefore, on arriving 
 at the shop he found the book-boxes removed, the shutters 
 up and the door closed, no light in the shop nor sign of. 
 life, he was very near tears, and a lump rose in his 
 throat. No passer-by paid any attention to him. He 
 dropped the bag on to the pavement and knocked vio- 
 lently at the door, kicked it, found a bell and rang furi- 
 ously. All to no purpose. He rang again, and again. 
 At length from above there came the voice of a woman. 
 
 "HeUo! You there!" 
 
 Peter looked up and saw in the dim light (it was 
 September, lamps were lit, but the light of day, not yet 
 disappeared, made them ineffectual) the head of a young 
 woman in curl papers in the first floor window. As far 
 as he could see she was pretty, but she seemed to be very 
 inefficiently clothed, for with her right hand she was 
 holding a piece of cloth to her left shoulder. A jovial 
 young man passing saw her and threw up a familiar 
 greeting. She burst into a torrent of abuse, a flow ofi 
 
26 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 language which Peter only remembered to have been 
 equalled by his father in his worst moments. The young 
 man passed on singing, " I want you for my all-time 
 girl," and the young woman returned to Peter. 
 
 " What do you want? " 
 
 "Mr. Cooper." 
 
 " He ain't in. What d'you want him for ? " 
 
 " I'm coming to live here — ^to work." The young 
 woman whistled. 
 
 " The devil you are. Wait a minute and I'll let 
 you in." 
 
 Peter waited and presently she appeared at a little 
 door on the other side of the shop. 
 
 " This way," she said. " You can get • into old 
 Cooper's parlour, but that'll be dull for you. Better 
 come upstairs and talk to me while I dress." 
 
 Peter accepted this adventure as he accepted every- 
 thing, without surprise. She had a box of matches in 
 one hand and lighted the way for him along the narrow 
 passage. Just before the stairs she opened a little door 
 to the left. 
 
 " Put your bag in there. That's old Cooper's place." 
 
 He deposited his bag inside the door, which she shut 
 again, and they went upstairs, she in front striking 
 matches to light the way. Turning to talk to him the 
 flame of a match reached her thumb and burned her. She 
 threw it down with an oath and took to sucking her 
 thumb. She piit out her other hand and took Peter's 
 arm, guiding him to her room. Then the gas was lit and 
 Peter stood blinking. When his eyes had grown accus- 
 tomed tO/ the light he saw that the young woman was 
 dressed only in a light dressing gown. 
 
 " You're pretty," he said. 
 
 " Oh ! Come orf it," she laughed. Then she came 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 27 
 
 running up to him, threw her arms around him and 
 said: 
 
 " Kiss me." 
 
 Peter kissed her timidly. He did not like the taste 
 of the stuff she had on her lips. 
 
 " Now sit on the bed, dearie, and talk to me while I 
 do my toilette." 
 
 He sat on the bed, but, finding no topic of conversa- 
 tion, made no effort to talk. She did not seem to mind 
 his silence, and while she took the curl papers out of 
 her hair began to sing. She had a sweet voice and Peter 
 liked to hear her. One little verse she sang over and 
 over again, to a sad little tune: 
 
 There is a lady sweet and kind. 
 
 Was never a face so pleased my mind, 
 
 I did but see her passing by. 
 
 Yet will I love her till I die. 
 
 Peter liked the tune and whistled it. 
 
 When she had coiled her black hair into a preposter- 
 ous erection with a sort of knob hanging down over her 
 forehead, she removed her dressing gown and stood look- 
 ing coquettishly at him clad only in corset and pink silk 
 petticoat. Peter found himself admiring her shoulders 
 and wanting to touch them. 
 
 "What are you staring at, silly?" she said. 
 
 "Your shoulders," he said, and she laughed. 
 
 " You're a funny boy, but you've got beautiful eyes." 
 
 The remark gave Peter a queer little shrill. No one 
 had ever before spoken well of his appearance. He re- 
 lapsed into silence. She turned to her mirror again and 
 began to paint her face. She did it very clumsily, and 
 when she turned smiling again to Peter, he was appalled. 
 
28 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Suddenly she said: 
 
 " Shall we be friends, funny boy? " 
 
 " Yes," said Peter. 
 
 " What's youT name, then ? " 
 
 "Peter Davies." 
 
 " Mine's Tessa Myers. You can call me Tessa. How 
 old are you ? " 
 
 " Sixteen." 
 
 " I'm nineteen. Really friends I mean. Not — ^not " 
 
 Peter did not understand what not, but he agreed with 
 her. 
 
 " He's a funny old thing, old Cooper. But he's kind. 
 He's beerf real kind to me, when I was iU." 
 
 Peter found considerable comfort in the idea that old 
 Cooper was kind. Tessa continued as she pimied her 
 hat, an enormous erection of plush, roses and feathers, 
 to the fat nest of her hair. 
 
 " He's my landlord, you know. An' the people up- 
 stairs, he took 'em in when the man was out o' work — 
 he's a printer. He's odd. A gentleman once, but— — 
 How you do stare at me ! " 
 
 Peter was not staring at her nor at anything in the 
 room. He was visualising the scene by the Elephant and 
 Castle, which had come back to him. He heard her 
 voice, but not her words. Politely he smiled ac- 
 quiescence. 
 
 When she was dressed, veiled and fully equipped she 
 came and sat by him on the bed, and made him tell her 
 about himself. He invented a romantic history — a bed- 
 ridden mother, a father who had died before his birth, 
 a rich uncle in Australia (he felt the banality of the in- 
 vention of the rich uncle, but it was out almost before 
 he was aware), adventures on the stage, wandering in 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 29 
 
 France and a wild flight througK the Black Forest to 
 Baden-Baden, among pine trees. It was a breathless 
 narrative and Tessa was enthralled. She sat like a child, 
 her eyes watching Peter's lips, her own wide apart, her 
 hands in her lap, an attitude almost of adoration. Peter 
 had reached his flfteenth year and was on the point of 
 describing the arrest of a cousin for cattle-maiming 
 when they heard blundering steps below, a door slammed, 
 a crash and an oath. Tessa, brought suddenly back to 
 reality, laughed. 
 
 " He's fallen over your bag," she said. " Come 
 on." 
 
 She turned down the gas and together, she holding his 
 arm, they crept down the dark stairs to the little door 
 leading into the parlour. There they found the old book- 
 seller, lighted match in hand, surveying the bag. He 
 turned, muttering, not seeing them, aird lit the gas. Tessa 
 greeted him and pushed Peter, suddenly abashed, for- 
 ward. Peter could iind nothing to say, he wanted to 
 giggle and had a tendency to turn like a shy child and 
 hide his face in Tessa's skirts. He felt small enough, 
 and iff the dim light old Cooper loomed ogreish. 
 
 Suddenly the old man chuckled. It seemed that he 
 had recognised Peter, for he held out a hand and 
 gripped the boy's arm, dragging him under the light. 
 With his other hand he pressed under Peter's chin and 
 lifted his face for scrutiny. He looked long into his 
 eyes and chuckled. Chuckling he ran his fingers over 
 the bumps in Peter's forehead, which had caused one of 
 his aunts to mutter ominously of water on the brain. 
 
 Then he said, turning to Tessa: 
 
 " There'll be a fine brew in a head like that." 
 
 He seemed delighted. 
 
30 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Homunculus ! " he said, holding Peter, now thor- 
 oughly alarmed, at arm's length. " Men are ridiculous, 
 but it is perhaps better not to know it." 
 
 The phrase beat upon Peter's brain, stamped itself, 
 and he saw it written in large blue letters, winking, 
 spelling itself out like one of the signs by the river. 
 
 " Homunculus," said old Cooper, " we who are worn 
 by life, crushed, hurried to death, we, about to die, 
 salute you. We who have lost faith in everything but 
 youth, salute you, the very type and figure of youth. We 
 to whom the world is a speck of scum wherein the sun 
 breeds men like maggots in a dead dog. . . . " 
 
 The curious echo in Peter shrieked "Maggots in a 
 dead dog, being a God kissing carrion — carrion — car- 
 rion — " and in a swelling cry — "Crow ! ! " The old 
 man continued: 
 
 " Homunculus ! You are old as the world upon which 
 you' crawl, ant-like, burrowing in this heap which we 
 call London; and you are young as the dawn and the 
 dew. We salute you. Youth! The world is at your 
 feet. Not for kicking." 
 
 With that he gave Peter a little shove so that he stag- 
 gered and sat suddenly upon a horsehair chair in which 
 a curious spring made investigations into his anatomy. 
 He remained gaping at the bookseller, who had turned 
 to Tessa. 
 
 " It's early for you yet, my girl. Stay and sup with 
 youth. I'll make an omelette." 
 
 Tessa stayed and laid the table. Almost in silence 
 they then fed upon the excellent omelette made by old 
 Cooper by the heat of a gas ring in the hearth. They 
 drank beer. Milk was provided for the cat, who sat on 
 the table by the old man's right hand. Through half- 
 
PETEEJ H0MUNCULU9 31 
 
 closed lids she blinked at Peter, who occasionally 
 caressed her timidly. For the first time' in his life Peter 
 felt himself kin with an animal. He said so and tagged 
 — " More kin than kind," 
 
 " From Demophoon and her mother," said old Cooper, 
 with his mouth full. " I thought at one time that I had 
 learned the art of life. Sleep, eat, eat, sleep. But, 
 being a man I learned that the pleasures of Demophoon 
 are not for me, a unit in the social order. Being a male, 
 I cannot make a profession of those pleasures. The art 
 of life is still unlearned. No man has ever mastered it: 
 Man's chief glory." 
 
 He drank deeply to Demophoon. Tessa, who was a 
 little shocked by his remarks, murmured something about 
 the time and stole away. Peter looked after her heavy- 
 eyed. At the door she turned and blew him a kiss. 
 
 The woman gone,Peter and his employer sat in silence, 
 eyeing each other furtively. The silence oppressed 
 Peter and by way of making conversation he narrated 
 the story of the suicide. 
 
 " You will observe," said the old man, " that it was 
 necessary for him to become drunk to accomplish it. 
 Some are drunk with sorrow, some with passion, and some 
 with emptiness and ache of the flesh. With sensibility 
 alive, men are proud that they can suffer so much. 
 . . . I came to it nearly, once. I could never be 
 drunk enough." 
 
 Then he told Peter the story of the great and absurd 
 Goethe taking a knife to bed with him and, on the sub- 
 ject of Goethe, enlarged upon the poet's relations with 
 women, with special reference to Frau von Stein, who 
 was clever enough or stupid enough to make him un- 
 happy during ten years, before hig astounding relation 
 
32 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 with the heavy Christine von Vulpins. Lighting a pipe, 
 the old man said: 
 
 " It is curious how men preserve the memory of those 
 who have refused to regard or respect their institutions. 
 Men do not like their institutions, for they are all 
 unjust." 
 
 When the pipe was finished he took Peter, now more 
 than half asleep, to a little cahin of a room that had 
 once been a scullery behind the parlour, introduced him 
 to his bed, and left him with strict injunctions to ex- 
 tinguish the light. Peter surveyed the apartment, which 
 contained only a bed, a cracked mirror, and a crazy 
 chest of drawers, at one corner of which three books 
 took the place of a missing leg. He was content with it, 
 had no anxiety because the window was shut, indeed 
 made no attempt to open it. He arranged his belong- 
 ings, his clothes in the several drawers and his books 
 on the little iron mantelpiece. He opened the works of 
 Felicia Hemans and read a few pious lines. He turned 
 to the cover and read under the crest of his school the 
 inscription: 
 
 Pbize Awarded to 
 
 PETER DA VIES. 
 
 Subject — English Literature. 
 
 Open Prize. 
 
 Midsummer 1906. 
 
 Thomas Bloomeb, 
 
 Head Master. 
 
 He felt himself a fine fellow and had a vision of him- 
 self returning some day to distribute the prizes like the 
 sheep-faced Archdeacon, the school's especial glory, who 
 had risen to his pinnacle through marriage with the 
 daughter of a bishop. Everyone knew that, but Thomas 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 33 
 
 Bloomer had bowed low to the ornament of the Church. 
 So, thought the boy, Thomas Bloomer should some day 
 bow to Peter Davies, perhaps to Sir Peter or even Lord 
 
 — Lord . No matter, Thomas Bloomer should 
 
 bow. Without being really conscious of what he was 
 doing, Peter knelt and said his prayers. The God he 
 created for himself during the office bore a striking re- 
 semblance to X. Cooper, booming. 
 
 Hanging his coat up, Peter felt something rustle in 
 his pocket. It was the portrait of Miss Dugdale. He 
 pinned it to the wall above his head. Passing into sleep 
 he had a vision of X. Cooper, Godlike, saying: 
 
 " We, who breed maggots in a dead dog, which is a 
 God-kissing carrion, salute thee. Lord Davies, emblem 
 and type of youth ..." 
 
 Mary Dugdale appeared in the dress of Elsie Atwood, 
 the saddler's daughter, a dream — Mary, radiant. 
 
 Peter slept. 
 
In a few months it was for Peter as though he had 
 never known any other mode of living. He remembered 
 all experiences vividly, lost none of his power of visual- 
 ising past scenes, and like the rest of the world took a 
 delight in recollecting past hurts, hugging them, striv- 
 ing to make them as bitter as they had been at the mo- 
 ment of the event. Past joys it was for him, as for 
 others, impossible to recall. He was happy and more 
 than ever convinced that he was a iine feUow, for old 
 Cooper adored him, as he did the old gentleman in the 
 rusty green coat who had become intimate with them 
 and an habitual visitor. They chuckled at Peter's jokes, 
 repeated them to each other, reminded each other of his 
 exploits, proclaimed him a masterpiece, a poet, and their 
 eyes never left him when he was in the parlour or the shop 
 with them. Neither had other creature to care for, 
 though old Cooper loved Demophoon, and the green- 
 coated old man was attached quite sincerely to the filthy 
 woman who for nearly thirty years had " cleaned and 
 done for " him in his little room above the bird shop 
 near Covent Garden market. Peter liked the unques- 
 tioning appreciation of his remarks and used to ponder 
 witticisms and profound sayings as he worked in the 
 shop. Occasionally he was guilty of theft. 
 
 He was always in the shop, working, early morning 
 and late evening. He had made a wonderful difference 
 in the aspect of the place. He began by dividing the 
 books into the moderately clean and the dirty, without 
 
 34 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 35 
 
 regard to quality, subject or price, and finding that the 
 casual loafing bibliophile liked to purchase a dirty book- 
 in a calf binding ancient in appearance, rather as a 
 sop to conscience than from any enthusiasm, he placed 
 such in the cheap boxes outside, raising the scale of 
 prices in the proportion of one penny to threepence. He 
 left the prints and the Vanity Fair cartoons iir the win- 
 dow, for they seemed to give a tone to the place. Just 
 Inside the door, as a bait, he had always the cleanest 
 books, and beyond them, for respectability, the works of 
 the great. He endeavoured to continue the catalogue 
 from the place where his predecessor's pen had sprawled 
 and spluttered down the page — a disaster explained by 
 old Cooper, who had discovered the dirty imp reading a 
 lurid tale in contravention of all orders and principles; 
 but, impotent in the face of its chaos, he bought a bulky 
 manuscript book and began a new one in his neatest 
 writing, adorning it with much red ink. He had the 
 shop thoroughly cleaned and the windows polished once 
 a week by the crone who did the rough work of the estab- 
 lishment. Truculent towards old Cooper, she was as 
 wax in the hands of the boy. The old man was fitfully 
 roused to energy by this new influence, and though he 
 maintained to all appearances his slothfulness, he was 
 subtle to suggest new operations to the adored boy, with- 
 out letting him know that the idea was not his own. 
 Their stock consisted of books unsalable elsewhere, 
 bought by the hundredweight, remainders from the great 
 booksellers, and the siftings of libraries bought by the 
 second-hand fraternity. Old Cooper kept the buying in 
 his own hands. With the shop clean and attractive, busi- 
 ness grew amazingly, and the victims of the book-poring 
 habit paid it an attention which it had never kirpwn b?^ 
 
36 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 fore. Entrants to the shop became so frequent that 
 Demophoon in despair deserted it for the parlour. Old 
 Cooper's knowledge, wit and wisdom became known, and 
 men of all sorts would come to the shop to exchange 
 words with him. He was crusty with most of them. He 
 had for so long lain aside, like the most obscurely hidden 
 of his books, dusty and cobwebbed, that he came blink- 
 ing to the light of human relations. His bewilderment 
 was pathetic, but he steadfastly refused to wear more 
 than one clean collar a week, and adhered to his close 
 clipping of his beard as less trouble than shaving. To 
 tell the truth, Peter was a little ashamed of the old man, 
 and with the blindness of his age, often hurt him bit- 
 terly. Perhaps all the more for that old Cooper doted 
 on Peter. They throve, and, rarely moving from the 
 shop, Peter found his ten shillings mount to a consider- 
 able sum. At Tessa's suggestion he started an account 
 with the Post Office Savings Bank. 
 
 His aunt he had not seen again since the night of his 
 quitting her, and he had written an hubristic letter to 
 his brother announcing his circumstances and his deter- 
 mination to sever all connection with tailordom for ever. 
 For a short time he corresponded fervently with Elsie 
 Atwood, but his interest in the correspondence was 
 purely literary (he delighted in his own humour), and 
 finding soon that he was repeating himself, he fled from 
 the cardinal sin and ceased. From that moment his 
 world was the shop, conceived as the fertilising ground 
 of the germ of the greatness of Peter Davies. He read 
 jwith old Cooper, three nights a week, Greek, German, 
 and a little French. The old man taught him to recite 
 ballads of Goethe and Schiller, and little love poems of 
 Uhland^ took him through selected passages of Plato, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 37 
 
 Euripides, and play after play of Aristophanes; roared 
 and ranted Racine, bleating the long, heavy lines in the 
 manner of Mounet SuUy; minced the fables of La Fon- 
 taine; stuffed thoughts of Blaise Pascal into the boy's 
 brain; swept with him through the histories and trag- 
 edies of Shakespeare, they weeping together with Cor- 
 delia, raging with Othello, both acting for all they were 
 worth: Tom Jones they read together, Peregrine Pickle 
 and Pickwick ; Waverley and the Bride of Lammermoor. 
 Of modern writers old Cooper would have nothing ; tale- 
 makers he abhorred, and for the socialist writers, he 
 dismissed them jas cold vain fellows, swollen with rais- 
 ing a cloud of dust in a cul-de-sac, imable to view the 
 world for the dust they had made; parochial little fel- 
 lows embracing the parish pumps as the centre of the 
 world, their little intellect as the motive forces of that 
 same world, denying instinct. The old man could not 
 speak of them with moderation. 
 
 " Homunculus," he said — ^he never addressed Peter hy 
 any other title — " Homunculus, there has never been 
 any other faith for the social order and arrangement 
 of the affairs of men than this same socialism. It is 
 in the hearts of all good men. Since, however, there are 
 men who love power and money better than all other 
 of the prizes that this world has to offer, love them suf- 
 ficiently to gain them in spite of aU obstacles, in spite 
 of their own right feeling and love, the socialist dream 
 is slow in realisation. It is beneath all progressive 
 measures. ... It has taken man millions of years 
 to develop his brain. It must take him millions of years 
 to learn to use it properly. He is driven by hunger and 
 love, two instincts, the instinct of defence and preser- 
 vation, the instinct of creation: twp instincts so Jnex- 
 
38 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 tricably intertwined as to be almost one and the same. 
 [Having, perhaps foolishly — I do not know — developed 
 this brain, men have complicated their existence, for 
 their brain is not yet sufficiently strong to control these 
 instincts. It will be — perhaps, who knows! — not till 
 then I think will — ^to sever intellect from instinct is 
 sheer arrogance, the work only of a vain fool. — These 
 new men make of socialism a creed, so that their words 
 are barren." 
 
 Then the vain old man was guilty of a tag. He said: 
 " Homo sum ; nil humanum a me alienvum puto ? " 
 Peter's mind was not strong enough to grasp all the 
 old man's philosophy, but it was presented to him fre- 
 quently in various guises, so that it sank, became part 
 of his own mind, and though his imagination could not 
 yet grasp the world, nor his youthful egotism allow ^ 
 him sufficiently to lose sight of himself, he contracted 
 early the artist's habit of looking at men and women as 
 something remote and yet akin with himself, explicable 
 only through himself, part of a gigantic whole, a splen- 
 did world, a world which, in spite of all waverings and 
 all temptations to an easy cynicism, he felt desperately 
 to be good. 
 
 Once old Cooper said to him suddenly as he was 
 ruling lines in red ink in the catalogue: 
 
 " It is the privilege of genius to reveal the splendour 
 of the world." 
 
 Peter, as usual, took the words to himself, mused over 
 them, found them good, printed and emblazoned them 
 on a piece of white paper, which he pinned on to the 
 wall above the several photographs (he had begun a 
 collection) of Miss Mary Dugdale. He had seen her 
 upon the stage in the very successful play of Mr, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 39 
 
 Bertram Bond, and often sneaked to the theatre of an 
 evening without giving word of his intention. She was 
 to him ideal woman; her nose was so deliciously straight. 
 On one occasion, when the green-coated old man whom 
 old Cooper called " Adam " and Peter " Sir," was sup- 
 ping with them, shaking and shivering in his old green 
 coat, his fingers twitching, now pulling at his thin goat 
 beard, now stroking his sharp beak of a nose, red- 
 veined, they discussed London, its cruelty, its snobbery, 
 its preposterous arrogance, is parochialism, is irresist- 
 ible attraction, its romance, its life, its majesty, its cor- 
 ruption, its beauty, and its hideousness. Old Cooper 
 went into the shop, first filling his mouth with bloater 
 fried by Peter, to return with a tattered, much-read 
 volume in his hand. Peter recognised it as that which 
 lay always on the sofa where the old man slept in the 
 shop. He opened it and read : 
 
 Hell is a city much like London, 
 
 A populous and a smoky city; 
 
 There are all sorts of people undone. 
 
 And there is little or no fun done: 
 
 Small justice shewn and still less pity. 
 
 There is great talk of revolution 
 And a great chance of despotism, 
 German soldiers — camps — confusion — 
 Tumults — ^lotteries — rage — delusion — 
 Gin — suicide — and methodism. 
 
 Peter sat listening, his mind supplying instances of 
 each. German soldiers and lotteries puzzled him. The 
 man of the Elephant and Castle stood for suicide, the 
 crone who cleaned for them for gin, his aunt for meth- 
 odism. Old Cooper read on: 
 
40 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 There are mincing women mewing 
 (Like cats who amant misere) 
 Of their own virtue, and pursuing 
 Their gentler sisters to that ruin. 
 Without which — ^what were chastity? 
 
 Lawyers, judges — old hob-nobbers — 
 Are there — bailiffs, chancellors — 
 Bishops — great and little robbers — 
 Rhymsters — pamphleteers — stock-jobbers — 
 Men of glory in the wars. 
 
 A fine scorn came into the old man's voice as he read: 
 
 Things whose trade is, over ladies 
 To lean and ilirt, and stare and simper. 
 Till all that is divine in woman 
 Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman- 
 Crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper. 
 
 Thinking, toiling, wailing, moiling. 
 Frowning, preaching — such a riotl 
 Each with never-ceasing labour. 
 Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour 
 Cheating his own heart of quiet. . . . 
 
 And some few — ^like we know who. 
 Damned — ^but God alone knows why — 
 To believe their minds are given 
 To make this ugly Hell a Heaven, 
 In which faith they live and die. . . . 
 
 All are damned — ^they breathe an air 
 Thick, infected, joy-dispelling: 
 Each preserves what seems most fair. 
 Mining like moles through mind, and there 
 Scoop palace caverns vast, where Care 
 In throned state is ever dwelling. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 41 
 
 The book was shut and laid respectfully on the table, 
 the old man's hand caressing its cover. 
 
 "There/' he said, "that's London. It's true now." 
 
 " I think," said Adam, " that what a great man sees 
 is always true. Great men always see the same things. 
 The poet has the same vision as Christ." 
 
 "All the evil in the world," said Cooper; "all the 
 evil in the world, comes from the arrogance of men, 
 apes in clothes." 
 
 He cocked an eye at Peter to see if the remark had 
 shot home. Seeing the boy in a dream, he continued: 
 
 " The world is what we see in it. I cannot see that 
 we are any better than ants or bees." 
 
 " The beasts," said Adam, " die simply as they live. 
 We complicate life and we die in terror. I am afraid of 
 death." 
 
 Old Cooper became arrogant at that. 
 
 " I should accept death as I have accepted life — as a 
 gift I have not asked for. . . ." 
 
 Peter was pale, wide-eyed. Thoughts too big for him 
 were thumping in his head. 
 
 "I think," he said in a faint little voice; "I think 
 dead things are horrible. We — ^we — die to set other 
 people free." 
 
 As soon as he had said it, he knew that the thought 
 was stale, no longer true for him, though splendid when 
 he had first roused it. He laughed nervously, and fell 
 to twisting a lock of hair upon his forehead. Old 
 Cooper saw that he was moved, and silenced Adam. 
 Awkwardly they sat. Relief came when Tessa ran in, 
 hair down, scared. She was sobbing and her hand 
 clutched at her neck. Peter jumped to his feet, held 
 her for a moment, then aided her to his chair. She 
 
42 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 clung to his hand, and he felt an odd sort of pleasure 
 that she should. 
 
 "What is it, Tessa?" 
 
 Tessa turned to old Cooper, questioning her. 
 
 " Mrs. Beasley," she said. " She was — ^was in the 
 family way — and — and — he's been on the drink lately, 
 
 out of work again. I been paying their rent He 
 
 struck her two days ago, and to-day it's — she's — it's all 
 wrong. ... I been with her — it's awful." 
 
 She clutched Peter's hand tight, hurt him. He shook 
 free, seized his hat, and without a word ran out into 
 the street. There was a dense fog, and he had diffi- 
 culty in finding his way to a house in Endell Street, 
 where he found the young man who had purchased " Mr. 
 Gladstone," the son and partner of a Doctor Fildes, 
 well known in the district for his skill and charity. He 
 had become a friend of Peter, and in that house the 
 boy was always welcome, treated with respect, and per- 
 haps a little too much encouraged to think himself a rare 
 being. He had soon overcome his first dislike of the 
 young man, with his airs of the University and care- 
 fully elaborate professional manner. Together they re- 
 turned to the shop — old Adam had disappeared. Cooper 
 was in the parlour soothing, controlling the husband, 
 Beasley, wild, distracted with remorse, pacing fiercely to 
 and fro, abusing himself, the world, and the God of 
 generation who sent children to those who could least 
 tend them, Tessa, with money of old Cooper's, had 
 flown to make purchases of coals, blankets, comfortable 
 things. She had taken the four children to her room 
 and placed them all in her great bed, brass, with a 
 bright pink covering. They lay there huddled together, 
 frightened, whimpering like a litter of young puppies 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 43 
 
 wanting their mother and the comfort of her milk. 
 Young Fildes went straight upstairs and saw the 
 woman. Her condition was terrible. He gave her mor- 
 phia, and recognising his incompetence in face of this 
 piece of twisted nature, called softly to Peter and sent 
 him with an urgent message to his father. 
 
 While Peter was gone, and until Doctor Fildes came, 
 Tessa and the young doctor straightened the room, 
 cleaned it, lit a fire, moving silently, afraid a little, 
 glad each of the other's company. There was no sleep 
 for any of them in the house that night. Peter and 
 old Cooper took turns with the wretched husband. Tessa 
 was flitting to and fro, upstairs and downstairs, fetch- 
 ing, carrying. She showed a marvellous competence, a 
 decision in the face of the small emergencies, difficulties 
 and obstacles cropping up through the long night, which 
 made the men feel ashamed a little, grateful to her. 
 
 Through the night father and son were watching over 
 the body of the wretched woman, twisting, turning, 
 sweating in agony. Life flickered in her, seemed at 
 dying point, flared up dangerously, then glowed in a 
 little spark. The dead thing taken from her, she might 
 live again, faintly at first, timidly. . . . 
 
 That night was great for Peter. The immense hap- 
 penings of it set him quivering, exhausted him. He 
 had come really into contact with human beings, all 
 veils torn asunder, and he entered upon real friendship. 
 (He saw old Cooper difi'erently. Too young to under- 
 stand or sympathise with the old man's attitude towards 
 life, the result of long, bitter experience and thought 
 almost equally bitter, yet there was in him ever after a 
 humility in his conduct towards the generous creature 
 which touched Cooper and gave a yet greater value to 
 
44 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 the precious boy who Had suddenly come to restore 
 interest in last days. 
 
 Peter, like the rest of us, was nicer for being brought 
 in contact with human suffering. 
 
 He knew, of course, that he was nicer, delighted in 
 all the new things which he found in himself, and with 
 his youthful sentimentality put it to the test by all 
 sorts of faked generosities. He found himself so beau- 
 tiful at this time, that in his bed at nights he would 
 cry with pleasure in the contemplation of himself. 
 However, he did not let it interfere with business, and 
 after provision had been made for the Beasley family, 
 who were shipped off to New Zealand as soon as the 
 woman was well enough, he threw out suggestions that 
 the shop front should be painted, and the name relet- 
 tered in White on an olive-green ground. Old Cooper 
 at first was obdurate, saw no good in it, was satisfied 
 with trade and did not want more. Peter was so im- 
 portunate, however, that consent was at length given, 
 and the painters camd". 
 
 Cooper was mysterious, went about chuckling, rubbing 
 his hands, jingling the money in his pockets, making 
 sudden wild onslaughts on Demophoon, and was alto- 
 gether in a high state of glee. Peter was very busy 
 with the catalogue, and also with a great literary work 
 at which he was working in secret, and hardly noticed 
 the eccentric behaviour of his employer. The smell of 
 paint was peculiarly distasteful to him, and he was not 
 well; for one day he retired to bed. Old Cooper was 
 alarmed and fussed until Peter snapped at him. 
 
 The sickness was gone next day, Peter's seventeenth 
 birthday, and old Cooper took the boy after breakfast 
 into the street. His hand on Peter's shoulder, he pointed 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 45 
 
 to tHe name board above tfie window. In letters of 
 white on a green ground Peter read: 
 
 Cooper and DavieS. Booksellers 
 Libraries bought and valued 
 
 Old Adam came shuffling by on his way to the British 
 Museum, where it was his wont to speiid the morning. 
 He gave a shrill little cry of pleasure on reading the 
 inscription, shook Peter's hand up and down, up and 
 down, sniffed, patted his shoulder, said " Good boy, good 
 boy," and went as fast as he could in the direction of 
 Oxford Street. 
 
 Peter went into the shop bursting with pride. Old 
 Cooper followed him, and Demophoon appeared from 
 her night's wanderings, after which she had a craving 
 for notice, as though she wished to make sure that she 
 would be received back into a respectable household. 
 She rubbed against Peter's legs. He stooped and picked 
 her up. She hated it, broke loose, and fell, twisting 
 marvellously in the air, to land on her feet. With her 
 tail stiff in the air, bristling, she marched, treading 
 delicately, out into the street again. 
 
 " She is not irrterested in your affairs, Homunculus. 
 Why should she be? They do not visibly affect her 
 fortunes." 
 
 Peter made a joke, too bad for reproduction. It 
 convulsed the old man. With great solemnity he pro- 
 duced a large document, written in black, very black, 
 lettering on stiff paper — a deed of partnership. He 
 laid it on the table flat, and together they conned it, 
 the black hair against the grey. There was really no 
 need for such a document, but the old man, who had 
 begun life as a barrister, had taken a delight in draft- 
 
46 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 ing it and had had it engrossed at a legal stationer's. 
 He was proud of it, and Peter liked the references to 
 himself as " the said Peter Davies." It was adorned 
 with a superabundance of legal phrases, in the manner 
 of the old conveyancers of Lincoln's Inn, who were paid 
 by the folio of seventy-two words, and were in conse- 
 quence supreme masters of tautology. The old man 
 was vain, almost childish about it, and hovered, cluck- 
 ing like an old hen, while Peter signed it. 
 
 " Cooper and Davies," he chuckled. " Cooper and 
 Davies. An honest business if a small one; if there 
 can be an honest business which is not the direct delv- 
 ing of a living from the earth. Dealers in words — 
 words printed and bound. Words are quick and vain 
 things, Homunculus. Sounds for communion. I think 
 the beasts only commune by sounds in love. . . ." 
 
 Peter marked that for a fallacy, knowing something of 
 birds and beasts. He was a little ashamed of the old 
 man's childishness, and glad when he went upstairs to 
 shew the deed to Tessa, 
 
 Left alone, Peter had a horrible sinking in his stom- 
 ach. He felt terribly, terribly youthful. Under the 
 new arrangement he was to receive one pound a week 
 as a salaried partner in the firm of Cooper and Davies. 
 It was much money, more, he thought, than he could 
 know what to do with. It gave him no pleasure to 
 buy things. He bought clothes when he needed them, 
 adhering always to a suit of navy-blue serge. Already 
 at seventeen he was careful, having a horror of pov- 
 erty from the memory of the humiliations of his child- 
 hood, and knew already that the civilised human animal 
 secure of its living has a contempt for the insecure. 
 With that in his mind, he swelled continually the sum 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS '4^7. 
 
 which he deposited with His Majesty's Postmaster-Gen- 
 eral, and only when he needed a new suit or had some 
 other essential purchase to make was the blue author- 
 isation for withdrawal requested. With twenty shil- 
 lings a week he felt secure, and would have been proud 
 but for that dreadful feeling of youth. Helpless he 
 felt, and angry. He kicked the counter and felt better, 
 and soon work restored confidence. 
 
 By the mid-day post he received a letter of birthday 
 greetings from his brother, tendering the olive branch. 
 Glad to have it, he wrote a reply, narrating his new 
 circumstances and the luck which had befallen him. 
 The letter reminded him of his aunt, and he felt consid- 
 erable compunction when he realised that he had not 
 seen nor made any effort to see or communicate with 
 her since he had left her house. A saying of Cooper's 
 came back to him and he grew mournful. It was a sad 
 saying. The old man had broken an evening of silence 
 with it, an evening which he had spent sucking his pipe 
 and reading his everlasting Shelley. 
 
 " Come to think of it," he said, " we cannot reform 
 the world any more than we can change its face. We 
 throw up heaps of stone and mud and think them better 
 than an ant heap which is mud and straw, or a nest 
 which is moss and twig. We can do nothing. Each of 
 us is alone — ^terribly alone . . . splendidly alone. 
 
 I am the Earth, 
 Thy mothers she within whose stony veins 
 To the last fibre of the loftiest tree 
 Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, 
 Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, 
 When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud 
 Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy! 
 
48 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Each of us is that, Homunculus, at birth ' a spirit 
 of keen joy ' — and slowly we kill joy as we move to 
 death, for we are perhaps afraid of life. , . . 
 Fear of life! — It is in all of us. That being so, we 
 can do nothing in this world, Homunculus, except to be 
 kind and strive always to be kinder . . . and 
 . . . and damn morality." 
 
 Peter remembered that, not word for word, but the 
 sense of it. He saw the old man, moved, waving his 
 pipe in the air, grunting out his thoughts as he found 
 words for them, his old heavy face lit up, the great eye 
 flashing and the little eye winking, winking until a tear 
 was squeezed out and rolled down the hard skin of his 
 cheek. He remembered that the tear had looked oddly 
 out of place on the hard skin; such a large tear from 
 such a little eye. To be kind and always strive to be 
 kinder was a touching and a good doctrine, and thought 
 flew to the little aunt in the dingy house in Southwark, 
 tending her curate and painting her crystoleum pictures. 
 With a fearful crudity the idea presented itself to 
 Peter that she was not happy. He had not before con- 
 sidered her as a person with emotions and sensibilities 
 like himself, a creature capable of grief and joy per- 
 haps. The idea shocked him. The shock blurred his 
 recollection of her, and he was unable to correlate the 
 details of her life as he knew it, but out of it all came 
 a vague and certain knowledge that she was lonely, 
 cramped and dried. So far as he could he felt sym- 
 pathy. He had felt more with the printer's wife, but 
 that had touched him nearly, had been a wild, sudden, 
 savage thing that had set him vibrating. This was more 
 subtle, a collection of a thousand details which he was 
 unable to gather. He knew, however, that he had been 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 49 
 
 at fault, admitted it, and patted himself on the back for 
 this generous abnegation of self. 
 
 It was with a feeling almost of pietjr that he set out 
 that evening, refusing all blandishments of Cooper, 
 Tessa, and young Fildes, and suggestions of birthday 
 jollity. Coming to ground from the burrowing of the 
 train, he walked on the other side of the road to avoid 
 the place of the suicide. In his hand he carried a little 
 parcel done up in light tissue paper, containing a 
 woollen shawl which he had bought at a shop in Shaftes- 
 bury Avenue as a preserrt for his aunt, for he remem- 
 bered that she always wore a shawl or a scarf draped 
 round her thin shoulders, cased in their formidable 
 armour of jet beading. He was pleased with himself, 
 and in Newington Causeway, coming upon an old woman 
 crouching on a doorstep, her skirts trailing their ragged 
 edges iir the mud, matches in her hand, he gave her a 
 penny. She crooned, and, holding out a shivering hand 
 to grasp the coin, she said: 
 
 " God bless you, young gentleman, and pave your 
 way with gold." 
 
 The phrase "young gentleman" delighted Peter, and 
 he strutted until he came to the large window of a 
 grocer's shop, in which he saw himself reflected. The 
 reflection pricked the bubble of his pride. He saw 
 himself there, narrow-chested, bandy-legged, with large, 
 large feet. 
 
 To tell the truth, our Peter was not at this time a 
 handsome youth. He was callow, a fledgeling, as gawky 
 and comic as a half-feathered bird. He did not realise 
 quite how humorously ugly he was, nor was he able to 
 find comfort in the thought that he was not alone in 
 that conditioir. It was his habit to regard all his attri- 
 
50 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 butes as peculiar to himself. The revelation of the 
 grocer's window was crushing. It had been only since 
 Tessa had remarked on the beauty of his eyes that he 
 had given thought to his personal appearance, but he 
 had given much. 
 
 His legs, obedient to his original intention, carried 
 him along through High Street to Trinity Square and 
 the little dingy house. Before the door his heart sank. 
 The house was occupied, but where his aunt's brass 
 plate had been was now only a clean patch of paint of 
 a different colour from the rest of the door, and adorned 
 at each ccwner with a hole where a screw had been. 
 With foreboding he rang the bell, which gave forth its 
 'cracked note dismally in the tomby depths of the house. 
 There came no answer. He rang again. There came 
 the clanking of the door chain unfastened, the clicking 
 of a latch drawn, and slowly the door was opened by a 
 few inches. The ghastly light of a worn fish-flame gas 
 jet flickering filled the crack and lighted from behind 
 a small head, frowsy-haired, face coarse, sharp, and 
 mouth all but toothless. Peter gaped at this apparition. 
 
 From the head came a shrill whistling sound that 
 presently took cognisable shape in words. 
 
 "What d'ye want.'" 
 
 Peter was silent. 
 
 " If yer wants money, there ain't none in the 'ouse, 
 an' if yer wants wittles, there's none neither. If yer 
 wants ter sell anythink, go to the 'alls o' the rich, and 
 don't worry the pore. . . ." 
 
 The whistling sounds flew, battering over Peter. He 
 bore up against them. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Daltry in?" 
 
 " Mrs. Watson is in, which is me. At 'ome, but not 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 51 
 
 at 'ome seein' as 'ow it's 'arf-parst niire and me recep- 
 tion is from four to six in the afternoon, I don't think." 
 
 Peter took off his hat to her. 
 
 " I wanted to see Mrs. Daltry." 
 
 " Never 'eard of 'er, 'less she was the lidy as lived 
 'ere next but one afore me, an' 'ad the bums in. She's 
 gone." 
 
 Peter made inquiry, but could elicit no further infor- 
 mation. The owner of the head lost interest in him and 
 slammed the door. He waited to hear the chain restored 
 to its place. The light struggling through the grimy 
 fan light over the door died and the house became more 
 than ever forbidding. 
 
 Peter felt ridiculous standing there on the muddy 
 doorstep with the little white parcel in his hand. His 
 good intentions had come too late. His aunt was gone, 
 after years of struggle engulfed. To trace her seemed 
 impossible. He thought of the curate who had lodged 
 with her, but could not remember his name, nor had he 
 ever known his church. 
 
 On his way back, passing the church in the Square, 
 he stopped by the notice board by the gateway and read 
 the name of the rector in faded gilt lettering, and the 
 names of his two curates, one faded, and the other new 
 and glittering. Neither had a sense of familiarity. 
 Rev. David Barnes, the faded one — that was not he; 
 Rev. James Reid, not he, either. The name began with 
 a W. He made a note of the rector's address, but 
 thought it too late to worry him that night. If his aunt 
 :were lost, she would not be more so in a day or two. 
 
 It began to rain, and Peter turned up the velvet collar 
 of his thick navy-blue overcoat. He had been depressed, 
 but standing in the square in the rain, the place was so 
 
52 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 infinitely more dismal than his condition that he felt 
 cheerful by comparison. He stood for some minutes 
 surveying the House of God, not without respect, and 
 found it ugly. The windows of the belfry were lit, and 
 he saw figures moving. Tiny men they seemed at that 
 height, hauling ropes that looked like threads; a cluster 
 of these tiny men and thin threads swaying, throbbing. 
 The bells rang out slowly, clumsily beating out a tune, 
 a hymn. 
 
 Lead — kind-ly — flight 
 
 A-mid — ^the — en-cir-cling — glo-om. 
 Lead — thou — ^me — o-on. 
 1 — do — ^not — ask — to — see 
 
 The — dis-tant — scene. 
 One — step — e-nough — for — me-e 
 
 The — ^night — is — dark 
 And — I — am — far — from — ^ho-ome 
 
 Peter turned and fled. 
 
 He found the old match woman huddled into a door- 
 way out of the rain. On an impulse he gave her the 
 shawl, and stood by her while she opened the parcel. 
 She mumbled over it, took o£F her rusty old cape and 
 wrapped the warm white shawl round her shoulders, over 
 the thin black cotton of her blouse, torn in places, 
 wretched, ragged. It gave her warmth at once. She 
 donned her cape and held out her hand for him to 
 shake. He held out his; she took it and drew hins 
 down to her, while with her bleared, tired old eyes, red- 
 rimmed, she scanned his face. 
 
 " Warm it is," she said in a cracked voice, in which 
 there yet lingered an infinitely pathetic note of refine- 
 ment. " Warm, warm, in a cold world. Hold people 
 
PETERi H0MUNCULU9 53 
 
 close to you, boy, hold 'em close. You'll be cold else — 
 I was a hard woman, cold, so there was none to warm 
 me. Hold 'em close — close — close." 
 
 She loosed his hand and fell to coughing. Tears 
 filled Peter's eyes, and he left her. Cooper's voice rang 
 in his ears ". . . £ind and strive always to be 
 kinder." The old woman's hand, cold and bony, had 
 chilled his. He blew on it. He felt glad and had a 
 warm interest in the motley throng of men and women 
 in the lift and in the train that took him back to the 
 so different and glittering world round Piccadilly Cir- 
 cus, so different and yet so much the same. He had to 
 pass the theatre which enshrined Miss Dugdale. In the 
 vestibule young men in evening dress were smoking, and 
 in the street were young men from the pit. All were 
 loud in praises of her. Mr. Bertram Bond's play was 
 an enormous success, and had been a triumph for the 
 young actress. From the pit and gallery Peter had 
 often adored her, her hair, bronze hair clustered round 
 her head; her brave walk, swift movements, gallant; her 
 soft, kind voice so tender and so thrilling in its lower 
 notes; her eyes, beyond words beautiful; her nose so 
 straight — and her mouth awry, with the little dimples 
 that chased upon her cheek as she spoke. He was proud 
 that others should so speak of her, his rarest posses- 
 sion. She was more real to him than any of the beings 
 with whom he came in contact. He never talked of her. 
 He stayed now under the shelter of the portico and lis- 
 tened to her praises. Some talked of her as Mary. The 
 familiarity jarred. 
 
 In the theatre a bell rang. Cigarettes were cast aside, 
 pipes knocked out, and the young men hurried away to 
 miss no moment of the divinity. 
 
54 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter returned to the establishment of Cooper and 
 Davies. 
 
 He found his partner, with Adam and young Fildes, 
 ■waiting for his return. They rose and saluted Mr. 
 DavieSj as they insisted on calling him. A magnificent 
 supper had been prepared. Cooper had bought a large 
 pork pie from Bellamy's, and made a joke about the 
 last words of Pitt, Earl of Chatham, concerning one of 
 these same pies. Adam from his small store had brought 
 three slices of cold ham, while Fildes had ransacked a 
 German delicatessen store and laid on the table a wealth 
 of sausages, honey cakes, black bread and bottles of 
 golden lager beer of Pilsen. A little parcel contained a 
 present from Tessa, with a message of love. She had 
 gone out early about her business. She was in luck's 
 way, having found a kind man who, as she said, was 
 being real good to her. She was shortly to leave her 
 room to take up her residence in apartments provided 
 for her by him. Her gift was a patent safety razor, as 
 a hint to our Peter, whom she had often teased about 
 the fluflfy down which disfigured his chin and upper lip. 
 
 Old Cooper slapped his thigh and roared with 
 laughter. 
 
 Peter accepted all their homage and offerings as by 
 right. He was not insolent about it, but he had always 
 the dogged idea of being as good as the rest of the 
 world, if not better. If, therefore, they chose to give 
 him things, whether he wanted them or not, he was pre- 
 pared to please them by acceptance. He was gloomy a 
 little, and thoughtful. Old Cooper, ever watchful, de- 
 tected it, and softened his hilarity to meet the boy's 
 mood. 
 
 After supper, when they had drunk his health, he 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 55 
 
 narrated his experiences, though from an odd shame he 
 omitted to mention the gift of the shawl to the old 
 match woman. He edited the story, gave it a touch of 
 romance, and even invented new figures. The central 
 point of it, however, the disappearance of his aunt, 
 stood out clearly. It was cleverly done. 
 
 " Poor woman," said Fildes. 
 
 " Poor woman," said Adam. 
 
 " We are all poor," said Cooper. " Her case is not 
 much worse than it had been for twenty years. When 
 the fight has been long and the decline of resisting 
 power slow, the crossing of the line is no great thing. 
 The difference between the edge of the volcano and the 
 crater is a matter of a few seconds dropping. The 
 scorching has been on the edge — the simile is not good. 
 — Homunculus. Your health. There is always some- 
 thing rotten in the state of Denmark, but Denmark is 
 a small speck on one of a million worlds. . . . We 
 cannot abolish Denmark nor its rottenness. Yes, boy, 
 hold men and women close to you. The ragged woman 
 knew her world. She knew herself for a manifestation 
 of life and a small thing, not more unhappy nor more 
 happy than the fine lady she had been. . . . We 
 think of happiness always as a thing possessed by others. 
 . . . Hug 'em to you, Homunculus; they are yours 
 for the asking. Your health, Homunculus ! " 
 
 To Fildes, who had just plighted his troth with a 
 young nurse in the hospital which he visited, and was 
 supremely happy, all this moralising and philosophy 
 seemed absurd. All the same, he drank Peter's health 
 again — " Mr. Davies and the firm of Cooper and 
 Davies." 
 
 Old Adam said " Hear " then choked, and the 
 
56 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 other " Hear " whicH Ee sKould Have said was lost in a 
 rattling in his throat. Peter patted him on the back, 
 and Demophoon, who had been blinking contemptuously 
 at the four making such absurd ceremony, leaped in 
 alarm to the floor and hid in the darkest corner she 
 could find. 
 
 Eecovered, old Adam wheezed out that he must go. 
 His departure broke up the party, for Fildes soon fol- 
 lowed. Peter walked with him to Endell Street, what 
 time he listened to enraptured praises of the young 
 woman who was to become in six months' time Mrs. 
 Douglas Fildes. Peter had seen the young woman, and 
 found her a poor thing by the side of Miss Dugdale. 
 Fildes thanked him for listening so kindly to his va- 
 pourings, shook him warmly by the hand, patted his 
 shoulder; Peter wished him every happiness, and that 
 his seed, like that of Abraham, might be unnumbered as 
 the sands by the seashore. He expressed the wish sol- 
 emnly, so solemnly as to overcome Fildes' uneasiness in 
 the delicacy of the subject. 
 
 That night as Peter lay in his bed, musing, dreaming, 
 dull musings and glorious flashes of castle-building, his 
 door creaked open and old Cooper appeared shading 
 the light of a candle with his hand. He stood over the 
 bed, looking down at the boy. Peter pretended to be 
 asleep, and artfully blinked his eyes and gave a little 
 moan, as though the light had disturbed him. The old 
 man sniffed and a hot tear fell on Peter's neck. 
 
 As he went, the light of the candle cast his shadow 
 huge and grotesque over all the little room. 
 
Ill 
 
 The firm of Cooper and Davies throve. Peter and 
 the shop grew ever smarter; the old man changed in 
 nothing. Peter clung to his Hue serge suit and red 
 tie, but after his promotion took more care of his ap- 
 pearance, shaved with Tessa's razor, making havoc with 
 his skin at first, often a slashed ruffian; took to a new 
 type of collar, very low linen, to reveal much of his 
 long neck, and for the first time in his life parted his 
 hair. Stiff hair over the forehead made a parting on 
 either side impossible. It was parted, therefore, down 
 the centre. He had his photograph taken and sent a 
 copy to his brother, with whom he became on friendly 
 terms in correspondence, but made no step to accept- 
 ance of often-repeated invitations to revisit his birth- 
 place. A sister had once visited London by a cheap 
 excursion for the purpose of some trade exhibition which 
 had brought her betrothed, and Peter had met them, 
 dined with them in some little restaurant in Old Comp- 
 ton Street. He disliked both. The sister had treated 
 him as a boy and wounded his vanity. The companion- 
 ship of men much older than himself had so far in- 
 juriously affected him: no great matter, a phase of 
 youth dazzled by its own brilliance. 
 
 He had a wide acquaintance among the men of his 
 own trade, booksellers in Charing Cross Road, pushing 
 young men, and old fellows who bemoaned the days of 
 Bookseller's Row in the Strand, before the old thor- 
 oughfare had been widened, Housmannised and flanked 
 
 57 
 
58 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 ■with white, cliff-like buildings. From them, friendly 
 disposed, he learned many devices used for generations 
 and unknown to X. Cooper, who had entered the trade 
 indolently, as an amateur, with no thought but to eke 
 out a living with the least amount of trouble to himself. 
 The boy had two circles of friends, if a man before 
 twenty can be said to have friends; people at all events 
 who were kind to him, received him simply and without 
 ceremony, and listened with interest while he talked 
 about himself. One group was reached through young 
 Fildes, married, and the father of an abnormally fat 
 baby, settled in a little flat in Southampton Row, and 
 taking more and more of his father's work. Young 
 Mrs. Fildes was an enthusiastic amateur of music, knew 
 certain of the small fry of the profession: had tickets 
 sent her for their concerts, and sometimes for great 
 affairs at Queen's Hall or Albert Hall; talked glibly of 
 symphonies and concertos. Bach fugues, and suites of 
 Grieg and Tchaikowsky, derided Strauss, and adored 
 Brahms; knew the names and personal history of all 
 the famous pianists, violinists, 'cellists, singers, con- 
 ductors, composers; played herself, and gave little musi- 
 cal evenings in her little green drawing-room, where 
 the pictures, excluding photographs of her baby, were 
 all reproductions of Botticelli's work. Peter was always 
 present at these meetings, and often she would take him 
 to concerts when her husband, a busy person in the 
 evening, was unable to go. A dark, vivacious little 
 woman, with strange eyes, and dark coarse hair, brown 
 and black like a well-coloured meerschaum pipe, she 
 liked Peter and was kind to him. He liked her and 
 was glad always to be with her. He told her every- 
 thing, of his love-affairs, mimerous, little wild flashes 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 59 
 
 (he never mentioned Miss Dugdale, still an enthroned 
 goddess), and of his writing and literary ambitions. 
 She praised his work. Old Cooper had damned it and 
 advised its destruction. Peter had torn the closely 
 written sheets at the edge, an inch, then glanced at a 
 purple patch of which he was inordinately proud, and 
 restored the precious child of his brain (so he thought 
 it, unconscious of plagiarism) to his drawer. He wrote 
 poems to Mrs. Fildes, who thought them charming and 
 her husband cruel to laugh at them. Peter wrote four 
 or five a week, sonnets, ballades, triolets, and sometimes, 
 with a sinking, sent them to the offices of newspapers 
 or magazines. One appeared in print in a journal 
 wherein it shone like a jewel against the banality of 
 the rest of its contents. Of the rest, some returned 
 with the editor's compliments and thanks, others were 
 lost for ever. Peter had fits of sickening rage, and for 
 weeks would send nothing. Hope would spring again, 
 and the verses be sent out like so many doves from the 
 ark. Old Cooper steadily advised their destruction; 
 Peter would snarl at the old man, and go off to be 
 soothed in Southampton Row. The soothing process 
 consisted either in playing with the baby or in music. 
 It was a nice baby, a girl, and liked with its fat hand 
 to clutch Peter's hair. Its blue eyes had not yet learned 
 to see properly, and it needed a very large object to 
 attract its attention. It liked Peter, and after inter- 
 course with the baby the boy was almost humble. 
 
 Mrs. Fildes' music was less good for him. He liked 
 it, but he had learned from her the phrases of an expert, 
 but no certain knowledge. He was priggish in this, and 
 annoyed Fildes, who blamed his wife. She, from Peter's 
 adoration of her baby, would find no fault in him, 
 
60 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 or, if pushed to excuse for hinij would declare him 
 young. 
 
 She had round her a strange collection of young 
 men and women, artists, musicians, journalists, young 
 women engaged in the British Museum procuring infor- 
 mation for the writers of belles lettres, a few nurses and 
 young doctors, acquaintance of the hospital, who seemed 
 marvellously sane by comparison with the others. Peter 
 fell violently in and out of love with all the young 
 women, and in and out of intimacy with the young 
 men. They were all like himself (though they knew it 
 as little as he, and, like Peter, thought themselves at the 
 end of all discoveries, and possessed of all cosmic se- 
 crets), floundering, finding their feet, in love with ideas 
 and themselves, hazy, enthusiastic, sudden and thought- 
 less in action, in reflection disordered and illogical. 
 They were all suspicious of one another, so that they 
 could neither really love nor know real friendship. 
 Peter's relation with Fildes was a more solid aiFair in 
 truth than that with his wife, though he saw less and 
 less of him. 
 
 Peter let his hair grow long, thick at the back, and 
 brushed so as to cover just the tips of his ears. He 
 tried also to cultivate a little moustache, but old Cooper 
 teased him so about it that he cut it oif. He was almost 
 crying with mortification as he began to shave, but a 
 sudden access of humour coming to him, he shaved half, 
 and returned, after washing his face of the lather, to 
 ask the old man which side he liked best. Old Cooper 
 laughed till the tears ran, slapping his thigh. The 
 glimpse of the real, dear, unaff"ected Peter set him re- 
 joicing, and he told the story to old Adam that night. 
 They were glad, and sat — Peter had gone out — ^telling 
 each other stories of Peter's cleverness, how he had 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 61 
 
 said this, and done that, bought this book at such a 
 price, and sold it at such another — a full Peter — Saga. 
 They were happy that evening as they had not been 
 since Peter fell into the hands of " that woman," as they 
 called her always. " So like Peter," they said. 
 
 In Janet Fildes' circle was a young man, hirsute, with 
 a wild eye, who gave Peter a copy of his execrable 
 poems. The volume had been the round of the pub- 
 lishers, and, in despair, the hirsute young man had had 
 the poems printed at his own expense and sent the 
 volume to carefully selected celebrities and rich folk, 
 with a request that if they liked it they would keep the 
 book and send the author three shillings. Many vol- 
 umes had returned, some had brought the desired three 
 shillings, and some had induced vain and minor celeb- 
 rities, greedy of patronage, to write letters of encour- 
 agement to the young poet. These letters he read aloud 
 to those assembled in the little green drawing-room, 
 setting Peter wild with envy, and he was only restrained 
 by old Cooper from following the example with his own 
 work. It was shown to be unworthy, and for a few 
 hours he knew himself for an ass, and sulked in the 
 shop, gnawing a pen and glaring at a blank sheet of 
 foolscap on the desk before him. Under his pen a 
 verse grew, another, and another; the pen raced, and 
 he returned to exaltation. 
 
 Later he took it to Janet Fildes. He found her with 
 a pasty-faced young man, for whom he conceived an 
 immediate dislike; a young man in a green suit, cut in 
 at the waist, slit up the back, the cuffs turned back 
 three inches. His hair was brushed back from his fore- 
 head and plastered into a shining block, parted, a little 
 to one side. He carried his elbows out, and stood at 
 present with one of his thin legs bent, left hand in 
 
62 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 pocket, the other gesticulating. It was a long, thin hand, 
 and Peter had a presentiment that he would find it 
 clammy. 
 
 It was. 
 
 The young man was introduced with some awe as 
 Mr. Greenfield, the brother of Miss Mary Dugdale. 
 
 Peter was torn between dislike of the young man and 
 respect for his reflected glory. Respect won, and though 
 the young man was odiously patronising, scenting the 
 under world in Peter's boots and trousers bagged at 
 the knees, Peter thickened his skin and was the youth's 
 open-mouthed admirer, swallowed his preposterously fa- 
 miliar references to the great: Bertie Bond, Charlie 
 Vaughan, the actor, and Jamie Sugden, the theatre man- 
 ager. He addressed all his remarks to Jairet and ig- 
 nored Peter, who forgave him everything because he 
 told of the experiences of his sister. 
 
 Himself the son of a small watchmaker and jeweller 
 in a Devonshire village, he had risen to a small height 
 on the skirts of his sister — any higher and he would 
 turn dizzy and fall headlong. He was a journalist of 
 sorts, but lived upon subsidies from the actress, given 
 him with the proviso that he never came to see her unless 
 she asked him. As her brother he enjoyed a certain 
 reclame and was sought after in small circles; he was 
 dull, but had a large fund of stage-scandal of the type 
 which suggests but never states. Out of this store he 
 entertained Janet, who disliked it, but was the slave 
 of her lion-hunting instinct. She knew Greenfield for 
 a poor sort of lion, and was ashamed that Peter should 
 have met him; but he was in touch with glittering per- 
 sons, and therefore irresistible. He promised to bring 
 his sister to see her (he rarely left a drawing-room with- 
 
PETEE HOMUNCULUS 163 
 
 out making such a promise), and with a curt nod 
 to Peter, an elaborate bow over Janet's hand, he 
 left 
 
 Both were relieved. Peter read his poem, drank his 
 meed of praise, and discussed with her the various 
 journals to which it might be sent. It went out, and 
 returned like so many others. By the side of one verse 
 some idle person in the office had written in pencil, 
 " Poor sloppy devil ! " Either the same harrd, or an- 
 other more kindly, had endeavoured to erase the ribald 
 phrase. It stood there, blastingly legible — Peter's gorge 
 rose. He showed it to old Cooper, who received it in 
 dead silence. Later, when Peter's face looked less long, 
 his eyes less desperate, the old man said: 
 
 " It is nothing " 
 
 " Nothing ? " said Peter, tortured by a recrudescence 
 of feeling. 
 
 " It is nothing. That an idle fool should hurt, even 
 through the vanity of a man, is wholesome — for it is 
 folly to allow the hurt. And yet — I don't know " 
 
 He sucked his pipe. It was difficult to talk to Peter, 
 and it could be little comfort to him to know his 
 thought — that so tiny a thing as the wounding of a 
 man's vanity is a mighty happening. He had meant that 
 in his cryptic utterance. The thought clothed in simple 
 language was comfortless. He was glad in a way that 
 Peter had been hurt, knowing that it might check him 
 in his headlong course. Therefore, when Peter asked 
 him, " Am I a poor sloppy devil ? " he sucked furiously 
 at his pipe until it gurgled, and then with an effort, 
 drawing the word out of his mouth like an obstinate 
 cork, he said: 
 
 " Yes." 
 
64 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter sat dumbfounded, dismay in person. He 
 rubbed his hands together and then fell to twisting his 
 little front lock of hair, so long as, when stretched, to 
 reach down to his mouth. He hitched his shoulders. 
 His lips trembled and his palate ached so that he could 
 not speak. . . . 
 
 " Homunculus," said the old man, " it is a small 
 thing — both the literary accomplishment and the hurt- 
 small things." 
 
 He took his Shelley and read from " Queen Mab," 
 read as he had never read before to Peter, finely thun- 
 dering: 
 
 "Thus do the generations of the earth 
 Go to the grave and issue from the womb. 
 Surviving still the imperishable change 
 That renovates the world; even as the leaves. 
 Which the keen frost wind of the waning year 
 Has scattered on the forest-soil, and heaped 
 For many seasons there, though long they choke. 
 Loading with loathsome rottenness the land. 
 All germs of promise." 
 
 " That also, Homunculus, is a small thing, though 
 in words there are few things finer done. . . . 
 Cacoethes scribendi — a ready hand, and an empty head 
 or a cold heart. But, to be arrogant, is to spoil the 
 world. . . ." 
 
 Peter sat dumb. Demophoon climbed to old Cooper's 
 shoulder, drew her claws through the cloth of his old 
 black coat, moved uneasily, and finally settled, purring. 
 The old man caressed her, and, after a silence, began 
 suddenly on a personal note, at first regarding Peter 
 keenly, then gazing out beyond him. 
 
 " J was arrogant — I came to I^ondon over sixty years 
 
PETEBi HOMUNCULUS 65 
 
 ago, not like you, Homunculus, from a poor house,, un- 
 friended, alone, ignorant, or — ignorant in a different 
 way. I knew nothing of misery. You know nothing of 
 prosperity. My father was of yeoman stock in War- 
 wickshire, my mother the sister of a nobleman. There 
 had been passion, romance, an elopement. My mother, 
 a child, died at my birth. I ran wild. My father, as 
 I learned later, was a roaring fellow and took to base 
 courses. When I was twelve, already with a knowledge 
 of good ale and the points of a horse, a gentle lady, 
 faded and sweet of countenance, drove to the house, 
 and I was fetched from the stable, cleaned and placed 
 before her, an uncouth, sturdy boy. My boorish accent 
 shocked her, I remember, and she feigned not to under- 
 stand my words. . . . There was some discourse 
 between the lady, whom I was told to call Aunt, and 
 my father. In the end, my small belongings, linen 
 shirts and little pantaloons, were placed in the carriage, 
 a great affair with a crest upon the door, and I was 
 perched on the little seat that let down in front of her 
 ladyship, my feet upon my valise, which rolled in the 
 bottom of the barouche with its swaying. I lived there- 
 after in great houses, rich, cold places with rarely a 
 playmate. There was stern discipline. I had a tutor 
 . . . everything was given to me, but I longed for 
 my father, whom I never saw again. They sent me, for 
 my tutor testified to my brains, to a great school — I was 
 happy ther&:r-and to a college at Cambridge, where I 
 was idle, and yet did well. For a career I chose the 
 Bar, to the horror of my aunt, to whom the Army, Navy 
 or Church were alone the professions of a gentleman. 
 She was fond of me and met my whim, as she thought it 
 i — ^though she never would receive my greatest friend, 
 
66 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 George Townsend — son, out of wedlock, of a great law- 
 yer and a lady's maid. It was he set the law in my 
 wild head — a brilliant creature, whom this same Shelley 
 had set tingling in 'the cause of freedom. We were 
 ardent, he and I — ' Twin sisters of religion, selfishness.' 
 We bolted the stuff, had it ill-digested: wild we were, 
 and lived what we saw. George died young: shot like a 
 meteor to the top, soared, fell, and died in shame. 
 I think he never knew that arrogance had blinded 
 him. . . ." 
 
 The old man seemed to have forgotten Peter, who 
 sat there still, following the narrative, visualising each 
 event. He saw the unhappy Townsend as a hero with 
 a straight nose and auburn hair, dressed like the hair 
 of his own great-grandfather in a miniature there had 
 been at home. The old man continued in a voice scarcely 
 audible : 
 
 " I soared, too, though not so high — and when I fell 
 it was a slow descent — each fall giving time for thought, 
 bitter. I loved, was loved, and snatched wild happi- 
 ness. The man, who held my fortune, my fate, from 
 that moment cruelly ignored me. It was as though I 
 had never existed for him — ghastly. His eyes lighted 
 on me, but saw me not. My voice fell upon deaf ears; 
 my importunities were idle. I had made the woman 
 happy, where he had failed. No forgiveness. I ad- 
 mitted no fault, nor she. We had known the best, and, 
 for a space, lived vividly. I would not bow to prejudice, 
 . . . Unwisely, for prejudice is strong, and stronger 
 than the law. A great man, none more powerful, he 
 cast me out, and jackals yelped at my heels. I stayed 
 in London — again foolishly. Scandal buzzed — ^then 
 died. For a time I lived among outcasts^ in the between 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 67 
 
 world, then sickened of it. Hollow. I drew more and 
 more into myself, and hid myself. Grew hideous, had 
 evil days, vile nights — I crawled. That passed, too, as 
 everything passes. To live, it is needful to sell some- 
 thing. Towns are markets. . . ." 
 
 He ceased suddenly, and seemed to become conscious 
 again of Peter sitting there, and to remember the object 
 with which he had set out upon his narrative. " Homun- 
 cnlus," he said, " it is an old tale, and I have missed 
 the thread. It seems a dream now. All life, I think, is 
 a dream. Sometimes it seems that we can do nothing 
 that does not produce evil. We can foresee nothing. 
 Dream pleasantly, Homunculus, dream pleasantly — but 
 run away from nothing. If life shatters dreams, it is 
 better so. Others come. It is better so " 
 
 Peter set his teeth. 
 
 " Am I a poor sloppy devil ? " he said between them. 
 
 " You are ignorant, untouched, know nothing. Few 
 men have more than one melody to sing. Your songs 
 are only faint echoes of old melodies " 
 
 " Am I a poor sloppy devil ^ " 
 
 " To one man at least you are — or were, when you 
 wrote. That moment is gone. What you are now I do 
 not know." 
 
 " Not that," said Peter, and he went out into the 
 shop, where he began to work on the catalogue, which 
 he kept up to date. He had allowed none of his va- 
 garies to interfere with his work. In his most careful 
 hand he had written: 
 
 " 87. Ansted (Prof.) Geology, introductory, descrip- 
 tive and practical, rvith hundreds of wood-cuts, 2 vols., 
 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. (pub. 30s.), 1844. 
 
 ".88. Bolton (J.) Geological Fragm^ents collected 
 
68 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 from Rambles among the Rocks of Furness and Cart- 
 mel, illustrated, Svo, cloth, 2s. 6d., 1869- 
 
 " 89. Cotta (Prof. B.) " when there came a 
 
 knock at the door. He ignored it for some minutes 
 while he concluded the entry of the learned Cotta's 
 work, a fat German volume, bound in half-calf and 
 containing " 189 in den Text gedruckten Abbildungen." 
 He pondered over its price, and put it at half-a-crown. 
 Then he remembered an address to which to send the 
 catalogue of Cooper and Davies, and entered that in a, 
 book. The knock came again, this time at the side 
 door. 
 
 Peter werrt out through the parlour, taking no notice 
 of the old man, who was muttering to himself. 
 
 He opened the door to find his friend the rector of 
 the church in Southwark waiting admittance, a little 
 grey man who had been Peter's good friend ever since 
 the day when the strange boy had come to him upon 
 the quest of his aunt. He had heard of the disaster 
 through his curate, whom later he discovered to be a 
 rogue who had preyed upon the poor woman, as upon 
 others in the parish. All trace of Mrs. Daltry was 
 gone. Her belongings had gone, been sold. The little 
 shop where her crystoleum paintings were sold still con- 
 tained some of her work, but the proprietress, a plump 
 little Jewess, had neither seen nor heard of her for 
 over a year, when inquiries were made. That was two 
 years ago, and Peter's aunt had made no sign of life, 
 nor communicated either with himself or his brother in 
 the country. 
 
 The little grey parson had a whimsical humour which 
 was tickled by the idea of losing an auirt in London — 
 and h^d invented a whole fable of the adventure, which 
 
PETEK HOMUNCULUS 69 
 
 had done good service at dinner-parties. He had the 
 reputation of being a delightful man, and was asked 
 out much to great houses north of the river, being also 
 a man of good connection. He accepted invitations, 
 and extorted money from his hosts for his poor in 
 Southwark. They adored him, for he worried them 
 little with religion, and made no attempt to drive them 
 to church. If they swore in his presence their oaths 
 were always carefully chosen for mildness, and there 
 were alleys, to which he could penetrate, where no 
 policeman would trust himself alone. He was a known 
 man and a popular. 
 
 At first tickled by Peter in search of his aunt, he 
 had become interested, found stuff in the boy, and 
 marked him down as a man not, if possible, to be 
 wasted. He knew the appalling difficulties of the time, 
 arrd that a thousand favouring circumstances are 
 needed to bring a man to maturity and the fulness of 
 his talents. There were qualities in Peter which puz- 
 zled him until he met old Cooper. The parson, David 
 Scott, and the old bookseller became friends. Scott 
 was old enough to have heard of Townsend, and Cooper 
 warmed to him. It was not often that he could visit 
 the little shop in Shaftesbury Avenue, but to-night he 
 had come in answer to a letter of the old man. 
 
 He greeted Peter, and Peter gave him a " Good-even- 
 ing, sir," conducting him to the parlour. 
 
 Peter returned to the shop and his catalogue, feeling 
 that he was not wanted. He was in one of those fear- 
 ful moments of crisis, when life seems to stop and 
 movement cease, while the mocking mannikin which is 
 a man's self stands pointing truth. Peter's mannikin 
 sat cross-legged on the back of the geological researches 
 
70 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 of the learned Cotta, and mocked. " Poor sloppy devil," 
 rang in Peter's brain, whirling. 
 
 " Your hair's too long," shrilled the mannikin. 
 
 Peter tried to pretend that it was only because he 
 had postponed barbering too long. 
 
 " You're like all the rest," shrilled the mannikin. 
 "Fairly good and fairly bad — conceited, opinionated, 
 obstinate, young." 
 
 The word " young " resounded, rushed like the mighty 
 wind of the Epiphany, in Peter's head, and he felt as 
 if the top of it were being lifted, and the mannikin 
 tickling his brain with a straw. He strove to grapple 
 with his catalogue, but the mocking voice sounded 
 shriller and more shrill. 
 
 "You to write? What have you to say? A little 
 seller of dull books. . . . Not twenty. You don't 
 know even what it is you wish to do. Art and Beauty? 
 Bosh! The artist is a tradesman like any other, un- 
 happy in that he trades in a commodity which men care 
 little whether they have or not. Sell butcher's meat or 
 corn. Great, you to be great? Why should you be? 
 You do not know even what you mean by greatness. 
 You can't think, are muddle-headed. You haven't probed 
 behind words. Pooh ! pooh ! to you — sloppy's the word. 
 . . . You can't walk. Striding's the thing. . . . 
 A little prig — arrogant. . . . Arrogant — blind." 
 
 Worn out, Peter let the pen drop loose in his hand; 
 it scrawled down the page, stuck, and spluttered. Peter's 
 head dropped on to his arms and he fell asleep, to find 
 comfort in his dreams, wherein he figured as a golden 
 knight wrestling with a green dwarf who guarded the 
 well of truth and kept the lid shut down upon the 
 unhappy lady, who called to hiro in combat with the 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 71 
 
 voice of Mary Dugdale, or Greendale, or Dalefield, or 
 whatever her name was. The green dwarf had the 
 face of Miss Dugdale's brother, and his hand, clutching 
 at Peter's throat, was clammy. . . . 
 
 In the parlour old Cooper and the Rev. David Scott 
 were in colloquy, the subject, Peter. Since the drafting 
 of the absurd deed of partnership for Peter's seven- 
 teenth birthday, the old man had amused himself much 
 with legal documents, conveying all kinds of imaginary 
 estates and properties from himself to Peter. For young 
 Fildes he had drawn up a marriage settlement of anti- 
 quated form. It did not make much matter, as there 
 was nothing to settle^ for the small private property 
 of the Fildes family was in the hands of the doctor of 
 Endell Street. It amused Cooper and looked vastly 
 important. 
 
 Now he had drawn up a last will and testament, a 
 document in which at great length and in full detail 
 he had left everything to Peter, small bequests of 
 personal belongings to his circle of friends, all of 
 them since the advent of Peter, and ten pounds to the 
 old crone who had procured his personal discomfort 
 for so many years. Demophoon he recommended to the 
 care of the parson, for whom the cat had evinced an 
 affection. From the document it appeared that Peter 
 would be worth between seven and eight hundred 
 pounds, not including the business. That the old fel- 
 low should have hoarded so much astonished Scott. 
 Cooper explained that his aunt, who never admitted 
 him to her presence after his downfall, had left him 
 five hundred pounds. He had never troubled to set the 
 money breeding, but it had swollen in the bank, where 
 he left it, to twice and three times that amount. Before 
 
72 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter's arrival he had employed all accretions in the 
 assistance of distressed families, generally to ship them 
 off with a small lump sum, as he had sent the Beasleys, 
 to the colonies. He now wished Scott to be his executor 
 and Peter's guardian, for he had elected that the boy 
 should not be given control of the capital until he was 
 twenty-five. Scott endorsed the wisdom of the provision, 
 consented, and took the old man's hand. He peeped 
 into the shop through the spy-window and saw Peter 
 asleep. 
 
 " He's asleep," he said. 
 
 " Will you ask two of the people upstairs to come 
 down and witness my signature ? " 
 
 Scott groped his way up the narrow stairs, and after 
 search succeeded in producing a disreputable and untidy 
 journalist, of the kind that is useless without whiskey, 
 and a pretty young milliner. The journalist had Tessa's 
 room, and the girl lived with her mother and younger 
 sisters in the apartment vacated by the Beasleys. They 
 followed the parson, awed by the importance of the 
 ceremony in which they were called upon to share. Both 
 belonged to a class which settles that sort of affair 
 anyhow, avoids contact with the law, shuns it as ruin- 
 ous, and most often dies intestate. Cooper scrawled 
 his name, the journalist his. By way of airing legal 
 knowledge, he boomed as he laid down the pen. " I 
 deliver this as my act and deed." The girl signed, 
 bobbed, and disappeared. The journalist waited in the 
 hope that drink would be proffered him. He was given 
 beer, and drank to the good health of old Cooper. He 
 was a little afraid of Scott, and looked at him only 
 out of the corners of his eyes. Cooper might be a 
 gentleman, but he was a dirty one. The parson was 
 oppressively clean. He made vain efforts in conversa- 
 
PETEBl H0MUNCULU9 73 
 
 tion. He was brought up against a blank wall of igno- 
 rance, and gave up the struggle. He invited both gentle- 
 men to a meeting of some society of good fellows in 
 Fleet Street. Both declined, and the journalist, having 
 finished his liquor, retired, abashed. The will, duly 
 signed in the presence of two witnesses as the law 
 requires, was folded up and committed by its author 
 to the desk in which he kept his personal treasures. 
 Returning to his chair, to which Demophoon had leaped 
 on the moment of his rising, he sat and, turning to his 
 friend, he said: 
 
 " You and I, sir, know the truth of the poet of Eccle- 
 siastes, which is the truth of all poets. It is in your 
 religion as in mine. There should be no church mili- 
 tant, against other churches. The fight is against 
 vanity." 
 
 The parson nodded. Old Cooper filled his pipe. 
 
 " Out of the wreck and ruin of my life there is left 
 me nothing but this boy. I recommend him to you, that 
 you may help him to manhood. He is a rare soul, well 
 born. I know it struggling upwards to the light. More 
 light. Sustain him, and if he errs, as he must, be kind 
 to him. I know you. This homunculus in bottle — he is 
 wild. He will plunge hither and thither, drag you to 
 despair, set you weeping with joy — if you love him as 
 I have loved him. Give him the choice to continue here, 
 or to shake free and stretch his wings: but keep him 
 from too early flight — that will be your chief service to 
 him and to me. Too early flight — I have seen a young 
 bird fallen so, weak-winged — reaching the nest again 
 by little flights upwards from its mother's back. That 
 you must be to him. I am old and see too much. Any 
 fall is a fall from Heaven." 
 
 He told Scott all that he knew of Peter's history. 
 
74 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 The parson said: " You are the best Christian I have 
 known." 
 
 " It is a question of simplicity. Time simplifies. A 
 man grows mountainous with years. When sight first 
 comes to us we see men as trees walking, thert as in- 
 sects; later, and best, as mountains." 
 
 Scott left him and went into the shop to wake Peter. 
 He shook him by the shoulder to rouse him. Peter 
 threw up his head suddenly and stared with wild eyes, 
 tossed his hair. 
 
 " Sloppy," he murmured. 
 
 The parson shook him again. 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" said Peter, and blinked. He had rec- 
 ognised his awakener, but theatrical instinct in him de- 
 manded a moment's simulation. He had a desire to 
 say, " Where am I ? " but discarded it as too banal. 
 Then he laughed at himself, stretched, yawned without 
 putting his hand to his mouth. 
 
 " When you yawn," said the EeV. David, " you should 
 cover your mouth." 
 
 "Oh," said Peter. 
 
 " It is considerate. I knew a great man once who 
 spoke always with his hand in front of his mouth be- 
 cause his teeth were bad." 
 
 " Manners is a poor thing," said Peter. 
 
 " Manners makyth man." 
 
 Peter set his chin. It seemed rude to break his sleep 
 thus to admonish him. 
 
 " I read in Pindar with Mr. Cooper that money makes 
 the man." 
 
 Scott declined to argue. 
 
 " I want you to dine with us to-morrow night." 
 
 "Dine?" Peter was alert. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 75 
 
 " Yes. My wife wants to know you." 
 
 Late dinner! Gosh. Then Peter was rueful. 
 
 "I've got no clothes." 
 
 "We don't dress." 
 
 " Thank you," said Peter, in as ordinary a voice as 
 possible. The prospect excited him. 
 
 He had had Sunday supper with people who dined 
 in the evening, but that was hardly the same thing, and 
 to dine with Scott, whom he knew to be welcomed in 
 grand houses, was like the opening of a door. Not a 
 very wide opening, but sufficient to allow the hearing 
 of gay sounds, soft voices of dazzling personages, the 
 clatter of the high world as he imagined it. In truth, 
 as old Cooper had said, Peter knew nothing of pros- 
 perity, and conceived this same high world as a place 
 where the wicked cease from troubling, and by the 
 magic of wealth and good breeding sorrow and conflict 
 are banished. Peter was never, even in his worst mo- 
 ments, deserted by his sense of greatness in store, and 
 every gift of life seemed a transitory thing, dead and 
 done with almost as soon as it was in his hands. He 
 used everything, and every day grew more adroit in 
 ^tracting the good, and nearer every day to some sort 
 of sense of proportion. His mistakes came from the 
 clouding of his sense of humour by swollen egotism. 
 His extraordinary self-possession brought success in 
 business, but landed him in awful difficulties for the 
 inner Peter. 
 
 He did not ask himself why the Rev. David Scott, 
 for whom he entertained a warm admiration, should 
 seek his further acquaintance. He accepted it as a 
 natural development in a romantic career. 
 
 He shook the parson's hand and let him out by the 
 
76 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 shop door, then applied himself to his catalogue with a 
 fury of energy. No mannikin now. Sloppy devil in- 
 deed! Doors opened almost without knocking, and 
 they'd be proud of him yet. 
 
 He had a moment of uneasiness, when he remem- 
 bered the supercilious glances which Miss Dugdale's 
 brother had directed upon his clothes. Room for im- 
 provement there. He took the catalogue down to item 
 140, then blotted it carefully, went back a few pages 
 and crossed the scrawling line his pen had made. He 
 closed the book and rejoined old Cooper for supper. 
 
 " Mr. Scott's invited me to dinner to-morrow night." 
 
 " Watch what forks the other people use, and don't 
 make bread piUs," was the old man's advice, and only 
 comment. For the rest he was silent, and watched 
 Peter so closely as to make him self-conscious and ill- 
 at-ease. He was not sorry to go to bed. 
 
 The matter of his personal appearance still worried 
 him, and before retiring, he made a careful study of his 
 face in the mirror. Looking at a certain angle, he 
 seemed to himself more than passable, even striking 
 with his pale face and jet black hair. Perhaps the hair 
 was too long, but with the light on his face it certainly 
 was interesting, the shadows under the bumps of his 
 forehead making a striking thing of it. There was a 
 smouldering fire in the eyes, a potential fine frenzy. 
 With his mouth and chin he was less satisfied. He 
 would have liked his mouth to be firmly tucked in at 
 the corners, and his chin, blue with shaving, to be like 
 the toe of a boot; but his mouth seemed loose, however 
 he might adjust his lips, and his chin pitifully small. 
 Full face, his head seemed pear-shaped. He knew per- 
 fectly well what he wished to look like, and sometimes 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 77 
 
 • 1. . ^ 
 
 m the mirror succeeded in approximating to it, but to- 
 night he looked — unfledged. 
 
 The matter of his clothes was easier of adjustment. 
 He brushed his coat, and pondering the creases in the 
 trousers of Mr. Greenfield, he hit upon the idea of 
 pressing his own under the mattress of his bed. He 
 folded his best pair, butted the mattress up with his 
 head, and thrust the trousers under it. 
 
 The experiment was not wholly a success. One leg 
 was perfectly creased, but the other he had folded 
 wrong, and the crease came out at the side. Peter al- 
 most wept with mortification when he put them on. 
 
 During the day he had his hair cut by a half-caste 
 who kept a little saloon in High Street. The man had 
 many other disreputable trades carried on under cover 
 of the hair-dressing and tobacco business, but Peter 
 knew nothing of these, and went there because it was 
 odd, and there was always a collection of strange men 
 in the place. Under the Fildes influence Peter had be- 
 gun the study of what he called " types." The half- 
 caste, moreover, was cheap, charging twopence for hair 
 cutting and a penny for a shave. He was nothing of an 
 artist. It gave him pleasure to cut hair, and Peter's 
 thick crop roused him to a frenzy of cutting, brushing 
 and oiling. 
 
 It was not a picturesque Peter who left the shop. He 
 felt cold about the head and curiously naked. Down- 
 at-heel actors and grubby painters used the shop, and the 
 room behind the shop for a sort of club, some of the 
 rottenest men in London. 
 
 Peter bought a new collar, new cuffs, and dickey of 
 white linen to make himself smart. Arrayed in all his 
 glory, perfect, except for the distorted crease in his 
 
,78 PETER iHOMUNCULUS 
 
 right trouser-leg he exhibited himself to old Cooper, 
 :vho chuckled. 
 
 "Head like a seal," he said. Peter put his hand 
 to his head and brought it away shiny with macassar 
 oil. His hand reeked. 
 
 " Wash," said the old man. 
 
 " There's no time/' said Peter, almost in tears. 
 
 "Walk with your hat oiF then. Good-bye." He 
 waved a hand and declaimed: 
 
 "Pitch thy behaviour low, they projects high; 
 So Shalt thou humble and magnanimous be; 
 Sink hot in spirit: who aimeth at the sky 
 Shoots higher much than he that means a tree. 
 
 The parson is your friend, Homunculus. It rests with 
 you to keep him so." 
 
 The old man had teased Peter about the creases in 
 his trousers, and the shearing of his hair — Samson 
 shorn, and genius dead by loss of hair. Peter, timid 
 and anxious on the threshold of great things, was not 
 in a mood for chaff. 
 
 " Some men," he said, hitching his shoulders, " are 
 independent of friendship." 
 
 " Most men," said the old man, "are unworthy of 
 friendship." 
 
 " Ugh," said Peter, flushing, and ran out into the 
 street. It was half-past six and dinner was not until 
 seven. He went round to Southampton Row. Janet 
 Fildes was practising, but admitted him. She stared at 
 him in amazement, then burst into peals of incontrollable 
 laughter. 
 
 " Like a — ^like a black — ^black — ^like a bull's eye ! " 
 she said. Then, for she was really a kind woman: 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 79 
 
 " I'm sorry, Peter, but you shouldn't do these things 
 quite so — so suddenly." 
 
 Peter strode round to her side by the piano and 
 brought his fist down on the treble notes. They 
 shrieked, and she, careful of her instrument, swept him 
 aside. 
 
 Peter stood quivering, livid. 
 
 " I'm done with you," he said. 
 
 " Don't be absurd." 
 
 " Done with you. Laugh, go on. Laugh. Say I'm 
 a gaby. Laugh ! But— ^wait — you'll see." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I— I— I ..." 
 
 Peter collapsed — and sat holding his unhappy oiled 
 head in his hands. Janet leaned over and touched him 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 " Don't be hurt, Peter. We're very fond of you, 
 and — and — ^you can't really laugh at a person until you 
 understand him — or her." 
 
 " No one understands me," said Peter. " I don't un- 
 derstand myself." 
 
 " How should you? " said Janet. 
 
 "I'm an ass — ^but I'm going out to dinner." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " With the Rev. David Scott. He's a minister in 
 Southwark, and you can see his name in the papers any 
 day." 
 
 Janet was interested at once. She knew all the per- 
 sons who figured in the papers, by name. She gave 
 Peter advice as to conduct, table manners, how not to 
 take too much of any thing, and how not to say thank 
 you to the servants. Peter was obliged to her, and 
 soothed by her interest in his excursion. She retied his 
 
80 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 tie for him, pulled his coat straight, brushed him, and 
 warned him to keep his boots out of sight as much as 
 possible. They were the brown pair he had bought 
 in Shaftesbury Avenue, entered upon a new life as 
 black, and there were yet brown patches shewing through 
 the polish. He told her of the fate of the poem, but 
 made no mention of the cruel comment. 
 
 " They're idiots," she said. " It'll come in time. It 
 will. They'll all come to you yet, Peter — in time. 
 They'll come." 
 
 " Crawling," said Peter, afire, " and — and — I'll put 
 my foot on their necks." 
 
 He was immediately ashamed of his over-emphasis. 
 He had onee seen a young man kiss Janet's hand on 
 leaving her. He stood now awkwardly, and kissed her 
 hand. 
 
 " My — ^my " He could not find the word. 
 
 " Mother," said Janet. 
 
 " I never had a mother," said Peter, untruthfully. 
 
 " That's what I will be," said Janet. 
 
 " Thank you," said Peter. 
 
 Both thoroughly enjoyed the sentimentality of the 
 scene. The light was dim, and the fire in the grate cast 
 a warm glow, the flames flickering were mirrored softly 
 in the shining mahogany of the piano. With good 
 dramatic instinct Peter left the situation at that, and 
 left without a word, only pressing Janet's hand warmly. 
 As he reached the door of the flat the strains of Schu- 
 bert's serenade reached his ears. The music was appro- 
 priate. He was pleased with Janet. 
 
 He took the train that dips down at the bottom of 
 Southampton Row into subterranean regions, passed un- 
 der Kingsway, the Strand, Wellington Street, and 
 
PETEE HOMUNCULUS 81 
 
 bursts out to the light of day again by Waterloo Bridge 
 on the Embankment. He sat by an old gentleman 
 neatly dressed.' Remembering Cooper's injunctions — 
 the success of the scene with Janet had soothed his re- 
 sentment — ^he removed his hat. The old gentleman 
 sniffed, glared, sniffed again and moved away, Peter, 
 painfully conscious, looked down at his boots, saw on 
 the. left boot on the inner side of his ankle a round patch 
 bright yellow by contrast with the black polish, and 
 hastily covered it with his Other foot. At the halt at 
 the lower end of Kingsway a young woman entered the 
 tram and sat down beside him. He felt her eyes scrutin- 
 ising him: suddenly she gripped his arm. 
 
 " I'm blowed," she said. 
 
 It was Tessa, a wonderful new Tessa, and a happy. 
 She was quietly dressed, though she wore perhaps too 
 many little chains round her neck, and too many rings 
 on her fingers. Her face was not painted, but pow- 
 dered perhaps a little too thickly. He most remarked 
 the wondrous change in the expression of her eyes. The 
 bitterness had gone out of them, the hard strain, and 
 they looked at him all smiles and kindness. 
 
 Peter had not seen her for many months. She had 
 been twice to see old Cooper, oirce to repay the money 
 she owed him, and once again out of friendliness. Then 
 they had lost sight of her. She was glad to see Peter, 
 and kept tight hold of his arm. 
 
 The little neat old man, who had moved to the other 
 side of the car, scowled at them. He thought Tessa 
 brazen and a destroyer of young men. His lips pursed 
 until he looked like a prim old maid. 
 
 Tessa, glancing round the car, saw him and laughed. 
 Her laugh was so different that Peter turned to look at 
 
82 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 her. It had been silly, loud, harsh. Now it was musi- 
 cal, soft, refined, and good to hear. 
 
 "Where are you going?" said Tessa. 
 
 " Where are you ? " 
 
 " CamberweU, to see my sister." 
 
 " I'm going to the Elephant. I'm going out to din- 
 ner." He said it with an air to impress her, and suc- 
 ceeded. Her Curiosity was roused, and she endeavoured 
 to extract from him the name of his friends. He kept 
 her tantalised. She returned again and again to the 
 assault. He was invulnerable, and turned aside her 
 questions with others concerning her mode of living. 
 
 " My luck still holds. He's good to me — Mr. War- 
 rington, and he don't let me go to none of the old 
 places. He's a gentleman, an' treats me better than 
 most gentlemen treat their wives. I've a flat in Chelsea 
 on the Embankment, under the four chimneys. It's 
 lovely, by the river. You must come and see me. You'll 
 like Mr. Warrington." 
 
 Peter promised that he would. 
 
 He told her of the queer journalist, who now had her 
 room, and of the little miUiner who lived at top. 
 • " We don't really need to let the place now," he 
 said, " but we don't need the rooms." 
 
 Tessa scanned his face. 
 
 " You've changed," she said. " Older. But your 
 eyes don't change." 
 
 Peter remembered that she had said they were beau- 
 tiful eyes. He blinked at her. 
 
 The train stopped at the Elephant and Castle. He 
 rose, shook Tessa's hand, raised his hat and walked 
 out, having promised to see her again. He was glad 
 of the encounter, and to know that he had changed. 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 83 
 
 Already he was able to view the dead Peter with dis- 
 favour. That early Peter seemed dwarfish. He had 
 learned more of Tessa's profession since those early 
 days, had had sundry encounters with its votaries, and 
 was always surprised when thought turned to her, to 
 find her in his recollection so gentle and so human. In 
 the car she had been more than ever so. He made a 
 note of her as a possible subject of conversation at 
 dinner. 
 
 He walked slowly, for he had a full ten minutes, in 
 the direction of the Rectory, seeing himself at table 
 holding the attention of host and guests, dropping a 
 quiet remark of humour, to set a ripple moving to a 
 roar as the sally touched home. He could think of no 
 brilliant remark, but the effect of it was there real 
 enough, and himself the centre. He recalled some of 
 the witticisms which had so tickled Cooper and old 
 Adam, but found them clumsy, not polished enough 
 nor glittering for the present purpose. He could re- 
 member flashes from books of his reading, but away 
 from their context they were lifeless. Cooper had said: 
 
 " The occasion makes the wit." 
 
 Peter could create in his busy head the effect of wit, 
 but not wit itself. He had a slight consciousness of 
 failure. He was walking hatless to air his head, and 
 an urchin bawled: 
 
 " Fresh air fund." 
 
 Peter made a long arm, clutched the infant by his 
 jacket, too big for him, held him and smacked his close- 
 cropped head — ^then let him go. 
 
 " Gam," shrilled the snipe. " Wish I could 'ave yer 
 nose full o' gin for thruppence." 
 
 His nose! Peter put his hand up, fingering it. 
 
84 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Large? Was it large? He closed an eye and squinted 
 down at it. There seemed to be much of it certainly, 
 but — " 'a nose full o' gin for thruppence ! " He could not 
 see nor feel its size. He walked faster, away from the 
 tormentor, who was hurling concise insult after him. 
 At intervals he fingered his nose, crooked his forefinger 
 along it, to test its shape. Large? Well, there were 
 the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Gladstone, Dickens 
 (Thackeray, in the matter of noses, would not beat 
 thinking on), Napoleon, and Goethe in the Weimar bust. 
 The mask of Keats in the National Portrait gallery 
 was encouraging. Fingering his nose, bareheaded, Peter 
 was an odd enough sight. He came to that window, 
 where he had seen himself on his first pilgrimage in 
 search of his aunt, on the night of his seventeenth birth- 
 day. Walking to meet him was a more robust Peter, 
 though still bandy-legged. He laughed to see himself, 
 and a pretty girl eyed him with favour. 
 
 Peter at nineteen was so far odd as never to have 
 passed through that phase of coxcombry which finds 
 pleasure in the glances of strange women, and reaches 
 its lowest in the courting of them. It came later, at a 
 time when he was most strenuously occupied with what 
 he called his career, and was never very serious. 
 
 He knew that the young woman had looked at him, 
 and knew her also for personable, but he put her in- 
 terest down to his hatlessness. 
 
 After testing his hair, to find it less greasy, dried a 
 little, he donned his hat, loitered no more, and swung 
 at his longest stride up to the Eectory, by two minutes 
 later than the appointed time. 
 
 The carpeted hall hung round with pictures, coloured 
 .prints of the Arundel Society, the arms of his host's 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 85 
 
 University and College over a door, reduced Peter to a 
 state of awe very proper for entry into Mrs. Scott's 
 drawing-room. He surrendered his hat and overcoat to 
 the neatly dressed maid — ^black gown and white apron; 
 white cap — not without some misgiving that she would 
 look inside the hat and perceive the lowliness of the 
 neighbourhood in which he had bought it, and followed 
 her up the red-carpeted stairs. He felt awkward, and 
 as though he had grown too small for his clothes. Every- 
 thing about him seemed to be slipping. His dickey gave 
 a great crack, and his cuffs, dropping, he turned his 
 hands in to support them, wishing that he had suc- 
 ciunbed to the temptation to buy a pair of " sustainers " 
 for them. 
 
 The maid threw open the door of the drawing-room, 
 from over which a head of Velasquez seemed to leer 
 and jeer at him. He was announced as Mr. Davies, 
 the door shut behind him, and he was left standing 
 there, shrinking to pea-size in his clothes. Someone 
 came up to him, he bowed, and it seemed as if he were 
 a tiny, tiny thing imprisoned in the blue suit of a 
 giant, calling in a still, small voice, " Good-evening." 
 The stifiSing illusion was so real that he did in fact 
 shout, bawled in an enormous voice. 
 
 He blushed, and, seeing a hand stretched out, a thin, 
 very white hand, whiter than any he had seen before, 
 he lunged at it, and because his eyes were blurred with 
 the buzzing in his head, lunged badly and brought his 
 thumb with a crash against the thumb of the out- 
 stretched hand. A little cry: 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " I'm sorry," he said, then came to himself. He saw 
 the face of a woman, a little less tall than himself, the 
 
86 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 soft eyes pained, but laughing behind the pain, and 
 teeth biting her lip. 
 
 " It's nothing," she said, and shook his hand. 
 
 " But " said Peter. 
 
 " It's nothing," she said again. He saw that she 
 touched her thumb with her other hand and winced, but 
 in obedience to her glances he made no more of it. She 
 led him further into the room, and presented him to her 
 son, David, to her daughter, Mattie, a pretty pale girl 
 of seventeen, thin, disdainful, hair tied at the back with 
 a ribbon, mischief in her eyes, green eyes put in with 
 a sooty finger under a wide brow. Peter was dazzled. 
 (He and Cooper had been reading much of Balzac to- 
 gether, and he was in a mood, borrowed from the great 
 writer, to adore the " jeune fille.") He was introduced 
 to her brother and forgot Mattie. Mrs. Scott's brother 
 was none other than Murray Wilson, the great Murray 
 Wilson, a man so great and well-beloved as to be almost 
 a myth, so exalted in Peter's view as to make it seem 
 absurd that he should eat, drink, or possess any of the 
 ordinary human attributes. He should have had the 
 meek detachment of a god, but here he was in the flesh 
 about to eat a dinner with Peter, breathe same air. He 
 shook Peter's hand, and turned to teasing Mattie, who, 
 always with am eye on the newcomer, coquetted with 
 her uncle. She desired Peter's interest in spite of his 
 clothes. 
 
 Peter was takeir to a sofa by the fireplace and drawn 
 into conversation by Mrs. Scott. She thawed him 
 quickly, and had him soon talking about himself. Wil-. 
 son sat observing the boy. 
 
 He had detected at once the idealist eye; interest 
 was further roused by the lank black hair, and the 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 87 
 
 dead -white pallor of the skin. In animation Peter's 
 face was arresting. In repose, as himself most admired 
 it, it was dull and rather stupid, from his mouth being 
 almost perpetually open. 
 
 Mrs. Scott tried him first with music, quickly discov- 
 ered his ignorance and let him talk. She liked him, and 
 the gentle manner which appeared under the uncouth- 
 ness. He had a queer bluntness which pleased her. He 
 seemed to be incapable of thoughtless words. Every- 
 thing he said, right or wrong, chance wisdom or blazing 
 folly, came out of him with an earnestness which com- 
 manded interest and begot ideas in the hearer. She 
 found it easy to strike sparks from him, and the game 
 amused her. Wilson watched it, and smiled across at 
 her from time to time. 
 
 The boy, David, scrutinised the guest, detected the 
 yellow spots on his boots and dismissed him as an " out- 
 sider." 
 
 The parson came bustling, greeted Peter, demanded 
 dinner immediately. They descended to the dining- 
 room, Peter with Mrs. Scott on his arm. He offered 
 her his left arm at first, but she took him by the right, 
 talked briskly to cover his confusion. Mattie took her 
 uncle's arm, and young David his father's, absurdly 
 mimicking a lady's walk, dainty, with picking steps. 
 
 The tabk gleamed white and silver; warm light from 
 the pink-shaded candles. The light softened Mattie's 
 hard little features, and Peter could, with difficulty, take 
 his eyes from her. Mrs. Scott was like her, too, but 
 softer, and her grey hair made her seem more tender. 
 
 Peter sat between Mrs. Scott and her brother, oppo- 
 site young David and Mattie, sitting at the corner by 
 her father. The maid waiting upon him oppressed Peter 
 
88 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 at first. There seemed to be a certain scorn in the way 
 in which she offered him potatoes, that was not in her 
 manner towards the others. He was soon at ease, how- 
 ever. There was an atmosphere in the place different 
 from anything he had known before, or imagined. It 
 confirmed almost his visions of the houses of the rich 
 as places whence care was banished, but that in Mrs. 
 Scott's face were marks of suffering. Sitting there, he 
 formed a theory that it is the woman makes the atmos- 
 phere of a home, but turning to his own to apply the 
 theory, was bafiBed. His father no more than his mother 
 had made the place hideous. Thinking of his father, he 
 glanced up the table at his host, then across at David 
 and Mattie. Melancholy thoughts troubled him. The 
 difference was so appalling — his own home and this. 
 From the parlour behind the tailor's shop to that be- 
 hind old Cooper's had been a stride, wide for the legs: 
 from Cooper's again to Mrs. Fildes or the house in En- 
 dell Street; but to this ! A ripple of laughter 
 
 came from the others. David had said something funny, 
 and was looking conscious, giggling nervously. Mrs. 
 Scott took the conversation to literary subjects. Wilson 
 struggled against it, turned to frivolity, was resolutely 
 pursued and finally landed. Peter was all ears. On 
 the subject of literary success the writer declared: 
 
 " Success is merely a question of hair." Hair ! Peter 
 was glad of his visit to the half-caste. 
 
 " The length of it ? " The question was from Mrs. 
 Scott. 
 
 " Yes," said Wilson. " Many a talent has been ruined 
 by an inch of hair. The truth is that a man's imagina- 
 tion needs its proper food. Antics kill. The intoxication 
 of words is more dangerous to a writer than alcohol," 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 89 
 
 Peter was several times on the point of making a re- 
 mark, but fell to making bread-pills. Mrs. Scott was 
 alive to his nervousness, and in kindness turned to him. 
 
 " You must know young writers, Mr. Davies. What 
 do you think.'' " 
 
 Peter began " I — I ," looked up to find all eyes 
 
 turned upon him, Mattie's mocking, lost his thought and 
 could remember only old Cooper's instructions about 
 bread-piUs. He laid his hand over the crumbs, saw that 
 his finger-nails were dirty, and was left foolishly stam- 
 mering. 
 
 Mattie turned to David and whispered: "Isn't he 
 like a banana ? " 
 
 David exploded, and his father scowled at him. They 
 left Peter, and the parson and his wife discussed parish 
 afi'airs. Wilson teased his niece. 
 
 Peter, seeking their motive, misinterpreted, and raged 
 inwardly. He sat miserably eating and sipping his 
 claret, taking care to cock his little finger as he drank. 
 
 Venturing to look up, he found young David making 
 a hideous grimace at him. He responded with one more 
 hideous. The boy laughed and applauded, and awk- 
 wardness was dispelled. 
 
 " An extraordinary accomplishment," said Wilson. 
 
 "What.?" said Mattie. 
 
 " Old English — grinning through a horse-collar. I 
 have found it in western counties. You would be suc- 
 cessful in such competitions." 
 
 " Do it again ! " said Mattie. " I did not see it." 
 
 Peter demurred. 
 
 " Please do it again." Peter, always susceptible to 
 voices (and he knew none more sweet than this girl's 
 and her mother's), complied. 
 
90 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 She clapped her hands. 
 
 " I used to do it for babies at home," said Peter. 
 
 "Are you fond of babies, then? " 
 
 " They like me," said Peter. 
 
 The response found favour, and the rest of the dinner 
 passed happily. Murray Wilson chanced on a vein of 
 nonsense as they ate fruit and walnuts, and Peter was 
 roused to emulation. He told how he had shaved half 
 his early moustache, and invented preposterous anec- 
 dotes of the sagacity of Demophoon. He took the per- 
 sons of the Tildes circle, and gave them a grotesque 
 twist, unconsciously following Wilson's method, though 
 tinging his caricature youthfully with a spice of malice. 
 
 " Oh ! come, come," the Rev. David said, " not so 
 bad as that." 
 
 " I assure you — ^truly," said Peter. 
 
 All the same they laughed. Success warmed Peter. 
 
 When Mrs. Scott rose to leave them he plunged for 
 the door, bowing as Mattie and David went through. 
 Mattie tossed her head, as he looked for a smile from 
 her. 
 
 Wilson and Scott drew together for port and tobacco. 
 Peter was offered a cigarette, but declined. 
 
 " Not smoke ? " said Wilson. " I remember burning 
 a hole in my pinafore with my first cigar." 
 
 Coffee was brought. Peter sipped, while they plied 
 him with questions. Wilson had heard the story of the 
 quest of the aunt, had used it comically, and was pleased 
 to find how nearly the young man of his invention re- 
 sembled Peter — exactly the swaggering, nervous man- 
 ner, and exactly the bullet-headed insistence on equality. 
 
 He dragged from Peter the confession of literary, 
 ambition, and Peter, in the heady confidence of port 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 91 
 
 :wine, recited a little poem. Wilson made allowance and 
 was kind. Peter had amused and interested him. He 
 knew his type intimately, was not indeed without Peter 
 qualities himself. He was astounded by the boy's mem- 
 ory and knowledge of literature. He had sifted the 
 grain from the chaff, divided real knowledge from hear- 
 say. He nodded at his brother-in-law and smiled. Peter 
 mistook it for derision and became taciturn. 
 
 As he rose Wilson said: 
 
 " I was twenty-nine before there appeared in my 
 work the personal flavour which alone makes writing 
 worth while, and is its justification. I believe good 
 painters are like that, too." 
 
 He meant this for encouragement, but Peter was in 
 the air. The first approaching of a great man had its 
 painful side. He remembered a sentence in a French 
 exercise book at school. 
 
 " It is with great men as with mountains : the nearer 
 you approach them, the less formidable do they seem." 
 
 Wilson had been a glorious being, living on dizzy 
 heights: a gentle eagle, but all the same air eagle. The 
 levelling was sudden, quick, through Peter's ridiculous 
 intelligence. It was painful, perhaps, and certainly not 
 at all good for so hubristic a young man. 
 
 Peter stayed only a little time in the drawing-room. 
 Half-past ten seemed the moment for departure. He 
 had noticed on arriving in the drawing-room that Mrs. 
 Scott had her thumb bandaged. He was sorry, ashamed 
 of his clumsiness. He shook hands with her gingerly, 
 and bowed. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, " for a very pleasant " 
 
 He very nearly said "entertainment," jibbed at the 
 :word and dropped it into mumbling. Young David 
 
92 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 growled at him, and Mattie gave him a glance that 
 lifted him. 
 
 As he left the room with Mr. Scott, he heard Wil- 
 son's voice: 
 
 " An Achilles with brains. He will hurt himself." 
 
 All the same he trod the air, head high. He had been 
 in rare company, and the air of it had a little gone to 
 his head. 
 
 Near the Elephant a Happy drunkard approached 
 him, whistling, singing, insanely laughing. He trod del- 
 icately, his legs flew out queerly, and it seemed as 
 though he had no weight, were floating bubble-like near 
 the earth, floating: and how he sang! Laughter gurgled 
 from him like water. 
 
 Crowing with delight, he lurched to Peter, caught and 
 held him. Peter gulped down his first fear and crowed, 
 too, and, though the man was foul, off"ensive even, bent 
 to his whimsies. 
 
 They laughed and danced wildly together; when sud- 
 denly the man stopped, staring fixedly at the whiteness 
 of Peter's collar. He stretched a trembling hand to 
 touch it. 
 
 " Goblimey," he said, " a toff," and burst into tears. 
 
 Peter stood for some moments in consternation, then 
 left him weeping. 
 
 His own condition was so similar, though of different 
 origin, that he was apt to sympathise. Happiness, warm 
 happiness. He also broke into snatches of song, and 
 once stretching his arms, standing on tiptoe, craning 
 to a star, he murmured : " Mattie," then gasped at the 
 audacity of it. 
 
 Wilson's voice mocked him: 
 
 "An Achilles with brains." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 93 
 
 He walked for miles through the streets that night — 
 in love with himself, and Mattie, and Miss Dugdale, and 
 Janet, and Janet's baby. 
 
 •Peter Davies! What a man* Striding with giant 
 legs. 
 
 " In the mountains the shortest way is from summit 
 to summit: but for that thou needest long legs." 
 
 That night Zaruthastra was a dwarf to Peter: he 
 strode from Mont Blanc to Caucasus, from Caucasus 
 to Everest. 
 
IV 
 
 Peter returned to Shaftesbury Avenue by way of Pic- 
 cadilly, the Park, Oxford Street and the dark streets 
 of Soho. It was very late and the streets had the lull 
 which comes when pleasure-seekers are disappeared and 
 night-workers are not yet abroad. He was still ex- 
 alted, but approbation of himself had given way to 
 amorous self -torturing, Hauton timorumenos; Peter 
 was, above all things, a self-tormentor. A moon shin- 
 ing over the Park, entirely from a desire to drown her 
 other self in the mysterious Serpentine, seemed to Peter 
 to be hanging in the sky, broad and yellow, compas- 
 sionate to all else, expressly to excite the stifling emo- 
 tions. He tried to get free of it by murmuring 
 " Mattie ! Mattie ! " then " Mary, Mary ! " then " Janet ! 
 Janet ! " — all to no purpose. He still choked. 
 
 He certainly was amorous that night, but it is pos- 
 sible also that the large consumption of food at an 
 unaccustomed hour had something to do with it. That 
 explanation, if it had occurred to Peter, would have 
 been odious. He found ethereal reasons, and broke 
 into a lyric vein. The result in words was perilously like 
 
 Tell me where is fancy bred, 
 
 Or in the heart, or in the head 
 
 but the impulse was genuine; whatever its origin, the 
 rhythm of the lyric was charming, and Peter tripped 
 to it. 
 
 Nearing his shop, he heard a cat miaowing, and knew 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 95 
 
 the note for that of Demophoon. The cry was not 
 amorous, but petitioning. As a rule, once she left the 
 house of a night, she disappeared until morning. He 
 bent down to caress her. She flattened her ears, or 
 ear, for the crumpled ear could do no more than 
 twitch, and rubbed herself against his leg. He stroked 
 her, then opened the door. She bolted in so soon as he 
 had pushed the door a few inches. Peter followed and 
 closed the 4oor- 
 
 He was astonished to find a light burning in the 
 passage and young Fildes coming towards him, on tip- 
 toe, finger on lips. Alarm seized Peter and he threw 
 out both hands awkwardly as though to ward off a 
 threatened rush. Fildes seized his wrists and said: 
 
 " Peter, Peter — he's going." 
 
 Peter opened his mouth, and tried to speak, but 
 could only produce a sort of dry rattling in his throat. 
 
 " It's a stroke, and at his age — ^they don't live 
 through it." 
 
 "When?" said Peter. 
 
 " To-night about half -past eight." 
 
 Peter tried to think of what he was doing at half- 
 past eight — making a face at young David, perhaps: 
 anything else would have been equally ridiculous. He 
 gripped Fildes' shoulder, and found pleasure in the 
 strong grip, had a desire to send his friend spinning. 
 
 Then: 
 
 "Will he know me?" he said. 
 
 Fildes looked sharply up at him. 
 
 " N;o." 
 
 " I must be with him. There is no one else." 
 
 Without more Fildes led Peter, sobered now and 
 humble, striding no more, to the bed-chamber, 
 
90 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 They had found him in this room on the floor in the 
 alley between the bed and the chest of drawers. He 
 had been among the treasures and relics of his desk, 
 for, when they found him, it lay open, the key in the 
 lock, and in his hand there lay a silver necklace of 
 pink stones, pink topaz, and tiny stars of paste, fash- 
 ioned in royal France. 
 
 The Fildeses, father and son, had loosed it from his 
 hand, restored it to the desk and locked the same. 
 
 The father had stayed, but being called away had 
 left his son until Peter should return. There was 
 nothing to be done : only to watch. 
 
 Peter stood by the side of the bed and looked down 
 upon the head of his stricken friend. One side of the 
 face, the side of the great eye, had fallen, dragging 
 the mouth awry. The eye glared most horribly, and 
 all the face was ashen, showing the hair of head and 
 beard silvery white. The skin drawn tight over the 
 brow showed it fine and noble. The body seemed to 
 be shrunk and the hands from chubby were thin, crook- 
 fingered and transparent almost. Peter took the right 
 hand: it was icy cold, hard, not answering to warmth. 
 He sat by the bedside, and twisted his fingers in the 
 thick white hair over the ear. There seemed to be life 
 in that and some comfort. 
 
 Two visions rose in Peter's mind — ^his mother lying 
 cold, filling him with horror of dead things: and the 
 Button-moulder at the cross-roads. 
 
 Ay. Everything's over. 
 The owl smells the daylight. 
 
 Owls, bats, moths, creatures of the night, filled Peter's 
 thoughts. 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 07 
 
 For no reason he thrust his hand under the old man's 
 head^ so that the round skull lay in the cup of his 
 palm. He strove to lift, but the head was heavy, and 
 he fell to wondering. Does the brain die first, cease to 
 dream, or are the mysteries of death clear and vividly 
 seen? He remembered the horror of the living eye in 
 the dead head in the story of the elixir of life, and wove 
 queer fantasies, glimpses of horror seen and fading 
 almost as soon as seen. Without knowing that he 
 spoke, he framed the words: 
 
 "What is death?" 
 
 He spoke softly, but the words rang in the silent 
 room. He drew in his breath hissing. How if the 
 brain were alive in the skull, able stiU to perceive 
 sound? The idea of the brain grinding thought with- 
 out power to express sickened him, and he left his 
 question. He was startled :when young Fildes from the 
 other side said: 
 
 " I have seen so much of death. It just stops like 
 the ticking of a watch," and he laid his hand on the 
 old man's heart. 
 
 " Slow," he said. "Slow, dying away." 
 
 " The sadness of Lear's feather," said Peter and 
 Fildes looked across at him, wondering what he meant. 
 He rose quickly to his feet, fumbling in his pocket. 
 
 Peter was deadly pale, his eyes staring and his jaw 
 had dropped. He swayed, swinging to and fro over his 
 knees, then pitched forward in a swoon. His hand 
 dragged from under the old man's head, drew it side- 
 :ways. 
 
 Eeturned to consciousness, he found himself in the 
 parlour watched over by the doctor and the old char- 
 woman. She was in tears. Among others she had the 
 
98 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 profession of layer-out of corpses, and had been sent 
 for earlier in the evening. 
 
 She had performed her office, and waited upon 
 Peter's recovery to wag her tongue. He silencdd the 
 ghoulish old woman and plunged again into the death- 
 chamber. 
 
 Fildes was stern and ordered him to bed. Demoph- 
 oon followed him and lay all night upon his feet. 
 
 During the two days before the burial the cat avoided 
 the old man's room, though it had ever been her lair. 
 She clung to Peter, and clawed and purred about him 
 as she had done about the old bookseller. 
 
 The shop was kept closed and she retired thither, 
 Peter, too, and at his desk he wrote of love and death. 
 
 Coffin board. 
 Poor pale corse. 
 Grave shall hoard 
 Love's remorse. 
 
 Let me win 
 Happiness ; 
 Lay me in 
 Sad cypress. 
 
 Love, the foe. 
 Aids to death. 
 Ache of woe. 
 Sting of breath. 
 
 Death the friend 
 Comes too soon; 
 Makes the end 
 Sweet atune. 
 
 He read it to Demophoon, who blinked contemptuously, 
 curled up, and went to sleep on the sofa, 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 99 
 
 Peter preserved the poem. He had changed his red 
 tie for a black bow, with a winged collar similar to 
 that worn by Murray Wilson at the dinner. 
 
 He wrote to his friends, and told them of the 
 bereavement, wrote to his brother, went to Janet Fildes 
 for sympathy, and found it. He wished to write to 
 Tessa, but could not remember her address, or if she 
 had given him any on their chance meeting in the car. 
 Fildes took charge of all the business of interment, and 
 was in all ways a good friend, even to listening pa-- 
 tiently while Peter, who had suffered from some mis- 
 giving concerning the immediate future, talked about 
 himself and his prospects, and enlarged upon great 
 thoughts concerning death. 
 
 There were no discoverable relatives to bid to the 
 funeral, and the body of the old man was followed to 
 its grave by Peter as chief mourner, the two Fildeses 
 and Janet, Scott and his wife. Old Adam was sick 
 of a fever, and knew not even that his friend was 
 dead. 
 
 Scott returned with Peter to Shaftesbury Avenue. 
 He came bluntly to the point. 
 
 " Mr. Cooper," he said, " gave me your welfare as 
 a special charge." 
 
 " You ? " said Peter, incredulously, for the thing 
 seemed too dazzling for belief. 
 
 " He made a will leaving you, with the exception 
 of certain small legacies, everything whereof he might 
 die possessed. I am executor, and charged with you 
 and — and the cat." 
 
 " Demophoon ? " 
 
 The parson nodded and drew off his black kid gloves. 
 
 "How," said Peter, "bow i? Mrs. Scott'sf — thumb?" 
 
100 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " It was nothing," said the parson. " Have you 
 ■found the will?" 
 
 "Will?" said Peter. He had been flying ofi' into 
 (dreams, Mrs. Scott and Mattie, and always, always, 
 happiness like that of the evening of the dinner. 
 
 " He made his will — and signed it only the night 
 before he died. You were in the shop asleep." 
 
 " I remember," said Peter. " It will be in his desk." 
 
 He fetched the desk from the dead man's room with 
 the keys. It was in rose-wood chased with brass, in- 
 laid; brass cornered: hinges and lock of brass scrolled 
 and elaborate. A brass plate let into the lid bore 
 the inscription: 
 
 "X. Cooper, 1869." 
 
 He laid it on the table. A little difficulty with the 
 key and they had it open. A musty fragrance rose 
 from among the litter of its contents. The pink topaz 
 necklace lay atop, and broken fragments of a rose long 
 dead. Bare stones in rings peeped out, two fingers 
 of a glove, a chain, and all disordered. They found 
 the will. Odd sums were left to Peter, money in the 
 funds, the business, all property whatsoever. He was 
 charged to be a man and to remember this: 
 
 " Vere magnum, habere f ragilitatem hominis, se- 
 curitatem Dei." 
 
 "It is from Bacon," said Mr. Scott to Peter puz- 
 zling, and he translated. " It is true greatness to have 
 the frailty of a man and the security of a God." 
 
 "I'U be great," said Peter sublimely. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I don't know. But I'll be it." 
 
 " In all," said the parson, " I think you iwill have 
 jgerhaps eight hundred pounds." 
 
PETEE HOMUNCULUS 101 
 
 "There's jewels here," said Peter. "Are they 
 mine?" 
 
 " Yes, yours." 
 
 Peter foraged in the desk and laid all out in a row. 
 He came upon a great gold watch, from which a fob 
 with seals dangled. 
 
 " My," he said. " He's been a man." 
 
 " Yes," said Scott. " A known man," and he sighed 
 to look upon the little hoarded treasures that were all 
 that were left of the old man's sad romance. 
 
 " I'll leave the shop," said Peter. 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 " Education. Mr. Cooper used to say ' Be hanged 
 to education,' but he made me read for all that, 
 and there's some things that others know that a man 
 has to know if only to know them better. Isn't it so, 
 sir?" 
 
 Peter had wild dreams of Cambridge, but Mr. Scott 
 drew him gently down to lesser London, on the ground 
 of economy. They argued, and Mr. Scott left Peter 
 to think it over, with promises to do all in his power 
 to help. 
 
 " My solicitors," he said, " will procure probate 
 for the will — you don't have control, you know, until 
 you are twenty-five." 
 
 That had escaped Peter. He was damped. His 
 wings flapped for flight, but he was chained to earth. 
 Mr. Scott could have laughed at the sudden rueful- 
 ness of Peter's face, but he forbore. 
 
 Peter timidly sent messages of greeting to Mrs. Scott 
 and Miss — Miss Mattie. Left alone he foraged more 
 among the old man's papers. There were old letters, 
 legal documents; plans and pictures of an ancient house 
 
102 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 in Warwickshire, -writings, poems, prose, fragments, 
 and an old diary, a note-book. 
 
 Peter set aside the diary and the note-book for read- 
 ing. Out of the diary fluttered a scrap of paper 
 yellow with age, worn at the corners, through at the 
 folds. There was a faint fragrance of heliotrope from 
 it. He held it together and deciphering the thin 
 cramped writing where the long s so much resembled f 
 as to be confusing, read under the date September 5, 
 1856: 
 
 " My dear, my dear. It is all done: you are gone 
 and I am like to die. I could not leave this place 
 with you; yet without you it is no better than a 
 tomb, so cold it is. It was so in the days when we were 
 closest, in the hours when you were gone. But then 
 the knowledge of a certain dawn made sweet the pain 
 of waiting through the night. The sun shines coldly 
 now. It never shone for me but through you, as all 
 that came to me of life could come through you alone. 
 You know, you know, you are so tender and you know 
 so well: there is no thought of bitterness in you, gener- 
 ous and big as you are, for the hurt that in my weak- 
 ness I have done to you. What could I do? . . ." 
 
 There were some words illegible here, others erased, 
 blotted out. 
 
 " Before you came to me I had been hurt, crushed 
 to numbness. We flashed together (the words are 
 yours) and knew great happiness. Cruelty and prej- 
 udice — ^you said 'prejudice is stronger than the law ' " — • 
 
 The words touched Peter's memory, and he saw again 
 the old man telling his pitiful narrative — ^he seemed 
 nearer to old Cooper now than be had ever been. Men 
 ^o survive death, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 103 
 
 "Cruelty and prejudice," he read again, "divided 
 us. We might have gone together out to meet life, 
 but that I, in my folly, in the vanity of my heart, 
 deceived myself, believed the wprds whispered in my 
 ear. And — Heaven help me — ^judged you! I, a wo- 
 man, to judge a saint among men, almost a God! Nay, 
 we must not judge the lowliest. How much greater 
 then was my presumption and my wickedness in judg- 
 ing you, the highest, best and noblest of all? That is 
 my wrong. I am your penitent. But what is my peni- 
 tence to you.^ I gave you all: I gave you nothing — 
 I shall preserve your memory — or it may come to us 
 again. Vain hope! — But I am with you: you are al- 
 ways my beloved, more than myself " 
 
 The writing scrawled here and the pen had been 
 dug deep into the paper. Words ceased and the pen 
 had raced trailing a wavering line — ^then : 
 
 " How well I know you ! Clara." 
 
 The full meaning of the letter was not revealed to 
 Peter. His imagination created a young Cooper, but 
 not a handsome: and a Clara, dainty, elusive, bewitch- 
 ing; soft, adorable, like — ^like — like Miss Dugdale, 
 Mary. Peter's' imagiination "was strong enough, but 
 cold. It had not had its proper food of love. He 
 gorged it later. 
 
 Rummaging again amongst the papers in the desk 
 his hand came upon something hard and cold, a Dres- 
 den figure of Demeter, six inches high, red-sandalled, 
 cornucopia on arm, pink and white: a Demeter absurd 
 and sentimental, but dainty. She stood for Clara, there 
 on the table simpering. 
 
 He came upon another letter, in Cooper's hand, 
 but firm, rounded, young. The letter was of earlier 
 
104 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 date than hers — ^August, 1854 — ^the paper yellower, more 
 dilapidated. They had had two years then! Peter 
 made the calculation, but imagined not all that the 
 time had held for them. The letter moved him, roused 
 wildness, and keen sorrow. He leaned forward close 
 to Demeter and read? 
 
 " Darling, my dear. Dur babies ! Mon Dieu, but 
 I dreamed of them last night. We were on our hill 
 at sunset — sun going down behind the roUing woods 
 touching them to gold, and the woods, our woods, blue, 
 hazy, grey mists: the pines warm, red, glowing. The 
 light growing softer, paler, the trees made music in 
 their swaying, and from their crests our children 
 floated down, singing — circled us, and danced. You 
 came to me, close, my lips on yours; and we swayed 
 to the rhythm of life — ^the trees, children, we two ! lovers ! 
 Divine ! Oh ! my dear, my dear, it cannot be for noth- 
 ing that we have this, so much. I thank you: but not 
 you. It is something more than you that loves me, 
 just as it is something more than I that loves you. If 
 it were only I, I should say, should I not? Heavens! 
 This woman whom I know to have loved before, worn 
 by the world, tried with unhappiness, this is not my 
 ideal of love. Where is my Juliet, my Heloise, my 
 young Beatrice? — For of such I had ever dreamed. 
 But, being in this, more than myself — I am you, be- 
 come you, merged in this you which is greater than 
 you, as you are merged in this me which is greater 
 than myself; a divine possession. 
 
 " I say ' I love you.' That is the human formula — 
 the simplest symbol. It is love both sacred and pro- 
 fane: love as the brutes know it and as the Gods 
 know it: Love triumphant, blazing, ranging over the 
 
PETER] H0MUNCULU9 105 
 
 world to set it quivering. The discovery of it is sweet : 
 the first timid grasping sweet — timid because we are 
 afraid, so much have we been hurt in our tamperings 
 with divine things, in our clumsy searchings after this 
 truth which has come to us now unsought — and sweet 
 the going out to meet it in terror: but this possession, 
 this ever-growing knowledge of it — Darling, my dear, 
 we are ever at the beginning — You and I — Dream- 
 children! Only in dreams ours — Then — then — ^What 
 more? Only this: that I love you." 
 
 In the margin many years later the lover had writ- 
 ten — " Clara is dead. For a time God left the world; " 
 and later still: "What is my love in the infinite? To 
 men even it is less than a star." 
 
 Peter was shocked. It was as though He had happed 
 on the inmost life of a friend unbidden. Old Cooper 
 had had a knack of making him feel small, but this 
 young fiery Cooper! — There was something ridiculous 
 about it, perhaps because Peter's young Cooper would 
 not wholly detach himself from the old Cooper he had 
 known. The old man and the letter of babies and 
 trees, and dreams shrieked absurdity, and Peter was 
 sorry. 
 
 He folded both letters carefully and placed them 
 in the desk. He had no taste for more, and restored 
 everything — deeds, the lease of the house, jewels, 
 watch, Demeter. Last of all he took the pink topaz 
 necklace in his hand. It shone softly, a piece of lov- 
 ing craftmanship. There were nine stones set in sil- 
 ver, each in a stud linked with a little chain. It had 
 been a bracelet of eight studs and a clasp, three large 
 stones, five small. In each stud were tiny winking 
 gems that Peter took for brilliants. They were French 
 
loe PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 paste of the finest, and every stone was clasped in sil- 
 ver claws, backed with silver, fluted. Peter loved the 
 soft glow of the stones, and the dull tarnished silver 
 of the chains and studs. It was a fitting jewel for 
 the Demeter of the German artist, fitting for the 
 throat of the fair penitent. 
 
 Suddenly Peter had a ghastly sense of being in face 
 of something he did not understand. He dropped the 
 necklace into the desk, slammed it to and locked it, 
 then carried it into his own bedroom. He was afraid, 
 like a child of the dark. He lay shivering in his bed, 
 shrinking into himself, desiring only smallness. Quite 
 simply he framed his thought: 
 
 " If I am tiny. It will hurt me less." 
 
 The nature of It was not revealed to him, but he 
 knew well that it was inevitable, lurking in the world to 
 hurt him. He was sore afraid. And during these days 
 when there was confusion in his affairs, nothing but 
 consultations, palavers, arguments, and plans, and 
 he was much alone, he lived in terror. Often he would 
 open the desk and stand fingering the necklace. And 
 often he began to read Cooper's letter to Clara, but, 
 so soon as he began to read from the first words, 
 " Darling, my dear, our babies ! " its every phrase 
 leaped from the page to confound him. Later he re- 
 membered a saying, oft repeated of old Cooper's: 
 " There are sunbeams prisoned in the earth, striving' 
 upward to reach the sun. So all things grow. Love is 
 growth." 
 
 There was some peace in that and comfort, but Peter 
 went floundering in deep waters. The flow of words 
 from his pen was dammed, and he was miserable, cross 
 and listless: a sore trial to the friends who were busy 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 107 
 
 making plans for his future and the day when he 
 should rise on strong wings. 
 
 He was so odious that when Mr. Scott proposed to 
 his wife that he should live with them she put her foot 
 down, 
 
 " My dear," she said. " No. We could not do with 
 his moods: he would come crying to me for sympathy, 
 or to Mattie — and then! No, he is not fit yet to live 
 with women ! " 
 
 Scott marvelled at his wife's divination. He was 
 puzzled. 
 
 " What are we to do with him ? I am proud of my 
 charge and must hold to it." 
 
 " Give him a lodging in Bloomsbury or Netting Hill. 
 He must fight his own battles, and discover for him- 
 self the real aspect of the world. That old man with 
 his literary outlook has drawn a film over it for him." 
 " He is so sensitive. He will be hurt." 
 "Let him. He must be if he is to come to anything. 
 These violent and false moods." 
 
 Wilson said: " Throw him into deep water and let 
 him swim. He won't drown. It is the only way with 
 puppies." 
 
 The upshot of it was that, when the good will of 
 the business and the remaining term of the lease of the 
 house had been sold, Peter being possessed of a thou- 
 sand and fifty pounds, aged nineteen years and nine 
 months (prodigiously old and weighted with the bur- 
 den of life), neither good-looking nor ugly, though in 
 animation striking, ill-dressed, ill-mannered and un- 
 couth, was lodged in a house of his own choosing in 
 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, and entered at Kings Col- 
 lege in the Strand where he attended lectures in Latin, 
 
108 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Greek, Mediaeval languages. History, Political Econ- 
 omy and English Literature. 
 
 He was keen and zealous in his attendance. His 
 greatest distress came from contact with boys and girls, 
 younger than himself, who appeared to have all sorts 
 of knowledge denied to himself. At first he was fool- 
 ish enough to regret the three years in the shop, never 
 made mention of it, was in terror of discovery: then 
 he made the mistake of despising this knowledge, called 
 it " Cockney lore." He swaggered among them, de- 
 veloped an irritating habit of literary quotation, be- 
 came a standing joke and was acutely miserable, 
 kicking peevishly. He bragged of his acquaintances, 
 hurling Scott and Murray Wilson, Miss Dugdale's 
 brother and the least of the long-haired in the Fildes 
 group, at the heads of his fellow-students. 
 
 On one occasion as he was coming out of the College 
 into the Strand, Murray Wilson shot by. Peter button- 
 holed him and held him in ridiculous conversation that 
 the little students might see with their own eyes. 
 Wilson divined the inner Peter, kindly stood with him, 
 but for months afterwards avoided meeting him, aban- 
 doning his practice of Sunday supper with the Scotts. 
 
 This produced unfortimate consequences, for it so 
 fell out that Peter was thrown mucli with Mattie. 
 David had gone to school, and both Mr. and Mrs. 
 Scott were occupied with parish afi'airs, for a cycle 
 of bad trade had brought great distress to the poor 
 in South London as everywhere else. Capital was 
 needed in Russia and America, and the ring of inter- 
 national financiers had directed it thither to the dis- 
 location of trade in England. So the bald little man 
 yrho propounded economic theory to Peter explained 
 
PETEK H0MUNCULU9 109 
 
 the crisis. Other economists wrote letters of violent 
 ahuse to the papers, a petty war followed. Free Trade 
 V. Fair Trade, in which Peter, with the confidence of 
 small knowledge, joined. His letter appeared over 
 his full name. He reproduced in it almost word for 
 word the ideas of the bald-headed lecturer, who there- 
 after regarded him as his most promising pupil. Peter 
 cut out the letter and showed it to all his friends. 
 Mattie thought it a literary wonder, though she could 
 make neither head nor tail of it, and was bewildered 
 by the absurd diagram with which it was illustrated. 
 Her father chafi^ed him, and comically regretted his 
 ignorance of mathematical economics. Thick-headed 
 Peter swallowed everything, and for a week or so 
 dreamed seriously of abandoning his other studies and 
 migrating to the School of Economics in Claremarket. 
 
 Fortunately another and more real success in Latin 
 Literature, the winning of a special prize, carrying 
 with it a bursary of thirty pounds, defeated the insane 
 project. He devoted himself principally to that and 
 to English Literature, took himself most seriously, and 
 indeed lost all sense of humour with regard to them. 
 It was a gloomy and a Werther-Iike Peter who paid 
 little court to Mattie on Sunday evenings. He va- 
 poured woefully to her, heaved great sighs, and de- 
 veloped a peculiar dog-like expression of the eye for 
 her benefit. He wrought upon her, poured all his 
 floating ideas intp her mind, was teased, laughed at, 
 petted and comforted. She was proud of his successes, 
 and flattered that he would for her sake make changes 
 in his dress. He had clung to the black bow tie of 
 Murray Wilson ever after the funeral. Mattie tabooed 
 brown boots and long hair. Peter denied himself both 
 
110 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 these luxuries, and to the limit of his purse dressed 
 carefully to please her. She tired of his eternal blue 
 suits. He bought a grey and a brown. 
 
 Mrs. Scott had uneasy moments. And there was 
 some head-wagging. She liked Peter, was anxious for 
 his welfare, but in her eyes his welfare was not Mat- 
 tie's. She knew the danger of arbitrary suppression 
 with the girl, and forbore, though watching carefully. 
 She knew that if there was folly in the air the girl 
 would be unhappy: but Mattie was radiant, kind and 
 helpful in the conduct of the house and parish affairs. 
 There was then no cause for interference. 
 
 One Sunday Peter and Mattie were alone in the 
 drawing-room, she playing the piano idly, Schubert 
 and Sullivan by turn. Peter twisted the lock of hair 
 on his forehead and said: — 
 
 " How Sullivan has stolen from Schubert ! " 
 "Has he.?" said Mattie, "I like him." 
 " Play that again." Peter approached the piano, 
 stood in its curve, and she played the air from the 
 " Yeoman of the Guard." 
 
 Oh, the sighing and the suing! 
 Oh, the doing and undoing. 
 When a jester goes a-wooing, — 
 Jester wishes he were dead. 
 
 Mattie sang softly. 
 
 " That note," said Peter, " is like the note of 
 Demophoon, caressing." 
 
 Mattie laughed. 
 
 " Poor Demophoon," she said. Peter looked tragic. 
 
 The cat with the crumpled ear at the quitting of 
 the shop on its purchase by the half-caste barber, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 111 
 
 who being incommoded by the too close attention of the 
 police wished to extend his business to the compara- 
 tively greater respectability of the wide thoroughfare, 
 had been conveyed in a basket to the rectory. She 
 stayed for a day, numb, without interest even in the 
 milk which was offered her at every turn, then had 
 fled. They brought her back; again she fled to the 
 shop. Once more and she was lost, engulphed like 
 Peter's aunt in cruel London. 
 
 That is why Mattie said " Poor Demophoon." 
 
 A lamp with a pink shade stood behind her head. 
 A bright fire was burning, the curtains were drawn, 
 shutting out the world and bleak weather. 
 
 Perhaps the pink shade was responsible for what 
 happened. Mattie was pretty — those green eyes: but 
 on that night she looked prettier to Peter, older, for the 
 first time a woman. As she played, he leaned further 
 and further over the piano towards her, eyes on her 
 face. She knew what she was doing, enjoyed her 
 power. She raised her eyes once, so glad they were 
 and soft. Peter glared. She glanced down again at 
 her fingers, sighed — a little sigh. 
 
 Peter tugged at his hair and hitched his shoulders, 
 then hands together he leaned forward and whispered, 
 supplication in his voice: 
 
 " Mattie." 
 
 She broke into a tender lullaby. 
 
 "Will you — listen to me.^ " said Peter. 
 
 Mattie let her hands fall into her lap, and hung her 
 head. Peter was silent for a moment, fearful lest he 
 had hurt her. She was so very stiU. 
 
 He was fearful also of It. Was It leaping upon 
 him.'' He wagged his head, shook himself. 
 
113 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He knew at the bottom that this was not It, but 
 some hideous power drew him on to speak, to finish where 
 he had begun. He knew that there was no need for 
 more, that the first word had said all that need be said, 
 but the thin slip of a girl sat there silent, expectant, 
 dragging words out of him. They cut as they came, 
 and he was mocked by the memory of that prepos- 
 terous scene with Janet Pildes, and by the memory 
 of Tessa's shoulders that first day, Tessa painting her- 
 self, and Tessa demanding a kiss. No help for it, 
 he must go on. 
 
 "Mattie," he whispered again, and swept into the 
 thing, abandoning himself to the current of it. Her 
 bosom rose and fell. She stole a glance at him, and 
 laid her white hand where he might reach it. He 
 stretched to touch it. Her fingers closed on his. 
 
 " Do you remember the first night that I came here?." 
 
 Mattie nodded. 
 
 " You were unkind to me — a little, but for all that 
 it was the first night of happiness in my life. The 
 tenderness, the softness of this house, good mother and 
 kind father, were things I had never known, and 
 never dreamed of, never! — Girls I had known — You, 
 by contrast, seemed beyond nature — and you were un- 
 kind to me." 
 
 He paused. Mattie seemed to wisK to speak, but 
 was silent — only her hand pressed his. 
 
 "We shall be friends, Mattie dear. I can help you. 
 And you — I am so terribly alone." 
 
 A cunning devil prompted Peter to plead loneli- 
 ness. The plea is irresistible, and the use of it here 
 was damnable. Peter wanted nothing of this pale girl, 
 so young. She wished to give to him, and he from 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 113 
 
 kindness, magnanimity, or perhaps only from sheer 
 egoism took. More words would have plunged him 
 in falsity, a hideous welter. He had divined this, 
 and, taking his hand from hers, plunged his hand in 
 his pocket and drew forth the Dresden figure of 
 Demeter. He placed the little lady before her. 
 
 " She is the goddess of the corn," he said. " I give 
 her to you for a symbol." 
 
 "She is pretty," said Mattie. 
 
 ," Will you keep her ? While we are friends, I mean. 
 I want you to grow into the splendid woman . . ." 
 
 Mattie turned eyes mocking and tender upon him. 
 She rose, left the piano and came round to him; she 
 was quiet, firm, decided. She took the lapels of his 
 coat, and turned her face up to him. He collapsed. 
 
 " You. silly boy," she said. " I like your goddess, 
 and you — I shall keep both." 
 
 She shook him fondly and left him. Bemused, Peter 
 followed her and, as she began to play again, seized 
 her right hand, bent low and kissed it. She twined 
 her fingers in his hair and laughed. 
 
 " Laugh — silly," she said. " You must laugh. Peter 
 laughs, but Mr. Davies may be solemn." 
 
 Peter was baffled. The masterful man bending to 
 frail woman had become impossible. 
 
 " You — ^you," he said, helpless. 
 
 " I-^I — " and she mocked again. 
 
 "What now?" 
 
 " Laugh." 
 
 "I— I can't." 
 
 "Mr. Davies then."y 
 
 "No— Peter." 
 
 " Peter." 
 
114 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 It sounded so odd to hear her say solemnly " Peter " 
 that he gasped, then giggled, — ^broke at last into a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Dear Peter/' said Mattie, and placed her hands on 
 his shoulders. " I will keep your pretty lady — until I 
 lose you. I shall break her then." 
 
 " Never," said Peter, become the heroic lover. Mattie 
 liked that and yielded to it. Peter was baffled. There 
 seemed to be so much purpose in this young girl, and 
 his conception of her character was based on the Bal- 
 zacian ' jeune fiUe.' He knew perfectly well that this 
 was not It, but the very baffling made the thing fasci- 
 nating, and he was held in thrall as in all his follies 
 he had never been. There was a curious warmth in his 
 bosom; Mattie shook him. His arms went round her; 
 she held back a moment, fell towards him, her arms 
 from his shoulders went round his neck dragging his 
 head down. Her breath tickled his lips curiously. 
 His throat tightened and for the thousandth part of 
 a second he struggled. In that time he thought that 
 he must not kiss her, for his own sake and hers, that 
 the law of salt forbade it, that it would be theft most 
 dishonourable, that prejudice was ridiculous, though 
 stronger than the law; that romance was ridiculous; 
 that Cooper had said " For love, Homunculus, never 
 forget that Goethe tapped out hexameters on his wife's 
 back," that Goethe was an ass, and that Cooper had 
 been a real lover, that a kiss more or less did not matter, 
 that one kiss led to another. Then the thread snapped, 
 and their lips came together. 
 
 One kiss led to another, to many. A hand on the 
 door sent them flying, and when Mrs. Scott entered 
 
PETEKi H0MUNCULU9 115 
 
 the room Mattie was thumping out the wedding march 
 from "Lohengrin/' which Peter particularly detested, 
 and he was sitting low in a long chair by the fire- 
 place reading a volume of sermons. The large white 
 bow at the back of Mattie's head was sadly crushed. 
 
 That detail did not escape Mrs. Scott, whom the 
 long cessation in the piano-playing had brought. She 
 had marked the increasing politeness of Mattie's de- 
 meanour towards Peter. The girl had ceased to call 
 him " the banana," and gave him " Mr. Davies " always 
 in reference. So much of childishness she had dropped, 
 was soberer, mouse-quiet in the house, but of accesses 
 of wild humour and flashing caustic wit. " Cherchez 
 rhomme," said Wilson, and pitched on Peter, since both 
 Mr. Scott's curates were married, plain and dull, and 
 young men of an admirable class came rarely to the 
 house. Like a wise woman, in her perturbation Mrs. 
 Scott had gone, not to her husband, but to her brother. 
 He laughed, and told her of his earliest experiments 
 in the making of sparks. 
 
 " It is good for Peter," he said. 
 
 "But Mattie.?" 
 
 " No small benefit for her, Peter is a tender and a 
 kind soul." 
 
 "He will hurt her." 
 
 "Less than another." 
 
 " More, I think." 
 
 " She will be proud to have known him, and he must 
 learn." 
 
 "Oh! well " 
 
 " It is the boiling process for both." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
lie PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " ' Strange/ said Sancho Panza. ' Very strange hap- 
 penings are in the boiling of an egg.' " 
 
 " There is nothing to be done." 
 
 " I will dazzle Peter with my distinguished patron- 
 age — ^if you wish. It will be bad for him." 
 
 "How bad.?" 
 
 " He will swell — Cleave it. If there is need I can 
 take him." 
 
 Mrs. Scott left it at that. She had gleaned not 
 much comfort, but her sense of proportion was re- 
 stored. She could not approve of Peter. Peter or no 
 Peter, future or no future, he was the son of a tailor, 
 with, no doubt, hordes of impossible relations in the 
 country whence he had sprung. Without knowing it 
 her attitude towards him had changed. There was 
 just a spice of resentment in her. This, while it 
 chilled Peter, brought an ironical twist with it. He 
 was driven more towards the girl, whose reception of 
 him grew warmer, as that of her mother colder. Mrs. 
 Scott detected the process, but too late. She could notl 
 forbid Peter the house without worrying her husband, 
 who, she knew, would pooh pooh the whole matter. 
 He was fond of Peter, and ridiculously proud of his 
 success at King's College. Young David had shown no 
 signs of particular intelligence, indeed avowedly hated 
 books, and had early discovered the profession of his 
 choice — ^to be agent or steward to a nobleman of vast 
 estates. AU the pride that might have been in David 
 was centred in Peter. Youthful complications between 
 the boy and Mattie were food for wild laughter. Peter 
 was of ideas healthy, if half-digested. There could 
 be little harm in him. Mattie he knew for a person of 
 firm character, and for seventeen, of much :wisdom. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 117 
 
 She had left school, six months, and was waiting only 
 the decision of a moneyed aunt, interested in her, to 
 go abroad to Leipzig, Paris or perhaps Brussels for 
 the study of music. The choice of place rested with 
 the said aunt, who was making inquiries into Pensions, 
 and the quality of teaching in each place, 
 
 Mrs. Scott, therefore, had resigned herself to toler- 
 ance. None the less, when she entered the room, to 
 find disorder in her daughter's hair, and Peter en- 
 grossed in a pious work which no one since her hus- 
 band's grandfather had read, she felt a certain anger, 
 and the protective instinct enlarged Peter to a dread- 
 ful size, a bold and reckless marauder, saw Mattie as 
 weak, fragile, a thing easily destroyed. She had for 
 a moment a wish to hurl injurious words at the hypo- 
 critical Peter, who, on realising her entry (he gave her 
 a few moments in which to take in the scene) had 
 sprung to his feet, book in hand, and murmured words 
 of pleasure in the music of Miss Mattie. It was then 
 that Mrs. Scott most wished to upbraid him. All that 
 she said was: 
 
 " It is late, Mattie." 
 
 Mattie said " Oh ! " rose and closed the piano. 
 Glancing at herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, 
 she perceived with some vexation that her cheeks were 
 flushed and her hair ribbon crumpled. She stood for 
 a moment fingering the simpering Demeter. 
 
 " Mr. Davies gave me this," she said. Peter ex- 
 plained the circumstance of the finding of the goddess. 
 
 " Charming," said Mrs. Scott, taking the figure. "I 
 wish I had met Mr. Cooper." 
 
 Peter was shy of talking of his former patron. He 
 could find nothing to say but: 
 
118 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " He — ^he did not wash much." 
 
 Cleanliness was a new virtue with Peter, learned 
 from the Scotts. He had been brought up in the tra- 
 dition of the weekly bath, and was inclined to attach 
 too much importance to the new habit. It was with 
 some repugnance that he thought of old Cooper's ap- 
 parently invincible aversion from water. 
 
 He was uncomfortable in the presence of Mrs. Scott, 
 glad when she, hinting at bed for Mattie, gave him 
 the opportunity to escape. He said " Good-night " 
 and pressed Mattie's hand warmly. Her eyes followed 
 him to the door, he wondering why they did not see him 
 for the ass and knave that he was, for as ass and knave 
 he saw himself as he closed the door of the room. He 
 blamed himself, but had no suspicion that Mattie had 
 had anything to do with it. The thing was done, and 
 seemed fatal, a final disposition. He felt most uneasi- 
 ness from its refusal to sort with his theories of the 
 tender passion. He struggled manfully to do his duty 
 and to confine his thoughts, and the whirl roused in him 
 to Mattie — Mattie — Mattie — but there crowded in on 
 him all the young women with whom he had dallied, 
 was dallying, and clearest of all, the vision of Mary 
 Dugdale as he had last seen her in a new triumph, a 
 play in which she had shown herself, according to a 
 dramatic critic, "to possess the power of presenting 
 the whole gamut of human emotions." Even under 
 the spell of her magnetism Peter had known the critic 
 for a liar and a fool, but he had returned with fresh 
 ardour to the adoration of this first idol, who had been 
 dethroned by the shock of the tidings that she was 
 married to Mr. Bertram Bond, the author who had 
 given her her first real opportunitjr. Janet Fildes had 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 119 
 
 occupied him and turned his interest from drama to 
 music, and the collection of Miss Dugdale's portraits 
 had been destroyed. The discovery of old Cooper's 
 romance, the fire and passion of it, had flung Peter 
 Mary-wards, and he had even written to her (though 
 the letter was never posted) in imitation. He ran wild, 
 and made violent love to a girl-student who bore a fan- 
 cied resemblance to the glorious Mary. Mattie was 
 worlds apart, a creature of another kind; none of the 
 goddess in her: the godhead of Mary, divine name, was 
 indisputable. And now this had happened. His blood 
 raced, his skin tingled. 
 
 All this turmoil of memory, thought, emotion and 
 physical sensation took place in Peter during the time 
 it took him to descend the stairs to the front-door. He 
 took his overcoat from its peg of the mahogany hat- 
 stand, struggled into it and was for going, with his 
 hand on the latch, when from the landing came a soft 
 voice calling " Peter ! " He desired to flee, but he was 
 held. 
 
 " Good-night — dear," said the voice. 
 
 He became romantic on the instant, turned and 
 stalked so that he stood where, by craning his neck, 
 he could see her. She blew him a kiss, smiled, and fled 
 on tiptoe, with an anxious glance towards the drawing- 
 room door. 
 
 He heard her ascend the stairs, then she stopped, 
 and he heard her voice again. 
 
 "Write," she whispered. 
 
 That exasperated him. Already she had begun to 
 make demands upon him. He did not recognise that 
 source of exasperation, but ascribed it to his fine sense 
 of tact injured by an advance from the girl so pal- 
 
120 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 pable. Even then he did not consider that Mattie had 
 had anything to do yrith it. 
 
 Romance made Peter conceive the female of the 
 human race as waiting, like a female insect, for the 
 arrival of the male. His relations with young women 
 had all been based on that conception. The majority 
 of them, with great subtlety and cleverness, had bowed 
 to it and taken their Peter as they found him. One or 
 two had laughed at him, and Peter left the Scotts' house 
 with an uneasy feeling that at any moment Mattie also 
 might laugh at him. Then he ground his teeth sav- 
 agely, and mutfceired: 
 
 " I should deserve it." 
 
 He was pleased with the humility of this utterance, 
 and repeated it. A policeman thought Peter was salut- 
 ing him as he spoke aloud, and in the relief of hearing 
 a human voice directed towards him, said " Good-night, 
 sir." The " sir " delighted Peter, and he stayed to 
 speak. The constable spoke £rst, not an illuminating 
 remark, but an opening: 
 
 " Raw weather for the time of the year." 
 
 "February," said Peter. 
 
 " Cold for the poor out-o'-works. Ever seen 'em 
 washin' themselves on the Embankment in the 'orse 
 troughs? Washes an' combs their 'eads, they do." 
 
 " Poor devils," said Peter. 
 
 " We're all poor devils," said the policeman. " I 
 know. I seen all sorts. Dooks an' beggars is much the 
 same thing if you can see under their clothes — shiverin' 
 all of them." 
 
 " Shivering souls," said Peter, and thought of the 
 old woman near this spot who had given him the secret 
 of yrarmth. He had forgotten it these many months. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 121 
 
 Odd tHat the policeman should have recalled her! He 
 thought perhaps the policeman might know her. He de- 
 scribed her and asked. 
 
 " Oh! Her? " said the constable pleasantly. " She's 
 dead." 
 
 Peter had a desire to laugh. He had discovered this 
 desire in himself whenever he heard that any person 
 not connected with himself had gone the way of all flesh. 
 
 " Old actress/' she was. " They 'ad 'er in the papers 
 when she died. Much good it did 'er or anyone. Let 
 well alone, I say." 
 
 " Find it lonely standing about.? " ' 
 
 " Well, sir, you get used to it. It's Ijad folks being 
 afraid of you, and children — ^but you get used to it, 
 sir." Each " sir " was a fresh delight to Peter. " It's 
 safe, sir, and a pension, and I think a lot." 
 
 " Good-night," said Peter, and shook hands. 
 
 The policeman was important by reason of his much 
 flesh. Peter did not know the vast wrappings of cloth 
 under the uniform, and suspected not that even a police 
 constable is a fraud. To him the man was immense, 
 solid, monumental, looming in the misty air as he drew 
 away from him. 
 
 The reality of this encounter braced Peter, but did 
 not long hold him from self-torment, or from resolving 
 the mystery of himself and conduct incompatible with 
 theory all the way back to the two rooms which he now 
 inhabited in a tall lodging-house in Gordon Square. 
 They were tiny rooms, but the possession of a sitting- 
 room all his own was luxury. The bedroom was an 
 attic under the roof illuminated by one small window. 
 It had no fireplace, but fortunately the Scotts had 
 taught him the necessity of sleeping with the window 
 
122 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 open, or his health must have suffered, for except the 
 ■walk from his lodging to King's College he took no 
 exercise nor air. He avoided the society of his fellow- 
 lodgers, though he had sufficient curiosity to discover 
 their origin, occupation, and habits, and spent all his 
 time in working first for his Intermediate, in which, 
 unlike the little man who had taught him Algebra with 
 such ill-success — he passed easily, and later for his de- 
 gree in Arts. The examination was difficult, covering 
 much knowledge, more, they said, than either Oxford 
 or Cambridge, and Peter suffered qualms as he studied 
 the University Calendar. He slaved and won constant 
 approbation. He was conscientious, and though Janet 
 Fildes, anxious for his early celebrity, urged him to 
 poetic composition, he refrained, and in course of time 
 learned to view critically those unhappy little poems 
 which had so signally failed to stir the journalistic 
 world. None the less, he had no thought of other career 
 than the literacy, and in all that he wrote of answers 
 to propounded questions, or of contributions to debate 
 and discussion, he was fastidious in the use of words, 
 even meticulous. He was derided much, but whatever he 
 said was so clearly and so shiningly set forward as to 
 compel attention and sometimes keen interest. They 
 had a Parliament, in which Peter was Leader of the 
 Opposition, for a time, until he found that he was giv- 
 ing too much to it, and resigned to study. He ap- 
 proached his fellow-students as fools, and, therefore, 
 made few friends. He knew perfectly well that they 
 and he would at once part company in the future, and 
 with sure instinct, knowing already the pain of grow- 
 ing out of friendship, he avoided such. Some sort of 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 123 
 
 contact he could not avoid, but so far as he could he 
 held his fellows at arm's length. Some there were in- 
 sistent, who forced their way to the inner Peter, won 
 kindness from him, but in the end came battering 
 against the hard wall of reserve he had erected round 
 himself, and were hurt. Peter was always sorry for 
 such interludes, a little sorry for the victim, but most 
 for himself, and the waste of himself. Yet he wished 
 for popularity. He counted the cost too dear. All that 
 he wished of more or less intelligent society, the Fildes 
 circle afforded him, and for tenderness there stood the 
 Scotts. 
 
 After his Intermediate examination, he took one or 
 two pupils by way of adding to the income sparingly 
 doled out in monthly sums by his guardian. His money 
 was securely invested to bring in forty pounds a year, 
 and another sixty was advanced to him on condition of 
 repayment out of the capital sum when it should be paid 
 over to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. Fees at the 
 University were paid in the same way. 
 
 Peter had read of Carlyle and Irving, and other 
 Scotch students in Edinburgh. He took them for his 
 model, and in Gordon Square cultivated austerity. It 
 was not in his nature to be so, and he suffered much. 
 He ate sparingly, smoked not at all, and often in the 
 most evil weather denied himself a fire and sat working 
 with his feet swathed in flannel shirts. He had made 
 himself in early days a time table, according to which 
 he should rise at six in the morning throughout the year, 
 work till nine, go to the college for the day, dine at 
 seven, think for an hour. Work again until twelve, and 
 " so to bed." The time table was pinned on the wall 
 
124 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 of his bedroom, written neatly on a foolscap sheet which 
 just covered one of the enormous yellow flowers of the 
 wall-paper, but he had observed it for barely a week. 
 On Sundays he never toiled until after the visit to 
 the Scotts, when he sat for an hour with his books. 
 
 This Sunday, after the scene with Mattie, and the 
 subsequent conversation with the policeman, recalling 
 the tattered woman, the fallen actress, he was aflame. 
 He lit the two candles, by which light he preferred to 
 read, for it was impossible to procure a good light from 
 the gas upon the plain deal table at which he workedj 
 and, taking down the Heauton Timoroumenos of Ter- 
 ence, a Latin Dictionary, and a manuscript book, he 
 began to translate and annotate. He forced himself to 
 read the words: 
 
 "Quam iniqui sunt patres in onmis adolescentis judices! 
 Qui aequous esse cement, nos jam a pueris illico nascl senes: 
 Neque illarum afflnes esse rerum, quas fert adolescentia. 
 Ex sua libidine moderantur, nunc quae est, non quae olim fuit. 
 Mihi si unquam filius erit, nae ille facili cur utetur patre: 
 Nam et cognoscendi et ignoscendi dubitur peccatis locus:" 
 
 but they danced under his eyes, the lines of printed let- 
 ters coiled like serpents, and if he took his eyes from 
 the page he saw always the image of the old match- 
 woman, with her ragged skirt draggled in mud, sitting 
 under the lamp-post, or again in the doorway out of 
 the rain. There lay the clean page of the book before 
 him. Pen in his hand, to escape from the old woman he 
 began to write verse, but though the words came easily 
 he knew it for doggerel, mechanical stuiF out of rela- 
 tion with the thoughts that were in him. He covered 
 two pages with such stuff, turned another: then almost 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 125 
 
 without knowing what he was doing he wrote for bead' 
 line the words: 
 
 "Shivering Souls," 
 
 and drew a thick line under them. He paused, then 
 plunged into description of the adventure, inventing a 
 little, suppressing his errand, wrote of her as a thing 
 vomited from the depths, and laid at his feet for study. 
 Then in sheer inspiration he strode hack to the days 
 of her greatness and descrihed her, unconsciously tak- 
 ing for model Mary Dugdale, with perhaps a touch of 
 that Clara whom old Cooper Sad loved so well. He 
 wrote feverishly into the small hours, then rising, paced 
 the room, twisting the lock of hair on his forehead. 
 Four strides took him from one end of the room to an- 
 other. For greater space he took to walking round and 
 round, all the while observing carefully each feature of it. 
 He had brought some of the old prints from the shop, 
 and these, cheaply framed, hung on the walls — " Caro- 
 line, Lady Scarsdale and her son the Honble. Jno. Cur- 
 zon," hung over the mantelpiece; Michael and the Fiend 
 laid low were a gloomy patch on the wall above the 
 table ; Stothard's " John Gilpin," mounted on a rotund 
 horse galloping past the Bell Inn over the writing-table 
 in the recess to the left of the fireplace, and above the 
 books in the companion recess was a plate from Tur- 
 ner's Liber Studiorum. The single comfortable chair of 
 the apartment, a Victorian affair upholstered in red 
 plush, crouched into the empty fireplace, for when there 
 was a fire Peter made the most of it. He had brought 
 many books, jfor books were all that he really cared to 
 possess, and with his newly acquired text-books on vari- 
 ous subjects, he had enough to fill six shelves mounting 
 to the ceiling and seeming like to obscure the Turner 
 
126 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 plate. Of ornament or bric-a-brac, there was none. The 
 mantelpiece contained only photographs of acquaintance 
 and friends clustered round Murray Wilson in the 
 centre, and old Cooper's desk lay, always locked, on the 
 writing-table. Peter had tried to use it at first, but 
 found it uncomfortable for work. He stopped in his 
 pacing and handled it now for a moment, woirdering 
 what insane impulse had driven him to take the Dem- 
 eter to Southwark, the goddess of plenty, to the home 
 of the poor and wanting. He glanced down then to the 
 manuscript, and words leaped from the written page, to 
 send him pacing again, prose rhythms rolling in his 
 head. He knew he must write no more, and dared not 
 sit. Round and round the room he went, always hover- 
 ing for a moment by the writing-table, then tearing him- 
 self away. Ojice he stopped by the curtainless window 
 on which driving rain was now beating and looked out 
 over the grim prospect of roofs to the red glow in the 
 sky cast by the light of the near great thoroughfare. 
 The roar of London was dim, and in the house there 
 was no sound : a dismal prospect, and a sad moment sort- 
 ing well with Peter's mood, exhausted as he was With his 
 effort of writing. The melancholy of the hour — a 
 church clock had struck two — soothed him, indeed 
 brought him perilously near to an access of passionate 
 weeping for all the sorrows not his own, and griefs 
 wherein he had no share. He suffered the ghastly sen- 
 sation of impotence, which is perhaps the most dreadful 
 trial of the lonely in London ; yet only a moment before 
 he had been filled with a swaggering power and the 
 knowledge of words rightly written. He turned again 
 to his manuscript, sat down and read it slowly, as 
 slowly as excitement and pleasure would permit. He 
 found it good, and, altering very little, copied it fair 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 127j 
 
 upon foolscap sheets. He was eager for approbation of 
 it, but sickened at the thought of criticism, and thought 
 of the "poor sloppy devil" of old days. Almost at 
 once he decided to send it to Murray Wilson. He folded 
 it carefully, and enclosed it in an envelope with a note 
 which began with modest apology, but ended with this 
 sentence: "I think it is damned good," a piece of 
 arrogance which gave Peter a feeling of equality with 
 the elder man and compensated for the forced humility 
 of the earlier sentences. 
 
 There and their he stamped the envelope, and stealing 
 down the four flights of stairs, which creaked and 
 groaned alarmingly, he opened the great front door,' 
 taking a piece out of the knuckle of his forefinger in 
 groping for the key, and ran to the post. He hesi- 
 tated for a little, then hurled the packet into the mouth 
 of the red pillar and returned, reflecting fearfully that 
 he knew Wilson really very little, and then, in a flash, 
 he saw that the great man had avoided him for months 
 past. 
 
 It was a sick and sorry Peter that returned to the 
 house, and closed the door again. He struck a match to 
 avoid a second hurt, and on the table in the hall lay a 
 letter addressed to him, which he had not noticed on his 
 arrival. It was a funny, dirty little letter in a hand 
 that he did not recognise. It had been addressed first 
 to the shop, where it must have lain some time, for it 
 was stained and grimed, until the half-caste could 
 snatch time from his various business to re-address it. 
 Peter's correspondence was not extensive. He wrote 
 many letters, but received few, and liked the reception 
 ,of them. This piqued his curiosity, and to read it then 
 and there he lit the gas. He opened the letter, and out 
 fell two pounds in postal orders, with the post-mark 
 
128 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Fulham," and a date of three weeks ago. TKere was 
 no address at the head of the letter, which ran: 
 
 "Dear Peter, 
 
 " You will be surprised to hear from me agaiir, but I 
 have been ill, and am still coughing. When you left 
 me I tried to tell you that I had spent your money, but 
 you did not hear me call. We have been dreadfully 
 unfortunate since then, but I have now earned and saved 
 a little money, and accordingly send you two pounds 
 out of the fifteen I owe you. There are reasons why 
 you should not know where we are. With love, 
 " Your affectionate but unhappy Aunt, 
 
 "Anne Wolverton," 
 
 Peter was puzzled by the letter. " We," and why 
 the change of name.'' He turned over a leaf and found 
 this: 
 
 " P. S. — My husband's name was Wolverton, but we 
 are living under another name." 
 
 Husband! Wolverton! Peter drew a breath. The 
 name of the curate for whom he had left his aunt frying 
 a steak, was Wolverton, and Scott had denounced him 
 as a scoundrel and an impostor. 
 
 Peter turned out the gas and crept slowly upstairs, 
 pondering this new mystery of human folly and reck- 
 lessness. He was touched, too. The withered, dried lit- 
 tle woman rushing into what must have seemed a de- 
 liverance from slavery, and the picture of her misery 
 brought Peter nearer to understanding than he had 
 been before. He wondered, as he climbed the stairs, 
 M^hether she stilj wore her armour of jet beads. 
 
Mrs. Scott struggled for long to contain herself, but 
 the unhappiness of the small enstrangement from Mattie, 
 who showed towards her a happy defiance and drew 
 away from her, became impossible to bear without un- 
 bosoming, and, fearful of dissension, however slight, 
 between the girl and her father, she went to her brother. 
 Neither she nor the girl had mentioned Peter's name 
 since that Sunday, and Peter did not visit them for 
 many days upon excuse of pressure of work and im- 
 minent examination. He, priding himself upon his 
 knowledge of women — ^what man does not? — imagined 
 fondly that she would write to him words of reproach; 
 but she had divined, her Peter and recognised the force 
 of silence. She went about her business, he about his, 
 while each thought of the other. They were like enemies, 
 ignorant of each other's locality, seeking a meeting 
 ground, and both were alive to the fun of the game. It 
 was the calm sense of purpose in Mattie that irritated' 
 and alarmed her mother. Had she taken it into her 
 head to be lackadaisical and full of humours, it would 
 have been easy to await the passing of the disease. The 
 symptoms were unusual, and, therefore, terrifying. Mrs. 
 Scott presented the case to her brother for diagnosis. 
 
 She found him just risen. It was two o'clock in the 
 afternoon, and he was lounging in a large chair, clothed 
 in a dressing suit and smoking his pipe. He had rooms 
 in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park, and only a 
 few doors from his club. He had very nearly quitted 
 the rooms when the Campanile of the new Westminster 
 
 139 
 
130 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Cathedral had been erected; he disliked it and all that 
 it represented so cordially. He stayed, however, be- 
 cause he thought his dog would dislike a change of 
 neighbourhood. She was an Aberdeen terrier, the gift of 
 Miss Dugdale, and her name was Matilda. She had a 
 docked tail, and a hole punched in her right ear. When 
 Mrs. Scott entered her master's room she was pointing 
 at a piece of coal on the hearthrug — all the satisfac- 
 tion of her sporting instincts she ever had in London. 
 
 Wilson had his hands thrust deep into his pockets. 
 He had slid down in the great chair on to the small of 
 his back — the very picture of dejection. It was im- 
 possible to tell from his long melancholy face whether 
 he was idly watching the dog or thinking deeply, or 
 weaving dreams, or roving in memory. He had a long 
 inquisitive nose, which was now wrinkled up, and his 
 lips were moving in and out as though words [wished 
 to force their way out against his will. 
 
 His sister knew very little of him. They had been 
 almost of an age in a large family, and had held to- 
 gether agaiirst the rest. Their relationship had never 
 changed, and even after her marriage they held together 
 against the world. They had lived together in early 
 days in London. He owed much to her. He was used 
 to her panic visits, and, therefore, when she burst in 
 upon him now, he made no sign of greeting, except to 
 remove his hands from his pockets and raise himself in 
 his chair. She sat opposite him, and Matilda went up 
 to her to smell if she was the same. She waited for 
 him to give some indication that he had observed her, 
 for, during their residence together, she had been dis- 
 ciplined into never breaking in upon his thoughts. In 
 those days he attached much importance to tbeiQ. 
 
PETEK HOMUNCULUS 131 
 
 At length he took his pipe from his mouth and said: 
 
 " Which is it? David or Mattie? " 
 
 " Mattie." 
 
 "And young Davies? He's a remarkable young 
 man." 
 
 " You — you said he'd hurt himself — ^that night. Do 
 you remember? Was — ^was this what you meant?" 
 
 Wilson chuckled. 
 
 " This or something like it. It won't hurt Mattie." 
 
 Mrs. Scott narrated the story of her discovery and 
 described the symptoms of the disease itr Mattie. 
 
 " Trying her strength/' said Wilson, " the first fish. 
 Too easily caught, too small ... no sport. She'll 
 throw him back into the water, or she may watch his 
 scales glitter in the sun for a moment." 
 
 " But " 
 
 The case was rightly diagnosed, and now that she 
 knew that only Peter would be hurt, all resentment 
 against him' vanished, and she was sorry and a little 
 sick at heart that Mattie should hurt him. WUson shot 
 at her thought, fairly accurately. 
 
 " They are all minxes," he said — " girls." 
 
 " I had better do nothing? " 
 
 "What can you do?" 
 
 " She has suddenly become so much a woman." 
 
 " It's a way girls have." 
 
 "But Mattie " 
 
 " She's much like other girls." 
 
 "Then nothing?" 
 
 Wilson was already tired of the subject. She ex- 
 pected him to remain silent, and glanced about the 
 room to see if there were anjrthing new in it. She de- 
 tected a new portrait of Miss Dugdale. 
 
132 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " I thought she was married," she said. 
 
 Wilson looked across at her a little resentfully. The 
 remark sounded like prohing. 
 
 " Wasn't she married to your friend Bond ? They 
 said it turned out badly." 
 
 Wilson's pipe was gurgling; an ominous sign. His 
 acquaintance with the actress had been long subsequent 
 to his sister's marriage, and she had known nothing of 
 it, had never met her. Curiosity had tortured her on 
 all her visits, but all efforts to bring conversation in 
 that direction had involved always the same ominous 
 silence and the gurgling of the pipe. Wilson had never 
 been known to talk of Miss Dugdale, except sometimes 
 to explain to his acquaintance that she had given Ma- 
 tilda to him. 
 
 The arrival of a new photograph tortured Mrs. 
 Scott. She threw discretion to the winds. 
 
 " It was four or five years ago, wasn't it ? Or 
 more? Just after she became known. A secret 
 marriage " 
 
 She came up against the blank wall of silence. 
 
 " They say she's a nice woman." 
 
 She eyed her brother. He was unfathomable, and 
 sank deep into the chair again. 
 
 Seeing a new medallion hung on the oaken mantel- 
 piece, she diverged to that. 
 
 "Oh .'how sweet " 
 
 It was a Thorvaldsen, the design Pan teaching a 
 young Faun his notes upon the pipes. 
 
 Wilson said: " That's me teaching Peter Davies 
 how to sing." 
 
 She was puzzled by the remark and turned to him 
 for an explanation. There was a strange light of en- 
 
PETEEI HOMUNCULUS 133 
 
 thusiasm in his eyes and a dancing humour, but he 
 vouchsafed nothing. 
 
 She picked up the new portrait of Miss Dugdale and 
 studied the face. 
 
 " She is lovely/' she said. 
 
 " They say she's not had looking," said Wilson, and 
 that was all she had from him. She tried once again, 
 and again, but all effort was fruitless. She amused 
 him. 
 
 She left him without word of farewell, as sfie had ap- 
 proached him without word of greeting, in accordance 
 with their habit. 
 
 Wilson knocked out his pipe and took another from 
 the row of ten upon the mantelpiece. Going over to his 
 desk on the other side of his study, he took from a 
 drawer the five pages of foolscap which Peter had sent 
 him some weeks ago. He sat in his chair again and 
 read " Shivering Souls." Peter's words held him en- 
 thralled, for when Matilda came to demand to have her 
 head scratched, he took no notice of her. She dropped 
 her head and slunk away out of sight. It was an ap- 
 palling catastrophe for her. 
 
 Wilson took from his pocket a pencil and marked 
 certain passages where violence had marred the expres- 
 sion. The psychology of it seemed to him wild. He 
 recognised the portrait of Miss Dugdale in the descrip- 
 tion of the triumphant actress, though not as the Mary 
 that he knew. He scented the passion of the auditorium, 
 and saw the fierce light of the stage in the description, 
 but in spite of that he recognised also a reality of emo- 
 tion underlying, which made the woman as seen by Peter 
 curiously living, more alive, as he generously admitted, 
 even in this slight sketch, than in any of his own more 
 
134. PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 elaborate portraits. He wondered if Peter would recog- 
 nise the divinity in the heroine of his last book. He 
 reached out, took the volume down, and turned its 
 pages. Nowhere was a phrase so good, so illuminating, 
 as Peter's "A woman worn by flattery, hungering for 
 love." How the devil this boy, whom he knew to be in 
 the throes of calf-love, had divined that from his seat 
 in the pit or gallery was for Wilson an exciting prob- 
 lem. Chance. It must be that. He took the note- 
 book which was always to his hand and wrote: 
 
 " Every true word, and every work of art, is a fluke." 
 iThe word fluke offended him. He crossed it out, could 
 find no other, and restored it. 
 
 Then he took Matilda on his knee — at his call she 
 came timidly and humbly, fearful of deliberate rebuff. 
 When he lifted her, confidence was restored ; she wagged 
 her stump of a tail and plunged to reach his face to 
 lick it. 
 
 " Oh, Matilda, are you ' worn by flattery, hungering 
 for love ' ? We were six months painting this lady's 
 portrait, botched it, and they gave us much money. 
 Here comes bracing Achilles, sweeps her into six words, 
 and they will let him starve — Plucky beasts, to have no 
 art. You're purblind, so you are, but none of you talk 
 as though beauty, with a capital B, were a little pre- 
 serve. Purblind — so are we, Matilda." 
 
 This came as a great discovery to Wilson. He nursed 
 it, hugged it. 
 
 "Havering creatures, we are. We know more about 
 each other than you people, Matilda, but less about the 
 world, because we have drawn a film of art over it. 
 It is enough to make a poor writer eat his pen. I should, 
 if I did not know that I should go out at once and buy 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 135 
 
 a new one. We have not the good sense to use our 
 minds entirely to make ourselves comfortable in this 
 world. We torture ourselves with thought." 
 
 Sweetly reasonable as these conclusions were, Wilson 
 was unable to practise their moral. He gave himself up 
 to bitter reflection and contemplation of himself, and in 
 the end laughed. 
 
 " Twenty years, Matilda," he said. " Twenty years 
 and much shattering it took me to learn really and hon- 
 estly to laugh at myself." 
 
 He put Matilda gently from him and tried to read, 
 first one book, and then another, finally settling down to 
 Goethe's " Aus Meinem Leben, Wahrheit und Dichtung." 
 He read German with difficulty, was not in sympathy 
 with German thought or German humour or sentimen- 
 tality. Goethe was a refuge and a soporific. 
 
 With regard to Peter, his first impulse on reading 
 the sketch had been to write to him at once words of 
 congratulation and encouragement, but on reflection and 
 recollection of Peter's button-holing of him in the Strand 
 to exhibit him to his fellow-students, he refrained, from 
 a conviction that he would, in the present stage of the 
 boy's development and the crucial point in his career in 
 the University, probably do more harm than good. 
 Therefore he retained the manuscript, and did not even 
 acknowledge its receipt. 
 
 Peter had for some days after its despatch watched 
 the post eagerly for the letter of appreciation which 
 he felt sure would come, just as he was sure that a 
 letter of reproach would come from Mattie. When 
 neither expectation was realised, he raged. He pos- 
 sessed and had cultivated a divination of action conse- 
 quent upon his own. It piqued him always to find him- 
 
130 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 self in error. He took no step in the direction of Mattie, 
 but he did write a long, arrogant and reproachful letter 
 to her uncle. Upon reflection he burned it. For some 
 time he continued to expect word from him, but in the 
 end, finding the impulse to write had gone, he plunged 
 again into study and regarded himself as lost to the 
 world. As he expressed it in writing to Scott, who 
 had made inquiry, he had "thrown an ink-pot at his 
 devil." 
 
 For three weeks almost he lived into seclusion, and 
 was not tempted even by the promise of concerts by 
 Janet Fildes. He felt that he had grown out of her 
 circle. The baby was more than ever attractive, but 
 he had left Janet further and further behind, and had 
 almost definitely broken with her when he found her 
 occupied with the hirsute young poet who had found 
 his level in journalism and had a column in a weekly 
 paper, whose policy was to throw mud at the literary 
 great and high-perched. His paper enjoyed flashes of 
 notoriety when the great were exasperated into retort, 
 and the hirsute young man had been particularly suc- 
 cessful in this direction. A series of singularly base 
 articles on Murray Wilson had roused even Fleet 
 Street to disgust, but had met with rock-like silence in 
 the writer. The hirsute young man was known to be 
 the author of these, and enjoyed a certain fame. He 
 had made his mark, though a dirty one. Against his 
 better feelings Peter was jealous of this man, and in 
 the worst of his resentment against Wilson, sent him a 
 copy of the journal containing the most scandalous 
 article, wherein there were unmistakable references to 
 Miss Dugdale. Wilson recognised the handwriting of 
 the address, and, distressed that Peter should have so 
 
PETERl HOMUNCULUS 137 
 
 much mistaken his silence, wrote and asked him to come 
 and see him. He made no reference to the boy's 
 work. 
 
 His letter threw Peter into a ferment whicH made 
 work impossible. He read it again and again, carried 
 it about with him, and in a burst of confidence shewed 
 it to Janet. He had bragged much of his acquaintance 
 with the great man, and could not resist flourishing a 
 signed letter. She was sufficiently impressed. Peter 
 knew perfectly well that Wilson had avoided him, and 
 why. He knew also why the man had written to him 
 now. He gave Janet no hint that he was upon any- 
 thing but the friendliest terms with him. On the 
 strength of this second-hand acquaintance, Janet de- 
 fended Wilson against the hirsute young man, denied 
 that there was any truth in the Dugdale story — though 
 it was common tradition, known to every one but Peter 
 — and finally broke with him. There was in this way 
 something of a renewal of friendship between Peter 
 and herself, though they never regained their old foot- 
 ing. Fildes and Peter never met, or rarely, but there 
 was solid friendship between them. 
 
 Peter wrote that he would visit Wilson in the even^ 
 ing of a certain day, but when it came, he was sent 
 for by old Adam, upon whom sickness had descended. 
 Peter accompanied the daughter of the bird-shop pro- 
 prietor, the messenger, an undersized girl with the body 
 of fourteen and the face of thirty, a pinched old face, 
 with shrewd glittering eyes. Peter did not remember to 
 have seen her before, though more than once he had vis- 
 ited the friendless old man upon such an errand of 
 charity as the present. He made inquiry as to her origin 
 and habits. 
 
138 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " I been in the 'ome," she said, " they cotched me 
 stealin' Bibles from the Sunday school^ an' sent me to 
 the 'ome. It's a nugly plice." 
 
 She entertained him with anecdotes, true aird untrue, 
 first-hand and traditional, of the disciplined and me- 
 chanical life of such a place. He, to whom freedom 
 was most precious, whose most wretched memory was 
 of the slavery of the tailoring shops, 'shuddered at the 
 vision of chilled life conjured up by the vivid cockney 
 phrases of this creature who ran by his side. In reac- 
 tion from the enforced cleanliness of the institutional 
 she was inconceivably dirty, so that Peter, who now had 
 his bath every day, shrank from her. It pained him to 
 contemplate old Cooper's habits, so fastidious had he 
 become in his new life of the student. He was not very 
 good company during the walk, for he was angry at 
 being deprived of his evening with Wilson, but old 
 Adam had so much insisted that Peter was his only 
 friend, that to desert him, whatever the inducement, 
 were inconceivable baseness. 
 
 Entering a post office, Peter sent a wire to Wilson to 
 say that he could not come, then pursued his way with 
 the bird-dealer's daughter. He asked her about Adam. 
 She professed ignorance. She had been given twopence 
 to run to Gordon Square, and beyond that had no in- 
 terest. Purely from curiosity Peter asked the girl what 
 calling she was going to pursue. Quite calmly she 
 said: 
 
 " I'll go on the streets like Lizzie. It's that or a 
 factory." 
 
 . Peter was shocked. The idea of this gnomic creature 
 selling her attraction was comic certainly, but revolting. 
 She seemed to divine his thought, for she said naively: 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 139 
 
 " I got pretty 'air when its growed and washed," and 
 she took off the battered straw hat she wore to show a 
 small headj well shaped, whereon dark auburn hair 
 grew in ragged, matted tails. 
 
 " It shines when it's washed," she said. " They 
 called me ' Evenin' Glory Jane ' at the 'ome, they did. 
 One of the Inspectors said it first." 
 
 This brought them to the bird-shop. Peter knew the 
 father of Evening Glory Jane, and thought it wise to 
 make inquiry after the state of his friend before he 
 plunged up the dark stairs to see him. His especial 
 trade was in singing canaries — he was famous as a 
 trainer of them — ^but his shop contained all manner of 
 beasts: dogs, cats, monkeys, marmosets, mice, rats, rab- 
 bits, parrots, snakes, chameleons, lizards, frogs, arma- 
 dilloes, tortoises, squirrels, — a raccoon. It was his boast 
 that he could procure anything from a flea to an ele- 
 phant, and always he had some rare beast for greatest 
 attraction to his shop. He was like some strange legen- 
 dary or heraldic animal himself. There was something 
 wild about him, and that he should have married and 
 bred children seemed to be wrong and an offence 
 against humanity. Certainly he tended his beasts more 
 lovingly than his children, and would have denied him- 
 self and them even bread that the " critters," as he 
 called the animals, might not suffer. His greatest pride 
 now lay in a blue frog from the south of France, and 
 he had a small army of boys of the neighbourhood 
 catchirrg flies that it might have its proper food. He 
 doted on this frog and carried it in its bowl of green 
 stuff, where it lay on a perch, quite still, only its pink 
 throat pulsing, about with him, so that he might gaze 
 on it whenever he might be in the shop or the store 
 
140 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 behind. All the shop was full of cages and tanks, and 
 all kept spotlessly clean, like himself. He eyed his 
 slatternly daughter with disapproval, almost with dis- 
 may, as she entered with Peter, and drove her out. 
 Then he turned to Peter with an amiable smile: 
 
 " No knowin' what the slut mightn't bring to the 
 critters, Mr. Davies." 
 
 He turned and whistled to a painted thrush, whistled 
 until the bird caught his note and held it: its first les- 
 son in canary music. It needed only to sing for sale. 
 Thereafter it might be dumb for all the dealer cared. 
 He became suddenly mysterious: 
 
 " Seen my frog, Mr. Davies? " 
 
 "No," said Peter. 
 
 " Oh, a pretty critter. Feeds on flies. See his long 
 tongue flicker out and strike 'em; lovely. They must 
 be alive, for the critter won't touch 'em dead." 
 
 The frog was exhibited and properly admired by 
 Peter. 
 
 " It's wonderful how clever the critters are — almost 
 human, some on 'em; an' don't their bellies pinch 'em, 
 too. Worse than human, then. Hunger only makes us 
 sick and silent, but they cry out, and some beats against 
 the bars when they see me. I'm food to them, and 
 Providence." 
 
 The man said it with sucH pride that Peter, in one 
 of his flashes, saw the whole secret of him revealed. 
 It was power that he loved and found in this strange 
 trade of his. In any other he must have been ground 
 down. 
 
 Peter tried to put questions to the man, but found 
 that he did not heed them. He knew Peter, but seemed 
 to have forgotten what it was that brought him there, 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 141 
 
 and insisted on exhibiting all new treasures. Peter was 
 making friends with an amiable retriever puppy with 
 a ludicrously large head, when the door was darkened 
 and two ladies entered. The dealer bustled up to them 
 to ask their wants, but Peter did not stir. The dealer 
 seemed to know them and they him, for the elder of the 
 two asked after the frog. 
 
 " Oh, marm, he's well and beautiful." There was 
 some murmured confabulation; then the elder said: 
 
 " You're not to buy it, Mary." 
 
 Mary! Peter pricked his ears. Sure enough, there 
 came Mary Dugdale's voice: 
 
 " If you will not let me have it — I came to buy a 
 cat — a Persian with orange eyes and silver coat." 
 
 There were three such in the shop, for the dealer 
 was in touch with a lady who bred them. Peter wished 
 that he might buy them all and give them to Miss Dug- 
 dale. Peter crept on tiptoe, and peeped round the 
 pile of cages that concealed her from him. She was 
 most dazzlingly clad, though it was near full spring, 
 in furs, a coat of mole-skin and a muff, and though 
 her face was veiled, he could see the flash of her teeth 
 as she spoke, and, silhouetted against the light of the 
 doorway, her straight nose. The cats were brought for 
 her inspection, and she caressed them all. One scratched 
 her arm — ^the brute ! She laughed adorably, and sweetly 
 admonished : 
 
 "Oh, bad, bad Peter!" 
 
 Peter darted back upon the utterance of his name. 
 It startled him. Peter I The cat. 
 
 She chose the friendliest, and, with some words in 
 praise of the frog, she turned to go. Peter had seen 
 that upon soothing the smart of the cat's claw she had 
 
142 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 dropped her handkerchief, and when the dealer bowed 
 the ladies to the door he stole and stooped and picked 
 it up, a tiny square of cambric, edged with lace, the 
 letter M embroidered in a corner. 
 
 Like Clara's letter to old Cooper, it had the scent 
 of heliotrope. 
 
 All innocence, he asked the dealer who the ladies 
 were. 
 
 " That's Miss Dugdale, Mr. Davies, sir, the actress. 
 She's kind to critters." 
 
 "Where does she live?" 
 
 "Mount Street. Flat." 
 
 " And — and — and is she married ? " 
 
 " I dunno. They sometimes is an' sometimes not, 
 these actresses; you never know — I never seed her act, 
 not holding with stage-plays. I'd sooner watch the 
 critters." 
 
 He returned to his work, and Peter could glean no 
 more from him. 
 
 To reach old Adam's room he had to go out into the 
 street again. A barrel-organ was grinding out a brazen 
 ditty, and on the pavement in an admiring crowd the 
 dealer's daughter was dancing, nimblfe-footed, making 
 play with her scanty skirts. As she saw Peter she 
 came dancing to him. 
 
 "Did yer see 'er?" 
 
 "Who.?" said Peter. 
 
 " The actress. I'll be that; she's pretty, but my 'air's 
 prettier than 'ers." 
 
 To Peter it was like comparing a branch of rhubarb 
 to a tree: this gnome and the divine woman. He almost 
 laughed, but was arrested by the face. Under its muddy 
 covering there was an impish fire, and the eyes gleamed. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 143 
 
 Something arresting she had, a queer spark of person- 
 ality to draw all eyes, for the crowd was all agog. 
 
 Peter, was stirred. He knew something of this rare 
 gift of magnetism, the greatest gift of all, perhaps, and 
 irresistible. It had made lowly women the mistresses 
 of kings, and it only could carry poets to success. Since 
 the discovery of its power — a lecture on Pompadour had 
 revealed it to him — he had sought it everywhere and 
 in himself. The question whether or not he had it had 
 given him much occasion for self -torment. To find it 
 here in this gutter-creature, blazing through squalor, 
 through dirt, foul clothes and wretched living, stag- 
 gered him. " Evening Glory Jane " — the name was not 
 inapt. The word came to him. " Elfin," he said, and 
 tucked her away in his mind as a thing disposed of. 
 
 She flew dancing back to fresh applause. The rude 
 skill of her steps and rhythmic movements amazed 
 Peter. 
 
 He turned and passed round the corner to the street- 
 door of the house where Adam lodged. He had been in 
 no mood to see the old man. His bookish life of the 
 last days had produced in him a feeling of remoteness, 
 of being outside the affairs of mankind. He could not 
 shake it off, painful though it was. Here and now, as 
 by a miracle, by the vision of Miss Dugdale, close at 
 hand, the hearing of her voice, the purloining of her 
 handkerchief, and by the elfin dancer, he had been set 
 glowing again, filled with kindness to satisfy all the 
 Cooperian maxims and precepts. He kept these ever 
 in his mind, but found them difiicult to observe always. 
 He had found in the desk much of Cooper's writing, 
 which he had devoured, more especially a long " Essay 
 on Human Folly," wherein he had found words that he 
 
144 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 knew for truth, though the author's science and observa- 
 tion of animals were often at fault. Some day Peter 
 had the intention of publishing these fragments as a 
 monument to his friend, and a reproach to the country 
 whose " crazy morality," as it was called in the essay, 
 had wasted him. Under discipline Peter's mind had 
 become stronger, more certain, while losing none of its 
 swiftness, and he had lost almost all his untidiness of 
 thought. Cooper became more and more real to him, 
 and he approached even to a truer conception of the 
 man as he really was. The wreck of him was appalling, 
 and to find consolation Peter had evolved a saying, 
 " No wasted Cooper, no Peter Davies." He had fur- 
 ther observed that the more bookish and inhuman he 
 became, the further he was from Cooper and Cooper- 
 teaching, and this was to him the worst pain of that 
 state. 
 
 As he ascended the stairs to Adam's room his mind 
 was flooded with maxims from the essay, not words 
 merely, but the full sense and great feeling of them. 
 The Peter of two years ago would have been maudlin - 
 about it, but then the Peter of two years ago, just 
 entered at King's College, would have comprehended 
 only the half of it. He was learning to take the busi- 
 ness in hand firmly by the scruff of the neck and keep 
 thought and egoism in their place. 
 
 The business of the moment. Miss Dugdale or no 
 Miss Dugdale, handkerchief or no handkerchief, was 
 the comforting of the old man through whom he had 
 come in contact with the bookseller. His amazing for- 
 tunes might be said to have begun in the chance colli- 
 sion with this old man, studying Lecky's "Map of 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 145 
 
 Life " outside the shop. Chance though it was, it was 
 not a thing to be forgotten. 
 
 He found the old man in bed in the dim room which 
 had been his home since long before Peter's birth. He 
 was more than ever frail and shrunk, and his eyes 
 " purged thick amber and plum-tree gum." The reedy 
 voice that Peter remembered to have said, " How — 
 how to live. It's difficult. I've tried and I know," had 
 faded to a whistling shrill sound. To Peter, from the 
 crowded street, thronged with strong, vital creatures, 
 there was something appalling in coming upon this 
 scarcely living thing in which cells and organs were 
 almost exhausted. A thin hand was raised with diffi- 
 culty from the coverlet, and Peter was requested to 
 sit down. 
 
 The old man was cheerful, and though from confu- 
 sion of memory he had difficulty at times in bringing 
 Peter clearly out of the throng of young men of so 
 many generations that he had known, yet he contrived 
 to say what wish it was that had impelled him to send 
 so urgent a message. 
 
 " It is twenty years," he said, " since I was out of 
 London. There is a place in Surrey under Blackdown 
 Hill. I was happy there once. There was an oak tree 
 and a beech coppice — ^no; the coppice was by Fern- 
 hurst on — on a hill. There's a mild soft air blows south- 
 west from the sea — and I who am nothing, have noth- 
 ing, I am going there again. I have had little: neither 
 love, nor wealth, nor health; but I have had that place 
 — I — I am going — ^there " 
 
 It took him long to say these words, and his voice then 
 dropped into a murmur so low that Peter could not 
 
140 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 catch what he was saying. The old man made an effort 
 to become audible. He coughed to clear his throat. 
 
 " Peter," he said, " Peter Davies, even I have not 
 found the world evil. I wished to see you before I go 
 to tell you that, and to give you this ring: it — ^it was 
 my mother's — I — ^broke her heart." 
 
 He tried to draw a ring, a plain gold band set with 
 one pink pearl, from his finger, but because it was so 
 loose, he dropped it into the bed-clothes. Peter re- 
 trieved it, and was ordered to place it on his finger. 
 It fitted best the little finger of his right hand, and 
 there he left it. The old man was content, and patted 
 Peter's hand. He seemed to have much to say, but to 
 be best pleased to say it so. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said. " Call the woman — I am go- 
 ing to-morrow. There is no place sweeter, even in 
 Devon, where I was born. Good boy, good boy — 
 Cooper and Davies — ^heh! — ^partners." 
 
 Peter called the bird-dealer's wife, and gave her 
 money for old Adam. He asked her if it was true that 
 the old man was going to Blackdown Hill. 
 
 " He's been a-goin' there these ten years, Mr. Davies. 
 Always when he has been ill he's babbled of trees, and 
 fields." 
 
 " Like Falstaff," thought Peter. " A babble of green 
 fields." 
 
 He bade the bird-dealer's wife good-day, not without 
 a wonder that she should be the mother of the dancing 
 girl, she was so' essentially a drab woman. 
 
 He liked the ring upon his finger, and he was pleased 
 to think that the old man had thought so much of him, 
 and so well. 
 
 He walked through the market to the Strand to the 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 147 
 
 College. In the students* common-room he found a 
 group of young men and women heatedly discussing 
 the question, then much in the boiling-pot, of the taxa- 
 tion of site values. Such words as " Socialism," " Spoli- 
 ation," " Landlord tyranny," flew. 
 
 One young man with deep-set eyes and the narrow 
 forehead of a fanatic cried, clapping his hands together : 
 
 " I tell you the whole thing is based on fallacy." 
 
 " Explain the fallacy," said an earnest young woman 
 with a preposterously small head perched on a long thin 
 neck. 
 
 The fanatical young man plunged into a whirl of 
 economic jargon. 
 
 Peter left in disgust. 
 
 " Science," he thought, remembering the ass's skin, 
 " is only giving names to things. All the same, private 
 ownership of land is an evil thing," 
 
 Then he remembered that Cooper had said, " What 
 they call socialism is at the hearts of all good men," 
 and from that made a mot which pleased him: 
 
 " Socialism will out." 
 
 " Decidedly," he thought, " the gods are good to 
 Peter Davies. He will die young: say at twenty-nine." 
 
 Twenty-nine seemed far ahead to twenty-two, or no 
 doubt he would have . fixed his death later. In the early 
 twenties it seems that life must begin to lose its interest 
 at thirty. Wilson at forty-four did rrot seem to Peter 
 much less old than old Adam at eighty-three. He did 
 not know Mary Dugdale's age, but to think of her as 
 anything but young had never occurred to Peter. 
 
 When Wilson received Peter's telegram he mistook 
 the motive of defection, and wrote: "Do not be more 
 of an ass than you can help. I want to see you." 
 
148 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter received this next day, and neglected his after- 
 noon lectures to go to Piccadilly. He found Wilson in 
 much the same attitude as Mrs. Scott had found him in. 
 No one had ever found the writer in any other, and it 
 was a mystery how and when he worked. 
 
 Peter was abashed, and for some moments they 'were 
 silent: the boy awed at being in the room where known 
 books had been written. 
 
 Matilda betrayed the keenest interest in Peter, smell- 
 ing all round the ends of his trousers and over his boots. 
 Then she rose and sniffed at his knees. He stooped 
 and scratched her head. She ran from him and stood 
 wagging her stumpy tail and looking inquiringly up at 
 her master, as if she were wondering that he did not 
 greet with enthusiasm this exceUent-smelling young man. 
 He sat, however, puffing great clouds of smoke, and 
 Peter gazed round the room. Nearly the whole of two 
 walls were covered with books. There were no pictures 
 to give aesthetic satisfaction, only sketches by humor- 
 ous artists, photographs of writers, actors and actresses, 
 among whom Peter recognised, with a leap in the heart, 
 Miss Dugdale. 
 
 Matilda, oppressed by the long silence, barked. Wil- 
 son lazily put out a hand — Peter saw that it was long 
 and powerful, sensitive — and clutched her by the muzzle. 
 She drew back and yelped. 
 
 "I'm glad Matilda likes you," said Wilson. "Sit 
 down." 
 
 Peter sat down, prepared, if Wilson would let him, 
 to lay bare his soul. Poor Peter was sadly in need of 
 a real intimacy. In the matter of soul-baring he had 
 suffered agony from want of discrimination. For some 
 months he had resigned himself to receive confidence. 
 
PETEBJ HOMUNCULUS 149 
 
 but to give none. Janet Fildes had hurt him terribly, 
 young men at the College even more, and even Mr. 
 Scott had shewn himself dense. There had been no 
 one to understand like old Cooper. 
 
 Wilson recognised this desire in the boy, and drew 
 into his shell. 
 
 "Do you smoke yet?" 
 
 "A year ago," said Peter. 
 
 Wilson rose, and from a cabinet brought a box of 
 cigarettes. Peter took and smoked. 
 
 " When do you finish at the University ? " said Wil- 
 son. 
 
 " Ih November," said Peter. (It was then April.) 
 
 "What is it that you want to do.'' Make books?" 
 
 " As for books," said Peter, " I have bought them 
 for fifteen shillings a ton." 
 
 " That's a ghastly thought," said Wilson, and 
 chuckled. 
 
 " Not so bad as the pulping pot." 
 
 " They've served their turn then. It is awful, the 
 power of print. 
 
 " Yes," said Peter. " Caxton-bred vanity." 
 
 The little swagger with which Peter paraded his poor 
 little piece of pedantry killed the conversation, and for 
 a time they were silent. 
 
 Matilda, however, seemed to be confident that friendly 
 relations were established, for she turned from both 
 men to her own comfort, and crept to the hearth, where 
 she lay until the heat was past bearing, when she 
 crawled into the coolest corner of the room and lay, 
 tongue out, panting. 
 
 " That," said Wilson, " is her Turkish bath." 
 
 iThe remark did not call for comment, and Peter sat 
 
150 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 silent^ impatient for Wilson to come to the business in 
 hand, yet not daring himself to plimge. The photo- 
 graphs of Miss Dugdale had engaged Peter's attention. 
 With full knowledge that he was committing a stupidity, 
 but unable to control his tongue, he said: 
 
 " She's prettier than that. She bought a cat and she 
 called it Peter. It was a Persian and it had orange 
 eyes. I saw them in the dark shop. The light struck 
 them and they glowed. She was with another woman. 
 She looked happy and then unhappy — bitterly. She 
 seemed to me to be a woman worn by flattery, and 
 hung " 
 
 He looked in Wilson's direction and found eyes 
 staring fiercely, almost menacingly. The words died 
 on his lips, and he shifted uneasily, then took a ciga- 
 rette. 
 
 " I— I— would— I— wanted " 
 
 Wilson's face was inscrutable. Peter was decidedly 
 uncomfortable. He had a ridiculous desire to weep, 
 and an even more absurd desire to rise and hit Wilson 
 between the eyes. He found himself carefully selecting 
 the spot just above the vertical furrow over the nose; 
 found himself doubling his fist and even rising from 
 his chair, while tears blurred his vision. Blind rage 
 held him for a moment, then he took it firmly, gulped 
 it down, and sat giggling nervously. 
 
 He looked again at Wilson, and saw that he was 
 lighting another pipe. He saw that a few specks of 
 hot tobacco fell down on to the writer's trousers, that 
 he flicked the specks away, and then with his fore- 
 finger, stained a deep brown, he thrust down the tobacco 
 into the bowl of his pipe. Peter looked up from the 
 hand to the face, and had a queer sense of having 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 151 
 
 dreamed that the eyes had ever looked out from vmder 
 the heavy forehead so fiercely, and almost evilly. 
 
 " But," said Peter to himself, " they did, and they- 
 were very fierce, and the pupils of them swelled: they 
 bulged and shone, and mine, too. Queer. But he's 
 gentle, gentle and kind. I hurt him, I did, I did, I 
 
 did — I hurt him She . . . Mary, Mary, Mary 
 
 Dugdale." 
 
 Then in the thoughts of Peter Davies there was a 
 sort of clot. On the point of understanding the whole 
 thing, he shrivelled. Sympathy was clogged. Phrases 
 from old Cooper's letter of triumphant love buzzed in 
 his head, and he had again that dreadful sense of being 
 faced with something incomprehensible, and therefore 
 intangible, which yet, all the more for that, did exist, 
 and existed vitally, immensely, looming. It! 
 
 The words forced themselves from him: 
 
 "What is It?" 
 
 He dared not look at Wilson. He waited for an 
 answer. Matilda snorted, and the sound, breaking in 
 on the silence, was ludicrous and trivial. There was 
 silence again, and Peter hitched his shoulders. His 
 hand stole up to twist his forelock. They had teased 
 him out of the habit at the College. He returned to it 
 now and leaned forward, straining to catch any whisper. 
 The answer came cryptically. 
 
 " It is the aversion and the god of humanity. They 
 run from it, but run in circles. It engulfs them, and 
 they drown gladly. In the running is human comedy, 
 and in the surrender is human tragedy. It is the fire in 
 the world and all good things. — It has a pale sister 
 called Romance " 
 
 Wilson laughed. 
 
152 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Some there are who deny it, from cowardice. So 
 they remove all warmth and atmosphere: for what else 
 is there?" 
 
 Peter shrank, chilled. The definition had not aided 
 him in the direction of understanding, and in a queer 
 way it had removed him further from Wilson. 
 
 He came to the surface to find Wilson already there 
 waiting for him. He gasped, smiled, and both put their 
 unhappy experiment in probing behind them. 
 
 " Have you read the life of Goethe ? " said Wilson. 
 
 " No," said Peter. " But I know about Frau von 
 Stein and Christiane, and — and I know about Byron 
 and Lady Caroline Lamb, and — ^and I know about Keats 
 and F — Fanny Brawne. They — ^they use women, the 
 big fellows." 
 
 " And women offer themselves for their use." 
 
 " Do they know the real from the sham .'' " 
 
 " No — ^never." This came emphatically. Thus they 
 discussed the problem which has provided subject mat- 
 ter and a living for countless generation of speculative 
 writers and artists, who have sat before woman as trav- 
 ellers and sages before the Sphinx. 
 
 Something of this occurred to Wilson, for he said: 
 
 " The Sphinx is hermaphrodite. Woman is not more 
 puzzling than man." 
 
 The thought was too swift for Peter, who could not 
 follow it, but succeeded only in creating a mental picture 
 of the Sphinx, which, from a cartoon in Punch, he 
 associated always with Lord Beaconsfield. The states- 
 man occurred to him with the features of the Vanity 
 Fair cartoon, and Peter remembered now the words of 
 the commentator. He spoke them aloud: 
 
 " He educated the Tories and dished the Whigs to 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 153 
 
 pass Reform, but to have become what he is from what 
 he was is the greatest Reform of all." 
 
 " Who did? " said Wilson. 
 
 "Disraeli," returned Peter. "I sold him for one 
 and threepence." 
 
 "The greatest Jew. The Jew is the braiir behind 
 England's beef — I liked your story." 
 
 At last he had come to it ! Peter sat squarely, gaping 
 for praise. He wished to pin his man down, but dared 
 not speak. Wilson smoked his pipe, curled up his right 
 leg, and when he opened his lips again it was, seem- 
 ingly, to fly off at a tangent. 
 
 He said : " The English do not like wit, any more 
 than they like art. In the time of Charles II. a French 
 Ambassador on leaving the Court of St. James implored 
 his Sovereign to send the dullest of his courtiers as his 
 successor, for the English so mistrusted wit; and yet 
 the gaiety of the Court of Charles II. is a source of 
 national pride. Are you English? " 
 
 " My father was Welsh," said Peter with some pride. 
 This tickled Wilson. 
 
 " No inhabitant of this country," said Wilson, " will 
 confess to being pure English. The Englishman is an 
 abstraction. There is no such person." 
 
 Peter took the bull by the horns. This shilly-shally- 
 ing was intolerable. 
 
 " Do you think anyone would take it? " 
 
 " No," said Wilson. " The English have no sense of 
 humour, or they would not let themselves be exploited 
 by Scotchmen, and Irish and German Jews." 
 
 Peter clung to his point. 
 
 " But you liked it." 
 
 " I have liked the work of a great many men who 
 
154 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 could not find their public until they ceased to do good 
 work." 
 
 This was discouraging. Peter squeezed the palms 
 of his hands together until they squeaked. Matilda 
 scampered up, suspecting a mouse of iirtrusion. 
 
 " Your imagination's remarkable, and your power of 
 simple expression." 
 
 " I saw the old woman," said Peter. " It was some 
 years ago. I saw her like that. I had to write." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Wilson did not seem to be much interested in the 
 process of creation in Peter. 
 
 " Why don't you think any one'll take it ? " 
 
 " It's new, and you're new. I've sent it to a friend 
 of mine." 
 
 Peter waited for a moment, then murmured thanks. 
 The name of the friend was not disclosed, nor from 
 all the signs would it be. 
 
 In despair of gaining more, Peter rose to go. 
 
 " I'll be glad," said Wilson, not rising, " if you'll 
 send me any other thing you may write." 
 
 " I'll write no more until my examination's done." 
 
 "What shall you do then.? Teach?" 
 
 " Teach ! " Peter snorted. " No. I'll write and write 
 and write." 
 
 "How will yon live?" 
 
 " I've several hundred pounds with Mr. Scott." 
 
 " No profession ? They'll keep you hungry for long 
 years. They did me." 
 
 " All professions are bad," said Peter. 
 
 To this Wilson rejoined: 
 
 " When it comes to bread and butter, one form of 
 prostitution is as good as another." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 155 
 
 There was no bitterness in his voice, only sadness. 
 
 He added : " It is queer, but a man climbs the higher 
 for it, if he climb at all." 
 
 Peter said good-bye and had reached the door when 
 Wilson called to him. He turned, patted Matilda, who, 
 under a mistaken impression that he was going to take 
 her for a walk, was leaping and fawning upon him, and 
 waited. 
 
 "Will you take this and read it?" This was a 
 book, Lewes' "Life of Goethe." Peter took it, saw 
 that Wilson had scrawled his name in it, and was 
 proud. 
 
 " I shall be glad," said Wilson, " if you'll not lose 
 touch with me." 
 
 He took Matilda in his arms to keep her from fol- 
 lowing Peter, who heard him addressing her as he 
 closed the door: 
 
 " He smeUed good, Matilda ? Your nose is surer 
 than the eyes of a man." 
 
 Peter glowed. 
 
 " It is the fire in the world and all good things. — It 
 has a pale sister called Romance." Those last seven 
 itrords and the tone of them ! 
 
 Peter thought himself into a fine whirl, lost all logic 
 and connection, and out of it all only retained clearly 
 for long enough those words, " Pale sister," and they 
 were ghastly, freezing. They bred in him a wholesome 
 horror of romance and sentimentality, which only waxed 
 the greater when, as he often did, he found himself 
 plunged in both, and plunged the deeper from the care 
 and elaborate precautions he had taken to avoid them. 
 Flat ignorance was his undoing, and inability to force 
 even an approximately accurate idea of the real char- 
 
156 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 acter of his two bugbears. From much cogitation he 
 evolved a theory of sex, and on that based all his rela- 
 tions with women. He flattered himself that he faced 
 motherhood and fatherhood squarely, and took a delight 
 in forcing upon the innocent youth of his acquaintance 
 the vital fact, so fatal in his idea, to sentimentality, that 
 women also have legs. He spoke to Mattie with a 
 frankness which would have appalled her mother had 
 she known of it. He justified himself. Once after a 
 long harangue, during which he strode about the room, 
 inveighing against fathers and mothers who shirked their 
 responsibility, and would not see that the first duty of 
 a parent is to see that his child is a better thing than 
 himself, he stopped suddenly by the girl, stroked his 
 head and said: 
 
 " You see, dear, I think " — (there was a fine ring in 
 the I, and he stopped, as he always did, after saying 
 " I think," to convey the impression of profound and 
 solid thought) — " I think that every honest word be- 
 tween a man and a woman helps the world along." 
 
 And Mattie, flattered by the reference to herself as 
 a woman, though she knew that she was no more woman 
 than he man, both fledgelings, caressed his hand and 
 said: 
 
 " Yes, dear. How you do understand ! " 
 
 Peter looked modest and wise. 
 
 " Without you I should understand nothing. The 
 minds of men are warmed to understanding by the love 
 of good women. What glorious women Shakespeare 
 must have had to love him ! " 
 
 " Many women must have loved you, Peter, dear." 
 
 As for that — Peter demurred and smiled conceitedly, 
 then called her dear. They enjoyed calling each other 
 " dear." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 157 
 
 Wilson had bungled. In giving Peter Goethe's life 
 to readj he had hoped that the boy would read and re- 
 read the episode of Friedricke, with its quotations from 
 the Autobiography, and applying it to his own case, 
 would leave Mattie as the poet had left his early love. 
 His hopes were realised, and Peter read, re-read and 
 read again the episode, in Lewes' and in Goethe's own 
 words, was set aflame, and grew hot with indignation. 
 He certainly did write a letter to Mattie telling her 
 that he must ride away, leave her, and be the shadow, 
 the pale shadow, of a man in her life, the man who had 
 first touched her with life's treasure, romance; but the 
 word romance mocked him and he burned the letter. 
 iWilson's words tormented him. If there had been 
 folly, he would make it wisdom. 
 
 " In solchem Drang und Verwirrung," he read in the 
 poet's frank exposition, " Konnte ich doch nicht unter- 
 lassen Friederiken noch eimnal zu sehen. Es waren 
 peinliche.^ Tage, deren Erinnerung mir nicht geblieben 
 ist. Als ich ihr die Hand noch vom Pferde reichte, 
 standen ihr die Thranen in dem Augen, und mir war 
 sehr libel zu Muthe." 
 
 Tears were in Friederike's eyes. Such tears should 
 not be in Mattie's. Goethe was an ass: had not Car- 
 lyle said of him, " Goethe is the greatest genius that has 
 lived for a century, and the greatest ass that has lived 
 for three." Such an ass he would not be, and returned 
 to Mattie, as she had known he would, after an absence 
 of over a month. Mrs. Scott welcomed him with some 
 show of warmth when he put in an appearance on 
 Sunday. Mattie was icy, and exacted new courtship. 
 Peter was hard put to it to find time for all that she 
 demanded of him, but in the end she was kind to him, 
 and helpful when he needed it most. He suffered a 
 
158 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 terrible panic as his examination drew nearer, and wrote 
 to her explaining that he must not see her, as he found 
 she was interfering with his work. To this she replied 
 that of course he must know best — ^that she made no 
 demands upon him, and prayed him to take no account 
 of her in the development of the great career that 
 awaited him. Her letter brought Peter flying to her, 
 full to overflowing of great vows and heated protesta- 
 tions; incidentally also to exhibit himself to her in his 
 new tail-coat, his first, and top hat. He had bought 
 them upon an imagined necessity for some function to 
 which he had been invited through Janet Fildes. Mat- 
 tie vowed that she knew no man more distinguished 
 looking, and said that they made him look twenty-eight 
 at least. Peter was delighted with her approbation and 
 tactful comment, and at the earliest available moment 
 kissed her. 
 
 Mattie took his face in her hands, and cooing over 
 him, said: 
 
 " You're getting quite good-looking." Peter exam- 
 ined himself in the mirror. Certainly he had improved. 
 His face was fuller, firmer, and the mouth and chin 
 were better. 
 
 "Vain Peter," said Mattie. 
 
 "I want to make it as presentable as possible — for 
 your sake." 
 
 Though he had not meant this for a joke, Mattie 
 took it so and laughed. Peter was most adorable when 
 he jested. Altogether serious, he was more than a little 
 heavy. Whatever else Mattie did for him, she certainly 
 did help to keep his sense of humour alive by never 
 taking him, even in his profoundest and, as he thought 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 159 
 
 then, his sublimest moments, quite seriously. As for the 
 poems he wrote for her, she laughed at them so openly, 
 and so provokingly made them public, that presently he 
 abandoned the practice, and, to his credit, sought no 
 other and more appreciative Amaryllis or Julia. 
 
 All the same, Mattie was a little hurt when, teasing 
 him upon the subject, he rejoined in his most dogmatic 
 manner : 
 
 " I think men do not make poems for the women that 
 they really love." 
 
 Mrs. Scott let the affair go on, confident that it 
 would go the way of all its kind, and finding comfort 
 in the thought that in a few months' time Mattie would 
 be safe abroad, and that Peter would have ended his 
 easy days of study and be engaged upon the engrossing 
 task of earning a livelihood. Mr. Scott had at length 
 become alive to the attachment that had sprung up be- 
 tween the girl and his charge, and amused himself with 
 a mild jest at their expense. David received Peter with 
 scord, and developed a pronounced misogyny, the re- 
 sult of tedious hours spent with Mattie and Peter in 
 picture galleries and museums, for though Peter dis- 
 liked stolen meetings, he generously met Mattie in her 
 desire for them, and never failed to meet her at the 
 appointed hour before the " Nativity " of della Fran- 
 cesca, or the Velasquez " Venus," or in the Watts room 
 at the Tate Gallery, or in the Sloane Museum or the 
 gallery at Dulwich. 
 
 On the whole they were happy days, and Peter cer- 
 tainly enjoyed writing long, long letters to Mattie dur- 
 ing this period Ti'hen be denied himself all other forms 
 pf writing. 
 
160 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 They were happiest out of doors, wandering the 
 streets north of the river, the great wide streets of 
 splendid shops. Chelsea, too, they loved, and had bliss- 
 fid, foolish moments in selecting, and, in imagination, 
 furnishing various houses for their home, for they 
 doubted not that in a few years Peter would be cele- 
 brated and they two married and living in great state 
 as Mr. Davies and his charming wife. Indeed, Peter 
 drew up announcements of their betrothal and their 
 marriage, and descriptions of their wedding in a style 
 carefully imitated from the accounts with which the 
 press had been lately inundated of the wedding of a 
 popular young politician. Left alone together, they be- 
 came uneasy, distrustful of each other, and Peter was 
 haunted by old Cooper's tragic affair, and saw with 
 fearful clarity that however delightful this might be, 
 it was not It, not the strange thing that he did not 
 understand; but he loyally gave Mattie all that she 
 asked, confided much to her of fears, ambitions and 
 aspirations, denied her nothing that she seemed to ex- 
 pect of him. That he should make her unhappy, leave 
 'her like another Friederike at Sesenheim, was unthink- 
 able. He called it " damnable " in emphatic moments, 
 and found great pleasure in condemning so great a man 
 as the God-like man of Weimar. The insolent Peter 
 was not altogether dead, but rather waxed strong in 
 the sun of Mattie's favour. It mattered not much, and 
 she did give him a much-needed confidence. He had 
 resolutely refrained from any trial of his wings, " strid-; 
 ing," as he called it, and the recognition of his incom- 
 petence in much of the drudgery and pedantic work 
 demanded of him by the Senate of the University of 
 [London was a sad undermining of confidence in him- 
 
PETEH H0MUNCULU9 161 
 
 self. Perhaps it was this more than anything which 
 made him turn to Mattie. 
 
 Peter toiled and brought himself to sleeplessness. 
 Mr. Scott, who saw that he was haggard and pale, ad- 
 vised a cessation of all work and a week in the country. 
 Murray Wilson's cottage was suggested, but the writer 
 had disappeared, as was his habit, and no man knew 
 his place of sojourn. 
 
 Just then there came an invitation to the wedding 
 of the second of his sisters, who was to be married to 
 a young plumber named Newhall, whom he remembered 
 as a large freckled youth at school, known as Podge. 
 Peter had offended his family by refusing to attend the 
 wedding of his eldest sister, that sister with whom and 
 whose fiance he had dined in Soho in old days in Shaftes- 
 bury Avenue, and correspondence had ceased. This new 
 invitation came opportunely, and Peter accepted it. He 
 packed carefully the tail-coat, borrowed a hat box from 
 the Scotts to convey the treasured silk hat, took a ten- 
 der farewell of Mattie in a corner of the balcony of 
 the New Gallery in Regent Street, while David amused 
 himself with dropping shot on the goldfish in the pool 
 of the foimtain in the hall, and took train for his 
 native town. 
 
 He spent a miserable week. He expected them to 
 make much of him. His family, however, took a purely 
 commercial view and wished only to know how much a 
 year he was making. Upon his confession that he had 
 for three years earned not a penny, they refused to 
 treat him with any respect and rated him for abandoning 
 the bookselling business. They were really unkind to 
 him, and he soon abandoned all attempt to describe his 
 mode of life to them. 
 
162 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Curiously enough, his only sympathetic auditor was 
 Podge Newhall, who confessed to an admiration for 
 Peter dating from early days. 
 
 " You were never like the rest of us chaps. You 
 weren't." 
 
 Peter was grateful, and took long walks with Podge 
 out into the country, while he stuffed the poor fellow 
 with ideas and theories of marriage which perfectly be- 
 wildered him. The responsibilities of husband and 
 father were driven in upon him with such heat and ter- 
 rifying vehemence that he cast a wistful eye upon the 
 dwindling moments of his bachelorhood. 
 
 " Not, I think," thundered Peter, " not till man per- 
 ceives himself as sacredly a father, as woman sees her- 
 self sacredly as a mother, will marriage be the holy 
 blessed state that it is claimed to be in the marriage 
 service drawn up in the time of Edward VI. Think, 
 just think. Podge, of the state of mind, of the attitude 
 towards divine things, of the men who could solemnly 
 and in all reverence write of marriage as a state for 
 ' such as have not the gift of continence.' If that 
 spirit is preserved, then marriage wUl go — bust — 
 scrapped." 
 
 Podge had not the least idea of what Peter was talk- 
 ing about, but was ashamed to say so. Peter tried to 
 approach his sister in the same way, but she rose ma- 
 jestically and left the room, muttering indignantly about 
 the filthiiress of Peter's mind. 
 
 The happy pair were joined together in holy matri- 
 mony, no one having responded to the parson's invita- 
 tion to declare any just cause or impediment why they 
 should not be so joined (though Peter had arr insane 
 desire to make a dramatic protest), and were driven off 
 
PETERi H0MUNCULU9 163 
 
 to the station, shaking rice and confetti from their hair 
 and clothing. 
 
 They were to spend their honeymoon at Llandudno, 
 a place which Peter rememhered from early experience 
 as a grisly resort much frequented by the middle classes 
 of South Lancashire. He was angry with his sister, 
 and took a spiteful pleasure in writing her a long letter 
 of advice and philosophic comment with quotations from 
 pagan authors. He had had no money to buy her a 
 wedding present, and now on an inspiration he sent her 
 the ring which old Adam had given him. 
 
 She returned it without a word. Peter spent three 
 unhappy days after the wedding. His relatives' slip- 
 shod mode of living depressed and angered him: there 
 was no Podge now to admire him and to talk to: and, 
 worse than all, by a reaction from the excitement of 
 preparation for the wedding, the whole family was de- 
 pressed and irritable, and over all the house was an air 
 of staleness. 
 
 Peter wandered in the woods of the countryside, try- 
 ing to escape from the terror of the approaching ordeal. 
 He wrote long letters to Mattie, full of sarcastic witti- 
 cisms at the expense of his family and of the narrow- 
 ness of provincial persons in general. 
 
 He visited old schoolfellows and friends of his father 
 and mother who had been kind to him; but they all 
 stood rather in awe of him. His old headmaster thought 
 he needed taking down, and snubbed him remorselessly. 
 After Podge's departure he found a really friendly re- 
 ception only with the young assistant master who had 
 vainly tried to teach him Algebra, now through all his 
 examinations, married to his Alison, daughter of the 
 curate, and the proud father of a baby larger and better 
 
164 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 tempered even than Janet Fildes'. Peter made great 
 friends with the baby and promised to be godfather 
 to the next. He was surprised to find the little school- 
 master rather intelligent and tremendously impressed 
 when Peter mentioned his friendship with Murray Wil- 
 son. It was from him that for the first time Peter 
 heard a full account^ garbled, it is true, of the relation 
 of the writer with Miss Dugdale. The schoolmaster 
 was full of such scandal and told Peter all that he knew 
 of the actress — all the talk that there had been of her 
 connection with Wilson, of her subsequent marriage with 
 Mr. Bertram Bond, its unhappiness, and the separation. 
 It had been kept out of the papers, and the school- 
 master would have it that she had virtually retired from 
 the stage, and was on the point of entering a convent. 
 
 Peter said that he knew she was living in Mount 
 Street. 
 
 It was odd that by a little provincial pedagogue's 
 taste for scandal Peter's mind should be filled with 
 thoughts of Miss Dugdale, for hers at this time was 
 much occupied with Peter. 
 
 When Wilson had said that he had sent Peter's story 
 to a friend, he refrained from divulging that the friend 
 was none other than Miss Dugdale herself. He had 
 scrawled at the head of Peter's manuscript " How like 
 you the portrait?" and had sent it to her, thinking 
 that the youthful adoration of the writer might amuse 
 her, even interest her, for he knew that she was suffer- 
 ing much. She was touched first by Wilson's thought 
 for her, divining all that lay behind, and then by the 
 little narrative, the truth of the description of herself. 
 She shed many tears over it, and meeting Wilson at 
 some great house made him tell her all that he knew 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 165 
 
 of Peter, describe his personal appearance, the tones 
 of his voice, and all that was most individual in him. 
 She hugged the imagined boy to herself and longed to 
 know him, for, as she told Wilson, she wished to play 
 with his black hair. 
 
 " We'll make him write a play for me," she said. 
 
 Wilson said nothing, but gave her a look which she 
 took rightly for a warning. Presently he said: "He 
 saw you in a bird shop purchasing a cat with orange 
 eyes." 
 
 " I called it Peter," said Mary. " How odd! " 
 
 "All your cats have been called Peter." 
 
 " What does he know of me ? " 
 
 " Only common talk," said Wilson, and at the mo- 
 ment of his saying it, Peter was listening open-mouthed 
 to the schoolmaster expounding the same common talk. 
 
 " Perhaps you j^ill meet her some day," said the 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 " I daresay," said Peter carelessly. He had not di- 
 vulged that Wilson possessed several portraits of the 
 lady. 
 
 "How old is she?" 
 
 " Oh, anything between twenty-five and thirty-five." 
 
 They took down " Who's Who " and found that she 
 confessed to twenty-nine. 
 
 Peter returned a day earlier than he had intended. 
 He did not let Mattie know that he was back in Gordon 
 Square. 
 
 The evening of that day he spent in fingering the 
 pink topaz necklace and in reading old Cooper's literary 
 remains. 
 
 The idea came to him to send these to Wilson. The 
 writer had asked him not to lose touch with him, and 
 
166 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 the manuscript might be of use to him, would certainly 
 be of interest. 
 
 In turning over the pages of the " Essay on Human 
 Folly " Peter came upon these words : 
 
 True marriage is possible only where there is truth bet\veen 
 man and woman. To begin with, truth is to forestall the crisis. 
 Love reveals truth, but the eyes of most men are blinded to 
 it, for the lie promises ease. In love it is for the woman to 
 ask, for the man to give. There is no more blazing folly than 
 for the man to dictate: for in all matters of love the instinct 
 of the woman is true. The idea of possession is a taint. 
 Truth starts from it, and Nature. 
 
 Peter copied these out and sent them to his sister by 
 way of Podge, to whom also, by a happy thought, he 
 sent the large gold watch that he had found in Cooper's 
 desk. It did not occur to him that to neither bridegroom 
 nor bride would the passage be intelligible, or, indeed, 
 that its full import was lost upon himself. 
 
VI 
 
 YouNQ David was taken ill of a quinzy during the days 
 when Peter was taking final instructions before vacation 
 for his examination in October. When he recovered, 
 Mrs. Scott took him and Mattie to Eastbourne and es- 
 tablished them in lodgings at Meads, in an ugly little 
 house looking out over the sea. 
 
 When, therefor^, Peter called on the first Sunday of 
 his freedom, he found Mr. Scott alone and inclined to 
 be taciturn. However, he managed to evince some inter- 
 est in Peter's doings, though the interview was made 
 awkward for both by the boy's insane desire to improve 
 the occasion by asking for his daughter's hand in mar- 
 riage. The parson turned the conversation in the di- 
 rection of finance, and Peter saw his own absurdity. 
 
 "My brother-in-law tells me that you have a desire 
 to write." 
 
 Peter gasped at this touching of his tenderest am- 
 bitions, and the parson pushed the flagon of port in hia 
 direction. 
 
 "Ye — ^yes. I — I used to write a good d-deal," 
 Peter managed to say, and could have kicked himself 
 gladly for the fatuity of the remark. 
 
 Scott scrutinised Peter's face and seemed carefully 
 to weigh his next words. Peter had a horrid fear that 
 he was going to say something about Mattie, and it was 
 with immense relief that he caught the words: 
 
 "When Mr. Cooper asked me to be your guardian 
 he said to me of you, 'Give him the choice to continue 
 
 16T 
 
168 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 here or to shake free and stretch his wings.' He was a 
 good man, old Cooper." 
 
 Peter was humbled. 
 
 " He was kind to me," he said. 
 
 " How will it be with you in your examination ? " 
 
 " Fairly well," said Peter modestly, though he had 
 a feeling of exultation when he thought of how he would 
 pour out knowledge to confound the learned. 
 
 " We all want you to do well. You have this advan- 
 tage for a writer: that you have known and can sympa- 
 thise with poverty. It is the earliest years that really 
 form a man." 
 
 This was a new idea to Peter, and he was inclined 
 to flout it. His visit to his famly had confirmed his 
 impression that nothing but harm could have come to 
 him from contact with such base things. 
 
 " My brother-in-law," said the parson, " always pro- 
 fesses gratitude for a childhood of penury and suffer- 
 ing. It has certainly informed all that he has written." 
 
 "Beauty," said Peter, "is truth." 
 
 " There is the sort of truth you mean beneath even 
 vice and wickedness." 
 
 " The business of the artist," said Peter, " is with 
 the kingly and the saintly." 
 
 " Neither is extra-human." 
 
 Peter wondered what he meant. 
 
 " I am your guardian until you are twenty-five. It 
 should be possible for you to gain some sort of living 
 before that." 
 
 Again Peter had the insane impulse to drag Mattie 
 into the conversation: and again he suppressed it. 
 
 " Did you ever," said the parson, " light upon traces 
 of your lost aunt?" He chuckled at the recollection. 
 
PETER! H0MUNCULU9 169 
 
 "Demophoon we must suppose dead. Seven years for 
 a human, three for a eat." 
 
 Peter told him of the letter he had received. 
 
 "She married Mr. iWolverton, the curate." 
 
 " The scoundrel. A disgrace to the cloth." They 
 agreed as to the rascality of the curate and very soon 
 Peter departed, having gleaned Mattie's address at 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 He was engaged to study with a young contemporary 
 until the second week in August, but except for those 
 hours was content with gentle revision, and otherwise 
 he was very much in want of occupation. He tried to 
 write, but the term's work had exhausted him and he 
 could produce little or nothing. It was tragic and he 
 was driven in upon himself. He wished very much 
 to see Wilson, but felt that he must wait until an ac- 
 knowledgment of the receipt of the Cooper papers 
 should come. He wrote letters to Mattie and worked 
 himself into a fine amorous frenzy concerning her, be- 
 wailing the day that should take her to a foreign coun- 
 try, professing an undying aifection and a determina- 
 tion to do great things for her sake. He took himself 
 very seriously and was offended more than a little at 
 the light tone of her letters wherein she thought it 
 proper to tease him, and. to give him full and attractive 
 descriptions of the boys and young men who had sought 
 her acquaintance. David was better and sent insulting 
 messages. 
 
 Peter chose to think himself despised and neglected, 
 and mooned miserably. The summer air of London, 
 together with fearful contemplation of the unknown 
 future, was responsible for his condition. The heat was 
 oppressive and the great city had taken on that air of 
 
170 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 lassitude which is so distressing to the workers in it. 
 "London," wrote Peter in his notebook, "is most hid- 
 eous when she ceases to be a productive machine and 
 becomes a city of pleasure." 
 
 He wandered miserably in the hot evenings about the 
 West End, and often sat in the park by the bandstand 
 watching the young men and maidens walking up and 
 down, all predatory, seeking illicit sweets of tentative 
 and shy love-making. Watching them, Peter remem- 
 bered with disgust his own exploits in this direction as 
 a schoolboy. All the same it gave him great pleasure 
 to come upon real lovers locked in fond embrace, lost 
 to the world, so that one might stand and gaze and gaze 
 upon them for all they cared. Somehow when they 
 kissed, Peter had a desire to laugh and a desire also to 
 cry. In the end also he was disgusted with the park. 
 
 He haunted the pits and galleries of the theatres and 
 occasionally patronised a music-hall, though he found 
 these places of amusement dreary in the extreme. 
 
 For the first time in his life Peter was bored, and 
 Peter bored was twenty times as offensive as Peter 
 cock-arhoop. 
 
 By chance he discovered a comfortable element in 
 distressful London. 
 
 The first excursion he had taken on his arrival in 
 Southwark was to look at the Thames, and the river 
 had ever been a favourite haunt. In these dull days 
 there was seldom an evening that he did not walk along 
 some part of the Embankment, but he had never had 
 the temerity to enter the precincts of the Temple, which 
 for some mysterious reason he regarded as sacro-ianct. 
 One night, however, that he had walked down from 
 Westminster almost to Blackfriars, exalted and drunk 
 
PETEBI H0MUNCULU9 171 
 
 with the beauty of the broad stream and the drowning 
 lights in the depths, boldness came to him and he turned 
 up Middle Temple Lane. The place fascinated him; 
 Brick Court, where Goldsmith had lived and Coleridge 
 and Thackeray; Fountain Court, across which Ruth 
 Pinch had tripped; Lamb Building, where Pendennis 
 and Warrington had had their rooms; Dr. Johnson's 
 buildings and King's Bench Walk; the Middle Temple 
 Hall, where Shakespeare's tragedy of Julius Csesar had 
 been performed before Queen Elizabeth; and often on 
 the boards at the bottom of the stairs Peter came upon 
 the names of men who shone as literary lights, or were 
 known as journalists, and Peter was jealous of them, 
 they seemed so confoundedly important with their 
 names writ large. 
 
 At the bottom of a stair in Crown Office Row he 
 came upon a name which gave him to pause — Mr. Law- 
 rence Greenfield. For a few moments he could not 
 assign the name to its owner. Then his thoughts flew 
 to Janet Fildes and from her to the young man in the 
 green suit who had been so odiously patronising upon 
 their first encounter, but had latterly been more civil, 
 and indeed had seemed to wish to cultivate Peter's bet- 
 ter acquaintance. Peter disliked the young man, but as 
 Miss Dugdale's brother, tolerated his attentions, and 
 had even promised to visit him in his chambers. 
 
 Peter decided to mount, and ascended to the third floor 
 to a door whereover he found the name of the young 
 man and that of another gentleman, Mr. Beaumont 
 Scholes, whom Peter after a moment remembered to be 
 the hirsute young poet who had gained notoriety by his 
 attack on Murray Wilson. 
 
 Peter remembered with shame that he had sent the 
 
172 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 offending article to Wilson; also ttat the writer had 
 ignored the sending. 
 
 The outer door of the chambers stood open, and the 
 door of the sitting-room just inside to the left was 
 slightly ajar, so that Peter could see one end of the 
 room, red-papered, and the walls profusely decorated 
 with photographs of actresses and professional beauties. 
 The room was untidy and littered with papers, and the 
 table bore the fragments of a supper and an empty 
 champagne bottle. There was an air of luxury about 
 the apartment as Peter saw it which contrasted vividly 
 with his own chaste abode in Gordon Squi9.re. He 
 could see one end of a red sofa covered with a jackal- 
 skin rug, which jutted out into the room from where 
 he judged the fireplace would be. Though the room 
 was brilliantly lit it was not occupied. Impelled by 
 curiosity, Peter pushed the door open and peered in. 
 Something crashed to the floor, and he stood waiting. 
 
 Presently a door at the other end of the room opened 
 and Mr. Greenfield's head peered out. His jaw 
 dropped as he saw Peter, and he jabbed :with his thumb 
 in the direction of the door. 
 
 " You left it open," said Peter. " I did not know 
 you were in." 
 
 "Get out," said Mr. Greenfield. 
 
 " Can't I stay and talk to you? " 
 
 Mr. Greenfield glared. " You young ass. Go ! " 
 
 He advanced into the room, switched off the light 
 and pushed Peter out. 
 
 As he closed the outer door Peter heard a woman's 
 voice raised in a giggle proceeding from another 
 room. 
 
 He leaned against the balustrade of the stone stairs 
 
PETEK HOMUNCULUS 173 
 
 and lauglied and laughed until the tears ran down his 
 cheeks and his sides ached. 
 
 Gasping to regain his breath, he descended the stairs 
 slowly. He heard a light foot on the flight below him 
 andj looking down the well, saw an elegantly gowned 
 young woman, tripping. At the angle they met. He 
 started and cried: 
 
 "Miss Dugdale!" 
 
 She stopped upon his cry and stood wondering who 
 the strange young man might be. In that moment 
 Peter hated Mr. Lawrence Greenfield; and his dislike 
 for the unpleasant young man from passive grew active. 
 He decided that he must lie, for, at all costs. Miss Dug- 
 dale must go no higher. 
 
 " He's not at home — ^your brother." 
 
 "But he said Are you a friend of his?" 
 
 " No. I know him." 
 
 "We have not met?" 
 
 " We do not know eacK other." 
 
 " You know my name ? " 
 
 "Who does not?" 
 
 "Oh!— That." 
 
 " I know Peter. He Has orange eyes." 
 
 "Oh! Then you are " 
 
 " My name is Davies — Peter Davies." 
 
 On that she laughed so merrily, like water over peb- 
 bles, that Peter must laugh too. She gave him her 
 gloved hand. He took it and they turned to make the 
 descent. 
 
 Peter waited for her to dismiss him, though he was 
 hungry for words from her. 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 " I have wanted to know you for long." 
 
1741 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter bridled with pleasure, but wondered uncom- 
 fortably what and how much she knew of him. Wilson 
 was no doubt her informant, and there was no clue to 
 the extent of Wilson's knowledge of him. 
 
 " Your little story," she said, " the old match- 
 woman, shivering in the rain. Shall we not walk and 
 we can learn to know each other ? " 
 
 "I— I " said Peter. 
 
 Responding to her pressure, Peter turned and walked 
 with her, stealing shy glances at her as they walked 
 out into Fleet Street. 
 
 " You don't live in the Temple ? " she said. 
 
 " No. I had never been there before to-night. I 
 love it." 
 
 Shyness overtook Peter. The charm of the unex- 
 pected encounter had carried him so far, but left him 
 stranded. He was wordless and shrank from her, gaz- 
 ing at her with frightened eyes. She was watching 
 the marching throng in the Strand, and Peter wondered 
 what was in her thoughts, wondered also whether he 
 should ever learn what was inside her pretty head. 
 Something in the street pleased her. She laughed, leap- 
 ing from a deep note to her middle voice. She seemed 
 exultant. She laid her hand on Peter's arm and turned 
 dazzling eyes upon him. 
 
 " Don^t you love it all?" she said, with a sweeping 
 gesture. 
 
 "Yes," said Peter. "But what?" 
 
 " But — ^but everjjiihing — all these n^llions of dear 
 stupid people, all thinking themselves so clever, and the 
 lights, and the noise of them, and — and the " 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said Peter. " But I love best in London 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 175 
 
 the thump of machines that seem to he making some- 
 thing, mightily." 
 
 " They make shoddy, most of them." 
 
 " I'm thinking of the machines in Bouverie Street." 
 
 " They spread lies." She frowned, and Peter thought 
 absurdly enough of Alice and Ethel Stubbs, purveyors 
 of fiction by the yard. 
 
 Again she laughed, and Peter laughed, too. He was 
 thinking of her brother and the service he had done 
 the young man. She was thinking of Wilson's wrath 
 should he ever know of this escapade. 
 
 "Oh! oh! oh!" she said, "I'm glad— I'm glad you 
 can laugh like that. So few people can." 
 
 " I dreamed of you once," said Peter, " as the spirit 
 of truth prisoned in your well by a green dwarf with 
 whom I waged battle. His hand on my throat was 
 clammy. Also the first time I saw you you nearly ran 
 over me. I returned good for evil by purchasing a 
 portrait of you for a penny." 
 
 " I used to make two hundred a year from being 
 photographed," said Miss Dugdale. "Enough to pay 
 for my frocks." 
 
 To Peter who had never in his life had so much 
 money in a year, and who knew of whole families bred 
 upon the half, the sum seemed appalling. 
 
 They talked much together and Peter was busy dis- 
 entangling the reality of the woman from his vision 
 of her. Her voice jarred upon him, yet he knew it 
 for beautiful and musical. It was a different voice 
 from that of the theatre, more caressing even, but all 
 the same disturbing by reason of the hardness of cer- 
 tain of its notes. The contrasts and contradictions in 
 
170 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 the woman made her only the more adorable^ and pres- 
 ently Peter had surrendered. 
 
 When they parted she said: 
 
 "You will come to see me?" 
 
 " May I ? " said Peter, and for some time they saw 
 much of each other. 
 
 Peter called upon her in her flat, or they would meet 
 to walk, and once they supped together at a glittering 
 place. It was on this occasion that Peter had his first 
 taste of champagne. He was disposed to regard the 
 sipping of it as a fall from grace. He did not like it 
 at first, the taste of it being reminiscent of brandy, 
 which had always been peculiarly repugnant to him, 
 but soon he found in himself a keen sensation of en- 
 joyment, and his tongue loosed. He leaned across the 
 table and harangued Miss Dugdale, who found him 
 sufficiently amusing, though his dogmatic tendency was 
 occasionally irritating. She had been afraid at first 
 that he would prove to be impossibly young and callow, 
 and was relieved to find in him a really startling knowl- 
 edge of reality. She held her glass up and drank to 
 him. 
 
 Peter gulped and remonstrated only feebly when the 
 attentive waiter filled his glass again. 
 
 " You see," he said. " You see. I know myself and 
 I know exactly where I shall go wrong." 
 
 " I wonder," said Miss Dugdale. 
 
 "Why do you laugh?" 
 
 " So many men have said that to me. They have all 
 been rudely surprised. You see, men do not understand 
 love." 
 
 " Love is a strange beast that leaps out on you, out 
 of the dark. It bears you down and down . . ." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 177, 
 
 " And up and np." Her lip quivered and her eyes 
 looked piteously at Peter for the tiniest moment. They 
 smiled again, and she turned to trivialities. Peter 
 frolicked and his mind skipped; he buffooned suc- 
 cessfully for her amusement, surprised at his own 
 powers. He told her about old Cooper and old days, 
 about his family and Podge, and altogether indulged 
 in a very intimate confession, though all amorous ad- 
 ventures were carefully expunged. She warmed to him 
 and seemed to be more interested in Tessa than in any 
 other person of Peter's history. 
 
 " I think I know Mr. Warrington. He is a writer, 
 a poor one, though very successful. His wife is an 
 invalid." 
 
 "Does Mr. Wilson know him.^" 
 
 Peter thought this very adroit. He had been long- 
 ing to bring the conversation round to that point. She 
 broke away and was not to be led back, but took him 
 among the great, gorging him with celebrities. There 
 seemed to be no one whom she did not know in London, 
 from the mighty Hebrew financier in Park Lane, 
 whom she described as the only man with any real 
 power in England, and the detested newspaper pro- 
 prietor, greedy of power an3 abusing that which he 
 had, to the tiniest poet of Maida Vale or smallest artist 
 of Chelsea. 
 
 They sat for long talking so over the coffee and 
 liqueurs. 
 
 She made Peter tell her more of Tessa. 
 
 She sighed. " I might have been that but for the 
 grace of God: and might as well have been." 
 
 Peter in his deepest tones said to herj 
 
 "Do you believe in God?/' 
 
178 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " In nothing," she replied, scared a little, and on the 
 aefensive. "Don't, boy. Don't." 
 
 She put out her left hand and Peter saw that she 
 ■wore no wedding ring. She marked old Adam's ring 
 upon his little finger. 
 
 "I like your ring," she said. 
 
 "Do let me give it you," and he told her how he 
 had come by it and the story of its rejection by his 
 sister. Podge's wife, together with her criticism of the 
 quality of his thoughts. Miss Dugdale laughed. 
 
 " I like Podge," she said. 
 
 " Podge is right enough," said Peter, and took the 
 ring from his hand. 
 
 "Shall we be friends?" she said. "Really friends, 
 I mean." 
 
 " Tessa said that." 
 
 " I am another Tessa, then." 
 
 She slipped the ring upon the third finger of her 
 left hand, and held it out for him to see. 
 
 He nodded smiling approval. 
 
 " You shall call me Mary." 
 
 "Splendid Mary." 
 
 " Friends — really friends," and she rose to go. 
 
 Peter drove with her in her little brougham. She 
 was silent, but clasped his hand, clutching him to her. 
 
 At length. — " I so sorely need a friend. So bitterly. 
 Your match woman was right — so right. Hold them 
 close to you — for warmth — I too have been a hard 
 woman." 
 
 " I am your friend," said Peter. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, and both were silent, nor 
 looked at each other, so glad they were of these days 
 which had brought them together. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 179 
 
 Peter felt a certain relief when the car stopped and 
 she, after a nodded farewell that she might have given 
 to her most slight acquaintance, tripped into the bright 
 hall of the mansions in which she lived. 
 
 Peter wandered home in a dream, the blood in his 
 head throbbing with the tinaccustomed stimulant of 
 ,wine. 
 
 Without quite realising what he was doing, he sat 
 down at his writing-table, took pen and paper and wrote 
 an absurd story with the title: "The Purple Sor- 
 row." 
 
 When Peter rose from the composition of this mas- 
 terpiece he! staggered and thought 'himself very 
 drunk. 
 
 Peter was not really drunk, but he was drunk enough 
 to forget his remedy for sleeping with his mouth open, 
 which he imagined gave his mouth its loose indecisive 
 character. With a view to repairing this he had in- 
 vented a system of going to sleep with his fists under 
 his jaw. To-night he forgot this. 
 
 He woke the next morning with a blinding head- 
 ache and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. 
 He rose with a sense of loss, and, looking down at his 
 hand, missed his ring. 
 
 Then he remembered and swore with a nice choice of 
 words for the space of thirty seconds. Sitting on the 
 edge of the bath holding his head in his hands, he 
 vowed that he would never, never more see the woman, 
 that if she wrote to him, as of course she would, he 
 would burn her letter unopened, and that if ever by any 
 
 chance he met her again he would — he would He 
 
 was not sure what he would, but it was surely some- 
 thing awful, something to wither and blight. 
 
180 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " T fie airs of a Princess, clay-footed," he said 
 fiercely, as he shaved. The phrase did not altogether 
 satisfy, but it served. 
 
 " Grabbed," he muttered. " She grabbed me." 
 Masculine vanity was hurt. There had been no bat- 
 tle, not even with a green dwarf, and, as for wooing, 
 there should surely have been some wildness. She had 
 taken him as she had taken the cat Peter, and here he 
 was possessed by a woman whom he disliked, really 
 disliked — or so he told himself. 
 
 He strove to recall her appearance, but could not 
 exactly remember even her costume. It was blue and 
 suited her marvellously. He knew that. Her face 
 eluded him until he went down to breakfast in the com- 
 mon dining-room of the establishment. 
 
 He postponed descent as long as possible, partly be- 
 cause his appearance was so lamentable, and his condi- 
 tion melancholy, partly because he was certain that he 
 should iind a letter from Miss Dugdale. He did not 
 feel equal to the company of his fellow-boarders, 
 whose humour, never particularly congenial, would 
 this morning have reduced him to angry tears. 
 
 A lukewarm breakfast and a scowling reception from 
 his landlady. Miss Bastable, a woman who reminded 
 him of his aunt, though she was a more prosperous 
 specimen of the same type, possessing more dignity, 
 did not better his condition. He snapped a " Good- 
 morning " in response to her greeting, accompanied with 
 a meaning glance in the direction of the clock. 
 
 There were three letters by his plate, bearing thumb- 
 marks as evidence that they had been passed from hand 
 to hand. A blue envelope gave out a scent of heliotrope. 
 On the flap it bore the stamped initials in elegant type. 
 
PETEBI HOMUNCULUS 181 
 
 M. D. Peter thrust it into his pocket unopened. Miss 
 Bastable marked that and smiled grimly. The blue 
 envelope had been the subject of conversation at meals 
 these many days. 
 
 Peter's career during the three years of his sojourn 
 under her roof had been so blameless, so unlike that of 
 all the other young men, that it was with an unholy joy 
 that she now scented a downfall. She knew the power 
 of heliotrope. 
 
 Peter shifted uneasily imder her scrutiny and opened 
 the two other letters. One was from Wilson, thanking 
 him for the Cooper papers and suggesting that as soon 
 as possible he should come down to his cottage near 
 Haslemere. 
 
 The other was from Mattie, in high spirits at the 
 prospect of a contineirtal tour with the beneficent aunt. 
 Lady Chapman, widow of a Sheriff of the City of 
 London, embracing the Loire, with its chateaux and ca- 
 thedrals, Provenge, High Savoy, and the Italian Lakes. 
 She bade Peter good-bye in a manner which, in his 
 maudlin state, seemed to him callous, promised to write 
 to him, and urged him not wholly to forget her. Deme- 
 tcr, she said, should accompany her everywhere, to re- 
 mind her of the intellectual treasures he had poured 
 upon her. Herein the fool Peter chose to detect sar- 
 casm, and was filled with bitter resentment. He made 
 an imaginary Aunt Sally of Woman and shied her 
 down. 
 
 " Liars and web-spinners," he said aloud. " Webs to 
 catch worthless flies." 
 
 The remark in its vehemence startled Miss Bastable, 
 enthroned behind the silver coffee pot. 
 
 " I apologise to your sex, Miss Bastable/' said Peter^ 
 
182 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 rising. " It is my fate to be devoured. So be it." He 
 left the room. 
 
 " Mr. Davies is touched," the august lady said to her 
 slave. " Balmy." 
 
 " It's them books," said the slave, and Miss Bastable, 
 correcting her English, she added : " My mother 'ad 
 used to say as how books was printed madness." 
 
 Miss Bastable, who never encouraged loquacity, did 
 not pursue the conversation, and left the slave mut- 
 tering. 
 
 Upstairs Peter had thrown himself into the Victorian 
 chair, and because it hurt his head to think, sought pre- 
 vention, babbling verses from the Anti- Jacobin : 
 
 The same of Plants — Potatoes, 'tatoes breed, 
 Unworthy cabbage springs from cabbage seed; 
 Lettuce to Lettuce, Leeks to Leeks succeed; 
 Nor e're did cooling Cucumber presume 
 To flow'r like Myrtle, or like Violets bloom. 
 Man only — rash, refin'd, presumptuous Man — 
 Starts from his rank, and mars Creation's plan. 
 
 Even the effort of memory was painful, and in despair 
 he took up the closely written pages of the story he 
 had written in enthusiasm. Coldly viewed, the story 
 seemed a poor thing — " Words, words, words," and the 
 ridiculous phrase " purple sorrow " mortified him, yet 
 he knew that it was not altogether bad. It had been at 
 least a sincere expression, if vague and woolly. With 
 the simple presumption so characteristic of him, Peter 
 felt a jealousy of mad Swift, who could say on re- 
 reading " The Tale of a Tub "— " What a genius I had 
 yfheti I wrote that book ! " 
 
 Taking up the halfpenny newspaper which he shared 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 183 
 
 with a fellow-lodger, a young German serving as a 
 volunteer clerk in a city office, he came upon a prelim- 
 inary puff of a new comedy in which Miss Dugdale 
 was to appear. No escape from the woman. He threw 
 the paper down into the hearth, where it caught fire 
 and gave him the relief of action in stamping out the 
 blaze. He sat for a time watching charred pieces of 
 paper float up the chimney. He thrust his hand into 
 his pocket and fingered Miss Dugdale's letter. Then 
 paced up and down the room. He tried to smoke, but 
 tobacco made his head swim, and that, too, was aban- 
 doned. He made an effort to read, but words mocked 
 him. He remembered: "Words are quick and vain." 
 Words ! What words would the woman use; what words 
 could she use? 
 
 The -whole world was detestable, yellow, and despite- 
 ful. 
 
 Peter took the letter from his pocket, snuffed the 
 scent of it. Heliotrope. He marked the writing of the 
 address, hurried, untidy, dashing. Daughter of a 
 watchmaker, Mary Greenfield: a Devon girl, of rich red 
 earth and green lanes. Dugdale ! The fresh girl aping 
 the fine lady, of the town towny; tired, restless, discon- 
 tented, vaguely wanting. " A woman worn by flattery, 
 hungering for love." Peter returned to that early divi- 
 nation of her and knew pity. He was sorry — and to 
 condemn her, upon what he knew of her story, because 
 — because — for the life of him he could find no reason 
 for his resentment. She had been kind, and she had 
 said that she lay in sore need of a friend. Well, then — 
 well, then But she had said also that she resem- 
 bled Tessa, a cramped woman, a wasted woman, and in 
 her face, as he saw it now clearly, holding her letter in 
 
184 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 his tand, there was nracH that there Ead been in the face 
 of the early Tessa — ^that strained hardness. It angered 
 Peter to find himself so unreasonably resentful, and he 
 fell to probing in himself. The blood throbbed in his 
 head, and his under lip quivered. He inflicted exquisite 
 torture upon himself, like an Eastern mystic undergo- 
 ing starving and flagellation to gain the moment of crys- 
 talline clairvoyance — ^the lucid vision of thought — and 
 Peter's mannikin, perched on the little French clock 
 on the mantelpiece, leered down at him in his torpor. 
 He pointed a long thin finger, like a wax taper, it was 
 so long, and mocked: 
 
 " Fear ; that is it. Fear. You are afraid, terrified, 
 craven at the first contact with woman. Only half a 
 man! Not only wine brought drunkenness, but new 
 things striving in you, new great things . , . Terror. 
 Scarcely a man at all. Threatens you? Does she? Does 
 she? Does she? Threatens what — You? What are you? 
 Homunculus, a little man in a bottle, snug and warm, 
 curled in your glass. Embryonic. What are you? 
 Nothing. Nothing without this: a cold clot. Threatens 
 you, does she? Your career? The fico for your career. 
 Your brain? What's the good of it without blood, warm 
 blood? What's blood for, if not to race? It? Afraid 
 of it? Tiny man, tiny man, tiny man. Take it. Take 
 it. Both hands, tiny man. Be grabbed — gobbled, eaten. 
 Share the common lot. Tiny man, grow big." 
 
 A sob gathered in Peter's throat, but being forced up 
 into his nose, came out as a snort. His hands waved 
 in the air as though he were brushing away stinging 
 flies. A tiny voice near his ear, a voice no bigger than 
 the chirping of a cricket and as shrill, shrieked: 
 
 "Tiny man!" 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 185 
 
 Peter in terror sprang to his feet and stood. Pres- 
 ently he laughed nervously, and pulled his forelock. 
 
 He was surprised to find Miss Dugdale's letter still 
 in his hand. He hurled it into the fire, hut rescued it 
 immediately, hefore it had begun even to scorch. Set- 
 ting his teeth, he opened it. She asked that if he would 
 walk with her they should meet by the Round Pond in 
 Kensington Gardens. 
 
 Peter, like many of his betters, brought suddenly to 
 proximity with " It," resented the being deprived of the 
 sweets of courtship. 
 
 " Twenty-nine ! " His mind leaped suddenly to the 
 root of the matter. Her age killed Romance, and hu- 
 miliated him in the killing by forcing him to acknowl- 
 edge himself no more sliperior to the " pale sister," but 
 himgry for her. 
 
 Youthful prejudice also had much to do with Peter's 
 state. He had suffered a milder form of the disease 
 with his first contemplated plunge into matrimony. This 
 had been at the age of nine, the object of his young 
 affections a tom-boy cousin of fourteen, whose thick 
 pig-tail of brown hair and skill in finding the nests of 
 gold-crested wrens in spruce trees — ^lovely mossy ham- 
 mock nests with tiny eggs — ^had wrought the havoc The 
 alliance had been long pondered, but in the end the 
 great difference in their ages hali proved an insuper- 
 able bar. 
 
 Miss Dugdale had confessed to twenty-nine. In face 
 of the notorious mendacity of women it might well be 
 that she were thirty-five, or, ghastly thought, forty. 
 
 These speculations were wild, but they sufficed to 
 make Peter acutely wretched. He spent a morning of 
 miserable idleness, and after lunch, vowing that if he 
 
180 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 went out at all, it should be to visit the Fildeses in 
 Southampton Row, he went up to his bedroom to don 
 his tail-coat and silk hat. 
 
 He sat down on his bed and cursed. He cursed the 
 day that he had come to London, the day that he had 
 entered Cooper's shop, the day that he had matriculated 
 in the University, the day that he had met Wilson, and 
 most the ironic chance that had taken him up to Green- 
 field's chambers in the Temple. He cursed all his mode 
 of living, his boarding-house existence and all the in- 
 mates of the house, the German volunteer clerk, the 
 French musician; the two quadroon ladies from Port 
 Royal; the two old gentlemen who shared apartments 
 and had lived from their youth together, possessing in 
 their united incomes just enough for subsistence; the evil 
 German-Swiss butler, who bullied Miss Bastable and was 
 an over-lord; the coarse young man from Manchester, 
 and the elderly young woman from Leeds. 
 
 The real object of his vituperation was the bi-sexual 
 ordering of life, which, having survived the onslaught 
 of Arthur Schopenhauer, was likely also to survive that 
 of Peter Davies. 
 
 Peter set forth immaculately dressed; trousers most 
 correctly creased — hat newly ironed and bright yellow 
 gloves upon his hands. 
 
 He strode sturdily and turned in the direction of 
 Southampton Row. He strove to force himself to enter 
 the door of Russell Mansions, but shot past it and down 
 into Oxford Street, where he boarded an omnibus. 
 
 Two lovers occupied the seat in front of him. Their 
 talk sickened him, maudlin folly. 
 
 A slightly drunken man behind him had had an alter- 
 cation with a Commissionaire, and was hurling obscen- 
 
PETERi H0MUNCULU9 IST 
 
 ities at tie bashfully smiling head of the uniformed 
 creature. The conductor mounting to collect fares, an 
 ofiScious spotty-faced young man complained, and there 
 was altercation, as the upshot of which the offender 
 promised to talk only to himself and to avoid the utter- 
 ance of obscene terms. All the way to Marble Arch he 
 talked aloud and volubly. 
 
 " HeU ! " he said. " One man's as good 's 'nother. 
 Mayn't talk to 'im, mayn't I? Ol' rip. I asks 'im 
 wot 'e did in India for them medals. Preserved the 
 Hempire, did 'e? I don't think — Black beauties an' 
 dusky brides: that's Hempire buildin' fur 'im. Bally 
 ol' rip. Straight I tells yer. I been there. S'good as 
 'im. I spends more money on beer in a mornin' than 
 'e'U make in a week. Arst anyone rahnd Coven' Gard- 
 mg. 
 
 Here the conductor remonstrated again, and the man 
 protested. 
 
 " I c'n breathe, cawn't I ? An' if I likes to breathe 
 in words — I ain't usin' no bad words. I can, cawn't I ? 
 The hatmosphere don't belong to nobody, though there's 
 some as'd like to buy it." 
 
 He rose grumbling and growling and stumbled down 
 the staircase at Marble Arch, Peter following him. He 
 wandered crookedly across to the Edgeware Road, and 
 Peter watched him until he was lost, then turned into 
 the Park. 
 
 He stopped for a moment, and made a resolution to 
 walk straight through to St. James Park and West- 
 minster to avoid the Gardens. 
 
 All the same it was not long before he found himself 
 under the statue of Physical Energy, peering to see and 
 not be seen. 
 
188 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He saw Miss Dugdale, a brave solitary little figure 
 in blue, a gallant blue feather in her hat, her parasol of 
 scarlet — flaming, flaunting woman. Peter fled and passed 
 down to the Serpentine: then up again and out to spy 
 upon her. He saw lovers meet and gladly smile and 
 slowly walk away to some known spot for quiet, poor 
 fools and blind: and mated birds he saw, and bees pay 
 loving visit to the flowers. He strode out into the street 
 by one gate, glad to escape, but by the next he turned in 
 again and walked furiously down towards the meeting 
 place. This time she saw him, and suspecting nothing 
 of unwillingness in him, came tripping, crying greeting, 
 gladness in her eyes. 
 
 They met, and Peter warmly pressed her hand, then 
 held aloof and was silent. She took that for a sign of 
 too great joy in him, and laughed, touching the silver 
 notes that had most entranced the boy in the days of 
 distairt adoration. 
 
 They stood, he not looking at her, not daring, raging 
 and yet near surrender, torn, while she, the red light 
 from her sunshade tinging all to warmth, looked side- 
 long at him, pursing lips, noting the details of his care- 
 ful dress. For her? She thought it so, and laughed 
 again; and Peter laughed. 
 
 " I'm glad I came." 
 
 " Glad? Oh! yes. The sun, blue water: green leaves 
 and smoky trunks. Such weather." 
 
 She moved and Peter followed, caught her up and 
 walked by her side, peeping under the sunshade at the 
 bewitching nose, the smiling eyes, the chin in air. She 
 walked divinely, pure Princess, and Peter said aloud: 
 
 " The airs of a Princess, clay-footed." 
 
 She thrust out a foot neatly booted. 
 
PETERi H0MUNCULU9 189 
 
 "Oh!— I can walk." 
 
 " On hills and over downs ? " 
 
 " Twelve miles if you wish it, sir." 
 
 To student Peter twelve miles was great striding. He 
 applauded. 
 
 " Do you swim? " 
 
 " I meet Leander half way in his passage — and drown 
 with him." 
 
 "Leander is drowned?" 
 
 " Leander never came." 
 
 She brought him to a tiny dell close by the Serpen- 
 tine, and there they sat. 
 
 "How is Peter?" 
 
 " Well," she said, and scanned the water. Then : 
 " Will you swim for me ? " 
 
 " Bathing," said Peter, " is not allowed before seven 
 o'clock." 
 
 "Tell me more." 
 
 " More? " 
 
 "About yourself." 
 
 " You have told me nothing of yourself." 
 
 " With you I escape from myself." 
 
 " Do you — do you also possess a mannikin ? " 
 
 She pondered this, and quickly perceived his meaning. 
 
 " A waspish little lady. Yes." 
 
 " Mine came to me to-day." 
 
 "And mine." 
 
 Peter looked up to find tender eyes upon him; they 
 demanded confidence, extorted it. 
 
 " Mine said ' Tiny man,' " 
 
 " And mine, ferociously, ' Be yourself.' " 
 
 " Mine too. ' Grow big,' it said." 
 
 " I think they say that always." 
 
190 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "Can we be?" 
 
 " You and I ? With honesty." 
 
 " Then why ? " 
 
 Peter stopped abruptly. He was on the point of 
 demanding fuller confidence from her. He dared not. 
 His youth forbade it. She divined something of his 
 thought — and a filmy unhappiness of the moment came 
 between them. 
 
 " Dear Peter," she said, and " Mary," said Peter, 
 lashing himself for the lack of temerity to say " Dear." 
 
 Behind them a boy and a girl lay on the grass read- 
 ing. 
 
 " We have invaded their Eden, Peter." The intru- 
 sion was soon forgotten. There were childish caresses 
 and embraces. 
 
 " You, too, are young," she sighed. 
 
 " I am remarkably old," he said. 
 
 " And wonderfully young." 
 
 " Old," he said, and to show his knowledge and the 
 depth of his thoughts he recited what he could remem- 
 ber of the story of the King's son, and his quest of the 
 purple sorrow. Here in the sun, and with this kind and 
 splendid lady, the story took life again and seemed a 
 fine thing. Of the recurrent phrase she said: 
 
 "Why purple? Surely grey? " 
 
 " Grey," said Peter. " Grey as the sorrow of a child- 
 less woman." 
 
 The scarlet sunshade was lowered to hide her face 
 from him. Peter babbled on imtil he felt that she was 
 not listening, then turned and saw her face covered. He 
 was hurt, and ceased. At once she raised her sun- 
 shade. 
 
 The situation was saved by the arrival of a shabby 
 
PETER' HOMUNCULUS 191 
 
 man demanding pence for the hire of the little green 
 chairs on which they sat. 
 
 " His Majesty's Commissioner of Works," said Mary. 
 " This is Royal ground," and she wished to refund the 
 twopence that Peter had paid. They wrangled deli- 
 cioqsly, and in the end she slipped the two pieces of 
 copper into his pocket when he was looking the other 
 way. In silence presently they walked to High Street, 
 Kensington, Peter pondering, she troubled, yet forcing 
 laughter, and turning over two questions that she wished 
 to ask him. 
 
 In the pleasant tea shop she opened fire. 
 
 " Why were you laughing on my brother's stairs ? " 
 
 Peter put down the cup from which he was about to 
 drink and gaped at her, then plunged into a lame ex- 
 planation of this tenor, that he had been amused at the 
 thought of climbing so many stairs to see a man not a 
 
 friend, and — and He broke off and plimged into 
 
 his meeting with her in the bird shop. 
 
 " When you left," he said, " your handkerchief lay 
 on the ground. I picked it up and have it still." 
 
 " You must give it me again." 
 
 "May I not keep it?" 
 
 " I will give you something of more worth." Then 
 ifor a second question she braced herself. 
 
 "What do you know of me, Peter?" 
 
 " What they say." 
 
 "And what say they?" 
 
 "Things odious." 
 
 " You know I am a wife? ' 
 
 "I know." 
 
 " Unworthy." 
 
 " No, no." 
 
192 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " I could not keep my husband." 
 
 " I could not blame you.'' 
 
 "Dear Peter." 
 
 " He has left you." 
 
 " I him. The best has been withheld from me." 
 
 " Poor " 
 
 " Where is my handkerchief ? " 
 
 " With all my treasures." 
 
 "Others'?" 
 
 " Not mine. Old Cooper's." 
 
 "A romance.^ " 
 
 " He loved, was loved^ and snatched wild happiness, 
 I have his letters." 
 
 "May I read?" 
 
 " Mr. Wilson has them. I think we shall publish all 
 his papers. A strange old man." 
 
 " I am going to stay near Mr. Wilson." 
 
 "I with him." 
 
 " Then we shall meet." 
 
 " I'U read you all the history. When do you go? " 
 
 " To-morrow. For months, until the autumn." 
 
 " I must lose you then ? " 
 
 " We have to-night." 
 
 The " we " from her lips thrilled Peter. 
 
 "What shall we do?" 
 
 " Dine." 
 
 "Then walk. The river, Westminster: perhaps 
 Chelsea; St. James Park at night is a place for splen- 
 did dreams." 
 
 " We will dream then." 
 
 They appointed a meeting place, and Peter walked 
 across to Mount Street with her. At the door he said: 
 
 " One thing only." 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 193 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 " No champagne to-night, I beg." 
 
 She turned laughing and Peter left her, bearing in 
 his mind a vision of Mary, young, happy, contented, at 
 rest. The consciousness of power with her set him exult" 
 ing and kept him in a state of exaltation such as he had 
 not known for long enough, all the sweeter for the noble 
 melancholy that tinged it. 
 
 In twenty-four hours Peter had grown apace, not 
 without self-torture, but without growing pains. It was 
 a calm transition, a floating and a blissful state. 
 
 They dined, not magnificently, at the little French 
 restaurant in Soho, where Peter had dined once with 
 his sister and her fiance. Miss Dugdale's entry in the 
 modest place caused sensation, and Peter found himself 
 the mark of envious eyes. 
 
 They walked as they had planned, first by the river 
 until darkness came, for, as Peter said, the gentle 
 spirits of St. James Park hide under water until the 
 lights of men, sinking to their abode, drive them forth. 
 
 " They live," he said, " like swallows, under water 
 for the winter." 
 
 Mary scouted the idea. 
 
 " It is an old wives' notion," said Peter. 
 
 The sky was pale and starry, sullen with the glare 
 of the city, red and lemon tinted. At Westminster 
 the great river, swollen with strong tides, smote both 
 to awe. 
 
 " We have hemmed him in," said Peter, " but water 
 is kind, always kind." 
 
 They leaned on the parapet, and their arms touched. 
 Mary sighed. 
 
 " Water kind? Yes, even in the drowning." 
 
194 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Drowning," said Peter, " is altogether a. pleasant 
 sensation. See, the moon drowns herself, the mirrored 
 moon." 
 
 " The mirrored moon," soft echo in Mary's voice 
 brought to the words the notes that Peter loved. 
 
 " Oh ! Mary," he said, and took her hand and 
 kissed it. 
 
 " No, boy. Oh ! no, no, no." 
 
 They walked then to the bridge over St. James' lake. 
 
 " They close the gates," said Peter, " at sunset, that 
 the Saint may walk abroad unmocked. He is followed 
 in his march by pelicans and drakes, and kingfishers 
 and herons, the male of all the water fowl. Poor soli- 
 tary, that never had a — a Mary." 
 
 And Mary cried, "Delicious boy." 
 
 "One Mary," said Peter in sepulchral tones, "is of 
 more worth to human kind than all the saints. I'll give 
 you Anthony of Padua, and Francis of Assisi, Polycarp 
 and Xenobia, and Catherine, and Matthew, Mark and 
 Luke and John, and all the Josephs, Henrys, Peters; 
 I'll give you Barnabas and Jude, and Andrew, Paul, 
 Simon, Anne and Benedict, Thomas, Ambrose, Martin, 
 Xavier." 
 
 "Stop, stop, stop." 
 
 "Alban, Stephen, Joan of Arc, all martyrs." 
 
 They came upon the bridge, and Mary sounded, 
 " Oh ! " and stood, and laid her hand where the boy's 
 might close on it. 
 
 " It is a place of fauns, and nymphs and reed-pipe 
 dances." 
 
 "With saints? Oh! no." 
 
 " The saints are blind to them." 
 
 "Poor saints." 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 195 
 
 They stood there hand in hand. 
 
 " The rhythm of the place," said Peter. 
 
 "Let us go." 
 
 Her eyes sought his and her lips parted. Peter 
 stooped. 
 
 From behind them came a cry, a sob. A woman 
 stood, crouching, cowering on the bridge, wrenched 
 by grief. She moved, and the moon lighting on her 
 revealed a woman's face, drawn, drawn and white, 
 blank, staring with tear-clouded eyes. Her hair streamed 
 over her face, her hat was awry, but even in her great 
 distress she was comely. She strove to walk, but an- 
 guish would not be controlled. She reeled and Peter 
 leaped to stay her. 
 
 She turned and saw him, strained away. 
 
 " Tessa ! " he cried, and caught her. Mary came, and 
 together they two comforted the girl. 
 
 "What is it, Tessa?" 
 
 Tessa sobbed. 
 
 ?' Oh, tell me." 
 
 Still she sobbed, then wildly caught at Mary. 
 
 " Have you loved? " she said, " loved, loved and been 
 cast aside? " 
 
 " Tell me," said Mary, and held the girl to her 
 breast. 
 
 " He loved me: yes he did. He took me out of " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Mary. 
 
 " I was good to him, I was, I was. For years, three 
 years, I was good to him, a plain man — Stanley War- 
 rington. Then there came another, called himself his 
 friend, and took me. I never wanted him — never — 
 never — never. A bad man — Bond." 
 
 That word — Bond, struck fire. Mary's basbaad! 
 
196 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter turned to her — she caught her breath and swayed, 
 then laughed, and laughed again, while Tessa babbled 
 on unheeded. 
 
 Mary's face grew hard: she set her teeth and won 
 to calmness. Peter gloried in her then. 
 
 Then Tessa fiercely. " I won't, I won't, I can't — go 
 back to it. He's turned me out — out, and me so good to 
 him." 
 
 " I think," said Peter, " I think the fauns have played 
 us tricks." 
 
 Mary flashed: " To spite the saints," and Peter, feel- 
 ing in the face of the lamentable condition of Tessa 
 that at all costs he must say something, borrowed from 
 Blaise Pascal. 
 
 " If Cleopatra s nose had been shorter, the whole 
 face of the world would have been changed." 
 
 " Rubbish," said Mary. " What are we to do with 
 her.?" 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " Oh, Peter— not I, but she." 
 
 They returned to Tessa and drew from her the con- 
 fession that she had flown from the little fiat in Chelsea 
 by the four chimneys, just as she was, without thought 
 of destination, housing, money or food. She had ranged 
 over London, running, sobbing, striving to quell her 
 grief, to penetrate the blackness that was upon her. 
 
 " I can take her to-night," Mary said. 
 
 "To your home?" 
 
 " I am alone, but for Peter." 
 
 " What will you do with her? " 
 
 " I shall think of that to-morrow. She must rest, 
 sleep, be fed." 
 
 They led Tessa across to Pall Mall and hailed a cab. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 197 
 
 Peter assisted the two women, and gave the address. 
 
 "Will you come, Peter?" 
 
 " There is nothing that I can do." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye, we shall meet again." 
 
 " In S'urrey." 
 
 " Yes. Good-bye. My handkerchief." 
 
 " I will bring it, and you will give me .'' " 
 
 " Many things. Good-bye, and bless St. James." 
 
 " And damn the fauns." 
 
 The cab rolled away as Mary waved a hand. Tessa, 
 exhausted, had sunk into a corner. Peter stood watch- 
 ing. Mary had been admirable, glorious in the tender 
 fooling J a heroine and great woman iir the moment 
 when the misfortunes of Tessa had touched home and 
 shamed her. 
 
 And Peter cursed the name of Mr. Bertram Bond, the 
 destroyer of Mary's peace and Tessa's home. 
 
 " A simpering fool-villain. Bond ! " The reitera- 
 tion of the gentleman's monosyllabic name brought com- 
 fort until there came the thwacking truth that Mary 
 shared it. Greenfield — Dugdale — Bond! Bond! Mary 
 B ; lips would not frame it. 
 
 The whole thing was misty, intricate. Out of the 
 steaminess of it came Wilson's tragic face. How was 
 he woven into the tangle? And himself, he, Peter 
 Davies, tiny man no more, what was he to be in the 
 weaving ? 
 
 " Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos." The names re- 
 peated themselves again and again, and Peter was serin 
 ously disturbed because he could not remember whicl) 
 of the three held the shears. 
 
198 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Then: " Mary, Mary, Mary." Tiny man no more. He 
 squared his shoulders and strode. There was that in 
 his face that made many turn to gaze after him in the 
 street, and as he strode, he composed a letter: 
 
 " Love is not for hugging. It is rather a giving out 
 and out and out. It is a treasure inexhaustible, to be 
 had for the delving; a cruse to pour milk and honey 
 over all the world — a divine possession." 
 
 Oh, damn old Cooper. He had said that to his silly 
 Clara, simpering Demeter of Dresden. 
 
 Peter could invent no more phrases. " Mary, Mary, 
 Mary," was sufficient. Xavier Cooper, over three years 
 dead, overwhelmed Peter, swamped him, even in this 
 great happening. 
 
 Peter never once gave thought to Mattie. A letter 
 came from her next day to say that for two days she 
 should be in London before setting out upon her travels, 
 that she was anxious to see his dear silly face, and that 
 she was ever his. 
 
 Another letter came from Mary, saying that she had 
 decided to take Tessa to be her dresser in the theatre, 
 and was going to send her to the sea to recover from 
 the effects, more serious than she had conceived, of the 
 calamity. There was no word of her own trouble, noth- 
 ing of sickness at heart. 
 
 "Do not scold me out of this dear foolishness, boy 
 dear; I never will demand of you more than you can 
 give me, never, never, never. M." 
 
 " Everything, everything," cried Peter. " The whole 
 world, stars, and the sun, all the worlds. Oh — fool ! " 
 and lovesick Peter kissed the letter. 
 
 He took the handkerchief from the desk and kissed 
 that too; the necklace in his hands and held it lonj, 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS 199 
 
 dreaming how he would one day clasp it about Mary'a 
 white throat. 
 
 He exulted to have kissed her hand. " St. James. St. 
 James. St. James ! Blind saint, never to see the fauns 
 and numphs, the goat-legged creatures, the reed-pipe 
 dances. Wretched saint, most truly martyr. Pan ! Pan ! 
 Pan! — Pan teaching a young faun his notes upon the 
 pipes ..." 
 
 Miss Bastable gravely discussed the condition of her 
 lodger with her slave. 
 
 " It's a scented woman," she said with a sniff of 
 righteousness. 
 
VII 
 
 Tessa, so Peter heard from Mary, was lodged at 
 Barnstaple, where the gentle air of Devon would restore 
 her strength. 
 
 Miss Dugdale paid visits in Surrey, Sussex, Kent, 
 and Peter followed her with rhaspody, and glowing 
 words. He soared so in these days of trembling happi- 
 ness, and sped so swiftly through the, air at dizzy height 
 that he must sort with common things, or touch stars 
 and be consumed. He would come quivering to the 
 pen, and never read what he had written before he sent 
 it to her. 
 
 A poem ran: 
 
 Ride in the air, winged horses, ride with me. 
 
 Souls leaping to the sun. 
 Swim in kind water. Me in grey green arms of sea 
 Learn all the spaciousness of Earth's humility. 
 
 Resolving two in one. 
 
 Sing, let your body sing, your soul chant with the earth. 
 Make music with the moon. * 
 
 Sun drawing life through you, create, create, give birth; 
 
 I, I, the instrument, bring flashings of God's mirth, — 
 Laughter, the child's boon. 
 
 She divined his condition, and fed him with idle talk 
 and gossip in her letters. She told him of horses she 
 had ridden, or beasts befriended; of sick persons visited 
 and children won from shyness ; of odd characters among 
 fellow-guests; of small adventures; of boys enamoured 
 and old men enslaved by Diana. 
 
 800 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 201 
 
 " It has always been," sKe wrote, " that I am nicer 
 out of London; as who is not? I wish so much to share 
 green things with you. Already you have made me 
 sweeter, delicious boy. I heard Sir John Defries, the 
 judge, you know, and the kindest soul, ' Miss Dugdale 
 is a girl again.' They know my story. I hugged you 
 to me then. Sir John has been so good to me. He is 
 the " 
 
 Some word she had written here, but had crossed out 
 again, crossed and re-crossed. Peter was hungry for 
 more tender words, and curiosity was roused only for a 
 moment. 
 
 In all the houses where she was there seemed to be 
 great persons, Swain, the lawyer, and Bankes, the young 
 Under Secretary, of so great promise; Barclay Coke, 
 the socialist writer and wit; Sam Barker, the editor of 
 the only respectable newspaper left in England; New- 
 ton, the publisher; Sir Isaac Moss, the financier; all 
 controlling men. She seemed to move so easily among 
 them all, and Peter, healthily a snob, was properly 
 impressed, though she had never given thought to that. 
 There was good physic in it, too, for it brought home 
 to Peter the awful daring of his love, that he, a little 
 student with no place to serve his kind, no ground as- 
 sured, of small achievement, should look so high and 
 not be blinded. He knew that she had raised him, and 
 " in this dear foolishness," as she had called it, had 
 taken him for her own, had stripped herself of armour 
 for him. In that strange and dreadful time, with Tessa, 
 they had been marvellously close together. And yet — 
 and yet — -■ — ; there was so much she had he must not 
 share, could not, by circumstance, enjoy, with her, from 
 sheer unfitness. His life had but begun with her, while 
 
202 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 she, with this, and this, and this, was formed, a creature 
 to give delight to thousands and bring sorrow to a few. 
 As dispassionately as he could, by an heroic effort he 
 viewed the situation and achieved a humility that he had 
 never known before, and never approached again save 
 once. He knew and so confessed to her that there could 
 have been nothing, no moment of that marvellous day 
 and night without the Cooper wisdom in which he was 
 saturated. In this mood he wrote out for her from 
 memory the letters, Clara's and young Cooper's, and 
 Mary wept for joy over the budget which she found 
 waiting for her at the Bassett-Crewes, her greatest 
 friends, and cousins of poor Warrington, whom she 
 found there melancholy and mood-stricken, with his frail 
 and gentle wife, another Mary. 
 
 She came to Peter's Mary with her woes and clung 
 about her, feeling her strong and sure. She loved her 
 Warrington, and, for he shed no light upon his doings, 
 being by nature secret and by adversity more, sought 
 the reason of his distraction and moroseness in herself. 
 She was very wretched, and Miss Dugdale could do no 
 more than listen. It had been long since she had been 
 a confidant, and, though she thought comically of the 
 Confidante of Tilburina in The Critic, she ascribed 
 her new warmth and power to attract to Peter, told him 
 so and set him greatly rejoicing. 
 
 More than ever alone, now that she was gone he 
 roamed through London, but no longer despondently. 
 He was full of charity to all men and keenly interested 
 in all that they did and were. He began to plume 
 himself on his perception, and in omnibuses and in res- 
 taurants, in streets or in the parks, would mark down 
 men and women and weave a history for them. Most 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 203 
 
 often he was wildly in error in translating to them all 
 his own emotions and experience. A great thought came 
 to him as a result of these peregrinations. 
 
 " My emotions^ thoughts, and experiences are the sum 
 of all human emotions, thoughts, and experience." 
 
 Another thought thrilled him, 
 
 " There are millions of forms of life which I can 
 not see, nor feel, nor hear. How, then, if the whole 
 human fabric is erected on primaeval error ? " 
 
 This, of course, was only Cooper's Shelley cropping 
 up in him. He took it for a great new thought, and 
 enlarged upon it to Mary, to whom it was altogether 
 novel and shattering. In truth it was a ghastly idea, 
 and, chuckling over his own wit, he found the refuta- 
 tion of it. 
 
 " Impossible: for the human fabric is built on Mary.'^ 
 
 To this she wrote: 
 
 " True, Mary is crushed." 
 
 This interchange of letters was great fun and kept 
 Peter happy and in a conciliatory mood, so that for the 
 first time he won a sort of popularity in the house in 
 Gordon Square. Since the momentous interview with 
 Wilson, the foolish boy had been practising inscruta- 
 bility on his fellow-boarders with disastrous results to 
 the peaceful air of the place. The remark of Mary's 
 " waspish little lady " had sunk home, and Peter strug- 
 gled to be himself, though most often he succeeded only 
 in presenting Cooper, Wilson, Scott, but made them all 
 charming. A cynical person might say that the whole 
 secret of it was that Peter made the boarders talk about 
 themselves. 
 
 Cynics rarely do more than scratch the surface: they 
 are so lazy. 
 
204 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 While Peter roamed and loafed, and made new friends 
 and told it all to Mary, she in the country sang his 
 praises. 
 
 The Bassett-Crewe house was only five miles from 
 Wilson's cottage, and he joined their party more than 
 once. She never spoke to him of Peter, nor let him 
 know that she had met the boy: but Bassett-Crewe, a 
 solid man with mines and railways and whole king- 
 doms in America, to whom she had given what she could 
 of Peter's charm and gentleness, had come to Wilson to 
 ask him what he knew of Mary's friend. 
 
 " A brainy shop-walker," said Wilson. 
 
 " Miss Dugdale finds more in him." 
 
 Wilson sat on the parapet of the terrace looking out 
 over water to blue hills pine-clad. He smoked his pipe 
 muttering : 
 
 " So do I. The phrase was spiteful. He is to stay 
 with me shortly." 
 
 " You must bring the marvel to visit us." 
 
 " Yes," said Wilson, and drew away from the topic. 
 He did not care for Crewe, because he had red ears. 
 
 They fell to discussing the theatre in England. 
 
 " Kemble, retired to Lausanne, was jealous of the 
 homage paid Mount Blanc," said Wilson. 
 
 Crewe laughed at this. Wilson was contemptuous, 
 for he saw that the good man had no conception of the 
 relation of men and mountains. 
 
 " This Davies. Can he write? " 
 
 " Very fast, I should say." Crewe stuck to his guns. 
 He was not to be repulsed by Wilson's humour. 
 
 " Could he write to order ? " 
 
 " The sort of stufi" that is written to order. Good 
 of its kind. He has an extraordinary memory, and can 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 205 
 
 tag you with the best of them in Latin, Greek, French, 
 and German." 
 
 Mary joined them, and Peter was dropped in favour 
 of discussion of the new comedy wherein she was to 
 appear, an adaptation of Wilson's story of which she 
 had stood for heroine. Wilson grew animated, but, 
 Crewe prying, became irritable, bit at his pipe, wrinkled 
 his nose and tugged at his moustache. 
 
 Mary knew the danger signals, and steered a clear 
 course. Crewe left them, puzzled by odd Wilson. 
 
 " So rude," he said to his wife. 
 
 "I adore the man," she said. 
 
 " So do I." 
 
 Crewe was mystified and scratched his head. 
 
 " Shall I take you out on the water, Mary ? " said 
 Wilson. 
 
 He brought cushions, and together they went down to 
 the lake where was a Canadian canoe. He held it for 
 her, and she stepped in. Then slowly he paddled until 
 they came to where the water lilies grew thick, floating 
 cups, silver and gold. She gathered some and laid 
 them at her feet. They dripped water on her pink 
 linen. With her left hand she brushed the drops away, 
 and caught Wilson staring at the ring upon her finger. 
 
 He said nothing, but when she had enough of pluck- 
 ing, took her to where a beech grew low over the water, 
 trailing leaves and spreading, arbour-like. 
 
 " The gentleman among trees," said Mary. 
 
 " That's Peter." 
 
 "Yes," said Mary, startled into confession. 
 
 " The ring is Peter's, too." 
 
 " Yes, the ring is Peter's. An old man gave it him: an 
 old man who — who loved this country. I — I had great 
 
20a PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 days with Peter: one evening when — when he gave me 
 this, and then again an evening when— when we 
 walked " 
 
 It was odious to have to justify herself with Wilson; 
 — if he should condemn — ^that could not alter Peter. 
 She looked across at the man, but nothing in his aspect 
 told her his thought, or if he took the matter to himself 
 at all. This ignoring cut deeply, opened old wounds. 
 He knew the pain in her, but could not help: only main- 
 tained cruel silence. She drummed with her fingers on 
 the canoe's edge. This irritated him. 
 
 "Why can't you be my friend? " she said. He mut- 
 tered inarticulately. 
 
 " Peter says water is kind." 
 
 " Old Cooper said it." 
 
 " Mr. Crewe is starting a paper — a weekly. Will 
 you speak for Peter? " 
 
 " I have," said Wilson. 
 
 "Why are you angry?" 
 
 " I called him once an Achilles with brains. Who 
 ^dits the paper?" 
 
 "Mr. Sandilands in all probability; it is Liberal." 
 
 Wilson filled his pipe again. 
 
 "You have hurt poor Warrington." 
 
 «I?_No— No." 
 
 "What is it then?" 
 
 " I— I cannot tell you." 
 
 "Where is— he?" 
 
 " He ! I do not know. I think in London." 
 
 " Urging the wretched Scholes to libel." 
 
 "That is his trade." 
 
 " Hard words, Mary." 
 
 "I must be bitter." 
 
PETER! HOMUNCULUa 207. 
 
 They were silent again. 
 
 " Will you go from here, Mary, before Peter comes 
 to me?" 
 
 " I must not see him ? " 
 
 "Why sweep him into our coil? " 
 
 " A son to me." 
 
 " H'm. He has written to you? " 
 
 " Much." 
 
 "Son-like letters?" 
 
 She gave wild Peter's verses. 
 
 " It is a betrayal." 
 
 " A boy " This contemptuously, and Wilson 
 
 took the paddle, and they returned in silence. 
 
 Near the house he touched her arm. She shrank 
 from him. 
 
 He said, " You must go, Mary, or I'll not let him 
 come." She was defiant for a moment, then caught her 
 breath and ran into the house. 
 
 Wilson took his bicycle, and to avoid the Bassett- 
 Crewes, walked across the park and out by the farm gate. 
 
 All that evening he sat and smoked. Not once did 
 Matilda receive a caress from him. 
 
 Mary pleaded a headache, and did not come to din- 
 ner, but by the window of her room read a new letter 
 from Peter in which he told her every affair of the heart 
 through which he had passed; such a touching simple 
 confession that Mary laughed and cried together over it. 
 
 She sat brooding on all that she had been, turning and 
 turning over in her mind the hard facts — ^her miserable 
 love for Wilson, the bitter hurt, the wild despairing 
 search for remedy; her disastrous marriage entered into 
 without thought, with no knowledge of her husband nor 
 intimacy with him, no spiritual life with him or sharing: 
 
208 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 hideous discovery, and the frightful moment when he 
 had struck her: a cruel man at his basest, but nothing 
 that he had done was fully known to her, until Tessa 
 came: he had tortured her, twisted her, must have with- 
 ered her, had she not left him for a sort of freedom, 
 but great loneliness. Peter had come, kind Peter, with 
 such understanding and sympathy, to give her warmth, 
 and now — and now — she must go — ^not right for Peter: 
 not fair for Peter. Just? — ^yes. She knew it to be just, 
 but cruel for her, who had done no harm nor wrong, but 
 in the blind squandering of tenderness. Peter too 
 young? But — ^but Peter had such words 
 
 The sadness of the moonless night came over her. 
 She wept: and presently she slept, head on her arm, 
 there by the window. So her friend, Cynthia Crewe, com- 
 ing to oflfer sympathy, found her and aided her to bed. 
 A large, kind woman, this Cynthia, a mother of fine 
 sons. 
 
 Mary stole away and hid herself by the sea, first by 
 Beaulieu River, and then at Mudeford on Christchurch 
 Bay. She did not write to Peter. She lay often in the 
 warm grass of the seashore, watching the light changing 
 in the water and on the sandbank at the Avon's mouth. 
 They said the bank would grow and grow, house mar- 
 tins and sea birds, put forth rough grass, until there 
 came a storm, whereon the sea would devour the Whole. 
 
 " I am so builded, and so I shall be engulphed," 
 thought Mary, and sought comfort in the reflection that 
 Peter would not see the swallowing. " He must not, 
 shall not." 
 
 The sea bred in her a savage humility, which,- sweet 
 enough in itself, was foreign to her nature and not 
 tolerable for long. She moved then to a small hotel by 
 
PETEBl HOMUNCULUS 209 
 
 Lyndhurst, and sought the comradeship of trees. They 
 were comfortable, but in the end tormented her with 
 memories of old Cooper's letter of trees and babies, and 
 for her in the glimmer of the woods cherubic creatures 
 floated like bubbles. 
 
 Again she fled, and went far north to a homely sister 
 wedded to a farmer on the moors by Pickering. Here 
 she found strength: the great air of this place and rude 
 living fortified her, but did not altogether cast out 
 weakness, for when the time was come for Peter's visit 
 she wrote to Wilson. 
 
 He answered, but did not even say whether the boy 
 ,was with him. 
 
 Peter, in fact, was not. 
 
 Two things had held in London — a letter from Bas- 
 sett-Crewe concerning the new journal, and asking him 
 to see Sandilands (the name was imposing for Peter), 
 and the desire also to discover the state of Mattie con- 
 cerning himself. Her letter showed that she scented 
 change. 
 
 Peter had struggled manfully to act in accordance 
 with the accepted code, and had written at some length, 
 but, conscious that the phrasing was stilted, the expres- 
 sion insincere he tore it up. He seemed in his own view 
 to cut a poor figure. 
 
 And then — and then — no word came from Mary. The 
 last had been just before the flight from the Bassett- 
 Crewes, had spoken of Wilson, and the possibility of 
 the new journal providing work, but nothing of her 
 movements. Peter would have journeyed post haste to 
 Wilson but that he was still engaged with^ his fellow- 
 Student, and also busy with his professor upon research. 
 This man had shewn Peter some tenderness and special 
 
210 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 favour, and having an etymological theory was hungry 
 for disciples. Peter promised well, and worked absorb- 
 edly until the Bassett-Crewe letter came to send him 
 flying. Until it could become definite, however, he stood 
 loyally to his man, and grubbed with energy after 
 Aryan roots. 
 
 " Man first spoke in Asia," said the Professor. 
 
 " And the Himalayas grew the taller for it," said 
 Peter. The Professor scented no irony, was indeed im- 
 pervious to all such barbs, and said: "I dare say," 
 absently, for he was intent upon an extraordinary use 
 of a dental in the song of a trouvere. Peter had read 
 many of these songs, and in the light of Mary-truth 
 found all troubadours and knights rather shoddy people. 
 
 He went to see the great Sandilands in a little office 
 in the newspaper regions. The man was known as an 
 " intransigeant," and Peter found him rather swollen 
 with importance, and on the perception of Peter's 
 youth he took on a patronising air. He sounded Peter, 
 and talked vaguely of the literary staflf, could promise 
 nothing, sent him away disheartened. The Professor 
 at least thought him worthy of courtesy. 
 
 Bassett-Crewe's letter, coming when it did, was not a 
 little unfortunate for Peter, since in the march towards 
 greatness it spurred impatience of the preparation for it: 
 and while Peter found it amusing enough to earn a 
 few pounds with the Professor in the root-grubbing, 
 the more dazzling prospect of an entry into good jour- 
 nalism made Peter realise horribly, and with too sud- 
 den an insight, that his examination was no great thing. 
 Too early he learned to despise the University and its 
 methods, and developed a vein of diluted Cooper irony 
 for the derision and contemning of education in general. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 211 
 
 Altogether Peter was in a lamentable condition. 
 Tender alarm had been the first result of Mary's defec- 
 tion from correspondencej then wrath, then sulkiness 
 and vanity injured. The role of blighted lover was one 
 that he enjoyed for a short period; he courted loneli- 
 ness, and in an asinine plunge into sentimentality he 
 revisited the scenes of wonder, heaving great sighs, and 
 in the end worked himself into a condition so stupid, 
 so dull and insensible as to destroy not only all his new 
 popularity in the boarding-house, and the almost awe 
 with which the little fellow-student with whom he 
 worked regarded him, but his own self-respect. He rec- 
 ognised the fall, but gloated over the wounds, and 
 drifted into slovenliness. He made no attempt to write, 
 dressed deliberately in his oldest and shabbiest, and be- 
 came careless in the matter of shaving, which, as his 
 beard was black, was a matter of importance. 
 
 If Sandilands had been kinder the worst might have 
 been avoided. Peter knew this and hated Sandilands. 
 Wilson did not write, and Peter hated Wilson. No fur- 
 ther word came from Bassett-Crewe, and him also Peter 
 hated. 
 
 But most Peter was filled with loathing for himself, 
 and so thoroughly enjoyed the loathing that he expended 
 such energy of mind as was left him in thinking out 
 new depths to which he might descend. He was so nicely 
 constituted, however, that he could think of nothing 
 worse than to visit Mr. Lawrence Greenfield. 
 
 He was hailed by the young gentleman as heaven- 
 sent. 
 
 Mr. Greenfield was not a pleasant sight when he 
 opened the door to Peter. He was towsled and un- 
 shaven, though it was half -past six in the evening. His 
 
212 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 face was puffy and mottled, and little eyes were sunk 
 and blinked in his head. He thought Peter unsightly, 
 and after some moments smoking of his pipe, nodded 
 his head and said so. 
 
 " Better not let Scholes see you," he said. " He'll 
 put you in his book. It's about drunk — drunkards." 
 
 " As to drink," said Peter, " let me refer you to the 
 remarks of Sir Toby Belch." 
 
 Mr. Greenfield stood blinking. He seemed to be 
 amazed by the literary allusion. 
 
 ' Queer little — ^little devil," he said at length. 
 
 Peter, a little weary of waiting, said pointedly: 
 
 " Are you alone to-night? " 
 
 " Come in," said Mr. Greenfield, and Peter accepted 
 the invitation. He declined the whiskey and soda prof- 
 fered as soon as he had found a seat, and Mr. Green- 
 field drank it for him. 
 
 In a burst of confidence he explained to Peter that 
 his lady had cruelly deserted him, and Peter expressed 
 sympathy. Mr. Greenfield was touched and shewed 
 Peter a portrait of her successor, a young lady with 
 masses of hair and eyes turned heavenwards in mincing 
 innocence. 
 
 Peter expressed great admiration, and Mr. Green- 
 field said: 
 
 " Like to go to see her? She dances." 
 
 Peter accepted the diversion, as he would have ac- 
 cepted a suggestion that they should, like Solomon Eagle, 
 set London in fiame, or stand on the steps of St. Paul's 
 hurling imprecations. He found Mr. Greenfield a bore, 
 but took him for a castigation of the flesh proper to 
 his mood and pose of martyr. Besides, having delib- 
 erately sought him out for the express purpose of deg- 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 213 
 
 radation, he must pursue the creature whithersoever he 
 led, as Faust did Mephistopheles. 
 
 This comparison pleased Peter. Himself as Faust, 
 weary and sated with books, and poetic living, was cer- 
 tainly good casting, Greenfield was a sorry Mephisto, 
 however, in nothing clever, vicious only from lack of 
 character. 
 
 " A silhouette of a man," said Peter. " I prefer men 
 in the round." 
 
 Determined to play the Faust game, he took this in- 
 ferior Mephisto and waited while he retired to his cham- 
 ber to array himself in gentlemanly garb. 
 
 In the room were two photographs of Miss Dugdale 
 placed in the centre of the mantelpiece on either side 
 of the picture of a faded old lady, obviously her mother, 
 the wife of the Devon watchmaker. It seemed then that 
 Mr. Greenfield, whatever his faults, had some sort of 
 feeling for the womenkind of his family, and Peter, who 
 had none, was set wondering. 
 
 Mary, in the earlier photograph, at the age of 
 eighteen, was a pretty fool, hardly pretty indeed, so 
 empty was her face. The later portrait showed the 
 Mary that he knew, splendid, tender, with wonder in 
 her eyes and sorrow. Peter' compared the two — his 
 Mary and the other who had no doubt been someone 
 else's Mary. Not the same woman ! His Mary was his 
 alone, his creation. 
 
 That thought struck him as profound, and true. He 
 noted it thus: 
 
 " Our friends are curiously the children of our souls : 
 so that in all real friendship, deep-rooted, there is some- 
 thing of the passion of creation." 
 
 It is to be observed that here Peter used the word 
 
214 PETEBi HOMUNCULUS 
 
 friendship^ not love. He was so ashamed of himself, 
 and would not consider himself at the moment in the 
 more blessed relation with the woman. He had been 
 childish in his conduct, ridiculous and small in judging 
 her without word from her, and knowledge of the in- 
 ward happenings which had produced her silence. 
 
 He admitted this as he scrutinised her portrait, and 
 for four seconds was for stealing away without her 
 brother. The Faust prospect repelled him, but the hurt 
 to his vanity came suddenly, twinging, and he sat obsti- 
 nately to face the worst. She had exalted him only to 
 send him empty away, dashing him to the ground. Her 
 fault or his, the result was the same, and the greater 
 the descent the more interesting himself under the micro- 
 scope. 
 
 Besides, and this was the poorest excuse put forward, 
 be wished to study the habits of the genus Greenfield. 
 
 Peter had never been either borrower or lender, and 
 had not developed a nose for the predatory. An expert 
 would have marked Mr. Greenfield in a moment, and 
 would have avoided the proposed dinner at an expensive 
 eating-house. Peter, however, having committed him- 
 self to the guidance of Mr. Greenfield, complied in all 
 his suggestions, and, first diving into a bar (every en- 
 trance to the Temple has at least one tavern in its im- 
 mediate vicinity), they partook at Peter's expense of 
 sherry and bitters, a beverage new to him and rather 
 distasteful. They dined solidly, and in gloomy silence, 
 and when Mr. Greenfield shamefacedly confessed his 
 penniless state, Peter paid without a murmur out of the 
 five pounds he had drawn from the post office savings 
 bank for the purchase of a new suit, hat and boots, 
 prior to his visit to Wilson. 
 
PETEB HOMUNCULUS 215 
 
 Mr. Greenfield's eyes gleamed hopefully as Peter 
 shook the pieces of gold out of his pigskin purse into 
 the palm of his hand. 
 
 " Money," he said, " is the root of all evil." 
 
 " No," said Peter, in his most fiercely dogmatic man- 
 ner. " Jealousy." 
 
 "I have never," said Mr. Greenfield, "been jealous 
 of anybody, man, woman or child." 
 
 " You lie." Peter was already weary of his com- 
 panion with his trick of swallowing a remark, pro- 
 found or otherwise, without applying it to any sort of 
 test either of theory or experience. 
 
 " I," said Peter, " I am jealous of your fund of 
 small talk: jealous of your appearance: jealous of the 
 assurance with which you accost a barmaid: jealous of 
 the insolence with which, without a penny in your 
 pocket, you bully a waiter: jealous of your capacity to 
 drink and lie and grumble: jealous of your easy con- 
 science: jealous of your mode of living because it is 
 so diflferent from my own: of your clothes: of your ac- 
 quaintance: of your work, because you are paid for it, 
 and I am not : of your untroubled relations with women." 
 
 " Untroubled ! " said Mr. Greenfield in protest. " Try 
 it." 
 
 Peter did not heed the protest. It is doubtful, indeed, 
 if he heard it, so intent was he in his harangue. He 
 continued: 
 
 " Why, I am jealous even of the qualities in you 
 which I should most dislike to possess — of those per- 
 haps most of all." 
 
 " One of the first rules of modern play-writing is 
 to avoid the tirade." 
 
 Peter had not thought Mr. Greenfield, green dwarf 
 
210 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 with the clammy hand, metropolitan of unpleasant hab- 
 its, one-half so Subtle. The adroitly administered re- 
 buke staggered him, and silenced him. He allowed him- 
 self to be led without a word, after paying the bill, out 
 into the crowded Strand and away to a music-hall, 
 where, upon payment of five shillings, they were admitted 
 to a glittering promenade, where flashing women hov- 
 ered, leering, and men of all conditions lounged and 
 loafed. Peter quailed, and Mr. Greenfield, sensible to 
 his companion's innocence, donned the Mephistic char- 
 acter, and leeringly took charge. He seemed to be 
 known in the place, for uniformed o£Bcials, and the 
 vendors of tobacco and alcohol, had all a greeting for 
 him, while they looked askance at owlish Peter, blink- 
 ing. There were many young men of the Same kidney, 
 all smoking large cigars, all a little loud in their dress, 
 all a little fantastically affected in their mien, a night- 
 mare of Greenfields. There were tiny Orientals, 
 Siamese, and Japanese, paying attention to the largest 
 of the leering women. The whole place reeked with the 
 musky scent which was associated in Peter's mind with 
 that first encounter with poor Tessa. 
 
 Applausie drew their attention to the stage, and push- 
 ing their way through the throng they leaned over the 
 brass rail and gazed at the ballet, a beautiful spectacu- 
 lar effect which had roused enthusiasm. The scene 
 was a valley in France, a field near the ruins of a castle 
 of the old regime. The tree of Liberty stood sur- 
 mounted with its red cap, while in the new light of the 
 dawn peasants danced and sang and rioted. The ballet 
 was called "Revolution," and, after a Watteau scene 
 disturbed in its peace by the rude entry of wild boors 
 inflamed by the new ideal, shewed in its last tableau 
 
PETEB HOMUNCULUS 217 
 
 that period in Frencfi history when the sun shone, and 
 the whole nation^ divining that the millenirium had come 
 and not suspecting that the tyranny of kings was to be 
 succeed by that of the army and the mob, went crazy, and 
 wine ran free. " Not the minds and small aims of gov- 
 ernors, but vines and corn are the life of the people " — 
 and " The truth of politics is that nations are governed 
 ill spite of them " ; these sentences the author of the 
 ballet had printed on the programme for motto, and by 
 way of text. Peter remembered reading the newspaper 
 criticisms of the production, and that the "ballet with 
 a purpose " had been flouted. 
 
 He found himself with all the multitude in the place 
 enthralled, and yet with an uncomfortable sense that 
 such sincerity in such a form for such people as he 
 saw around him — heavy faces, low in forehead, fatted 
 men, and women of small purpose, and no achievement 
 — was near the grotesque. 
 
 Out of the wild leaping throng on the stage came a 
 tricksy figure, tripping lightly, careless, gay, clad in 
 tri-color, and on her head the scarlet cap of liberty, 
 while round her shoulders tossed and flew long flaming 
 locks. All the house was silent save for a silly murmur 
 and the clink of glasses from one of the bars. On the 
 stage the little figure flew, speeding round with great 
 strides, feet pointing yet scarcely touching the boards, 
 hither, thither, in and out; urging, teasing, mocking, 
 crying out and swelling tumult, while strange music fol- 
 lowed her and mounted higher, higher, to a crashing 
 close, whereon she stood on tiptoe and threw garlands 
 to the mob and ribbons, red, white, and blue; touched 
 glasses with a few, then tossed her cap in air, and stood 
 with arms akimbo, head back, to drink the sun while 
 
218 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 the music from low bird-like twitterings swelled and 
 grew into the hymn of the Marseillaise. Silence then, 
 and the curtain descended. Peter, with the rest shouted, 
 stamped and roared and hurled his hat. A lackey held 
 the curtain back while the little creature came simpering. 
 Peter caught his breath and leaned forward. Evening 
 Glory Jane! 
 
 She tripped away just as he had seen her dance back 
 to the admiring crowd outside the bird-shop. 
 
 "Gosh!" and "Gosh!" again. 
 
 The curtain rose seven times for the little dancer to 
 appear, but each time she drew with her now this, now 
 that performer. 
 
 " Like to know her? " said Mr. Greenfield. 
 
 " I do," said Peter. " I have seen her do a greater 
 thing than that." 
 
 " Bosh." 
 
 "What is she called?" 
 
 " Mignon. I call her Mignonette." 
 
 " I knew her once as Evening Glory Jane. That 
 name is better: her hair, you know." 
 
 " She is going to America." 
 
 " The richest nation," said Peter, " buys always the 
 best of all the others." 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Greenfield, fatuously. " I had an 
 offer to go there." 
 
 This met only with a disconcerting silence. 
 
 " She's quite new. Straight out of the gutter. Tubby 
 Haines, the ballet-master, saw her in the street dancing 
 like a mad thing, and took her into the corps for train- 
 ing. In this she was just one of the mob until the first 
 full rehearsal, when she burst out like that, and down 
 the stage she rushed. Haines cursed her, and would 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 219 
 
 have sacked her, but Cantagalli, the author, was wild 
 about her, made her do it again and again, and there 
 she is, the success of the thing. All London comes to 
 see her, and they give her no more than if she were just 
 in the corps." 
 
 "A glorious gnome," said Peter, and no more. Of 
 his first acquaintance with the amazing creature he could 
 not speak with Greenfield. He was quivering still with 
 the pleasure she had given him. It had been so keen 
 that tears had gathered in his eyes, and she had, by the 
 perfection of her art, and the joyousness of her per- 
 formance, called forth all the best in him, so that he 
 was not a little ashamed of his recent self, ashamed of 
 his seeking out of Greenfield, and ashamed that he could 
 not now be more gracious to the hapless youth. He 
 strove manfully, but in vain. Intercourse with Green- 
 field was too heavy going. He was relieved when a 
 large florid man, fascinating in his loudness, wearing a 
 shirt with many tucks and frills, beringed and be-mon- 
 ocled, shiny in hat and boots, accosted his companion and 
 led him in the direction of a bar. Peter turned to the 
 stage again. 
 
 After the whirling brilliance of Mignon, Evening 
 Glory Jane so marvellously translated from grime to 
 glitter, the other performances were flat, stale and un- 
 profitable: performing dogs, and acrobats, and young 
 women balanced upon wires, voiceless singers and 
 humourless comedians. Much the most entertaining 
 were the beasts, though they were pathetic, too — noble 
 brutes trained to perform fool tricks. 
 
 The grim irony of it seized Peter, so that he could 
 not bear to watch the poor women labouring to amuse. 
 iThe cruelty of it: Peter recalled all the old stories of 
 
220 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 clowns cracking jokes while their nearest lay dying, and 
 singers giving delight while all that was best for them 
 was lost; and he wondered to how many of the hundreds 
 in the auditorium did the thought come that these painted 
 creatures also were men and women with wives, children, 
 cherished creatures and belongings. Puppets, poor 
 wretches: with tradition to pull the strings for their 
 antics. 
 
 " Helots and slaves," thought Peter, "sold to please. 
 Mary is that, Mary a puppet, a helot and a slave. 
 Slaves: yet divine things, too, like the rest of them. 
 Painted dolls: but — but — ^what of the Empress The- 
 odora, and Mary Dugdale, and Evening Glory Jane? 
 These justify the thing — old Cooper's right. In all 
 trade there is the lie, and there is cruelty: but even from 
 the lowest truth peeps out." 
 
 Oddly the face of Greenfield's friend came back to 
 him, a large face, handsome enough and clever, but 
 by a certain thickness and puffiness distasteful. There 
 was a certain fineness in the head but that it was held 
 at too low an angle, as if for goat-like butting. Dark 
 it was, hair close-cropped and thin, bald a little on 
 the crown, and bald about the temples. Something 
 about it made Peter shrink and shiver. 
 
 " Either," he thought, " because the ears are too low, 
 or because the lips are " 
 
 Peter knew then that it was the man's lips. 
 
 He looked up and saw him towering above the throng 
 where the women admired him and seemed pleased that 
 he should throw them a jest. There was strength in 
 the man and among these people he seemed eminent. 
 
 A little man next to Peter seemed to admire the 
 pan, for he was gazing open-mouthed in his direction. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 221 
 
 He turned t» Peter and asked him if lie knew what 
 man he was. 
 
 " That," said Peter a little spitefully, " is a man 
 after God's own heart." 
 
 The little man withdrew before this acerbity, and 
 Peter was sorry. 
 
 To his amazement he found the hero bearing down 
 upon him, followed by Greenfield, who by contrast looked 
 little and mean. They stopped, and Mephisto said: 
 
 " This is my brother-in-law, Gertram Gond." 
 
 " You know my wife," said Bond. 
 
 Peter turned and without a word was walking from 
 the place when he felt himself gripped by the neck, 
 lifted clean into the air and sent flying. In his flight 
 he had a glimpse of a dark face grinning savagely, 
 with swollen veins about the temples and one thick 
 vein standing out in the middle of the forehead. His 
 foot crashed into a mirror, and glass fell to the floor, 
 reaching it at the same moment as himself, so that he 
 cut his right hand and wrist. Women shrieked and 
 there seemed to be innumerable faces peering at him 
 as he lay. They seemed to mock him. Then darkness 
 came. 
 
 Later he found himself in the arms of a large 
 official being carried through a curious crowd. Men 
 and women whispered to each other the history of the 
 incident, and Peter heard one woman say: 
 
 " It's that Bond. He's got the hell of a temper. 
 They say she's going to divorce him." 
 
 " But why did he go for the little man ? " 
 
 "They say he spat at him." 
 
 This explanation seemed so comic to Peter that he 
 chuckled, and writhed in the strong arms that held 
 
222 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 him. There was a twinge in his hand and, holding it 
 up, he saw that it was roughly bound with strips of 
 white handkerchief. 
 
 " I can walk," he said. 
 
 " What there's left of you," said his bearer, and 
 Peter could feel his voice rumbling up inside his great 
 chest. Just so he remembered his father's voice. 
 
 They took him to the vestibule and laid him in a 
 chair while a doctor who happened to be of the com- 
 pany rebound his hand, and dosed him with brandy. 
 This made Peter cough and then feel sick, but it re- 
 stored the blood to his cheeks and dispelled his ghastly 
 pallor. 
 
 Looking round, Peter could see neither Greenfield 
 nor Bond. 
 
 " Neither Mephisto nor Silenus," he said. 
 
 " Gentleman's name is Bond, sir. We know 'im. 
 Half Moon Street. You 'ad ought to get a new 
 suit out o' this night's work. Where do you live, 
 sir?" 
 
 Peter gave the address in Gordon Square, but see- 
 ing that they meant to call a cab for him, protested that 
 he coidd walk, rose to his feet and reeled. 
 
 Out in the air he felt stronger, but allowed them to 
 place him in the cab. He gave the kindly official half- 
 a-crown, and the cab was just moving when a man 
 leaped from the pavement and sat beside him. 
 
 It was Bond. 
 
 Peter laughed. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Bond. 
 
 The cab turned up Wardour Street. 
 
 " Romance and pasteboard," said Peter. 
 
 " Leather and prunella," corrected Bond, and throw- 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 223 
 
 ing up an ann, he lifted the trap and told the cabman 
 to drive to 42 Half -Moon Street. 
 
 Peter turned to expostulate, but he felt such misery 
 in the man that he said nothing. The cab swung 
 down Shaftesbury Avenue into Piccadilly Circus, where 
 they were held in the traffic. 
 
 "Over there," said Peter, "your wife nearly ran 
 over me. It was my first glimpse of her." 
 
 He was afraid for a moment that the remark was 
 wanting in tact, but it seemed not to prick at all. 
 
 " Over there," said Bond, indicating a theatre, " I 
 saw her first six years ago; a supper on the stage. I 
 was just famous and flushed with it. We were pre- 
 sented to each other and she asked me what I did." 
 
 He laughed at the memory of it, but said no more. 
 
 They drove along Piccadilly by the Green Park, and 
 Peter for the first time noticed what a hill there was 
 in the great street. 
 
 " Does your hand hurt you ? " said Bond. 
 
 "How did you get away?" 
 
 "They know me." 
 
 " They said I spat at you." 
 
 Bond laid his great hand on Peter's knee and shook 
 it. The strength of it pleased Peter. 
 
 " It might have been someone more — more brittle." 
 
 The cab drew up at the given house and Bond de- 
 scended and paid the fare and more. 
 
 "Come in," he said. 
 
 Peter demurred. Sympathy with the man had gone, 
 and he was confronted with the fool-villain of his 
 conception on the night of the St. James Park 
 adventure. 
 
 "What is it?" said Bond, 
 
224 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Silenus," said Peter, and on the instant was sorry, 
 for the man's face in the light of the lamp so plainly 
 showed a hurt. 
 
 " I beg you to come," said Bond^ " for company." 
 
 "Greenfield," said Peter. 
 
 "A cub. I beg you to come." 
 
 Peter descended and followed Mary's husband into 
 the dark passage and up the stairs to the second 
 floor. 
 
 An electric light switched on exhibited a careless, 
 comfortable room, in many of its details womanish. 
 There were flowers, glowing banks of them: books 
 and dainty pictures: a desk: large chairs. 
 
 In the centre of the room Peter stood riveted. 
 Over the mantelpiece hung a portrait of Mary, be- 
 witching, elusive, not happy, and for that all the more 
 attractive from the subtle smile behind sad eyes, the 
 marvellous eyes. Her chin was in the air as always, 
 and her mouth was soft, pouted a little. There was 
 no hardness in it, none. 
 
 Bond turned the light upon the picture so that all 
 the glory of the woman divined by the painter shone 
 forth, and Peter remembered words to describe a 
 heroine : 
 
 "She was a great huntress and she bore many 
 children." 
 
 He kept the thought locked and, turning to Bond, 
 said only: 
 
 " Thank yon." 
 
 " I saw you walking with her one night, by the river. 
 It is long since I have had word with her." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Peter. 
 
 " I struck her once." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 225 
 
 Peter winced. 
 " She left me- 
 
 " To-night, also, you struck me." 
 
 " It was the same." 
 
 The huge man rocked suddenly, sat, stared hollow- 
 eyed at Peter, smouldering eyes; then buried his face 
 in his hands and sobbed. 
 
 Peter sat waiting while his brain throbbed in the 
 effort to grasp all that there had been. 
 
 Of all his adventures this seemed to Peter the 
 strangest, to be first assaulted by a man, and then to 
 come so near as to bring sympathy in the most in- 
 timate grief. The man was raw, quivering to a touch, 
 and for the very bigness of him and the strength, his 
 state was the more pitiable. 
 
 Peter could not find right words. He tried phrase 
 after phrase, but rejected all. In a flash came: 
 
 "Not Silenus." 
 
 " No," said Bond, " full-blooded Narcissus. Worse." 
 
 " I," said Peter, " have been called an Achilles with 
 brains, and that is worse than either." 
 
 "Only youth." 
 
 "What am I to say?" 
 
 " Nothing." The head was not raised and the voice 
 came thick with wretchedness. " There is nothing. 
 You understand marvellously." 
 
 Peter leaped at that. Old Cooper had called hiro 
 a rare soul, well-born. Understanding was surely the 
 mark of that. 
 
 " Let me tell you," came the voice scarcely audible. 
 " It is not for you to judge, but from sheer necessity, 
 to keep myself from judging — from thinking and — 
 you know the woman." 
 
220 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "Yes," said Peter with eyes on the portrait. "I 
 know the woman." 
 
 " I knew she did not love me." 
 
 Peter wished to steal away. He dared not look at 
 the man for fear of meeting his gaze. He dared not 
 move for fear of hurting him. He sat motionless, 
 breathing noiselessly. His wounded hand throbbed, 
 but he set his teeth lest the pain of it should force a 
 sound. 
 
 " I knew that she had been hurt. I knew that she 
 was rushing for distraction. I knew that she was worn 
 and weary, almost in terror. I watched and watched, 
 and watched, saw her try this and that: I saw her wan- 
 dering among young things, among the helpless and 
 weak: I saw her always turn away uncomforted: I saw 
 her face grow thin, tired, almost hard: I heard new 
 bitter notes come into her voice, and all the while I loved 
 her. In the end she came to me, blinded and numbed, 
 not knowing and not caring what I had to offer her. It 
 was the best I knew: there. needed more for her. I 
 could not kindle her. Cold she was — cold, and I dense, 
 vain, hurt that she should be cold. I had been spoiled 
 by women — so many I had had unsought. She asked 
 nothing of me and gave nothing. I knew nothing 
 then — so much now. There was misery for both: she 
 cold, I stormy, gusty words, violence, and that hap- 
 pened " 
 
 He brought his hands down from his face and 
 Peter saw them clench and the whole body of the man 
 shake. 
 
 "She had seemed scarcely alive^ but then all veils 
 were torn asunder. She shrank in horror from me — 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 227 
 
 something she saw in mie for the first time. She 
 ■was great in that moment when I found and lost her. 
 I think in that moment of losing her I saw her for the 
 first time as she really was — but even then I knew 
 nothing at all of her — ^nothing, nothing, nothing." 
 
 Peter, out of his queer store of knowledge, could have 
 told him that even in the greatest moments all that is 
 not shared is hidden, and he remembered Clara's " How 
 well I know you ! " and that Cooper had never laid 
 claim to such possession of her. 
 
 " She left me. She left me. With her I had been 
 miserably alone, but without her the world was frozen. 
 I sank: drugs, wine, women, anything, until I am what 
 you see, a wretched thing, broken, clouded in mind, 
 uncontrolled and uncontrollable: a vain-stricken fool, 
 with wretched creatures for my comrades: for I have 
 no friends." 
 
 To Peter this was the bitterest cry of all, for he 
 thought of Warrington, Tessa's man, a stout friend from 
 all accounts untU the betrayal. He had great pity for 
 the stricken man, and because words seemed to be ex- 
 pected of him and he could find none comfortable in 
 his impotence in the face of this tangle, he said 
 simply: 
 
 " From what I knew I judged you. I called you 
 fool — villain. I could not bear that — ^that she should 
 bear your name." 
 
 "You love her, then?" 
 
 " I do not think," said Peter, " that you and I love 
 the same woman. There is no absolute M — Mary." 
 
 "Where is she now?" 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
22g PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "You lie." 
 
 " I do not know. I have not had word from her 
 for long enough. Her brother does not know." 
 
 "Oh! Lawrence . . ." 
 
 Bond rose from his seat and took to pacing the room. 
 He stopped. 
 
 " Queer," he said. " I do not know why . ,. 
 Good-night." 
 
 Peter moved slowly to the door. The man was again 
 detestable. 
 
 " Tessa," said Peter, " is in Devon by the sea." 
 The stroke was cruel. Bond stood menacingly with 
 his head low, moving from side to side, his face grin- 
 ning horridly. 
 
 Peter stole away and walked home, turning over and 
 over in his mind the problem. Whatever the thing was 
 it had the virtue of immensity: Mary, Wilson, Bond, 
 Tessa, Warrington, Peiter, and through himself it 
 touched all those with whom he came in contact, even 
 the Professor grubbing for his roots. It had even 
 changed the destiny of Peter, the cat, for without it 
 Mary would not in probability have visited the bird- 
 shop. 
 
 A letter from Mattie awaited his arrival at Gordon 
 Square. It announced her presence in London, and 
 a desire to meet him by the della Francesca to 
 say farewell before departure to the Continent, since, 
 as she was to journey with her aunt, he might not 
 come to see her go. Peter scented womanish love of 
 intrigue and was a little repelled by it in conjunction 
 with the round unformed handwriting. With his new 
 knowledge of men and women he dubbed the letter 
 childish, and despised it. Youth had become a dread- 
 
PETEBi HOMUNCULUS 229 
 
 ful thing to him, for late events had made him resent- 
 fully conscious of his own. 
 
 The next day, after a morning spent between his 
 fellow-students and the prayers of certain mediaeval 
 saints, he entered the National Gallery at the appointed 
 time, and sat opposite the " Nativity with Angels Ador- 
 ing." He was never tired of the study of the picture, and 
 found fantastic reasons for the elevation into the air 
 of the brown ox pressing forward to sniff the quality 
 of this new child before whom the pale kind woman 
 knelt and the throng of singing creatures made such 
 unpleasant sounds with strange instruments. 
 
 " The brown ox," thought Peter, " like the rest, 
 knows the quality of the divinity. The son of the 
 brown ox will know the same of every child, since 
 from generation to generation the beasts do not breed 
 error. What the sons of men have made of this same 
 child will not bear thinking on." 
 
 He turned and gazed at a Raphael Sanzio. 
 
 " O pretty liar>" he said, and would have harangued 
 the Italian master but that there came a touch on his 
 shoulder, and, turning, he saw Mattie standing above 
 him, a new, brown Mattie, with her hair almost turned 
 up and a frock that almost swept the floor. 
 
 Peter rose to his feet and she saw then his swathed 
 hand. 
 
 "Oh! Peter. How?" 
 
 " Mattie," said Peter, " I have been living a dread- 
 ful life" 
 
 She protested. 
 
 " It is true, I broke a mirror in a music-hall, and 
 am no more worthy to be called thy son." 
 
 "Qh! Peter — ^were you — ^were you ?" 
 
230 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " I was not." 
 
 "Then how?" 
 
 " To tell you I should need to return to the tempta- 
 tion and the fall of Man. I am not sure but King 
 David has a good deal to do with it, and I am certain 
 the apostle Paul is directly responsible." 
 
 Mattie looked puzzled. 
 
 "Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies." 
 
 "Does it hurt you?" 
 
 " It is rapidly recovering." 
 
 " You look ill and tired." 
 
 "I am going away soon." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " To your uncle's at Fernhurst." 
 
 "Adorable place. How did you cut your hand? " 
 
 " You will observe how marvellously Titian under- 
 stood the use of blue." 
 
 " That for Titian." She snapped finger and thumb 
 and walked away in the direction of the very early 
 masters. She walked well and Peter admired, though 
 more than ever he was conscious of her childishness. 
 She stopped and waited for him to approach. He 
 walked stealthily into the next room and gazed gloomily 
 at a dead Christ. 
 
 She had observed the manoeuvre reflected in the 
 glass of a picture, and waited for him to return, as 
 presently with rueful countenance he did. 
 
 Mattie hung her head, then with a sidelong glance 
 she said: 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 " She? " 
 
 " You are changeid." 
 
 Peter was silent. She was disarmed. He knew it 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 231 
 
 and dared not speak. He was irritated by thie small- 
 ness of the thing contrasted with the explosive other, 
 but struggling to approach her he found that for her 
 there was great bitterness, not less real for its origin 
 in smallness. Peter had power, and knew that she 
 had not. He was aware also where priggishness had 
 landed him before, and fought against it now. 
 
 Simple Mattie's thoughts flew to matrimony. 
 
 " Are you going to marry her ? " 
 
 Peter choked in the efi'ort to suppress laughter. 
 
 " No," he said. 
 
 " If she loves you. She should not have let you love 
 her if — if she would not marry you. You see — ^you 
 see, I do understand." 
 
 This was too much for laughter. Peter mourned. 
 
 " My dear child," he said, and then found himself on 
 the brink of the abyss of priggishness. He started 
 back, and giggled from the strain of the mental gym- 
 nastic. His words had stung to fury, and Mattie very 
 properly turned and rent him. 
 
 "Child!" she said. "Girls of fourteen are older 
 than any man ever is. Child ! and yours ! " 
 
 Her scorn abashed Peter. He apologised for mala- 
 droitness, then was awkwardly dumb. He could tell 
 this girl nothing except — except what she had already 
 divined. 
 
 "I am going away," she said. "Perhaps for two 
 years. Will you write to me?" 
 
 " You wish it? " 
 
 "I should like it. I am your — ^^friend." 
 
 The crushing of Peter was complete, for in her tone 
 there was conveyed the recollection of tailordom, the 
 shop, and kindness conferred. She soared above him, 
 
232 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 and though he raged against it, he knew himself for 
 an upstart aping foreign manners. Yet for the gener- 
 ous sweeping away of all follies he was grateful, and 
 accepted humiliation at her hands. 
 
 She stood mockingly in front of him, surveying 
 him. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " I think you are nicer 
 than you used to be." 
 
 " I am much nicer," said Peter. 
 
 " There is also more of you." 
 
 " I am certainly stouter." 
 
 " Let us go into the Dutch room." 
 
 They went and sat before a courtyard of Peter de 
 Hooch. 
 
 " Tell me a story about it," said Mattie. 
 
 " I am so dwarfed that you will not hear my voice." 
 
 Mattie pondered that saying. She patted Peter's 
 arm. 
 
 "Great ladies," said Peter, "used always to have 
 dwarfs and antic creatures for their sport." 
 
 " If you are small enough, you may climb to my 
 shoulder and whisper in my ear." 
 
 " I am the tiniest of tiny men," said Peter, and 
 " Tiny man ! Tiny man ! Tiny man ! " rang in his ears. 
 
 His next remark was quite unintelligible to Mattie. 
 
 " His finger is so long that it is like a wax taper," 
 
 The girl sought the explanation of it in the Peter 
 de Hooch. 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 "The mannikin's." 
 
 " There is no mannikin in any picture that I can 
 see." 
 
 " He is the creator of all real pictures. I will tell 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 233 
 
 you about him some day when you have a waspish 
 little lady of your own." 
 
 "Is this the story?" 
 
 " No story to-day. My voice is too thin for you to 
 hear." 
 
 " How queer you are." 
 
 " How queer we all are." 
 
 "But to-day, Peter: why? " 
 
 "Last night a very strange thing happened to me. 
 I saw the good reality of an odious man." 
 
 "Was that how you cut your hand?" 
 
 " No. That was before." 
 
 " Peter, I don't understand you ... I shall not 
 lose you, Peter. Some day I shall ask and you will 
 come ..." 
 
 She was playing now with the buttons on his sleeve. 
 
 Peter looked tragically and remorsefully at Peter 
 de Hooch's picture as though it were at fault. 
 
 Suddenly Mattie's hand slid down to his: she leaned 
 forward and in a voice scarcely above a whisper 
 said: 
 
 " Peter, we're both too young to know what it is. 
 Some day you'll know, and then I think you will come 
 to me. I am glad to go away ..." Peter did not 
 stir. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear," she said. 
 
 A large tear welled out of Peter's left eye and 
 trickled down his nose into his mouth, where the salt 
 savour of it was not altogether unpleasant. 
 
 She rose and sped away. 
 
 Peter sat gloomily staring, intent upon the process 
 of the formation of a tear. 
 
 " A muscle relaxes, I suppose," he thought, " when 
 
234 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 there is keen emotion. Bond last night, and to-day 
 Mattie." 
 
 He wondered then why people are ashamed of tears. 
 Bond had wept, and Peter remembered the feeling 
 of shame that had come over him, the curious tugging 
 it had given him to hear. 
 
 " Tears," he said, " are too intimate." 
 
 The idea came to him that he must go away out of 
 London. It was a place of too great excitement and 
 he was growing bewildered. 
 
 He wandered round the galleries and found relief 
 in the pictures, but he could not cease from thinking. 
 Angry with himself, he accosted a janitor and addressed 
 him in these words : 
 
 " Thinking is an unhealthy thing. You move in 
 circles and circles and in the end you know no more 
 than — ^than Podge Newhall." 
 
 The janitor, who was used to eccentric persons, said 
 readily enough: 
 
 " Yessir." 
 
 He scarcely emerged from his stupor, only stirred 
 upon his stool and settled again. 
 
 Peter moved away and came upon two sailors sur- 
 veying the Venus of Velasquez. One said: 
 
 "D'you think she turns round at night, BiU?" 
 
 Bill laughed. 
 
 " These," thought Peter, " are men : strong men and 
 never tiny. What strong necks they have." 
 
 He pursued the sailors out into Trafalgar Square 
 in order to gaze at their necks. They gave them- 
 selves the delight of a drive in a motor-cab and were 
 lost to him. 
 
 Peter betook himself to the house of his Professor 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 235 
 
 and plunged into more holy utterances in the langue 
 d'oc. 
 
 A week later he went to Murray Wilson's and was 
 warmly welcomed by Matilda. Wilson threw him a 
 curt greeting. Peter, as he drove into the garden, found 
 him lying in a deck chair sucking his pipe and lost 
 in thought. Matilda came tearing from the woods on 
 the sound of wheels on the gravel, and leaped joyfully 
 as Peter descended. Wilson had been remiss in the 
 matter of attention of late, and at the cottage Matilda 
 was accustomed to great games. It had been her first 
 home with Wilson, for Miss Dugdale had brought hel 
 as a little black puppy small enough to be carried ill 
 her muff one Eastertide before her marriage. 
 
 Matilda grew fat in London, and in the countr/" 
 worked a cure by the chase of rabbits. 
 
 " This is her Homburg or Spa," Wilson had said. 
 
 She accepted Peter as a possible playmate, and in 
 fact kept him busy all afternoon throwing tennis ball? 
 for her delight. 
 
 Beyond shewing him the room consigned to him, Wil- 
 son paid no attention to Peter until nearly dinner 
 time, when he said: 
 
 " We dine at Crosslands to-night." 
 
 Peter remembered that Crosslands was the name of 
 the Bassett-Crewes' house whence Mary had addressed 
 her last letter to him. 
 
 They drove in a gorgeous motor-car that came for 
 them and flew through winding lanes. Wilson swore 
 in a voice of profound melancholy with every jolt. 
 He became suddenly communicative. 
 
 " Crewe has red ears. One is hairy and one is not." 
 
 "How — ^how did he make his money?" 
 
236 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " He caught hold of the right coat-tails." 
 
 Peter waited for an elucidation of this remark, but 
 none came. 
 
 " He does not wish to ente^ Parliament; he will 
 finance the journal for party service." 
 
 "I went to see Mr. Sandilands." 
 
 "A clever lout. He wrote to me. 'Young Davies 
 seemed very bright.' " 
 
 "Bright!" 
 
 Wrathful, Peter drummed with his fingers on his 
 knee. He still wore a small bandage round his wrist 
 where he had been most cut. 
 
 " How did you hurt your hand? " 
 
 "I— I met Mr. Bertram Bond." 
 
 Wilson froze again and not another word was spoken 
 until they reached the door of Crosslands, where they 
 were received by a Butler and a Footman, august 
 creatures who inspired Peter with great awe. He had 
 once seen a butler, and knew something of rank and 
 etiquette below-stairs, for his father had had some 
 trade in liveries with the great houses in Leicester- 
 shire. The butler took Wilson's coat, the footman 
 Peter's. 
 
 They were led through the thickly-carpeted hall with 
 its trophies of sport (a great brown bear supported an 
 electric lamp at the bottom of the stairs) up to the 
 drawing-room. As they went Wilson muttered: ' 
 
 " Don't be too clever. Crewe is slow of digestion." 
 
 Peter thus started the evening with a handicap. 
 
 Bassett-Crewe stood by the fireplace, hands flap- 
 ping coat-taUs, booming to two men of enormous age 
 who stood by him. The room seemed to be full of 
 charming and beautiful women. 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 287 
 
 Mrs. Bassett-Crewe, moving to greet them with hand 
 outstretched, seemed to Peter so gloriously a woman, 
 so great that he could have knelt to worship her. This 
 goddess detected fright in Peter and took him under 
 her wing that he might gain confidence before the 
 plunge into new acquaintance. Wilson knew every- 
 one in the room and wandered from group to group 
 cracking the jokes that were expected of him. 
 
 Peter, unused to dinner-parties, was oppressed by 
 the atmosphere and the desultory attitude of host and 
 guests. He remembered no gathering more chilling 
 except that of his relations at his father's funeral. 
 
 " The first time I saw Cooper, he said to me, ' The 
 world is at your feet, but not for kicking.' " 
 
 "Mr. Cooper?" 
 
 " The bookseller in Shaftesbury Avenue." 
 
 " I remember. You must tell me about him." 
 
 Wilson here looked so comically woe-begone that 
 she laughed aloud — a laugh so like Mary's, though with 
 deeper notes, that Peter was thrilled. He found also 
 that Mrs. Crewe pronounced certain words with the 
 same odd inflections. 
 
 He spoke his thought. 
 
 " You are so like Miss Dugdale." 
 
 " We are friends. Poor Mary." 
 
 Peter longed to question, but Wilson escaped and 
 came to protest. 
 
 " I came to be fed. I will not roar." 
 
 " A very mild growl will satisfy that child." 
 
 " She will watch me feed. I told her Davies was 
 the coming man. She insists on presentation." 
 
 " Too bad," said Mrs. Crewe, and turned to Peter 
 to find him scanning the young lady who was absurdly 
 
288 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 conscious of his scrutiny and gave him her best pro- 
 file. 
 
 Peter was led away a sacrifice^ and Wilson returned 
 to Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " That is so like you." There was affectionate chid- 
 ing in her voice. 
 
 " I can't do with her." 
 
 " So Peter must? I was beginning to like my Peter. 
 It is extraordinary what he has done for Mary. She 
 came here almost — happy." 
 
 Wilson looked utterly blank and Mrs. Crewe stroked 
 his hand with her fan. 
 
 " I am glad she is to be in your play in the autumn." 
 
 This provoked Wilson to a remark. 
 
 " It is not like you to be so stupid." 
 
 " No. I beg your pardon." 
 
 Dinner was announced^ and they filed downstairs, 
 Peter with the interested young lady who had begun 
 at once to pay subtle tribute to his intellect. Half 
 way downstairs she said: 
 
 "Do you prefer comedy or tragedy?" 
 
 Peter heard Mrs. Crewe just behind them give a de- 
 lighted chuckle, and he floundered. 
 
 Through dinner the young lady pursued him re- 
 morselessly until Peter, astounded at the depth of his 
 knowledge ^nd the brilliance of his remarks, became 
 resigned. He was placed within reach of Bassett- 
 Crewe for study. Mrs. Crewe seemed miles away at 
 the end of the table, almost hidden behind little orange 
 trees and candles. 
 
 Peter knew that she was making Wilson talk about 
 him, and a remark floated up the table which he knew 
 to be a mot from the Cooper papers. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 239 
 
 The remorseless young lady turned from Greek 
 tragedy, whereon she discoursed of the relation of the 
 Bacchae of Euripides to the Licensing Bill of 1908, 
 to the newest comedies and from them to Miss Dugdale. 
 A fervent young attache, a cousin of the Bassett- 
 Crewes, desirous of breaking ground with the young 
 lady, caught at the name and plunged. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe strove to divert the stream and made 
 signals to her husband, but Mary was a common topic, 
 and the conversation became general. The unhappy 
 woman's history was enlarged upon, distorted, twisted 
 and coloured. Neither Wilson, nor Peter, nor Mrs. 
 Crewe, who knew the facts, made contribution. Mrs. 
 Crewe marked Peter's silence, and was firmly his friend 
 from that moment. 
 
 " Bond," said the young attache. " Someone told 
 me an extraordinary story about him the other day. 
 He's a great roaring fellow, they say. In some music- 
 hall he picked up a man who insulted him and threw 
 him through a sheet of glass right over the counter of 
 one of the bars. The fellow was cut about a bit." 
 
 Peter thrust his hand under the table, and another 
 voice took up the tale. 
 
 " Warrington and he were thick as thieves, you know. 
 There has been a row: some woman, they say, and now 
 old Stanley is going about calling down, or up. Hell- 
 fire on old Bertram's head. She doesn't live with him." 
 
 Bassett-Crewe said: 
 
 " I never could stand the man." 
 
 There the matter stayed, and Peter, much relieved, 
 plunged into a discussion of the influences of the Abbey 
 of Port Royal and the Jansenists, on Racine. 
 
 " I write a little," said the young lady. 
 
240 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " That is very interesting," said Peter. 
 
 Peter gulped champagne and was immensely relieved 
 when Mrs. Crewe rose to his salvation. 
 
 The young lady dropped her fan, as Peter thought, 
 that he might bring it to her later in the drawing- 
 room. He gave it to the young attache, who seemed 
 grateful. 
 
 Bassett-Crewe invited them to close up and made 
 room for Peter by his side. While port, coffee and 
 cigars were discussed, fire was opened, and Peter found 
 himself examined and cross-examined as to every de- 
 tail of his past life. He confessed to the tailor father, 
 and succeeded in finding an audience for the tale of 
 his early adventures. There came an explosion from 
 an old soldier:- 
 
 "God bless my soul, George Davies in the High 
 Street your father? Made breeches: never was such a 
 hand for breeches, though he could only cut them when 
 he was " 
 
 " I remember my father as most often drunk," said 
 Peter. 
 
 " God bless my soul. There used to be swarms of 
 children in the shop." 
 
 " There were six of us." 
 
 " I have a pair still that he made for me fifteen 
 years ago." 
 
 " You went to see Sandilands ? We start in Novem- 
 ber." This from Bassett-Crewe, who thought the remi- 
 niscences had gone far enough. 
 
 " Sandilands," said Wilson, " thought Davies bright. 
 The word is very like Sandilands." 
 
 " My examination is in October," said Peter. " The 
 results are published in November." 
 
 "What are you doing now?/' 
 
PETER! HOMUNCULUS 241 
 
 " I'm helping one of the professors with his book 
 on the Romance languages." 
 
 "Somids dull/' said Bassett-Crewe. 
 
 " It's better than selling books : to make them, I 
 mean." 
 
 "People do write books on extraordinary subjects," 
 said the old soldier. 
 
 " I remember cataloguing once," said Peter, " a 
 large volume called The Heralding of Fish, Notices 
 of the principal Families bearing Fish in their Arms, 
 with 205 charming engravings from stained glass, tombs, 
 sculpture, carving, medals, coins, pedigrees, etc., and 
 I remember adding an attractive note to the effect 
 that nearly 600 families were noticed in the work. 
 And besides the several descriptions of fish, fishing-nets 
 and baits, were mermaids, tritons, and shell-fish." 
 
 Peter stopped and confidence left him. He looked 
 across at Wilson and was comforted to find no dis- 
 approval. 
 
 " The mermaids, at least/' said the attache, " sound 
 attractive." 
 
 " They were/' said Peter. 
 
 Bassett-Crewe looked round to see that cigars and 
 cigarettes were finished. 
 
 " Shall we go up ? " he said. 
 
 Peter felt considerable elation. Not since old days 
 in the shop bad he been so central a figure. 
 
 They found the ladies in the hall assembled to gaze 
 at a surprising moon behind trees, great beeches that 
 grew within a few yards of the house. An expedition 
 was proposed. Bassett-Crewe and Wilson excused 
 themselves and retired to the chamber called by courtesy 
 the library. It was the one place in the house not 
 pervaded with the Cynthia atmosphere. 
 
242 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Mrs. Crewe turned to Peter as they passed into the 
 air. 
 
 "Do you swim?" she said. 
 
 " Lovingly." 
 
 "We have a bathing-pool. You must come over 
 iand use it." 
 
 " I will bring Matilda." 
 
 " I once rode into a river on horseback/' said Mrs. 
 Crewe, and the vision of this great lady riding so 
 from a golden meadow into gleaming water entranced 
 Peter, and he gaped at her. 
 
 " Let me show you the pool." She started to walk 
 over to the beech trees, he following, away from the 
 rest. 
 
 " It is wicked to escape." 
 
 "I am glad of it," said Peter with tremendous gal- 
 lantry. She took it, laughing. 
 
 " I bring my babies to swim almost before they can 
 walk." 
 
 "Babies: like the world of them in Titian's picture 
 of • Fecundity.' " 
 
 " I do not know it," said she, and Peter described 
 it to her. 
 
 " Beautiful." 
 
 They came to a hedge of privet clipped into an 
 arch through which was only blackness. 
 
 " It is here," she said. " Oh ! with this moon 
 
 You must close your eyes and I will lead you. Close 
 them honestly." 
 
 Peter screwed his eyelids and she took his arm, and, 
 tiptoeing mysteriously, led him stumbling and totter- 
 ing; then held and turned him. 
 
 " Now," she said, and Peter gasped 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 243 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 She held his arm and crooned delightedly. 
 
 They stood upon a rock whence rongh-hewn steps 
 led to the water's brim: such water, a soft still pool 
 of it, wherein were mirrored willows swooning and dark 
 firs, sweet dangling ferns and clematis, jasmine and 
 wild rose: the hill whence sprang the feeding stream: 
 long fleecy clouds, and, silvering all to tenderness, the 
 moon, not shewing all her splendour, crescent still. The 
 tiny stream rang tinkling notes and the soft warm wind 
 bore whispered melody from the trees. 
 
 " Such a night," Said Peter. " And such a place." 
 
 "Mary loves this place." 
 
 " Yes," said Peter. " She loves water. I took her 
 to St. James Park. It is the best in London. If I 
 could bring her here -" 
 
 In that place he felt brave: St. George for courage. 
 
 " Yes. If you could," said Cynthia. " Shall we 
 sit?" 
 
 They turned to a little white temple built for a bath- 
 ing-house, and on a stone bench, brought from Italy, 
 they sat. They were silent for some minutes. Both 
 thought of Mary Dugdale. 
 
 At length Peter broke the silence, reciting from 
 memory: 
 
 " St. George, a ICnight of Cappadocia, came over into 
 a place called Lybia, where lived a King and people in 
 much terror of a huge Dragon which demanded tribute. 
 All things were offered to the worm, but he asked only 
 the King's daughter. When the King saw he might 
 no more do, he began to weep and said to his daughter, 
 ' Now, I shall never see thine espousals.' Then re- 
 turned he to his people and demanded eight days' 
 
24i PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 respite and they granted it him. And when the eight 
 days' respite were passed they came to him and said> 
 ' Thou seest the city perisheth ! ' Then did he so 
 array his daughter like as she should be wedded and 
 embraced her, kissed her and gave her his benedic- 
 tion and after led her to the place where the Dragon 
 was. When she was there George passed by, and when 
 he saw the lady he demanded the lady what she made 
 there, and she said, ' Go your way, you fair young man, 
 that ye perish not also.' Then said he, ' Tell to me 
 what have ye. And why weep ye and doubt ye of noth- 
 ing.' When she saw that he would know she said to 
 him how she was delivered to the Dragon. Then said 
 George, ' Fair daughter, doubt ye nothing hereof, for 
 I shall help thee in the name of Jesus Christ.' She 
 said, ' For God's love, good knight, abide not with 
 me, for ye may not deliver me.' Thus as they spake 
 together the Dragon appeared and came ruiming to 
 them. St. George was upon his horse and drew out 
 his sword, and garnished him with the sign of the 
 cross and rode hai'd against the Dragon, which came 
 towards him: and smote him with his spear, hurt him 
 sore, and after threw him to the ground. And after he 
 said to the maid, ' Deliver to me your girdle and bind it 
 about the neck of the Dragon, and be not afraid.' And 
 when she had done so the Dragon followed her as it 
 had been a meek beast and debonair." 
 
 Peter ceased, and at that moment the moon was 
 hid behind a cloud, and the place where, they sat was 
 dark. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe echoed:- 
 
 " ' Go your way, you fair young man, that you perish 
 not also.'" 
 
PETERI HOMUNCULUS 245 
 
 Then she rose and they walked to the house. Peter 
 asked her: 
 
 " Do you know where she is ? " 
 
 " No more than you: but I suspect the Arun valley: 
 always a refuge for her. You will come and see us 
 agamr 
 
 " I will come to swim in the pool." 
 
 " I want my husband to like you — as I do." 
 
 "Thank you," said Peter, astonished at his own 
 simplicity. 
 
 Wilson was ready to go when they reached the house. 
 Peter went in to be assisted into his coat by the foot- 
 man, in whose demeanour he imagined greater respect. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe turned to Wilson: 
 
 " Such a dear boy." 
 
 " You women," said Wilson, " are an infernal 
 nuisance. But without you nothing is done." 
 
 That was all she had from him, but, knowing him, 
 she found in the words all that she wished. 
 
 Peter wished her good-night, and they plunged for- 
 ward into the darkness of the drive. The moon shone 
 again and Peter enjoyed sweet melancholy while Wil- 
 son grumbled because the car went too fast for him 
 to smoke. 
 
 Matilda was delighted on their return, partly because 
 she knew biscuits would be forthcoming and partly 
 because she had resented being deprived of her Peter. 
 
 They sat far into the night, Peter sipping a very 
 mild whiskey and soda and throwing biscuits to clamour- 
 ing Matilda, while Wilson walked up and down and 
 round and round the room, occasionally throwing out 
 a remark or an anecdote. 
 
 " Do you know John Levens I " he said. 
 
240 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " No — o," said Peter, fearful of displaying ig- 
 norance. 
 
 " I'd like you to know him," and Wilson turned and 
 Bvent upstairs, where Peter heard him in his study. 
 
 He returned with an old book in his hand and gave 
 it to Peter. 
 
 "A Caxton." 
 
 " John Levens lives inside it." 
 
 Peter opened the book and found it to be a copy 
 of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, of Jacob de 
 Voragine. Inside was written : " From all evill and 
 mischief good Lord deliver us John Levens citizen 
 Draper of London John Levens." On another leaf, 
 whereon was engraven a woodcut of a horse, there was 
 written in the same hand: " This booke doth lye as 
 fast as a horse can trott." 
 
 " John Levens," said Wilson, " first taught me the 
 value and place of literature." 
 
 "Yes," said Peter. "I am beginning to understand 
 some of the things Mr. Cooper used to say." 
 
 " We'll publish some of his papers. I'll write an 
 introduction." 
 
 Wilson resumed his meditation, pacing, and Peter 
 rose to go' to bed. 
 
 " Bassett-Crewe is willing to try you in November. 
 He'll give you two hundred a year." 
 
 "Gosh," said Peter, and ran upstairs two at a time, 
 Matilda after him. 
 
 She slept at his feet all night. 
 
 For long hours Peter lay awake building gorgeous 
 palaces in Spain. 
 
VIII 
 
 When Wilson had to return to town for the rehearsals 
 of his comedy, Peter was transferred to Crosslands, 
 for Mrs. Crewe thought that he should stay in the 
 country as long as possible. 
 
 Peter, therefore, wrote to his Professor to explain 
 his defection, and announced his projects for the 
 autumn. The gentle philologist applauded the spirit 
 of adventure and deplored the loss to science. He 
 warmly commended Peter's work. Because he was, in his 
 province, a very distinguished man, Peter was proud, 
 and shewed the letter to Cynthia Crewe^ who forth- 
 with took it to her husband. He sent it to the cur- 
 mudgeonly Sandilands, who had grumbled much at 
 having a tyro thrust upon him, and had offended Mrs. 
 Crewe by referring to her prot6g6 as a " raw little 
 prig." 
 
 Under the onslaughts of Sandilands, Bassett-Crewe 
 had wavered until Cynthia, defending, had said: 
 
 " Of course, I suppose it is natural for the sandy 
 ogre to wish to provide for that nephew of his, but 
 the paper is yours." 
 
 Nepotism was odious to Bassett-Crewe, and he had 
 insisted. 
 
 When, therefore, Peter took up his residence at 
 Crosslands, by way of testing his worth and capacity he 
 gave him secretarial work to do; and Peter was com^ 
 pletely happy in feeling that he was doing something 
 to justify his position in the house. 
 
 847 
 
248 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He had said to Wilson : " It is so comfortable," but 
 living in the place he found the atmosphere good in its 
 ease and security, and in the smooth running of its ma- 
 chinery. His admiration for Mrs. Crewe knew no 
 bounds : her house, her gardens, her clothes, her children, 
 her horses, her dogs, all were perfect. Here and there 
 he learned what she had been to Mary Dugdale, and 
 how much her friendship had done for the dear woman, 
 and in a very sort time she had procured' from him a 
 complete tmbosoming. 
 
 Thrilling to the fresh romance, Mrs. Crewe wrote to 
 ask her friend to Crosslands to recuperate after the 
 fatigue of long rehearsals. She made no mention of 
 Peter's presence, and guessed rightly that secretive Wil- 
 son would not have uttered his name to her. 
 
 Mary came late on the Saturday evening when it 
 chanced that Peter was away at the other end of the 
 county. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe was romping with her children in the nur- 
 sery. Hob, Patch, and Jane, all Mary-worshippers. 
 They were Indians bringing tribute of flesh, skins and 
 beads to Great White Squaw, impersonated by their 
 mother sitting in a wigwam of a clothes-horse covered 
 with a blanket, under a real totem pole. She smoked 
 and muttered gibberish and sniffed at all their offerings. 
 The Indians brought these with lamentable howls to 
 express humility, and grovelled with " wallah- wallah- 
 wallahs " of terror, while they waited upon the mood 
 of the chieftainess. Did she scowl and raise her hand 
 in menace, back flew the fierce hunters, Long-Eye, Sil- 
 ver-Birch, and Hugging Bear: yells upon yells of terror, 
 then hysterical laughter and the game began again. 
 
 When Mary entered the room war had been declared 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 249 
 
 upon the cruel tyrant, and three redskins on the warpath, 
 fully armed, and knife in mouth, were crawling on their 
 bellies like serpents through the waving grasses of the 
 limitless prairie, while Great White Squaw olFered 
 prayer and sacrifice to the Totem, bowing in abasement. 
 For miles and miles the redskins crawled and Mary 
 dropped on hands and knees, a scout to spy upon them. 
 She smelt their tracks, and wrinkling her nose, ^aid: 
 
 " Pah. Dogs of Cherokees." 
 
 There was scouting, skirmishing, discovery, a despair- 
 ing charge, the palissade scaled, death to the Great 
 White Squaw, death to the slinking spy, capture of the 
 token, pow-wow, dancing, and ofi'ering of bear steaks, 
 bloody, to the War God. The camp was razed, then off 
 again on the track of honey-bears. 
 
 Mary, as a honey-bear, was captured, killed, flayed 
 and robbed of her claws for ornament: her corpse was 
 searched for honey. 
 
 She protested through laughter, and tears of laughter 
 that bears have no honey-bag. 
 
 Said Silver-Birch: 
 
 " Peter says they has. And Peter knows." 
 
 The dead bear rose to her knees and looked reproach 
 at Cynthia. 
 
 " He is here," said Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " Oh ! Cynthia ! " The mood for frolic was gone, and 
 the children, sensitive to the destruction of atmosphere, 
 stood anxiously and a little afraid. It was not like their 
 Mary to spoil sport. 
 
 She knew what she had done, was sorry, and left the 
 room. 
 
 Out into the garden she went and past beeches to 
 the bathing-pool. She sat there in the little temple and 
 
250 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 blamed herself and foolish Cyirthia. Yet she rejoiced 
 that Peter was a personage to Patch. 
 
 That " Peter knows " rang splendidly, for, though to 
 Patch it might mean only the lore of honey-bears, to her, 
 clutching at sympathy, Peter had knowledge direct from 
 earth. He had written words for her so ridiculously true 
 as to provoke tears, and tears of late came not too easily 
 to Mary's eyes, not after the first wild shedding of them 
 in this very place where now she sat. 
 
 On the stone seat she had fiung herself and cried 
 aloud, sending birds whirling and water fowl scuttering 
 over the water's face. She remembered where a moorhen 
 had flown, touching the water to arrowy streaks, to hurl 
 itself into comfortable reeds far from the wailing 
 creature: and where a tit had cocked a comic eye at her. 
 
 The memory of the tit brought a smile to her face, 
 and she knew that that Mary was dead, and that her 
 sorrows were dead with her. 
 
 The new Mary so far as she was known, the mystery 
 of her unravelled, was whimsical, ironic, puzzled, wait- 
 ing upon the event; more generous, more appreciative, 
 glad of her friends as the old Mary had never been, 
 glad of Cynthia, glad of the new kind Wilson, more 
 silent and diffident than the old, glad of new-found 
 Tessa, and very glad of Peter, who had seemed at first 
 inevitable and then so easy to avoid. 
 
 After she had said to herself, " That was a girl — this 
 is a woman," and again, at Mudeford and Beaulieu and 
 Birpham in solitary days of pondering by gentle sea 
 and river. " For Peter's sake. It is not fair to Peter." 
 
 And now — Peter ! Fond Cynthia with her " Two 
 and two make four " and easy plunging into romance 
 had brought about this meeting desired, yet undesired of 
 
PETEBI HOMUNCULUS 251 
 
 both. She knew her Peter and vowed that he knew 
 nothing of her coming, and so — and so — should she 
 not go? 
 
 Cynthia came. 
 
 "Peter does not know?" 
 
 " That you are here ? The boy is wild for you." 
 
 " Then I must go." 
 
 "You are happy, Mary?" 
 
 "^ow can I say? " 
 
 " You have so much." 
 
 " All that you have I covet." 
 
 " Peter wrote to me. I did not write to him. He 
 says you brought him to the pool." 
 
 " Yes. I said you loved it." 
 
 " The hill." 
 
 " I did not tell him." 
 
 "He calls it ours. May I tell you? These are his 
 words, dear words." 
 
 Mary spoke them softly. 
 
 " ' I am still by the wonder of you dazzled, and yet 
 80 sure of foot on these heights of ours. Do you know 
 that the hill, our hill, touches the farthest sky? It is 
 dangerously near the sun, and at night we shall touch 
 the stars. I have done it, and I thrust a finger into the 
 moon, so that it came away all love-sweet. Oh! All 
 this place cries aloud of you. Have you not made it? 
 Am I good soil for seeds of kindness? I can be for 
 the tending: there is at least that merit in youth.' " 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " He is so young." 
 
 "Oh! . . . Mary," and Cynthia laid her hand 
 on Mary's, for she saw that her eyes were filled witli 
 tears. 
 
252 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Poor Bertram came to see me." 
 
 "He dared." 
 
 " He had met Peter." 
 
 Cynthia smiled. " Peter told me." 
 
 " He asks now what I have never given him. If you 
 could know the misery of it . . . " 
 
 " It has been so twisted for you." 
 
 "If Peter had come earlier ..." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " I could have played the woman." 
 
 " There might have been. But Buntie says " 
 
 (Buntie was an unexplained nickname given to Wil- 
 son and used by both women, all his friends and many 
 impertinent acquaintances.) 
 
 " Buntie says that if we Had the second chance we 
 should do precisely the same. I should." 
 
 The thoughts of both flew to Cynthia's period of re- 
 voltj and the splendid lover long since dead. 
 
 " I am happy now," said Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall be," said Miss Dugdale, and sighed. 
 
 The rushing motor came up to the house and they 
 returned. 
 
 " The children adore Peter," said Cynthia. 
 
 " They must." 
 
 " He swims with them." 
 
 " I asked him once if he would swim for me." 
 
 " Your frock is charming." 
 
 Peter, knowing that he would be too late to romp 
 with the children, had gone upstairs to see them in their 
 beds and give them peppermint-creams, strictly contra- 
 band. 
 
 From his bed Hob cried: 
 
 " Give the countersign." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 253 
 
 " A dark night and a heavy swell." 
 
 " All's well. Have you got the stuff? " 
 
 " A near squeaky touch and go, with the excise," said 
 Peter. 
 
 " Give Jane some." 
 
 Peter filled opened mouths and sat upon Hob's bed. 
 'A story was demanded, and " Little Robert and the 
 Owl " was received with favour. 
 
 " Did you make that story? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Jane was indignant. 
 
 " Buntie makes all his stories." 
 
 " Buntie is four hundred years old," said Peter. " I 
 am only fifty." 
 
 Hob was too old for kissing, and Patch from emula- 
 tion was beyond it. 
 
 Peter kissed Jane and went down to the library to 
 deal with- the evening letters, arranging them in their 
 piles of the important, the unimportant, and the silly. 
 
 He found one for himself from Mattie, re-addressed 
 by Miss Bastable to him " At Crosslands," though he 
 had given his address as care of William Bassett-Crewe, 
 Esq. Miss Bastable was above all things genteel. 
 
 The letter was long, written from an hotel at Aries, 
 where Mattie and her aunt had stayed entranced with 
 the place. They had journeyed first through Normandy, 
 Rouen, Falaise, Bayeux, St. Lo, Countances, Chartres. 
 
 " We saw the Cathedral at Chartres by moonlight. 
 Auntie cried, and I was troubled. Oh! Peter, how you 
 would love it! There is a kink in the aisle, and the 
 
 windows ! Of course, they have ugly statues and 
 
 pictures. I gave fifty centimes to St. Anthony and 
 wished. They say he always gives, and there are tablets 
 
254 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 on his pedestal, " Merci, Merci," and the date, mostly; 
 I think, for the gift of children. There are always 
 women. Auntie says, kneeling before him, and he has 
 hundreds of candles." 
 
 All her letter was in this vein, some rapture, queer 
 little stories, praise of her aunt, delight in new things, 
 strange people, unpleasant English. From Normandy 
 she jumped to the Loire: Angers with its dark towers. 
 Tours, Blois, Chinon, Chenonceau, darling places. Then 
 Provenje and the sun: Nimes, Aries. 
 
 Mattie was curiously aloof, only in her postscript did 
 she come near to old relations. 
 
 " Demei>er is with me, but in travelling her head has 
 broken off. What does it mean? Perhaps I shall be 
 able to mend her." 
 
 Peter put the letter in his pocket, and went upstairs 
 as the dressing-gong sounded. He met Crayes the foot- 
 man. 
 
 " Is Mr. Crewe come back? " 
 
 " No^ sir. Not till Monday." 
 
 " Thank you, Crayes." 
 
 Crayes bowed respectfully, to Peter's delight. It was 
 a great joy to him to mark the growing deference of 
 these mighty beings, though he never dared remonstrate 
 with the second footman, who always spirited away his 
 clothes for cleaning just when he wanted them. 
 
 He was surprised to see a light under the door of a 
 bedroom near his own, and to account for it invented 
 an absurd ghost. 
 
 " The ghost," he said, " of dead Demeter." He pur- 
 sued the ghost through wild -adventures, weaving them 
 into lurid form for Cynthia's children on the morrow. 
 
 He found Mary seated in a low chair in the drawing- 
 
PETERI HOMUNCULUa 255 
 
 room staring into the fire. Her back was towards him, 
 and without turning she said: 
 
 " How do you do, Peter? " 
 
 In three strides Peter was across the room and by her 
 side. He took her hand and kissed it, then knelt and 
 she tugged at his hair. 
 
 "A brown Peter." 
 
 "I am fat." 
 
 " Young/' 
 
 "I am a little younger than Jane." 
 
 " Here it is impossible to be old." 
 
 " I love it — Crosslands. I had not dreamed of such 
 places — and Cynthia." 
 
 Mary was silent. 
 
 " Did she tell you I was here.? " 
 
 " No, or I should not have come. Not so close to 
 me, Peter." 
 
 "Must I not?" 
 
 " No — over there." 
 
 Peter in obedience moved to the other side of the 
 ^replace, then he leaned forward. 
 
 "Have you heard of Nehemias Grew? 
 
 " No." 
 
 "A gardener. He was before Linnaeus. Flowers 
 have honey guides, spots of bright colour, heavy vein- 
 ing for the visitor. I watched them first that day when 
 I met you in the Gardens. I had not then heard of 
 Nehemias Grew, and did not know that the commonest 
 flower is adjusted to the length of a butterfly's leg or 
 a bee's tongue. I know. This is for you. Truth, 
 Mary — ^truth. There is an elder-bush, Mary, where on 
 midsummer night the king of the fairies holds his 
 eourt, and they sport upon wild thyme. There was such 
 
25G PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 a moon three nights ago that they took it for midsum- 
 mer, and I saw them. They drove me out because I 
 was not with you. They " 
 
 "Oh! Peter. You have said it all." 
 
 "Again, then. Why did you go? " 
 
 "I should go now. I must, unless you promise." 
 
 " I have your handkerchief." 
 
 "Give it me." 
 
 " It is in my room." 
 
 He raced to fetch it, and with it brought the pink 
 topaz necklace that had been Clara's. He tumbled both 
 into Mary's lap and gave a shout of glee as she took the 
 pretty thing in her hands. She looked troubled. 
 
 "Oh! Peter. This for me?" 
 
 " Yes. Did I not tell you ? It was old Cooper's, in 
 his desk. It was his Clara's." 
 
 " It is so pretty." 
 
 Mrs. Crewe, coming into the room, was called to ad- 
 mire, and Peter, as he had dreamed, clasped it about 
 Mary's white throat. 
 
 " Some dreams are realised," he said. 
 
 Romantic Cynthia divined his meaning and laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 They were merry at dinner, but Peter was disturbed a 
 little, for he had found yet another Mary — Mary with 
 Cjoithia: not less adorable than the others, but strange. 
 A great lady, precious indeed, but remote: and though 
 she smiled across at Peter sitting opposite to her, she 
 was intangible. 
 
 Peter entertained them with reminiscences. 
 
 " We expect great things of you, Peter." 
 
 " I am an egg," he said, " which will prove addled 
 from too much sitting." 
 
PETEB HOMUNCULUS 257 
 
 " You think we are broody hens." 
 
 " It is to be observed that I have no single friend of 
 my own age." 
 
 To Mary this was calamitous, and this egoistic Peter 
 was to her a new thing and a deplorable. 
 
 He added : " You see, I grow too fast/' and was at 
 once sorry, for Mary was so palpably hurt. She turned 
 to Cynthia. Peter shrivelled and sat miserably making 
 bread pills. It seemed that he had no concern with 
 them, save that the nine pink topazes winked mockingly 
 at him. He had counted to gain so much by the gift, 
 but here he was beggared, and he thought: 
 
 " I have climbed into a class which is not my own. I 
 cannot go back, and if they will not let me forward, 
 then — if they ignore me, then — ^if it is certain that I 
 am unworthy, then " 
 
 What then was not quite clear — there was no leaping 
 the obstacle — gloomier and gloomier in his thoughts he 
 arrived finally at death, and with almost a sob in his 
 voice he said: 
 
 " Demeter is dead." 
 
 Cynthia protested. 
 
 " My dear Peter." 
 
 In the most tragic voice Peter said: 
 
 " There is a legend of the myosotis of a lover who, 
 jgathering flowers for his lady, fell into a deep pool 
 and threw a bunch at her feet, crying as he sank for 
 ever from her sight ' Forget-me-not.' " 
 
 " She should have saved him," said Mary. 
 
 " Perhaps she did not love him," said Cynthia. 
 
 " I expect she could not swim," said Peter, who from 
 hearing himself talk was beginning to emerge from his 
 gloom. Mary, who had been seeking in herself the 
 
258 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 cause of it, brightened, and for the rest of the meal 
 they talked engaging nonsense. 
 
 " If only Buntie were here/' cried Cynthia, and, at 
 once leaping to the tactlessness of the remark, she rose 
 and to atone ran and left them. 
 
 " To the hill," said Peter, and wrapped his Mary in 
 a blue shawl, round her shoulders, over her hair and 
 under her chin. He was near her and stared very hard 
 at her lips. 
 
 " I have never kissed you." 
 
 "You must not." 
 
 " This night is ours." 
 
 '"Say rather yours and mine." 
 
 " Together— ours." 
 
 "Yours and mine." 
 
 " In my letter I said ' Ours.' " 
 
 *' For that I did not answer it." 
 
 "My arm," he said. 
 
 She took it and they scaled the hill where tall beeches 
 grew. 
 
 " It is so dark," she said, and he led her to the edge 
 [where they looked across the valley and a sea of rising 
 mists. Trees loomed and the chimneys of the house* 
 From another hill there signalled comfortable lights. 
 
 " The glow worm's light is a signal to her lord — ^the 
 lamp of Hero." 
 
 " I said — do you remember? Leander never came." 
 
 " There was a new Mary to-night." 
 
 " There are so many that you do not know." 
 
 "'I will know them all." 
 
 "'You may not." 
 
 "Oh. Let us go." She clutched his arm, and sfie 
 iwas trembling. She was peering through the darkness 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 259 
 
 up at Peter. He stooped and gazed into frightened 
 eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " This place — ^this place." 
 
 " What then ? What then ?. " 
 
 " I am cold ..." 
 
 Peter threw an arm round her. 
 
 "Warm, warm in a cold world," he whispered. 
 
 " Yes, yes. It is that. Cold, cold for love." 
 
 " Mine ! " cried Peter, and enfolded her, stooped and 
 met lips seeking his. 
 
 She beat with clenched fists on his breast, and ran 
 from him. He spun round and flung himself on the soft 
 beech mould and plunged his arms into the cool stuff 
 and snuffed the scent of it. Then up he sprang, and 
 after her to find her hugging a tree, crying, crying, 
 crying . . . He leaped to her and embraced Mary 
 and tree together. 
 
 Then " Hush," he said, and Mary feigned terror. 
 
 " They are there," he said. " The little people by the 
 elder tree. See, see, secj glow-worm torches, silver 
 lights dancing. How they dance, in and out and round 
 about: elfin music, tiny elves. They dance to the 
 rhythm of Mary's name. Mary, Mary, Mary. See the 
 KiiTg there on a toad-stool, over there that great red 
 toad-stool, and the Queen reclining in the spider's web 
 in the heather clump." 
 
 " I see them. Oh ! I see them." 
 
 Peter stooped, and held his closed hand to Mary. She 
 listened. 
 
 "Oh! w:hatisit?" 
 
 "A small goat-footed boy — an envoy. What does he 
 Bay? " 
 
260 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 t 
 
 "Just music." •'" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I cannot speak." 
 
 She was pale and swaying. Peter held her and for- 
 got the game. He laid his cheek on hers and chafed her 
 hands and came upon his ring. 
 
 "You wear it still?" 
 
 " It never leaves me." 
 
 " You are cold. Let us walk." 
 
 Out of the woods they walked and down a lane until 
 they came to the brow of a hill whereunder a great iire 
 blazed, shewing by its light a hut, a smoking heap, and 
 a black figure moving. 
 
 " A charcoal burner," said Peter. " Shall we ask his 
 blessing also ? " 
 
 " The first human thing," said Mary, and so delighted 
 Peter that he took her in his arms again and kissed her. 
 
 " You are warm again." 
 
 " I have hugged you close." They ran hand in hand 
 until they came to the charcoal burner, who stayed in 
 his work and stood scowling, blinking, filthy of face 
 and uncouth of manner, at this strange casting forth of 
 the night, a lady and a gentleman in fine raiment, 
 washed and washed to unimagined cleanliness. He 
 turned and slaked his heap. 
 
 " Have you a name? " said Peter. 
 
 " Smoky Wootten's what they call me. Christened 
 Thomas." 
 
 " You Uve here?" 
 
 " In the woods. Wood's my living, and Bessie's and 
 the baby's." 
 
 " A baby ? " Mary hugged Peter's arm. Smoky 
 Wootten jabbed with bis thumb in the direction of the 
 
PETEE HOMUNCULUS 261 
 
 hut. And on the instant Mary fleWj her skirts gathered 
 up. Smoky Wootten's eyes followed her. 
 
 " That's a fine wench," he said, and spat on his heap. 
 
 Mary called to Peter, and he went. She had found 
 the mother suckling the baby, and, when it was fed, had 
 taken it in her arms while the little woman hovered 
 anxiously. The baby slumbered in Mary's arms, who, 
 on Peter appearing, cried to him: 
 
 " Its feet, Peter. Its dear feet, the toes of it and 
 the little dimpled heel." 
 
 " I like the creases where its ankles ought to be. 
 Does it know yet whether it is a girl or a boy? " 
 
 " A boy, sir," said the woman. 
 
 " Liberal or Conservative ? " 
 
 Mary laughed. Her face was radiant as she held 
 the tiny creature, and with her hand caressed its feet. 
 
 " A real, real, real wild baby, born in the woods." 
 
 " AU babies," said Peter, " are wild. They grow on 
 tree tops." 
 
 Mary kissed the baby and restored it to its mother. 
 
 " Has it a name yet? " 
 
 " We thought of Thomas." 
 
 " Call it Peter." - 
 
 "My godchild?" 
 
 Mary flung out her hands to him, and he kissed them. 
 He had half a sovereign in his pocket, and gave it to 
 the woman as they left. They bade Smoky Wootten 
 good-night as they passed, and he swore at them. As 
 they climbed the slope fhey heard the woman come 
 crying: 
 
 " Tom, Tom. It's gold. He gave me gold. They're 
 lovers." Smoky Wootten took the piece and bit it, then 
 thrust it in his pocket. 
 
262 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " They're mad, them gentlefolk. Mad. Twins next, 
 old girl: and let the old heap look to herself." 
 
 Peter and Mary wandered further through meadows. 
 He burst into song. 
 
 " I have seen Mary, real golden Mother-Mary." 
 
 From her there came only the sound of a sob stifled^ 
 and while Peter sang softly she spoke no word. 
 
 They turned presently, and found the road that 
 should take them to the gate of Crosslands. A heavy 
 shambling figure passed them and growled " Good- 
 night." Peter put out a hand to hold him for the 
 exchange of philosophy, but the man thrust him off 
 with an oath, and plunged into the darkness at a trot. 
 
 It was Smoky Wootten hurrying to the village and 
 beer. 
 
 " Are you wearied, Mary? " 
 
 Such a mournful voice came: 
 
 " It has been too much." 
 
 "Oh! I am sorry." 
 
 He held her so that he bore much of her weight. 
 
 At the house, she said: 
 
 "Good-night, dear, dear Peter." 
 
 "So early?" 
 
 " I will not see Cynthia." 
 
 " Cynthia will be glad." 
 
 " You must not tell her." 
 
 " Then you " 
 
 " Yes. What there is to tell." 
 
 " Demeter's ghost. I told you Demeter was dead. 
 She has lost her head* I think she must have found 
 Demophoon dead." 
 
 " The cat? " 
 
 " No. The baby that she nursed," 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 268 
 
 " I do not understand." 
 
 " Neither do I. Some day I will explain for you — > 
 and for myself." 
 
 "Good-night, then." 
 
 "Good-night. Is Cynthia to know nothing? She 
 made it possible." 
 
 " No— nothing." 
 
 " Then I shall tell Jane." 
 
 " Her you may. Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 He held her hand. 
 
 " Really good-night now." 
 
 He released her. Then would have held her but she 
 fled laughing. 
 
 Peter entered the drawing-room, and without a word 
 sat at the piano. With one finger he played the air of 
 a chant. 
 
 "A freezing melody," said Cynthia. 
 
 "That," said Peter, "is the Litany of tfie Virgin 
 Mary. I heard it once in the Cathedral at Westminster. 
 It is very pleasing and almost induced me to take an 
 eremite's vow." 
 
 "What is an eremite? " 
 
 " An eremite," said Peter, " is a person who has never 
 seen the King of the Fairies sitting on a toad-stool." 
 
 " Have you seen him to-night? " 
 
 " I may not tell you/' said Peter, and Cynthia smiled 
 as she poked the fire. 
 
 " Mary has gone to her room," said Peter, and Cyn- 
 thia smiled again. She thrust at a bubble of tar in a 
 great coal. 
 
 " My husband is very pleased withi you, Peter." 
 
 Peter endeavoured to look modest. 
 
264 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "He talks of having you for secretary." 
 
 " I would rather write for his journal." 
 
 " You can do both. You will earn more. If you 
 will do that you must live near us." 
 
 " Leave Gordon Square.'' " Peter was up and stand- 
 ing over her in a moment. 
 
 "It is out of the way, and if you are going to belong 
 to us " 
 
 "If? I do." 
 
 This sudden hoisting to security almost took Peter's 
 breath away. The interview with Sandilands had dis- 
 couraged him, and he had not dared to contemplate the 
 future. These weeks of happiness at Crosslands had 
 made the survey of it more than ever bitter. It had 
 opened up new ground, new lands of rich promise, and 
 though he was not lacking in confidence in himself, yet 
 he had been led in these great days to insist in self-dis- 
 section on those qualities which he lacked rather than 
 on those which he had. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Cynthia, " I should have said noth- 
 ing to you until my husband made you an actual pro- 
 posal, but I am so grateful to you." 
 
 This embarrassed Peter, who thought that gratitude 
 must be from his side. He picked up a bluebird from 
 the mantelpiece, and reading the inscription, said: 
 
 " What is a griinspecht? " 
 
 " You are delightfully irrelevant. You have made 
 Mary happier than I have known her for years. She is 
 almost as I first knew her." 
 
 Peter took refuge in sarcasm. 
 
 " It is an earth-shaking event." 
 
 " Every event is earth-shaking." 
 
 " Yes," said Peter. " There was once a widow-woman 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 265 
 
 of great cleanliness and unimpeachable respectability, 
 for she was of the middle class. Being poor, her chil- 
 dren must attend the public elementary school. One day 
 she found a louse in her daughter's hair, and the whole 
 world burst into flames, and was consumed." 
 
 "Oh!" said Cynthia, shocked. 
 
 "It is a parable," said Peter. "An earthly story, 
 with a heavenly meaning." 
 
 Then he sat down, and because Mrs. Crewe looked so 
 kind he plunged into confidence, and told her all the 
 Mattie story. When it was finished, with the recounting 
 of the breaking of Demeter, because she was silent, he 
 said suddenly: 
 
 "How old is Mary?" 
 
 She, startled into truth, said, " Thirty-one." 
 
 Peter, at his most whimsical, rejoined: 
 
 " She is not old enough to be my mother." 
 
 He waited still for comment. 
 
 All she said was as she stroked his head — ^he was 
 sitting at her feet — " There is yet no practical issue to 
 discuss. It is time for bed." 
 
 " If only," said Peter, " I had had a mother like 
 you." 
 
 " If only," said she, " my Hob may grow a little like 
 you." 
 
 As Peter reached the door she said : 
 
 " Mr. Wilson is forty-four." 
 
 The remark filled Peter with dismay. Passing the 
 door of Miss Dugdale's room, he saw that she was not yet 
 asleep, and he had an insane desire to call to her: 
 
 "Mr. Wilson is forty-four." 
 
 He controlled the impulse, and as he traversed the 
 few yards of the corridor to his own little room he 
 
266 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 thought: " He is forty-four. Just twice my age. That 
 he will never be again." 
 
 This reflection struck him as enormously clever, and 
 he chuckled. As he turned the handle of his door he 
 heard a door open, and looking up he saw Mary emerge 
 fully dressed in morning costume, and pass along in the 
 direction of the great room where Mrs. Crewe slept. He 
 would have cried out to her, but words would not come. 
 He found that he was trembling, and, putting his hand 
 to his forehead, that a cold sweat had broken out upon it. 
 
 He passed into his room, but did not turn up the 
 lights. The moon had risen and pale beams streamed 
 in through the window. The night was insufferably 
 hot, and he lay fully dressed on his bed cogitating the 
 events of the evening. He conjured up an image of 
 Mary, first Mary young as in the early portrait in 
 Greenfield's room: then Mary as she had been in the 
 little brougham more than five years ago; then the Mary 
 of the stage: the Mary as he had first known her: tha 
 Mary of the bridge in St. James Park: the Mary of the 
 hill when for the first time he had kissed her: and last 
 the Mary he had just seen walking along the corridor. 
 How bravely she walked! Gallant! He had the com- 
 fort of finding the right word. He turned to all that 
 he knew of her, all that scandal had said of her, and all 
 that he had discovered. That she had been unhappy was 
 easily dismissed: that she was still the wife of the 
 wretched man in Half Moon Street mattered not at all: 
 but beyond that lay a region unexplored, mysterious, 
 baflJing, terrifying. Peter's brain whirled, and his 
 breathing came heavily. He thrust and thrust at the 
 thing. It was like walking into a myriad of spiders' 
 webs. He tore away and perceived this one word: 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 267 
 
 "WilaoDl" 
 
 Oyer and over again there buzzed to the air of the 
 Litany of the Virgin Mary: 
 
 " Wilson is forty-four. Good Lord deliver ns ! " 
 
 Peter remembered the occasion when he had wished 
 to strike the man, and had carefully chosen the spot 
 between the eyes. He clenched his fist now and struck 
 out at the visualised face hanging in the air, as old 
 Cooper's face had hung that first day in the shop. His 
 fist smashed right through it, and Peter dashed his 
 knuckles against the wall. 
 
 " This will never do," he said, and strove to bring 
 himself to ecstasy by murmuring " Mary ! Mary ! 
 Mary ! " In vain. His lips were parched, and he 
 moistened them with his tongue. Slowly these words 
 framed themselves in his mind: 
 
 " Do I really want the woman ? " 
 
 He shrank from the question, and refused to find the 
 answer to it. He evaded it by framing another more 
 general. 
 
 " Do I really want any woman ? " This again was 
 avoided by a further question, and yet more and more 
 and more. 
 
 " Does any man want any woman, or any woman any 
 man.^ Are these wild flashes more than things of a 
 moment? Why? Why? Why? Does Podge Newhall 
 really want my sister? How long would Bond want his 
 — ^his wife if he could have her? Why do men and 
 women live hideously together? " 
 
 There came back to his mind that memorable utter- 
 ance of his father's in the parlour behind the shop. 
 
 " You to talk. You're any man's woman." Then the 
 questions buzzed again. 
 
268 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " Is not every woman any man's -woman? Is not 
 every man any woman's man? Why property? Why 
 impossible pledges? Why pretend so much that is 
 obviously false? Why build upon a lie and call it 
 sacred? Why do lies kill loving kindness? Why? 
 Why? Why? and why again? What does she want of 
 me? What can I give her that she has not alreadj 
 tasted bitterly? What am I to her, or she to me? " 
 
 Peter groaned and rolled from his bed. A cool, moist 
 wind came in at the window, heavy clouds were in the 
 sky, and over beyond the hills was black menace. In 
 the thick air the little wind seemed a thin stream. 
 
 He lit his candle and caught sight of himself in a 
 mirror. 
 
 " Damned ugly I am," he said. 
 
 The wind shrieked suddenly and blew his candle out. 
 The curtains bellied up into the room. He undressed 
 and dressed again in his blue-serge suit, then tottering 
 and afraid he crept downstairs and out at the door. 
 
 He looked up and saw a light in the window of Mrs. 
 Crewe's room, but in none other. There was a crack in 
 the sky like the tearing of cloth — lightning flickered, 
 then thunder rolled. A heavy drop of water spattered 
 on to his forehead. 
 
 Mary appeared at the window to look out and up at 
 the sky. She made some remark which Peter could not 
 catch. A flash of lightning illumined her face. She 
 looked marvellously beautiful. 
 
 Peter sobbed, and, stooping, he picked up a clod of 
 earth and threw it at her. It struck the tiles of the 
 wall ten feet below the window, was shattered, and 
 tinkled down into a gutter and on to the ground. 
 
 The rain came, swooping, and in a trice Peter's 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 269 
 
 clothes were soaked and heavy. A glorious warmtH 
 filled him, and he turned and ran, ran blindly througK 
 the park up through heavy lanes, past farms and cot- 
 tages, stumbling, slipping, falling, blundering into 
 thorny bushes, spattering mud, tearing his clothes, up 
 and up to Blackdown Hill, where at the summit he came 
 to a little temple of pine trees growing at the edge. 
 Here he fell and lay in the wild weather, sobbing, sob- 
 bing, because he was so miserably alone. 
 
 Presently he stood on the height looking down over 
 the wide valley, over the downs towards the sea, butting 
 with his head against the tearing wind. He blotted 
 Mary and all questions from his mind and fell back 
 upon low oaths and pothouse words. He climbed to the 
 tall crest of a tree and hung there swaying to the wind. 
 Two trees hard by had grown together, and they 
 screeched. The wide rhythm of the swaying and the 
 storm soothed him, and he shouted greeting to each flash 
 and hail to every crashing thunder, and the wind swept 
 the tiny notes from his lips as he uttered them. Branches 
 were wrenched from his tree, but he clung there crying 
 aloud. He saw great trees fall to the ground and 
 stones, wood, and earth hurled through the air. 
 
 The storm passed and stars shone again. Peter 
 clambered from his tree, and down the hill he leaped, 
 great flights, until he came to the pool. Here he stripped 
 and bathed, and after ran naked through the park. 
 
 He stole up to his room again as dawn was peeping; 
 He slept heavily. 
 
 It was a wretched and sorry Peter who crept down 
 to breakfast at a late hour. Near the door of the dining- 
 room he sneezed violently and realised that he had a 
 very severe cold. When he opened his mouth to pro-. 
 
270 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 nounce tlie morning greeting there issued only a 
 grotesque rattling noise which brought tears to his 
 eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe prescribed quinine before breakfast and 
 dosed him. 
 
 He noticed that breakfast was only laid for two, and 
 that Mrs. Crewe had already come to the end. He was 
 more than usually taciturn and munched in silence. 
 
 Her first thought was for his cold, then only for the 
 hurt she had to deal him. She watched him until he 
 became conscious of her scrutiny and fidgeted irritably. 
 Decidedly he was unwell, and she was solicitous for 
 him. She observed that he tasted his food, then thrust 
 it away, sipped his coffee and left that too. Without 
 his usual polite request, he began to smoke, and that she 
 took for the worst sign of all. He rose and stood look- 
 ing gloomily out the window at the glorious day, then 
 came and stood by the empty fireplace as though he 
 hoped to gain warmth. She noticed, too, that he had cut 
 himself in shaving. He sneezed again, so that his whole 
 body shook, and he clutched the mantelpiece to steady 
 himself again, and, his right hand sawing the air, he 
 swept a photograph of Mary to the hearth. The glass 
 of its frame was shattered, and it lay there face down- 
 wards. Cynthia could bear it no longer. She went to 
 him and laid a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Mary has gone," she said. 
 
 " I'm not going to cry about it," growled Peter, and 
 sneezed again. " I threw a clod at her last night." 
 
 The whole thing was so ridiculous, Mary's second 
 fiight from a boyish lover, his cold and sneezing only 
 made matters worse, and Cynthia, desiring to offer sym- 
 pathy, was hard put to it not to laugh. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 271 
 
 "You may," said Peter. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " You may laugh. I'm too young, and youth is food 
 for laughter. It is so — so fluffy." 
 
 He stroked his chin as though to reassure himself 
 that his beard grew in strong stiff bristles. Then he 
 sneezed again, and after blinking away the tears his 
 eyes looked up into Cynthia's and found such kindness 
 there that the bitterness in him died. 
 
 " Did she say anything about — about me ? " 
 
 " Shall we go out into the sun ? " They went out, 
 she seeing that Peter donned a hat — a Homburg of Bas- 
 sett-Crewe's that nearly extinguished him — and while 
 they walked up and down on the eastern terrace she 
 told him how Mary had come to her happy and unhappy, 
 — Slaughter bubbling through tears — ^how she told her of 
 their wonderful walk together and their coming upon 
 the charcoal burner and his baby. 
 
 " It was that, then ? " said Peter. 
 
 " It was because of what you said. You are so 
 young." 
 
 " I understand that." 
 
 " It is because you understand so much, and yet not 
 enough that she has gone." 
 
 "When did she go?" 
 
 " Early this morning. I lent her the car." 
 
 " I am not — ^not to see her again." 
 
 " She will not forget you." 
 
 "Ha! Ha!" The bitterness swelled in Peter, but 
 was gone on the instant. 
 
 " It is better so. You have to grow." 
 
 " I am still tiny man, then ? " 
 
 This puzzled Cynthia. Peter offered no explanation. 
 
272 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " You have given her, Peter, a knowledge of herself 
 and — oh! wonderful things." 
 
 " To me," said Peter, " she is Woman. If she is 
 cruel I must accept as I would the cruelty of the earth, ' 
 or the wind on the sea. The gift I bring to her is tiny, 
 by the acceptance of it alone she makes it and me great. 
 She is " 
 
 He sneezed here, and when he groped for the thread 
 of poetry it was gone. 
 
 " I am your friend, Peter," said Cynthia. 
 
 " In your eyes I am an ass." 
 
 " No, no." 
 
 " You know everything. I must seem an ass. I must 
 
 go." 
 
 She protested further, but he clung doggedly to his 
 point, insisted on the sulky wearing of long ears, and in 
 the end she let him go, upon a promise that he would 
 write to her, and would be careful to avoid serious con- 
 sequences of his chill, and, when in the autumn she re- 
 turned to town, he would let her find a residence for 
 him near their house in Park Street. 
 
 There were loud lamentations in the nursery, for the 
 children saw at once the non-fulfillment of certain 
 dazzling promises of adventure that Peter had rashly 
 made. 
 
 Peter wired to Miss Bastable, and, coming from the 
 houses of the rich (Crosslands was a " stately home of 
 England " for the purposes of popular magazines), he 
 received a welcome and a subsequent consideration from 
 her, which he found embarrassing and made him post- 
 pone till the last possible moment the announcement of 
 his departure from her hospitable roof. 
 
 He made no attempt to see Miss Dugdale, and wrote 
 
PETEBl H0MUNCULU9 273 
 
 to her only a few words to let her know that he had dis- 
 cussed the matter of themselves with kind Cynthia. To 
 this she replied with three words : 
 
 " Thank you, dear." 
 
 He was glad then that he had given her the necklace, 
 and that she had old Adam's ring. 
 
 He thought much ahout these trinkets in the intervals 
 of the very thorough revision for his examination, to 
 which he applied himself in his little room at the top 
 of the house, and he decided one day to go to visit the 
 old man and incidentally the bird-dealer, the father of 
 the now more than ever celebrated dancer. 
 
 He foimd an enormous crowd outside the shop-win- 
 dows, and the bird-dealer, fat and bursting with pride 
 and pleasure. His daughter had definitely broken with 
 him, and had given him a sum of money with which 
 he had bought a large ape in a specially constructed 
 glass box. This he had in the window, where the ani- 
 mal lay under a sack gibbering at the curious crowd. 
 
 "All but talk, he can," said the enthusiastic man. 
 " Eat ! He can eat like a human. Tuck a napkin round 
 his neck and you wouldn't know him from the Lord 
 Mayor o' London." 
 
 He took Peter inside and whispered confidentially in 
 his ear. 
 
 " I'm teaching him to go to bed. " 
 
 Then he exhibited the tiny bed he had made, a bed 
 in the fineness of its detail more magnificent than any 
 at Crosslands, more splendid even than that on which 
 Peter had sat while Tessa went through her elaborate 
 toilette. 
 
 " Get 'im to do that, an' we'll go on the 'Alls. Fifty 
 a week they'll give 'im, that's more than any of the fools 
 
274 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 out there gapin' at 'im '11 git, not if they lives to be as 
 old as Methoosalem." 
 
 " The comment on humanity," said Peter, " is need- 
 lessly cruel." 
 
 " Jane's only gittin' twenty," said the bird-dealer, and 
 Peter, as he marked the glitter in his little eye, remem- 
 bered the day when the same man had driven his daugh- 
 ter from the shop. 
 
 To avoid further unpleasant reflection, Peter explained 
 the purpose of his visit. 
 
 " Old Adam," said the bird-dealer mournfully. 
 " Gone." 
 
 " Not ? " said Peter. 
 
 " Not 'im. 'E'U never die. That sort o' stringy old 
 man never does, just to spite their relations. No. 'E's 
 ■in the country, like 'e was always talkin' about." 
 
 Peter was glad to hear this. 
 
 " It was Miss Dugdale, sir." 
 
 Peter started. 
 
 " 'Er what was 'ere when you come that last time. 
 Bought a cat, she did. In she walked fresh as a new 
 lily, Mr. Davies, sir, an' with 'er Mr. Murray Wilson. 
 They asks arter the old chap, an' up they goes to 
 see 'im, an' off they takes 'un to an almshouse near 
 Guildford. Thought the old chap would 'a died wi' the 
 excitement of it. Not 'im — ^they don't die — ^not that 
 stringy sort." 
 . " How long ago? " said Peter. 
 
 " Matter p' five months." 
 
 " Much obliged," said Peter, and declined to be shown 
 the other new treasures of the place. 
 
 He rejoiced in his friends, his Mary and Wilson. 
 Wandering vaguely, he found himself standing in 
 
PETEBl HOMUNCULUS 275 
 
 ShaflesBury Avenue in front of the shop over which he 
 had once been so proud to see in white letters on a green 
 ground the legend: Cooper and Davies. Memories 
 thronged in him, and as he stood there he could clearly 
 see old Adam shivering and shaking in his old green 
 overcoat over the book-boxes as the boy Peter had jostled 
 against him. He remembered the pride in him that the 
 old man had shared with Cooper, X. Cooper of the large 
 red nose, the great eye and little eye, and the enormous 
 kindness. 
 
 " No wasted Cooper, no Peter Davies," he said again, 
 though with a humility that was impossible for him at 
 the time when he had coined the saying. 
 
 He wondered how the Beasley family were progress- 
 ing in the colonies; and Tessa — Tessa must be happy: 
 was she not with Mary? — and the journalist, and the 
 little milliner who had signed old Cooper's will: and 
 Demophoon — alas, long since presumed dead. 
 
 There were signs that the rooms above the shop were 
 occupied as business premises; possibly, Peter thought, 
 they housed the various nefarious concerns which 
 brought profit to the half-caste barber. 
 
 Putting his hand up to his hair at the thought of the 
 barber, Peter found that it needed cutting, and went into 
 the shop. 
 
 The half-caste was there, no feature of his villainous 
 face perceptibly altered. He had assistants no less vil- 
 lainous. 
 
 It was as Peter had thought. The rooms upstairs 
 were occupied by the half-caste, for they communicated 
 with the shop (enlarged by the removal of the parlour 
 wall) by a circular iron staircase up which now a lean 
 dark man, with eyes too close toother, went with a nod 
 
270 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 and a smile to the barber. He •was a famished-looking 
 creature, out at elbows, wolfish, and his smile was not 
 pleasant. He had one tooth at the side, just showing 
 in the grin, crowned with gold. The gleam of it was 
 oddly familiar to Peter, who stood staring up at his 
 back, whereon the seams of the coat were worn, its el- 
 bows shiniirg. The back also was familiar. He disap- 
 peared, and Peter demanded to have his hair cut. 
 
 The half-caste did not recognise him, and was servile 
 in his attentions to so elegant a gentleman. He left 
 the little shop-boy on whom he was operating to the 
 mercies of an apprentice, and himself attended to this 
 distinguished head of hair. Without much encourage- 
 ment from Peter, who was busily endeavouring to place 
 the man with the gleaming tooth, he ran through the 
 range of tonsorial conversation, the weather, horse-rac- 
 ing, the last music-hall sensation, the doings of the col- 
 onial cricketers then making the tour of the country, 
 and the advisability of a singe and shampoo. Peter was 
 hot on the scent of the tooth man, and because he could 
 not locate him, except vaguely in South London, where 
 hfe might have been seen in the street or in the train, he 
 at length asked the half-caste. The barber looked anx- 
 iously at Peter's boots, then said: 
 
 " Oh, that ! that's Parson George. He works here 
 upstairs." 
 
 Parson ! That was it. Peter had him now. — ^Wolver- 
 ton, the scoundrelly curate who had lodged with his 
 aunt and finally had married and disappeared with 
 her. 
 
 He asked no more, but decided to wait until the man 
 should descend again. To that end he had himself shaved, 
 shampooed, singed, manicured — ^though the half-caste 
 
PETEB H0MUNCULU9 277i 
 
 was no adept in this last. At length, at the end of all 
 the operations, the man appeared again and sneaked 
 out of the shop. Peter flung the harber half-a-crown, 
 and ran after him. He touched his arm, and the man 
 swung round, raising his arm as if to ward off a blow. 
 Then, with his little red-rimmed eyes, he stared at Peter, 
 and seemed to be taking stock of the quality of his 
 clothes. He grinned nervously, and the tooth gleamed. 
 Peter was beginning to find that he had nothing to say 
 to the man, and a sort of nervousness seized him. They 
 stood on the edge of the pavement grinning absurdly at 
 each other. 
 
 Peter put out a hand, which the other took with a 
 a dirty paw. Presently Peter found words: 
 
 " You are Mr. Wolverton? " 
 
 Peter's hand was dropped and the man was for sham- 
 bling off. This angered Peter and roused obstinacy in 
 him. He hitched his shoulders in his old way, and said 
 again: 
 
 " You are Mr. Wolverton." 
 
 " My name is Kelly." 
 
 " Parson George," said Peter. 
 
 The man cringed. 
 
 " When I knew you," said Peter, " your name was 
 Wolverton." 
 
 " I was born Wolverton," said the man, and seemed 
 to be searching in his memory. 
 
 "You — ^you're not young Scott?" 
 
 "David?" said Peter. "No. You — ^you are my 
 uncle." 
 
 "Young Davies?" 
 
 Peter nodded, and the man seemed dumbfounded. 
 He took Peter's arm and led him ,to a bar which bore 
 
278 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 the homely title of " Aunty's." Wolverton would not 
 hear of Peter's paying for drinks^ but borrowed half- 
 a-crown of him to do so. There was cheese and biscuits 
 on the counter, and these the wretched man ate as though 
 he were hungry. He drank to Peter's good health, as is 
 the custom in such places, and then launched into a tale 
 of woe. He seemed to be trying to justify himself in 
 Peter's eyes. He had retained a certain amount of self- 
 respect, for he was shaved and his linen, though frayed, 
 was clean. What Peter found most pitiful in the man 
 was that his voice had not altogether lost its parsonic 
 tone, and in his bearing there was the subtle swagger 
 which is in all ministers of all sorts of religion. Finally 
 he asked Peter point blank if he could not iSnd him 
 work, since the post of jackal or racing tout to the 
 half-caste was both distasteful and unremunerative. 
 
 On this Peter made inquiry for his aunt. Mr. Wolver- 
 ton adjusted his black tie, and in a melancholy tone 
 proclaimed her death three months ago. 
 
 " We went down and down," said Mr. Wolverton. " I 
 was glad that she died." 
 
 He said this with such sincerity in pity for the 
 woman whom he had ruined that Peter was sorry for 
 him, too. He gave him what money he had, and left 
 him murmuring thanks and thanks, and wishes for the 
 best of luck. 
 
 Peter came away from this encounter with a bad 
 taste in his mouth. It was an unpleasant reminder of the 
 world from which he had escaped, all the more unpleas- 
 ant from the thought that there must have been a time 
 when this same degenerate parson had known life as 
 sweet as that at Crosslands. It came as a contrast and 
 reminded him of that which once had been ever present 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 27« 
 
 in his thoughts — ^the insecurity of livelihood of the 
 greater part of humanity. 
 
 In writing of the adventure to Mrs. Crewe, he said: 
 
 " To understand humanity it is necessary to know 
 the diflFerence between five shillings and half-a-crowil." 
 
 He was pleased with this phrase, and used it on 
 more than one occasion. He presented it to Mr. Scott, 
 whom he visited in order to tell him of the letter he 
 had received from Mr. Bassett-Crewe offering him the 
 post of secretary at a salary of two hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year, with opportunity to write as much as 
 Sandilands would take for the new journal. This was 
 a fortune, and Peter went to his friend as much to 
 crow as to render account of himself. 
 
 David was better, and was soon to be sent into the 
 country to spend two years in studying for the Indian 
 Woods and Forests Service, which had been pitched on 
 as providing a suitable career for a healthy and not 
 over-studious young man. They had had good accounts 
 of Peter from Wilson. He was warmly greeted, and 
 Mrs. Scott showed him various photographs and trifles 
 which Mattie had sent home from her travels. 
 
 Peter was irritated to discover that he found the 
 Scotts rather dull and narrow. He disliked himself for 
 it, but could not make headway. He seemed to have 
 developed a new sense of humour which was unintel- 
 ligible to them. He made several remarks which had 
 been very successful with the Bassett-Crewes and their 
 circle, but here they fell absolutely dead. He strug- 
 gled manfully, however, and Mrs. Sbott was charmed 
 with him. 
 
 "My dear," she said, when Peter was gone, "how 
 he has improved ! " 
 
280 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Peter, away in his room, was thinking the matter out, 
 and leaped suddenly on the discovery that Wilson in 
 that house was entirely different from the Wilson who 
 was called " Buntie " by innumerable friends and ad- 
 mirers. He remembered also that much the same thing 
 had happened in him with regard to Janet Fildes when 
 he had first been drawn into the Scott circle. He hated 
 that it should happen, but he recognised the inevit- 
 ability of it, and he devoutly hoped that the thing 
 might not happen with regard to Crosslands. The pros- 
 pect of developing a sense of humour which should cut 
 him off from that was too ghastly to contemplate. 
 
 He took down a Latin text and a note-book, but he 
 found himself thinking hazily of Mattie, and Nehe- 
 mias Grew, and bees. 
 
 "Decidedly," he thought, "I have not left Mat- 
 tie behind. Odd ! Nehemias Grew said that it was 
 necessary for pollen to reach the stigma of a flower in 
 order that it might set fertile seed. Fertile .'' — do we only 
 live for fertility? — Bees kill the drones — Bees^Bees — 
 Bees — Buzzing — Mattie and Bees. What has she to 
 do with bees .f" Mattie is in France : besides, . I'm in 
 
 love with Mary Am I not in love with Mary? I 
 
 am. I swear I am — she's married: married to a bee — 
 ha ! ha ! Bee in my bonnet. . . ." 
 
 He rose chuckling at his little joke, and thinking that 
 any joke is good enough for oneself. From his book- 
 shelf he took a book on bees and bee-keeping that had 
 been in the shop and he had kept without quite knowing 
 why, , for he had never yet read a page of it. 
 
 He opened it now haphazard and read: "All vari- 
 ations which render the blossoms more attractive, either 
 by scent, colour, size of corolla or quantity of nectar, 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 281 
 
 make the insect visit more sure and therefore the pro- 
 duction of seed more likely. Thus the conspicuous blos- 
 soms secure descendants which inherit the special varia- 
 tions of their parents, and so, generation after genera- 
 tion, we have selections in favour of conspicuous flowers, 
 where insects are at work. Their appreciation of colour, 
 because it has brought the blossoms possessing it more 
 immediately into their view, and more surely under their 
 attention, has enabled them, through the ages, to be pre- 
 paring the specimens upon which man now operates: he 
 taking up the work where they have left it, according 
 to his own rules of taste and developing a beauty 
 which insects alone could never have evolved. His are 
 the finishing touches, his the apparent effects: yet no 
 less is it true that the results of his floriculture would 
 never have been attainable without insect-helpers. It 
 is equally certain that the beautiful perfume and the 
 nectar also are, in their present development, the out- 
 come of repeated insect selection: and here, it seems to 
 me, we get an inkling of a deep mystery: Why is life, 
 in all its forms, so dependent upon the fusion of two 
 individual elements.'' Is it not that thus the door of 
 progress has been opened.'' If each alone had repro- 
 duced itself all-in-all, advance would have been impos- 
 sible; the insect and human florists and pomologists, 
 like the improvers of animal races, would have had no 
 platform for their operation, and not only the forms of 
 life, but life itself would have been stereotyped unal- 
 terably, ever mechanically giving repetition to identical 
 phenomena." 
 
 Peter shut the book and said aloud: 
 
 " A dull writer." 
 
 Then he plunged again into his reverie. 
 
282 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "What is a pomologist? Two hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year. . . . Health, wealth, what more for 
 happiness? Mary, Mattie — odd! Strange. I cannot 
 call to mind Mattie's face: but for Mary, I can see her 
 in every moment in which I have known her: her atti- 
 tude, her gestures, the fold of her dress, the expression 
 of her eyes, almost I can reconstruct the thoughts she 
 had at such and such a time in such and such a place; 
 almost, but not quite, for there is always the inmost 
 holy unattainable, even for the most beloved. And yet, 
 and yet, she ran from me — I am what."* Too young — 
 too little experienced — ' Go your way, you fair young 
 man ! ' Heuh ! It's true : young and too clever. Rub- 
 bish! One can't be too clever, but one can have the 
 wrong sort of cleverness. When — ^when — ^when — she is 
 marvellous, but she is not great like — like Jane, Even- 
 ing Glory Jane — she is what I choose to make her, and 
 — and if I am big enough I can make her more and 
 more glorious. She's afraid — that's it: she's afraid. 
 . . . Not the end of it: only the beginning — there 
 is never an end to anything — and — and death is only 
 another beginning." 
 
 This reflection so startled him, coming as it did in 
 the midst of his muddled thoughts, that it effectually 
 woke him up, and he found himself having bitten his 
 thumb until it bled. Up went his hand to his forelock, 
 and he paced up and down the room, turning the phrase 
 this way and that for scrutiny and to see it in all lights. 
 It was so ridiculously simple as to appear almost pre- 
 posterous — and certainly appalling. 
 
 " I don't know," said Peter aloud, and those three 
 words struck him as really the most comfortable that 
 bad ever occurred to him. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 283 
 
 He turned to a mass of papers on his writing-table 
 and began to peruse them. 
 
 Wilson had been iaetively engaged with the prepara- 
 tion of the Cooper papers for publication. It had been 
 impossible to discover any relation of the old man, and 
 he had applied to the Townsend family, who, searching 
 among their archives, had found a number of documents 
 relating to the unhappy George. It was proposed that 
 Wilson should write a preface and Peter a personal 
 memoir of the old man, and the Townsend material had 
 been handed over to him. He had resolved not to touch 
 them until his examination was over, but now that his 
 mind was full of old Cooper, Peter found the tempta- 
 tion irresistible. 
 
 The papers were docketed and indexed. They cov- 
 ered several years. There were letters exchanged by 
 the two men: letters from great personages and men in 
 high places; from women; from artists and men of let- 
 ters; newspaper articles of a political character, and a 
 draft scheme for a society which was to procure liberty 
 and equality, universal franchise, and the remodelling 
 of the social order. 
 
 Peter read this very carefully and was startled to 
 find it so unlike the Cooper he had known; for it had 
 the tendency of modern socialism to ignore the human 
 factor. It was bureaucratic. 
 
 The discovery of Cooper the ridiculous reformer was 
 almost as startling as the discovery of Cooper the im- 
 passioned lover. Peter took it very sensibly as a warn- 
 ing, and all his life he had a horror of upstart intellect. 
 
 Peter had just happened upon a letter from a great 
 actor to George Townsend when there came a knock at 
 the door. 
 
284. PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He invited entry, and was more than surprised when 
 there rushed into the room Mr. Lawrence Greenfield and 
 Mr. Beaumont Scholes. Mr. Greenfield was his suave 
 smooth self, but the poet had a wild eye and his hair 
 was tossed and tangled. He stood nervously, shifting 
 from one foot to another, until Peter could bear it no 
 longer, and insisted on their sitting. They sat, Green- 
 field in the velvet chair, Scholes in the farthest corner 
 of the room. Peter offered them cigarettes and apol- 
 ogised for the absence of alcohol. Then he waited for 
 them to explain the visitation. 
 
 " He won't see us," said Greenfield, " and my sister 
 refuses to do anything." 
 
 " I am in the dark," said Peter. 
 
 Mr. Scholes took from his pocket a copy of the 
 journal to which he was a weekly contributor and gave 
 it to Greenfield, who handed it to Peter. They watched 
 him narrowly as he read it. 
 
 " Am I to applaud the style or the taste of it.'' " Said 
 Peter. 
 
 " It was — was just a joke," said Greenfield with a 
 little nervous laugh. 
 
 Peter was too angry to say anything. The article 
 was an attack on Wilson's forthcoming comedy, written 
 obviously without knowledge of its character, and con- 
 tained a brief and subtly warped history of Miss Dug- 
 dale's marriage, based on information which Scholes 
 could only have obtained from Greenfield. 
 
 "Well?" said Peter. 
 
 " He has instituted proceedings. The paper can't 
 afl!"ord it." 
 
 " It is undoubtedly libellous." 
 
 " We will apologise." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 285 
 
 " The mischief is done." 
 
 " It was just a joke," said Scholes. 
 
 "You will see him?" said Green^eld. 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 " It will do no one any good to take it into open 
 court." 
 
 Peter turned to his papers again and refused either 
 to hear or speak more. The unhappy young men looked 
 at each other uneasily, tried argument, threats, flattery, 
 but all to no purpose. In the end they went. 
 
 Peter waited until they had gone, and then went to 
 Wilson's rooms, found him out, and stayed talking to 
 Matilda until he came in. He had not seen Matilda 
 since his return from Crosslands and had a good deal 
 to say to her. She listened with most sympathetic in- 
 terest, more especially, it seemed to Peter, to the infor- 
 mation concerning Mary. 
 
 Wilson greeted Peter more warmly than he had ever 
 done, and Peter was glad. 
 
 " I have never taken any notice of such things," said 
 Wilson, when Peter told him of his visitation. 
 
 " I suppose the thing sold." 
 
 " Oh, yes J The public is greedy of scandal. 
 
 " What an odious period we live in ! " 
 
 " Vulgarity is not a special quality of this that we 
 call the age of commerce. There was a gentleman 
 called Catullus who declaimed against his contempo- 
 raries in these words: 
 
 " ' O saeculum insipien et inficetum ! ' " 
 
 "An age without judgment and without taste," Peter 
 translated. " They are counting on the publicity of it 
 for advertisement." 
 
 " I think," said Wilson, " they jvill not go on with 
 
286 PETEH HOMUNCULUS 
 
 it. The process of the law is too costly. They will 
 settle out of court, but I shall carry it on until there is 
 a thumping bill of costs. That sort of muck-rake man 
 will always find a living." 
 
 "But Greenfield! . . ." 
 
 " That sort of man either marries a woman with 
 money or the capacity of earning it, or he drifts to the 
 colonies." 
 
 The subject was distasteful, and they turned to the 
 Townsend papers, while Peter narrated all that he had 
 discovered. 
 
 Peter rose to go. 
 
 " I am glad that Crewe is to take you — free-lancing 
 is deadly work." 
 
 " Yes," said Peter, " I am glad." 
 
 " That is a nice j ewel you gave Miss Dugdale. She 
 is to wear it in my play." 
 
 On that Peter left, after condoling with Matilda, who 
 had been cherishing a hope that he had come to take 
 her for a walk. 
 
 As he walked home, turning over this desultory con- 
 versation, Wilson's last remark struck fire. It occurred 
 to Peter that this was the first time he had ever volun- 
 teered a remark concerning Miss Dugdale, and the cir- 
 cumstance seemed unaccountably ominous. 
 
 He went back over the whole afi'air, remembering 
 scenes, actions, snatches of letters, conversations, and 
 everything converged in the most ridiculous fashion on 
 that remark of Mrs. Crewe's: 
 
 " Mr. Wilson is forty-four." 
 
 That was impassable. Peter tried to scale it, but it 
 rose the higher: to circumvent it, it ran endlessly. He 
 knew that on the other side of it lafy solution, but the 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 287 
 
 character of the hidden thing defied imagination. " The 
 age of a man is a hard fact/' said Peter. " It bafiBes 
 thought." 
 
 In Piccadilly he saw a match-seller with a nose larger 
 than his own. For that he gave the man threepence. 
 
 He was sensitive about his nose ever since the Crewe 
 children, drawing his portrait, had each given him a nose 
 like that of the celebrated idiot of the early nineteenth 
 century. He had never told man or woman the story 
 of the urchin in Southwark who had first drawn his 
 attention to its dimensions. 
 
IX 
 
 The new Wilson comedy was produced with triumpliant 
 success. 
 
 Peter was present at the production in Mrs. Crewe's 
 box. He dirred with her first in the delightful house 
 in Park Street. 
 
 They both thoroughly enjoyed the play, and Peter 
 succeeded in forgetting Mary the woman in Miss Dug- 
 dale the delicious actress, so much so that it seemed 
 odd to see her wearing his necklace. She was certainly 
 a delightful artist, though she had not the compelling 
 force of Evening Glory Jane, but she was so neat in 
 her method and so sure and tactful, that to watch her 
 was sheer pleasure. The evening was a triumph for 
 her, and as she appeared for the sixth time in answer 
 to vociferous calls, Peter saw that there were tears in 
 her eyes, and she was trembling and overwrought. He 
 shouted with the best, but was struck dumb when she 
 looked up at him and bobbed a curtsey in his direction. 
 The illusion was shattered and he was left only with 
 the desire to catch the elusive woman. 
 
 As Peter helped Mrs. Crewe into her motor-car she 
 said to him: 
 
 " I have found your rooms, but you are not to see 
 them until they are furnished." 
 
 With that she drove off, and Peter was left with mur- 
 mured protestations and thanks on his lips. 
 
 He stayed lurking in the little knot of people by the 
 Stftge door, and saw Mary come out on Wilson's arm< 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS 289 
 
 He saw Wilson help Her into the little brougham, then 
 follow her, and as they drove away he saw Mary lay 
 her hand on Wilson's, and his close on it. 
 
 He turned to rush away, jostled roughly through the 
 crowd, cursing, and walked for hours in the streets, in- 
 sane with jealousy. He strode in blind fury, hands 
 clenched, teeth set, and the muscles of his throat drawn 
 so tight that it ached. His blood raced, and at his 
 teniples it throbbed, while he recounted to himself every 
 scene with the woman, every word of tenderness that 
 she had uttered, and he recreated the first kiss of her 
 hand, the first kiss of her lips: he muttered all the wild 
 words that he had written for her, and dragged into 
 words the crazy emotions which at the time had been 
 inexpressible. In the end he suddenly realised that he 
 was modelling his behaviour on that of Bond, on the 
 strange night of the visit to the music-hall. With 
 that he burst into a shout of laughter and was sane 
 again, to find himself in an unknown and unexpected 
 region of London — a region of long terraces of stucco 
 houses, dreadful in their similarity. It seemed that all 
 the inhabitants had retired, for of all the windows 
 there were here and there only those on the first and 
 second floor illuminated. The roar of a great thorough- 
 fare was audible, but to ascertain the direction of it was 
 impossible. 
 
 Peter found the Great Bear, and by that turned his 
 face to the east. Eventually, without seeing a creature 
 other than an occasional cat, he came upon a place 
 which he thought must be the Regent's Park, and from 
 that he bore south and east. Arrived in Portman Square, 
 a name which had for him the ritiging sound of opu- 
 lence, he stopped in bis career to gaze appreciatively 
 
290 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 after a woman who had accosted him after running 
 quite a hundred yards to place herself in his way. He 
 made no response to her greeting, but after she had 
 passed he stood and shivered. 
 
 " To wander through so much of London and see 
 never a soul, that is the strangest adverrture that has 
 befallen me." 
 
 The woman, thinking he had stayed for her, advanced 
 a little, then stopped, advanced again and up to him, 
 smiling fixedly. Peter saw that she was quite old, forty- 
 four perhaps, but not without comeliness aird a certain 
 air of good-fellowship. 
 
 In a voice of complete disinterest she gave him her 
 stereotyped invitation and waited. Peter took off his 
 hat to her and said: 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 " It's not far from here," she said, and jerked her 
 thumb over in the direction from whence he had come. 
 
 " Into those streets again ? " said Peter. " No." 
 
 " Are you tired, dearie ? " 
 
 " I have emerged, good woman, from a fit of the crazi- 
 est passion known to man." 
 
 The strangeness of this address took the woman 
 aback, but, accustomed to all manner of odd whimsies, 
 and because it was late, she gave polite attention to this 
 possible client. 
 
 Delighting in the freakishness of this encounter and 
 in the absurdity of discharging subtlety upon this fatu- 
 ous countenance, he continued impressivejy. 
 
 " Jealousy, good woman, is the root of all evil. How 
 shall a man possess a woman? Yet to be jealous he 
 must have the desire ^to possess, and I tell you that 
 in nothing is a man so mocked as in this desire, for it 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS 291 
 
 is of a piece with the rest of his arrogance, the desire to 
 possess the infinite. You are a woman, and therefore 
 infinite." 
 
 He clutched her shoulder and wagged a forefinger in 
 her face. 
 
 " From the first dawn you are the mother of all 
 children, and the wife of all men. You are this world 
 and all eternity. The secrets of the earth are yours 
 and the profoundest depths of the sea. For the hrief 
 moment of his life a man is yours, a moment in your 
 march to new triumphs of creation. Somewhere in 
 Egypt there is a strange effigy called the Sphinx, erected 
 by men of ancient days to the glory of woman. What 
 man is there would dare to possess the Sphinx? Yet 
 just so eternal is each woman, all-embracing. . . . 
 A man jealous is a child crying because he may not 
 have the moon. Woman is sun, moon and stars, day 
 and night." 
 
 The woman edged away from him. ^ 
 
 "Hell," she said, "but you are drunk!" 
 
 She shook free and moved away. There was in her 
 a sort of horror. 
 
 Peter ran after her. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I am not a man, but an ass 
 laden with books." 
 
 He thrust money into her hand and she took to her 
 heels. 
 
 A cabman soliciting his custom, Peter complied. In 
 the cab he felt curiously shrunken. He shook like a 
 man sick of a palsy, and suddenly burst into tears, and 
 knew that this was the salvation of him. As he held up 
 his hand with the fare he looked at the cabman. 
 
 " You look ill, cabby." 
 
292 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 "Well, sir, I do feel a bit queer. It's these misty 
 nights," and he fell to coughing, and coughed still as 
 he drove round the corner out of the square. 
 
 Peter knew again that by this sudden sympathy he 
 had atoned for the dreadful madness of the night. 
 
 Hereafter he spent sober weeks of study, and was not 
 sorry when the early days of October brought his exam- 
 ination and release. 
 
 He succeeded in satisfying the academic gentlemen 
 who were appointed to test the extent and quality of 
 his knowledge, and the University of London in due 
 course gave him the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and 
 he shook the dust of King's College in the Strand from 
 off his feet, resisting all blandishments to the pursuit 
 of a thing called the Doctorate. 
 
 He reported himself to Mr. S'cott, and then to Bas- 
 sett-Crewe, who was anxious for him at once to take 
 up his work with him. 
 
 Sandilands also was interviewed, and appeared to be 
 resigned to the inevitable, for he took more interest in 
 Peter than he had done on the first occasion. He was 
 even conciliatory and threw out suggestions for articles. 
 
 Mattie wrote from Paris, where she was settled en- 
 pension with a Madame Vignon, expressing congratula- 
 tions and pleasure that fortune was so favouring her 
 friend — ^this word was underlined. She expressed a 
 hope that Peter would find time to write to her, and 
 that it might be even that he would come to Paris. There 
 was a bantering tone in the letter which Peter answered 
 in his most whimsical vein. He signed himself " P. 
 Davies, Baccalaureus Artium, and none the wiser for 
 
 it," 
 
PETEK H0MUNCULU9 293 
 
 He gave notice of his departure to Miss Bastable 
 and made the august lady umbrageous. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe made no further mention of his rooms on 
 their locality, but that there was something brewing he 
 gathered from the mystery of her, and the archness of 
 the children's manner. All this unsettled him, and he 
 found that he could not apply himself to any sort of 
 work except the clerical. 
 
 At length relief came in the shape of an invitation 
 from Hob, which ran : 
 
 " Mr. Henry Bassett-Crewe requests the pleasure of 
 Mr. Peter Davies' company to tea at four o'clock on the 
 afternoon of Friday the tenth December. R. S. V. P. 
 to the above address." 
 
 The above address was 4 Waverton Street, Mayfair, 
 W., printed in green, while at the opposite corner of 
 the paper was printed " Telephone No. 5432 Mayfair." 
 
 The invitation was accepted, and at the very first 
 opportunity Peter went in search of number 4 Waver- 
 ton Street. He urrfortunately chose the most foggy 
 day of the year and had great diflSculty in finding the 
 place. He knew that it was somewhere off Berkeley 
 Square and groped his way thither. Once in the square 
 he found it no easy matter to escape. How many times 
 he circled it he never knew, but he grew to loathe the 
 gates of Devonshire House, which apparently possessed 
 an irresistible attraction for him. At length he hit upon 
 the happy idea of hugging the wall and so reaching the 
 street which, according to his idea, ran west from the 
 middle of Berkeley Square. In this way he escaped 
 from circumambulation and plunged along until he came 
 to the wajl pf a howsc. Through the murk be saw s. 
 
294 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 gigantic figure looming. He rushed towards it, miscal- 
 culated the distance, collided with it, apologised to it, 
 and asked it the way to Waverton Street. 
 
 " This is Waverton Street," said an indignant and 
 Iiusky voice. 
 
 " I want number 4." 
 
 " Over there by the mews, where the light is." 
 
 Peter thanked the owner of the voice and took the 
 direction indicated. He walked into some railings, 
 struck a match, and found that they belonged to num- 
 ber 4. 
 
 He could see nothing of the house but that it pos- 
 sessed an attractive door and a fascinating bay-window 
 with many panes. 
 
 " George I.," said Peter, and hoped that his room 
 might be that with the fascinating window. 
 
 A fine smell came from the mews, but Peter extended 
 the proprietory glow which had come over him to the 
 smell and found no fault with it. He patted the rail- 
 ings and stroked the door. Then he returned by the 
 iway he had come. 
 
 In Berkeley S^quare the fog had lifted, and on a 
 house on the east side he saw a tablet bearing this 
 inscription: 
 
 Horace Walpole 
 Lived and died here 
 
 and he gleefully invented an inscription for a tablet to 
 be erected on the wall of number 4 Waverton Street. 
 
 He whistled suddenly, and repeated to himself, 
 "Waverton Street!" 
 
 George Townsend had lived at number 12, and old 
 Cooper must often have visited therC; if not also lodged 
 
PETEH HOMUNCULUS 295 
 
 in the neighbourhood. There was certainly in those 
 streets and houses the flavour of old days. Peter won- 
 dered where it was that Clara had lived, Clara of the 
 pink topaz necklace, the simpering Demeter: and which 
 of the great houses of this region was the cold palace 
 of which old Cooper had spoken in his strange and 
 melancholy narrative. 
 
 On the appointed day Peter returned to number 4 
 Waverton Street. The little door was opened by a 
 igrave, elderly man, who, bending as though he Tiirere 
 hinged at the middle, inquired Peter's name. 
 
 "Mr. Davies." 
 
 " Will you step this way, sir? " 
 
 The grave man turned and slowly ascended onel 
 flight of stairs. Peter heard a scampering of feet and 
 an excited giggle. The grave man led the way up to 
 the second floor. Here he opened a door, stood inside a 
 tiny hall to take Peter's hat, coat and umbrella (Peter 
 had donned his most fashionable for the occasion), and 
 then, throwing open another door, announced in a thun- 
 derous voice: 
 
 " Mr. Peter Davies." 
 
 There was a clapping of hands and shriU cries of 
 delight. Hob rushed to him and Jumped about him. 
 Jane came and clutched his leg while Patch shouted 
 " Hurrah ! " Hob tugged this way to show him this, 
 Jane that way to show that. Peter saw nothing. His 
 eyes were filled with tears, and he could only gurgle 
 inarticulately. 
 
 He blew his nose. 
 
 " Look Peter," said Hob, and pointed above the man- 
 telpiece. " I did that." 
 
 Peter saw pinned to the wall a long strip of white 
 
206 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 paper on which, in large ragged letters, in everj con- 
 ceivable colour, was written: 
 
 " Peter Davies lives here." 
 
 To save himself from breaking down and incurring 
 the contempt of Hob and Patch, Peter stooped, picked 
 Jane up, and hugged and kissed her. When he released 
 her he found Mrs. Crewe standing with a kettle in one 
 hand and the lid of the teapot in the other. 
 
 " Can't shake hands," she said. " How do you do? " 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Crewe . . ." said Peter. 
 
 " We will have mirsery tea round the table." 
 
 As they devoured the good things on the table the 
 children shouted to draw Peter's attention to this and 
 that, each clamouring for approbation of his or her de- 
 vice. Mrs. Crewe controlled them gently but firmly, 
 and smilingly she watched Peter as he surveyed his new 
 home. 
 
 It was a tiny room, the ceiling only seven or eight 
 feet from the floor, the walls panelled and painted 
 white. The whole of one wall was taken up with book- 
 shelves, filled magnificently with the finest. These drew 
 Peter's eyes, and he longed to handle them. 
 
 The inaugural meal over, he went straight and took 
 down Florio's translation of the essays of Michael, Lord 
 of Montaigne, the first volume, and read in the preface: 
 
 " Reader, loe here a well meaning Booke. It doth 
 at the first entrance forewarne thee, that iir contriving 
 the same I have proposed unto myselfe no other than 
 a familiar and private end: I have no respect or con- 
 sideration at all, either to thy service, or to any glory: 
 my forces are not capable of any such dessigne. . . . 
 Had my intention beene to forestal and purchase the 
 world's opinion and favour, I would surely have adorned 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 297 
 
 myselfe more quaintly, or kept a more grave and solemn 
 march. . . . Thus, gentle Reader, myselfe am the 
 groundworke of my booke: It is then no reason thou 
 shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine 
 a Subject. Therefore farewell. From Montaigne, the 
 first of March. 1580." 
 
 Peter turned to Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " Shakespeare borrowed wisdom from this gentleman." 
 
 He returned the volume to its place, and Mrs. Crewe 
 drew his attention to Wilson's eight volumes. On the 
 fly-leaf of the first was inscribed: 
 
 " To Peter Davies, these small things in a great com- 
 pany whereof they are unworthy, except that they also 
 are written by a man." 
 
 Hob cried for attention to the writing-desk, which 
 was fuUy equipped with every material. Hob's especial 
 pride was in the note-paper. The whole room was per- 
 fect, and on the mantelpiece in silver frames were 
 photographs — Mrs. Crewe, the children, Mary 
 
 " Has she been here ? " cried Peter. 
 
 Mysterious glances were exchanged, and Peter was 
 led to his bedroom. 
 
 The door was opened, and out rushed a little dog, 
 the image of Matilda, and sniffed at Peter, The chil- 
 dren clapped their hands. Peter lifted the little beast, 
 and they baptised him then and there under the name of 
 Herbertson. 
 
 " Mary's gift," said Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 The bedroom was charming, modelled in its decora- 
 tion on the little room that Peter had occupied at Cross- 
 lands, and down one step from it was a tiny bathroom. 
 
 That was the extent of the place, and Peter could 
 have wished no better. 
 
298 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 Back to the sitting-room they went and tested every- 
 thing, the electric light, the telephone, the speaking 
 tube down to the regions where the grave man lived with 
 his wife, the deep cupboards filled with china, the 
 drawers of the desk, the windows. 
 
 " You like it? " 
 
 "Oh! , . ." 
 
 "Wicksteed and his wife will look after you well. 
 He was my father's valet. When will you come? " 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Crewe smiled at his eagerness. 
 
 " We must leave you now." 
 
 Wicksteed appeared and embraced the charge of 
 Peter, gave him a key to the house door, and was alto- 
 gether amiable. 
 
 Peter was left alone, and once more he took down 
 Wilson's book with its generous inscription. He was 
 almost intolerably happy as he sat in the great leather 
 chair nursing Herbertson, and mumbling to the fire. 
 He was troubled by the thought that his brothers and 
 sisters were still living in the old shiftless existence 
 behind the shop. The chances by which he had escaped 
 to this were little short of miraculous. 
 
 Then he remembered that his sister, the wife of Podge 
 Newhall, had rated him for the filthiness of his mind. 
 Therein he seemed to probe deep into the mystery. 
 
 The first letter that he wrote on Hob's magnificent 
 note-paper was to his brother, the tailor; the second 
 was to Miss Dugdale, to thank her for the dog. 
 
 " It is like you," he wrote, '* to have given me a living 
 thing: all that you have given me has been that." 
 
 Then he laid down his pen, picked up, cleaned it, 
 swung round in the swivel chair, and leaned towards 
 
PETER H0MUNCULU9 299 
 
 her portrait. He hitched his shoulders and tugged at 
 his forelock. The portrait was in profile, the left and 
 most perfect side of her face. 
 
 Peter allowed himself the luxury of a romantic sigh, 
 then laughed at himself, and rubhed his nose with the 
 now wet end of his pen. 
 
 " Her nose and mine," he said, and on his blotting 
 paper drew his own profile in caricature over and over 
 again. 
 
 He returned to his letter and read it through, then 
 traced the Y of yours, but scratched it out. He rose 
 and wandered round the room, and for distraction 
 planned where he would hang his pictures, and where 
 in the bookcase place those books which he had at Gor- 
 don Square. 
 
 He wandered into his bedroom for a second survey, 
 and into the bathroom, where he turned the taps on and 
 ofi", and lifted up and down the knob labelled " Waste," 
 which somehow seemed to be a much grander aflfair than 
 the brass plug which had been in the bath at home. 
 
 In the bedroom again he noticed for the first time 
 that on the dressing-table were new brushes, combs, 
 and little boxes for studs and the like fugitive belong- 
 ings. There was a label attached to the buckle of the 
 brush case. On this was written, " With love from 
 Tessa." 
 
 Back he flew to his letter. 
 
 " Many, many thanks to Tessa also for her gift. It 
 seems to be her special charge to provide me with what 
 barbers call ' toilet requisites.' " 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, then plunged: 
 
 "Am I not to see you again? Is it only a question 
 of youth and age? Oh, these divisions! There are 
 
300 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 neither young nor old, more than there are sheep and 
 goats. It is all one. The world is round and embraces 
 everything. There is neither good nor bad, nor right nor 
 ■wrong. Half-way is the only course, and the ibis walks 
 safest in the middle. There is so much given to me, 
 only you withhold yourself. I have made you happy. 
 I know that, and Mrs. Crewe has said it. I ask of you 
 nothing that you cannot give me; only let me see you." 
 
 He did not read what he had written, but sealed and 
 stamped it. 
 
 Then he summoned the grave Wicksteed, gave Her- 
 bertson iirto his custody, informed him as to the day of 
 his arrival, was given a key, and went stumbling down 
 the stairs. Near the front door there hung on the wall 
 a Vanity Fair cartoon of Wilson with his pipe, and his 
 legs outstretched, as Peter had seen him on the first 
 occasion in the rooms overlooking the Green Park. 
 
 " I expect," said Peter, with some vehemence, remem- 
 bering old days, " I expect you are worth twopence over 
 the counter." 
 
 By the pillar box he debated for some moments 
 whether to post his letter to Mary, slipped it into the 
 mouth, and then wished he had torn it up. 
 
 On the receipt of it, a few hours later, Mary con- 
 sulted her friend Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " It is of him that I am thinking. He must not 
 brood." 
 
 " He has occupation in plenty." 
 
 Mary was relieved and said: 
 
 " For the present then I shall not see him." 
 
 She had other affairs to discuss with her friend, the 
 most pressing the sum to be given to her brother, who, 
 reduced to odium through his unfortunate connection 
 
PETEBI HOMUNCULUS 801 
 
 with tHe journalistic exploit of his friend Mr, Beau- 
 mont Scholes, had announced his intention of emigrat- 
 ing to Canada to farm. Mary was perfectly prepared 
 to buy him a whole country, but she was restrained by 
 her more sagacious and far-seeing friends. 
 
 Cynthia said: 
 
 " Two hundred pounds for the present." 
 
 " There are his debts." 
 
 " They must be paid for him." 
 
 " Poor Lawrence." 
 
 Peter saw the young gentleman just before his de- 
 parture. They met by accident iir Regent Street, out- 
 side a restaurant where Greenfield was to meet a young 
 woman in order in a fitting manner to say farewell to 
 "dear old London." 
 
 He shook Peter's hand warmly and talked expansively 
 of a " life in the open." 
 
 " Cork," said Peter, and left him without more. 
 
 It was the eve of his departure from Gordon Square, 
 and he was hurrying home to collect his chattels. 
 
 As before in his aunt's house, and in the little room 
 behind the shop, he laid out all that was his own on 
 the floor and on his bed, but now he was a person of 
 considerable property, things that from association he 
 treasured and things that were worthless. 
 
 He presented a quantity of old boots and clothes to 
 the German Swiss butler, and for the first time won. 
 courtesy from him. To Miss Bastable he gave sundry 
 pieces of the heavy old jewellery which he had found 
 in old Cooper's desk, and she rewarded him with em- 
 barrassing lamentations and undue praises of his vir- 
 tues in the presence of her other lodgers. 
 
 He sought out a bookseller in Charing Cross Road; 
 
302 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 whom he remembered as a boy like himself, and sold him 
 the majority of the text-books and amiotated editions 
 which he had collected during his three years at King's 
 College. He drove in a four-wheeled cab with two 
 trunks and a packing case to 4 Waverton S'treet, and 
 when he had eaten his first dinner there, a plain meal 
 cooked by Mrs. Wicksteed and served by her husband 
 with oppressive solemnity, he felt that he really had 
 entered upon the career of which he had fondly dreamed, 
 and that the world did now lie at his , feet, if only . . . 
 
 He plunged into sentimental abstraction, in which he 
 created a filmy being whom he labelled Woman — for 
 she was certainly not Mary, nor Mattie, nor any female 
 creature that he had ever known. He could not clearly 
 see her face, but he knew that she was fair. He made 
 no attempt to draw her into conversation, but only occa- 
 sionally blew a cloud of smoke in the direction where 
 she hovered. He had an idea that the time — it was 
 nearly eleven o'clock when she first appeared — and to- 
 bacco and the warmth of the fire had something to do 
 with her hovering: also that he shared her with many 
 thousand other lonely young men. He could only define 
 her — the word woman proving inadequate — as a com- 
 fortable presence. About ten minutes to twelve, find- 
 ing that she was still there, he evolved the pretty fancy 
 that she was the ghost of some woman who had loved a 
 former occupant of the rooms. He found names for 
 her and for her lover, Esther Vernon and Evan Withing- 
 ton, and began to weave their romance. On that she 
 disappeared, the room was cold without her, and Peter 
 took refuge in bed, where also Herbertson slept, curled 
 up against his new master's stomach. 
 
 Thus Peter lived and worked, eating, sleeping, mak- 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 303 
 
 ing an ever wider circle of acquaintances, and here and 
 there finding new friends, though never, for many 
 years, a man of his own age. 
 
 The preparation of the Cooper papers for publica- 
 tion proved to be the work of months, since the greater 
 part of his time which was not given to Bassett-Crewe 
 was occupied with turning out short leaders, reviews, 
 notes on current events, occasional verse, and occasional 
 stories for the new journal, which was everywhere well 
 received. Peter loved his work and delighted to meet 
 the men who had rejected those unhappy little effusions 
 which he had written in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was 
 especially anxious to discover the author of the phrase 
 " Poor sloppy devil " that had so tormented him, but 
 that seemed hopeless. 
 
 Twice a week he used to go down to the office where 
 Sandilands presided and either write there or come 
 away armed with review copies of books, to occupy bare 
 evenings. 
 
 He corresponded fitfully with Mattie, but seemed to 
 lose touch with her, though he found the study of her 
 development interesting enough. Occasionally he vis- 
 ited the theatre where Miss Dugdale was playing, but 
 she was most skilful in avoiding him, and though he 
 heard of her at various houses, and from Mrs. Crewe 
 and the children, he never once met her, and she never 
 replied to his letter. He did not write again, but was 
 content to wait, having an unreasoiring conviction that 
 she would come to him. 
 
 At times he had fits of despair and wild panics; mo- 
 ments when he saw himself as worthless, useless, a para- 
 site, an upstart, without talent and without character, 
 and, worst of all, with none of the qualities that make 
 
304 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 for success; a creature who ate and should eat always 
 of bread unearned. Sometimes in these moods he would 
 write to Wilson fevered letters of enormous length, full 
 of abuse, self -recrimination, despondency, attacks on in- 
 stitutions, persons and tendencies, self -analysis and dis- 
 content. Wilson at first had some alarm, and used to 
 come in the evening to sit and smoke and talk over their 
 joint work, and though Peter found some solace in the 
 flattery of these visits, he was most often reduced to 
 greater depths. Injured vanity throbbed, and Peter's 
 outlook took on a more and more bilious complexion. 
 He grew to conceive that Sandilands disliked him — be- 
 cause the poor harassed man had reduced an over-long 
 article by a paragraph; that Bassett-Crewe was disap- 
 pointed with him; that the Scotts regretted ever having 
 befriended him, and, most preposterous of all, that Wil- 
 son patronised him. After each attack he fully recog- 
 nised the physiological origin of the disease — ^the 
 weather and too much tobacco acting on his liver; but at 
 the worst he descended to further depths, and sighed for 
 the condition of his relatives, whom he imagined to be 
 happy. After a time Wilson grew hardened and learned 
 to leave the disaffection to take its course, though, if 
 Peter wrote him a more than usually outrageous letter, 
 accusing him of ruining a young life or blighting the 
 career of a promising bookseller, he would reply with a 
 curt postcard bearing these words: 
 
 " Growing pains." 
 
 The mischief and unhealthiness of the thing was that 
 Peter rather enjoyed these fits of despondency, and 
 just as in old days he used to weep to find himself so 
 beautiful, he now wept to find himself so unworthy pf 
 all the kindness that had been heaped upon him. He 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 305 
 
 took a fierce delight in explaining to Herbertson, who 
 in course of time became an understanding beast (for, 
 as Peter expounded to him, animals, like human beings, 
 depend for their intelligence and character upon the 
 persons with whom they come in contact), the fraud of 
 himself. 
 
 " Such a fraud, Herbertson, and only you seem to 
 know it. A large watery eye, Herbertson, and they 
 will have it that behind there is a mighty brain. . . ." 
 
 (These addresses were only made when the turning 
 point had been reached and recovery had set in. Peter 
 then chanced upon a satiric vein.) 
 
 " This brain; Herbertson, which is in you, so far as 
 I know, only a nerve centre most easily reached through 
 your little black nose, is in me a wild whirling thing 
 perpetually busy in the distortion of facts, and the 
 propagation of lies, since by the ironic force of circum- 
 stances I am to be a maker of books instead of a sellec 
 of them, and though I were to speak so truthfully and 
 with such force as the Angel Gabriel himself, there 
 would come one after me to be my apostle and to con-i 
 found me, to turn my clear-running message to a pois- 
 onous stream; for, mark this well, Herbertson, after 
 the real man there is always your ass, and there is no 
 lie so palatable as that which is merely dead truth. 
 I have no message. I am a fraud like the rest. It is 
 all a buying and a selling. I have that to sell which 
 it is not easy to sell, for the best of a man is not mar- 
 ketable. I trade, therefore, upon the opinion that good 
 people form of me, and, though I know it to be errone- 
 ous, make no effort to correct it while I find them more 
 profitable. I am a cheat and a liar, and some day, per- 
 haps, I shall be a fatted man and care for no cleverness 
 
306 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 other than that which can cheat and brag, and overreach, 
 and undersell; perhaps I also shall care nothing how the 
 people of these islands hear of me, so only that they 
 hear of me and talk. Perhaps I also shall write para- 
 graphs and whole columns of words about myself in 
 the newspapers. Oh ! Herbertson,. I think there is more 
 of truth in you than in all humanity, for you have no 
 books, no priests, no law, and no prophets, no St. Paul, 
 no Voltaire, no Shelley, no Wycliffe, no Wesley, no 
 Spencer, no Karl Marx, no Descartes, no Comte, no 
 Darwin ; you have such food as I give you, and as many 
 iwives as you care to woo. . . . Oh! damn it, Her- 
 bertson, damn, and damn, and damn. . . . And yet, 
 and yet I would rather be a man, for even dogs are 
 eaten. ... On the whole, it is better to eat than 
 to be eaten. . . ." 
 
 After such a harangue Peter would take Herbertson 
 for a walk, out into Mount Street, where it was a 
 nightly duty to salute the windows of Mary's flat, and 
 to the house in Charles Street, which, because it had a 
 charming doorway, with rings for the torches of link- 
 men, had been pitched on as Clara's dwelling. This 
 also was saluted, and the promenade was continued down 
 into Piccadilly to the house where Wilson had his rooms. 
 Here Herbertson sniffed at the door to discover if an 
 entry were possible to the shrine of the entrancing Ma- 
 tilda, and if Peter continued, he would stand in protest. 
 
 One night, very late, close upon twelve, it chanced 
 that there was a light in Wilson's room, and Peter, in- 
 flamed with a bright idea for the Cooper book, rang the 
 bell, and because a sort of madness came over Her- 
 bertson, he picked him up and carried him in his arms. 
 The door was opened by a man of Wicksteed's breed. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 307 
 
 though even graver, and knowing Peter, he admitted 
 him and suffered him to go upstairs unannounced. To 
 keep Herbertson from barking he held a hand upon 
 his nose and stole quietly upstairs. 
 
 The door of Wilson's sitting-room was open. Though 
 no sound came out of the room, Peter could see a shadow 
 moving. Wilson was pacing rapidly round the room. 
 He stopped, and a pipe was knocked against the bar of 
 the grate, then laid on the marble mantelshelf with a 
 click. Then silence, and the shadow moved again, 
 stopped, and a sound half sob, half wild laughter, came 
 from the man — ^then a woman's voice: 
 
 " Oh ! Buntie — Buntie — dear." Mary's voice ! 
 
 Peter squeezed Herbertson tight, and for the life of 
 him could move neither forward nor back. Wilson gave 
 the queer sound again, and Mary laughed, proudly, ex- 
 ultingly. 
 
 Miserably, Wilson cried: 
 
 " Ay, you can laugh and you can laugh . . ." 
 
 And Mary laughed the more. Furiously Wilson turned 
 on her : 
 
 " I'm just a man like the rest. . . ." 
 
 Mary laughed no more. 
 
 "Oh! Buntie . . . does it hurt?" 
 
 " No," said Wilson, a sort of flinging triumph in his 
 voice. " No — no— but I'm — I'm so — so glad of it." 
 
 They laughed together, and Peter, hugging Herbert- 
 son yet tighter, and yet tighter clutching his muzzle, 
 stole downstairs and out into the street. 
 
 He walked so fast that Herbertson's little crooked 
 legs were hard put to it to keep the pace. Peter made 
 straight for St. James Park and the bridge over the 
 water. 
 
308 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He stood there, and Herbertson, with his tongue well 
 out, squatted on his haunches, panting. Peter wanted 
 to think, but it hurt him to think. He could not pass 
 beyond. 
 
 " I kissed the woman. I kissed, kissed, kissed the 
 woman." 
 
 He remembered the night of the play, when he had 
 seen Wilson's hand close on hers. Out of the marvel- 
 lous evening when he had stood with her here above 
 the water he could recall only the moment when, stooping 
 to kiss her, they had heard the wretched Tessa sobbing. 
 Tessa, Warrington, and — Bond. That brought him back 
 to Bond, and Bond and Bond again. Bond sobbing in 
 his room in Half Moon Street, and Bond, as flying ru- 
 mours now painted him, degenerate, wretched, poor, liv- 
 ing dreadfully. Bond somehow seemed to be linked 
 with those words of Wilson's: 
 
 " I am just a man like the rest of them," wherein, 
 was confessed the whole silly story. " Silly," was 
 Peter's word for it, for here, in his panting state of 
 jealousy and disappointment and wounded vanity, the 
 whole matter seemed small, tiny as himself at his tini- 
 est. Silly it might be, small it might be, but yet Peter 
 found it to be beyond his reach, blurred, and out of 
 focus. 
 
 Two things seemed to explain it a little. He remem- 
 bered once seeing a small whirlwind, a spout of air into 
 which scraps of paper, dung and skins of fruit were 
 swept and kept twirling, to be dropped suddenly. 
 
 This was perhaps a little like that. Lately he had 
 heard of a young man — the story was current scandal — 
 who had attempted to live by theory, and had come to 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 309 
 
 the idea that life was vulgar. In this state he had taken 
 unto himself a wife from among the many young women 
 importuning him, had journeyed with her to Tyrol on 
 their honeymoon, and thrown himself from s^ great 
 height into a torrent. 
 
 That also seemed to bear some relation to this. 
 
 Peter stooped and picked up a pebble. Waiting until 
 the moon shone forth — a thin sickle of a moon — he 
 dropped the pebble into the water and watched the rings 
 spread and spread. 
 
 " A man," he thought, " drops like that, and the rings 
 that he makes spread and spread; for the pool into 
 which he falls is boundless. ... If only . . . 
 if only I were not so infernally young." 
 
 He walked home slowly, and, because he saw that 
 Herbertson was exhausted, carried him the greater part 
 of the way. He walked especially to salute the house 
 which he had chosen for Clara's happiness and old 
 Cooper's. In case the ghost of Clara might be floating 
 by, he recited for her benefit a passage from the letter, 
 and it seemed that he was nearer to understanding of 
 the lover than ever before. 
 
 A spirit of divination came upon him. He bent down 
 to Herbertson and said: 
 
 " She will write now and ask to see me." 
 
 The prophecy was not altogether accurate. She did 
 not write, but the next occasion upon which, by invita- 
 tion, he had tea in the nursery in Park Street she waa 
 there. They met as though only the day before they 
 had parted. 
 
 " So the dead also greet those who die," said Peter, 
 the which funereal utterance so upset Mrs. Crewe, who 
 
310 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 ■was repapering the drawing-room of Jane's doll's house, 
 that she thrust the handle of the brush through the win- 
 dow and occasioned tears. 
 
 Mary looked with admiration at the well-groomed 
 Peter. 
 
 He expatiated on the virtues as a valet of grave Wick- 
 steed. He noticed that his ring was transferred to her 
 right hand, and that on the third finger of her left she 
 now wore a ring set with a single sapphire. 
 
 Hob insisted on their playing a game called " Char- 
 coal-burner." 
 
 Its origin was so palpable that Mary smiled, and 
 Peter was disgusted to find himself blushing. 
 
 " Do you remember," he said, " Smoky Wootten 
 trotting along the road for beer ? " 
 
 "Oh, Peter: yes — and the baby." 
 
 The game was exhausting. Hob had corrupted it, and 
 made of it a sort of Hellish drama wherein Smoky 
 Wootten had become the fiend who shovelled lost souls on 
 to his heap. Peter was shovelled in due course, but 
 Mary insisted on an apotheosis, and was properly sent 
 to Heaven. They emerged presently, he from the ever- 
 lasting fire, she from celestial regions, and together they 
 quitted the house. 
 
 They walked in silence into the Park, and across into 
 Kensington Gardens until they came to the spot :where 
 they had sat looking on to the Serpentine. 
 
 Neither had spoken. 
 
 Then, as they sat, " How do you know? " she said. 
 
 " How do you know that I know.^ " 
 
 She tapped his arm. 
 
 " How well I know you." . > 
 
 " Clara said that." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 3111 
 
 " I am another Clara." 
 
 " I have never seen you so happy; nor known your 
 voice to be so soft." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " But for you, Peter, it would not have been. It is 
 very wonderful." 
 
 " You make the whole world wonderful." 
 
 Mary cast a shy little glance at him and fell to trac- 
 ing a head on the ground with the spike of her parasol, 
 not the famous red, but a soft blue. Peter watched the 
 tracing. The head was the head of Wilson, but the nose 
 was certainly his own. 
 
 Peter hitched his shoulders, removed his hat and 
 twisted his forelock. Then, while Mary traced, he ap- 
 plied himself to the critical study of her physical at- 
 tractions. As the result of it he said: 
 
 " After all, you are not so very beautiful." 
 
 "Oh, Peter!" 
 
 " You are just a woman, like the rest of them." 
 
 Mary stopped in her tracing, and, turning, looked 
 full into his eyeSk 
 
 " Your eyes are glorious," he said. Then, though he 
 would gladly have had her ascribe his knowledge to 
 perfect sympathy, he must teU her how he had come 
 by it. 
 
 She was silent. Almost at random Peter quoted : 
 
 " ' There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Hora- 
 tio, than your philosophy can wot of.' " 
 
 This was followed by a remark uttered scarcely above 
 a whisper, and something of his awe reached Mary aa 
 she saw that his eyes were glittering and starting from 
 his head. 
 
 " There are more things in this world, Mary, than 
 
812 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 ever entered even Shakespeare's head. That is truth, 
 Mary, glorious inspiring truth. . . . Gosh ! " 
 
 Then he laughed a little wearily, for he saw that the 
 words had not at all touched Mary's imagination, while 
 his own was whirling. 
 
 That was the end of the woman's glory. He was now 
 only sorry for her, sorry for himself, and everybody. 
 Foolishly he decided that, because it had become impos- 
 sible to share with this woman rare things, there was 
 nothing more in store for him. 
 
 " I'm done with such things," he said, and almost as 
 soon as the words were spoken he knew that he was in 
 the most parlous state, without defence. Desperately he 
 strove to clothe the woman again in her glory, and 
 poured forth a torrent of words. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said; "they are all cold. 
 . . . Fake. But — ^but I know now why men and 
 women play with fire, and toy with faked emotions. 
 . . . I can't — I can't make you beautiful again." 
 
 He restored his hat to his head and rose to go. She, 
 too. 
 
 " We are always friends, Peter." 
 
 " Really friends now — for the first time." 
 
 She took his arm and they walked back to Mount 
 Street. 
 
 Here he was for leaving her, but she said: 
 
 " I should like you to see my new room." 
 
 Peter mounted with her. 
 
 Tessa opened the outer door for them, and Tessa lin- 
 gered, smiling upon Peter's bright greeting in hope of 
 (words. 
 
 " Tessa born again this morning." 
 
 " Such a fine gentleman, Mr. — Mr. Peter." That was 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 318 
 
 all; she opened the inner door, and Peter entered and 
 was closeted with Mary, to find that he had nothing to 
 say to her. 
 
 He prowled about the room smoking the cigarette 
 that she had offered him. 
 
 The room charmed him. 
 
 " If I did not know you," he said, " I should love you 
 already through your possessions." 
 
 " Knowing me," she said, " you are done with such 
 things." 
 
 " How odd that you should possess a Bible." He took 
 the book down, and found it to be a gift from the Vicar 
 of the Parish of Topsham in Devonshire to Mary Green- 
 field on the occasion of her confirmation. 
 
 " I never knew Mary Greenfield." 
 
 " You would not have liked her, Peter." 
 
 " Shall I like the new Mary? " 
 
 " I wonder." 
 
 She sighed. Peter restored the book to its place by 
 the side of the plays of Tom Robertson. He turned 
 on her suddenly: 
 
 " You have always been his." 
 
 Mary held out her hand as though to shield herself. 
 Peter was quivering with excitement. He pursued this 
 discovery hot foot, leaped upon it, hugged it to his own 
 hurt, and because of the hurt spared her nothing. Every- 
 thing that he knew of her he laid before her, raw facts, 
 and traced them back and back to their origin in the 
 first and only real tenderness. She sat miserably silent. 
 It was detestable what he did, but spurred on by the 
 memory of Bond with his hands clenched in front of 
 him, by the recollection also of his strange wanderings 
 through unknown and dreadful streets, he rushed ham- 
 
314 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 mering at the poor woman, who hung her head, and at 
 the last burst into tears. 
 
 Peter was then all tenderness, and knelt by her side 
 to soothe her. Wildly she clung to him, held him to her 
 breast and sobbed. 
 
 " How could I .'' How could I hurt you so, my boy — 
 my boy?" 
 
 The strange noises that they made roused Peter the 
 cat from his slumbers on the cushioned window seat. He 
 advanced cautiously to investigate the character of this 
 new invader. 
 
 " He is the ram caught in the thicket," said Peter, as 
 the cat was caught up and dandled. " One Peter is as 
 good as another. A cat has little sympathy — even a cat 
 with orange eyes." 
 
 He was talking to gain time and possession of him- 
 self — for he found himself again worshipping the woman 
 whom he had been battering. She was glorious again, 
 more than ever before — splendid, admirable, generous. 
 
 He had found in Cynthia Crewe great warm qualities 
 which he had never looked for in Mary: his relations 
 with the two women had been so different. Yet here 
 they were in this new Mary, blazing, shining forth. He 
 remembered then that in Cynthia they had been most 
 apparent with her children, and Peter had shared with 
 them. Here in Mary's eyes was the great thing all for 
 himself, and he felt himself growing and growing, 
 swelling until it seemed that he enveloped her, and from 
 somewhere in the heart of him came Mary's voice: 
 
 " I said once — a son to me." 
 
 With that Peter was at her feet to give thanks, and to 
 adore. She kissed his forehead. 
 
 " But— but " he said. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 315 
 
 She stroked his hair. 
 
 " Such a brother for my babies." 
 
 Peter leaped to his feet so suddenly that the other 
 Peter arched his back and swore at him, then with tail 
 bristling with indignation marched back to the cushioned 
 window seat. 
 
 " Now," said Peter, " now I can work." 
 
 He squared himself and looked brave. 
 
 " I could eat dragons," he said. He chuckled and 
 quoted : 
 
 " ' Go your way, you fair young man.' Mrs. Crewe 
 said that, long ago, at Crosslands. You have found the 
 .way for me, Mary dear." 
 
 " I stumbled on it." 
 
 " We have all been groping. How blind we were ! " 
 
 " St. James is not altogether wrong, Peter." 
 
 " Nor are the fauns, Mary — ^the great thing is that 
 you are happy." 
 
 " Yes. Oh ! yes. I am happy." 
 
 " Then nothing else matters." 
 
 With that he left her. 
 
 How much of all this she told to Wilson he never 
 knew. They contrived to have the Cooper book ready 
 for the autumn season. It bore for title : " The Lit- 
 erary Remains of Xavier Cooper, sometime of Book- 
 sellers' Row and of Shaftesbury Avenue, with an 
 introduction by D. Murray Wilson and a memoir 
 by P. D." 
 
 It was curiously received. It was reviewed as fiction, 
 as history, as biography, as a Christmas book (in this 
 notice Cooper was compared with Scrooge), by a curi- 
 ous mistake, as Archaology, and in one case it was con- 
 temptuously dismissed as mere book-making. Though 
 
316 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 one or two important journals took it up, it made no 
 great stir, but sold sfieadily and well. 
 
 The grave Wicksteed, to whom Peter proudly pre- 
 sented a copy, read it and was scornful. 
 
 " Them sort of men," he said, " what are always 
 waggin' their tongues about life in general, nearly al- 
 ways come to grief. Talk about human nature, no one 
 knows anything about it, as hasn't lived below stairs. 
 I never knew a gentleman as had the faintest glimmer. 
 I back Mrs. Wicksteed agin all the writers and talkers 
 in the world, I do — she'll give you any of the ladies 
 she's been with in six words so as to make you shiver in 
 your shoes at 'em: six words more and she'll make you 
 go down on your knees an' worship "em. That's what I 
 calls bein' in love, when you're grovellin' to the woman 
 one moment, an' spittin' in 'er face the next. In the 
 books it's all grovellin' ! " 
 
 " I knew a man once," said Peter, " :who threw a 
 clod at the woman he loved." 
 
 " Did he 'it 'er? " asked Wicksteed. 
 
 " No-o-o," said Peter. " It was a poor shot." 
 
 Mr. Wicksteed, who by this time had cleared the table, 
 snorted and left the room. 
 
 There and then Peter began to write the story of a 
 man who threw a clod at his lady-love and hit her. The 
 name of the man was Evan Withington, of the woman 
 Esther Vernon. 
 
One night Peter visited Wilson at half -past eleven and 
 stayed with him until after three, propounding new 
 discoveries. He had been reading a scientific work on 
 morals. Wilson listened with an attention which Peter 
 had never before obtained from him to the tirade of 
 protest, denunciation, confused explanation, conjecture, 
 statement and misstatement, argument, and theory. 
 Peter talked and talked, until his voice grew hoarse, and 
 as he talked he became more enthusiastic, wilder. He 
 strode up and down the room, biting at his thumb and 
 tugging at his forelock. He rushed at the elemental 
 facts of humanity and plunged into the most intricate 
 disquisitions. 
 
 " Woman, infinite glorious woman," he said, " they 
 regard as a chattel. Sub potestate, they say, and for- 
 sooth she must cosset the man who is unfaithful to her, 
 while if he is kind and forgiving he is plunged in dis- 
 honour. Dishonour! Under such a law marriage itself 
 is dishonourable." 
 
 There was much more in the same strain. 
 
 At ten minutes past three Wilson knocked his pipe 
 out on the bar of the grate. 
 
 " The relation of a man and a woman is too great a 
 thing to be influenced by the Law," he said. " Each 
 man and woman can make the thing the noblest in the 
 world or the basest. What is wrong with your court is 
 that it can conceive only the base." 
 
 He sucked his empty pipe, which, because it was foul, 
 gurgled. 
 
 317 
 
318 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " I believe that the wrong will right itself, when the 
 collective intelligence of the world has grasped at the 
 truth. This is the very heart and centre of society, and 
 I believe that the collective intelligence is moving to- 
 wards a nobler conception: slow it is, but the surer for 
 being slow. Drastic reform in so vital a matter would 
 plunge the world into even more disastrous error, oh! 
 yes, the thing will right itself. ..." 
 
 " But to do something to help — ^to do something." 
 
 " No man can do more than live nobly, decently, and 
 in accordance with the truth as he knows it: no man 
 stands alone, as, praise be to God, nothing in this world 
 stands alone, not even the mind of a man. Purity in 
 one mind breeds purity in ten thousand others. . . . " 
 
 They sat for some moments in silence. Peter could 
 say nothing. He knew that at last he had touched the 
 reality of the man, was behind the veil of inscrutability, 
 and though the moment was glorious, it was almost in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 He wished to creep away, and, Wilson staring into 
 the grate where the fire was long since dead, he rose 
 stealthily to his feet. 
 
 Wilson shivered, turned, and looked up at him. 
 
 " Dulcinea del Toboso," he said, " is the most beauti- 
 ful lady in the world, and I am the most unfortunate 
 knight." 
 
 The same thought was in the minds of both, the 
 image of the same woman. 
 
 "I — I know," said Peter, and stole away. There 
 were long hours before he sought his bed, long hours of 
 brooding, of snatching at elusive visions. His thoughts 
 :went in a maddening circle. To escape he took down 
 book after book from his shelves, but in none could he 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 319 
 
 find comfort; couplets, epigrams, phrases that he had 
 once thought to be the last word, now seemed to him no 
 more than to touch the fringe of this problem. None 
 of the great vision-men had seen, or if they had seen, 
 had projected that which could be of use to him or to 
 any other man. Peter could achieve nothing more than 
 this: 
 
 " For each man the solution is in himself; no thought 
 nor reason can clear the way, but only — only the brave 
 and simple going out to meet truth." 
 
 Fear seized him as he seemed to understand, and 
 where it was that Wilson had failed. 
 
 Grasping at the truth, Peter was filled with horror of 
 himself, and a curious fear of all womankind came upon 
 him. Human effort, human striving, human words writ- 
 ten and recorded were useless, for in the one real charge 
 laid upon man, all must be rediscovered by each. The 
 only true knowledge must be learned through bitter, 
 bitter experience, and even when the thing was grasped, 
 there was no telling where joy begins and pain ends — - 
 and — and — marvellous things had been written, but 
 there was no understanding them until — until there came 
 the illumination of the encounter. Without that light 
 nothing was true. . . . The — the — the source of all 
 error. Human striving. 
 
 He collapsed, limp, his hands to his face. He was 
 cold, bitterly cold. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said. " I know nothing — nothing — ^noth- 
 mg. 
 
 All the same this discovery of ignorance did not keep 
 him from working on the story of Esther Vernon, who 
 lived in Clara's house and loved her Evan; nor did it 
 keep him from making notes of phrases and great 
 
320 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 thoughts in a little book which he kept for that purpose. 
 A whole page was devoted to this sentence: 
 
 " Nothing stands alone : least of all the mind of a 
 man." 
 
 Many years later when he was a person of conse- 
 quence^ as he turned over the leaves of this book con- 
 temptuous of his youthful ardours and impressions, he 
 added in pencil: 
 
 " With these words I became a man and put away 
 childish things." 
 
 The comment was hardly at all true, but to the stu- 
 dent of Peter's career it is interesting: so characteristic 
 of his absurd introspective habit was the determination 
 of the day and hour when he emerged from adolescence. 
 It was true to this extent that his outlook became wider. 
 
 There were anxious times for both Peter and Wilson, 
 as the time approached for the hearing of Mary's peti- 
 tion for divorce. Peter haunted the court and sat 
 through the dreary hearing of many a sordid case, more 
 and more repelled by the atmosphere, tortured with the 
 idea that Mary should come to such a place, Mary whom 
 he had seen in the woods, Mary who had held in her 
 arms the charcoal burner's baby on that most wonderful 
 of nights. That she should come to tell of her most 
 sacred life to the singularly ugly old gentleman who 
 sat under the anchor, and the coarse-grained men who 
 made their trade the asking of vile questions, was an 
 odious humiliation. 
 
 Peter came raging to Wilson one day to report a re- 
 mark that he had heard from the Leader of the court. 
 The man — a well-fed gentleman with a shiny pink face, 
 whereon a child-like smile sat ill, — ^had expressed weari- 
 ness of his profession. 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 321 
 
 " No law in it," he said, " never any law. Always the 
 eternal question. Did she or did she not?" 
 
 The juniors fawning upon him had taken up the joke, 
 and it flew from mouth to mouth. 
 
 Peter was livid with rage. Wilson was more sensible. 
 
 " It is their business," he said. 
 
 Very curiously just at this time Peter received a dis- 
 reputable-looking letter from New Zealand. It was 
 bulky, and the envelope was addressed in a handwriting 
 he did not remember to have seen before. The envelope 
 contained this document: 
 
 Care of Box 771, Wellington, N. Z. 
 My Dear Petee: 
 
 I daresay you remember your Aunt Jennie, although 
 it is nearly nine years ago since she saw you. I have 
 often thought of you and the talk we had when we 
 walked to the Five Oaks Common. At that time you 
 were then only a boy. I could not speak to you as I 
 can now. You are a man, and know good and evil. You 
 know, of course, my unhappy life — but you do not know 
 everything. I am telling you now because I do not think 
 I shall live very long, and I want you to set me right 
 with my children, whose minds have been poisoned 
 against me by your Aunt Anne Daltry. I had not a fair 
 trial. As Lawson Jones remarked to the President, " It 
 is a prejudged case, my Lord," to which the Judge re- 
 plied, " I think that is rather a hard term." " Not at all, 
 my Lord, my client's witnesses have not been heard." 
 The foreman of the jury just heard me, and then sent up 
 a note to the Judge to say he was satisfied I had done 
 wrong, and the case had better not go on. Of course, 
 had my witnesses been heard I should have had my chil- 
 
322 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 dren and my character cleared, for I never did what they 
 said I did. I was imprudent, but I know you will be- 
 lieve me. I did not do wrong, and it has been the 
 only consolation I have had since in knowing that. 
 You do not know what it was to have had the 
 children taken from me. The foreman of the jury, old 
 Pardee, who kept the Hotel at the corner of Tot- 
 tenham Court Road, was a great friend of Anne 
 and the odious Daltry man. I did not know until after 
 the trial what the foreman was, who he was, or else we 
 should not have allowed him to be in the case at all. 
 . • . Do try and get the children's photos for me. 
 The detective will tell you how cruel the trial was against 
 me. As he said to me when I saw him last, " Everyone 
 who swore falsely against you has been punished some- 
 how," and so they have, but that is no satisfaction to me. 
 It does not give me back my character nor my children. 
 Well, I shall not be here long. The climate is so cold 
 and damp, and both my lungs were never strong, and 
 they are worse now. We are just battling along — as 
 we can. Write to me and tell me about my children. 
 With love. 
 
 Your affectionate Aunt, 
 
 Jexnie. 
 
 Peter remembered the unhappy woman, a beautiful 
 creature she had been, his father's sister, and how, after 
 her catastrophe, she had come to his house to receive 
 kindness from his father, and cruelty from his mother, 
 so that there was no refuge for her there. He remem- 
 bered, too, the walk when she had begun to tell him 
 something of her history, and then had stopped abruptly 
 in the telling and turned to a mood of wild and desperate 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 323 
 
 gaiety of a few moments only, for then she sobbed and 
 clung to him. Now at the other end of the world she 
 had remembered him and sought the comfort of confes- 
 sion. 
 
 It was ridiculous that it should come at such a time, 
 this pathetic letter with its dreadful picture of the 
 Court, Judge, Counsel, Jury — Peter's vision of the pub- 
 lican foreman was dreadful — all interested in nothing 
 but the sordid question. Did she or did she not " do 
 wrong " ? 
 
 Peter's thought was for Mary rather than for poor 
 Jennie, though her letter had moved him to pity. 
 
 He was present in court when Mary obtained her de- 
 cree nisi. Bond did not defend. The case did not 
 occupy the court more than twenty minutes. Five other 
 undefended petitions were disposed of that morning. 
 
 Mary told her story quite simply. Tessa gave evi- 
 dence of her share in the matter, and a former maid 
 proved cruelty. There were few people present besides 
 the parties and witnesses in the other cases and their 
 friends. Of the idle and curious there were none, for 
 the hearing of undefended petitions is a cut-and-dried 
 business. 
 
 During the hearing Wilson was pacing up and down 
 the great Central Hall, the dreariest place in London, 
 sucking at an empty pipe. Occasionally he so far for- 
 got himself as to make a face at any man in wig and 
 gown, so acutely did he detest the Law and all its ma- 
 chinery. A legal acquaintance recognised and came to 
 speak with him. All that Wilson said was : 
 
 " In a little church in Cornwall there is an epitaph 
 which records as the chief est virtue of a sailor man that 
 never in all his life was he engaged in a law-suit." 
 
324 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 " It would be pleasanter," said the barrister, " if 
 honest men more often came to us." 
 
 Wilson looked round the vast hall. 
 
 " It costs the country a pretty penny to adjust the 
 quarrels of scoundrels." 
 
 His friend noticed a solicitor whom he thought it wise 
 to conciliate. He walked away and disappeared up one 
 of the dark staircases with a greasy little man, red-eyed 
 like a ferret. 
 
 Bassett-Crewe and Sandilands had made valiant 
 efforts to keep the case out of the papers, but the celeb- 
 rity of the parties (Bond was not yet sunk from notice) 
 proved too tempting for the evening journals, and al- 
 ready as they emerged into the Strand they were con- 
 fronted with placards on which in enormous letters was 
 printed: "Famous actress obtains Divorce." 
 
 " Damw," said Wilson between his teeth. 
 
 They were married as soon as the decree was made 
 absolute, and, after a grand tour, settled in a little house 
 in Queen Anne's Gate, overlooking St. James Park. 
 Here Tessa was parlour-maid, and very handsome in her 
 gown of purple cloth, frilled apron and mob cap, in 
 which Mary dressed her: and here Peter was welcome 
 as often as he chose to visit. 
 
 He made great efforts during their absence to have 
 his book ready for their wedding-gift: but though he 
 finished the writing of it, he found greater difficulty in 
 coming upon the Town than he had anticipated. Pub- 
 lishers told him that though they personally preferred 
 the class of work upon which he was engaged, they must 
 consider the interests of their partners or their share- 
 holders, and that such a book would not sell, though if 
 Mr. Davies could see his way to sharing the cost of pro- 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 325 
 
 duction Peter remembered Mr. Beaumont Scholes, 
 
 and his method of publication^ and regularly replied 
 that his work must be taken on its merits or not at all. 
 
 In the end he sent it to a firm who had announced a 
 prize of £100 for the best first novel. The prize was 
 awarded to Peter and two others, the publisher thus 
 obtaining three novels for the poor price of one. 
 
 The book was published on very poor paper, and in 
 a hideous cover, a few days before Peter's twenty-fifth 
 birthday. He sent copies to his family, to Janet Fildes 
 (whom he had not seen for many months), to the Scott?, 
 to Mary, to Mattie in Paris, to Thomas Bloomer, that 
 pedagogue who had so cruelly snubbed him on his only 
 visit to his birthplace. Wicksteed also received a copy. 
 
 On his birthday Peter was invited to dine with the 
 Scotts, and his guardian gave an account of his steward- 
 ship. Peter was possessed of a fortune of nearly five 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 Of these he sent two hundred to be divided among his 
 brothers and sisters, who one and all wrote to him with 
 awe and respect, for they had not thought so much money 
 was to be made by the practice of literature as a pro- 
 fession. They sent Peter their love, but by postscript, 
 and as though they doubted whether so fine and opulent 
 a gentleman could have need of such a poor commodity, 
 and herein Peter first tasted the bitterness of the ad- 
 vance to greatness, and first began to perceive the 
 isolation to which a man is brought in mounting to a 
 pinnacle. 
 
 Though his accomplishment was small, he found that 
 the " promise " that he was said to show and the 
 " future " predicted for him did stand almost irritatingly 
 between himself and those who had been his friends. 
 
326 PETER HOMUNCULUS 
 
 He suffered considerably, and began to loathe the word 
 success. 
 
 He approached Wilson on the subject. 
 
 " It is a poor thing that should not stand in the way 
 of all that is really worth doing in this world." 
 
 " To be kind and strive always to be kinder," quoted 
 Peter. 
 
 " That old Cooper " 
 
 They laughed, and Mary, entering at that moment, 
 asked the reason of their merriment. Neither could ex- 
 plain, though they gave Mary the subject of their con- 
 versation. 
 
 She took the chair that her husband brought forward 
 for her, and sat so with the glow of the fire upon her 
 face. Then she sighed, and, turning to Peter with a 
 slow smile (softer than it had ever been in the old 
 days), she said: 
 
 " Peter dear, if you never in all your life did anything 
 more than you have done, you would still be to me most 
 M'onderful." 
 
 " You are more glorious now than you have ever been." 
 
 Her eyes turned to her husband, and Peter knew her 
 thought, that every word he had written or might write, 
 could add nothing to the understanding of himself, which 
 had been his great gift to her. As she gazed at her hus' 
 band all the tenderness in the world was in her eyes, and 
 Peter knew that he had had his share in bringing it. 
 He reminded her of old Cooper's dream-children de- 
 scending from the trees to circle the lovers and dance. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " It is true. That is creation no 
 less than the other; each baby has a dream-baby 
 for brother or sister." 
 
PETER HOMUNCULUS 327, 
 
 " I am inclined to think," said Wilson, " that dream- 
 babies have no sex." 
 
 All three laughed on this. 
 
 As he took his leave Peter kissed Mary's hand. He 
 saw that she still wore old Adam's ring, plain gold set 
 with one pink pearl. 
 
 In Waverton Street he asked Wicksteed his opinion 
 of the book. 
 
 " Personally," said the grave man, " I like something 
 with a little more of a story. Oh, Esther's all right, 
 but she'd ha' been sick o' that Withington fellow in a 
 week and off with another. But I suppose there's books 
 no worse than that makes a heap o' money." 
 
 " After deducting the cost of typewriting, I have 
 made exactly twenty-seven pounds, twelve shillings and 
 sixpence," said Peter, settling into a chair by the fire 
 and lighting a pipe. " After all, it is a trade; and the 
 most celebrated and widely read author in Europe is — 
 Karl Baedeker." 
 
 THE END