Under Two Skies by E. W. Hornung

Author:E. W. Hornung
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1892-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

An Idle Singer.

I.

“I have it!” cried the Editor suddenly.

Adeane, who was spoken to, looked up quickly, but a little mechanically, for his mind was inconveniently preoccupied with the sestett of an unwritten sonnet; and “it” was merely the subject of his prose contribution to the Christmas Number of the Spider. Still, as this contribution meant as many sovereigns in Adeane’s pocket as the sonnet would fetch shillings, he was compelled to roll down from poetic heights, to trump up a look of acute personal interest, and to ask what “it” was to be after all.

The Editor of the Spider—who was the Spider—got up from his chair and went into a corner where a small table stood stacked with new books. He chuckled as he found the book he wanted, and he handed it to Adeane with an air of occult humour.

“The Lesser Man,” Adeane read aloud from the cover. “But I don’t see who it’s by?”

“Anonymous—some woman, in spite of the title.”

Adeane glanced at the title-page, but it was innocent of previous record: this was a first conviction.

“All right,” said he, tucking the volume under his arm, and letting his soul soar back to the sestett “I suppose you aren’t in a great hurry for the review?”

“Review! I didn’t say anything about a review, did I?” The Spider spoke rather sharply; and really Adeane was very absent. “We were talking about your thing for the Christmas Number. I want you to fill a couple of pages with your smartest stuff—something in story shape, but topical. And you say you can’t get a subject. Very good, here’s your subject: write me a smart, tart skit on The Lesser Man, and it’ll be the very thing—the very thing!”

“Is it so popular?” asked Adeane, who worked too hard to keep quite abreast of the literary current.

“Now, my dear Mr. Adeane!” said the Spider, with a kind of fatherly compassion for his youthful contributor, “both press and public are idiotic about this book; I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. I haven’t read it, but I’ve glanced at it, and it looks pretty good, though plainly feminine; it’s highly impassioned, and a little embittered; and the title’s ironical—one for us. There’s humour in the title before you touch it! I saw no humour anywhere else, but that’s all the better; you’ll extract lots. Popularity apart, from what I’ve seen and heard of it, the book was made to burlesque; some books are. Mind you mangle the title; it’s a pity there’s no author’s name to hash up as well; but you must just do your best, Mr. Adeane.”

“I’ll certainly try to,” Adeane said earnestly, with the timorous humility with which he treated all his editors in those days. But he had just skimmed half a page of The Lesser Man and seen a phrase that pleased him, and he could not help adding, a little nervously: “It does seem a bit unkind, though!”

“Unkind!” The Spider seized on the word with evident glee. “That’s it exactly; you must make it so.

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