Hugo | Page 3

Senior Polycarp, principal partner in Polycarps, the famous
firm of company-promoting solicitors, and it heralded a personal visit
from the august lawyer at 11.30 that day.
In the midst of dictating instructions to the clerk, Mr. Hugo stopped and
rang for Shawn.
'Take that back,' he commanded, indicating the hat. 'I've done with it.'

'Yes, sir.'
The hat went.
'I may just as well be discreet,' his thought ran.
But her image, the image of the artist in hats, illumined more brightly
than ever his soul.
CHAPTER II
THE ESTABLISHMENT
Seven years before, when, having unostentatiously acquired the
necessary land, and an acre or two over, Hugo determined to rebuild his
premises and to burst into full blossom, he visited America and Paris,
and amongst other establishments inspected Wanamaker's, the Bon
Marché, and the Magasins du Louvre. The result disappointed him. He
had expected to pick up ideas, but he picked up nothing save the Bon
Marché system of vouchers, by which a customer buying in several
departments is spared the trouble of paying separately in each
department. He came to the conclusion that the art of flinging money
away in order that it may return tenfold was yet quite in its infancy. He
said to himself, 'I will build a shop.'
Travelling home by an indirect route, he stopped at a busy English
seaport, and saw a great town-hall majestically rising in the midst of a
park. The beautiful building did not appeal to him in vain. At the gates
of the park he encountered a youth, who was staring at the town-hall
with a fixed and fascinated stare.
'A fine structure,' Hugo commented to the youth.
'I think so,' was the reply.
'Can you tell me who is the architect?' asked Hugo.
'I am,' said the youth. 'And let me beg of you not to make any remark

on my juvenile appearance. I am sick of that.'
They lunched together, and Hugo learnt that the genius, after several
years spent in designing the varnished interiors of public-houses, had
suddenly come out first in an open competition for the town-hall;
thenceforward he had thought in town-halls.
'I want a shop putting up,' said Hugo.
The youth showed no interest.
'And when I say a shop,' Hugo pursued, 'I mean a shop.'
'Oh, a shop you mean!' ejaculated the youth, faintly stirred. They both
spoke in italics.
'A real shop. Sloane Street. A hundred and eighty thousand superficial
feet. Cost a quarter of a million. The finest shop in the world!'
The youth started to his feet.
'I've never had any luck,' said he, gazing at Hugo. 'But I believe you
really do understand what a shop ought to be.'
'I believe I do,' Hugo concurred. 'And I want one.'
'You shall have it!' said the youth.
And Hugo had it, though not for anything like the sum he had named.
The four frontages of his land exceeded in all a quarter of a mile. The
frontage to Sloane Street alone was five hundred feet. It was this
glorious stretch of expensive earth which inflamed the architect's
imagination.
'But we must set back the façade twenty feet at least,' he said; and
added, 'That will give you a good pavement.'
'Young man,' cried Hugo, 'do you know how much this land has stood

me in a foot?'
'I neither know nor care,' answered the youth. 'All I say is, what's the
use of putting up a decent building unless people can see it?'
Hugo yielded. He felt as though, having given the genius something to
play with, he must not spoil the game. The game included twelve
thousand pounds paid to budding sculptors for monumental groups of a
symbolic tendency; it included forests of onyx pillars and pillars of
Carrara marble; it included ceilings painted by artists who ought to
have been R.A.'s, but were not; and it included a central court of vast
dimensions and many fountains, whose sole purpose was to charm the
eye and lure the feet of customers who wanted a rest from spending
money. Whenever Hugo found the game over-exciting, he soothed
himself by dwelling upon the wonderful plan which the artist had
produced, of his extraordinary grasp of practical needs, and his
masterly solution of the various complicated problems which
continually presented themselves.
After the last bit of scaffolding was removed and the machine in full
working order, Hugo beheld it, and said emphatically, 'This will do.'
All London stood amazed, but not at the austere beauty of the whole,
for only a few connoisseurs could appreciate that. What amazed
London was the fabulous richness, the absurd spaciousness, the
extravagant perfection of every part of the immense organism.
You could stroll across twenty feet of private tessellated pavement,
enter jewelled portals with the assistance of jewelled commissionaires,