Hugo | Page 4

traverse furlong after furlong of vistas where nought but man was vile,
sojourn by the way in the concert-hall, the reading-room, or the
picture-gallery, smoke a cigarette in the court of fountains, write a letter
in the lounge, and finally ask to be directed to the stationery department,
where seated on a specially designed chair and surrounded by the most
precious manifestations of applied art, you could select a threepenny
box of J pens, and have it sent home in a pair-horse van.
The unobservant visitor wondered how Hugo made it pay. The

observant visitor did not fail to note that there were more than a
hundred cash-desks in the place, and that all the cashiers had the air of
being overworked. Once the entire army of cashiers, driven to
defensive action, had combined in order to demand from Hugo, not
only higher pay, but an increase in their numbers. Hugo had
immediately consented, expressing regret that their desperate plight had
escaped his attention.
The registered telegraphic address of the establishment was 'Complete,
London.'
This address indicated the ideal which Hugo had turned into a reality.
His imperial palace was far more than a universal bazaar. He boasted
that you could do everything there, except get into debt. (His dictionary
was an expurgated edition, and did not contain the word 'credit.')
Throughout life's fitful fever Hugo undertook to meet all your demands.
Your mother could buy your layette from him, and your cradle,
soothing-syrup, perambulator, and toys; she could hire your nurse at
Hugo's. Your school-master could purchase canes there. Hugo sold the
material for every known game; also sweets, cigarettes, penknives,
walking-sticks, moustache-forcers, neckties, and trouser-stretchers. He
shaved you, and kept the latest in scents and kit-bags. He was
unsurpassed for fishing-rods, motor-cars, Swinburne's poems,
button-holes, elaborate bouquets, fans, and photographs. His restaurant
was full of discreet corners with tables for two under rose-shaded lights.
He booked seats for theatres, trains, steamers, grand-stands, and the
Empire. He dealt in all stocks and shares. He was a banker. He acted as
agent for all insurance companies. He would insert advertisements in
the agony column, or any other column, of any newspaper. If you
wanted a flat, a house, a shooting-box, a castle, a yacht, or a salmon
river, Hugo could sell, or Hugo could let, the very thing. He provided
strong-rooms for your savings, and summer quarters for your wife's
furs; conjurers to amuse your guests after dinner, and all the requisites
for your daughter's wedding, from the cake and the silk petticoats to the
Viennese band. His wine-cellars and his specific for the gout were alike
famous; so also was his hair-dye.... And, lastly, when the riddle of
existence had become too much for your curiosity, Hugo would sell

you a pistol by means of which you could solve it. And he would bury
you in a manner first-class, second-class, or third-class, according to
your deserts.
And all these feats Hugo managed to organize within the compass of
four floors, a basement, and a sub-basement. Above, were five floors of
furnished and unfurnished flats. 'Will people of wealth consent to live
over a shop?' he had asked himself in considering the possibilities of
his palace, and he had replied, 'Yes, if the shop is large enough and the
rents are high enough.' He was right. His flats were the most sumptuous
and the most preposterously expensive in London; and they were never
tenantless. One man paid two thousand a year for a furnished suite. But
what a furnished suite! The flats had a separate and spectacular
entrance on the eastern façade of the building, with a foyer that was
always brilliantly lighted, and elevators that rose and sank without
intermission day or night. And on the ninth floor was a special
restaurant, with prices to match the rents, and a roof garden, where one
of Hugo's orchestras played every fine summer evening, except
Sundays. (The County Council, mistrusting this aerial combination of
music and moonbeams, had granted its license only on the condition
that customers should have one night in which to recover from the
doubtful influences of the other six.) The restaurant and the roof-garden
were a resort excessively fashionable during the season. The garden
gave an excellent view of the dome, where Hugo lived. But few
persons knew that he lived there; in some matters he was very
secretive.
That very sultry morning Hugo brooded over the face of his
establishment like a spirit doomed to perpetual motion. For more than
two hours he threaded ceaselessly the long galleries where the usual
daily crowds of customers, sales-people, shopwalkers, inspectors,
sub-managers, managers, and private detectives of both sexes, moved
with a strange and unaccustomed languor in a drowsy atmosphere
which no system of ventilation could keep below 75° Fahrenheit. None