Hugo | Page 3

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 March��, and the Magasins du Louvre. The result disappointed him. He had expected to pick up ideas, but he picked up nothing save the Bon March�� 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 fa?ade 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, 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