The Coxon Fund | Page 6

him."
"Left him to US?" Gravener asked. "The monster--many thanks! I
decline to take him."
"You'll hear more about him in spite of yourself. I can't, no, I really
can't resist the impression that he's a big man." I was already

mastering--to my shame perhaps be it said--just the tone my old friend
least liked.
"It's doubtless only a trifle," he returned, "but you haven't happened to
mention what his reputation's to rest on."
"Why on what I began by boring you with--his extraordinary mind."
"As exhibited in his writings?"
"Possibly in his writings, but certainly in his talk, which is far and away
the richest I ever listened to."
"And what's it all about?"
"My dear fellow, don't ask me! About everything!" I pursued,
reminding myself of poor Adelaide. "About his ideas of things," I then
more charitably added. "You must have heard him to know what I
mean--it's unlike anything that ever WAS heard." I coloured, I admit, I
overcharged a little, for such a picture was an anticipation of Saltram's
later development and still more of my fuller acquaintance with him.
However, I really expressed, a little lyrically perhaps, my actual
imagination of him when I proceeded to declare that, in a cloud of
tradition, of legend, he might very well go down to posterity as the
greatest of all great talkers. Before we parted George Gravener had
wondered why such a row should be made about a chatterbox the more
and why he should be pampered and pensioned. The greater the
wind-bag the greater the calamity. Out of proportion to everything else
on earth had come to be this wagging of the tongue. We were drenched
with talk--our wretched age was dying of it. I differed from him here
sincerely, only going so far as to concede, and gladly, that we were
drenched with sound. It was not however the mere speakers who were
killing us--it was the mere stammerers. Fine talk was as rare as it was
refreshing--the gift of the gods themselves, the one starry spangle on
the ragged cloak of humanity. How many men were there who rose to
this privilege, of how many masters of conversation could he boast the
acquaintance? Dying of talk?--why we were dying of the lack of it! Bad
writing wasn't talk, as many people seemed to think, and even good
wasn't always to be compared to it. From the best talk indeed the best
writing had something to learn. I fancifully added that we too should
peradventure be gilded by the legend, should be pointed at for having
listened, for having actually heard. Gravener, who had glanced at his
watch and discovered it was midnight, found to all this a retort

beautifully characteristic of him.
"There's one little fact to be borne in mind in the presence equally of
the best talk and of the worst." He looked, in saying this, as if he meant
great things, and I was sure he could only mean once more that neither
of them mattered if a man wasn't a real gentleman. Perhaps it was what
he did mean; he deprived me however of the exultation of being right
by putting the truth in a slightly different way. "The only thing that
really counts for one's estimate of a person is his conduct." He had his
watch still in his palm, and I reproached him with unfair play in having
ascertained beforehand that it was now the hour at which I always gave
in. My pleasantry so far failed to mollify him that he promptly added
that to the rule he had just enunciated there was absolutely no
exception.
"None whatever?"
"None whatever."
"Trust me then to try to be good at any price!" I laughed as I went with
him to the door. "I declare I will be, if I have to be horrible!"

CHAPTER III

If that first night was one of the liveliest, or at any rate was the freshest,
of my exaltations, there was another, four years later, that was one of
my great discomposures. Repetition, I well knew by this time, was the
secret of Saltram's power to alienate, and of course one would never
have seen him at his finest if one hadn't seen him in his remorses. They
set in mainly at this season and were magnificent, elemental, orchestral.
I was quite aware that one of these atmospheric disturbances was now
due; but none the less, in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet as a
lecturer, it was impossible not to feel that two failures were a large
order, as we said, for a short course of five. This was the second time,
and it was past nine o'clock; the audience, a muster unprecedented and
really encouraging, had fortunately the