The Coxon Fund | Page 7

attitude of blandness that might
have been looked for in persons whom the promise of (if I'm not
mistaken) An Analysis of Primary Ideas had drawn to the
neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There was in those days in that

region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on terms as moderate as the
funds left at our disposal by the irrepressible question of the
maintenance of five small Saltrams--I include the mother--and one
large one. By the time the Saltrams, of different sizes, were all
maintained we had pretty well poured out the oil that might have
lubricated the machinery for enabling the most original of men to
appear to maintain them.
It was I, the other time, who had been forced into the breach, standing
up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a dozen thin
benches, where earnest brows were virtuously void of anything so
cynical as a suspicion, that we couldn't so much as put a finger on Mr.
Saltram. There was nothing to plead but that our scouts had been out
from the early hours and that we were afraid that on one of his walks
abroad--he took one, for meditation, whenever he was to address such a
company--some accident had disabled or delayed him. The meditative
walks were a fiction, for he never, that any one could discover,
prepared anything but a magnificent prospectus; hence his circulars and
programmes, of which I possess an almost complete collection, are the
solemn ghosts of generations never born. I put the case, as it seemed to
me, at the best; but I admit I had been angry, and Kent Mulville was
shocked at my want of public optimism. This time therefore I left the
excuses to his more practised patience, only relieving myself in
response to a direct appeal from a young lady next whom, in the hall, I
found myself sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had been
calculated the reason would scarce have eluded an observer of the fact
that no one else in the room had an approach to an appearance. Our
philosopher's "tail" was deplorably limp. This visitor was the only
person who looked at her ease, who had come a little in the spirit of
adventure. She seemed to carry amusement in her handsome young
head, and her presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden
extension of Saltram's sphere of influence. He was doing better than we
hoped, and he had chosen such an occasion, of all occasions, to
succumb to heaven knew which of his fond infirmities. The young lady
produced an impression of auburn hair and black velvet, and had on her
other hand a companion of obscurer type, presumably a waiting-maid.
She herself might perhaps have been a foreign countess, and before she
addressed me I had beguiled our sorry interval by finding in her a

vague recall of the opening of some novel of Madame Sand. It didn't
make her more fathomable to pass in a few minutes from this to the
certitude that she was American; it simply engendered depressing
reflexions as to the possible check to contributions from Boston. She
asked me if, as a person apparently more initiated, I would recommend
further waiting, and I answered that if she considered I was on my
honour I would privately deprecate it. Perhaps she didn't; at any rate
our talk took a turn that prolonged it till she became aware we were left
almost alone. I presently ascertained she knew Mrs. Saltram, and this
explained in a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the friends of
the husband was as nothing to the brotherhood, or perhaps I should say
the sisterhood, of the friends of the wife. Like the Kent Mulvilles I
belonged to both fraternities, and even better than they I think I had
sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltram's wrongs. She bored me to
extinction, and I knew but too well how she had bored her husband; but
there were those who stood by her, the most efficient of whom were
indeed the handful of poor Saltram's backers. They did her liberal
justice, whereas her mere patrons and partisans had nothing but hatred
for our philosopher. I'm bound to say it was we, however--we of both
camps, as it were-- who had always done most for her.
I thought my young lady looked rich--I scarcely knew why; and I
hoped she had put her hand in her pocket. I soon made her out,
however, not at all a fine fanatic--she was but a generous, irresponsible
enquirer. She had come to England to see her aunt, and it was at her
aunt's she had met the dreary lady we had all so much on our mind. I
saw she'd help to pass