The Disentanglers | Page 2

felt want, as the Covenanting divine calls it: a real public need, hitherto but dimly present, and quite a demand without a supply.'
'But that means thousands in advertisements,' said Logan, 'even if we ran a hair-restorer. The ground bait is too expensive. I say, I once knew a fellow who ground-baited for salmon with potted shrimps.'
'Make a paragraph on him then,' said Merton.
'But results proved that there was no felt want of potted shrimps--or not of a fly to follow.'
'Your collaboration in the search, the hunt for money, the quest, consists merely in irrelevancies and objections,' growled Merton, lighting a cigarette.
'Lucky devil, Peter Nevison. Meets an heiress on a Channel boat, with 4,000l. a year; and there he is.' Logan basked in the reflected sunshine.
'Cut by her people, though--and other people. I could not have faced the row with her people,' said Merton musingly.
'I don't wonder they moved heaven and earth, and her uncle, the bishop, to stop it. Not eligible, Peter was not, however you took him,' Logan reflected. 'Took too much of this,' he pointed to the heraldic flask.
'Well, she took him. It is not much that parents, still less guardians, can do now, when a girl's mind is made up.'
'The emancipation of woman is the opportunity of the indigent male struggler. Women have their way,' Logan reflected.
'And the youth of the modern aged is the opportunity of our sisters, the girls "on the make,"' said Merton. 'What a lot of old men of title are marrying young women as hard up as we are!'
'And then,' said Logan, 'the offspring of the deceased marchionesses make a fuss. In fact marriage is always the signal for a family row.'
'It is the infernal family row that I never could face. I had a chance--'
Merton seemed likely to drop into autobiography.
'I know,' said Logan admonishingly.
'Well, hanged if I could take it, and she--she could not stand it either, and both of us--'
'Do not be elegiac,' interrupted Logan. 'I know. Still, I am rather sorry for people's people. The unruly affections simply poison the lives of parents and guardians, aye, and of the children too. The aged are now so hasty and imprudent. What would not Tala have given to prevent his Grace from marrying Mrs. Tankerville?'
Merton leapt to his feet and smote his brow.
'Wait, don't speak to me--a great thought flushes all my brain. Hush! I have it,' and he sat down again, pouring seltzer water into a half empty glass.
'Have what?' asked Logan.
'The Felt Want. But the accomplices?'
'But the advertisements!' suggested Logan.
'A few pounds will cover them. I can sell my books,' Merton sighed.
'A lot of advertising your first editions will pay for. Why, even to launch a hair-restorer takes--'
'Oh, but,' Merton broke in, 'this want is so widely felt, acutely felt too: hair is not in it. But where are the accomplices?'
'If it is gentleman burglars I am not concerned. No Raffles for me! If it is venal physicians to kill off rich relations, the lives of the Logans are sacred to me.'
'Bosh!' said Merton, 'I want "lady friends," as Tennyson says: nice girls, well born, well bred, trying to support themselves.'
'What do you want them for? To support them?'
'I want them as accomplices,' said Merton. 'As collaborators.'
'Blackmail?' asked Logan. 'Has it come to this? I draw the line at blackmail. Besides, they would starve first, good girls would; or marry Lord Methusalem, or a beastly South African richard.'
'Robert Logan of Restalrig, that should be'--Merton spoke impressively--'you know me to be incapable of practices, however lucrative, which involve taint of crime. I do not prey upon the society which I propose to benefit. But where are the girls?'
'Where are they not?' Logan asked. 'Dawdling, as jesters, from country house to country house. In the British Museum, verifying references for literary gents, if they can get references to verify. Asking leave to describe their friends' parties in The Leidy's News. Trying for places as golfing governesses, or bridge governesses, or gymnastic mistresses at girls' schools, or lady laundresses, or typewriters, or lady teachers of cookery, or pegs to hang costumes on at dress-makers'. The most beautiful girl I ever saw was doing that once; I met her when I was shopping with my aunt who left her money to the Armenians.'
'You kept up her acquaintance? The girl's, I mean,' Merton asked.
'We have occasionally met. In fact--'
'Yes, I know, as you said lately,' Merton remarked. 'That's one, anyhow, and there is Mary Willoughby, who got a second in history when I was up. She would do. Better business for her than the British Museum. I know three or four.'
'I know five or six. But what for?' Logan insisted.
'To help us in supplying the widely felt want, which is my discovery,' said Merton.
'And that is?'
'Disentanglers--of both sexes. A large and varied staff,