The Golden Scarecrow | Page 5

when one is still a child.
IV
Christmas Eve was always, to Hugh, a day with glamour. He did not any longer hang up his stocking (although he would greatly have liked to do so), but, all day, his heart beat thickly at the thought of the morrow, at the thought of something more than the giving and receiving of presents, something more than the eating of food, something more than singing hymns that were delightfully familiar, something more than putting holly over the pictures and hanging mistletoe on to the lamp in the hall. Something there was in the day like going home, like meeting people again whom one had loved once, and not seen for many years, something as warm and romantic and lightly coloured and as comforting as the most inspired and impossible story that one could ever, lying in bed and waiting for sleep, invent.
To-day there was no snow but a frost, and there was a long bar of saffron below the cold sky and a round red ball of a sun. Hugh was sitting in a corner of Mr. Lasher's study, looking at Dor��'s "Don Quixote," when the two gentlemen came in. He was sitting in a dark corner and they, because they were angry with one another, did not recognise any one except themselves. Mr. Lasher pulled furiously at his pipe and Mr. Pidgen stood up by the fire with his short fat legs spread wide and his mouth smiling, but his eyes vexed and rather indignant.
"My dear Pidgen," said Mr. Lasher, "you misunderstand me, you do indeed! It may be (I would be the first to admit that, like most men, I have my weakness) that I lay too much stress upon the healthy, physical, normal life, upon seeing things as they are and not as one would like to see them to be. I don't believe that dreaming ever did any good to any man!"
"It's only produced some of the finest literature the world has ever known," said Mr. Pidgen.
"Ah! Genius! If you or I were geniuses, Pidgen, that would be another affair. But we're not; we're plain, common-place humdrum human beings with souls to be saved and work to do--work to do!"
There was a little pause after that, and Hugh, looking at Mr. Pidgen, saw the hurt look in his eyes deepen.
"Come now, Lasher," he said at last. "Let's be honest one with another; that's your line, and you say it ought to be mine. Come now, as man to man, you think me a damnable failure now--beg pardon--complete failure--don't you? Don't be afraid of hurting me. I want to know!"
Mr. Lasher was really a kindly man, and when his eyes beheld things--there were of course many things that they never beheld--he would do his best to help anybody. He wanted to help Mr. Pidgen now; but he was also a truthful man.
"My dear Pidgen! Ha, ha! What a question! I'm sure many, many people enjoy your books immensely. I'm sure they do, oh, yes!"
"Come, now, Lasher, the truth. You won't hurt my feelings. If you were discussing me with a third person you'd say, wouldn't you? 'Ah, poor Pidgen might have done something if he hadn't let his fancy run away with him. I was with him at Cambridge. He promised well, but I'm afraid one must admit that he's failed--he would never stick to anything.'"
Now this was so exactly what Mr. Lasher had, on several occasions, said about his friend that he was really for the moment at a loss. He pulled at his pipe, looked very grave, and then said:
"My dear Pidgen, you must remember our lives have followed such different courses. I can only give you my point of view. I don't myself care greatly for romances--fairy tales and so on. It seems to me that for a grown-up man.... However, I don't pretend to be a literary fellow; I have other work, other duties, picturesque, but nevertheless necessary."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pidgen, who, considering that he had invited his host's honest opinion, should not have become irritated because he had obtained it; "that's just it. You people all think only you know what is necessary. Why shouldn't a fairy story be as necessary as a sermon? A lot more necessary, I dare say. You think you're the only people who can know anything about it. You people never use your imaginations."
"Nevertheless," said Mr. Lasher, very bitterly (for he had always said, "If one does not bring one's imagination into one's work one's work is of no value"), "writers of idle tales are not the only people who use their imaginations. And, if you will allow me, without offence, to say so, Pidgen, your books, even amongst other things of the same sort, have not been the most successful."
This remark