Tommy and Grizel | Page 2

was

near being made a fellow of his college; there was sensitiveness left in
the thick nose, humour in the eyes, though they so often watered; the
face had gone to flabbiness at last, but not without some lines and dents,
as if the head had resisted the body for a space before the whole man
rolled contentedly downhill.
He had no beard. "Young man, let your beard grow." Those who have
forgotten all else about Pym may recall him in these words. They were
his one counsel to literary aspirants, who, according as they took it, are
now bearded and prosperous or shaven and on the rates. To shave costs
threepence, another threepence for loss of time--nearly ten pounds a
year, three hundred pounds since Pym's chin first bristled. With his
beard he could have bought an annuity or a cottage in the country, he
could have had a wife and children, and driven his dog-cart, and been
made a church-warden. All gone, all shaved, and for what? When he
asked this question he would move his hand across his chin with a sigh,
and so, bravely to the barber's.
Pym was at present suffering from an ailment that had spread him out
on that sofa again and again--acute disinclination to work.
Meanwhile all the world was waiting for his new tale; so the publishers,
two little round men, have told him. They have blustered, they have
fawned, they have asked each other out to talk it over behind the door.
Has he any idea of what the story is to be about?
He has no idea.
Then at least, Pym--excellent Pym--sit down and dip, and let us see
what will happen.
He declined to do even that. While all the world waited, this was Pym's
ultimatum:
"I shall begin the damned thing at eight o'clock."
Outside, the fog kept changing at intervals from black to white, as

lazily from white to black (the monster blinking); there was not a sound
from the street save of pedestrians tapping with their sticks on the
pavement as they moved forward warily, afraid of an embrace with the
unknown; it might have been a city of blind beggars, one of them a
boy.
At eight o'clock Pym rose with a groan and sat down in his
stocking-soles to write his delicious tale. He was now alone. But
though his legs were wound round his waste-paper basket, and he
dipped often and loudly in the saucer, like one ringing at the door of
Fancy, he could not get the idea that would set him going. He was still
dipping for inspiration when T. Sandys, who had been told to find the
second floor for himself, knocked at the door, and entered, quaking.
"I remember it vividly," Pym used to say when questioned in the after
years about this his first sight of Tommy, "and I hesitate to decide
which impressed me more, the richness of his voice, so remarkable in a
boy of sixteen, or his serene countenance, with its noble forehead,
behind which nothing base could lurk."
Pym, Pym! it is such as you that makes the writing of biography
difficult. The richness of Tommy's voice could not have struck you, for
at that time it was a somewhat squeaky voice; and as for the noble
forehead behind which nothing base could lurk, how could you say that,
Pym, you who had a noble forehead yourself?
No; all that Pym saw was a pasty-faced boy sixteen years old, and of an
appearance mysteriously plain; hair light brown, and waving defiance
to the brush; nothing startling about him but the expression of his face,
which was almost fearsomely solemn and apparently unchangeable. He
wore his Sunday blacks, of which the trousers might with advantage
have borrowed from the sleeves; and he was so nervous that he had to
wet his lips before he could speak. He had left the door ajar for a
private reason; but Pym, misunderstanding, thought he did it to fly the
more readily if anything was flung at him, and so concluded that he
must be a printer's devil. Pym had a voice that shook his mantelpiece
ornaments; he was all on the same scale as his ink-pot. "Your Christian
name, boy?" he roared hopefully, for it was thus he sometimes got the

idea that started him.
"Thomas," replied the boy.
Pym gave him a look of disgust "You may go," he said. But when he
looked up presently, Thomas was still there. He was not only there, but
whistling--a short, encouraging whistle that seemed to be directed at
the door. He stopped quickly when Pym looked up, but during the
remainder of the interview he emitted this whistle at intervals, always
with that anxious glance at his friend the door; and