第79章 An Editor Socrates (1)

How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other.

They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem;and I can not help thinking that, if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows.Plato That Erica should live any longer upon the money which her father chiefly made by the dissemination of views with which she disagreed was clearly impossible, at least impossible to one of her sincere and thorough nature.But to find work was very difficult, indeed.

After an anxious waiting and searching, she was one day surprised by receiving through Charles Osmond's friend, Mr.Crutchley, an introduction to the editor of a well-known and widely read paper.

Every one congratulated her, but she could not feel very hopeful, it seemed too good to prove true it was, in fact, so exactly the position which she would herself have chosen that it seemed unlikely it should ever really be hers.Still of course she hoped, and arrangements were made for an interview with Mr.Bircham, editor and part proprietor of the "Daily Review."Accordingly, one hot summer morning Erica dressed herself carefully, tried to look old and serious, and set off with Tom to the city.

"I'll see you safe to the door of the lion's den," said Tom as they made their way along the crowded streets."I only wish I could be under the table during the interview; I should like to see you doing the dignified journalist.""I wouldn't have you for the world!" said Erica, laughing.Then, growing grave again, "Oh, Tom! How I wish it were over! It's worse than three hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one.""Appalling prospect!" said Tom."I can exactly picture what it will be.BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor.He'll be a sort of editorial Mr.Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike.""No," said Erica, laughing."He'll be a neat little dapper man, very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal.""Tell him at once that you hero-worship Sir Michael Cunningham, the statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'""Tom, do be quiet!" said Erica."I wish you had never thought of that horrid name.""Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it.If you like, you can offer the pun on reasonable terms to Mr.Bircham.""Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this?" said Erica, with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck."We must be quite near.""Nearer than near," said Tom."Now then, left wheel! Here we are, you see.It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green like the sea-green Robespierre.Go in looking as pretty as that, and Mr.Squeers will graciously accept your services, unless he's sand-blind.""What a tease you are.Do be quiet!" implored Erica.And then, in what seemed to her an alarmingly short time she was actually left by herself to beard the lion, and a clerk was assuring her that Mr.

Bircham was in, and would she walk upstairs.

For reasons best known to himself, the editor of the "Daily Review"had his private room at the very top of the house.A sedate clerk led the way up a dingy staircase, and Erica toiled after him, wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she reached the end.On one of the landings she caught sight of a sandy cat and felt a little reassured at meeting such an every-day creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she passed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have picked it up and taken it with her.That would have been undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room only a very observant person could have discovered in her frank, self-possessed manner any trace of nervousness.

So different was Mr Bircham from their preconceived notions that she could almost have laughed at the contrast.He was very tall and pompous, he wore a lank brown wig which looked as if it might come off at any moment, he had little keen gray eyes which twinkled, and a broad mouth which shut very closely; whether it was grim or humorous she could not quite decide.He was sitting in a swivel chair, and the table strewn with letters, and the desk with its pigeon holes crammed with papers, looked so natural and so like her father's that she began to feel a reassuring sense of fellowship with this entire stranger.The inevitable paste-pot and scissors, the piles of newspapers, the books of reference, all looked homelike to her.