The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 11

"I shouldn't worry about that," Burton replied. "You must get out of the habit. It's quite easy. I expect very soon you will find all desire to use strong language has disappeared entirely."

Mr. Waddington was inclined to be gloomy.

"That's all very well," he declared, "but I've my living to get."

"You seem to be doing pretty well up to now," Burton reminded him.

Mr. Waddington a.s.sented, but without enthusiasm.

"It can't last, Burton," he said. "I am ashamed to say it, but all my crowd have got so accustomed to hear me--er--exaggerate, that they disbelieve everything I say as a matter of habit. I tell them now that the goods I am offering are not what they should be, because I can't help it, and they think it's because I have some deep game up my sleeve, or because I do not want to part. I give them a week or so at the most, Burton--no more."

"Don't you think," Burton suggested doubtfully, "that there might be an opening in the profession for an auctioneer who told the truth?"

Mr. Waddington smiled sadly.

"That's absurd, Burton," he replied, "and you know it."

Burton considered the subject thoughtfully.

"There must be occupations," he murmured, "where instinctive truthfulness would be an advantage."

"I can't think of one," Mr. Waddington answered, gloomily. "Besides, I am too old for anything absolutely new."

"How on earth did you succeed in letting Idlemay House?" Burton asked suddenly.

"Most remarkable incident," his host declared. "Reminds me of my last two sales of antique furniture. This man--a Mr. Forrester--came to me with his wife, very keen to take a house in that precise neighborhood.

I asked him the lowest rent to start with, and I told him that the late owner had died of typhoid there, and that the drains had practically not been touched since."

"And yet he took it?"

"Took it within twenty-four hours," Mr. Waddington continued. "He seemed to like the way I put it to him, and instead of being scared he went to an expert in drains, who advised him that there was only quite a small thing wrong. He's doing up some of the rooms and moving in in a fortnight."

"This sounds as though there might be an opening for an honest house-agent," Burton suggested.

Mr. Waddington looked dubious.

"It's never been tried. Just this once it came off, but as a regular thing I should have no confidence in it. People like to be gulled. They've been brought up to it. They ask for lies--that's why the world's so full of them. Case of supply and demand, you know."

"According to you, then," Burton remarked, a little dolefully, "it seems as though this change in us unfits us for any sort of practical life."

Mr. Waddington coughed. Even his cough was no longer strident.

"That," he confessed, "has been worrying me. I find it hard to see the matter differently. If one might venture upon a somewhat personal question, how did you manage to discover a vocation? You seem to be prospering," he added, glancing at his companion's neat clothes and gray silk tie.

"I was fortunate," Burton admitted frankly. "I discovered quite by accident the one form in which it is possible to palm off the truth on an unsuspecting public."

Mr. Waddington laid down his knife and fork. He was intensely interested.

"Art," Burton murmured softly.

"Art?" Mr. Waddington echoed under his breath, a little vaguely. The questioning gleam was still in his eyes.

"Painting, sculpture, in my case writing," Burton explained. "I read something when I was half starving which was in a newspaper and had obviously been paid for, and I saw at once that the only point about it was that the man had put down what he saw instead of what he thought he saw. I tried the same thing, and up to the present, at any rate, it seems to go quite Well."

"That's queer," Mr. Waddington murmured. "Do you know," he continued, dropping his voice and looking around him anxiously, "that I've taken to reading Ruskin? I've got a copy of 'The Seven Lamps' at the office, and I can't keep away from it. I slip it into my drawer if any one comes in, like an office boy reading the Police Gazette. All the time I am in the streets I am looking at the buildings, and, Burton, this is the extraordinary part of it, I know no more about architecture than a babe unborn, and yet I can tell you where they're wrong, every one of them.

There are some streets I can't pa.s.s through, and I close my eyes whenever I get near Buckingham Palace. On the other hand, I walked a mile the other day to see a perfect arch down in South Kensington, and there are some new maisonettes in Queen Anne Street without a single erring line."

Burton poured himself out a gla.s.s of wine from the bottle which his companion had ordered.

"Mr. Waddington," he said, "this is a queer thing that has happened to us."

"Not a soul would believe it," the auctioneer a.s.sented. "No one will ever believe it. The person who declared that there was nothing new under the sun evidently knew nothing about these beans!"

Burton leaned across the table.

"Mr. Waddington," he continued, "I was around at Idlemay House this morning. I went to see what had become of the flower-pot. I found the little room swept bare. One of the workmen told me that the things had been stolen."

Mr. Waddington showed some signs of embarra.s.sment. He waited for his companion to proceed.

"I wanted the rest of those beans," Burton confessed.

Mr. Waddington shook his head slowly.

"I haven't made up my mind about them yet," he said. "Better leave them alone."

"You do know where they are, then?" Burton demanded breathlessly.

The auctioneer did not deny it.

"I had them removed," he explained "in a somewhat peculiar fas.h.i.+on. The fact of it is, the new tenant is a very peculiar man and I did not dare to ask him to give me that little tree. I simply did not dare to run the risk. It is a painful subject with me, this, because quite thoughtlessly I endeavored to a.s.sume the appearance of anger on discovering the theft. The words nearly stuck in my throat and I was obliged to lie down for an hour afterwards."

Burton drew a little breath of relief.

"I wish I'd asked you about this before," he declared. "I should have enjoyed my luncheon better."

Mr. Waddington coughed.

"The beans," he remarked, "are in my possession. There are only eleven of them and I have not yet made up my mind exactly what to do with them."

"Mr. Waddington," Burton said impressively, "have you forgotten that I am a married man?"

Mr. Waddington started.

"G.o.d bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that!

"A wife and one little boy," Burton continued. "We were living at Garden Green in a small plastered edifice called Clematis Villa. My wife is a vigorous woman, part of whose life has been spent in domestic service, and part in a suburban dressmaker's establishment. She keeps the house very clean, pins up the oleographs presented to us at Christmas time by the grocer and the oil-man, and thinks I look genteel in a silk hat when we walk out to hear the band in the public gardens on Thursday evenings."

"I can see her!" Mr. Waddington groaned. "My poor fellow!"