Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [86]
Burlap got up and began to look through the books. ‘Pity the poor reviewer!’ he said with a sigh.
The poor reviewer—wasn’t that the cue for his little speech about salary? Walter nerved himself, focussed his will. ‘I was wondering,’ he began.
But Burlap had almost simultaneously begun on his own account. ‘I’ll get Beatrice to come in,’ he said and pressed the bell-push three times. ‘Sorry. What were you saying?’
‘Nothing.’ The demand would have to be postponed. It couldn’t be made in public, particularly when the public was Beatrice. Damn Beatrice! he thought unjustly. What business had she to do subediting and Shorter Notices for nothing? Just because she had a private income and adored Burlap.
Walter had once complained to her, jokingly, of his miserable six pounds a week.
‘But the World’s worth making sacrifices for,’ she rapped out. ‘After all, one has a responsibility towards people; one ought to do something for them.’ Echoed in her clear rapping voice, Burlap’s Christian sentiments sounded, Walter thought, particularly odd. ‘The World does do something; one ought to help.’
The obvious retort was that his own private income was very small and that he wasn’t in love with Burlap. He didn’t make it, however, but suffered himself to be pecked. Damn her, all the same!
Beatrice entered, a neat, plumply well-made little figure, very erect and business-like. ‘Morning, Walter,’ she said, and every word she uttered was like a sharp little rap with an ivory mallet over the knuckles. She examined him with her bright, rather protuberant brown eyes. ‘You look tired,’ she went on. ‘Worn out, as though you’d been on the tiles last night.’ Peck after peck. ‘Were you?’
Walter blushed. ‘I slept badly,’ he mumbled and engrossed himself in a book.
They sorted out the volumes for the various reviewers. A little heap for the scientific expert, another for the accredited metaphysician, a whole mass for the fiction specialist. The largest pile was of Tripe. Tripe wasn’t reviewed, or only got a Shorter Notice.
‘Here’s a book about Polynesia for you, Walter,’ said Burlap generously. ‘And a new anthology of French verse. No, on second thoughts, I think I’ll do that.’ On second thoughts he generally did keep the most interesting books for himself.
‘_The Life of St. Francis re-toldfor the Children by Bella Jukes_. Theology or tripe?’ asked Beatrice.
‘Tripe,’ said Walter looking over her shoulder.
‘But I’d rather like an excuse to do a little article on St. Francis,’ said Burlap. In the intervals of editing, he was engaged on a full-length study of the Saint. ‘St. Francis and the Modern Psyche,’ it was to be called. He took the little book from Beatrice and let the pages flick past under his thumb. ‘Tripe-ish,’ he admitted. ‘But what an extraordinary man! Extraordinary!’ He began to hypnotize himself, to lash himself up into the Franciscan mood.
‘Extraordinary!’ Beatrice rapped out, her eyes fixed on Burlap.
Walter looked at her curiously. Her ideas and her pecking goose-billed manner seemed to belong to two different people, between whom the only perceptible link was Purlap. Was there any inward, organic connection?
‘What a devastating integrity!’ Burlap went on, selfintoxicated. He shook his head and, sighing, sobered himself sufficiently to proceed with the morning’s business.
When the opportunity came for Walter to talk (with what diffidence, what a squeamish reluctance!) about his salary, Burlap was wonderfully sympathetic.
‘I know, old man,’ he said, laying his hand on the other’s shoulder with a gesture that disturbingly reminded Walter of the time when, as a schoolboy, he had played Antonio in The Merchant of Venice and the detestable Porter Major, disguised as Bassanio, had been coached to register friendship. ‘I know what being hard up is.’ His little laugh gave it to be understood that he was a Franciscan specialist in poverty, but was too modest to insist upon the fact. ‘I know, old man.’ And he really almost believed that he wasn’t half owner and salaried editor of the World, that he hadn’t a penny invested, that he had been living on two pounds a week for years.