Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [5]
The Megalopolitan building, Copper House, Numbers 700-853 Fleet Street, was disconcerting. At first William thought that the taxi-driver, spotting a bumpkin, had driven him to the wrong address. His acquaintance with offices was very small. At the time of his coming of age he had spent several mornings with the family solicitor in King's Bench Walk. At home he knew the local Estate Agents and Auctioneers, the bank and the Town Hall. He had once seen in Taunton a barely intelligible film about newspaper life in New York where neurotic men in shirt sleeves and eye-shades had rushed from telephone to tape machine, insulting and betraying one another in surroundings of unredeemed squalor. From these memories he had a confused expectation that was rudely shocked by the Byzantine vestibule and Sassanian lounge of Copper House. He thought at first that he must have arrived at some new and less exclusive rival of the R.A.C. Six lifts seemed to be in perpetual motion; with dazzling frequency their doors flew open to reveal now left, now right, now two or three at a time, like driven game, a series of girls in Caucasian uniform. "Going up," they cried in Punch-and-Judy accents, and before anyone could enter, snapped their doors and disappeared from view. A hundred or so men and women of all ranks and ages passed before William's eyes. The sole stationary objects were a chryselephantine effigy of Lord Copper in coronation robes, rising above the throng, on a polygonal malachite pedestal, and a concierge, also more than life size, who sat in a plate-glass enclosure, like a fish in an aquarium, and gazed at the agitated multitude with fishy, supercilious eyes. Under his immediate care were a dozen page-boys in sky-blue uniforms, who between errands pinched one another furtively on a long bench. Medals of more battles than were ever fought by human arms or on earthly fields glittered on the bell porter's chest. William discovered a small vent in his tank and addressed him diffidently. "Is his Lordship at home?" "We have sixteen peers on the staff. Which was you referring to?" "I wish to see Lord Copper." "Ho. Cyril, show this gentleman to a chair and give him a form." A minute blue figure led William to a desk and gave him a piece of paper. William filled it in: "Mr. Boot WISHES TO SEE LORD COPPER. SUBJECT: Great crested grebes." Cyril took the paper to the concierge, who read it, looked searchingly at William, and mouthed: "Fetch the gentleman." William was led forward. "You wish to see Lord Copper?" "Yes, please." "Ho, no you don't. Not about great crested grebes." "And badgers too," said William. "It is rather a long story." "I'll be bound it is. Tell you what, you go across the street and tell it to Lord Zinc at the Brute office. That'll do just as well, now won't it?" "I've got an appointment," said William, and produced his telegram. The concierge read it thoughtfully, held it up to the light, and said "Ah"; read it again and said: "What you want to see is Mr. Salter. Cyril, give the gentleman another form." Five minutes later William found himself in the office of the Foreign Editor. It was an encounter of great embarrassment for both of them. For William it was the hour of retribution; he advanced, heavy with guilt, to meet whatever doom had been decreed for him. Mr. Salter had the more active part. He was under orders to be cordial and spring Lord Copper's proposal on the poor hick when he had won his confidence by light conversation and heavy hospitality. His knowledge of rural life was meagre. He had been born in West Kensington and educated at a large London day-school. When not engaged in one capacity or another in the vast Megalopolitan organization, he led a life of blameless domesticity in Welwyn Garden City. His annual holiday was, more often than not, spent at home; once or twice, when Mrs. Salter complained of being run down, they had visited prosperous resorts on the East Coast. "The country," for him, meant what you saw in the train between Liverpool Street and Frinton. If a psychoanalyst, testing his associations, had suddenly said to Mr. Salter the word "farm," the surprising response would have been "Bang!"