Appleby's End Read Free Page A

to the morality of merely commercial men–”
    â€œBoo,” interrupted the idiot boy.
    â€œâ€“for a writer, surely, would judge the promise of an initial millennium enough, without the otiose superaddition of novelty.” Mr Raven paused evidently as on a well-worn joke. “And as for the Scholars and Men of Science” – he tapped his suitcase – “here they are. I have at least the advantage of being able to take my collaborators about with me.”
    â€œI see. The whole affair must be rather a burdensome task.”
    â€œAssuredly it is so. Particularly as we come out in fortnightly parts. I had a message only yesterday to say that Patagonia to Potato would be on the bookstalls on Thursday. It really is uncommonly harassing. When one has got to Potato one is devilish near this confounded litera canina , if the truth be told. And if I cut Railways down there’s sure to be a row. I shall have to omit Ruritania” – Mr Raven shook his head dolefully – “there’s no help for it. And, mind you, I doubt if anybody ever thought of putting Ruritania in an encyclopaedia before.”
    Because the carriage was now nearly empty, its temperature was dropping rapidly, and as a result moisture was condensing on the roof and falling in plashy drops. The idiot boy began to wander about in the endeavour to catch these with his tongue. The priest closed his breviary, uttered a pious ejaculation sub voce and produced a bag of peanuts. “But at least,” said Appleby – who felt that a little cheerfulness would not be out of the way – “your doggy letter is a good distance down the alphabet. You must feel that you are nearing the end of the job.”
    â€œThat’s true, of course.” Mr Raven nodded without conviction. “Unfortunately, after the encyclopaedia there’s the dictionary.”
    â€œThe dictionary?”
    â€œ The Revised and Enlarged Resurrection . As a matter of fact, I’ve got some of the preliminary work on hand already.”
    The priest leant across the carriage. “May I,” he asked gravely, “offer you a peanut?”
    Appleby wriggled his numbed toes in their shoes. This now nocturnal journey was assuming a crazy quality in his mind. The train might be a Hitchcock train having its existence only on a ribbon of celluloid – in which case the priest was doubtless a beautiful female spy in disguise. Or the train might be an Emmett train lurking between the leaves of Punch – which would mean that it was filled with demons masquerading as farmers and retired colonels, and that the permanent way led only up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen. Not that Mr Raven looked like a demon. Indeed, he seemed tolerably well to support Dr Johnson’s definition of a dictionary-maker as a harmless drudge. Or was there, as he looked up from Stuttaford on the Monophysites, a hint of rebellion in his eye? Appleby found it hard to tell. The engine hooted; above the priest’s head the three waitresses stood at attention in their dingle; abruptly the idiot boy contrived to let down a window and there was a flurry of snowflakes and icy air.
    â€œNo, no, my lad; it won’t do,” said Mr Raven benignly, and tugged the strap. “A dirty night, Mr Appleby. May I ask if you go far?”
    â€œI change at Linger Junction.”
    â€œUm,” said Mr Raven and relapsed into Stuttaford. Appleby shuffled his feet, kicked Gaffer Odgers under the seat and returned to his novel. “For what relationship is there,” he read, “between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or the Castle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W?” The answer – it scarcely needed Scotland Yard to suggest – lay in Romantic Illegitimacy. A theme, thought Appleby, treated with rather more literary substance in Meredith’s Harry Richmond .
    â€œBoo,” said the idiot boy.
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