The driver stood there, rooted to the spot. It was clear that he thought his time had come. These maniacs had him at their mercy now, but he was too paralyzed to flee. And they could do nothing to allay his nameless fear. They could not speak to him, they could not explain, they could not even look at him. Every time they tried to say something and glanced in his direction and caught sight of the little man’s blanched and absurdly tortured face, they would strangle with new whoops and yells and shrieks of helpless laughter.
But at last it was over. The mood was spent. They felt drained and foolish and sober and ashamed of themselves because of the needless fright they had given the little driver. So, calmly and gently, they told him to leave the car where it was and forget about it. Reade asked his butler to take care of the driver and put him up for the night in his own quarters.
“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” mumbled the little driver automatically.
“Very good, sir,” said the butler briskly, and led the man away.
They now arose from the table and went into the living-room. In a few minutes the butler brought in a tray with coffee. They sat round a cheerful fire and drank it, and had brandy afterwards. It was wonderfully warm and comforting to sit there and listen to the fury of the storm outside, and under the spell of it they felt drawn together, as if they had all known each other a long time. They laughed and talked and told stories without a trace of self-consciousness. Reade, seeing that George was still worried about McHarg, tried in various ways to allay his fears.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “I’ve known Knuck for years. He drives himself to exhaustion and I’ve seen him do it a dozen times, but it always comes out all right in the end. It’s astonishing how he does it. I’m sure I couldn’t. No one else could, but he can. The man’s vitality is amazing. Just when you think he’s done himself in, he surprises you by bounding up and beginning all over again, as fresh as a daisy.”
George had already seen enough to know that this was true. Reade told of incidents which verified it further. Some years before, McHarg had come to England to work on a new book. Even then his way of life had been enough to arouse the gravest apprehensions among those who knew him. Few people believed that he could long survive it, and his writing friends did not understand how he could get any work done.
“We were together one night,” Reade continued, “at a party that he gave in a private room at the Savoy. He had been going it for days, driving himself the way he does, and by ten o’clock that night he was all in. He just seemed to cave in, and went to sleep at the table. We laid him out on a couch and went on with the party. Later on, two of us, with the assistance of a couple of porters, got him out of the place into a taxi and took him home. He had a flat in Cavendish Square. The next day,” Reade went on, “we had arranged to have lunch together. I had no idea—not the faintest—that the man would be able to make it. In fact, I very much doubted whether he would be out of his bed for two or three days. Just the same, I stopped in a little before one o’clock to see how he was.”
Reade was silent a moment, looking into the fire. Then, with a sharp expiration of his breath, he said:
“Well! He was sitting there at his desk, in front of his typewriter,, wearing an old dressing-gown over his baggy old tweeds, and he was typing away like mad. There was a great sheaf of manuscript beside him. He told me he’d been at it since six o’clock and had done over twenty pages. As I came in, he just looked up and said: ‘Hello, Rick. I’ll be with you in a minute. Sit down, won’t you?’...Well!”—again the sharp expiration of his breath—“I had to sit down! I simply fell into a chair and stared at him. It was the most astonishing thing I had ever seen.”
“And was he able to go to lunch with you?”
“Was he able!” cried Reade. “Why, he fairly bounded from his chair, flung on his coat and hat, pulled me out of my seat, and said: ‘Come on! I’m hungry as a bear.’ And what was most astounding,” Reade continued, “was that he remembered everything that had happened the night before. He remembered everything that had been said, too—even the things that were said during the time when I should have sworn he was unconscious. It is an astonishing creature! Astonishing!” cried the Englishman.
*