The Death of the Lion

by Henry James
CHAPTER I.

I HAD simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it must have begun
when I received my manuscript back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn

was my "chief," as he was called in the office: he had the high
mission of bringing the paper up. This was a weekly periodical,

which had been supposed to be almost past redemption when he took
hold of it. It was Mr. Deedy who had let the thing down so

dreadfully: he was never mentioned in the office now save in
connexion with that misdemeanour. Young as I was I had been in a

manner taken over from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as
editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant and office-

furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement and
depression, parted with at a rough valuation. I could account for

my continuity but on the supposition that I had been cheap. I
rather resented the practice of fathering all flatness on my late

protector, who was in his unhonoured grave; but as I had my way to
make I found matter enough for complacency in being on a "staff."

At the same time I was aware of my exposure to suspicion as a
product of the old lowering system. This made me feel I was doubly

bound to have ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my
proposing to Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil

Paraday. I remember how he looked at me - quite, to begin with, as
if he had never heard of this celebrity, who indeed at that moment

was by no means in the centre of the heavens; and even when I had
knowingly explained he expressed but little confidence in the

demand for any such stuff. When I had reminded him that the great
principle on which we were supposed to work was just to create the

demand we required, he considered a moment and then returned: "I
see - you want to write him up."

"Call it that if you like."
"And what's your inducement?"

"Bless my soul - my admiration!"
Mr. Pinhorn pursed up his mouth. "Is there much to be done with

him?"
"Whatever there is we should have it all to ourselves, for he

hasn't been touched."
This argument was effective and Mr. Pinhorn responded. "Very well,

touch him." Then he added: "But where can you do it?"
"Under the fifth rib!"

Mr. Pinhorn stared. "Where's that?"
"You want me to go down and see him?" I asked when I had enjoyed

his visible search for the obscure suburb I seemed to have named.
"I don't 'want' anything - the proposal's your own. But you must

remember that that's the way we do things NOW," said Mr. Pinhorn
with another dig Mr. Deedy.

Unregenerate as I was I could read the queer implications of this
speech. The present owner's superior virtue as well as his deeper

craft spoke in his reference to the late editor as one of that
baser sort who deal in false representations. Mr. Deedy would as

soon have sent me to call on Neil Paraday as he would have
published a "holiday-number"; but such scruples presented

themselves as mere ignoblethrift to his successor, whose own
sincerity took the form of ringing door-bells and whose definition

of genius was the art of finding people at home. It was as if Mr.
Deedy had published reports without his young men's having, as

Pinhorn would have said, really been there. I was unregenerate, as
I have hinted, and couldn't be concerned to straighten out the

journalistic morals of my chief, feeling them indeed to be an abyss
over the edge of which it was better not to peer. Really to be

there this time moreover was a vision that made the idea of writing
something subtle about Neil Paraday only the more inspiring. I

would be as considerate as even Mr. Deedy could have wished, and
yet I should be as present as only Mr. Pinhorn could conceive. My

allusion to the sequestered manner in which Mr. Paraday lived - it
had formed part of my explanation, though I knew of it only by

hearsay - was, I could divine, very much what had made Mr. Pinhorn
nibble. It struck him as inconsistent with the success of his

paper that any one should be so sequestered as that. And then
wasn't an immediate exposure of everything just what the public

wanted? Mr. Pinhorn effectually called me to order by reminding me
of the promptness with which I had met Miss Braby at Liverpool on

her return from her fiasco in the States. Hadn't we published,
while its freshness and flavour were unimpaired, Miss Braby's own

version of that great internationalepisode? I felt somewhat
uneasy at this lumping of the actress and the author, and I confess

that after having enlisted Mr. Pinhorn's sympathies I
procrastinated a little. I had succeeded better than I wished, and

I had, as it happened, work nearer at hand. A few days later I
called on Lord Crouchley and carried off in triumph the most

unintelligible statement that had yet appeared of his lordship's
reasons for his change of front. I thus set in motion in the daily

papers columns of virtuous verbiage. The following week I ran down
to Brighton for a chat, as Mr. Pinhorn called it, with Mrs.

Bounder, who gave me, on the subject of her divorce, many curious
particulars that had not been articulated in court. If ever an

article flowed from the primal fount it was that article on Mrs.
Bounder. By this time, however, I became aware that Neil Paraday's

new book was on the point of appearing and that its approach had
been the ground of my original appeal to Mr. Pinhorn, who was now

annoyed with me for having lost so many days. He bundled me off -
we would at least not lose another. I've always thought his sudden

alertness a remarkable example of the journalistic instinct.
Nothing had occurred, since I first spoke to him, to create a

visible urgency, and no enlightenment could possibly have reached
him. It was a pure case of profession flair - he had smelt the

coming glory as an animal smells its distant prey.
CHAPTER II.

I MAY as well say at once that this little record pretends in no
degree to be a picture either of my introduction to Mr. Paraday or

of certain proximate steps and stages. The scheme of my narrative
allows no space for these things, and in any case a prohibitory

sentiment would hang about my recollection of so rare an hour.
These meagre notes are essentially private, so that if they see the

light the insidious forces that, as my story itself shows, make at
present for publicity will simply have overmastered my precautions.

The curtain fell lately enough on the lamentable drama. My memory
of the day I alighted at Mr. Paraday's door is a fresh memory of

kindness, hospitality, compassion, and of the wonderful
illuminating talk in which the welcome was conveyed. Some voice of

the air had taught me the right moment, the moment of his life at
which an act of unexpected young allegiance might most come home to

him. He had recently recovered from a long, grave illness. I had
gone to the neighbouring inn for the night, but I spent the evening

in his company, and he insisted the next day on my sleeping under
his roof. I hadn't an indefinite leave: Mr. Pinhorn supposed us

to put our victims through on the gallop. It was later, in the
office, that the rude motions of the jig were set to music. I

fortified myself, however, as my training had taught me to do, by
the conviction that nothing could be more advantageous" target="_blank" title="a.有利的；有帮助的">advantageous for my

article than to be written in the very atmosphere. I said nothing
to Mr. Paraday about it, but in the morning, after my remove from

the inn, while he was occupied in his study, as he had notified me
he should need to be, I committed to paper the main heads of my

impression. Then thinking to commend myself to Mr. Pinhorn by my
celerity, I walked out and posted my little packet before luncheon.

Once my paper was written I was free to stay on, and if it was
calculated to divert attention from my levity in so doing I could

reflect with satisfaction that I had never been so clever. I don't
mean to deny of course that I was aware it was much too good for

Mr. Pinhorn; but I was equallyconscious that Mr. Pinhorn had the
supreme shrewdness of recognising from time to time the cases in

which an article was not too bad only because it was too good.
There was nothing he loved so much as to print on the right