_By_ GORDON HALL GEROULD
From _Scribner’s Magazine_
_Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner’s Sons._
_Copyright, 1919, by Gordon Hall Gerould._
As I gave my coat and hat to the boy, I caught sight of Orrington,
waddling into the farther reaches of the club just ahead of me. “Here’s
luck!” I thought to myself, and with a few hasty strides overtook him.
It is always good luck to run upon Harvey Orrington during the hour when
he is loafing before dinner. In motion he resembles a hippopotamus, and
in repose he produces the impression that the day is very hot, even in
midwinter. But one forgets his red and raw corpulency when he has
settled at ease in a big chair and begun to talk. Then the qualities
that make him the valuable man he is, as the literary adviser of the
Speedwell Company, come to the surface, and with them those perhaps
finer attributes that have given him his reputation as a critic.
Possibly the contrast between his Falstaffian body and his nicely
discriminating mind gives savor to his comment on art and life; but in
any case his talk is as good in its way as his essays are in theirs.
Read his “Retrospective Impressions” if you wish to know what I
mean—only don’t think that his colloquial diction is like the fine-spun
phrasing of his essays. He inclines to be slangy in conversation.
I overtook Orrington, as I say, before he had reached his accustomed
corner, and I greeted him with a becoming deference. He is fifteen years
my senior, after all.
“Hello,” he said, turning his rather dull eyes full upon me. “Chasing
will-o’-the-wisps this afternoon?”
“I’ve been pursuing you. If you call that—”
“Precision forbids! It can’t have been will-o’-the-wisps.” Orrington
shook his head with utter solemnity. “I don’t know just what their
figure is, but I’m sure it’s not like mine. Come along and save my life,
won’t you?”
“With pleasure. I hoped you might be free.”
“Free as the air of a department-store elevator—yes. I’ve got to meet
Reynolds here. He’s waiting for me yonder. You know Reynolds?”
“Yes, I know him.”
Every one knows Reynolds, I need hardly say—every one who can compass
it. The rest of the world knows his books. Reynolds makes books with
divine unconcern and profuseness: almost as a steel magnate makes steel.
He makes them in every kind, and puts them out with a fine flourish, so
that he is generally regarded as master of all the literary arts. People
buy his output, too, which is lucky for Reynolds but perhaps less
fortunate for literature; they buy his output—that is the only word to
use—by the boxful, apparently. An edition in his sight is but as the
twinkling of an eye before it is sold out. One can’t wonder that
Reynolds is a little spoiled by all this, though he must have been a
good fellow to begin with. He’s really a kind-hearted and brave man now,
but he takes himself too seriously. He is sometimes a bore. Only that he
would never recognize the portrait I am making of him, I should hardly
dare to say what I am saying. Physically, he is undistinguished: he
looks like a successful lawyer of a dark athletic type who has kept
himself fit with much golf and who has got the habit of wearing his
golfing-clothes to town. It is his manner that sets him apart from his
fellows.
“I’m glad you know him.” Orrington chuckled as we drew near the corner
where Reynolds was already seated. “I’d hate to be the innocent cause of
your introduction.”
Reynolds rose and extended gracious hands to the two of us. “You add to
my pleasure by bringing our friend,” he said to Orrington.
I fear that I acknowledged the compliment by looking foolish. It was
Orrington’s corner that we were invading, if it was any one’s, and, in
any case, Reynolds doesn’t own the club.
“I need tea to support my anæmia,” said Orrington gruffly. “If the rest
of you wish strong drink, however, I’m not unwilling to order it.
They’ve got a new lot of extremely old Bourbon, I am informed, that had
to be smuggled out of Kentucky at dead of night for fear of a popular
uprising. I should like to watch the effect of it on one or both of
you.”
“I’m willing to be the subject of the experiment,” I said. “What about
you, Reynolds?”
Reynolds cocked his head slightly to one side. “Though I dislike to
deprive our good friend of any æsthetic pleasure, I think I will stick
to my own special Scotch. I do not crave the dizzy heights of
inebriety.”
“First time I ever knew you to be afraid of soaring, Reynolds,”
commented Orrington. “I trust you won’t let caution affect your literary
labors. It is one of the biggest things about you, you know, that you
aren’t afraid to tackle any job you please. Most of us wait about,
wondering whether we could ever learn to manage the Pegasus biplane, but
you fly in whatever machine is handy.”
“Perhaps you think I adventure rashly.” It was neither question nor
positive statement on the part of Reynolds, but a little compounded of
both. He seemed hurt.
“Not at all.” Orrington’s tone was heartily reassuring. “You get away
with it, and the rest of us get nowhere in comparison.”
“I have always believed,” said Reynolds, “that a proper self-confidence
is a prime requisite for literary success. In all seriousness, I am sure
both of you will agree with me that none of us could have reached his
present position in the world without some degree of boldness. We have
seized the main chance.”
“Then it got away from me,” I felt impelled to say. I could see no
reason for accepting the flattery that Reynolds intended.
“You may believe it or not, as you please, Reynolds, but I’m incapable
of seizing anything.” Orrington paused to direct the waiter, but went on
after a moment, with a teacup in his fat hand. “As a matter of fact,
I’ve never collared anything in my life except a few good manuscripts.
Some mighty bad ones, too.” He chuckled.
“Ah! You know the difference between the good and the bad better than
any one else in the country, I fancy. I always feel diffident when I
send copy to you.” Reynolds somehow conveyed the impression, rather by
his manner than by his words, of insufferable conceit. He made you
certain that he was ready to challenge the assembly of the Immortals in
behalf of anything he wrote.
“Oh, you’re in a position to dictate. It’s not for us to criticise,”
Orrington answered very quietly. “By the way, I ventured to suggest our
meeting here partly because I wished to know when your new book would be
ready. Speedwell’s been worrying, and I told him I’d see you. Thought it
would bother you less than a letter or coming round to the office.”
“My book!” Reynolds struck an attitude and wrinkled his forehead. “My
dear fellow, I wish I knew.”
Orrington set down his cup and looked at Reynolds quizzically. “You must
know better than anybody else.”
“It’s a question of the possibilities only.” Reynolds lifted his head
proudly. “I will not fail you, Orrington. I have never yet left any one
in the lurch, but I have been exceedingly busy of late. You can’t
realize the pressure I am under from every side. So many calls—my time,
my presence, my words! I must have a fortnight’s clear space to get my
copy ready for you. Within the month, I feel sure, you shall have it.”
“That’ll do perfectly well. We don’t wish to bother you,” said Orrington
briefly, “but you know as well as I do that the public cries for you.
Speedwell gets restive if he can’t administer a dose once in so often.”
“What is the book to be?” I ventured to ask.
Reynolds bridled coquettishly. It was too absurd of a fellow with his
physique and general appearance: I had difficulty in maintaining a
decent gravity. “My book!” he said again. “It isn’t precisely a novel,
and it isn’t precisely anything else. It is a simple story with perhaps
a cosmic significance.”
“I see.” I didn’t, of course, but I couldn’t well say less. I knew,
besides, pretty well what the book would be like. I had read two or
three of Reynolds’s things. The mark of the beast was on them all,
though variously imprinted.
“By the way of nothing,” said Orrington suddenly, “I had an odd
experience to-day.”
“Ah! do tell us,” urged Reynolds. “Your experiences are always worth
hearing. I suppose it is because your impressions are more vivid than
those of most men.”
Orrington pursed his mouth deprecatingly and lighted a cigarette.
“There’s no stuff for you fellows in this. You couldn’t make a story out
of it if you tried. But it gave me a twinge and brought back something
that happened twenty years ago.”
“What happened to-day?” I asked, to get the story properly begun.
“Oh, nothing much, in one way. I’ve been talking with a young chap who
has sent us a manuscript lately. The book’s no good, commercially—a
pretty crude performance—but it has some striking descriptive passages
about the effects of hunger on the human body and the human mind. They
interested me because I thought they showed some traces of imagination.
There isn’t much real imagination lying round loose, you know: nothing
but the derived and Burbankized variety. So I sent for the fellow. He
came running, of course. Hope in his eye, and all that sort of thing. I
felt like a brute beast to have to tell him we couldn’t take his book,
though I coated the pill as sweetly as I could.
“He took it like a Trojan, though I could see that he was holding
himself in to keep from crying. He was a mere boy, mind you, and a very
shabby and lean one. I noticed that while I talked encouragingly to him,
and I finally asked what set him going at such a rate about starvation.
I might have known, of course! The kid has been up against it and has
been living on quarter rations for I don’t know how many months. There
wasn’t an ounce of imagination in his tale, after all: he had been
describing his own sensations with decent accuracy—nothing more than
that.”
“Poor fellow!” I interrupted. “We ought to find him some sort of job. Do
you think he’d make good if he had a chance?”
Orrington shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I
talked to him like a father and uncle and all his elderly relations, and
I asked more questions than was polite. He’s in earnest at the moment,
anyhow.”
“But if he’s actually starving—” I began.
Orrington looked at me in his sleepy way. “Oh, he’s had a good feed by
this time. You must take me for a cross between a devil-fish and a
blood-sucking bat. I could at least afford the luxury of seeing that he
shouldn’t try to do the Chatterton act.”
Reynolds took a sip of whiskey, then held up his glass to command
attention. “Dear, dear!” he said slowly, with the air of settling the
case. “It’s a very great pity that young men without resources and
settled employment try to make their way by writing. They ought not to
be encouraged to do so. Most of them would be better off in business or
on their fathers’ farms, no doubt; and the sooner they find their place,
the better.”
“Still, if nobody made the venture,” I objected, “the craft wouldn’t
flourish, would it? I think the question is whether something can’t be
done to give this particular young man a show.”
“I’ve sent him to Dawbarn,” said Orrington almost sullenly. “He wants a
space-filler and general utility man, he happened to tell me yesterday.
It’s a rotten job, but it will seem princely to my young acquaintance. I
shall watch him. He might make good and pay back my loan, you know.”
“It does credit to your heart, my dear Orrington—grub-staking him and
getting him a job at once.” Reynolds frowned judicially. “I doubt the
wisdom of it, however. A young man ought to succeed by his own efforts
or not at all. Of course I know nothing of this particular case except
what you’ve just told us, but I can’t see from your account of him that
he has much chance to lift himself out of the ranks of unsuccessful hack
writers. You admit that he shows little imagination.”
“Not yet; but he doesn’t write badly.”
“Ah! there are so many who don’t write badly, but who never go beyond
that.”
Orrington laughed, shaking even his heavy chair with his heavier mirth.
“Excuse me,” he murmured. “You’re very severe on us, Reynolds. You
mustn’t forget that most of us aren’t Shakespeares. Indeed, to be
strictly impersonal, I don’t know any member of this club—and we’re
rather long on eminent pen-pushers—who is. It won’t do any harm to give
my young friend his chance. To tell the truth, I think it’s a damned
sight better for him than the end of a pier and the morgue.”
I wondered how the mighty Reynolds would take the snub, and I feared a
scene. But I knew him less well than Orrington. He merely nursed his
glass in silence and looked sulky. After all, Orrington’s argument was
unanswerable.
To break the tension, I turned to Orrington with a question. “What
happened twenty years ago?” I asked. “You said you were reminded of it.”
Orrington was silent for a minute as if deliberating. He seemed to be
reviewing whatever it was he had in mind. “Yes, yes,” he said at last,
“that’s more of a story, only it hasn’t any conclusion. It’s as devoid
of a _dénouement_ as the life-history of the youth whom Reynolds wishes
to starve for his soul’s good.”
“You are very unjust to me,” Reynolds protested. “You speak as if I had
a grudge against the young man, whereas I was merely making a general
observation. It is no real kindness to encourage a youth to his ultimate
hurt.”
Orrington looked at him doubtfully. “I suppose not,” he said after a
moment’s pause. “I’ve often wondered what happened in this other case I
have in mind.”
“What was it?” asked Reynolds.
“It was a small matter,” Orrington began apologetically; “at least I
suppose it would seem so to any outsider. But it was a big thing to me
and presumably to the other fellow involved. I never knew anything about
him, directly.”
“I thought you said you had dealings with the other man,” I interjected.
“I did,” said Orrington, “but I never met him. It was this way. I was
editing a cheap magazine at the time, the kind of thing that intends to
be popular and isn’t. The man who published it was on his uppers, the
wretched magazine was at death’s door, and I was getting about half of
my regular stipend when I got anything at all—something like forty cents
a week, if I remember correctly. I was young, of course, so all that
didn’t so much matter. I was rather proud of being a real editor, even
of a cheap and nasty thing like—but never mind the name. It died many
years ago and was forgotten even before the funeral. I suspect now that
the publisher took advantage of my youth and inexperience, but I bear
him no grudge. I managed to keep afloat, and I liked it.
“Of course I had to live a double life in order to get enough to eat—a
blameless double life that meant all work and no play. A fellow can do
that in his twenties. After office hours I got jobs of hack writing, and
occasionally I sold some little thing to one of the reputable magazines.
It was hard sledding, though—a fact I emphasize not because my biography
is interesting, but because it has its bearing on the incident in
question.
“Well, one fine day I got hold of a job that was the best I’d ever
landed. I suspect I apostrophized it, in the language of that era, as a
‘peach.’ It was hack work, of course, but hack work of a superior and
exalted kind—the special article sort of thing. I went higher than a
kite when I found the chance was coming my way. I dreamed dreams of
opulence. Good Lord! I even looked forward to getting put up for this
ill-run club which we are now honoring by our gracious presences.”
Orrington stopped and shook with silent laughter till he had to wipe his
eyes. The joke seemed less good to me than to him, for I had been only
six months a member of the club and had not yet acquired the proper
Olympian disdain of it. Reynolds smiled. I fancy that he still regards
the club as of importance. In spite of his vast renown, he is never
quite easy in his dignity.
“One has no business to laugh at the enthusiasms of youth,” Orrington
went on presently. “I suppose it’s bad manners to laugh even at one’s
own, for we’re not the same creatures we were back there. It’s a
temptation sometimes, all the same. And I was absurdly set up, I assure
you, by my chance to do something of no conceivable importance at a
quite decent figure. But I never did the job, after all.”
He nodded his head slowly, as if he had been some fat god of the Orient
suddenly come to torpid life.
“You don’t mean that you came near starving?” I asked incredulously. The
pattern of the story seemed to be getting confused.
“No, no. I wasn’t so poor as that, even though I gave up the rich job
I’m telling you about. The point is that I was chronically hard up and
needed the money. I couldn’t afford to do without it, but I had to. It
was like this, you see. On the very day the plum dropped into my mouth,
a story came into the office that bowled me over completely. I hadn’t
much experience then; but I felt somehow sure that this thing wasn’t
fiction at all, though it had a thin cloak of unreality flung about it.
It was a cheerful little tale, the whole point of which was that the
impossible hero killed himself rather than starve to death. It was very
badly done in every respect, as far as I remember, but it gave me the
unpleasant impression that the man who wrote it knew more about going
without his dinner than about writing short stories. Of course I
couldn’t accept the thing for my magazine, though I could take most
kinds of drivel. Our readers didn’t exist, to be sure, but we thought
they demanded bright, sunshiny rubbish. I used to fill up our numbers
with saccharine mush, and I shouldn’t have dared print a gloomy story
even if it had been good.
“This wasn’t good. It was punk. But it bothered me—just as the
youngster’s book has been bothering me lately. I suppose I’m too
undiscriminating and sentimental for the jobs I’ve had in life.”
“You!” Reynolds objected. “Every one’s afraid of you. Haven’t I said
that I tremble, even now, when I send copy to you? It makes no
difference that I have the contract signed and every business
arrangement concluded.”
Orrington’s mouth twisted into a little grimace. “That’s merely my pose,
Reynolds, as you know perfectly well. I’m the terror of the press
because I have to be to hold my job. Inside I’m a welter of adipose
sentiment. My physical exterior doesn’t belie me. While dining, I quite
prefer to think of all the world as well fed; and, in spite of many
years’ training, I can’t see anything delightful in the spectacle of a
fellow going without his dinner because he’s ambitious. As a rule, I
prefer to discourage authors who are millionaires. That’s a pleasant
game in itself, but not very good hunting. All of which is beside the
point.
“I did hate, as a matter of fact, to turn down the little story I speak
of; and while I was writing a gentle note that tried to explain, but
didn’t, I had a brilliant idea. I suppose I was the victim of what is
known as a generous impulse. I’ve had so little to do with that sort of
thing that I can’t be sure of naming it correctly, but I dare say it
could be described in that way. I said to myself: ‘That son of a gun
could do those special articles just as well as I can, and it’s dollars
to doughnuts he’ll go under if he doesn’t get something to do before
long.’
“If you’ve ever had anything to do with generous impulses, you know that
they’re easier to come by than to put into practice. When I began to
think what I should lose by turning over my job to the other fellow, I
balked like an overloaded mule. After all, how could I be sure that the
man wasn’t fooling me? He might have imagined everything he had written,
after eating too much _pâté de foie gras_. I should be a fool to give a
leg up to somebody who was already astride his beast. I couldn’t afford
to do it. You know how one’s mind would work.”
“I regret to say,” I put in, “that I can see perfectly how my mind would
have worked. It would have persuaded me that I had a duty to myself.”
Orrington laughed quietly. “Don’t you believe it. Your conscience or
your softness—whatever you choose to call it—would have played the deuce
with your peace of mind. Mine did. I tore up my note and went out for a
walk. Naturally I saw nothing but beggars and poverty: misery stalked me
from street to street. I wriggled and squirmed for half a day or more,
but I couldn’t get away from the damnable necessities of the
story-writer.
“In the end I wrote him, of course—the flattering note I had intended,
and something more. I told him about my fat job and said I was
recommending him for it. By the same mail I wrote to the people who’d
offered me the chance, refusing it. I said I regretted that I couldn’t
undertake the commission as I had expected, but that I found my other
engagements made it impossible. I thought I might as well do the thing
in grand style and chuck a bluff while I was about it. I added that I
was sending a friend to them who would do the articles better than I
could hope to. I didn’t give the fellow’s name, but I told them he’d
turn up shortly.”
“What happened then?” I asked, for Orrington lighted another cigarette
and seemed inclined to rest on his oars.
He turned his dull eyes on me and smiled a little sadly. “What happened?
Why, nothing much, as far as I know. I suppose the other fellow got my
job and saved his body alive. I never inquired. I somehow expected that
he’d write to me or come to see me—he had my address, you know—but he
never did. I was a little annoyed, I remember, at his not doing so after
I’d cut off my nose for him, which is probably why I never tried to
follow him up. I never even looked up the articles when they were
published. But I’ve often wished I might meet the man and learn how he
got on.”
“You’ve never seen his name?” I inquired. “He can’t have done much, or
you’d have spotted him.”
“I suspect,” said Orrington, “that he sent in that story of his under a
pseudonym and that he may have done very well for himself since. What do
you think, Reynolds? I suppose you consider me a fool for my pains, on
the theory that no man ought to be helped out.”
Reynolds had been silent for some time. As I looked at him now I could
see that he was a good deal impressed by Orrington’s narrative. I wasn’t
surprised, for I knew him to be a generous fellow in spite of his
foibles.
“Yes, how about it, Reynolds?” I said.
“It is a very affecting story,” he answered. “You acted most generously,
Orrington, though you make light of it. I can’t believe that the young
man realized the sacrifice you made for him; otherwise his failure to
thank you, bad enough in any case, would be unspeakable. He can’t have
known.”
“But you insist that I’d better have let him alone,” persisted
Orrington, clearly with the intention of teasing our magnificent
acquaintance.
“That depends altogether on how it turned out, doesn’t it? You can’t
tell us whether the young man was worth saving or not.”
Orrington laughed contentedly. “No. That’s the missing conclusion, but
I’m not sorry to have given him a show. Besides, what I did wasn’t such
a noble sacrifice, after all. Having basked in your admiration for a
moment, I can afford to tell you. I’m not an accomplished hypocrite, and
I’d hate to begin at my age. Let me tell you what happened.”
I felt aggrieved. Had Orrington been working on our feelings for his
private amusement merely? “You said there wasn’t any conclusion,” I
growled.
“Don’t get huffy,” Orrington returned imperturbably. “The story hasn’t
any ending, as I warned you. Only my part in it turned out rather
amusingly. I hope I shouldn’t be fatuous ass enough to brag about the
incident if there were anything in it that demanded bouquets. I suspect
the bubble of noble actions often bursts just as mine did.”
“What do you mean?” asked Reynolds—reasonably enough, I thought.
“Only this,” Orrington went on. “It turned out that the people who had
offered to let me do the articles were tremendously impressed by my
turning them down. The letter I wrote them must have been a corker.
Somehow or other they got the notion that I was a very busy man and a
person of importance. They ought to have known better, of course, but
they evidently adopted that silly idea. They talked about me to their
friends and cracked me up as a coming man. The upshot of it was that I
began to be tempted with most flattering offers of one sort and
another—before long I had my choice of several things. My
self-constituted backers were rather powerful in those days, so it was
useful to be in their good books. I left my moribund magazine and got so
prosperous that I began to grow fat at once. Serene obscurity has been
my lot ever since; and I’ve never got rid of the fat.”
“That’s a happy ending,” I remarked lazily. “It’s very like a real
conclusion. What more do you want?”
“Oh, for the sake of argument, I’d like to prove that I was right and
that Reynolds’s theory is all wrong.”
“I’m exceedingly glad that it turned out so well for you,” said Reynolds
unctuously. “Then the young man whom you assisted didn’t need to feel
quite so much under obligation to you as we’ve been thinking?”
I was outraged. Reynolds was a great gun in literature, at least in the
opinion of himself and a huge circle of readers. He was also a dozen
years older than I. At the same time, I couldn’t allow him to disparage
what Orrington had done, merely because Orrington made light of it.
“You will observe,” I said with some heat, “that the effect on Orrington
was purely secondary and fortuitous. Orrington didn’t know he could
possibly gain by it when he took the bread out of his own mouth to feed
the young cur. I hope, for my part, that the fellow eventually starved
to death or took to digging ditches.”
Reynolds sat up very straight. His black eyes snapped with anger. “He
didn’t,” he burst out. “I happen to know him.”
“You know him!” I exclaimed, while Orrington goggled.
“Yes.” Reynolds had grown very red, but he looked defiant. “Since I’ve
been attacked like this, I may as well tell you. Not that I think it’s
anybody’s business but my own. Orrington didn’t suffer by what he did.”
“You don’t mean—” I began.
“I mean just what I say—no less and no more. I was the man in question,
and I admit that I ought to have thanked Orrington for his kindness. I
meant to, of course; but I set to work at once on those articles that
have assumed such importance in our discussion, and I was very busy. I
had to make them as good as I knew how. I assumed, naturally, that I had
merely received a useful tip from a man who didn’t care for the job.
I’ve always assumed that till this afternoon. I wanted the job badly,
myself.”
“Oh, well!” Orrington put in soothingly. “It doesn’t matter, does it?
I’ve explained that the incident really set me on my feet. You don’t owe
me anything, Reynolds. If I’d been a complete pig and kept the chance
for myself, I’d probably have been much worse off for it. You needed it
much more than I did, evidently.”
To my surprise, Reynolds was not quieted by Orrington’s magnanimous
speech. Instead, he jumped up in a passion and stood before us,
clinching and unclinching his fists like a small boy before his first
fight.
“That isn’t the point,” he said in a voice so loud that various groups
of men scattered about the room looked toward us with amusement. “I
admit that I was glad of the opportunity to do the articles, but I was
by no means in such straits as you suppose. So much for the critical
sense for which you have such a reputation!” He turned on Orrington with
a sneer.
Orrington remained very calm. He seemed in no wise disturbed by the fury
of Reynolds’s tirade, nor by his insufferable rudeness, but puffed at a
cigarette two or three times before he replied. “It’s a poor thing,
critical sense,” he murmured. “I’ve never been proud of what mine has
done for me. But you must admit that I paid you a pretty compliment,
Reynolds, in believing that your story was founded on real experience. I
don’t see why you need mind my saying that it wasn’t much of a yarn.
Nobody need be sensitive about something he did twenty years back.”
“I don’t care a hang what you thought about the story then, or what you
think of it now,” Reynolds snapped. “You might, however, grant the
existence of imagination. You needn’t attribute everything anybody
writes to actual experience. I never went hungry.”
So that was where the shoe pinched! Reynolds insisted on being proud of
his prosperity at all stages. I laughed. “You’ve missed something,
then,” I put in. “The sensation, if not agreeable, is unique. Every man
should feel it once, in a way. A couple of times I’ve run short of
provisions, and I assure you the experience is like nothing else.”
“That’s different,” said Reynolds a little more quietly. “I’m not saying
that I owe nothing to Orrington. I acknowledge that I do, and I admit
that I ought to have acknowledged it twenty years ago. I was anxious at
the time to get a start in the world of letters, and I was looking for
an opening. Orrington’s suggestion gave me my first little opportunity;
but it certainly didn’t save my life.”
“Then it was all imagination, after all,” Orrington said gently. “What a
mistake I made!”
“Of course it was all imagined!” Reynolds protested, and he added
naïvely: “I was living at home at the time, and I had a sufficient
allowance from my father.”
A twinkle crept into Orrington’s usually expressionless eyes. “I must
apologize to you, Reynolds, or perhaps to your father, for so mistaking
the circumstances of your youth. You have, at all events, lived down the
opprobrium of inherited wealth. You’ve supported yourself quite nicely
ever since I’ve known you.”
“As I remarked earlier,” Reynolds went on pompously, but in better
humor, “I have never thought it wise for young men to embark on the
literary life without sufficient means to live in comfort until they can
establish their reputations. In my own case I should never have
undertaken to do so.”
His declaration of principle seemed to restore him to complete
self-satisfaction, and it must have seemed to him the proper cue for
exit. As he was already standing, he was in a position to shake hands
with Orrington and me rather condescendingly; and he took himself off
with the swagger of conscious invincibility. I think he bore us no
malice.
Orrington looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I told you I needed you
to save my life,” he said. “I hadn’t any notion, though, that this kind
of thing would happen. I’m sorry to have let you in for such a scene.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I answered. “It has been rather amusing
and—well—illuminating.”
Orrington chuckled. “The devil tempted me, and I didn’t resist him
unduly. As a matter of fact, it has been quite as illuminating to me as
to you. I’ve been wishing for a dozen or fifteen years to try out the
experiment.”
“What experiment?” I was puzzled.
“Oh, putting it up to Reynolds, of course. I’ve wondered why he did it
and why he didn’t do it and, moreover, how he did it.”
“If you got light on a complication like that, you did better than I
did. Do you mind explaining?”
“Reynolds has explained sufficiently, hasn’t he? Of course I knew long
ago that he faked his story, but—”
“Then you knew it was Reynolds?” I interrupted.
“Knew? Of course I knew. Later, of course, much later. I never inquired,
as I told you, but I spotted him after he made his first big hit. The
man who had hired him to do those articles bragged about it to me—said
he’d given him his start, but allowed me some credit for establishing
the connection. I blinked, but didn’t let on I hadn’t known that
Reynolds and my supposedly starving young author were one and the same
person. By that time, of course, everybody was fully aware that Reynolds
had emerged from heavily gilded circles of dulness. I don’t know why
I’ve never had it out with him before. I suppose I shouldn’t have sailed
in to-day if he hadn’t been so snippy about the boy of whom I was
telling you. I couldn’t stand that.”
“I’m afraid,” I ventured to say, “that it won’t do Reynolds any special
good.”
Orrington rose ponderously from his chair and spread his hands in a
fantastic gesture of disclaim. “Who am I,” he asked, “to teach ethics to
a genius who is also a moralist—‘with perhaps a cosmic significance’?
The devil tempted me, I tell you, and I fell, for the sake of a little
fun and a little information. I’ve never known Reynolds’s side of the
story. Lord, no, it won’t do him any good. All the same, it will take
him a week to explain to himself all over again just why he acted with
perfect propriety in not acknowledging my little boost. I dare say his
book may be a few days later on account of it, and I shall have to nurse
Speedwell through an attack of the fidgets. A dreadful life, mine! No
wonder the business man is tired. You ought to thank God on your knees
every night that you haven’t been sitting all day in a publisher’s
office.”
He held out his hand very solemnly, and very solemnly waddled across the
big room, nodding every now and then to acquaintances who smiled up at
him as he passed.