"You'll do it, I suppose?" he said.
I thought of my debts ... "Why, yes, I suppose so," I answered. "But who
are the others that I am to provide with atmospheres?"
Callan shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, all sorts of prominent people--soldiers, statesmen, Mr. Churchill,
the Foreign Minister, artists, preachers--all sorts of people."
"All sorts of glory," occurred to me.
"The paper will stand expenses up to a reasonable figure," Callan
reassured me.
"It'll be a good joke for a time," I said. "I'm infinitely obliged to
you."
He warded off my thanks with both hands.
"I'll just send a wire to Fox to say that you accept," he said, rising.
He seated himself at his desk in the appropriate attitude. He had an
appropriate attitude for every vicissitude of his life. These he had
struck before so many people that even in the small hours of the morning
he was ready for the kodak wielder. Beside him he had every form of
labour-saver; every kind of literary knick-knack. There were
book-holders that swung into positions suitable to appropriate
attitudes; there were piles of little green boxes with red capital
letters of the alphabet upon them, and big red boxes with black small
letters. There was a writing-lamp that cast an æsthetic glow upon
another appropriate attitude--and there was one typewriter with
note-paper upon it, and another with MS. paper already in position.
"My God!" I thought--"to these heights the Muse soars."
As I looked at the gleaming pillars of the typewriters, the image of my
own desk appeared to me; chipped, ink-stained, gloriously dusty. I
thought that when again I lit my battered old tin lamp I should see
ashes and match-ends; a tobacco-jar, an old gnawed penny penholder, bits
of pink blotting-paper, match-boxes, old letters, and dust everywhere.
And I knew that my attitude--when I sat at it--would be inappropriate.
Callan was ticking off the telegram upon his machine. "It will go in the
morning at eight," he said.