Peter made no comment. He realized that the sharpness of his tone had
checked his advance into the confidence of Pat. That business about the
nightmares was better. People didn't tell things like that to strangers.
He tried to re-establish the mood.
"Speaking of nightmares," said Peter. "There's one I have a lot. Mine is
about people running, running along the deck of a ship. I guess it's
something left over from that time we had the fight with the submarine
on the Espagne. But there isn't any submarine in the dream. It's just
the people running that frightens me."
Pat merely listened. Peter paused a moment. "That's curious, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," answered Pat.
A waiter came up now and took the order. After he went away they were
silent. From the big lounging-room came the sound of a man more or less
aimlessly fooling with the piano. After a while Peter broke the silence.
He would have liked to know something about Pat's thoughts on this
career which was being planned for him, and his attitude on the war and
religion and women. "Are you in love with anybody and who is she and
tell me about her?" Peter would have liked to ask a question like that,
but he did not dare.
"What have you been doing with yourself?" was what he did ask.
"Mostly just hanging around to find out what Mr. Twice was deciding to
do with me?" Pat answered.
Then there was more silence. The man in the next room was playing
louder. "I wish, he'd either play that 'Invitation to the Waltz' or cut
it out," said Pat.
So that was it. The "Invitation to the Waltz." It suggested to Peter
that he bid boldly and offer close confidence in the hope that it would
be met in kind.
"I wish he wouldn't play the 'Invitation to the Waltz' at all," he said.
"That tune always tears me to bits."
He waited but Pat said nothing.
"I've never talked to you before about your mother. The first time I saw
her she danced to that tune ... the 'Invitation to the Waltz.' She's a
singer now but she was a dancer then. I don't suppose you even know her
name."
"Yes," said Pat, "her name is Maria Algarez and she's singing now at the
opera in Buenos Aires."
"How did you know that? I didn't even know myself that she was in Buenos
Aires right now."
"I had a letter from her last week," explained Pat.
"She writes to you?" asked Peter in a good deal of surprise. "You mean
she always has written to you?"
"Oh no, I never heard from her at all till during the war. It must have
been a couple of years ago. Of course even when I was a kid I'd heard a
little about her. You remember old Kate. Well, a long time ago she told
me that my mother was an actress and a very bad woman and that I mustn't
say anything about her to you. I don't believe I ever did, did I?"
"Kate had no right to say that. Your mother isn't a bad woman. She's a
great artist."
"Well, I guess I never worried much about it anyway. Maybe I was a
little sad about it at first, but I've forgotten. And then all of
sudden I got this letter from Maria Algarez. She said she'd seen you in
Paris and that you showed her my picture and she wanted to write to me.
She told me all about her singing. After that I got a lot of letters
from her. She'd say she'd just been singing in 'Butterfly' and then
she'd tell me what it was all about. You know that funny broken way she
has of writing things."
"Yes," said Peter, "I know."
"Well, it was a lot of fun. You see I'd never heard any of these operas
but after I found out about Maria Algarez singing in them I used to go.
If she wrote that she'd been singing 'Butterfly' I'd go to the Met and
get a standup seat and then I'd write to her and tell her about Farrar
and all the people I'd heard. She'd write back and tell me all the
things that were the matter with Farrar and the way she did it
differently and a lot better."
"She never showed any of those letters to me," said Peter.
"Didn't she?" asked Pat casually as if it made no difference. "Oh yes, I
remember she wrote to me once that if I told you about going to the
opera it might worry you and not to say anything about it. I don't know
why. She used to send me clippings from the newspapers with the things
critics said about her. They were all just crazy about her."
Peter in his bitterness was about to say, "Of course, she picked out the
good ones," but Pat was in full swing and he decided not to throw him
off his stride.
"You know I couldn't read this stuff at first. It was in French and
Spanish, but there was an old fellow that taught at school and he was
terribly excited too when I told him that Maria Algarez was sending me
these clippings. He'd heard her sing, you know. He used to translate the
clippings for me and he told me a lot about Maria Algarez."
"And now," said Peter, "I suppose you can read them yourself."
"Well, I can do the French all right but I'm not much on the Spanish.
You see the old Frenchman, the fellow that taught at school, he was
awful decent to me. He used to give me extra classes outside of school.
You see we had a secret between us. It was like belonging to that kid
fraternity we used to have in high school--Alpha Kappa Phi. That means
something that nobody else knew. I can't remember what."
"Brothers and friends," prompted Peter.
"How did you know that?"
"You told me about it in one of the letters you wrote to me. But what
was the secret you had with the old Frenchman?"
"Why, about Maria. He told me not to let any of the fellows know that
Maria Algarez was my mother. He said that it was a beautiful romance but
that here in America people wouldn't understand on account of American
morality being so strict and that they might look down on me."
Peter was indignant. "Beautiful romance! Where did he get that idea?
Maria Algarez and I were married just like anybody. Didn't she tell you
that?"
"No," said Pat in obvious disappointment, "she didn't."
"I guess she forgot about it," suggested Peter.
"It doesn't make any difference to me, but if I run into old Mons.
Fournier I won't dare tell him. It would spoil the whole thing for him.
He'll think I was just boasting. Gosh he got a lot of fun out of it."
"Fournier, there's a Jacques Fournier that plays first base for the
White Sox."
"No, this man's named Antoine. He's the old French teacher I was telling
you about. Maybe they're related. He never said anything about it."
"In these letters about the opera and singing and all that," asked
Peter, "did Maria Algarez ever suggest that you ought to try and be a
singer."
Pat broke into unrestrained merriment. "Good God! no," he said and added
quickly, "I beg your pardon, Father, I didn't mean to curse but it would
be so funny if Maria'd said anything like that about me."
Peter was nettled. "If you're going to call me 'father' why don't you
call her 'mother'?"
"I'm sorry; I know you don't like to be called 'father'. I won't do it
again."
"All right, but you haven't answered my question. Don't you ever think
of calling her 'mother'?"
"Maria Algarez? No, it would sound so funny. I've never seen her. She
doesn't seem like my mother or anybody's mother. She's around singing
before people and all that. And look at her picture."
He took one out of his pocket and handed it across the table. For the
first time since the conversation had turned upon Maria Peter smiled.
He recognized the picture. He too had had one just like it a good many
years ago. It was taken two or three months before he married Maria
Algarez. However, Peter let it pass without comment.
"What does Maria say about what you're going to do?" he wanted to know.
"She hasn't raised any objections to your going into the newspaper
business?"
"No, she never mentioned that or anything definite. She's just kept
hammering away at one thing. She keeps saying Pat don't do anything
unless it's something you want to do very much. And she says if a man or
a woman has something like that he wants to do he musn't let anything in
the world stand in his way. He must go after it."
"Have you been living up to that? Have you been doing everything you
wanted?"
"Well, no," said Pat, "not since Rufus Twice took me over."
Peter brightened. Maria had a fight on her hands. Rufus Twice was right
behind him even as he had been behind President Wilson. But the next
moment he was again sunk in gloom. They were done with dinner and Pat
asked with unmistakable eagerness, "Couldn't we go some place and hear
some music?"
Peter throttled down his chagrin but before he could answer Pat added,
"Do you suppose there's any chance of our getting in to the Follies?"
CHAPTER VII
The plans of Rufus Twice did not work out quite according to
specifications. Pat went to Harvard, but he failed to make the football
team although he remained on the squad as a rather remotely removed
substitute quarterback. He was not even taken to the Princeton game, but
he wrote to Peter that he would be on the sidelines in uniform for the
game with Yale at New Haven. It was arranged that he should meet Peter
immediately afterwards at the Western Union office. Pat's letters from
Harvard were sparse and infrequent.
"Football is the toughest course I have," he wrote, "and the dullest.
Learning the signals here is worse than dates. You can't even guess at
them. You have to know. Last week Bob Fisher gave us a blackboard talk
in the locker-room and made a comparison between war and football. It
sounded just like Mr. Twice. Maybe Mr. Twice put him up to it. It's
beginning to seem to me as if that man ran everything in this world. The
only thing I've enjoyed much is going round to Copeland's. He's an
assistant professor in English. I take a course with him about Dr.
Johnson and his Circle. I don't care anything about Dr. Johnson. He
seems to have been the Rufus Twice of his day. But I do like hearing
Copeland. The fellows that know him well call him 'Copey,' but I haven't
nerve enough to do that. He has receptions in his room at night. There's
a regular thing he tells you, 'Nobody comes much before ten or stays
after eleven'. He talks about books and makes them exciting. I'm kind of
steamed up about an English woman writer called May Sinclair. I've been
reading 'Mary Olivier.' It isn't much like any writing I've ever seen
before. She just sort of sails along over a story and whenever she sees
anything that seems important to her she swoops down and collars it. All
the stuff that doesn't matter is left out. There isn't much here that
matters, but you can't leave it out because if you do the dean tells you
about it. Do you remember that suggestion you made to me that night we
took dinner at the Harvard Club. You remember you asked me if I ever
thought any about singing myself. I got rather interested and thought
some about going out for the Glee Club, but I knew Mr. Twice would
raise the dickens if I didn't play football. Sometimes we sing up here
in the room. Just swipes you know. I'm getting so I can work out chords
on the piano. I don't know anything about my voice because it's always a
bunch of us that sings together. I do know though that I can sing a lot
louder than the rest. I think if you're smart you'll put a bet on us
against Yale. Those lickings we got earlier in the season don't mean
anything. We're just beginning to come along now. I don't know why I say
'we.' I mean 'they.' I haven't got anything to do with it. Somehow
though I do get swept along into the whole business. Mr. Copeland was
telling us the other night that we all take football a lot too
seriously. He says nothing will crumble and fall down even if we don't
beat Yale next Saturday. I know there's sense to that, but somehow I
can't help caring about it. Keep your eyes on Charlie Bullitt when you
come up to the game. When I watch him work I realize how far off I am
from being a regular college quarterback. He's got a bean on him. I'll
see you right after the game at the telegraph office. I suppose you're
going to do the story for the Bulletin. See that Harvard doesn't get any
the worst of it."
Peter did watch Bullitt, but more than that he watched the huddled crowd
of Harvard players on the sidelines. He couldn't help feeling that in
some way or other Pat would finally get into the game. His old habit of
making pictures beforehand was with him. There was Pat throwing off his
blanket and running out to report to the officials. Peter wondered if he
would know him from his lofty seat at the top of the Stadium. He felt
sure that he would. Still every time a Harvard substitute went in Peter
shouted down the line to find out if at last this was Pat. The picture
he had fashioned for himself couldn't be wrong. Pat would run down the
field through the blue team yard after yard over the goal line. If it
only could happen to Pat. Once let him hear the roar of the whole
Harvard cheering section racketing behind him and there could never be
any more talk about his being a singer or anything like that. It
wouldn't be exciting enough.
Just to sit there and watch made Peter feel that he was a part of one of
the most thrilling manifestations of life. When the British went over
and captured Messines Ridge Peter had watched the show from the top of
Kemmel Hill. He and the other correspondents knew the exact second when
the mines were to explode. They all knew that this might be the decisive
push of the war. And as he waited for the great crash which would show
that the attack was on Peter trembled. But the excitement didn't begin
to toss him about as it did now when Harvard was playing Yale. Yes, it
was true as Pat had said that there wasn't any sense to it, but there it
was. It was a symbol of something much greater. Peter didn't know quite
what. Maybe there was some significance for him in the fact that the
Yale line was so much bigger and heavier. Harvard would have to win with
speed and skill.
Maria had always said that there was no song in him. He knew that she
felt he didn't appreciate beauty. But what could she ever show Pat that
would pound a pulse like this. How could anybody dream of making a
singer out of Pat when he might be a quarterback and after his own
playing was done go on living the thing over as he watched the games
year after year. And perhaps when Pat came to write he could put in it
this thing that was sport, and beauty, and life and fighting and
everything else worth while in life. Perhaps he could do the things that
he spoke of in the letter about that English novelist, the woman that
sort of soared over things and then swooped down on them. All this that
was happening belonged to him and Pat. Maria and the boy had nothing
like this in common. She just couldn't have an ear for football.
By and by Peter forgot all about her. He didn't even remember very much
that Pat was waiting in the sidelines. The affair grew too desperate to
admit of any personal considerations. The one present and compelling
tragedy of Peter's life dwarfing all others was that Yale was winning.
He had stationed beside him a young undergraduate from New Haven who was
supposed to give him the substitutions in the Yale lineup and identify
the Eli who carried the ball or made the tackle. This young man had gone
a little more insane than Peter. He paid no attention to any questions,
but pounded his fist on the great pile of copy paper which lay in front
of Peter and shouted: "Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!"
"Don't do that," said Peter. He didn't like the sentiment and he hated
to have his notes knocked around. The Yale youngster didn't hear him.
"Touchdown!" he screamed again and almost jarred Peter's typewriter over
the edge of the Stadium.
A fumble lost three yards and halted the Yale attack. There came a punt
and the Harvard quarterback raced down the field. Pat had said, "Watch
Charlie Bullitt." They threw him on the fourteen yard line.
"Who made that tackle?" asked Peter.
"Hold 'em, Yale! Hold 'em, Yale!" chanted the undergraduate reporter.
Suddenly Peter jumped up scattering his notes all over the press box.
His typewriter fell to the concrete with a clatter. "Harvard!" he said,
and then much louder, "Harvard! Harvard!" And as he shouted the ball
went over the line. It was only by chance that he happened to hit the
Yale reporter on the back the first time, but he was so swept along by
the wildness of the moment that he continued to slap him violently until
the youngster moved away. A little later there was a field goal and
presently the game was over and Harvard had won by a score of 10 to 3.
Peter didn't leave the press box immediately. He was much too shaky to
attempt the journey down the long steps to the field. The Harvard stands
had poured out on to the gridiron and the students were throwing their
hats over the goal posts. The Yale undergraduates remained and across
the field came booming, "For God! For Country! And for Yale!" Peter knew
that he would have to cool off emotionally before he could write his
story. That would have to tell who carried the ball and when and how
far. He couldn't just write, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" and let it go
at that. He must make most of his story on that run of Bullitt's. The
thing was almost perfect in its newspaper possibilities. It couldn't be
better. The tackle which stopped the quarterback on the fourteen-yard
line had knocked him out. Peter wished he knew what Dr. Nichols had said
when he ran out to the player. Then he remembered somebody had told him
once that the doctor had a formula which he invariably used when a
player was knocked out. "What day of the week is it? Who are you
playing? What's the score?" That was the test which must be passed by an
injured man before he could remain in the game.
Suddenly an idea came to Peter. That was just the touch he needed. His
story was made. He almost jogged all the way to the telegraph office.
His first two starts were false ones. Then he achieved a sentence which
suited him and pounded away steadily. No doubts assailed him. He was
never forced to stop and hunt for any word. The thing just wrote itself.
"There's a little trouble," said the chief operator, "but I can let you
have a wire in about half an hour."
"I've got half of it done already," replied Peter. "Make it snappy."
They were holding him up and he stopped to look over what he had
written.
"Cambridge, Mass., November, 19--By Peter Neale--The Harvard worm turned
into a snake dance. Tied by Penn State, beaten by Centre and by
Princeton, the plucky Crimson eleven made complete atonement this
afternoon when it won from Yale by a score of 10 to 3.
"Joy came in the evening. Harvard did all its scoring in the dusk of the
final period. The Crimson backs showed that they were not afraid to go
home in the dark.
"Charles K. Bullitt, quarterback, who weighs 156 pounds, earned most of
the glory. In the past this slight young man has been valued chiefly for
his head work. He is rather a delicate piece of thinking machinery and
it has been the custom to guard him a little from the bumps of the game.
His role has been like that of a chief of staff.
"The customary procedure is for Bullitt to peer calmly over the opposing
lines and then make a suggestion to one of the bigger backs as to where
it might be advisable for him to go. In general his acquaintance with
the ball has been only a passing one. He is expected merely to fair
catch punts and not to run them back. Indeed for the last two years
Bullitt has fairly thought his way into a place on the Harvard team.
"But today the scholar in football suddenly became the man of action. He
proved that he could function from the neck down. Standing at midfield,
late in the third period, Bullitt received a punt from Aldrich. He
switched his tactics. Instead of playing safe he began to run. Leaving
his philosophic cloister, he plunged headlong into life. And it was life
of the roughest sort, for Yale men were all about him. Fortunately for
the little anchorite of the football field he had achieved a theory
during his sheltered meditations and it worked. Whenever a Yale tackler
approached him he thrust out one foot. And then, just to fool the foe,
he took it away again.
"The zest of living gripped him and he went on and on over the chalk
marks. It seemed to him that the rigors of existence had been
overstated. Drunk with achievement he set no limit on his journey. But
the Yale tacklers did.
"In the end the world was too much with him. Disillusion came in the
form of two tacklers in blue who hurled themselves upon him. Their hands
touched him and held tight. Down went Bullitt. The big stadium turned
three complete revolutions before his eyes. Pinwheels danced. From a
distance of approximately one million miles he heard thousands of people
crying 'Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!' Curiously enough they were all
whispering. And then he lost consciousness. After several quarts of
water had been poured over Bullitt he came to. Dr. Nichols the physician
of the Harvard team was standing over him. The doctor waited while
Bullitt blinked a couple of times and then he propounded his stock
questions which he always uses after a player has been knocked out. The
test of rationality was, 'What day is it? Whom are you playing? And
what's the score?' Dr. Nichols was gravity itself but Bullitt grinned
and answered, 'It's Saturday, November nineteenth. We're playing Yale
and the score is three to nothing against us but Harvard's going to get
a touchdown damn soon.'
"Dr. Nichols gave it as his professional opinion that Bullitt was
rational. Four minutes later as the Crimson swept over the line for a
touchdown, he knew it."
Just as he finished rereading his story the wire chief came in and
announced that he had the Bulletin looped up. Before Peter could hand
him the copy Pat walked into the office. Peter felt just as he had done
at the pier. He wanted to throw his arms around Pat. "It was wonderful,
wasn't it?" he cried. "That's the greatest game I ever saw in my life."
"Yes," said Pat, "I guess it was a good game. Have you finished your
story?"
"Just the lead. Do you want to see it?"
"All right."
"The wire's waiting for me. Hand it over a sheet at a time as soon as
you get done."
Peter turned to his typewriter, but he couldn't go on. He kept watching
Pat. He waited to hear him say something. Pat read on to the end without
comment. Then he looked up. "Where did you get that story about Charlie
Bullitt and Doc Nichols?"
"I didn't get it. I knew that they said something to each other and I
thought that would be about it."
"The part about Nichols is all right. Those are the questions he always
asks, but Charlie Bullitt wouldn't have said anything like that. Don't
you know how serious they take football. They'd put a man off the squad
for making jokes like that. He winked, did he? They shook him up a long
ways beyond winking. I don't believe he said it at all. Who told you
anyway?"
"I've said nobody told me. It's just one of those things that might have
happened."
"Don't stand there holding on to that copy," Peter added in
exasperation. "The wire's waiting."
"But you're not going to send it, are you? It's not true. It doesn't
even sound true."
"I'm writing this story," said Peter. "Hand it in."
"All right."
Pat carried it to the operator in the next room. Peter began to write
again but all the zest and excitement of it was gone. He had to fumble
around and look at his notes. Nothing went right. It was almost three
quarters of an hour before he got to the last page. Pat sat across the
table from him saying nothing.
"All done," said Peter at last. "Where shall we go?"
"I don't care."
"Maybe there's a party for the team that you've got to go to."
"I don't have to go. I'm not going."
"What's the matter with you, Pat. You'd think Yale had licked us. Are
you sore because you didn't get into the game?"
"No, I knew I wouldn't get in. Pretty near the whole squad would have to
be struck by lightning before I got in. That wasn't it. I found out this
afternoon that Copeland was right. The thing doesn't matter. It's silly
to get so worked up about it."
"What made you think that?"
"You remember that man that dropped the punt in the first quarter, that
fumble that gave the Elis the chance for their field goal."
"Yes, I remember. He had it square in his hands and muffed it."
"Well, that was Bill French. I know him better than anybody else on the
squad. He's a corker. They hauled him out right after that muff and as
he came off one of the coaches said something to him. I don't know what,
but he flopped down on the seat right beside me and began blubbering
like a kid. He was trying not to, you understand, but just bawling
away."
"Oh, he'll forget about all that by tomorrow."
"No, he won't and nobody else will. They won't let him forget. He'll be
'the man that dropped the punt.' If we hadn't won he'd be around
thinking of committing suicide. It's just rotten. There oughtn't to be
things like that."
"Well, you can't have any kind of a real struggle without somebody
suffering."
"Then let 'em suffer for something worth while. The thing's all dolled
up in the newspaper stories. You come along with that yarn about Bullitt
saying, 'We're going to get a touchdown damn soon' and all that stuff
about his getting knocked out."
"Well, he did get knocked out, didn't he?"
"You bet your life he did but it wasn't all nice and pretty. Pinwheels
and whispering cheers in his ears and all that. You weren't close enough
to see what happened when Jim came out with the sponge."
"What did happen?"
"He put his lunch, but that isn't pretty enough to get in your story."
"That's not going to disable him for life."
"I didn't say it would. He was just a sick pup and he would have liked
to go off some place and lie down. But you can't. I'd die for dear old
Harvard and all that. He had to get up and go on with it. If you don't
you're a quitter and you haven't got any guts. I tell you I think it's
damn rot. It's phoney like your story."
"Maybe you'll have a chance to write a better one some day," said Peter.
He had hard work to steady himself. He didn't believe Bullitt had been
hurt any worse than he was at that moment. Pat didn't answer.
"Wasn't there anything that gave you any kick all afternoon?" asked
Peter after a pause.
"Sure, just one thing. It was the Yale stands singing 'Die Wacht Am
Rhein.' I know they've got terribly silly words, but there is something
that has got guts. I think that's just about ten times as exciting as
all the football games ever played. There was our crowd tooting away,
'Hit the line for Harvard, for Harvard wins today' and that big song
with all those marching feet in it throbbing over across the field."
"German feet," objected Peter.
"Well, but they are feet and you can't take the beat and the sweep out
of it. Maybe we did win the game but they did sing the heads off us."
"Another moral victory for Yale," suggested Peter.
CHAPTER VIII
When Peter came into his office one afternoon a couple of weeks after
the Yale game he found Pat sitting at his desk waiting for him.
"I'm through," said Pat.
"What's the matter?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, they're through with me. They've fired me."
Pat looked across the desk expectantly awaiting a question. Peter didn't
ask it. "I'm sorry," was all he said.
"You know about it. I suppose you must have the letter from the dean by
now. It took me three days getting back from Cambridge."
"I don't know anything about it. You can tell me if you want to."
"Well, I got fired the worst way. It wasn't just flunking courses. I
didn't even mean to do it. Not ahead of time anyway. It just sort of
happened."
Peter waited and then suddenly he remembered his interview with Miles
years ago, the day he came to the office in bandages and was never
offered a chance to tell about it. A question would be kinder.
"What happened, Pat?" he asked.
"The proctor reported me. I had a girl in my room. No, that's slicking
it up and making it sound romantic and pretty. What I mean is I had a
woman in my room. You know ... a woman."
"I know," said Peter.
"You remember I was low in my mind after the football game. It let me
down. I don't care what I wrote you before the game. I really did think
it was going to be fine. I thought I'd get stirred by it and after it
was all over the only things I remembered were Bill French sitting on
the side-lines crying and Charlie Bullitt out on the field putting his
lunch. You don't mind if I tell it this way--the long way."
"Take your time."
"Well, I know it sounds silly, but it seemed to me that I just had to go
out and find something that was thrilling and beautiful too. I saw this
girl--this woman--walking across Harvard Square. It was night and
raining and blowing. The wind was almost carrying her along. You know it
made her seem so alive."
He paused again. Peter could not resist an impulse to break into the
story. "She said to you, 'Come along' or a something like that," he
suggested.
"No, I spoke to her. I said, 'Why get wet?' It was dark and we sneaked
up the stairs in Weld to my room. And then it wasn't beautiful at all."
Pat buried his head in his hands.
This time Peter did put his arm around his shoulders. "That's right,"
said Peter, "it wasn't beautiful. You couldn't know that. Nobody ever
does. I didn't."
Pat looked up and in the second he had snapped back to normal. The shame
had gone somewhere; into Peter's protecting arm perhaps. He managed a
smile.
"Peter," he said, "there's something more I'm sorry about. I'm sorry for
what I said about that football story. It was a good football story. A
peach of a story--all but that part about Charlie Bullitt and Dr.
Nichols."
Peter grinned back at him. "That's my weakness. I can't help being a
little yellow sometime."
A sudden elation swept over Peter. Here at last was a secret shared just
by him and Pat. Of course, the Dean of Harvard College and the proctor
and the woman who walked in the rain knew about it, but they didn't
count.
"The proctor saw her when she was going out," Pat added just to finish
up the story. There they left it and went on to talk of other things but
presently Miss Nathan came in.
"Mr. Neale," she said, "Mr. Twice wants to see you in his office."
Peter got up. "No," she said, "it's Mr. Pat Neale he wants to see. He's
been asking for him for a couple of days now. I told him that he was
here this afternoon."
"What's Twice want to see you for, I wonder?"
"I know," said Pat. "I've just thought of it. He must have got the
Dean's letter. Don't you remember it was Mr. Twice arranged about my
going to Harvard before you got back? I suppose they think he's still my
guardian."
"Do you want me to come in with you?"
"Never mind. Now that I've got it off my chest once I guess I can do it
again."
Pat was gone for almost three quarters of an hour. Peter walked up and
down nervously. He wondered what was happening. From across the transoms
of Twice's office he could hear just the rumbling of the editor's
voice. Pat didn't seem to be saying anything. At last he came back.
"What did he say to you? He seemed to be raising Cain."
"No, he didn't say anything much. At least not much about the Dean's
letter. He had that all right. He got talking to me about Krafft-Ebing."
"Oh, was that all?"
"No, there was more than that. I report down here for work on Monday."
* * * * *
"The trouble with him," said Rufus Twice, "is that he doesn't seem to
understand that you've got to have a certain routine in a newspaper
office. Deering tells me that he hardly ever gets in at one o'clock.
Along about two he calls up on the phone and wants to get his assignment
that way. And last night Warren says that he called up after ten and
said, 'It's raining like hell. You don't really want me to go out and
cover that story, do you?' Warren told him, 'Oh no, Mr. Neale. I didn't
know it was raining. Of course, if this keeps up we won't get out any
paper at all.'"
Peter couldn't laugh because Twice was telling him of the reportorial
shortcomings of Pat. He spoke to Pat about it when he got home to the
apartment. The old flat in Sixty-sixth Street was again theirs.
"But I get such lousy assignments," said Pat. "I think Deering's down on
me. I suppose I've given him cause all right, but he's taking it out on
me. He sends me where there isn't any chance of getting anything. If I
do write something it never gets in the paper anyway. I did tell him it
was raining. What was the use of my getting wet for nothing? They wanted
me to go up to a meeting of the trustees of the Museum of Natural
History. Now what could I get out of that?"
"Didn't you go up?" said Peter aghast. "He was just being sarcastic when
he told you there wouldn't be any paper if the rain kept up."
"Oh, I know that. The Bulletin comes out every day all right. That's the
trouble with it, but I took him up literally on what he said. I don't
think the joke was on me. It was on him."
"You shouldn't do things like that."
"Suppose I had gone. There wouldn't have been any story anyway."
"You've got to quit supposing. Let the city editor do that. The
worst-looking assignment may turn out to be something if you go after
it."
"Yes, once in every twenty years those directors of the Museum of
Natural History get into an awful row about whether to put the
ichthyosaurus on the second floor or in the basement and if anything
like that happened they'd turn over the whole front page to me."
Peter shook his head gloomily. "You've got the wrong spirit. Even if
your assignments are no good keep your eyes and your ears open when you
go round the city and something will turn up. That's the way to show
them. Bring in something you pick up yourself. Every day of the year
there must be whole pagefuls of stuff just as good and better than the
stuff we get in the paper. Only we don't find out about it. Keep
scouting for stuff like that. When you say newspaper work's stupid
you're practically saying that life's stupid."
"Maybe it is," said Pat, "but I'm not so sure about that as I am about
newspapers."
"It's the same thing."
"I don't think so. Here's the sort of thing that makes life amusing and
isn't worth anything for a newspaper. I was riding in one of those
B.R.T. subway trains the other day and there were two women sitting next
me on one of those cross seats. One was fat and middle-aged and the
other was younger. I didn't notice her so much. It was the fat one who
was doing the talking. She was very much excited and she was explaining
something to the younger woman. 'Why, I said to him,' she told her--'I
said to him, 'Why, Mr. Babcock, I don't want to be sacrilegious but that
girl she's so sweet and so pretty I don't even believe our Lord himself
could be mean to her.' That made me satisfied with the whole day, but
imagine coming in and trying to put it over on Warren or Deering for a
story."
"A story's got to begin some place and end some place," objected Peter.
"The kind I get don't begin any place and so I don't have to wait around
for them to end."
Peter went to Rufus Twice and told him that Pat didn't seem to be making
any progress in general work.
"You ought to be more patient, Neale," answered Twice. "What's all this
hurry about Pat? He won't be twenty-one yet for a couple of years."
"It's nearer than that. It's just thirteen months and three days."
Peter could have told him the hours and the minutes too which lay
between Pat and his eight o'clock appointment in Paris.
"That doesn't make him exactly aged. He's learning or he ought to be
learning all the time. Even if he didn't get a line in the paper all
year he wouldn't be wasting his time. Just being here helps him to pick
up my way of doing things. Of course, when I say 'my' I mean the
paper's."
"All that's perfectly true, Mr. Twice, but I have a very special reason
for wanting him to get ahead right now. I want him to be interested. I
want him to feel that he's important."
"There isn't any job around here that isn't important. You ought to know
that, Neale. None of us count as individuals. We're all part of the
Bulletin. Nobody can say that one cog's more important than another. Did
you ever see a Liberty motor assembled?"
"Yes," said Peter with as much haste and emphasis as he could muster,
but it was probably the convenient ringing of the phone which saved him.
"If Mr. Boone has anything to say in reply to the story we printed this
morning he's welcome to come to my office and see me. That is if he's
got facts. I want you to know that I resent his making his complaint
through an advertising agency. I don't care if I am impolite. I intend
to be. Don't bother to threaten me about your advertising. You can't
take it out. I'll beat you to that. It's thrown out. Good-bye."
Twice swung his chair around and faced Peter. "I've just cost the paper
$65,000 a year in advertising," he said cheerfully. "The Dubell Agency
was trying to bawl me out about that Sun Flower Oil story we had on the
front page this morning. Did you see it?"
"Well, I saw the headlines," said Peter untruthfully.
"I want you to read it. Weed did it. I told you I was going to make
something out of that young man. Let's see, what were we talking about?"
Peter almost said, "The Liberty Motor," but stopped himself in time. "We
were talking about Pat."
"Oh yes, I remember. I suppose, Neale, you and I could say without
egotism that we're important cogs here on the Bulletin. I suppose
sometimes it seems to us that we're vital cogs, but if you should die
tomorrow the Bulletin would come out just the same. I'd give you a good
obit but work would go on. Nobody is indispensable. Pat's got to get it
through his head that he's just part of an army."
"I think he has," said Peter, "but the trouble is he feels that he's got
a permanent assignment on kitchen police."
"But consider this, Neale. I didn't seduce Pat away from college and on
to the Bulletin. I did promise him a job and he's got it. He can't
expect to hang around here for a year or so and jump right in and write
lead stories. What is it you want me to do anyway?"
"Well, I thought maybe it would be a good thing to shift him over on
sports. He knows baseball and football and I'd like to have him come out
with me and do notes of the games and things like that. That would be
down his alley. That would interest him and I think he could do it."
"I don't think it's the best way. I think you're forgetting that general
news is the backbone of a paper. All the rest is tacked on. You're wrong
but I tell you what I'll do. I'm going to yield to your judgment. Go in
and tell Clark that I want Pat to report to him from now on. Go and send
Pat in. I want to have a talk with him."
Peter ran into Pat late that night in the Newspaper Club.
"Did Twice get hold of you?" he asked.
"He certainly did," said Pat. "He's decided to take me off general work
and put me on sports. His idea is to send me around with you to football
games and baseball and have me write notes. You know 'Diamond Chips' or
'Hot Off The Gridiron.'"
"Did he say anything else to you?"
"Yes, he asked me if I'd ever seen a Liberty Motor assembled and I said,
'No,' and he told me about it. Oh yes, and he said, 'When a reporter
goes out on a story there are four things he ought to remember--When!
Where! What! and Why!'"
"What's the matter with that?" Peter felt that Pat ought to show a
little more delight and gratitude at being fairly launched on his career
as a sporting writer.
"Well, I tried it out on that assignment I had to cover--the directors
of the Museum of Natural History. It worked out like this--When--last
night. Where--the palatial apartment of Mr. Harold Denny at 605 Park
avenue. What--the annual report of the directors of the Museum of
Natural History. Why--God knows."
Pat was busily engaged with three other men in a game called horse
racing. Each contestant had two pool balls and all were lined up at one
end of the table with a piece of board behind them. The starter's job
rotated among the players. He sent the balls spinning up the table and
the one which landed nearest to the rail on the rebound won the purse.
Peter wanted to talk to Pat, but he seemed anxious to get away.
"There's a newspaper man over in the corner that I'd like to have you
meet," said Peter.
"Who is it?"
"His name's Heywood Broun. He's on the World."
"Which one do you mean? The one with the shave?"
"No, the other one."
"I'm too busy," said Pat. "I can't be bothered. We're just going to run
the Suburban Handicap, That costs fifty cents for each horse."
As the balls were shoved away Pat raced down the table with them
shouting, "Come on Ulysses. Come on James Joyce." He ran over to Peter
with a handful of coins. "Ulysses won," he said, "and James Joyce was
second."
"What do you call them that for?"
"They're named after a book I've been reading."
Peter was about to head up town, but Pat urged him to stay. "Stick
around awhile," he said, "as soon as Nick Carter shows up the
quartette's going to have a concert."
"What quartette?"
"Oh just me and three other fellows. We're pretty good. At least I am.
We get in a few swipes almost every night."
"Are you still going to the opera so much?" asked Peter anxiously.
"No, I haven't had any time. There isn't any opera now anyway but it's
almost a year since I've been."
"Have you heard from Maria lately?"
"The last letter I got was almost six months ago. She didn't say
anything much except she said that before long she was going to see me
in Paris. I don't know how. You haven't heard Mr. Twice say anything
about giving me an assignment over there, the annual meeting of the
house committee of the Louvre or anything like that?"
"He hasn't said anything to me about it."
Peter didn't wait for the singing nor was he particularly worried about
it. He was cheered by the fact that Pat had spoken so casually of the
opera and of Maria. When he got home to the flat he noticed a big book
in blue paper covers on the table. It was "Ulysses" by James Joyce.
"Why, that's the book Pat named the pool balls after." He picked it up
and began at the beginning and then skipped ahead frantically. An hour
or so later Pat came in. Peter pointed to the book and looked at him
reproachfully.
"What does it mean, Pat?" he asked. Stumbling over it at random he read:
"In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended. Douce with
Kennedy your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze
gigglegold, to let freefly their laughter, screaming, your other,
signals to each other, high piercing notes."
"I don't know," said Pat. "I haven't got that far yet. But what
difference does it make what it means? That isn't the point. There's
music in it."
As Peter was going to bed he cursed silently to himself. "Damn this
music. They're even trying to play it on typewriters now."
CHAPTER IX
On sports Pat worked better and more cheerfully. It was Pat who devised
the note at one of the Princeton football games, "The Tiger eleven has
three fine backs and the greatest of these is Gharrity." And he came
through splendidly when he was assigned to cover Marshal Foch's
activities at another game and report in detail what the Frenchman did.
Peter found the story posted on the board in the Bulletin office. In
fact Twice had allowed Pat to have his signature in the paper. Right
after Peter's own story it came--"By Peter Neale, Jr."
This was the third reading for Peter but he could not resist the
pleasure of standing in front of the board in the City Room and looking
over it again slowly:
"Ferdinand Foch, field marshal, was outranked this afternoon by
Malcolm Aldrich, captain. The Field Marshal was received
enthusiastically by the 80,000 spectators but he found he could not
hold the attention of the throng once the whistle had blown. He
became then just a spectator at one of the greatest football games
ever played between Yale and Princeton. Come to think of it he was
rather less a part of the proceedings than the young men in the
cheering section behind him. Foch did not have a blue feather, or a
girl, or a bet on the game. The greatest military leader in the
world was assigned today to the humble job of being just a neutral.
He must have known that momentous things were happening when 40,000
roared defiance and another 40,000 roared back. Undoubtedly he was
stirred when huge sections of the Bowl turned into fluttering banks
of orange and black, or of blue, but probably there was much of it
which he could not understand. It would be hard, for instance, to
explain to a man who had been at Verdun the justice of penalizing
anybody for holding, nor did the rival teams pay any respect to the
slogan 'They shall not pass!' They did it all the time.
"The young American officer detailed to help the distinguished
visitor did his best. 'You see, Marshal,' he would explain, 'it's
this way. Yale has _la balle_ on Princeton's 35-yard line and it's
_premier bas_ with _dix_ yards to go.' Just at that point Aldrich
or O'Hearn would tear through the Tigers for a run and the American
officer grew so excited that he would lose the thread of his
explanations. Foch never did catch up."
"It's just the way I would have written it myself," thought Peter.
Pat was grinning when he found him. "How did you like my parody?" he
asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you see yourself in that story about Foch. That business about
'They shall not pass' ought've tipped you off. I thought that was a
regular Peter Neale touch."
"Oh," said Peter, "you were just fooling."
"But here's the best of it," added Pat. He held out a letter from Rufus
Twice which read:
"Dear Pat, I want to congratulate you on the story you wrote about
Foch at the football game. It was excellent. All the facts were
there and you handled them with a fresh and original touch of your
own. When I saw the Marshal at luncheon today he said he was very
much amused by our story--Twice."
"Well," said Peter a little bitterly, "if that was just an imitation
keep it up."
Pat did keep it up although he grew a little restive during the winter.
"If they're going to be many more of these indoor track meets," he
complained, "I want to be put back on the Museum of Natural History.
Clark there in the sporting department is just crazy about facts. You
have to squeeze them all into the first paragraph. Even if anything
exciting ever did happen there wouldn't be any chance to tell about it.
You'd have to start out just the same and say how many people there
were in the hall and what the temperature was and whether it was raining
or snowing outside."
Still he had conformed with sufficient fidelity to remain in the graces
of the powers on the Bulletin and when Summer came around Pat was
assigned to go with Peter to Atlantic City and watch Jack Dempsey train.
Pat's part was to write a half column of notes called 'Sidelights On The
Big Show.' After the first day or so Pat lost interest in the actual
boxing at Dempsey's camp.
"Where do you see anything in that?" he asked Peter as they sat at the
ringside in the enclosure near the training camp of the champion.
Dempsey was whaling away with both hands at Larry Williams, an
unfortunate blonde heavyweight who seemed to be under a contract or some
other compulsion to go two rounds every day.
"Watch him," exclaimed Pat as Williams clinched desperately and tucked
his head over Dempsey's shoulder. "He looks like an old cow leaning over
a fence."
"That's a good line," said Peter, "don't waste it on me. Use it in the
Bulletin."
But Pat wandered off and loafed around the training quarters. When he
came back to the hotel late that afternoon he had something else.
"This is all right, isn't it?" he asked. Peter looked over the copy
which Pat had written.
"Dempsey is taking a great deal of electricity into his system," he
read, "in preparation for his fight with Carpentier. This portion
of his training is being handled by S. J. Foster, D.C.M.T.,
chiropractor, mechano-therapist and electrical therapeutist. In
other words Doc Foster is the man who rubs Dempsey after his
workouts. But the rubbing is only a small part of it. Doc Foster
insists on that. His chief pride and reliance is the polysine
generator. 'Why, that machine,' said Doc Foster, this afternoon,
'has got some currents in it that would break your arm in a minute.
Yes, sir, they'd break your arm quicker than that.' And as he
boasted he looked rather longingly at the fattest arm of the
fattest newspaper correspondent. Of course, there are more soothing
currents as well in the polysine generator. 'They just reach down
after the deep muscles,' the old Doc explained, 'and grab 'em.' He
neglected to add just what the electricity does with the deep
muscles after it has grabbed them. Presumably it does not break
them, but just frolics around with the muscles and then casts them
aside like withered violets."
"Sure," said Peter, "that's fine. You don't have to bother with Larry
Williams at all. I'll put all the stuff about him into the lead."
Next morning Peter awoke with a splitting headache. Toward noon it got
much worse. He called Pat in from the next room. "I'm up against it," he
told him. "I'm sick as a dog. Of course I could telegraph to the office
and get them to send somebody down but I don't want to do that. This is
your chance. You'll have to do the lead story. You say you can imitate
me or parody me or whatever you call it. Now's the time to go to it. And
say nobody has to know that I'm not doing it. Just sign your story 'by
Peter Neale.'"
"I'll do my best," said Pat. Peter dozed off late that afternoon and the
doze became a deep slumber. He did not wake until morning when there
came a violent rapping on his door. In the hall was a messenger with a
telegram. Peter opened it and read:
"What happened? We didn't get the story. Never mind telephoning
explanations because I'm coming down over the week-end. I'll be at
the hotel at one--Twice."
Pat was nowhere around the hotel and nobody seemed to know where he had
gone. Peter was still mystified when Rufus Twice arrived. He thought at
first of trying to conceal the fact that Pat had acted as his substitute
and then decided not to. "It isn't fair to expect me to do as much as
that," he thought. However he found that any such deception would have
been useless.
"What happened to you?" was Twice's first question.
"I was sick. I had a blinding headache and I told Pat to do the story.
Didn't he send anything?"
"Yes, but it might as well have been nothing. All we had to go by was
the A. P. Dempsey cut loose yesterday and knocked Larry Williams down
three times. The last time they had to carry him out of the ring. And
our story was something about a man named Daredevil Oliver that's doing
a high dive at an amusement park down here. It was signed Peter Neale
but I knew it couldn't be you."
Twice picked some copy out of his pocket and flourished it in the air.
"Lights. Gray mist. East wind," he read. "Good God! Peter, nobody can
say I don't appreciate Walt Whitman or Amy Lowell, but I tell you
Dempsey knocked Larry Williams down three times. The last time he was
out clean as a whistle."
"You mean to say there wasn't any Peter Neale story in the paper?" asked
Peter terrified.
"Yes, you get off all right. You don't suffer any. I did it myself. I
rewrote the A. P. and signed your name. But it was just the merest
chance that I happened to drop in at the office. You should have called
me up and let me send a man down."
"But I didn't know he'd blow up like that. The other story he did from
here seemed all right."
"Yes, but it wasn't news. I think Pat can write but somebody's got to
stand over him and tell him what news is. The one he sent might have
been all right for an editorial page feature though it was a little
esoteric. What do you suppose 'gigglegold' means or is that something
the operator did?"
"I don't know what it means but it's a word James Joyce uses in
'Ulysses.'"
"I'd forgotten," said Twice. "Of course. I was trying to place it. Great
book, 'Ulysses,' never should have been suppressed. But you couldn't use
any of it on the sporting page."
"Was it all like that?"
"Pretty much. It was about this Daredevil Oliver doing a high dive of a
hundred and five feet into four feet of water. And there were only nine
people there to watch him and how ironic it would have been if he'd
broken his neck. And then some more about Eugene O'Neill and the tragic
drama in America. Jack Dempsey or Larry Williams or the fight never got
mentioned at all."
Pat came in without knocking. He was flushed and angry. "Mr. Twice," he
said, "that story in the Bulletin signed 'Peter Neale' wasn't the story
I sent. I wouldn't have written anything like that."
"I know it," said Twice, "that's why I wrote it."
"Didn't you go down to see the workout?" asked Peter.
"Of course I did. I didn't stay all through it. I waited until Jack
Dempsey knocked that old cow Larry Williams down for the third time and
then I got bored and went out."
"But that was the story," cried Peter. "Can't you see that."
"Why Dempsey could knock out Larry Williams a hundred times in an
afternoon," objected Pat.
"That isn't the point," Twice broke in. "News isn't things that might
happen. News is things that do happen. When a reporter goes out on a
story there are four things for him to remember."
"I know," said Pat. "When! Where! What! and Why!"
"Yes, and there are two ways of doing a story. One of them is the way I
want it to be done. The other doesn't count. I don't want you to argue
with me. I tell you that your story should have been about Larry
Williams getting knocked out. Some day you'll learn why. Pat, I'm not
going to fire you. You've got stuff. Deering's had a crack at you and so
has your father. Now I'm going to see what I can do. You're to go back
to New York this afternoon. Report at my office on Monday. Hereafter
you'll get your assignments from me and turn your copy over to me. I've
never been licked yet and I'm not going to be licked now. I'm going to
make a newspaperman of you or my name's not Rufus Twice."
After Twice had gone Peter asked, "Pat, what made you want to throw me
down?"
"You don't think I made all this trouble for you on purpose?"
"Well, why did you go and write a story about Daredevil Oliver and leave
Dempsey out of it?"
"It seemed so much more important to me. You'd have thought so too if
you'd seen him. He just leaned back off the platform so slowly. He could
have stopped himself any second. And then all of a sudden he couldn't.
And he started to fall."
"But the story was signed with my name. Didn't you think of that?"
"Of course I did."
"Didn't you remember that I'd get blamed for it."
Pat was pale with earnestness and almost crying. "I didn't think
anybody'd be blamed. I wanted to do something for you."
"Do you mean to say," asked Peter in surprise, "that you thought it was
as good a story as I'd write."
"I thought it was a better story. It was a better story than you ever
wrote."
Peter was silent with astonishment. Where, he wondered, did his son
Peter Neale, second, ever unearth such amazing and audacious confidence.
Suddenly it came to him that he was not the only parent. He remembered
Maria. Obviously there was no use in arguing with Pat any further.
Indeed he was almost a little frightened at so bold a blaze of spirit.
"Well," he said at length, "what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to report to Mr. Twice on Monday," answered Pat.
Peter sent down and got a "Bulletin" in order to find out just what it
was that Peter Neale had written. He read only the first line, "Can Jack
Dempsey sock? Ask Larry Williams."
CHAPTER X
Not until after the big fight did Peter get back to the Bulletin office.
He found a subdued and cheerless Pat. "How are things going?" he asked.
"I'm learning a trade," said Pat.
Rufus Twice was more optimistic. "He's getting along fine," he reported.
"I flatter myself that he's picked up more of the newspaper angle on
things in the last two weeks than he got in a whole year before this.
You see I call him into the office every afternoon and go over the paper
with him and show him why we've used each story and the reason for
handling it the way we do. He's been a good soldier. I'll tell you what
I'll do. You take your vacation next week and I'll let him go with you.
You ought to have a month but I don't believe the syndicate can spare
you. Three weeks is the best I can do."
Peter and Pat planned to go out in the country some place, but they kept
putting it off and two weeks were gone before they decided on Westport,
Conn., and bought the tickets. On the morning set for the journey Pat
came into Peter's room with the paper.
"Don't let's go," he said.
"All right but why not."
"Maria Algarez is here. They've got her picture in the Bulletin. It
isn't a very good one. She got in from Argentine yesterday afternoon."
"Maria Algarez here in New York? Where?"
"It doesn't say."
A messenger arrived with a letter a few hours later. Peter opened it and
read:
"You must not hide from me. I have called up the Bulletin and they
say you are not there. When I ask for the number of your house they
tell me it is the rule that they must not tell. Is it, Peter, that
so many ladies call you up? The next time I am more smart. I say
that your father is very sick and that I am the nurse and must know
where you are. But I should have known. It is twenty years and the
flat it is the same. You are like that Peter. You do not change. I
thought not to see you and Pat until next year in Paris but from
Buenos Aires I decided suddenly I will go to New York. Here I am.
My hotel it is the Ritz. You and Pat you will come tonight at eight
and have supper with me--Maria."
"I didn't want to go to Westport much anyway," said Pat.
He was more nervous than Peter when they came to the door of Maria's
suite. She kissed Peter but Pat only held out his hand. Maria laughed.
"He does not know me. I know him. He is like the picture."
Pat was almost silent during supper. He spoke up only once. Maria was
ordering. "We will have some vegetable," she said. "What is the name? I
do not know the English. _Les epinards._"
"That's spinach," said Peter and added slyly. "Pat doesn't like spinach.
He won't want that."
"Yes, I do," said Pat promptly.
Peter smiled but he had the joke all to himself. Pat had forgotten.
After dinner they talked sparsely with Peter doing most of the work.
Suddenly Maria said, "It is necessary that somebody he ask me."
Peter was puzzled, but Pat understood. "I've waited for five years to
hear you sing. Won't you?"
"It is nice, but it is the twenty years I have waited. First you must
sing."
"I can't."
"Maybe. It must be that sometimes you have sung."
"Oh, just with other people. Swipes you know."
"I do not know what it is but you sing and the swipes I will do."
"Just anything. That's all I can sing--anything."
Maria moved over to the piano. "The accompaniment it is not necessary
but it I can do if what you sing it is not too hard."
"It's just something you sing around with a crowd."
"Come nearer."
Pat moved over beside the piano.
"Allons!"
Maria looked up at him and whispered, "You can. I know."
There was no banter in it. Pat began a little husky at first but then
louder and clearer.
"Down by the stream where I first met Rebecca
Down by the stream where the sun loves to shine.
Sweet were the garlands I wound for Rebecca.
Bright eyes gave answer, she said she'd be mine.
One, two, three, four,
Sometimes I wish there were more.
Ein, zwei, drei, vier,
I love the one that's near.
Ut ne sam si,
So says the heathen Chinee.
Fair girls bereft
There will get left,
One, two, and three."
Maria looked up and smiled. Peter waited in an agony. He remembered that
he had not heard Pat sing since he was a small child. He waited for
somebody to speak. He did not know whether or not it was good. Somebody
would have to tell him if this was the singing voice for which Maria had
hoped.
She continued to look at Pat and smile and he smiled back now more
boldly.
Peter couldn't stand it any longer. "Tell me ... Maria. Can he sing?"
Getting up from the piano she put a hand on Pat's shoulder.
"It is the fine voice that I know. I think it will be the greatest voice
in all the world."
Peter took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Maria turned to
him. "The time it is not up. I have come too soon. There is still the
year. But you must not. We cannot wait."
"Ask him. Tell him," said Peter hoarsely.
"Pat," she said, "if you will come with me to Paris you can be the great
singer. It will not be tomorrow. It will be two years. Maybe three
years. You must work. You must do what I say."
"When?" asked Pat trembling.
"In the week."
Peter said nothing, but he looked at Pat. The boy continued to stare at
Maria.
"Pat," he said.
His son turned to him.
"I want to, Peter. I want to."
Peter mopped his forehead again.
"He wants to, Maria," he said. "I give up my year." Peter paused. "I
give up all my years," he added in a low voice.
"But you must not give up the years," said Maria. "We will go to Paris,
all three. It will be more and more. You must watch and listen. He is
your son Peter."
But Peter shook his head. "No," he answered, "it wouldn't mean anything
to me. I wouldn't know. I don't care anything about tunes."
Maria ran her hands over the keys playing softly "The Invitation to the
Waltz." She watched Peter but he gave no sign of recognition. He was
fumbling in his pocket for something. At last he found it and pulled out
a letter.
"You see it wouldn't be possible for me to go anyway," he said. "This
morning I got this letter from Rufus Twice. He's the Supervising Editor
of the Bulletin. He writes and says, 'I'm sorry about your vacation, but
it is imperative that you give up the last week of it. The syndicate's
doing great work on your Hit And Run column. Booth has just come back
from the West and he's sold you to eighteen more papers. When you got
back from the war I promised you two hundred. This addition brings it up
to two hundred and ten. You see I've made good for you. But Booth says
they want the stuff right off. Another week might mean our losing some
of them.'"
Peter folded up the letter and put it in his pocket. "There's no chance
anyway. It's the tightest race they've had in the American League for
years and pretty soon the World Series'll be on and right after that
football starts. With all that going on there ought to be something in
the paper by Peter Neale."
THE END