literature and life and lily-pads and love--that's what you'll do. If
you don't, you'll lose your job. Don't you dare to introduce a
single-dollar sign or canned tomato into those columns," he added,
warningly, as he returned to his work.
Harrington's look of reproach as he went out haunted him for days--so
long, in fact, that he bore with extraordinary patience a confidence
that gentleman favored him with several months later. He came to the
office one morning wearing an expression oddly combined of pride and
shame, in which first one and then the other predominated. For a long
time he discussed apartments and janitors and domestic supplies, and
Maxwell humored him. Then he said:
"I've been an awful ass, Maxwell, but that's no reason why I should
keep on being one, is it? I've got to tell you something impo'tant, and
I'm going to do it now. I can't write any more about literatuah of the
past and lily-pads of the present, as you would say. Who ca'es about
'em? _I_ don't. The wo'ld to-day is interested in the life of to-day.
Men think about theah wo'k and theah incomes and theah homes and theah
wives and theah children, and that's _all_ they think about. And women
think about men, and that's all _they_ think about. And heah I'm
writing all the time about literatuah--literatuah." He turned the word
over in his mouth and ejected it with supreme contempt.
As once before, Maxwell was silent in the presence of simple truth. He
rallied, however, and voiced a protest.
"I suppose you haven't lost interest in earning your living," he
suggested, ironically. "How do you intend to do that if you give up
this job?"
Harrington flushed a little, and cleared his throat nervously before he
spoke. Then he drew a paper from his pocket, and as his fingers touched
it his face cleared and happy pride beamed from him.
"I've got something else," he said, simply. "I waited to see how it
would tu'n out befoah I told you. It's quite a story. You see," he went
on expansively, settling back in his chair, and swinging his foot with
the characteristic swing of the boy of two years before--"you see,
Clara needed a hat-pin, the kind that would stay in and keep a hat
_on_. None of them do, Clara said. So I made one foh huh, and Clara's
brothah saw it and thought it was a good thing. He's a lawyer, you
know. He showed it to some man with money, and they took it up and we
patented it, and now we've got a facto'y and we're selling it.
It's--it's making lots of money." He turned an apologetic eye on his
friend and continued, more firmly: "They gave me twenty thousand
dollahs down and twenty pe' cent, of the stock, and a block of stock
foh you, because I insisted on that. I want you in on my luck. Heah it
is. E.W. Hubbard is the chief backah, and he says this is wuth ten
thousand dollahs. He says every woman in Ame'ica will be wearing one of
ouah hat-pins this time next yeah."
He laid the certificate on the table as he spoke, and for a moment
Maxwell sat staring at it, speechless. He knew Hubbard--a rich, shrewd
financier, and no leader of forlorn-hopes. If Hubbard was in the thing
the thing was all right. But a _hat-pin_! Maxwell looked at the
certificate and thought of the hat-pin, and reviewed the Harrington of
the past two years, and felt a horrible desire to laugh and to cry.
Then he pushed the paper toward the inventor.
"It's awfully good of you, old man," he said, huskily. "But of course I
can't take this. There's no reason why you should give me ten thousand
dollars, you know."
Harrington laughed--a queer little laugh.
"Ain't they a reason?" he asked, lapsing in his earnestness into the
careless grammar he had almost overcome. "Well, I guess I know moah
than any one else 'bout _that_. Do you remembah the fifteen dollahs you
lent me the day I came heah? Well, suh, I was sta'ving. I hadn't eaten
fo' two days, an' I couldn't get wo'k, an' I couldn't beg. That's why I
meant to kill myself. That money saved me. Now heah's this thing. It
ain't money. It's an _idea_. It's an idea out of my haid, an' that haid
wouldn't be heah at all if it wasn't fo' you. You've given me mah
chance. What I've done ain't much, but it's brought results, and
results ah the things that count. So we'll just call it interest, if
you don't mind. I think it's goin' to be wuth while. An' you know," he
added, almost timidly, "we ah friends--ahn't we, you and I?"
Maxwell wrung his hand. Then he picked up the certificate, folded it,
and put it carefully into his pocket.
"Thanks, old man," he said, quietly. "It's the biggest thing that's
ever come my way, and I'll take it--from my friend."
Later, when Harrington had taken his jubilant departure, Maxwell
related the incident to his chief. Wilson listened with flattering
attention. At the end he nodded sympathetically.
"He's all right," he said, "and you needn't worry about him. He's got
one quality left that sets him far enough apart from the rabble of
to-day." He looked keenly at the young man as he added, suddenly: "Of
all the fellows you've ever helped, Maxwell--and I know you've helped a
lot in one way or another--has any one of them before to-day ever shown
you any gratitude?"
Maxwell shook his head. "Don't remember any," he admitted. "But I
didn't expect any, and don't want any."
"And you don't get it," ended the older man, with a sigh. "It's the
rarest thing in life. So make the most of it this time, my boy. One
doesn't often meet a visitor from Mars!"
THE END