The Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would
command prompt access to the publisher's sanctuary; but the young man
who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was clear that
Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a specific figure to
the purveyors of popular literature. But the publisher was an old
friend; and when the card had finally drifted to his office on the
languid tide of routine he came forth at once to greet his visitor.
The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been
right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had
been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one of
the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly turns
out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and fathers. The
Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was aware that many of
his most reckless comrades had been transformed into prudent
capitalists or cowed wage-earners; but he was almost sure that he could
count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so keen a perception of
relative values, could hardly have been blunted even by twenty years'
intercourse with the obvious.
The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as if
he had been fattened on popular fiction; and his fat was full of
optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his
office a long train of spotless heroines laden with the maiden tribute
of the hundredth thousand volume.
Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his early
enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by such
flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his
manuscript without a scruple.
"What--you don't mean to say you've been doing something in our line?"
The Professor smiled. "You publish scientific books sometimes, don't
you?"
The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm--it all
depends--I'm afraid you're a little _too_ scientific for us. We have a
big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the concentrated
essences. In your case, of course, I should be delighted to stretch a
point; but in your own interest I ought to tell you that perhaps one of
the educational houses would do you better."
The Professor leaned back, still smiling luxuriously.
"Well, look it over--I rather think you'll take it."
"Oh, we'll _take_ it, as I say; but the terms might not--"
"No matter about the terms--"
The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that
science was so profitable; we find our popular novelists are the
hardest hands at a bargain."
"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have a
fancy to have you publish this thing."
"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name goes
with a certain public--and I rather like the originality of our
bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us both."
His creases deepened at the thought, and he shone encouragingly on the
Professor's leave-taking.
Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to town.
He had been looking forward with immense zest to this second meeting;
Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured himself
following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his friend's
progress through the manuscript. He was proud of the adroitness with
which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had maintained to the last
the pretense of a serious work, in order to give the keener edge to his
reader's enjoyment. Not since under-graduate days had the Professor
tasted such a draught of pure fun as his anticipations now poured for
him.
This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the
office like a successful novelist, and Harviss grasped him with both
hands.
"Well--do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry.
"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already--you'll excuse
my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty about terms,
I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the autumn market. My
dear Linyard, why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice sank to a
reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own arm-chair.
The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of
letting you find out?"
"Well--it _was_ a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars. "I
don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly
unexpected--and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the
right shop."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly.
Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a doubt
of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so
extraordinarily out of your line--"
The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow smile.
"Would you have thought it so--at college?"
Harviss stared. "At college?--Why, you were the most iconoclastic
devil--"
There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses and
looked at his friend. "Well--?" he said simply.
"Well--?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah--I see; you mean that
that's what explains it. The swing of the pendulum, and so forth. Well,
I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed myself, for
example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow I hadn't
expected it of you."
The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the
official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too amazed
to have an ear for such fine shades.
"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven do
you think this thing is?" And he struck his fist on the manuscript
which lay between them.
Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent
eye on the document.
"Why, your apologia--your confession of faith, I should call it. You
surely must have seen which way you were going? You can't have written
it in your sleep?"
"Oh, no, I was wide awake enough," said the Professor faintly.
"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were _not?"_ Harviss
leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor's worn
coat-sleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there was
the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front. What is
growth but the shifting of the stand-point? Why should a man be
expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at--our age?
It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy in
admitting that you have come round a little--have fallen into line, so
to speak."
But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to
expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial
rafters.
"Oh, Lord, oh Lord--is it really as good as that?" he gasped.
Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his desk;
it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency.
"My dear fellow--" he began in a soothing tone.
"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor. "I'll--I'll
quiet down in a minute; you needn't ring for the young man." He dropped
into his chair again, and grasped its arms to steady his shaking. "This
is the best laugh I've had since college," he brought out between his
paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up with a groan. "But if it's as
good as that it's a failure!" he exclaimed.
Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My dear
Linyard," he said at length, "I don't understand a word you're saying."
The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which he
managed to fling out--"But that's the very core of the joke!"