"This," she said, "will acquaint you in a measure with the
trustworthiness of the Princess Zimbamzim. And, if the policeman in
front of her house could hear what I am going to tell you, he'd never
remain there while his legs had power to run away with him."
* * * * *
They met by accident on Madison Square, and shook hands for the first
time in many years. High in the Metropolitan Tower the chimes celebrated
the occasion by sounding the half hour.
"It seems incredible," exclaimed George Z. Green, "that you could have
become so famous! You never displayed any remarkable ability in school."
"I never displayed any ability at all. But you did," said Williams
admiringly. "How beautifully you used to write your name on the
blackboard! How neat and scholarly you were in everything."
"I know it," said Green gloomily. "And _you_ flunked in almost
everything."
"In everything," admitted Williams, deeply mortified.
"And yet," said Green, "here we are at thirty odd; and I'm merely a
broker, and--_look_ what _you_ are! Why, I can't go anywhere but I find
one of your novels staring me in the face. I've been in Borneo: they're
there! They're in Australia and China and Patagonia. Why the devil do
you suppose people buy the stories you write?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Williams modestly.
"I don't know either, though I read them myself sometimes--I don't know
why. They're all very well in their way--if you care for that sort of
book--but the things you tell about, Williams, never could have
happened. I'm not knocking you; I'm a realist, that's all. And when I
read a short story by you in which a young man sees a pretty girl, and
begins to talk to her without being introduced to her, and then
marries her before luncheon--and finds he's married a Balkan
Princess--good-night! I just wonder why people stand for your books;
that's all."
"So do I," said Williams, much embarrassed. "I wouldn't stand for them
myself."
"Why," continued Green warmly, "I read a story of yours in some magazine
the other day, in which a young man sees a pretty girl for the first
time in his life and is married to her inside of three quarters of an
hour! And I ask _you_, Williams, how you would feel after spending
fifteen cents on such a story?"
"I'm terribly sorry, old man," murmured Williams. "Here's your
fifteen--if you like----"
"Dammit," said Green indignantly, "it isn't that they're not readable
stories! I had fifteen cents' worth all right. But it makes a man sore
to see what happens to the young men in your stories--and all the queens
they collect--and then to go about town and never see anything of that
sort!"
"There are millions of pretty girls in town," ventured Williams. "I
don't think I exaggerate in that respect."
"But they'd call an officer if young men in real life behaved as they
do in your stories. As a matter of fact and record, there's no more
romance in New York than there is in the annual meeting of the British
Academy of Ancient Assyrian Inscriptions. And you know it, Williams!"
"I think it depends on the individual man," said Williams timidly.
"How?"
"If there's any romance in a man himself, he's apt to find the world
rather full of it."
"Do you mean to say there isn't any romance in me?" demanded George Z.
Green hotly.
"I don't know, George. Is there?"
"Plenty. Pl-en-ty! I'm always looking for romance. I look for it when I
go down town to business; I look for it when I go home. Do I find it?
No! Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing beautiful and wealthy beyond the
dreams of avarice ever tries to pick me up. Explain _that_!"
Williams, much abashed, ventured no explanation.
"And to think," continued Green, "that you, my old school friend, should
become a celebrity merely by writing such stories! Why, you're as
celebrated as any brand of breakfast food!"
"You don't have to read my books, you know," protested Williams mildly.
"I don't have to--I know it. But I do. Everybody does. And nobody knows
why. So, meeting you again after all these unromantic years, I thought
I'd just ask you whether by any chance you happen to know of any
particular section of the city where a plain, everyday broker might make
a hit with the sort of girl you write about. Do you?"
"Any section of this city is romantic enough--if you only approach it in
the proper spirit," asserted Williams.
"You mean if my attitude toward romance is correct I'm likely to
encounter it almost anywhere?"
"That is my theory," admitted Williams bashfully.
"Oh! Well, what _is_ the proper attitude? Take me, for example. I've
just been to the bank. I carry, at this moment, rather a large sum of
money in my inside overcoat pocket. My purpose in drawing it was to blow
it. Now, tell me how to blow it romantically."
"How can I tell you such a thing, George----"
"It's your business. You tell people such things in books. Now, tell me,
face to face, man to man, how to get thoroughly mixed up in the sort of
romance you write--the kind of romance that has made William McWilliam
Williams famous!"
"I'm sorry----"
"What! You won't! You admit that what you write is bunk? You confess
that you don't know where there are any stray queens with whom I might
become happily entangled within the next fifteen minutes?"
"I admit no such thing," said Williams with dignity. "If your attitude
is correct, in ten minutes you can be up against anything on earth!"
"Where?"
"Anywhere!"
"Very well! Here we are on Madison Square. There's Admiral Farragut;
there's the Marble Tower. Do you mean that if I walk from this spot for
ten minutes--no matter in what direction--I'll walk straight into
Romance up to my neck?"
"If your attitude is correct, yes. But you've got to know the elements
of Romance when you see them."
"What are the elements of Romance? What do they resemble?" demanded
George Z. Green.
Williams said, in a low, impressive voice:
"Anything that seems to you unusual is very likely to be an element in a
possible romance. If you see anything extraordinary during the next ten
minutes, follow it up. And ninety-nine chances in a hundred it will lead
you into complications. Interfering with other people's business usually
does," he added pleasantly.
"But," said Green, "suppose during the next ten minutes, or twenty
minutes, or the next twenty-four hours I _don't_ see anything unusual."
"It will be your own fault if you don't. The Unusual is occurring all
about us, every second. A trained eye can always see it."
"But suppose the Unusual doesn't occur for the next ten minutes,"
insisted Green, exasperated. "Suppose the Unusual is taking a vacation?
It would be just my luck."
"Then," said Williams, "you will have to imagine that everything you see
is unusual. Or else," he added blandly, "you yourself will have to start
something. _That_ is where the creative mind comes in. When there's
nothing doing it starts something."
"Does it ever get arrested?" inquired Green ironically. "The creative
mind! Sure! _That's_ where all this bally romance is!--in the creative
mind. I knew it. Good-bye."
They shook hands; Williams went down town.