The first thing the author did, on opening the door of the Studio, was
to look at the clock. Big Bill pointed to but five minutes of eleven.
Good! There remained a clean hour and a half before he would have to
cease work and go to bed, to wake up a private tutor.
All the lethargy of the earlier evening seemed to have vanished now,
under the strong reverse stimulus of the Redmantle Club. Having turned
up the light in his gas-lamp, the young man stood a moment, thinking
intently, and then sat down at his writing-table. The table was twelve
years old, and had been to college and law-school. It was worn and
stained, but still strong, and bore up, besides the lamp and clock, not
only a large array of writer's paraphernalia, but a considerable
floating miscellany, too, including a clipping or so, several unanswered
letters, a stray tobacco-pouch, a thick exercise-book, and the
particular volume on Women he happened to be reading at the moment.
Ignoring these, the proprietor drew from the back of his table drawer a
capacious brown-paper folder, and from the folder plucked three
typewritten sheets, held together with a clip.
It was seen that the topmost of these sheets bore a heading: MARY WING.
And for some moments the author of them sat in stillness, conning over
the lines that followed: the magnanimous lines he had prepared with such
pains long ago, and then tamely put to sleep in a drawer.
He had composed this eulogy last winter, to help Miss Wing in her
campaign for the assistant principalship of the High School. His plan,
of which she knew nothing to this day, had been cunning and complete.
First he would get this "write-up" into the "Persons in the Foreground"
department of "Willcox's," the famous and enormously circulated weekly;
then he would have the "Post" reprint it; finally he would induce all
the local papers to print glowing editorials demanding, "Is this
prophetess to be without honor in her own country?" Unquestionably a
most helpful plan; but characteristically, Mary had not waited for it.
By some "pull" she had, she had put her little matter through months
ahead of schedule, and Judge Blenso had just finished typing the
"write-up," late one winter's afternoon, when Charles was summoned to
the telephone to be greeted by the first woman assistant principal in
history. He, of course, had been delighted with her success. And
yet--had he not felt even then that the episode was typical of a
positively manly independence?