|WHERE was Betty, anyway! And why hadn't she called up the office. It
began to seem to him that she might have done that after her little
effort of the morning. Hitherto, before that ridiculous marriage of
hers, she had always put up with Sue Wilde, over in Tenth Street.
Perhaps she was there now. Mental pictures began to form of Betty's
luxuriant blonde beauty. And it was something for a peach like that to
leave home and rich husband, come hurrying down to New York and call you
up at an ungodly hour in the morning. He remembered suddenly, warmly,
the time he had first kissed Betty--over in New Jersey, on a green
hillside, of a glowing afternoon. His laziness fell away. Briskly he
walked around into Tenth Street and rang Sue's bell.
Betty answered--prettier than ever, a rounded but swaying young creature
who said little and that slowly.
“Hello!” she said, “Sue's out.”
“I don't want Sue. Came to see you, Betty. I'm fired--out of a job--and
while it lasts, hilariously happy. How about a bite at the Parisian?”
So they had humorously early tea at the old French restaurant near the
Square. Then Betty went up-town on the bus for a little shopping, and Hy
walked, at last, back to the office. They had decided to meet again for
dinner.
Scripture House loomed before him--long, dingy, grim in the gay
sunshine. He stood motionless on the farther curb, staring at it. Had
three years of his life been spent, miserably spent, on a treadmill,
in that haunt of hypocrisy? Had he been selling his presumably immortal
soul on the instalment plan, at forty-five a week? Or was it a hideous
dream? Was he dreaming now?
He shuddered. Then, slowly, he walked across the street, deriding to
pack up and get out for good just as swiftly as the thing could be done.
He was glad, downright glad, that it was his character that had been so
crudely assailed. That let him out. He needn't be decent--needn't wait a
month to break in a new man--nothing like that! He wondered mildly what
the Worm would say, and Peter? It might be necessary to borrow a bit
until he could get going again. Though perhaps they would take him back
on the old paper until he could find something regular.
The sense of being haunted by a dream grew as he went up in the elevator
and walked along the hall. He saw with new eyes the old building he had
so long taken for granted--saw the worn hollows in the oak floors, the
patched cracks in the plaster; he smelt the old musty odor with new'
repugnance; noted the legends on office doors he passed with a wry
smile, the Reverend This and the Reverend That, the Society for the
Suppression of Such and Such, the commercially religious Somebody &
Company.
He had to will his hand to open the door lettered, “My Brother's Keeper;
Hubbell Harkness Wilde, D. D.” He had to will his feet to carry him
within. But once within, he stood motionless and the queerness seized
on him, widened his eyes, caught at his breath. For the place was
absolutely still. Not a typewriter sounded. Not an argumentative
voice floated out over the seven-foot partitions. It was like a dead
place--uncanny, awful. For an instant he considered running; wondered
fantastically whether his feet would turn to lead and hold him back as
feet do in dreams.
But he stood his ground and looked cautiously about. There within the
rail, in the corner, the pretty little telephone girl sat motionless at
her switchboard, watching him with eyes that stared stupidly out of a
white face.
He stepped to her side--tiptoeing in spite of himself--tried to smile,
cleared his throat, started at the sound; then whispered, “For Heaven's
sake, what's the matter?” and patted the girl's cheek.
Ordinarily she would have dodged away and looked anxiously about in fear
of being seen. Now she did nothing of the sort. After a moment she said,
also whispering and quite incoherently--“Is Miss Hardwick going to have
your room?”
At the sound of her voice and out of sheer nervousness, he gulped. She
was alive, at least. He pinched her cheek; and shook his head, rather
meaninglessly. Then he braced himself and went on in, wholly unaware
that he was still tiptoeing.
Two girl stenographers sat in a coiner, whispering. At sight of him they
hushed. He passed on. The other girls were not at their desks, though he
thought that most of their hats and coats hung in the farther corner
as usual. The office boy was not to be seen. The copy editor and
proof-reader was not in her cubby-hole at the end of the corridor. Miss
Hardwick's door was shut; but as he passed he thought he heard a rustle
within, and he was certain that he saw the tip of a hat feather over the
partition.
He came to his own door. It was ajar. He felt sure he had closed it
when he left. It was his regular practise to close it. He stopped short,
considering this as if it was a matter of genuine importance. Then it
occurred to him that the boy might have been in there with proofs.
Doctor Wilde's door at the end of the corridor stood open. The
seven-foot square mahogany desk, heaped with papers and books, looked
natural enough, but the chair behind it was empty.
He tiptoed forward, threw his door open. Then he literally gasped. For
there, between the desk and the window, stood the Walrus. He held the
nicked editorial shears in his hand--he must have picked them up from
the floor--and was in the act of looking from them to the cut ends of
the wires by the buzzer.
Hy's overcharged nervous system leaped for the nearest outlet. “I cut
the damn things myself,” he said, “this morning.”
The Walrus turned toward him an ashen face.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I didn't know they were objectionable to you.”
“I've hated them for three years,” said Hy.
“You should have spoken. It is better to speak of things.”
“Speak nothing!” Hy sputtered. “I stood a fine chance.”
“You know,” observed Doctor Wilde, as if he had not heard--his voice was
husky and curiously weak--“we were interrupted this morning. You were
wrong in imagining that a resignation was necessary. You jumped at that
conclusion. I should say that you were unnecessarily touchy.”
“But my character--”
“I repeat, it seems to me that you were unnecessarily touchy. A man must
not be too sensitive. He should be strong to take as well as give blows.
Your actions, it seemed to me, perhaps wrongly, were a blow to me, to
the prestige of this establishment. You must understand, Mr. Lowe, that
in this life that we all must live”--absently he looked about to see
if Miss Hardwick's pencil was poised to render imperishable the thought
that he was about to put into words, caught himself, brushed a limp
hand (with the shears in them) across his eyes, then went on with an
effort--“I will say further that when we spoke this morning I had not
seen the dummy for the issue of July tenth. Now I don't mind telling you
that I regard that as a good dummy. You have there caught my ideas of
sound make-up better than ever before. And I have--”
“But my character--”
“--and I have just written instructions to Mr. Hennessy to make a change
in your salary beginning with next Saturday's envelope. You are
now doing the work of a full managing editor. Your income should
be sufficient to enable you to support the position with reasonable
dignity. Hereafter you will draw sixty dollars a week.”
He moved toward the door. He seemed suddenly a really old man, grayer of
hair and skin, more bent, less certain of his footing.
“Here!” cried Hy, sputtering in uncontrollable excitement, “those are my
shears.”
“Ah, so they are. I did not notice.” And the Walrus came back, laid them
carefully on the desk: then walked out, entered his own room, closed the
dour.
Hy shut his door, stood for a moment by the desk, sank, an inert figure,
into his chair. His eyes focused on the old alpaca coat, stuffed into
the waste basket. He took it out; spread it on the desk and stared at
the ink stains. “I can have it cleaned,” he thought. Suddenly he pressed
two shaking hands to his throbbing head.
“My God!” he muttered, aloud. “What did I say to him. What didn't I say
to him? I'm a loon! I'm a nut! This is the asylum!”
He stiffened up; sat there for a moment, wildeyed. He reached down and
pinched his thigh, hard. He sprang up and paced the room. He wheeled
suddenly, craftily, on the silent buzzer, there on the partition. So far
all right--the wires were cut!
He saw the shears lying on the desk; pounced on them and feverishly
examined the blades. One was nicked.
So far, so good. But the supreme test remained. He plunged out into the
silent corridor, hesitated, stood wrestling with the devils within him,
conquered them and white as all the ghosts tapped at Doctor Wilde's
door, opened it a crack, stuck in his head, and said:
“How much did you say it was to be, Doctor?”
The Walrus compressed his lips, and then drew a deep breath that was not
unlike a sigh. “The figure I mentioned,” he replied, “was sixty dollars
a week. If that is satisfactory to you.”
Hy considered this. “On the whole,” he said finally, “considering
everything, I will agree to that.”
At ten minutes past midnight Hy let himself into the rooms. One gas jet
was burning dimly in the studio. As he stood on the threshold he could
just make out the long figure of the Worm half reclining in the Morris
chair by a wide-open window, attired in the striped pajamas of the
morning. From one elevated foot dangled a slipper of Chinese straw. He
was smoking his old brier.
“Hello!” said Hy cheerfully.
Silence. Then, “Hello!” replied the Worm.
Hy tossed his hat on the couch-bed of the absent Peter, then came and
stood by the open window, thrust hands deep into trousers packets,
sniffed the mild evening air, gazed benevolently on the trees, lights
and little moving figures of the Square. Then he lit a cigarette.
“Great night, my son!” said he.
The Worm lowered his pipe, looked up with sudden sharp interest, studied
the gay young person standing so buoyantly there before him; then
replaced the pipe and smoked on in silence.
“Oh, come!” cried Hy, after a bit. “Buck up! Be a live young newspaper
man!”
“I'm not a newspaper man,'” replied the Worm.
“You're not a---you were this afternoon.”
“True.”
“Say, my son, what were you around for today?”
The pipe came down again. “You mean to say you don't know?”
“Not a thing. Except that the place went absolutely on the fritz. I
thought I had 'em.”
“I don't wonder,” muttered Henry Bates.
“And the Walrus raised me fifteen bucks per. Just like that!”
“He raised you?”
“Yes, my child.” Hy came around, sat on the desk, dangled his legs.
“Then,” observed the Worm, “he certainly thinks you know.”
“Elucidate! Elucidate!”
The Worm knocked the ashes from his pipe; turned the warm bowl around
and around in his hand. “Our paper--I should say _The Courier_--. has a
story on Doctor Wilde--a charge that he has misappropriated missionary
funds. They sent me up to-day to ask if he would consent to an
accounting.”
Hy whistled.
“The amount is put roughly at a million dollars. I didn't care much
about the assignment.”
“I should think not.”
“I'm fond of Sue. But it was my job. When I told him what I was there
for, he ran me out of his office, locked the door and shouted through
the transom that he had a bottle of poison in his desk and would take
it if I wouldn't agree to suppress the story. As if he'd planned exactly
that scene for years.”
“Aha,” cried Hy--“melodrama.”
“Precisely. Melodrama. It was unpleasant.”
“You accepted the gentleman's proposition, I take it.”
“I dislike murders.”
Hy, considering this, stiffened up. “Say,” he cried, “what's the paper
going to do about it?”
“I saw the assistant city editor this evening at the Parisian bar.
He tells me they have decided to drop the story. But they dropped me
first.” He looked shrewdly at Hy. “So don't worry. You can count on your
raise.”
Hy's cigarette had gone out. He looked at it, tossed it out the window,
lit a fresh one.
“Of course,” said he, “a fellow likes to know where he gets off.”
“Or at least that he is off,” said the Worm, and went to bed.
Hy let him go. A dreamy expression came into his eyes. As he threw
off coat and waistcoat and started unbuttoning his collar, he hummed
softly:
"I want si-_imp_-athee,
Si-_imp_-athee, just _symp_-ah-thee."
He embraced an imaginary young woman--a blonde who was slow of speech
and luxurious in movements--and danced slowly, rather gracefully across
the room.
All was right with the world!