"HOW THE WOMEN STARE!"
The next day Archie Weil lunched with Lawrence Gouger. He wanted to talk
with his friend about the young author and authoress. Gouger listened
with interest to the story he had to relate, and nodded approval when it
appeared that Archie had behaved admirably thus far in relation to Miss
Millicent.
"Do you know anything about Mr. Fern?" he asked, when the other had
reached a period.
"Nothing."
"Well, neither did I, a week ago, but I have taken pains to inform
myself. He is a highly respectable elderly party, who deals in wool. He
married a very beautiful lady, who has now been dead eight or ten years
and he lives altogether in the society of his two daughters. If you
succeed in getting Millicent's book on the counters you will earn his
everlasting gratitude. They say he is not literary enough himself to be
a judge of its merits, and if she has fifty copies to present to the
family friends it will probably be all he will ask."
Mr. Weil uttered a low whistle.
"I don't know what the family friends will say of it," he replied, "but
I call it pretty warm stuff. If the list includes many prudes they will
hardly thank the girl for sending such a firebrand into their houses."
"Pshaw!" said Gouger. "The world is getting used to that sort of thing,
and they won't mind it a bit. Besides, they will be so lost in
admiration of their cousin's name on the cover that they will think of
nothing else. What did you make out of her? Is she as innocent as I
predicted?"
Archie poured out a glass of Bass' ale and sipped it slowly.
"Quite," he said, as he put it down on the table. "And she's no dunce,
either." He went on to tell of the trap he had fallen into. "I'm dying
with impatience to get her and Roseleaf together. They'd make an idealic
couple."
Mr. Gouger inquired what he was waiting for.
"Oh, I want to do the thing right," said Weil. "I want to learn her as
thoroughly as I can, before I bring him upon the stage. It will take
three or four evenings more to hear the rest of her novel, and another
to discuss it. I shall get around to him in about a fortnight, at the
rate things are going. He will keep. What do you suppose he is doing
now? Writing poetry! He sent a piece a few days ago to the _Century_,
and they accepted it."
"He will be gray when it appears," said the critic. "It takes a long
time for anything to see the light in that publication."
"But in this case an exception will be made," said Weil. "They have
assured him that it will come out in their very next issue. He will be
so proud to see his name in print that I expect to find difficulty in
holding him back. A poet who appears in the Century has certainly
stepped a little higher on the ladder."
The critic agreed to this, and remarked that such a man as Roseleaf
should give his whole attention to poetry.
"Wait!" cried Archie. "Give him time. See him after he has fallen head
over ears in love with charming Millicent Fern. There is something in
him, I feel sure, and between that dear girl and myself we will bring it
out. By-the-way, there is a character I want you to meet," he added, as
Mr. Walker Boggs came into the room. "You have never had the pleasure, I
think, though you have heard me speak of him."
Mr. Boggs had his attention attracted by a waiter who was sent for the
purpose and came with great willingness to occupy a seat with Mr. Weil
and his friend.
"We were talking of a New York merchant just now," said Archie, when the
introductions were over, "and it occurs to me that you, who know almost
everybody, may have some knowledge of him. He is in the wool business,
I hear, and I think you once told me you had done something in that way.
His name is Wilton Fern, and he lives at Midlands."
"Do I know anything about him?" echoed Mr. Boggs. "I should say so. He
was my partner for seven years, and I still have a little stake left in
the concern, on which I am drawing interest."
Mr. Weil showed his astonishment at this statement. What a very small
world it was, after all! Then, after pledging his friend not to mention
that he had ever discussed the matter with him, he went guardedly into
the particulars of Miss Millicent's book, and of his having called at
the house for the purpose of passing judgment upon it.
"I didn't know that was in your line," replied Boggs.
"Well, it was this way," answered Archie. "Mr. Gouger's decision didn't
exactly suit the young lady, as it was not very favorable. Mine will be
quite to her taste, as I view her abilities in a more favorable light.
Now tell us all about the family, as the only one of them I have met is
Miss Millicent. Why, this is a regular find, old man! You should have
told me a week ago that you possessed all this information that I have
been aching to get hold of."
Thus adjured, Mr. Boggs entered upon his story. From which it appeared
that he knew the Ferns, root and branch, and had dined with them dozens
of times.
"What sort of a chap is the pater?" asked Weil.
"A very well-kept man of nearly seventy, with a great deal of what is
called 'breeding' in his manner, and a face like the portrait of a
French marquis cut out of a seventeenth century frame. He doesn't look
like a business man at all, and between ourselves he's not much of a
one. All the money he ever made--saving my apparent egotism--was when I
was in the concern. I've heard he's got a big mortgage on his residence
and is going down hill generally. Too bad; nice fellow; sorry for him;
such is life."
Archie asked if Boggs would do him a personal and particular favor, if
it would not cause him much trouble; and on being answered in the
affirmative, said he would esteem it a great honor if he could be
introduced to Mr. Fern by that gentleman's former business associate.
"I suppose I shall run across him at Midlands, some evening," he said,
"and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things
in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an
elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the
sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow
afternoon and let me be of the party?"
Mr. Boggs responded that he would be delighted. And this matter being
settled, all parties could give more direct attention to their lunch
than they had been doing for the preceding ten minutes.
"You must have heard of my friend Boggs, in the days when he was a
figure on the streets of this town," said Weil, presently, returning to
what he knew was the favorite subject of that personage. "You've lived
here for twenty years, and of course the name of Walker Boggs is
familiar to you."
Mr. Gouger looked a good counterfeit of complete mystification for some
seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection shot across his
face.
"Certainly, certainly!" he said. "Mr. Boggs was what is popularly known
as a lady killer, if I am not mistaken. You got married, did you not,
Mr. Boggs, some ten or eleven years ago?"
The party addressed acknowledged the practical correctness of the date.
"Why, it comes back as plain as day," said the critic. "The _Herald_ had
a page about you, including your portrait and some verses by a well
known poet. It said your marriage had cast a gloom over Manhattan Island
and some of the up-river counties."
Mr. Boggs gloomily nodded, to show that the statement was true. Then he
touched his most rotund portion with a significant look.
"I'm a widower now," he said, "and nothing but this--_this_--stands in
my way. As Shakespeare says, ''Tis not as deep as a well, nor as wide as
a church door, but--' The ladies never look at me now, and all on
account of this d--d flesh, which hangs like a millstone around my
neck."
Cutt & Slashem's critic, ignoring the peculiar character of the metaphor
used, remarked politely that he thought no lady of sense would put great
stress on such an insignificant matter.
"Insignificant!" echoed Boggs. "I'll bet it's fifty inches around,
come! And it's not the 'ladies of sense' I'm after. Quite the contrary."
One of Archie Weil's explosive laughs followed this statement, which
caused an expression of mild injury to settle over the countenance of
Mr. Boggs.
"You're getting on toward forty, and you ought to quit," said Weil.
"Confound the women! Let them go."
"That's well enough to talk about," replied Boggs, gruffly. "How would
you like to follow your own advice?"
Weil uttered an exclamation.
"I? I have precious little to do with them, I assure you. For a man of
my correct habits I have the worst name of any one I know. Everybody
insinuates things about me, and they can prove nothing."
"We'll ask Isaac Leveson about that," sneered Boggs. "By-the-way, that
wouldn't be a bad place to take young Roseleaf to, when you get to
instructing him in earnest. I met the young fellow on the avenue last
night and walked around with him for a couple of hours. He's a darling!"
"Roseleaf?" cried both the other gentlemen, in one breath.
"To be sure. How the women stared at him! I couldn't blame them; his
waist isn't over thirty, and he's as handsome as--as I was at his age. I
told him he could have all the loveliness in New York at his feet, if he
liked."
Weil smiled significantly at Gouger.
"What did he reply to that?" he asked.
"Oh, he had an ideal in his head, and none of those we saw quite came up
to it; for I did get him to raise his eyes and look at the prettiest
ones. I drew out of him slowly that he would have nothing to do with a
girl unless she had red hair; that--"
Mr. Weil uttered a laugh so hearty that it attracted the attention of
everybody in the room. Mr. Boggs paused to inquire the cause of this
outbreak, but Archie assured him that something entirely out of the
present discussion had just occurred to him, which was to blame for his
impoliteness.
"A girl must have _Titian_ hair," repeated Mr. Boggs, accepting the
explanation, "or he would not consider her. He ruled out all the
striking blondes and brunettes, saying that he liked only those of a
medium shade. We came across one that answered these descriptions, an
exquisite little creature who looked as if she would swallow him could
she get the chance. And then there came out another idea. He would not
think of this fairy because she was so short. 'I want a woman five feet,
four inches tall,' he said, as if the article could be made to order, in
case the size did not happen to be in stock. Then, would you believe it,
he found a girl embracing every attribute he had mentioned. Her hair was
just the right shade, her height must have hit the mark exactly, her
complexion was medium. But no. She was too heavy. She would weigh a
hundred and forty-five, he said, quite twenty pounds too much. If we had
found a girl that filled all his description he would have invented
something new to bar her out of the race."
Mr. Weil remarked that he was not so sure of Roseleaf's insincerity. He
believed the right woman would yet be discovered, and that a case of the
most intense affection would then spontaneously develop.
"In fact," he added, "I have the identical creature in mind. It is clear
to us--to myself and Mr. Gouger here--that Shirley will never write a
thrilling romance till he has fallen wildly, passionately in love."
Mr. Boggs smiled slightly, and then sobered again.
"Shall you have him marry, also?" he inquired, pointedly.
"Why not?"
"Because it will finish him; that's why. The romance in a modern
marriage lasts six weeks. At the end of that time he will be useless for
literary purposes, or anything else."
Mr. Weil shook his head in opposition to this rash statement.
"My theory is," said he, "that a novelist should know everything. To
write of love he should have been in love; to tell of marriage he should
have had a wife--a real one, no mere imitation; to talk of fatherhood
intelligently he should become a father. How can he know his subjects
otherwise?"
The stout man smiled significantly.
"And if he wishes to write of murder, he must kill some one. And if he
wants to depict the sensations of a robber he must take a pistol and ask
people to stand, on the highway."
"Now you are becoming absurd," said Archie.
"No more than you," said Boggs. "You go too far, and you will find it
out. Let your novelist fall in love. That will do him good. But don't
let him marry, or you will lose him, mark my word. Let him contemplate
matrimony at a distance. Let him reflect on the glory of seeing his
children about his knees. So far, so good. But when you have shelved him
with a wife of the present era, when you have kept him up nights for a
month with a baby that screams--his literary capacity will be gone. Make
no mistake!"
Mr. Weil, half convinced, and much surprised to hear such wisdom from
this unexpected source, made an effort to maintain his ground.
"Nearly all the modern novelists _are_ married," he remarked.
"Yes, and nice stuff they write, don't they? Namby-pamby, silly-billy
stories, misleading in every line! They are the most unsafe pilots on
the shores of human life. They start, without exception, from false
premises. Their chart is wrong, their compass unreliable, their
reckoning ridiculous from beginning to end. Where did you ever see a bit
of real life that resembled these abortions? Do lovers usually fall on
their knees when they propose? Is the modern girl an idiot, knowing less
of the facts of nature than an oyster? Is the conversation between men
and women filled exclusively with twaddle? You would think so, from
reading these books; and why? They are written by married people, most
of them, people who don't dare step over the line of the commonplace any
more than a woman would dare order her dressmaker to put pockets in her
gown!"
Archie looked at Mr. Gouger, who nodded a partial approval of these
statements. Mr. Boggs betook himself with more interest to his chops.
And the other two gentlemen, remarking that time pressed, bade him
good-by for the day.
"I see you agree with him that I shouldn't marry Roseleaf?" said Archie,
with a rising inflection.
"There is certainly point in what he says," replied Mr. Gouger.
"But--confound it! With the boy's disposition, it will be a delicate
business," retorted Weil. "I don't know as I can carry him to the point
of passionate love for pretty Miss Fern, and then shut off the steam
when it suits me."
This matter was discussed for the next ten minutes, as the friends
walked along toward the office of Cutt & Slashem.
"I think you are foolish to delay so long introducing him to her," said
Gouger, finally. "I don't see that you are making any progress
whatever."
"Ah, but I am," replied Weil. "I am making both of them more and more
anxious for the meeting. Shirley walks the street feverishly impatient,
and I have no doubt mutters her name in his dreams. Millicent talks
about her ideal of manly beauty. When they get together failure will be
impossible."
Mr. Gouger laughed at the idea that Roseleaf was "feverishly impatient"
to meet any girl, and ventured to predict that the young man would have
to be put in irons to get him to the residence of the Ferns when the
time came; or at least to keep him there.
"Just the point I am working on," replied Weil. "Under ordinary
circumstances I would have to handcuff his wrists to mine, but I am
making such a strong impression on his imagination that he is crazy to
go. And once she gets him under her influence--I tell you, Lawrence, she
is no ordinary girl."
"She certainly does not write like one," smiled the critic, "either in
her subject or her English. You may make something of him--I rather
think you will--but not of her. Her ideas are wild, and her realism a
little too pronounced even for the present age."
"She has truth on her side, you admit," said Archie.
"Yes, to a remarkable degree."
"Well, that ought to be something, if Boggs' estimate of the modern liar
is correct. Shirley will help her to style, give her his own, if
necessary. I am going to land both of these fish, if only to spite you,
Lawrence. You tossed them away with that fine contempt of yours, and you
will weep hot tears for it before you die."
At the door of Cutt & Slashem's they met the two members of that firm,
who paused to say a word to Mr. Gouger. They were anxious for a new book
to bring out as soon as possible, and were regretting with him that
nothing worth publishing seemed to present itself.
"You may strain matters, it necessary," said Mr. Cutt. "We can't keep
up on reprints forever. I hope you made no mistake in rejecting that
book of Mrs. Hotbox. I hear it is selling well."
Mr. Gouger's face was, as ever, immovable before his employers.
"What 'Fire and Brimstone?'" he inquired. "The authorities seized the
entire edition this morning."
Mr. Cutt looked at Mr. Slashem, with a startled expression.
"In that case, I am glad we escaped it," he said. "We shouldn't like
that sort of an affair, of course."
Mr. Weil, who knew both the gentlemen well, inquired what they thought
of Mrs. Hotbox's production.
"I have never seen it," said Mr. Slashem.
"Nor I," said Mr. Cutt.
The partners disappeared into the counting-room, where they had an
interview with a binder who had offered to do their work at one-tenth of
a cent a hundred copies less than the concern with which they were then
dealing. Archie said good-by to Gouger, and went off to find Roseleaf,
with whom he had engaged to take, later in the day, a ride through the
Park.
"How soon am I to see your paragon?" sighed the young man, as they were
making the grand round of that famous drive.
"Within a week, I hope. Are you getting uneasy?"
"I am getting lonesome," was the gloomy reply. "And I want to begin
work."
"Well, it will soon pass now. To-morrow evening I am to hear another
installment of her novel. Two more sittings after that will finish it, I
should say. And the next thing will be--you. But have you seen no one
else in all this time that you care for?"
The young man looked aimlessly at the fleecy clouds that hung low on the
horizon.
"No," he answered.
"And you think you are ready for a passionate affection, if the right
person is found?"
"I will try," he said, simply.
Mr. Weil roused himself and touched his horse with the whip.
"Try!" he echoed. "You will not have to try. She will carry you off your
feet, at the first go. Shirley, I have found you a superb woman, that
you _must_ love. All I want to feel sure of is, that you can control
yourself enough to behave in a reasonable manner."
Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.
"She belongs to an eminently respectable family," explained Archie. "Her
father is a gentleman of the most honorable type. She has a young
sister, who--"
Roseleaf, slow at all times, had at last begun to comprehend.
"You surely don't think--" he began.
"Ah, that is the question! A novelist must learn so very much--a
novelist who is to depict the truth, as you are to do. Where should he
stop? What experience should he refuse, provided it may be utilized in
his work? A responsibility that is no light one will rest on me, my dear
boy, when I have introduced you to this family, and left you to your
own devices."
Roseleaf's eyes opened wider at these mysterious suggestions, but he did
not like to make any more inquiries. Weil changed the conversation,
calling attention to the women they met, who turned their handsome heads
to look at the young man, as their equipages almost touched his.
"What an awfully wide swath you are cutting!" was Archie's exclamation,
as the throng increased.