With a vague little wave of one hand, and a perplexed expression, he
replied: 'Yes, of course.' And hurried off.
6
Mr Boice wasn't at his desk at the _Voice_ sanctum. Henry could see that
much through the front window.
He didn't go in. He felt that he couldn't talk with Humphrey--or
anybody--right now. Except old Boice. He was gunning for him. Equal to
him, too. Equal to anything. Blazing with determination. Could lick a
regiment.
He found his employer down at the post-office. In his little den behind
the money-order window. He asked Miss Hemple, there, if he could please
speak to Mr Boice.
Once again on this eventful day that conservative member of the village
triumvirate found himself forced to gaze at the dressy if now slightly
rumpled youth with a silly little moustache that he couldn't seem to
let go of, and the thin bamboo stick with a crook at the end. The youth
whose time was so valuable that he couldn't arrange to do his work. And
once again irritation stirred behind the spotted, rounded-out vest and
the thick, wavy, yellowish-white whiskers.
He sat back in his swivel chair; looked at Henry with lustreless eyes;
made sounds.
'Mr Boice,' said Henry, 'I--I want to speak with you. It's--it's this
way. I don't feel that you're doing quite the right thing by me.'
Another sound from the editor-postmaster. Then silence.
'You gave me to understand that I'd get better pay if I suited. Well,
the way you're doing it, I don't even get as much. It ain't right! It
ain't square! Now--well--you see, I've about come to the conclusion that
if the work I do ain't worth ten a week--well----'
It is to be remembered of Norton P. Boice that he was a village
politician of something like forty years' experience. As such he put no
trust whatever in words. Once to-day he had raised his voice, and
the fact was disturbing. He had weathered a thousand little storms
by keeping his mouth shut, sitting tight. He never criticised or
quarrelled. He disbelieved utterly in emotions of any sort. He hadn't
written a letter in twenty-odd years. And he was not likely to lose his
temper again this day--week--or month.
Henry didn't dream that at this moment he was profoundly angry.
Though Henry was too full of himself to observe the other party to the
controversy.
Mr Boice clasped his hands on his stomach and sat still.
Henry chafed.
After a time Mr Boice asked, 'Have you done the story of the Business
Men's Picnic?'
Henry shook his head.
'Better get it done, hadn't you?'
Henry shook his head again.
Mr Boice continued to sit--motionless, expressionless. His thoughts ran
to this effect:--The article on the picnic was by far the most important
matter of the whole summer. Every advertiser on Simpson Street looked
for whole paragraphs about himself and his family. Henry was supposed to
cover it. He had been there. It would be by no means easy, now, to work
up a proper story from any other quarter.
'Suppose,' he remarked, 'you go ahead and get the story in. Then we can
have a little talk if you like. I'm rather busy this afternoon.'
He tried to say it ingratiatingly, but it sounded like all other sounds
that passed his lips--colourless, casual.
Henry stood up very stiff; drew in a deep breath or two; His fingers
tightened about his stick. His colour rose.
He leaned over; rested a hand on the corner of the desk.
'Mr Boice,' he said, firmly if huskily, and a good deal louder than was
desirable, here in the post-office, within ear-shot of the moneyorder
window--'Mr Boice, what I want from you won't take two minutes of your
time. You'd better tell me, right now, whether I'm worth ten dollars a
week to the _Voice_. Beginning this week. If I'm not--I'll hand in my
string Saturday and quit. Think I can't do better'n this! I wonder! You
wait till about next November. Maybe I'll show the whole crowd of you a
thing or two! Maybe----'
For the second time on this remarkable day the unexpected happened to
and through Norton P. Boice.
Slowly, with an effort and a grunt, he got to his feet. Colour appeared
in his face, above the whiskers. He pointed a huge, knobby finger at the
door.
'Get out of here!' he roared. 'And stay out!'
Henry hesitated, swung away, turned back to face him; finally obeyed.
Jobless, stirred by a rather fascinating sense of utter catastrophe,
thinking with a sudden renewal of exultation about Corinne, Henry
wandered up to the Y.M.C.A. rooms and idly, moodily, practise shooting
crokinole counters.
Shortly he wandered out. An overpowering restlessness was upon him. He
wanted desperately to do something, but didn't know what it could be. It
was as if a live wild animal, caged within his breast, was struggling to
get out.
He walked over to the rooms; threw off his coat; tried fooling at the
piano; gave it up and took to pacing the floor.
There were peculiar difficulties here, in the big living-room. Corinne
had spent an evening here. She had sat in this chair and that, had
danced over the hardwood floor, had smiled on him. The place, without
Her, was painfully empty.
He knew now that he wanted to write. But he didn't know what. The wild
animal was a story. Or a play. Or a poem. Perhaps the poem Corinne had
begged for. He stood in the middle of the room, closed his eyes, and
saw and felt Corinne close to him. It was a mad but sweet reverie. Yes,
surely it was the poem!
He found pencil and paper--a wad of copy paper, and curled up in the
window-seat.
Things were not right. Not yet. He was the victim of wild forces. They
were tearing at him. It was no longer restlessness--it was a mighty
passion. It was uncomfortable and thrilling. Queer that the impulse to
write should come so overwhelmingly without giving him, so far, a hint
as to what he was to write. Yet it was not vague. He had to do it. And
at once. Find the right place and go straight at it. It would come out.
It would have to come out.
7
Mr Boice came heavily into the Voice office and sank into his creaking
chair by the front window.
Humphrey went swiftly, steadily through galley after galley of proof.
Humphrey had the trained eye that can pick out an inverted _u_ in a page
of print at three feet. He smoked his cob pipe as he worked.
Mr Boice drew a few sheets of copy paper from a pigeonhole, took up a
pencil in his stiff fingers, and gazed down over his whiskers.
It was a decade or more since the 'editor' of the Voice had done any
actual work. Every day he dropped quiet suggestions, whispered a word of
guidance to this or that lieutenant, and listened to assorted ideas and
opinions. He was a power in the village, no doubt about that. But to
compose and write out three columns of his own paper was hopelessly
beyond him. It called for youth, or for the long habit of a country
hack. The deep permanent grooves in his mind were channels for another
sort of thinking.
For an hour he sat there. Gradually Humphrey became aware of him. It was
odd anyway that he should be here. He seldom returned in the afternoon.
Finally he looked over at the younger man, and made sounds.
Humphrey raised his head; removed his pipe.
'Guess you better fix up a little account of the Business Men's Picnic,
Weaver,' he remarked.
'Henry's doing that.'
Mr Boice's massive head moved slowly, sidewise. 'No,' he said, 'he won't
be doing it.'
Humphrey leaned back in his chair. His face wrinkled reflectively; his
brows knotted. He held up his pipe; rubbed the worn cob with the palm
of his hand.
Mr Boice got up and moved toward the door.
'I've let Henry go,' he said.
Humphrey went on rubbing his pipe; squinting at it.
Mr Boice paused in the door; looked back.
'I'll ask you to attend to it, Weaver.'
Humphrey shook his head.
Mr Boice stood looking at him.
'No,' said Humphrey. 'Afraid I can't help you out.'
Mr Boice stood motionless. There was no expression on his face, but
Humphrey knew what the steady look meant. He added:--
'I wasn't there.'
Still Mr Boice stood. Humphrey took a fresh galley proof from the hook
and fell to work at it. After a little Mr Boice moved back to his desk
and creaked down into his chair. Again he reached for the copy paper.
Humphrey, in a merciful moment when he was leaving for the day, thought
of suggesting that Murray Johnston, local man for the City Press
Association, might be called on in the emergency. He had been at the
picnic. He could write the story easily enough, if he could spare the
time. A faint smile flitted across his face at the reflection that it
would cost old Boice five or six times what he was usually willing to
pay in the _Voice_.
But Mr Boice, bending over the desk, a pencil gripped in his fingers, a
sentence or two written and crossed out on the top sheet of copy paper,
did not so much as lift his eyes. And Humphrey went on out.
8
Humphrey let himself into Mrs Henderson's front hall, closed the screen
door gently behind him, and looked about the dim interior. There
seemed to be no one in the living-room. The girls were in the kitchen,
doubtless, getting supper. Mildred had faithfully promised not to bother
cooking anything hot. He hung up his hat.
Then he saw a feminine figure up the stairs, curled on the top-step,
against the wall.
It was Corinne. She was pressing her finger to her lips and shaking her
head.
She motioned him out toward the kitchen. There he found his hostess.
'Seen Henry?' he asked. 'Old Boice fired him to-day, and he's
disappeared. Not at the rooms. And I looked in at the Y.M.C.A.'
'He's here,' said Mildred. 'A very interesting thing is happening,
Humphrey. I've always told you he was a genius.'
'But what's up?'
'We've got him upstairs at my desk. He's writing something.