Oh, how many a young man, standing at the parting of life's main roads,
has lost for ever the golden opportunity because he stopped to light a
cigarette!'
Henry replaced the book under the pile of exchanges. A copy of last
week's _Voice_ lay there.
It was the first time he had let an issue of the paper go by without
reading and re-reading every line of his own work. But he had, during
these five days, passed through one of life's great revolutions.
Besides, he had been put on a salary basis. When on space-rates, it had
been necessary to cut everything out and paste it up into a 'string' for
measurement. It came to him now, with a warm little uprush of memory,
that the best piece of writing he had ever done would be in this issue.
He opened the paper. There was his story, occupying all of page three
that wasn't given up to advertisements. This was better than working.
Besides, he ought to go over it. He settled down to it.
3
The sound that caused Humphrey to start up in surprise was the first
outbreak of profanity he had ever heard from the lips of Henry Calverly.
Henry was sitting up stiffly, holding last week's _Voice_ with hands
that distinctly trembled. When Humphrey first looked, he was white, but
after a moment the colour began flowing back to his face and continued
flowing until his face was red. His lips were clamped tight, as if the
small verbal explosion that had just passed them had proved even more
startling to himself than to Humphrey. 'What is it?' asked the editor.
Henry stared at the outspread paper.
'This!' he got out. 'This--this!'
'What's the matter, Hen?'
'Don't you _know?_'
'Oh, your picnic story! Yes--but--what on earth is the matter with you?'
'You _know_, Hump! You never told me!'
'You mean the cuts?'
'Oh--yes!' This 'Oh' was a moan of anguish.
'Good heavens, Hen--you didn't for a minute think we could print it as
you wrote it?' Henry's facial muscles moved, but he got no words
out. Humphrey, touched, went on. 'I don't mind telling you--between
ourselves--that the thing as you wrote it, every word, is the best
bit of descriptive writing I've seen this year. But you wrote the
real story, boy. You painted the whole Simpson Street bunch as they
are--every wart. It's a savage picture. Why, we'd have dropped seventy
per cent, of our advertising between Saturday and Monday! And the queer
little picture of Charlie Waterhouse out behind the lemonade stand----
Why, boy, that's enough to bust open the town!
With Bob McGibbon gunning for Charlie and demanding an accounting of the
town money! Gee!'
Henry seemed hardly to hear this.
'Who--who re-wrote it?'
'I did some. The old man polished it off himself.'
'It's ruined!'
'Of course. But it brought you a raise to twelve a week. That's
something.'
'You don't understand. It was my work. And it was true. I wrote the
truth.'
'That's why.'
'Then they don't want the truth?'
'Good lord--no!'
Henry considered this, bent over as if to read further, twisted his
flushed face as if in pain, then abruptly sprang up.
'What's become of it--the piece I wrote?'
'Well, Hen--I didn't feel that we had a right to destroy the thing. Too
dam good! In a sense, it's the old man's property; in another sense,
it's yours----'
'It's mine!'
'In a sense. At any rate, I took it on myself to have a copy made
confidentially. Then I turned the original over to Mr Boice. He doesn't
know.'
'Where's the copy?'
'Here in my desk.'
'Give it to me!'
'Just hold your horses a minute, Hen----'
'You give it----'
Humphrey threw up a hand, then opened a drawer. He handed over the
typewritten manuscript.
'Who made this?'
'Gertie Wombast. I warned her to keep her mouth shut.'
'How much did it cost?'
'Oh, see here, Hen--I won't talk to you! Not till you get over this
excitement.'
'I'm not excited. Or, at least----'
Humphrey gave a shrug. Henry, gripping the roll of manuscript, started
out.
'Wait a minute, Hen! What do you think you're going to do?'
'What do you s'pose? Only one thing I _can_ do!'
'Going after the old man?'
'Of course! You would yourself, if----'
'No, I wouldn't. Not in any such rush as that. It's upsetting to have
your good work pawed over and cut to pieces, but twelve a week is----'
'Oh, Hump, it's everything! He's made it impossible for me. I could
stand some of it, but not all this. He ain't fair! He _wants_ to make it
hard for me! He's just thinking up ways to be mean. And he's spoiled my
work--best thing I've ever done in my life! And now people will never
know how well I can write.'
'Oh, yes, they will!'
'No, they won't. I'll never feel just that way again. It's a feeling
that comes. And then it goes. You can't do anything about it. It was
Corinne and the way I felt about her. And a lot o' things. Seemed to
make me different. Lifted me up. I was red-hot.' He reached out and
struck the paper from the table to the floor. 'You bet I'll go to old
Boice! 'I'll tell him a thing or two I He'll know something's happened
before he gets through with me. I've had something to say to him for a
good while. Going to say it now. Guess he don't know I'll be twenty-one
in November. Have a little money then. He can't put it over me. I'll buy
his old paper. Or start another one. I'll make the town too hot for him.
Thinks he owns all Sunbury. But he _don't!_'
'Hen,' said Humphrey bravely, when the irate youth paused for breath,
'you simply must not try to talk to him while you're mad as this.'
'But don't you see, Hump,' cried Henry, his face working with vexation,
tears close to his eyes; 'it's just the time! When I'm mad. If I wait,
I'll never say a word.'
He rolled the manuscript tightly in his hand, bit his lip, then abruptly
rushed out.
'Look here,' cried Humphrey. 'Don't you go showing that----'
But the only reply was the noisy slam of the screen door.
Face set, eyes wild behind their glasses, Henry hurried down Simpson
Street toward the post-office.
Miss Hemple, at the money-order window, said that Mr Boice was having a
talk with Mr Waterhouse in the back office and wasn't to be disturbed.
Henry turned away. For a little time he studied the weather-chart
hanging on the wall. He went to the wide front window and gazed out on
the street. His determination was already oozing away. He found himself
slouching and straightened up. Repeatedly he had to do this. Four times
he went back to the money-order window; four times Miss Hemple smiled
and shook her head.
Martha Caldwell walked by with the two Smith girls. He thought she saw
him. If so, she carefully avoided a direct glance. They still weren't
speaking. At least, Martha wasn't. And to think that during three long
years, except for another episode now and than, she had been his girl!
Heigh-ho! No more girls! He was through!
The Ames's carriage rolled fly. Mary Ames was in it. And--apparently,
unmistakably--the new girl. The girl of the Sunbury House veranda. She
was chatting brightly. She _was_ pretty.
He turned mournfully away. She was not for him. Once it might have been
possible--back in his gay big days. But not now. Not now.
He approached the window for the sixth time. For the sixth time, Miss
Hemple shook her head.
He wandered out to the door.
His chance had passed. If the old man should, at this moment, and alone,
come walking out, he would say meekly, 'Good-afternoon, Mr Boice,' and
hurry away. He would even try to look busy and earnest. There was shame
in the thought. His mouth was drooping at the corners. All of him--body,
mind, spirit--was sagging now. He moved, slowly down toward the tracks,
entered the little lunch-counter place there and ate a thick piece of
lemon-meringue pie. Which was further weakness. He knew it. It completed
his depression.
He felt that he must think. He ordered another piece of pie. He wished
he hadn't said so much to Humphrey. Would he ever learn to control the
spoken word? Probably not. He sighed. And ate. He couldn't very well go
back to the office. Not like this--in defeat. All that work, too I
Life, work, friendship, all the realities seemed to be slipping from
his grasp. His thoughts were drifting off into a haze. It was an old
familiar mood. It had come often during his teens. Not so much lately;
but he was as helpless before it as he had been at eighteen, when he
finally drifted aimlessly out of his class at the high school.
In those days, it had been his habit to wander along the beach, sit on
a breakwater, let life and love and duty drift by beyond his reach.
Thither he headed now by a back street. Too many people he knew along
Simpson Street. Besides, he might be thrown face to face with the old
man.
At the corner of Filbert Avenue he met the editor and proprietor of the
_Gleaner_. He inclined his head with unconscious severity and would have
passed on.
But Robert A. McGibbon came to a halt, smiled in a thin strained
fashion, and glanced curiously from Henry's face to the tightly rolled
manuscript in his hand and back to the face.
'Well,' he remarked, 'how's things?'
Henry wanted to be let alone. But he had never deliberately snubbed
anybody in his life. He couldn't. So he, too, came to a stop.
'Oh, pretty good,' he replied.
4
He found himself, in his turn, looking Mr McGibbon over. The man was
just a little seedy. He had a hand up, rubbing the back of his head
under the tipped-down straw hat, and Henry noted the shiny black surface
of his sleeve. He had a freckled, thinly alert face, a little pinched.
His hair was straight and came down raggedly about ears and collar.
Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, small, sharp eyes, very keen,
appeared to be darting this way and that, restlessly noting everything
within their range of vision.
'Things going well over at the _Voice_ office?' Henry was silent. He
couldn't lie. 'Not going so well, eh? That's too bad. Anything special
up?'
'No,' said Henry, finding his voice untrustworthy; 'nothing special.'
'What you doing now? Anything much?' Henry shook his head. 'Taking a
little walk, perhaps.'
'Why--yes.'
'Mind if I walk along with you?'
'Why--no.'
They fell into step.
'Been thinking a little about you lately. Wondering if you were happy
in your work over there.' Henry compressed his lips. 'Did you write
the Business Men's Picnic story?' Henry was silent. 'Pretty fair job, I
thought.'
'It was terrible!'
'Oh, no--not terrible. You're too hard on yourself.'
'I'm not hard on myself. It's _his_ fault. He spoiled it.'
'Who--Boice? I shouldn't wonder. He could spoil _The New York Sun_ in
two days, with just a little rope.'
'He tore it all to pieces. I've got the real story here. I couldn't let
you see it, of course.'
McGibbon glanced down at the roll of paper.
'You like to write, don't you?' Henry nodded shortly. 'Boice won't let
you do it, I suppose.' Henry shook his head. 'He wouldn't. You
know, there isn't really any reason why a country paper shouldn't
be interesting. Play to the subscriber, you know. Boice plays to the
advertiser and the county printing. Other way takes longer, takes a
little more money at first, but once you get your subscriber hooked, the
advertiser has to follow. Better for the long game.'
Henry was only half listening. They were crossing the Lake Shore Drive
now. They stopped at the railing and looked out over the lake. Henry's
thoughts were darting this way and that, searching instinctively for a
weak spot in the wall of fate that had closed in on him.
'I've got a little money,' he said.
McGibbon smiled.
'Well, it has its uses.'
'I haven't quite got it. I get the interest. And they'll have to give
me all of it in November. The seventh. I'll be twenty-one then.' These
words seemed to reassure. Henry. 'Yes; I'll be twenty-one. It's quite a
little, too. Over four thousand dollars. It was my mother's.'
'It's not to be sneezed at,' said McGibbon reflectively. 'If I had four
thousand right now--or one thousand, for that matter--I could make sure
of turning my corner and landing the old _Gleaner_ on Easy Street.
I've had a fight with that paper. Been through a few things these eight
months. But I'm gaining circulation in chunks now. Six months more, and
I'll nail that gang.'
'You know'--McGibbon threw a knee up on the railing and lighted a
cigar--'it takes money to make money.'
'Oh, yes--of course,' said Henry.
'A thousand dollars now on the _Gleaner_ would be worth ten thousand
ten years from now.' He smoked thoughtfully. 'I've been watching you,
Calverly. And if it wasn't so tough on you, I could laugh at old Boice.
He's got a jewel in you, and he doesn't know it. I suppose he keeps you
grinding--correcting proof, running around----'
'Oh, you've no idea!' Henry burst out. 'Everything! Just an awful grind!
And now he expects me to cover all the “Society” and “Church Doings.”'
'What! How's that? Has he come down on Miss Dittenhoefer?'
Henry swallowed convulsively and nodded.
'He's piling it all on me, and I won't stand for it. It ain't right! It
'ain't fair! And you bet your life he's going to hear a few things from
me before this day's much older! I'm going to tell him a thing or two!'
'That's right!' said McGibbon. 'He won't respect you any the less for
it.'
A silence followed. Henry stood, flushed, breathing hard through set
teeth, staring out at the horizon.
'I'm going to tell you something, Calverly. And it's because I feel that
you and I are going to be friends. I've known about you, of course. I
know you can write. You'd do a lot to make a paper readable. Which is
what a paper has got to be. But now I can see that we're going to be
friends. You've confided in me. I'm going to confide in you.' He paused,
blew out a long, meditative arrow of smoke, then added, 'I know a little
about that story you wrote.'
'_You_ do!' McGibbon slowly nodded. 'But how?'
'You must remember, Calverly, that I'm not like these small-town folks
around here. I've worked at this game in New York, and I know a thing or
two.'
'I've been in New York,' said Henry.
'Great town! But I don't spend my time here in daydreams. I have my
lines out all over town. There's mighty little going on that I don't
know.'
'You seem to know a lot about Charlie Waterhouse.'