'But don't business men borrow----'
'Borrow! Me? In this town? They wouldn't lend me the rope to hang myself
with... Hold on there, Hen--'
For the young man had picked up his stick and was moving toward the
door. And as he hurried out he was saving, without looking back:--
'No... No!'
He said it on the stairs, where none could hear. He rushed around the
corner, around the block. Anything to keep off Simpson Street. He had
a really rather desperate struggle to keep from talking his heart
out--aloud--in the street--angrily--attacking Boice, Weston, and
McGibbon in the same breath. His feeling against McGibbon amounted
to bitterness now. But his feeling against old Boice had risen to the
borders of rage. He thought of that silent, ponderous old man, sitting
at his desk in the post-office, like a spider weaving his subtle web
about the town, where helpless little human flies crawled innocently
about their uninspired daily tasks.
So Mr Boice had offered five hundred for plant, good will, and the
stories!
No mere legal, technical claim on those stories as property, as assets,
held the slightest interest for Henry. He couldn't understand that.
They were his. He had created them, made them out of nothing--just a
few one-cent lead pencils and a lot of copy paper. Bob had snatched them
away to print them in the _Gleaner_. But they weren't Bob's.
'They're mine!' he said aloud. 'They're mine! Old Boice shan't have
them! Never!' He caught himself then; looked about sharply, all hot
emotion and tingling nerves.
5
A little later--it was getting on toward noon--he found himself on
Filbert Avenue approaching Simpson Street. Without plan or guidance, he
was heading northward, toward the rooms. It would be necessary to cross
Simpson Street. He was fighting down the impulse to go several blocks
to the east, toward the lake, where the stores and shops gave place to
homes and lawns and shade trees, where he could slip across unnoticed;
but his feet were leading him straight toward the corner of Filbert and
Simpson, the busiest, most conspicuous corner in town, where were the
hotel and Berger's grocery and, only a few doors off, Donovan's drug
store and Swanson's flower shop and Duneen's general store and the
_Voice_ office. It had come down, the warfare within him, to a question
of proving to himself that he wasn't a coward, that he could face
disaster, even the complete disaster that seemed now to be upon him. It
was like the end of the world.
In a pocket his fingers were tightly clasped about the anonymous note
that had been the cloud over his troubled sleep of the night and his
gloomy awakening of the morning. The note was now but a detail in the
general crash. He decided to press on, march straight across Simpson
Street, head high. He even brought out the note from his pocket; held it
in his hand as he walked stiffly on. It was a somewhat bitter touch of
bravado, but I find I like Henry none the less for it.
A little way short of the corner, it must be recorded, he faltered. It
was by Berger's rear door. There was a gate in the fence here, that now
stood open. Two of the Berger delivery wagons were backed in there. And
right by the gate Henry Berger himself, his ample person enveloped in a
long white apron, was opening a crate.
Henry sensed him there; flushed (for it seemed that he could not speak
to any human being now) and wrestled, in painful impotence of will, with
the idea of moving on.
But then, through a slow moment after Mr Berger said, 'How are you,
Henry!' he sensed something further; a note of good nature in the voice,
a feeling that the man was smiling, a suggestion that all the genial
quality had not, after all, been hardened out of life.
He turned; pulled at his moustache (paper in hand), and flicked at weeds
with his stick.
Mr Berger _was_ smiling. He drew his hand across a sweaty brow; shook
the hand; then leaned on his hatchet.
'Getting hot,' he remarked.
Henry tried to reply, but found himself still inarticulate.
'Old Boice is getting after you. Plenty.'
Henry winced; but felt slightly reassured when Mr Berger chuckled. All
intercourse with Mr Berger was tempered, however, by the memory that
Henry had been caught, within the decade, stealing fruit from the cases
out front.
'He was just here. Don't mind telling you that he's trying to get
McGibbon's creditors together and throw him into bankruptcy. Doesn't
look as if there was enough out against him, though. Got to be five
hundred. It ain't as if he had a family and was running up bills. Just
living alone at the Wombasts, like he does. But old Boice is out gunning
for fair. Never saw him quite like this. First it was the advertising
boycott...'
Henry was shifting his weight from foot to foot.
'Well,' he said now, 'I guess I'd better be getting along.'
'I was just going to say, Henry, that you've give me a good laugh.
Keep on like this and you'll be famous some day.... And say! Hold on a
minute! I don't know's you're in a position to do anything about it,
but I was just going to say, I rather guess the old _Gleaner_ could be
picked up for next to nothing right now. And there's folks here that
ain't so anxious to see Boice get the market all to hisself. Not so dam
anxious.... Wait a minute! I mean, I guess once McGibbon was got rid of
the Old Boy'd find it wouldn't be so easy to hold this boycott together.
There's folks that would break away---- Well, that's about all that was
on my mind. Only I'd sorta hate to see your yarns suppressed. They're
grand reading, Henry. My wife like to 'a' died over that one last
week--_The Sultan of Simpson Street_.'
'“Caliph!”' said Henry, with a nervous eagerness. '_The Caliph of
Simpson Street_.'
'Touched up old Norton P. for fair. Made him sorer 'n a goat. My wife's
literary, and she says it's worthy of Poe. And you ought to hear the
people talking to-day about this new one.'
'_Sinbad the Treasurer!_' said Henry quickly, fearing another
misquotation:
'Yay-ah. That. Ain't had time to read it yet myself. They say it's
great.'
'Well--good-bye,' said Henry, and moved stiffly away toward the corner.
'Funny!' mused the grocer,' looking after him. 'These geniuses never
have any business sense. I give him a real opening there.'
6
Simpson Street was always crowded of a Saturday morning with thoughtful
housewives. The grocers and butchers bustled about. The rows of display
racks along the sidewalk were heaped with fresh vegetables and fruits.
The majority of the shoppers came afoot, but the kerb was lined with
buggies, surries, neat station wagons and dog-carts, crowded in between
the delivery wagons. Sunbury boasted, as well, a number of Stanhopes,
a barouche or two, and several landaus. The Jenkins family, among its
several members, had a stable full of horses and ponies. William B. Snow
owned a valuable chestnut team with silver-mounted harness. Here and
there along the street one might have seen, on this occasion, several
vehicles that might well have been described as smart.
But Sunbury had never seen anything like the equipage that, at a quarter
to twelve--a little late for selective shopping in those days--came
rolling smoothly, silently, on its rubber-shod wheels across the tracks
and past the post-office, Nelson's bakery, the Sunbury National Bank,
Duneen's and Donovan's to Swanson's flower shop.
Never, never had Sunbury seen anything quite like that. Mr Berger,
hurrying through to the front of his store, stopped short, stared out
across the street and after a breathless moment breathed the words,
'Holy Smoke!' Women stood motionless, holding heads of lettuce, boxes
of raspberries and what not, and gazed in an amazement that was actually
long minutes in reaching the normal mental state of critical appraisal.
The carriage was a Victoria, hung very low, varnished work glistening
brilliantly in the sunshine. It was upholstered conspicuously in plum
colour. The horses were jet black, glossy, perfectly matched, checked
up so high that the necks arched prettily if uncomfortably; and they had
docked tails. The harness they wore was mounted with a display of silver
that made the silver on William B. Snow's team, standing just below
Donovan's, look outright inconspicuous.
Leaning back in luxurious comfort as the carriage came so softly along
the street, holding up a parasol of black lace, overshadowing her niece,
pretty little Cicely Hamlin, who sat beside her, Madame Watt, her large
person dressed with costly simplicity in black with a touch of colour
at the throat, square of face, with an emphatic chin, a strongly hooked
nose, penetrating black eyes, surveyed the street with a commanding
dignity, an assertive dignity, if the phrase may be used. Or it may have
been that a touch of self-consciousness within her showed through the
enveloping dignity and made you think about it. Certainly there was a
final outstanding reason for self-consciousness, even in the case of
Madame Watt; for on the high box in front visible for blocks above the
traffic of the street, sat, in wooden perfection as in plum-coloured
livery, side by side, a coachman and a footman.
At Swanson's the footman leaped nimbly down and stood rigid by the step
while Madame heavily descended and passed across the walk and into the
shop.
The street lifted. Women's tongues moved briskly. Trade was resumed.
A pretty girl in the most wonderful carriage ever seen--a new girl, at
that, bringing a stir of quickened interest to the younger set--is a
magnet of considerable attracting power. Young people appeared--from
nowhere, it seemed--and clustered about the carriage. Two couples
hurried from the soda fountain in Donovan's. The de Casselles boys were
passing on their way from the Country Club courts (which were still on
the old grounds, down near the lake) in blazer coats and with expensive
rackets in wooden presses. Alfred Knight was out collecting for the
bank, and happened to be near. Mary Ames and Jane Bellman came over from
Berger's, where Mary was scrutinising cauliflowers with a cool eye.
It was at this moment that Henry reached the corner by Berger's, paused,
hopelessly, confused and torn in the swirl of success and disaster that
marked this painful day, fighting down that mad impulse to talk out loud
his resentments in a passionate torrent of words, saw the carriage, the
girl in it and the crowd about it in one nervous glance, then, suddenly
pale, lips tightly compressed, moved doggedly forward across the street.
He had nearly reached the opposite kerb--not turning; with the ugly
little note that was clasped in his left hand, he could not trust
himself to bow, he felt a miserable sort of relief that the distance
might excuse his appearing not to see; and there had to be an excuse,
or it would look to some like cowardice--when an errant summer breeze
wandered around the corner and seized on his straw hat.
He felt it lifting; dropped his stick; reached then after both hat and
stick and in doing so nearly dropped the paper. In another moment he was
to be seen, desperately white, stick in one hand, a slip of paper in
the other, running straight down Simpson Street after his hat, which
whirled, sailed, rolled, sailed again, circled, and settled in the
dust not two rods from the Watt carriage. The street, as streets, will,
turned to look.
Henry lunged for the hat. It lifted, and rolled a little way on. He
lunged again. It whirled over and over, then rolled rapidly straight
down the street, just missing the hoofs of a delivery horse, passing
under Mr George F. Smith's buggy without touching either horse or
wheels, and sailed on.
Henry fell to one knee in his second plunge. And his pallor gave place
to a hot flush.
Laughter came to his ears--jeering laughter. And it came unquestionably
from the group about the Watt carriage. The first voices were masculine.
Before he could get to his feet one or two of the girls had joined in.
In something near despair of the spirit, helplessly, he looked up.
The whole group, still laughing, turned away. All, that is, but one.
Cicely was not laughing. She was leaning a little forward, looking right
at him, not even smiling, her lips parted slightly. He was too far gone
even to speculate as to what her expression meant. It fell upon him
as the final blow. He ran on and on. In front of Hemple's market a boy
stopped the hat with his foot. Henry, trembling with rage, took it from
him, muttered a word of thanks, and rushed, followed by curious eyes,
around the corner to the north.
7
Humphrey found him, a little before one, at the rooms, and thought he
looked ill. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at a small
newspaper clipping. He looked up, through his doorway, saw his friend
standing in the living-room, mumbled a colourless greeting, and let his
heavy eyes fall again.
'What's all this?' asked Humphrey, with a rather weary, wrinkly smile.
Henry got up then and came slowly into the living-room.
'It's this,' he explained, in a voice that was husky and light, without
its usual body. 'This thing. I've had it quite a while.'