Mrs. Fanhall, with the two children, the Worcester girls, and Hollanden,
clambered down the rocky path. Miss Fanhall and Hawker had remained on
top of the ledge. Hollanden showed much zeal in conducting his
contingent to the foot of the falls. Through the trees they could see
the cataract, a great shimmering white thing, booming and thundering
until all the leaves gently shuddered.
"I wonder where Miss Fanhall and Mr. Hawker have gone?" said the younger
Miss Worcester. "I wonder where they've gone?"
"Millicent," said Hollander, looking at her fondly, "you always had such
great thought for others."
"Well, I wonder where they've gone?"
At the foot of the falls, where the mist arose in silver clouds and the
green water swept into the pool, Miss Worcester, the elder, seated on
the moss, exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Hollanden, what makes all literary men so
peculiar?"
"And all that just because I said that I could have made better
digestive organs than Providence, if it is true that he made mine,"
replied Hollanden, with reproach. "Here, Roger," he cried, as he dragged
the child away from the brink, "don't fall in there, or you won't be the
full-back at Yale in 1907, as you have planned. I'm sure I don't know
how to answer you, Miss Worcester. I've inquired of innumerable literary
men, and none of 'em know. I may say I have chased that problem for
years. I might give you my personal history, and see if that would throw
any light on the subject." He looked about him with chin high until his
glance had noted the two vague figures at the top of the cliff. "I might
give you my personal history----"
Mrs. Fanhall looked at him curiously, and the elder Worcester girl
cried, "Oh, do!"
After another scanning of the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollanden
established himself in an oratorical pose on a great weather-beaten
stone. "Well--you must understand--I started my career--my career, you
understand--with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I have
ended in being an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, and a
juggler of comic paragraphs, there was once carved upon my lips a smile
which made many people detest me, for it hung before them like a banshee
whenever they tried to be satisfied with themselves. I was informed from
time to time that I was making no great holes in the universal plan, and
I came to know that one person in every two thousand of the people I saw
had heard of me, and that four out of five of these had forgotten it.
And then one in every two of those who remembered that they had heard of
me regarded the fact that I wrote as a great impertinence. I admitted
these things, and in defence merely builded a maxim that stated that
each wise man in this world is concealed amid some twenty thousand
fools. If you have eyes for mathematics, this conclusion should interest
you. Meanwhile I created a gigantic dignity, and when men saw this
dignity and heard that I was a literary man they respected me. I
concluded that the simple campaign of existence for me was to delude
the populace, or as much of it as would look at me. I did. I do. And now
I can make myself quite happy concocting sneers about it. Others may do
as they please, but as for me," he concluded ferociously, "I shall never
disclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, a
juggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art and
philosophy."
"I don't believe a word of it is true," said Miss Worcester.
"What do you expect of autobiography?" demanded Hollanden, with
asperity.
"Well, anyhow, Hollie," exclaimed the younger sister, "you didn't
explain a thing about how literary men came to be so peculiar, and
that's what you started out to do, you know."
"Well," said Hollanden crossly, "you must never expect a man to do what
he starts to do, Millicent. And besides," he went on, with the gleam of
a sudden idea in his eyes, "literary men are not peculiar, anyhow."
The elder Worcester girl looked angrily at him. "Indeed? Not you, of
course, but the others."
"They are all asses," said Hollanden genially.
The elder Worcester girl reflected. "I believe you try to make us think
and then just tangle us up purposely!"
The younger Worcester girl reflected. "You are an absurd old thing, you
know, Hollie!"
Hollanden climbed offendedly from the great weather-beaten stone. "Well,
I shall go and see that the men have not spilled the luncheon while
breaking their necks over these rocks. Would you like to have it spread
here, Mrs. Fanhall? Never mind consulting the girls. I assure you I
shall spend a great deal of energy and temper in bullying them into
doing just as they please. Why, when I was in Brussels----"
"Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were in Brussels, you know," said the
younger Worcester girl.
"What of that, Millicent?" demanded Hollanden. "This is autobiography."
"Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such whoppers."
With a gesture of despair he again started away; whereupon the
Worcester girls shouted in chorus, "Oh, I say, Hollie, come back! Don't
be angry. We didn't mean to tease you, Hollie--really, we didn't!"
"Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, "why did you----"
The elder Worcester girl was gazing fixedly at the top of the cliff.
"Oh, there they are! I wonder why they don't come down?"