“Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a change in his voice, too, which
Ray might well have interpreted as a tone of disappointment and injury.
“Just at present, Mr. Ray, trade is rather quiet, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Ray, though he thought he had been told the
contrary. He felt very mean and guilty; the blood went to his head, and
his face burned.
“Our list for the fall trade is full, as I was saying, and we couldn’t
really touch anything till next spring.”
“Oh, I didn’t suppose it would be in time for the fall trade,” said Ray,
and in the sudden loss of the easy terms which he had been on with the
publisher, he could not urge anything further.
Mr. Brandreth must have felt their estrangement too, for he said,
apologetically: “Of course it’s our business to examine manuscripts for
publication, and I hope it’s going to be our business to publish more
and more of them, but an American novel by an unknown author, as long as
we have the competition of these pirated English novels--If we can only
get the copyright bill through, we shall be all right.”
Ray said nothing aloud, for he was busy reproaching himself under his
breath for abusing Mr. Brandreth’s hospitality.
“What is the--character of your novel?” asked Mr. Brandreth, to break
the painful silence, apparently, rather than to inform himself.
“The usual character,” Ray answered, with a listlessness which perhaps
passed for careless confidence with the young publisher, and piqued his
interest. “It’s a love-story.”
“Of course. Does it end well? A great deal depends upon the ending with
the public, you know.”
“I suppose it ends badly. It ends as badly as it can,” said the author,
feeling that he had taken the bit in his teeth. “It’s unrelieved
tragedy.”
“That isn’t so bad, sometimes,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is, if the
tragedy is intense enough. Sometimes a thing of that kind takes with the
public, if the love part is good and strong. Have you the manuscript
here in New York with you?”
“I have it here in my lap with me,” said Ray, with a desperate laugh.
Mr. Brandreth cast his eye over the package. “What do you call it? So
much depends upon a title with the public.”
“I had thought of several titles: the hero’s name for one; the heroine’s
for another. Then I didn’t know but _A Modern Romeo_ would do. It’s very
much on the lines of the play.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a sudden interest that flattered Ray
with fresh hopes. “That’s very curious. I once took part in an amateur
performance of _Romeo_ myself. We gave it in the open air. The effect
was very novel.”
“I should think it might be,” said Ray. He hastened to add, “My story
deals, of course, with American life, and the scene is laid in the
little village where I grew up.”
“Our play,” said Mr. Brandreth, “was in a little summer place in
Massachusetts. One of the ladies gave us her tennis-ground, and we made
our exits and our entrances through the surrounding shrubbery. You’ve no
idea how beautiful the mediæval dresses looked in the electric light. It
was at night.”
“It must have been beautiful,” Ray hastily admitted. “My Juliet is the
daughter of the village doctor, and my Romeo is a young lawyer, who half
kills a cousin of hers for trying to interfere with them.”
“That’s good,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I took the part of Romeo myself, and
Mrs. Brandreth--she was Miss Chapley, then--was cast for Juliet; but
another girl who had refused the part suddenly changed her mind and
claimed it, and we had the greatest time to keep the whole affair from
going to pieces. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you.”
“Not at all,” said Ray. “It must have been rather difficult. In my story
there has been a feud between the families of the lovers about a land
boundary; and both families try to break off the engagement.”
“That’s very odd,” said Mr. Brandreth. “The play nearly broke off my
acquaintance with Mrs. Brandreth. Of course she was vexed--as anybody
would be--at having to give up the part at the eleventh hour, when
she’d taken so much trouble with it; but when she saw my suffering with
the other girl, who didn’t know half her lines, and walked through it
all like a mechanical doll, she forgave me. _Romeo_ is my favorite play.
Did you ever see Julia Marlowe in it?”
“No.”
“Then you never _saw_ Juliet! I used to think Margaret Mather was about
the loveliest Juliet, and in fact she has a great deal of passion”--
“My Juliet,” Ray broke in, “is one of those impassioned natures. When
she finds that the old people are inexorable, she jumps at the
suggestion of a secret marriage, and the lovers run off and are married,
and come back and live separately. They meet at a picnic soon after,
where Juliet goes with her cousin, who makes himself offensive to the
husband, and finally insults him. They happen to be alone together near
the high bank of a river, and the husband, who is a quiet fellow of the
deadly sort, suddenly throws the cousin over the cliff. The rest are
dancing”--
“We introduced a minuet in our theatricals,” Mr. Brandreth interposed,
“and people said it was the best thing in it. I _beg_ your pardon!”
“Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up
for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the
cousin’s injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband
everywhere, and the girl’s father, who has dabbled in hypnotism, and
has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to
discover the husband’s whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic
trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is
incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers
tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of
it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible
that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she
lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about,
intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to
the open window--I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes
place in her father’s office, a little building that stands apart from
the house, and of course it’s a ground floor--and he sees her stretched
out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead.”
Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. “I _must_ tell you what our Mercutio
said--he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the
natives, and he made simply a _perfect_ Mercutio. He said that our
Juliet was magnificent in the sepulchre scene; and if she could have
played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us
all!”
“Capital!” said Ray. “Ha, ha, ha!”
“Well, go on,” said Mr. Brandreth.
“Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her
breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all
the time she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling
to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he
draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the
father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter
lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her
husband’s body.”
“That is strong,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is a very powerful scene.”
“Do you think so?” Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he
said: “Sometimes I’ve been afraid it was overwrought, and
improbable--weak. It’s not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It’s
more in the region of romance.”
“Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those
commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more
imagination,” said Mr. Brandreth.
“The motive of my story might be called psychological,” said the author.
“Of course I’ve only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn’t
do it justice”--
“Well, they say that _roman psychologique_ is superseding the realistic
novel in France. Will you allow me?”
He offered to take the manuscript, and Ray eagerly undid it, and placed
it in his hands. He turned over some pages of it, and dipped into it
here and there.
“Yes,” he said. “Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Mr. Ray. You leave
this with us, and we’ll have our readers go over it, and report to us,
and then we’ll communicate with you about it. What did you say your New
York address was?”
“I haven’t any yet,” said Ray; “but I’ll call and leave it as soon as
I’ve got one.” He rose, and the young publisher said:
“Well, drop in any time. We shall always be glad to see you. Of course I
can’t promise you an immediate decision.”
“Oh, no; I don’t expect that. I can wait. And I can’t tell you how
much--how much I appreciate your kindness.”
“Oh, not at all. Ah!” The boy came back with a type-written sheet in his
hand; Mr. Brandreth took it and gave it to Ray. “There! You can get some
idea from that of what we’re going to do. Take it with you. It’s
manifolded, and you can keep this copy. Drop in again when you’re
passing.”
They shook hands, but they did not part there. Mr. Brandreth followed
Ray out into the store, and asked him if he would not like some advance
copies of their new books; he guessed some of them were ready. He
directed a clerk to put them up, and then he said, “I’d like to
introduce you to one of our authors. Mr. Kane!” he called out to what
Ray felt to be the gentleman’s expectant back, and Mr. Kane promptly
turned about from his bookshelf and met their advance half-way. “I want
to make you acquainted with Mr. Ray.”
“Fortune,” said Mr. Kane, with evident relish of his own voice and
diction, “had already made us friends, in the common interest we took in
a mistaken fellow-man whom we saw stealing a bag to travel with instead
of a road to travel on. Before you came in, we were street intimates of
five minutes’ standing, and we entered your temple of the Muses
together. But I am very glad to know my dear friend by name.” He gave
Ray the pressure of a soft, cool hand. “My name is doubtless familiar to
you, Mr. Ray. We spell it a little differently since that unfortunate
affair with Abel; but it is unquestionably the same name, and we are of
that ancient family. Am I right,” he said, continuing to press the young
man’s hand, but glancing at Mr. Brandreth for correction, with ironical
deference, “in supposing that Mr. Ray is _one_ of us? I was sure,” he
said, letting Ray’s hand go, with a final pressure, “that it must be so
from the first moment! The signs of the high freemasonry of letters are
unmistakable!”
“Mr. Ray,” said Mr. Brandreth, “is going to cast his lot with us here in
New York. He is from Midland, and he is still connected with one of the
papers there.”
“Then he is a man to be cherished and avoided,” said Mr. Kane. “But
don’t tell me that he has no tenderer, no more sacred tie to literature
than a meretricious newspaper connection!”
Ray laughed, and said from his pleased vanity, “Mr. Brandreth has kindly
consented to look at a manuscript of mine.”
“Poems?” Mr. Kane suggested.
“No, a novel,” the author answered, bashfully.
“The great American one, of course?”
“We are going to see,” said the young publisher, gaily.
“Well, that is good. It is pleasant to have the old literary tradition
renewed in all the freshness of its prime, and to have young Genius
coming up to New York from the provinces with a manuscript under its
arm, just as it used to come up to London, and I’ve no doubt to Memphis
and to Nineveh, for that matter; the indented tiles must have been a
little more cumbrous than the papyrus, and were probably conveyed in an
ox-cart. And when you offered him your novel, Mr. Ray, did Mr. Brandreth
say that the book trade was rather dull, just now?”
“Something of that kind,” Ray admitted, with a laugh; and Mr. Brandreth
laughed too.
“I’m glad of that,” said Mr. Kane. “It would not have been perfect
without that. They always say that. I’ve no doubt the publishers of
Memphis and Nineveh said it in their day. It is the publishers’ way with
authors. It makes the author realize the immense advantage of getting a
publisher on any terms at such a disastrous moment, and he leaves the
publisher to fix the terms. It is quite right. You are launched, my dear
friend, and all you have to do is to let yourself go. You will probably
turn out an ocean greyhound; we expect no less when we are launched. In
that case, allow an old water-logged derelict to hail you, and wish you
a prosperous voyage to the Happy Isles.” Mr. Kane smiled blandly, and
gave Ray a bow that had the quality of a blessing.
“Oh, that book of yours is going to do well yet, Mr. Kane,” said Mr.
Brandreth, consolingly. “I believe there’s going to be a change in the
public taste, and good literature is going to have its turn again.”
“Let us hope so,” said Mr. Kane, devoutly. “We will pray that the
general reader may be turned from the error of his ways, and eschew
fiction and cleave to moral reflections. But not till our dear friend’s
novel has made its success!” He inclined himself again towards Ray.
“Though, perhaps,” he suggested, “it is a novel with a purpose?”
“I’m afraid hardly”--Ray began; but Mr. Brandreth interposed.
“It is a psychological romance--the next thing on the cards, _I_
believe!”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Kane. “Do you speak by the card, now, as a confidant
of fate; or is this the exuberant optimism of a fond young father? Mr.
Ray, I am afraid you have taken our friend when he is all molten and
fluid with happiness, and have abused his kindness for the whole race to
your single advantage!”
“No, no! Nothing of the kind, I assure you!” said Mr. Brandreth,
joyously. “Everything is on a strict business basis with me, always. But
I wish you could see that little fellow, Mr. Kane. Of course it sounds
preposterous to say it of a child only eight days old, but I believe he
begins to notice already.”
“You must get him to notice your books. Do get him to notice mine! He is
beginning young, but perhaps not _too_ young for a critic,” said Mr.
Kane, and he abruptly took his leave, as one does when he thinks he has
made a good point, and Mr. Brandreth laughed the laugh of a man who
magnanimously joins in the mirth made at his expense.
Ray stayed a moment after Mr. Kane went out, and Brandreth said, “There
is one of the most puzzling characters in New York. If he could put
himself into a book, it would make his fortune. He’s a queer genius.
Nobody knows how he lives; but I fancy he has a little money of his own;
his book doesn’t sell fifty copies in a year. What did he mean by that
about the travelling-bag?”
Ray explained, and Mr. Brandreth said: “Just like him! He must have
spotted you in an instant. He has nothing to do, and he spends most of
his time wandering about. He says New York is his book, and he reads it
over and over. If he could only work up that idea, he could make a book
that everybody would want. But he never will. He’s one of those men
whose talk makes you think he could write anything; but his book is
awfully dry--perfectly crumby. Ever see it? _Hard Sayings_? Well,
good-by! I _wish_ I could ask you up to my house; but you see how it
is!”
“Oh, yes! I see,” said Ray. “You’re only too good as it is, Mr.
Brandreth.”