Queed came to a halt a pace away and stood looking at him.
"G'awn, I tell ye! I don't want no more of your foolin'!"
The young man, arms hanging inoffensively by his side, stared at him
with a curious fixity.
These tactics proved strangely disconcerting to Mr. Pat, obsessed as he
was by a sudden sense of shame at having thumped so impotent an
adversary.
"Leave me be, Mr. Queed. I'm sorry I hit ye, and I niver would 'a' done
it--if ye hadn't--"
The man's voice died away. He became lost in a great wonder as to what
under heaven this little Four-eyes meant by standing there and staring
at him with that white and entirely unfrightened face.
Queed was, in fact, in the grip of a brand-new idea, an idea so sudden
and staggering that it overwhelmed him. He could not thrash Mr. Pat. He
could not thrash anybody. Anybody in the world that desired could put
gross insult upon his articles and go scot-free, the reason being that
the father of these articles was a physical incompetent.
All his life young Mr. Queed had attended to his own business, kept
quiet and avoided trouble. This was his first fight, because it was the
first time that anybody had publicly insulted his work. In his whirling
sunburst of indignation, he had somehow taken it for granted that he
could punch the head of a proof-reader in much the same way that he
punched the head off Smathers's arguments. Now he suddenly discovered
his mistake, and the discovery was going hard with him. Inside him there
was raging a demon of surprising violence of deportment; it urged him to
lay hold of some instrument of a rugged, murderous nature and
assassinate Mr. Pat. But higher up in him, in his head, there spoke the
stronger voice of his reason. While the demon screamed homicidally,
reason coldly reminded the young man that not to save his life could he
assassinate, or even hurt, Mr. Pat, and that the net result of another
endeavor to do so would be merely a second mortifying atmospheric
journey. Was it not unreasonable for a man, in a hopeless attempt to
gratify irrational passion, to take a step the sole and certain
consequences of which would be a humiliating soaring and curveting
through the air?
It was a terrible struggle, the marks of which broke out on the young
man's forehead in cold beads. But he was a rationalist among
rationalists, and in the end his reason subdued his demon. Therefore,
the little knot of linotypers and helpers who had stood wonderingly by
while the two adversaries stared at each other, through a tense
half-minute, now listened to the following dialogue:--
"I believe I said that I would give you a good thrashing. I now withdraw
those words, for I find that I am unable to make them good."
"I guess you ain't--what the divil did ye expect? Me to sit back with me
hands behind me and leave ye--"
"I earnestly desire to thrash you, but it is plain to me that I am not,
at present, in position to do so."
"Fergit it! What's afther ye, Mr. Queed--?"
"To get in position to thrash you, would take me a year, two years, five
years. It is not--no, it is _not_ worth my time."
"Well, who asked f'r any av your time? But as f'r that, I'll give ye
your chance to get square--"
"I suppose you feel yourself free now to take all sorts of detestable
liberties with my articles?"
"Liberties--what's bitin' ye, man? Don't I read revised proof on the
leaded stuff every night, no matter what the rush is? When did ye ever
before catch me--?"
"Physically, you are my superior, but muscle counts for very little in
this world, my man. Morally, which is all that matters, I am your
superior--you know that, don't you? Be so good as to keep your
disgusting vermin out of my articles in the future."
He walked away with a face which gave no sign of his inner turmoil. Mr.
Pat looked after him, stirred and bewildered, and addressed his friends
the linotypers angrily.
"Something loose in his belfry, as ye might have surmised from thim
damfool tax-drools."
For Mr. Pat was still another reader of the unanswerable articles, he
being paid the sum of twenty-seven dollars per week to peruse everything
that went into the _Post_, including advertisements of auction sales and
for sealed bids.
Queed returned to his own office for his hat and coat. Having heard his
feet upon the stairs, Colonel Cowles called out:--
"What was the rumpus upstairs, do you know? It sounded as if somebody
had a bad fall."
"Somebody did get a fall, though not a bad one, I believe."
"Who?" queried the editor briefly.
"I."
In the hall, it occurred to Queed that perhaps he had misled his chief a
little, though speaking the literal truth. The fall that some _body_ had
gotten was indeed nothing much, for people's bodies counted for nothing
so long as they kept them under. But the fall that this body's
self-esteem had gotten was no such trivial affair. It struck the young
man as decidedly curious that the worst tumble his pride had ever
received had come to him through his body, that part of him which he had
always treated with the most systematic contempt.
The elevator received him, and in it, as luck would have it, stood a
tall young man whom he knew quite well.
"Hello, there, Doc!"
"How do you do, Mr. Klinker?"
"Been up chinning your sporting editor, Ragsy Hurd. Trying to arrange a
mill at the Mercury between Smithy of the Y.M.C.A. and Hank McGurk, the
White Plains Cyclone."
"A mill--?"
"Scrap--boxin' match, y' know. Done up your writings for the day?"
"My newspaper writings--yes."
In the brilliant close quarters of the lift, Klinker was looking at Mr.
Queed narrowly. "Where you hittin' for now? Paynter's?"
"Yes."
"Walkin'?--That's right. I'll go with you."
As they came out into the street, Klinker said kindly: "You ain't
feelin' good, are you, Doc? You're lookin' white as a milk-shake."
"I feel reasonably well, thank you. As for color, I have never had any,
I believe."
"I don't guess, the life you lead. Got the headache, haven't you? Have
it about half the time, now don't you, hey?"
"Oh, I have a headache quite frequently, but I never pay any attention
to it."
"Well, you'd ought to. Don't you know the headache is just nature
tipping you off there's something wrong inside? I've been watching you
at the supper table for some time now. That pallor you got ain't natural
pallor. You're pasty, that's right. I'll bet segars you wake up three
mornings out of four feelin' like a dish of stewed prunes."
"If I do--though of course I can only infer how such a dish feels--it is
really of no consequence, I assure you."
"Don't you fool yourself! It makes a lot of consequence to you. Ask a
doctor, if you don't believe me. But I got your dia'nosis now, same as a
medical man that's right. I know what's your trouble, Doc, just like you
had told me yourself."
"Ah? What, Mr. Klinker?"
"Exercise."
"You mean lack of exercise?"
"I mean," said Klinker, "that you're fadin' out fast for the need of
it."
The two men pushed on up Centre Street, where the march of home-goers
was now beginning to thin out, in a moment of silence. Queed glanced up
at Klinker's six feet of red beef with a flash of envy which would have
been unimaginable to him so short a while ago as ten minutes. Klinker
was physically competent. Nobody could insult _his_ work and laugh at
the merited retribution.
"Come by my place a minute," said Klinker. "I got something to show you
there. You know the shop, o' course?"
No; Mr. Queed was obliged to admit that he did not.
"I'm manager for Stark's," said Klinker, trying not to appear boastful.
"Cigars, mineral waters, and periodicals. And a great rondy-vooze for
the sporting men, politicians, and rounders of the town, if I do say it.
I've seen you hit by the window many's the time, only your head was so
full of studies you never noticed."
"Thank you, I have no time this evening, I fear--"
"Time? It won't take any--it's right the end of this block. You can't do
any studyin' before supper-time, anyhow, because it's near that now. I
got something for you there."
They turned into Stark's, a brilliantly-lit and prettily appointed
little shop with a big soda-water plant at the front. To a white-coated
boy who lounged upon the fount, Klinker spoke winged words, and the next
moment Queed found himself drinking a foaming, tingling, hair-trigger
concoction under orders to put it all down at a gulp.
They were seated upon a bench of oak and leather upholstery, with an
enormous mirror reproducing their back views to all who cared to see.
Klinker was chewing a tooth-pick; and either a tooth-pick lasted him a
long time, or the number he made away with in a year was simply
stupendous.
"Ever see a gymnasier, Doc?"
No; it seemed that the Doc had not.
"We got one here. There's a big spare room behind the shop. Kind of a
store-room it was, and the Mercuries have fitted it up as a gymnasier
and athletic club. Only they're dead ones and don't use it much no more.
Got kind of a fall this afternoon, didn't you, Doc?"
"What makes you think that?"
"That eye you got. She'll be a beaut to-morrow--skin's broke too. A bit
of nice raw beefsteak clapped on it right now would do the world and all
for it."
"Oh, it is of no consequence--"
"You think nothing about your body is consequence, Doc, that only your
mind counts, and that's just where you make your mistake. Your body's
got to carry your mind around, and if it lays down on you, what--"
"But I have no intention of letting my body lie down on me, as you put
it, Mr. Klinker. My health is sound, my constitution--"
"Forget it, Doc. Can't I look at you and see with my own eyes? You're
committing slow suicide by over-work. That's what it is."
"As it happens, I am doing nothing of the sort. I have been working
exactly this way for twelve years."
"Then all the bigger is the overdue bill nature's got against you, and
when she does hit you she'll hit to kill. Where'll your mind and your
studies be when we've planted your body down under the sod?"
Mr. Queed made no reply. After a moment, preparing to rise, he said: "I
am obliged to you for that drink. It is rather remarkable--"
"Headache all gone, hey?"
"Almost entirely. I wish you would give me the name of the medicine. I
will make a memorandum--"
"Nix," said Klinker.
"Nix? Nux I have heard of, but ..."
"Hold on," laughed Klinker, as he saw Queed preparing to enter Nix in
his note-book. "That ain't the name of it, and I ain't going to give it
to you. Why, that slop only covers up the trouble, Doc--does more harm
than good in the long run. You got to go deeper and take away the cause.
Come back here and I'll show you your real medicine."
"I'm afraid--"
"Aw, don't flash that open-faced clock of yours on me. That's your
trouble, Doc--matching seconds against your studies. It won't take a
minute, and you can catch it up eating supper faster if you feel you got
to."
Queed, curious, as well as decidedly impressed by Klinker's sure
knowledge in a field where he was totally ignorant, was persuaded. The
two groped their way down a long dark passage at the rear of the shop,
and into a large room like a cavern. Klinker lit a flaring gas-jet and
made a gesture.
"The Mercury Athletic Club gymnasier and sporting-room."
It was a basement room, with two iron-grated windows at the back. Two
walls were lined with stout shelves, partially filled with boxes. The
remaining space, including wall-space, was occupied by the most curious
and puzzling contrivances that Queed had ever seen. Out of the glut of
enigmas there was but one thing--a large mattress upon the floor--that
he could recognize without a diagram.
"Your caretaker sleeps here, I perceive."