1
Henry paused on the sill. The door he held open bore the legend, painted in black and white on a rectangle of tin:—
THE SUNBURY WEEKLY GLEANER
By Weaver and Calverly
'How late you going to stay, Hump?' he asked.
Humphrey raised his eyes, listlessly thrust his pencil back of his ear, and looked rather thoughtfully at the youth in the doorway; a dapper youth, in an obviously new 'Fedora' hat, a conspicuous cord of black silk hanging from his glasses, his little bamboo cane, caught by its crook in the angle of his elbow.
Humphrey's gaze wandered to the window; settled on the roof of the Sunbury National Bank opposite. He suppressed a sigh.
'I may want to talk with you, Hen. I've been figuring——'
The youth in the doorway shifted his position with a touch of impatience.
'See here, Hump, you know I can't make head or tail out of figures!'
Humphrey looked down at the desk.
'Anyway I'll see you at supper,' Henry added defensively.
'Mildred expects me down there for supper,' said Humphrey. The sigh came now. He pushed up the eyeshade and slowly rubbed his eyes. 'But I may not be able to get away. There are times, Hen, when you have to look figures in the face.'
The youth flushed at this, and replied, rather explosively;—
'A fellow has to do the sorta thing he can do, Hump!'
'Well—will you be at the rooms this evening?' Humphrey's eyes were again taking in the natty costume. And surveying him, Humphrey answered his own question; dryly. 'I imagine not.'
'Well—I was going over to the Watts.'
There was a long silence:
Finally Henry let himself slowly out and closed the door.
Outside, on the landing, he paused again; but this time to button his coat and pull up the blue-bordered handkerchief in his breast pocket until a corner showed.
He looked too, by the fading light—it was mid-September, and the sun would be setting shortly, out over the prairie—at the tin legend on the door.
The sight seemed to reassure him somewhat. As did the other, similar tin legends that were tacked up between the treads of the long flight of stairs that led to Simpson Street, at each of which he turned to look.
Humphrey had before him a pile of canvas-bound account books, a spindle of unpaid bills, a little heap of business letters, and a pad covered with pencilled columns. He rested an elbow among the papers, turned his chair, and looked through the window down into the street.
A moment passed, then he saw Henry walking diagonally across toward Donovan's drug store.
For an ice-cream soda, of course; or one of those thick, 'frosted' fluids of chocolate or coffee flavour that he affected. And it was now within an hour of supper time.
Humphrey leaned forward. Yes, there he stood, on the kerb before Donovan's, looking, with a quick nervous jerking of the head, now up Simpson Street, now down. Yes, that was his hurry—the usual thing. Madame Watt made a point of driving down to meet the five-twenty-nine from town. Senator Watt always came out then. And usually Cicely Hamlin came along with her.
Humphrey sighed, rose, stood looking down at the bills and letters and canvas books; pressed a hand again against his eyes; wandered to the press-room door and looked, pursing his lips, knitting his brows, at the row of job presses, at the big cylinder press that extended nearly across the rear end of the long room, at the row of type cases on their high stands, at imposing-stones on heavy tables. He sniffed the odour of ink, damp paper, and long, respected dust that hung over the whole establishment. He smiled, moodily, as his eye rested on the gray and black roller towel that hung above the iron sink, recalling Bob Burdette's verses. He returned to the office, and stood for a few moments before the file of the Gleaner on the wall desk by the door, turning the pages of recent issues. From each number a story by Henry Calverly, 3rd, seemed to leap out at his eyes and his brain. The Caliph of Simpson Street, Sinbad the Treasurer, A Kerbstone Barmecide, The Cauliflowers of the Caliph, The Printer and the Pearls, Ali Anderson and the Four Policemen—the very titles singing aloud of the boy's extraordinary gift.
'And it's all we've got here,' mused Humphrey, moving back to his own desk. 'That mad child makes us, or we break. I've got to humour him, protect him. Can't even show him these bills. Like getting all your light and heat from a candle that may get blown out any minute.' And before dropping heavily into his chair, glancing at his watch, drawing his eye-shade down, and plunging again at the heavy problem of keeping a country weekly alive without sufficient advertising revenue, he added, aloud, with a wry, wrinkly smile that yet gave him a momentary whimsical attractiveness: 'That's the devil of it!'
There was a step on' the stairs.
The door opened slowly. A red face appeared, under a tipped-down Derby hat; a face decorated with a bristling red moustache and a richly carmine nose.
Humphrey peered; then considered. It was Tim Niernan, one-time fire chief, now village constable.
'Young Calverly here?' asked the official in a husky voice.
Humphrey shook his head. His thoughts, momentarily disarranged, were darting this way and that.
'What is it, Tim? What do you want of him?'
Tim seemed embarrassed.
'Why——' he began, 'why——'
'Some trouble?'
'Why, you see Charlie Waterhouse's suing him.'
Humphrey tried to consider this.
'What for?'
'Well—libel. One o' them stories o' his. I liked 'em myself. My folks all say he's a great kid. But Charlie's pretty sore.'
'Suing for a lot, I suppose?'
'Why yes. Well—ten thousand.'
'Hm!'
'He lives with you, don't he—back of the Parmenter place?'
'Yes.' Humphrey's answer was short. At the moment he was not inclined to make Tim's task easy.
The constable went out. Humphrey watched him from the window. He passed Donovan's on the other side of the street and kept on toward the lake.
Humphrey returned to the wall file, and, standing there, read Sinbad the Treasurer through.
There was an extraordinarily fresh, naive power in the story. Simpson Street was mentioned by name. There was but the one town treasurer, whether you called him 'Sinbad' or Waterhouse.
'He certainly did cut loose,' mused Humphrey. 'Charlie's got a case. Got his nerve, too.'
Then he dropped into his chair and sat, for a long time, very quiet, tapping out little tunes on his hollowed cheek with a pencil.
2
Henry turned away from Donovan's soda fountain, wiping froth from his moustache, and sauntered to the nearer of the two doors. His brows were knit in a slight frown that suggested anxiety. There was earnestness, intensity, in the usually pleasant gray-blue eyes as he peered now up the street, now down.
A low-hung Victoria, drawn by a glossy team in harness that glittered with silver, swung at a dignified pace around the corner of Filbert Avenue, two wooden men in plum-coloured livery on the box, two dignified figures on the rear seat, one middle-aged, large, formidable, commanding, sitting erect and high, the other slighter and not commanding.
Instantly, at the sight, Henry's frown gave place to a nervously eager smile, returned, went again. When the carriage at length drew up before Berger's grocery, across the way, however, he had both frown and smile under reasonable control and was a presentable if deadly serious young man.
The footman leaped down and stood at attention. The formidable one stepped out and entered Berger's. And the slight, fresh-faced girl, leaned out to welcome the youth who rushed across the street.
In Sunbury, in the nineties, a youth and a maiden could 'go together' without a thought of the future. The phrase implied frank pairing off, perhaps an occasionally shyly restrained sentimental passage, in general a monopoly of the other's spare time. An 'understanding,' on the other hand, was a. distinctly transitive state, leading to engagement and marriage as soon as the youth was old enough or could earn a living or the opposition of parents could be overcome.
The relationship between Cicely and Henry had lately hovered delicately between the two states. If it seemed, after each timid advance, to recede from the 'understanding' point; that was because of the burdens and the heavy responsibility that instantly claimed their thoughts at the mere suggestion of engagement and marriage:
There were among the parents of Henry's boyhood friends, couples that had married at twenty or even younger, and on no greater income than Henry's rather doubtful twelve dollars a week. But that day had gone by. An 'understanding' meant now, at the very least, that you were saving for a diamond. You could hardly ask a nice girl to become engaged without one.
And marriage meant good clothes for parties, receptions and Sundays, and the street; it meant membership in the Country Club, a reasonably priced pew in church, a rented house, at least, preferably not in South Sunbury and distinctly not out on the prairie or too near the tracks, a certain amount invested in furniture, dishes and other house fittings, and reasonable credit with the grocer and at the meat-market. You could hardly ask a nice girl to go in for less than that. You really couldn't afford to let her go in for less.
So they were marrying later now; six or eight or ten years later. And the girls were turning to older men. Here in Sunbury, Clemency Snow had married a man seven or eight years older whose younger brother had been among her playmates. Jane Bellman had married a shy little doctor of thirty-one or two. And Martha Caldwell, whom Henry had 'gone with' for two or three years, was permitting the rich, really old bachelor, James B. Merchant, Jr., to devote about all his time to her. He was thirty-eight if a day.
It was a disturbing condition for the town boys. Thoughts of it cast black shadows on Henry's undisciplined brain as he looked at the girl in the Victoria, felt, in the very air about them, her quick, bright smile, the delicately responsive liftings of her eyebrows, her marked desirability.
'Oh, Henry,' she was saying, 'I've just been hearing the most wonderful things about you! You can't imagine! At Mrs MacLouden's tea. There was a man there——'
Henry sniffed. A man at a tea! And talking to Cicely! Making up to her, doubtless.
'—a friend of Mr Merchant's, from New York. And what do you think? Mr Merchant showed him your stories. The ones that have come out. He's been keeping them. Isn't that remarkable? They read them aloud. And this man says that you are more promising than Richard Harding Davis was at your age. Henry—just think!'
But Henry was scowling. He was thinking with hot, growing concern, of the man. A rich old fellow, of course! One of the dangerous ones.
He leaned over the wheel.
'Cicely—you—you're expecting me to-night?'
'Oh! Why yes, Henry, of course I'd like to have you come.'
'But weren't you expecting me?'
'Why—yes, Henry.
'Of course'—stiffly—'if you'd rather I wouldn't come...'
'Please, Henry! You mustn't. Not here on the street!' He stood, flushing darkly, swallowing down the emotion that threatened to choke him.'
She murmured:—
'You know I want you to come.'
This was unsatisfactory. Indeed he hardly heard it. He was full of his thoughts about her, about the older men, about those tremendous burdens that he couldn't even pretend to assume. And then came a mad recklessness.
'Oh, Cicely—this is awful—I just can't stand it! Why can't we have an understanding? Call it that? Stop all this uncertainty! I—I—I've just got to speak to your aunt——'
'Henry! Please! Don't say those things—-'
'That's it! You won't let me say them.'
'Not here——'
'Oh, please, Cicely! Please! I know I'm not earning much; but I'll be twenty-one on the seventh of November and then I'll have more'n three thousand dollars. Please let me tell her that, Cicely. Oh, I know it wouldn't do to spend all the principal,—but it would go a long way toward setting us up—you know—' his voice trembled, dropped even lower, as with awe—'get the things we'd need when we were—you know—well, married.'
He felt, as he poured out this mumbled torrent of words, that he was rushing to a painful failure. Cicely had drawn back. She looked bewildered, and tired. And he had fetched up in a black maze of despairing thoughts.
The footman must have heard part of it. He was standing very straight. And the coachman was staring out over the horses. He had probably heard too.
Then Madame Watt came sailing out Of Berger's; fixed her hawk eyes on him with a curious interest.
He knew that he lifted his hat. He saw, or half saw, that Cicely tried to smile. She did bob her head in the bright quick way she had.
Then the Victoria rolled away, and he was standing, one foot in the street, the other on the kerb, gazing after them through a mist of something so near tears that he was reduced to a painful struggle to gain even the appearance of self-control.
And then, for a quarter-hour, mood followed mood so fast that they almost maddened him.
He thought of old Hump, up there in the office, fighting out their common battle. Perhaps he ought to go back; do his best to understand the accounts. Figures always depressed him. No matter. He would go back. He would show Hump that he could at least be a friend. Yes, he could at least show that. Thing to do was to keep thinking of the other fellow. Forget yourself. That was the thing!
But what he did, first, was to cross over to Swanson's flower shop and sternly order violets. Paid cash for them.
'Miss Cicely Hamlin?' asked the Swanson-girl.
'Yes,' growled Henry, 'for Miss Hamlin. Send them right over, please.'
Then he walked around the block; muttering aloud; starting; glancing-about; muttering again. He could hardly go to Cicely's. Not this evening! Not when she had been willing to leave it like that.
He meant to go, of course. Too early. By seven-thirty or so. But he told himself he wouldn't do it. She would have to write him. Or lose him. He would wait in dignified silence.
The early September twilight was settling down on Sunbury.
Lights came on, here and there. The dusk was a relief.
He had wrecked everything. It wasn't so much that he had proposed an understanding. In the circumstances she couldn't altogether object to that. It was risking the vital, final decision, of course. But that, sooner or later, would have to be risked. That was something a man had to face, and go through, and be a sport about. No, the trouble seemed to be that he had lost himself. He had made it awkward, impossible, for both of them. Through his impatience he had created an impossible situation. And in losing himself he had lost her, and lost her in the worst way imaginable. He had contrived to make an utterly ridiculous figure of himself, and, in a measure, of her. He had to set his teeth hard on that thought, and compress his lips.
He was on Simpson Street again. Yellow gas-light shone out of the windows of the Gleaner offices, over Hemple's. Old Hump was hard at it.
He went up there.
3
Humphrey was sitting there, chin on chest, long legs stretched under the desk. He didn't look up; only a slight start and a movement of one hand indicated that he heard.
Henry stood, confused, a thought alarmed, looking at him; moved aimlessly to his own desk and stirred papers about; came, finally, and sat on a corner of the exchange table, tapping his cane nervously against his knee.
'Aren't going to stay here all night, are you, Hump?' he asked, rather huskily.
Humphrey's hand moved again; he didn't speak.
'Hump! What's the matter? Anything happened?'
Still no answer.
'But you know we're picking up in advertising, Hump?'
'Not near enough.' This was a non-committal growl.
'And see the way our circulation's been——'
'Losing money on it. Can't carry it.'
'But—but, Hump——'
The senior partner waved his hand. His face was gray and grim, his voice restrained. He even smiled as he deliberately filled his pipe.
'It's bad, Hen. Very, very bad. I've tried to keep you from worrying, but you've got to know now. We paid a little over two thousand for this plant and the good will.
'Cheap enough, wasn't it?' cried Henry.
'If we'd really got her for that, yes. But look at the capital it takes. Building up. I had just a thousand more, a bond. Threw that in last month, you know.'
'Oh'—breathed Henry, fright in his eyes—'I forgot about that.'
'And you can't raise a cent.'
Henry tried to think this over. He started to speak; swallowed; slipped off the table; stood there; lifted his cane and sighted along it out the window.
'I can—November seventh,' he finally remarked.
Humphrey blew a smoke-ring; followed it with his eyes.
'My boy, nations, worlds, constellations, may crash between now and November seventh.'
'I—I could tackle my uncle again,' murmured Henry, out of a despairing face.
There was at times an acid quality in Humphrey. Henry felt it in him now, as he said dryly:—
'As I recall your last transaction with your uncle, Hen, he told you finally that you couldn't have one cent of your principal before November seventh.'
'He—well, yes, he did say that.'
'Meant it, didn't he?'
'Y—yes. He meant it.'
'He's a business man, I believe.' Humphrey smoked for a moment; then added, with that same biting quality in his voice, 'And unless he's insane he would hardly put money into this business now. As it stands—or doesn't stand. And I presume he's not insane. No, we'll drop that subject.'
Henry felt Humphrey's eyes on him. Sombre cold eyes. And he fell again, in his misery, to sighting along his cane. It seemed to Henry that the world was reeling to disaster. His young, over keen imagination was painting ugly, inescapable pictures of a savage world in which all effort seemed to fail.
Between Humphrey and himself a gulf had opened. It was growing wider every minute. Nothing he could say would help; words were no good. He was afraid he might try to talk. It would be like him; floods of talk, meaningless, mere words, really mere nerves. He clamped his lips on that fear.
If I understand Henry, the thing that had brought him to despair—and he was in despair—was neither the sorry condition of the business, nor the trouble with Cicely. These had confused and saddened him. But the hopelessness had come after he saw Humphrey's face and eyes and caught that cool note in his voice. To the day of his death Henry couldn't endure hostility in those close about him. He had to have friendly sympathy, an easy give and take of the spirit in which his naïveté would not be misunderstood. This sort of atmosphere provided, apparently, the only soil in which his faculties could take root and grow. Hostility in those he had been led to trust disarmed him, crushed him.
'Hump,' he ventured now, weakly, 'I think—maybe—you'd better show me those figures. I—I'll try to understand 'em. I will.'
Humphrey gave a little snort; brushed the idea away with a sweep of a long hand.
'No use!' he said brusquely. He rolled down the desktop and locked it with a snap. 'Getting stale myself. Sleep on it. Not a thing you can do, Hen!' He knocked the ashes from his pipe, gloomily. Buttoned his vest. Suddenly he broke out with this:—
'You're a lucky brute, Hen!'
Henry started; glanced up; fumbled at his moustache. 'You're wondering why I said that. But, man, you're a genius—Yes, you are! I have to plug for it. But you've got the flare. You know well enough what's loaded all this circulation on us. Your stories! Not a thing else. You'll do more of 'em. You'll be famous.'
'Oh, no, Hump I You don't know how I've——'
'Yes, you'll be famous. I won't. It's a gift—fame, success. It's a sort of edge God—or something—puts on a man. A cutting edge. You've simply got it. I simply haven't.'
Henry pulled and pulled at his moustache.
'And you've got a girl—a lovely girl. She's mad about you—oh, yes she is! I know. I've seen her look at you.'
'But, Hump, you don't just know what——'
'She doesn't have to hide her feelings. Not seriously, not with a lying smile. And you don't have to hide yours. You haven't got this furtive rope around your neck, strangling the breath of decent morality out of your soul. Thank God you don't know what it means—that struggle. She'll be announcing her engagement one of these days.
'There'll be presents and flowers. You'll get stirred up and write something a thousand times better than you know how to write. Money will come—oh, yes it will! It'll roll to you, Hen. For a time. Or at times. And you'll marry—a nice clean wedding. God, just to think of it is like the May winds off the lake!'
He threw out his long arms. Henry thought, perversely enough, that he looked like Lincoln.
'But the greatest thing of all is that you're twenty. Think of it! Twenty!... Hen, when I was twenty I put my life on a schedule for five years. They were up last month.
'I was to be flying at twenty-four. Think of it—flying! Through the air, man! Like a gull! At twenty-five I was to be famous and rich. A conqueror! I slaved for that. Worked days and nights and Sundays for that. Sweated for the Old Man there on the Voice; put up with his stupid little insults.'
He sprang up; got into his coat; looked at his watch.
'I'm late. Got to stop at the rooms too. Mildred'll be wondering. You can stay here if you like.'
But Henry clung to him. Around the back street they went. And Humphrey talked on.
'Well, I'm twenty-five! And where've I got? I love a woman. Hen, I hope you'll never be torn as I'm torn now. You think you've been through things. Why, you're an innocent babe. I've got a woman's name—and that's a woman's life, Hen!—in my hands. It's a muddle. Maybe there's tragedy in it. May never work out. Sometimes I feel as if we were going straight over a precipice, she and I. It goes dark. It suffocates me.... It's costing me everything. It'll take money—a lot of it—money I haven't got. If the paper goes, my last hopes go with it. If we can't turn that corner. Everything comes down bang. No use.'
Henry tried to say, 'Oh, I guess we'll turn our corner all right;' but if the words passed his lips at all it was only as a whisper.
They were a hundred feet from the alley back of Parmenter's. It was dark now, there in the shade of the double row of maples. Humphrey stopped short; pressed his hands to his eyes; then looked at Henry.
'You coming to the rooms, too?' he asked.
Henry nodded.
'I don't know's I—I was forgetting, so many things—Oh well, come along. It hardly matters.'
At the alley entrance a man intercepted them; said, 'This is Henry Calverly, ain't it?' Struck a match and read an extraordinary mumble of words. He struck other matches, and read hurriedly on. Then he moved apologetically away, leaving Henry backed limply against a board fence.
Humphrey stood waiting, a tall shadow of a man. To him Henry turned, feeling curiously weak in the legs and gone at the stomach.
'What is it?' he asked, weakly, meekly. 'I couldn't understand. Did he ar—arrest me or something?'
'Charlie Waterhouse has sued you for libel. Ten thousand dollars. Come on. I can't wait.'
'But—but—but that's foolish. He can't——'
'That's how it is.' Humphrey was grim.
They walked in silence up the alley. Henry stood by while his partner unlocked the neat front door to the old barn, a white door, with one white step and an iron scraper. He could just make them out in the dusk. He wondered if he mightn't presently wake up and find it a dream.... Old Hump!
They stood in the shop. Humphrey had switched on one light; he looked now, his face deeply seamed, his eyes a little sunken, at the dim shadowy metal lathes, the huge reels of copper wire, the tool benches, the rows of wall boxes filled with machine parts, the small electric motors hanging by twisted strings or wires from the ceiling joists, the heavy steel wheels in frames, the great box kites and the spruce and silk planes, in sections, the gas engine, the water motor, the wheels, shafts, and belting overhead.
He bent his sombre eyes on Henry.
That youth, aching at heart, bruised of spirit, unaware of the figure he made, was too far gone to be further puzzled by the weary, mocking smile that flitted across Humphrey's face.
'Hump!' he cried out: 'What'll we do!'
'Do? Sleep over it. Raise some more money?'
'But how?'
Humphrey waved a hand at the machinery. 'All this. And my library upstairs. They've stood me more'n four thousand, altogether. Ought to fetch something.'
'But—but—ten thousand!' Henry whispered the amount with awe as well as misery.
'Oh, that! Your trouble! Why, you'll sleep over that, too, and to-morrow I suppose you'll talk to Harry Davis's father.' The senior Davis, Arthur P., was a Simpson Street lawyer. 'They'll sting you. But they don't expect any ten thousand.'
'But what I said is true! Charlie Waterhouse is a——'
'What's that got to do with it. You can't prove it. And we aren't strong enough to hire counsel and detectives and run him to earth. Doesn't look as if we had the barest breath of life in us. Charlie'll think of your uncle next, and attach your mother's estate.'
He said this with unusual roughness. Then he went upstairs; stamped around for a brief time; came hurrying down.
Henry, now, was sitting dejectedly on a work-bench.
'Hump—please!—you don't know how I feel. I——'
'And,' replied the senior partner, 'I don't care. I don't care how I feel, either. We either save the paper this week or we don't. That's what I care about right now.'
'I—I won't let you sell your things, Hump.' An unconvincing assertion, from the limp figure on the bench.
'You?' Humphrey stared at him with something near contempt—stared at the moustache and the cane. 'You? You won't let me?... For God's sake, shut up!'
With which he went out, slamming the door.
For a time Henry continued to sit there. Then he dragged himself upstairs, went to his bookcase and got the book entitled Will Power and Self Mastery.
He turned the pages until he hit upon these paragraphs:—'Every machine, every cathedral, every great ship was a thought before it could become a fact. Build in your brain.
'Through the all-enveloping ether drifts the invisible electricity that is all life, all energy. Open yourself to it. Make yourself a conductor. Stupidity and fear are resistants; cast these out. Make your brain a dynamo and drive the world.'
This seemed a good idea.
4
Arthur P. Davis was just rising from the supper table when the door-bell rang. He answered it himself; found young Calverly there, in a state of haggard but vigorous youthful intensity. He contrived, after a slight initial difficulty, to draw out of the curiously verbose youth the essential facts. He considered the matter with a deliberation and caution that appeared irritating to the boy. But he had read and (in the bosom of his family) chuckled over Sinbad the Treasurer. He had wondered a little, though he didn't mention the fact to Henry, whether Charlie wouldn't sue. Charlie had a case.
When Henry left, clearly still in a confused condition, it was Mr Davis's impression that Henry had placed the matter in his hands as counsel and further had distinctly agreed to shut his head.
Henry apparently understood it differently. Or, more likely, he didn't understand at all. Henry was, at the moment, a storm centre with considerable emotional disturbance still to come. Any one who has followed Henry, who knows him at all, will understand that such disturbance within him led directly and always to action. Whatever he may have said to Mr Davis, he was helpless. He had to function in his own way. Probably Mr Davis's use in the situation was to stimulate Henry's already overactive brain. Hardly more.
Certainly it was hardly later than a quarter or twenty minutes past seven when Henry appeared at Charlie Waterhouse's place on Douglass Street.
The town treasurer was on the lawn, shifting his sprinkler by the light of the arc lamp on the corner and smoking his after-supper cigar.
The conversation took place across the picket fence, one of the few surviving in Sunbury at this time.
Henry said, fiercely:—
'I want to talk to you about that libel suit.'
'Can't talk to me, Henry. You'll have to see my lawyer.'
'Yay-ah, I know. I've got a lawyer too.'
'All right. Let 'em talk to each other.'
'You know you can't get any ten thousand dollars.'
'Can't talk about that.'
'Yes, you can. You gotta.'
'Oh, I've gotta, have I?'
'Yes, you bet you have. Some people seem to think you've got a case.'
'Guess there ain't much doubt about that.'
'Mebbe there ain't. Even if what I said was true.'
'Look here, Henry, I don't care to have this kind o' talk going on around here. You better go along.'
'Go along nothing! I'll say every word of it. And what's more, you'll listen. No, don't you go. You stand right there.'
Charlie, a stoutish man in an alpaca coat, with a florid countenance and a huge moustache, gave a moment's consideration to the blazing young crusader before him. The boy wasn't going to be any too easy to handle. He had no need to see him clearly to become aware of that fact. Charlie shifted his cigar.
'Lemme put it this way. S'pose you could sting me. You'd never get ten thousand. But s'pose, after I get through talking, you decide to go ahead and push the case——-'
'Push the case? Well, rather!'
'Wait a minute! All right, let's say you're going ahead and fight for part o' that ten thousand. What you think you could get. Then what'm I going to do?'
'Do you suppose I care what——'
'Oh, yes you do! Now listen! I want you to get this straight. You——'
'You want me to——'
'Keep still! Now here's——'
'Look here, I won't have you——'
'Yes, you will! Listen. If you fight, I'll fight. I'll go straight after you. I'll run you to earth. I'll hire detectives to shadow you. I know you ain't straight, and I'll show you up before the whole dam town. I'm right and I tell you right here I'm going to prove it! I'll put you in prison! I'll——'
During most of this speech Charlie was talking too. But in so low a tone that he could hardly miss what Henry was saving. He broke in now with a loud:—
'Shut up!'
Henry stopped really because he was out of breath. It gratified him to see that neighbours were appearing in their lighted windows. And a youthful chorus on a porch across the way was suddenly hushed.
'Came here to make a scene, did you? Well, I'll——'
'No, I didn't come here to make a scene. I came here to make you listen to reason and I'm going to do it.'
'Well, drop your voice a little, can't you! No sense in yelling our private affairs.'
'Sure I'll drop my voice. You're the one that started the yelling.'
'Well, I don't say you couldn't make it hard for any man in my position if you want to be nasty—fight that way.'
'You wait!'
'But what I'd like to know is—what I'd like to know... Where you goin' to get the money to hire all those detectives?'
'Where'm I going to get the money to pay you if you win the suit?'
Though Charlie came back with, 'Oh, I'll win the suit all right, all right!' this was clearly a facer. He added, pondering, 'I guess Munson'll manage to attach anything you've got.' But he was at sea. 'Fine dirty idea o' yours, hounding a decent man, with detectives.' And finally, 'Well, what do you want?'
'Listen! S'pose you did win. You'd never get ten thousand.'
'I'd get five.'
'No, you wouldn't. Why don't you act sensible and tell me what you'll take to stop it.'
'I'd have to think that over.'
'You tell me now or I'll bust this town open.'
'No good talking that way, Henry. Can you get any money?'
'Tell you for sure in twenty-four hours.'
'But it ain't the money. You've assailed my character. That's what you've done. Will you retract in print?'
'No, I won't. But if you'll come down to a decent price and promise to call off the boycott——'
'What boycott?'
'Advertising. You know. You do that, and I'll agree to leave you alone. Somebody else'll have to find you out, that's all. I've gotta help Hump Weaver pull the Gleaner out. I guess that's my job now.'
He said this last sadly. He had read stories of wonderful young St Georges who slew a dozen political dragons at a time. Who never compromised or gave hostages to fortune. But there was only one chance for the paper and for old Hump. That chance was here and now.
He was sorry he couldn't see Charlie Waterhouse's face. 'What'll you give?' asked that worthy, after thoughtfully chewing, his cigar.
'A thousand.'
'Lord, no. Four thousand.'
'That's impossible.'
'Three, then.'
'No, I won't pay anything like three.'
'I wouldn't go a cent under two.'
'Well—two thousand then. All right. I'll let you know by to-morrow night.'
'You understand, Henry, it ain't the money. It's for the good o' the town I'm doing it. To keep peace, y' understand. That's why I'm doing it. Y' understand that, Henry.' He actually reached over the fence and hung to the boy's arm.
'We'd better shake hands on it,' said Henry.
'Sure! I'll stand by it, if you will.'
'I will. Good-bye, now.'
And Henry, somewhat confused regarding his ethical position, depressed at the thought that you couldn't rise altogether out of this hard world, that you had to live right in it, compromise with it, let yourself be soiled by it—Henry, his eyes down to beads, flushed about the temples, caught the eight-six to Chicago.
He rode out to the West Side on a cable-car. It is an interesting item to note in the rather zig-zag development of Henry's highly emotional nature that he never once weakened during that long ride. He was burning up, of course. It was like that wonderful week when he had written day and night, night and day, the Simpson Street stories. But it was, in a way, glorious. That ethereal electricity was flowing right through him. The Power was on him. He knew, not in his surface mind but in the deeper seat of all belief, in his feelings, that he couldn't be stopped or headed. Not to-night.
5
'You are not altogether clear, Henry. Let me understand this.'
The scene was Uncle Arthur's 'den.'
Henry had run the gauntlet of his cousins. Rich young cousins, brought up to respect their parents and think themselves poor. It was a proper home, with order, cleanliness, method shining out. He resented it. He resented them all.
Uncle Arthur was thin, and penetrating. His eyes bored at you. His nose was sharp, his brow furrowed. It seemed to Henry that he was always scowling a little.
His light sharp voice was going on, stating a disentangled, re-arranged version of Henry's extraordinary outbursts:—
'This man, the town treasurer, is suing you for libel, and you are advised that he has a case? But he will settle for two thousand dollars?'
'Yes. He will.'
'And you have come to me with the idea that I will pay over your mother's money for the purpose?'
'Well, I'll be twenty-one anyway in less'n two months. But that ain't—isn't—it exactly, not all of it. I've really got to have the whole three thousand.'
'Oh, you have?'
'Yes. It's like this. We bought the Gleaner, Hump Weaver and I. And we got it cheap, too. Two thousand—for plant, good will, the big press, everything.'
'Hmm!'
'Then I wrote those stories. They jumped our circulation way up. More'n we can afford. Queer about that. Because the paper'd been attacking Charlie Waterhouse, they got the advertiser's to boycott us.'
'Oh!'
'Now Charlie's promised me, if I pay him, to call off the boycott. It'll give us all the Simpson Street advertising. And Hump says we'll fail in a week if we don't get it.'
'Henry!' Uncle Arthur's voice rang out with unpleasant clarity. 'You got from me a thousand dollars of your mother's estate. You sank it in this paper. I let you have that thinking it would bring you to your senses.
It has not brought you to your senses. That is evident.... Now I am going to tell you something extremely serious.
I tell you this because I believe that you are not, for one thing, dishonest. I have discovered that when I gave you that sum and took your receipt I was not protected. You are a minor. You cannot, in law, release me from my obligation as your guardian. After you have come of age you could collect it again from me.'
'Oh, Uncle Arthur, I wouldn't do that!'
'I am sure you wouldn't. But you can readily see, now, that it is utterly impossible for me to make any further advances to you. Even if I were willing. And I am distinctly not willing.'
'But listen, Uncle Arthur! You've got to!'
The scowl of this narrow-faced man deepened.
'I don't care for impudence, Henry. We will not talk further about this.'
'But we must, Uncle Arthur! Don't you see, I've got to pay Charlie, and have Mr Davis get his receipt and the papers signed before they learn about you, or they'll attach the estate. Why, Charlie might get all of it, and more too. They might just wreck me. I mustn't lose a minute.'
Uncle Arthur sat straight up at this. Henry thought he looked even more deeply annoyed. But he spoke, after a long moment, quite calmly.
'You are right there. That is a point. Putting it aside for a moment, what were you proposing to do with the other thousand dollars?'
Henry felt the sharp eyes focusing on him. He sprang up. His words came hotly.
'Because Hump has put in a thousand more'n I have now. He said to-night he'd have to sell his library and his—his own things. I can't let him do that. I won't let him. I've got to stand with him.' Henry choked up a little now.
'Hump's my friend, Uncle Arthur. He's steady and honest and——' He faltered momentarily; Uncle Arthur was peculiarly the sort of person you couldn't tell about Humphrey's love affair; he wouldn't be able then to see his strong points.... 'He edits the paper and gets the pay-roll and goes out after the ads. And he hates it! But he's a wonderful fighter. I won't desert him. I won't! I can't!... Uncle Arthur, why won't you come out and see our place and meet Hump and let him show you our books and how our circulation's jumped and...'
His voice trailed off because Uncle Arthur too had sprung to his feet and was pacing the room. Henry's arguments, his earnestness and young energy, something, was telling on him. Finally he turned and said, in that same quiet voice:—
'All right, Henry. I'll run out to-morrow and put this thing through for you. But——'
'Oh, no, Uncle Arthur! You mustn't do that! Not to-morrow! Charlie'd get wise. Or some of that gang. Everybody in town'd know you were there. No, that wouldn't do!'
Uncle Arthur took another turn about the room.
'Just what is it that you want, Henry?' he asked, in that same quiet voice.
'Why, let's see! You'd better give me two thousand in one cheque and one thousand in another. Mr Davis can fix it so your cheque doesn't go to Charlie. I don't want to put it in the bank. Charlie's crowd'd get on. But I'll fix it. Mr Davis'll know.'
At the door Uncle Arthur looked severely at the dapper, excited youth on the steps.
'It may make a man of you. It will certainly throw you on your own resources. I shall have to trust you to release me formally from all responsibility after your birthday. And'—sharply—'understand, you are never to come to me for help. You have your chance. You have chosen your path.'
6
Eleven at night. The Country Club was bright; Henry passed it on the farther side of the street. He could hear music and laughter there. They choked him. With averted face he rushed by.
Henry entered at the gate before the old Dexter Smith mansion; then slipped off among the trees.
His throat was dry. He was giddy and hot about the head. He wondered, miserably, if he had a fever. Very likely.
There were lights here, too; downstairs.
Some one calling, perhaps—that friend of James B. Merchant's.
Henry gritted his teeth.
It was too late to call. Yet he had had to come, had been drawn irresistibly to the spot.
What mattered it after all, who might be calling. He told himself that his life was to be, hereafter, one of sorrow, of frustration. He must be dignified about it. He must make it a life worthy of his love and his great sacrifice.
The front door opened.
A man and a woman came down the steps. An elderly couple. He stood very still, behind a tree, while they walked past him.
A sign of uncontrollable relief escaped him. It was something. Cicely had at last spared him a stab.
Lights went out in the front room. Lights came on upstairs.
Still he lingered.
Then, after a little, his nervous ears caught a sound that tingled through his body.
The front door opened.
And standing in the opening behind the screen door, silhouetted against the light, he saw a slim girl.
His temples were pounding. His throat went dry.
The girl came out. Paused. Called over her shoulder in a voice that to Henry was velvet and gold—'In a few minutes'—and then seated herself midway down the steps and leaned her head against the railing. He could see her only faintly now.
Henry moved forward, curiously dazed, tiptoeing over the turf, slipping from tree to tree. Drew near.
She lifted her head.
There was a breathless pause. Then, 'What is it?' she called. 'What is it? Who's there?... O—oh! Why, Henry! You frightened me... What is it? Why do you stand there like that. You aren't ill, Henry?... Where on earth have you been? I've waited and waited for you. I couldn't think what had happened, not having any word.... What is the matter, Henry? You act all tired out. Do sit down here.'
'No,'—the queer breathy voice, Henry knew, must be his own. He was thinking, wildly, of dead souls' standing at the Judgment Seat. He felt like that.... 'No, I can't sit down.'
'Henry! What is it?'
Henry stood mournfully staring at her. Finally in the manner of one who has committed a speech to memory, he said this:—
'Cicely, I asked you this afternoon if we couldn't have an “understanding.” You know! It seemed fair to me, if—if—if you, well, cared—because I had three thousand dollars, and all that.'
She made a rather impatient little gesture. He saw her hands move; but pressed on:—
'Since then everything has changed. I have no right to ask you now.'
There was a long silence. As on other occasions, in moments of grave emergency, Henry had recourse to words.
'There was trouble at the office. I couldn't leave Hump to carry all the burden alone. And I was being sued for libel. My stories... So I've had to make a very quick turn'—he had heard that term used by real business men; it sounded rather well, he felt; it had come to him on the train—'I've had to make a very quick turn—use every cent, or most every cent, of the money. Of course, without any money at all—while I might have some chance as a writer—still—well, I have no right to ask such a thing of you, and I—I withdraw it. I feel that I—I can't do less than that.' Then, after another silence, Henry swayed, caught at the railing, sank miserably to the steps.
'It's all right,' he heard himself saying. 'I just thought—everything's been in such a mid rush—I didn't have my supper. I'll be all right...'
'Henry,' he heard her saying now, in what seemed to him, as he reflected on it later that night, at his room, in bed, an extraordinarily matter-of-fact voice; girls were complicated creatures—'Henry, you must be starved to death. You come right in with me.'
He followed her in through the great hall, the unlighted living-room, a dark passage where she found his hand and led him along, a huge place that must have been the kitchen, and then an unmistakable pantry.
'Stand here till I find the light,' she murmured.
It was the pantry.
She opened the ice-box, produced milk and cold meat. In a tin box was chocolate cake.
'I oughtn't to let you,' he said weakly. 'I knew you were angry to-day there——'
'But, Henry, they could hear you! Thomas and William. Don't you see——'
'That wasn't all,' he broke in excitedly. 'It was my asking for an understanding.'
She was bending over a drawer, rummaging for knife and fork.
'No, it wasn't that,' she said.
'I'd like to know what it was, then!'
'It was—oh, please, Henry, don't ever talk that way about money again.'
'But, Cicely, don't you see——'
She straightened up now, knife in one hand, fork in the other; looked directly at him; slowly shook her head.
'What,' she asked, 'has money to do with—with you and me?'
'But, Cicely, you don't mean——'
He saw the sudden sparkle in her dark eyes, the slow slight smile that parted her lips.
She turned away then.
'Oh,' she remarked, rather timidly, 'you'll want these,' and gave him the knife and fork.
He laid them on the table.
They stood for a little time without speaking; she fingering the fastener of the cake box, he pulling at his moustache. Finally, very softly, she said this:—
'Of course, Henry, you know, we would really have to be very patient, and not say anything about it to people until—well, until we could, you know....'
And then, his trembling arm about her shoulders, his lips reverently brushing her forehead in their first kiss—until now the restraint of youth (which is quite as remarkable as its excesses) had kept them just short of any such sober admission of feeling—her cheek resting lightly against his coat, she said this:—
'I shouldn't have let myself be disturbed. I don't really care about Thomas and William. But what you said made me seem like that sort of girl. Henry, you—you hurt me a little.' His eyes filled. He stood erect, looking out over the dark mass of her hair, looking down the long vista of the years. He compressed his lips.
'Of course,' he said bravely. 'We don't care about money We've got all our lives. I guess I can work. Prob'ly I'll write better for not having any. You know—it'll spur me. And I'll be working for you.'
He heard her whisper:—
'I'll be so proud, Henry.'
'What's money to us!' He seemed at last to be getting hold of this tremendous thought, to be approaching belief. He repeated it, with a ring in his voice: 'What's money to us!'
After all what is money to Twenty?